My Birthday!

I'm 26!  I wasn't really awaiting this birthday with any excitement, but it was a really good day!  I started by getting myself a treat breakfast at the gas station, then I had a mostly relaxed day at work (even though Lawrence was one of 3 districts in eastern Kansas that still had a full day of school on December 22nd).  Kelli and Tracy made me a very thoughtful and meaningful Rainbow Fish ornament, and both Kindergarten classes surprised me!  

For one of the Kindergartens - I wear a walkie talkie so that I can be alerted quickly when a particular student needs help calming down or runs from the classroom and needs to be tracked down.  I got a page early in the morning that they needed help, so I made my way down to their room.  When I rushed in the door, I found all of the 5 and 6 years olds staring at me as they yelled "Happy Birthday!!!"  I almost cried because I was so shocked!

The rest of the work day went well, was somewhat productive, and I even got birthday snow!  Then when I got home, I packed up the car with clothes, presents, and Addy.  We are house sitting for Papa while he is in Michigan for the holidays, and figured that it is the most cost effective to just stay at his house.

After dropped the gear and cat off at Papa's house, I headed to Mom and Alan's house.  We waited until Eric got off of work, and then we all brought Ashley to her first Cinema Suites movie for my birthday!  Ashley left her ID at home, so Mom and I both ordered a strawberry daqueri for her to drink out of.  We saw the new Sherlock Holmes, and it was pretty awesome - very cool special effects.

I was really excited to get a pair of KU shoes for Squish from Ashley, a Miche purse with two covers and an organizer from Mom and Alan, and Just Dance 3 from Eric.  Funny story behind Eric's present... we saw it on sale 2 weeks ago and I went "oooo, Just Dance 3!", Eric noted that it was on sale and asked if I wanted it for my birthday, I said sure and he paused and then asked if he could just buy it then - and he did!  But I waited until my birthday to open it :)

Then on Friday, Eric and I had a fun date night.  We started with dinner at Cheddar's by Oak Park Mall, followed by shopping at Town Center Plaza, and wrapped up with a walk around Oak Park Mall.  I used birthday and Christmas money to buy a pair of leggings, a sweater, two long sleeved shirts, and a pair of boots, and a bag of jelly beans (Dr. Pepper, buttered popcorn, and toasted marshmallow flavors - all for $125.

That was it, Happy Birthday to me!

Mmmm, special breakfast!  I usually do hot chocolate with 1/3 french vanilla cappucino - this time I did 1/3 white chocolate caramel cappucino and it wasn't as good.

Rainbow fish ornament!  Complete with glitter, sequins, and laminated! 

Very very cool! 

The kindergarten also had birthday donuts for me and another student. 

The kindergarten classes watched The Grinch, and loved it! 

Addy...not thrilled to be leaving home...

Work Woes

Work has been pretty tough over the past few weeks.

Things are going pretty well for Eric - he recently got his first raise along with a holiday bonus.  He still likes his work, and only ever complains when he gets hurt.  Though it is a weekly occurence for him to get bumps, cuts, bruises, and strains.  Most recently, he slid on some ice on a cold morning, and fell out of his truck and bruised his bum - ow!

For me, I've just concluded that winter has hit the kids hard!  We lost 2 of our 3 paras within a week of each other at the end of November.  My students with behavior problems seem to be "flaring up" a little bit, and my students with academic struggles have had some slooooow progress lately.  The stress bar is raised a little higher when we've had 2 students with IEP's move into our school, 4 students referred to be evaluated for special education, and 2 IEP's allllll in the past month.  I love working with kids, but the paperwork side of the job is harder for me.

Then I've got my aggressive kiddos!  This is a glamour shot of a few minutes after a kindergartener head butted me in the jaw.  It was hard enough to get him crying, and to make me dizzy - yeowch!

A Rough Week

I've had a rough week at work - two IEP meetings, two students being referred to special education, and a few major behavior episodes.  With all of that, I kept my cool and was able to handle all of that stress.  Thursday afternoon was the straw that broke the camel's back... Read on.

This is one of the behavior episodes mentioned above... This is what a frustrated kindergartner can do in 5 minutes!   

Thursday afternoon, I received my teaching license in the mail.  Do you see what's wrong with this picture?!  I just about lost it - that poor mail carrier is so lucky I didn't get home until after 5pm.

Work is Hard!

This school year has started off great.  I am working with an awesome set of teachers, paras, other staff members, and kids.  I haven't had a hard time fitting in with this crowd, and I feel like my work is truly appreciated.  My caseload is pretty interesting this year - only 5 kids, plus 4 general education kiddos that I am helping with.  With each of these kids, I am really excited to see where they can grow to this year.  I see a LOT of potential in these little ones!

