Catching up on capturing December

My fellow teachers, and probably most of the rest of you also, know how busy December can be.  Along with all the usual hustle and bustle of the holidays, I get to add end of term craziness and 24 kiddos bouncing off the walls ready for break!  Yay.  Anyway, I've been doing pretty good with the actual picture taking, but not so much with the blog.  So I'm taking a few minutes for me and catching up.  :)

Day 11: Green.
  We have green ornaments on our green tree.  :)

Day 12: A beautiful sight.
   I'm sure this is not what the creator of this little challenge had in mind, but recently this is where my mind has been.  This is my "school bag."  The bag I take my work back and forth to school in.  And this particular night it was empty.  I brought nothing home.  It was pretty beautiful to me!

Day 13: Family
  James has been working till 7 most nights this month because the store has extended holiday hours.  Which means we don't get much time together in the evenings.  And it also means that I'm usually in sweats or PJs by the time he gets home.  This evening that was definitely the case, and I forgot about the picture until about 9:45.  So rather than get all dolled up just to go to bed, we took it as is.  But I'll give you a bonus and put a nice picture up of us as well.  This is what we sent out on our Christmas cards this year.  (That's right we're adults now, we sent out nice Christmas cards! :)

 

Day 14: Christmas Tree

   So here is our tree.  I tried to play with the settings on the digital camera to make it look cool like everybody does on Pinterest, but I didn't have much luck with that and they were really hard to find.  Got the best result without messing with it all.  Maybe next year I'll have a new tree to take pictures of.....

Day 15: Favorite holiday song

  No contest it's "White Christmas." And it has to be Bing.  Although close behind it are the version of "Silent night" with "God so loved by Jaci Velasquez, "Christmas Canon" by TSO, and "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" by pretty much anyone.

Day 16: Outside Christmas lights
   I intended to take a much better picture, but we had a date yesterday in New Orleans to see "The Hobbit" and eat at P.F. Chang's, and I ended up just nabbing this on our way into the complex around 11 last night.  These people are in the building next to ours and have taken their outside Christmas lights to the extreme.  They both have way more lights than you need on a small patio, and inflatable snowmen.  Crazy.

Day 9 & 10

Day 9: Something you're reading


 I had to go to training of Friday.  I had left this paper for my assistant and told her if she really needed something for them to do after their test they could write letters to Santa.  (I had left other work, but I left this option instead of their writing journals.  Sometimes they get sick of those.)  Anyway, they were stacked up with their tests when I swung by to grab them Friday after training to grade this weekend. So I brought them home to read.  Well, turns out she told them that Santa already pretty much knows what kind of toys they want, but she thought they had plenty of questions for/about Santa.  So that's exactly what they wrote.  They were pretty stinkin' cute.  And I thought I may just try to get Santa to answer some.  :)  I told them this morning that I thought they had great questions, and I had mailed their letters to Santa, and that maybe sometime this week he'd have time to answer us!  ;)

Day 10: Wrapping paper

Pretty self-explanatory on this one.  Our gifts are bought and wrapped.  Just sitting in our living room waiting to drive to Texas.  The countdown in on!

Day 8: Ornament

Got this little guy at Hallmark. We had bought an ornament as a gift, then decided we weren't going to give it. Come to find out you can only exchange for another ornament (which they neglected to tell me when I bought it).  As you can imagine, I was less than satisfied as a customer when I found out they didn't think it necessary to share that policy with me when I purchased two ornaments the week before, especially since I even told the lady I wanted to spend my money in Hallmark on a different gift.  I may have been a little bit rude, which I try not to do since I've been on the other side of the counter.  But it's seasonal merchandise, and really should be something you tell people.  And she even told me if I came back later an owner could override it.  So why can't you do it now?!  Anyway, needless to say I won't go back to that particular Hallmark.  They didn't even have the other item I was shopping for anyway.  We talked while doing some other shopping, and decided we'd follow the rules and trade for another ornament we liked.  But I was not about to go back to that store.  When we went to the other Hallmark in the mall, they let us trade the ornament and even gave us the two dollars difference like it was nothing.  So we got this cute little one for us. He's the first in a series. :)  I guess my mother-in-law is rubbing off on me.  Their tradition is for everyone to get an ornament each Christmas, and they all have a particular series they collect.  Since he was the first in this "cookie cutter" series, we thought maybe we could start our own little Henderson tradition.  I'm really excited, particularly this Christmas season since we'll be on our own for the majority of it, to start developing traditions we want to have with our own family.  Some of those will be from his side, and some from mine, and some from neither.  But this might be one we adopt permanently from the Hendersons.  :)

Day 6 & 7

Day 6: Shopping.



I only really have my grandma left to shop for.  Well, technically, I haven't shopped for James, but that's only because every time I've shopped recently he's been there.  But anyway, I tried to finish the rest of the shopping last night by ordering from Jim Shore.  Unfortunately the item I wanted is backordered until January.  But my back up plan will hopefully come through for me.  :)  My mom thinks she can find it in her area since she has a few more places to shop than I do out here in small town Mississippi.





