and wedding bells will ring

What a busy week! Every year right around Easter through the end of May, everything just seems to go in fast forward. Baby showers, wedding showers, weddings, Mother's Day, and graduations; all of these things happen right around this time of the year. Starting with last weekend, I will be attending one of these events for the next five weekends. It sure helps the rest of the school year go by a lot faster.

This weekend was a very exciting weekend for my family. My cousin, who is the oldest among our clan of cousins got married on Saturday. This is a BIG deal because this is the first marriage for her and her husband both. Everyone is extremely happy for them. They looked so happy together yesterday and I know that they will enjoy spending the rest of their lives with one another.

I did not take as many pictures as I would have liked, but here are a few that I thought I would share.


A bridal portrait of my cousin.
I got to hold my baby niece while her Mommy and Daddy were getting their picture made.


My fabulous husband and myself. We clean up pretty nice.


Another dear cousin and the brave soul who continues coming with her to family functions.
Will they be next?

every task you under take becomes a piece of cake

Right now I am putting the finishing touches on our new living room decor. I am still waiting to post my before and after pictures, but for now I will just tease with this small project that I just finished.

Let me be the first to say that I am by no means an artsy or craftsy type of person. Don't let the fact that I am a kindergarten teacher trick you into thinking that I am a fabulously artistic person, because I am not. Any project I have my students do is something that I find that is easy for me to do because that means they will be able to do it too!

In college I took an elementary art course and it gave me some unnecessary stress. I would rather sing in front of a group of strangers than draw something in front of them. I am severely artistically declined. So that is why it may seem that I am overly proud of this small project I just under took.

Here is a picture of a mirror which I've had since college and it has been hanging in my house since then.



It went fine with our "old" living room furniture. Actually, anything matched our old living room set up because it was just a collaboration of all the furniture we've collected since college. Anything went.

Here is how the process started. Old mirror:



Painting the mirror
Me pretending I have art skills. I can dream, right?

Deciding where to place the jewels.

The finished product.

So that was my Martha Stewart moment for the year. It sure was fun, maybe I'll end up painting something else.

splendid, absolutely marvelous!

I was anticipating for today to be a great day and it turned out even better than planned! I was just thrilled to get a small break from the classroom today by going to a workshop. Yes, I am a bit out of the norm, I actually enjoy attending professional development, unlike most of my colleagues. I think it is fun learning new things to try in my classroom and collaborating with other teachers.

So, I was excited about going to this math workshop today. Plus it was a nice break since we have no more days off from school until Memorial Day. At lunch I checked my phone and I had a missed call from the district office. They were calling to tell me I was being offered a teaching contract for next school year!

Hallelujah! I've taught for three years and this is the first time I have been offered a continuing contract. Even though it has taken this long, I am glad things have panned out this way. I'm in a better place with better people. Now I have an incredible principal who will back me on anything and the people in my building are fun, and a pleasure to work with. I know that God has put me in the right place where I can excel and use my talents up to my full potential. This has been my best school year with the best group of students I've had yet. I am excited about next school year!

I may not know what to do with myself this summer since I will not have to worry about lining up a job for the fall.

little April showers

Drip drop. Drip drop. I woke up this morning and it had just finished raining. We got our rain on Easter, just like the weathermen had been predicting. Which I am not going to complain because hopefully that will decrease our state's chances for grass fires this week (it's been so devastating seeing all of the damage that happened last Thursday on the news).

Easter is one of those great holidays right up there with Christmas and Thanksgiving. I enjoy going to church, spending time with my family, and getting to dress up.

After church we went over to my parents house with my sister's family and had an Easter lunch. It was very delicious. My mom out did herself and made three different pies! I'm very blessed to have such a wonderful family to celebrate with.


Hope everyone else had a lovely Easter as well.

people have to grow up

Big purchases make me feel like such an adult. Last summer we upgraded our refrigerator and it just felt so grown up to spend our money on an appliance. It was bigger, nicer, and convenient to have ice and water in the door. And so far in our married lives, I think that has been our biggest purchase so far. Until now.

All of our furniture is stuff that has been given to us by our families. It's been very good and reliable, nothing is wrong with it. But this weekend we decided to start looking at some new furniture for the house. We originally thought about getting all new bedroom furniture and as we began looking we decided to go for living room furniture instead. It was an interesting process because it was hard not to cling to all of my old stuff that I'm comfortable with, although new stuff is fun and exciting. But new furniture means no more eating in the living room and having to be careful and stuff ....it's just a hard transition.

Right now the new furniture is in the house and the old furniture is still here too. I will have to update later with a picture of the finished product. Oh yes, and if we told you we were looking at sectional, um we changed our minds on that!

But for now I am very tickled about our old couch being in the dining room that just so happens to have a coffee shop theme. It just goes so perfectly, maybe we'll just leave it there...