This is the handiwork of one of my students... and I'm actually loving problem solving with the kiddo.

School is Starting Soon!

At the end of last school year, I packed up all of my stuff and dumped it in a classroom at Kennedy Elementary.  So on Monday I spent most of the afternoon arranging furniture, and then today I worked on unpacking my 20+boxes and organizing my materials.  Here's a quick tour of my new room!

My office space filled with boxes...

My coworkers office space filled with boxes...

Our student work space filled with boxes... 

My office space looking beautiful, unpacked, and cozy!

My coworkers office space looking much more useable. 

Our student work space, organized and neat!

My desk looking ready for work! 

The wall by my desk with a white board, pictures of my previous classes, and other motivational and informative wall hangings. 

My storage area - books, files, etc.  And my pelican hanging from the ceiling!

Etc. Stuff

This is mostly a picture:story post - surprisingly enough, the cat focused part of the post lacks pictures!  

In the beginning of July, I had our carpets professionally cleaned because Mystic has a bad habit of not making it to the litter box.  I must not have thought this all the way through, because she was back at peeing on the carpet a few days later.  She is sneaky about it though, and never does it when we're around.  So our new routine is to keep her locked in the bathroom (with food, water, and a separate litter box) when we're not home or asleep.  I'm thrilled to report that we haven't had a carpet accident since!  Hooray for having a house that doesn't smell like cat pee!

Last week we came home and Eric noticed Addy was limping.  I felt so relieved that we have a section of our savings account earmarked for pet expenses.  So the worry of the cost of taking her to the vet didn't overshadow our worry of what was wrong.  We spent the evening trying to make her sit still, and I held an ice pack on her for ten minutes.  Luckily, the following morning the limp was gone.  Who knows what happened, but we're glad she's feeling better!

My summer has been full of working with my nanny kiddo - and he's been working on bowling this summer.  His form has something to be desired, but he's bowling in the 50's or above!

I've also been working on programming his AAC app on his iPod - he doesn't speak well, and he's picked up really quickly how to use it to say his words!

 My nanny kiddo also has this awesome body sock.  It is a nylon bag that provides sensory stimulation, and I caught this really cool picture of him!

Eric's summer has been spent wondering whether or not to buy some new games.  Addy broke him down, and now the are playing Age of Empires I, II, and III, Bioshock 1 and 2, and Unreal Tournament 3.

Eric and I housesat for Papa while he was in Michigan visiting Molly & family.  I used this as an opportunity to further unpack and organize his house.  This is his dining room, starting to look like a dining room!

This is his office, now empty of boxes and fully set up!  There is even a pillow for Frisco to sleep on while Papa works.

The guest room is also empty of extra boxes!  It has a bed, bedside table, lamp, and rug.  Perfect for someone to roll in for a night or weekend to visit.

I've also upgraded my clothesline!  The old one was nylon and flaking off strands on our clothes.  This is pvc, and affixed with L brackets - I used the two screws to secure the brackets to the porch, and then the pvc wire goes through the other two screw holes.  Now I just need to do some laundry!

This massive heat wave (temps over 100 for the past two weeks) has killed off most of the leaves on Grammy's tree :(

Some of the branches appear to be dying...

However there are still some that are holding on for some hope.  We got some rain today and have more in store for the next week.  Hopefully the leaves pop back up...we'll see.

We really let our budget get away from us this summer.  So we're attempting to go all of August without eating out.  Fast food was definitely a weakness for us over the past two months.  This is our last hoorah before that kicks in (this was on July 30th!).

This is Ashley's new room in her apartment.  She has officially moved out to Hays, KS for her first semester of state college, woo!

Day 327: Field Trip & More Packing!

Today was my school's third grade Lawrence History field trip.  We went to the Watkins Museum, The Eldridge Hotel, Liberty Hall, the Lied Center, and two cemeteries.  After spending a solid seven hours with an active kiddo with autism, out and about in Lawrence, I took a quick 30 rest at home before we went BACK to Papa's house for more packing.

An early electric car!  

The first version of the Eldridge, originally called the Free State Hotel.  

 The second version of the Eldridge, built by Colonel Eldridge, who was super mad that Sheriff Jones burned it down.  

A painting of, what I believe is, Quantrill's raid on Lawrence - burning down The Eldridge for a second time.

The Eldridge as it stands today!

A cornerstone from the second rebuild of The Eldridge.  It is believed that they spelled William Quantrill's name wrong on purpose as a final jab at him.
 