Day 7: Bright.

 I spent all of today in training for some reading curriculum this district uses.  So you get a picture of my bright yellow highlighter.  No big deal, except that every time I get observed by the literacy coach, she criticizes me for not using the curriculum that I hadn't received training on until today.  And it was no big deal that I didn't find out about the training until yesterday.  No big deal that until today everyone at my school thought this curriculum was being retired now that we're transitioning to Common Core.  But even with all that, it was totally a great day being told we're doing everything wrong (even though we just now were told how to do it "right") and that we should have all these materials borrowed from the district that no one's ever mentioned.  *not impressed*  It was totally fun to be criticized all day long and told that there was basically no way we could process all this information the first time because it was so overwhelming.  I love being called less than intelligent to my face.  And actually, the information wasn't all that overwhelming.  What's more overwhelming is figuring out how to pick up and implement it in the middle of the school year.  And how exactly to meld all this with Common Core, since when we asked she basically told us she didn't know.  Then she asked us what skill we were covering this week, and when we told her she acted like she was horrified because it didn't follow this curriculum.  But it follows the curriculum we have, and Common Core.  I mean, how would a student be expected to write an opinion piece (the CC requirement this term) if I don't teach them how to spell the word "my."  I think the district really is confused as to their priorities here, and shouldn't be criticizing their teachers until they figure that out.  If it's CC, let us do CC.  If it's Project Read, then fine we'll do that.  If you want both, then somebody needs to sit down and figure out how to adjust the pacing and sequence to make the two work together.  We don't have time in the day to teach two completely separate, opposing curriculum with pacing guides that don't match up.  We barley have time in the day for the CC standards that are being tested by the state.

Ok I'm off my soapbox now.  Bleh.  I am going to spend the night enjoying my husband, having a nice glass of wine, and maybe coloring the alphabet cards that I was informed need to be up in my room. (Cards I received months ago with no instructions/explanation and that the literacy coach hasn't noticed aren't up in my room in the last 10 times she's visited.  Again, priorities.)

Day 5: Joyous

So yeah I cheated and switched day 4 and 5.  Meh, whatever.  I'm still doing every day, and haven't broken my streak yet!  Take that, doubters!  I didn't blog about yesterday, it just being the temperature and all.  Figured that was pretty self-explanatory.

But on to today!  I got my hair cut!  And I got to go to a real salon, instead of the beauty school or some cheap place like MasterCuts in the mall or whatever.  Plus I had a recommendation from my assistant, so I had a lot more trust in this girl than anywhere I've gone probably in the last 5 years.  So, I took in a picture from Pinterest that I loved at first sight.  And she was awesome!  And I love it!!  And I am so happy I did it!  :D

  

Ok, now for a bonus.  I really wanted to use Twila yesterday for joyous but she wouldn't cooperate.  We recently discovered a spot on her back that we can scratch to make her lick her lips.  And I personally think it's hilarious!!  It cracks me up every time!  It's just so cute and weird and random, which if you know Twila, is her to a T!  So, that's why I switched the days and here's what you missed!

Day 3: Red

Um, most of you know, we kinda have a thing for penguins here in the Henderson household.  James had a collection for quite a while.  Our coin bank is a penguin.  There are penguins on our Christmas ornaments.  When I got my Cricut, the first thing we cut were penguins.  The Christmas dishes on our table right now are penguins.  We did an ornament swap for his company Christmas party......we brought penguins.  :) Which, on a side-note, were the most stolen items.  Because penguins are awesome.

So......red.



Turns out my assistant also has a thing for penguins!  How awesome is that!  So....we decided we should do some penguin projects and decorations the next couple weeks.  Two reasons.  1. We can leave them up into January and not be stressed about changing everything right when we get back.  2.  We're reviewing next week, then the next we're reviewing some more and taking CTAs, so we thought the kids might stay more focused if we made it a mini-thematic unit.  :)  Anyway, I found this guy on Pinterest.  I showed him to my assistant today, and helped cover the door.  Less than a half hour later, we came back in from recess and she had this up!  She rocks, and I love the penguin to pieces!  He is so awesome!  :)  We're not done yet with everything we plan to do, so I will *try* to post the rest of it too.  But he was perfect for my red today!

Day 2: Favorite holiday movie

It took me awhile to decide on this one.  I waffled all day between White Christmas, A Christmas Story, and what I actually chose.  I feel a little cheesy picking this.  But I just get all warm fuzzy when I watch it.  My childhood has a lot of memories with these characters.  And I even had the soundtrack on cassette tape!  I just love this movie!  :)

Capturing December: Day 1

Saw this on Pinterest today.
   

I thought it looked like fun.  I also thought my family and friends might enjoying seeing more pictures on my Facebook now that we're out here in Mississippi all alone.  I also thought it might get me back in the habit of blogging regularly, because they'd be short, simple, quick entries.  And I feel like I could never take enough pictures.  (I get that from my parents I think ;)

So....Day 1. Your view today.


