I Will Make Him Mooooo!

My diabolical plan to contaminate all facets of Shawn's life with College of Wooster items, has hit a snag. I got a back up camera installed in the car the other day, and the camera is actually mounted on a license plate frame. After having the College of Wooster frame on my car for one whole week, it is now off again.

Luckily, I had the foresight to also get a College of Wooster car decal for the window, so all is not lost.

Did You Hear That Crunching Noise?

 It was me. My composter has arrived. Must. Go. Hug. Tree.

I have had it now for a few weeks. And there has been a bit of a learning curve since I have never done this before. But I think I am getting the knack for it and am looking forward to healthy happy veggies. 

I planted the winter garden about a month ago and it is going well. We have cucumbers, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes and peppers. There are already flowers, so we should have some actual produce growing shortly. 

Home Theater

Charlie is apparently reenacting scenes from the Bible tonight, since he is standing here naked eating an apple. I hope he does the Odyssey tomorrow night.

We are on our way to soccer and I told Charlie to go get in the car with Shawn. Charlie looks up at me with those big blue eyes and tells me : "I'll wait for you. I don't want to leave you behind". Aww love that kid.

The other day I had a bit of a crappy day. Then when I walked in the door, Charlie said he liked my "cute pink outfit" and I was all better.

Shawn and Deb's Birthday Dinner

We got together with Shawn's family last month to celebrate Shawn and Deb's birthday. We went to the Old Spaghetti Factory. The actual dinner was fun, but the getting there was a bit iffy. 

We live about an hour away from Shawn's family. We drove all the way to the restaurant and were pulling into the parking lot when Charlie got car sick. We divided and conquered. AJ ran into the restaurant to tell them we were here, Shawn ran to a store to get Charlie new clothes and I hung out with Charlie outside the restaurant waiting for the new clothes to arrive. 

As you can see, he recovered nicely. 

Sock Puppet

Charlie really wanted to have a tiger sock puppet like Special Agent Oso so I made this with my rendering markers. 

That may not seem like a big deal, but the fact that I used my rendering markers is huge. There was a time when if there had been a fire, the markers would have been grabbed right after the kids. That is how precious they were to me just a few years ago. But I have not drawn anything in years and they have been sitting in my office unused for that whole time. 

Charlie seems happy with the end result, but please do not tell my rendering professor I used my markers on an old sock. Thanks. 

Charlie is in the shower singing his heart out. But that's not the best part. I think it is a mash-up between "You Don't Know You're Beautiful" and " The Higglytown Heros" theme song. 

Lauren's Shower

My friend Lauren is getting married Thanksgiving weekend. She and I work next door to each other and I have known her since I first worked with Kelly. 

Kelly, has a little girl, Katie who had a princess birthday cake a few months back. Lauren thought it was so great, she had Kelly make one for her for the shower. 

This is Lauren and her mom.

Here is the pastry chef with her masterpiece.

We were put into teams and given the task of making a wedding dress out of toilet paper. Lucky for us, we got the 12 year old model.  The dress came out pretty great, if I do say so myself, given we only had  5 minutes to do it.

Here is the front:

Here is the back:

Nobody wanted to actually cut the cake so when it was time, we all took pictures. 

The Designer Chicks

These are my friends Dawn, Erlinda and Rebecca. The four of us have been getting together for lunch a few times a year for several years now. We met in the interior design program. Dawn and I have chosen different paths, but our love of design is still strong. It is fun to have a core group who understand your passions and support them. 

Soccer Game in The East Valley

Last weekend AJ had a soccer game out in Gilbert near where Shawn's family lives. So we all went to the game, out to lunch and then Charlie and I did a little shopping when he got too squirrelly at the table. 

Here is Charlie at this very cool train track that went around the park. We got to see the train go by later, but didn't get a chance to ride on it. 

Charlie and I went to the store, Charming Charlie's and he entertained other customers by dressing up and dancing to the music.

We ended up getting these sunglasses and this dinosaur bracelet. Charlie picked out a very sparkly bracelet for me too.

The boys were tired and on the way home, I looked back and saw this.

Raymond's Birthday Party

Charlie went to a birthday party a few weeks ago at the Little Gym. It was pretty fun and they kids had fun running around and using all of the equipment. 

School Fundraiser

A few weeks ago, Charlie's school had a fundraiser for the Relay for Life. On of the activities was an ice cream eating contest. They were not allowed to use hands, of course. It was a fun night until Charlie figured out that his 6 tickets he won would not buy him the race track that cost 1,000 tickets. At that point, he had a complete melt down and I had to carry him screaming and crying out the door past all the teachers, parents and the director of the school. It was my favorite part of my day. 

He Was On Sale

Look Ducks!

In Arizona large fields are often flooded for irrigation, instead of using more traditional sprinklers. The water takes several days to absorb into the ground and in the meantime, the extra water usually attracts some new friends. 

This picture was taken at my school, and is facing the Head Start program that is attached to the school.  The students thought it was pretty cool to have ducks in their "lake". In fact, a few weeks later when the fields were irrigated again, Canadian geese showed up too. 

Fashion Forward (or Backward, Depending on How You Look at It

So, it's Been Awhile

I had grand ideas about updating the blog over fall break. Yet, here it is the Sunday night before going back to school, and I have not written a darn thing. I also didn't clean, work out or cook elaborate meals. I am an equal opportunity slacker. Actually, what I did do was drive AJ to school and back which took 3 hours out of every day, and the rest of the time I graded papers. I wish I was kidding. I did go out to lunch a few times, but grading papers was about the gist of my fall break. I also worked on my Spanish and did progress reports for my students. The excitement is never ending here.

The past few months have been crazy. Being a first year teacher is very much like being a first year parent. That feeling of never ending work, getting very little sleep, and never getting ahead, are very similar. Next year will be better because I will not have to spend hours cutting things out, laminating them and then cutting them out again, searching for resources or learning the standards. But until I can get a handle on, you know, my life, the blog will be a bit sparse.