The Allen family headstone - as in "Phog" Allen.

Forrest C. "Phog" Allen - Rock Chalk!  Probably my favorite sight of the day.

Day 320: Teacher Appreciation Week!

It's pretty sweet being in a profession that has it's own week to tell you how great you are!  On Monday, the PTA brought us breakfast.  On Tuesday, they supplied us with desserts.  On Wednesday, we got Jimmy Johns and pizza for lunch.  Today, we got bouquets of flowers.  Then tomorrow we get 15 minute chair massages!  And, there was a nice spread of mini candy bars out every day in the staff lounge.

Mmm, parents treat teachers so well! 

Beautiful flowers brightening up our dining room.t

Day 298: Grilling Out!

We've been torn on whether to open the grill that we got for the wedding for awhile now.  We know that grills aren't allowed, but 4/5 porches in our apartment complex have one out in plain sight.  We finally came to the conclusion that we would use ours, but keep it stored in the storage closet when not in use.

Tonight we grilled dry rubbed buffalo chicken legs and veggie kabobs.  The kabobs had red baby potatoes, red peppers, garlic, onion, and zucchini.  The garlic ended up being too strong for me to eat straight, but it added a lot of flavor to its neighboring veggies.  Eric was a man about it and ate all of his garlic cloves.  We also watched Predators which was better than I imagined it would be.  Eric's favorite part was when the predator pulled out the inmate's spine - yuck yuck yuck!  I liked the twist with the doctor being a bad guy.

I also got my flip video camera, case, and tripod from Best Buy today, funded from some awesome people at DonorsChoose.org.  I'm really excited about using it!

The sun is in our eyes, but everything else was great!

Eric making the fire - burn, baby, burn!

Mystic escaped more than a dozen times while we were going in and out of the house.

So good!!!

Day 177: Groupon Supporting Schools

In August, I signed up on DonorsChoose.org, a website that supports teachers.  Teachers can shop on specific websites and create projects that specify what materials they need to support their classroom.  Then donors can look at the projects and choose which ones to support.  I had a project for a student of mine who requires a lot of physical movement throughout the day - and requested one of the balls with a handle that you bounce around the floor on, and a mini trampoline that we can bring into the classroom.  Last week I started a project targeted to motivate students to learn, with items like stress balls, stickers, and ink stamps.

Today Groupon posted an opportunity to buy $25 toward DonorsChoose for only $10, or $50 for $20, or $100 for $40.  My first project just got fully funded, and my second project went from a balance of $250 to a balance of $100!  I'm really excited to get these items in my classroom soon!

Thanks so much to Mom, Kath, and anyone else who has supported these projects!

Go check it out!  You can search by state (Kansas) and city (Lawrence) if you want to support me, or you can support your favorite teachers or causes!

Day 109: Lots of Preparation

Today is all about tomorrow!  Tomorrow I've got class, a complex 3 year reevaluation/IEP meeting, and a bachelorette party!  Eric worked all night and we watched "When in Rome" after he got home.  One of our favorite actors in Kristen Bell, and she hasn't failed us yet!

We also locked Addy in the bathtub!

Day 107: Monday Funday!

Today was GREAT!  School went pretty normal for me - my kiddo that has cerebral palsy is getting really strong and is able to walk further every day, my kiddo with autism who attacks other kids in the hallway and runs away from you is able to walk for more than 10 minutes without eloping, and my girls are starting to understand word problems in math!  I'm still caught up in my Monday night class which covers the instruction and assessment of non-symbolic communicators (kids who don't use words), AND I did extra credit work.  Then I was frustrated that after such a long day I had to attend a PTA meeting to defend my project request.  However, the meeting was really interesting and they APPROVED my request as soon as I finished speaking!

After the meeting, Eric had just gotten home from his Religions class and we were both hungry.  However, our kitchen was barren.  So we made a shopping list and headed out for some quality shopping time!  We got 3 paper sacks and 3 plastic bags full of groceries for $68!  This included bread, hamburger and hot dog buns, chips, crackers, cookies, 15 TV dinners, ground turkey, hot dogs, lunch meat, mac and cheese, hamburger helper, paper towels, foil, peanut butter, oatmeal, yogurt, milk, orange juice, sliced cheese, shredded cheese, and pancake mix!

Oh yea, posted in front of my school!

 I wasn't able to park in the JRP lot and had to walk 127 steps up to my class.

More stairs.

Going to school on a mountain sucks!  So glad I'm not an undergrad anymore!

Addy being cute!