 Not a great picture, as it was with my phone from the car.  But this was my view this evening as we were out Christmas shopping.  Every once in a while, even though sometimes it's a little out of the way, James will drive me down the beach.  I love it!  It always puts me in a good mood to see the beautiful beach we live on.  Things may be rough some days, and we may be just a bit homesick.  But living on the beach isn't all bad.  It's pretty gorgeous.  And calming.  It always helps me put things in perspective a little.  Life can't be all bad with a beautiful beach five minutes away.  And I keep hoping "our beach" will draw our family out to visit some.  :)

Pinterest: T-shirt => Beach Bag

Actually painting my nails right now, and using the drying time between coats to play on the internet.  Thought I'd do a short post about my most recent craft project because I know it will be short.

So, we all have those T-shirts that we save and save but never wear.  Don't lie, you have at least one.  Maybe they're too small, maybe they're out of style, maybe they were for an event and now it's weird to wear them.  That last one was me.  I had a shirt that my mom made me for our rehearsal dinner.  Pretty sentimental and obviously couldn't be just thrown out, but really not appropriate to wear around all the time.

See what I mean?  So after moving here to the beach, it occurred to me while sitting at home with nothing to do but obsessively check websites for job postings that I could make a beach bag out of the shirt and it would be perfect!  It would be washable, I would get to keep the shirt without feeling like it was wasting space, and it would save me having to buy a bag to take all our stuff to the beach!  Perfect!  So I browsed a few tutorials on Pinterest and they all had slightly different ways of doing basically the same thing: somehow close the bottom of the shirt, cut of the sleeves, and cut out the neckline.  Rather than follow any one pattern, I figured I'd wing it.  I turned the shirt inside out and hand stitched the bottom together just under the original seam.  Then I turned it right side out again to do the cutting.  I cut the sleeves just outside of the seams.  From there I decided how wide I wanted the straps and then cut down and across just above the lettering.  Pretty satisfied with my final product.  We've already used it a couple time and it easily fits both our towels, keys, sunscreen, a water bottle, and phones.

Pinterest: Back To School Night

Alright, I figured I should start with something fairly easy.  This actually got me recognized nationally in a company newsletter, so I'm pretty proud of this one.  :)

We were given the task last year to create a "Back To School Night" wall in our classroom to advertise to the parents.  They actually made it a contest for the most creative and well done.  The only guidelines were that it had to say something about the event, and my director let slip that 3-D was always a plus.  So I took my inspiration from two books that my class loves:  Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Chicka Chicka 1 2 3.  With that in mind, I made two trees from brown butcher paper taped to the wall on either side of the window, one tall and one short.  The tops of the trees are green tulle I bought on sale at Hobby Lobby, gathered with a pipe cleaner and taped to the wall.  I think I used five yards for the larger tree and three for the smaller tree.  I put green cellophane on the window to give the illusion that you're sitting under the leaves of a bunch of trees.  This particular part is probably the only thing I would change because when I went to take it down the cellophane had basically melted to my window and it took lots of scraping with a razor blade and scrubbing with Goo Gone to get it all off.  It looked cool though.  Between the two trees I had some posters on my wall that I didn't really want to move, so I cut another sheet of butcher paper to cover them and painted it green to look like bushes.  I used some 6" letter stencils to cut the letters and numbers out of an old cardboard box for the letters and numbers climbing the tree.  I painted them bright fun colors just like in the books.  The poem on the window I came up with all my own and conveniently enough our curriculum is called "Journey."  But you could use it without the capital or make your own poem.  I cut those letters with my Cricut (and for the life of my I can't remember what size) with my Mickey Mouse font.  I free-hand painted the white Back To School Night lettering, because that guideline was a late addition to the rules and that was the only place I had for it.  I used a turtle stool that I've had since I was very young (my grandfather made it for me) to display the books to go with the wall.  I slapped a coat of paint on him to make him stand out (and because I've always wanted to) and I'm really pleased with how he turned out.  I still use the stool as an incentive for good behavior.  Sometimes the kids earn reading time on him, and they love it!  So, that's my wall!  Here's some close-ups!

Hrm.

I doubt I actually still have any readers at this point, since the entire Blogger website has been updated since I last logged in.  But for the one random person who may still be checking this, I am still alive.  :)  Just very busy, a little stressed, and don't have very much exciting stuff to blog about.  We're pretty boring people actually.

But I have an idea to still utilize this little website instead of just give up on it.  My plan is to start making posts connected to my Pinterest.  I have a whole board of picture I uploaded of things I've actually done that don't actually link to anything.  So I'm going to start there.  I'll probably even add what you might call a review of the things of done, whether they worked or fell apart and so on.  And probably continue if I ever have time to do anything crafty ever again.

So that's that.  We may have some excitement over the summer to read about also, but for now when I find myself with free time and the urge to not feel lazy, that is my plan for this blog.  Maybe my readers will slowly trickle back to me.  :)  All, what like 6 of you?  ;)