Saturday morning shenanigans!

This saturday we woke up with the intention of heading to a neighborhood yard sale, only to find out when we arrived that is was just a bunch of junk and no real treasures as the add had promised. We moved on to our second stop, the farmer's market. Which was a very successful trip! We picked up some blueberries, strawberries, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, kale, tomatoes, radishes and peas.

We're ready for our day!

Hayden loves peas!

I have a new found love of radishes!

We all love strawberries! 

Later on I made kale chips with the kale we bought. 

Easy and Yummy! 

EDIT:

Recipe for kale chips

a couple handfuls of kale (I measured by filling my colander)

1 TBS olive oil

season salt of your choice to taste.(I put it in my hand first to distribute it evenly) 

place on non-insulated baking sheet

on parchment paper

bake 10 mins on 300 or until they have crispy edges

June bulletin board, brought to you by Emily and Danyail!

Our Theme: Splish, Splash!

This bulletin board was all about team work! I came up with the general idea, the kids did ALL the art work and Danyail put it all together! And doesn't it look fantastic?! 

Historic Home Tour pt. 2

I had some realizations while on the tour of historic homes:

1. I LOVE old homes!! 

     I grew up in an older home and didn't appreciate it at all! I love the character and charm and details that you can't find in anything built after the 1970's. I know that where we will  move doesn't have a lot (or any) old homes. I also know that I am sacrificing an old home with tons of charm, for great schools where the teachers actually care. 

2. My children aren't going to grow-up with the diversity I had growing up.

My kids aren't going to have a best friend they meet in Pre-K that is half Italian and from NYC or a black, gay, male kindergarten boyfriend. These are all experiences I am darn proud to have had and people I am glad to know. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little sad my kids probably aren't going to have some of the same kinds of experiences. The community where we will live there is very little diversity, however it may change and grow there is hope. They will also grow up around family that loves them.

3. I hate how close city homes are to one another and how a reputable neighborhood can be a block away from a not so reputable neighborhood. 

I love how in smaller country towns the lot sizes (for the most part) are huge, you have more than a drive way or small strip of grass between you and your neighbor. Also, in the city the nice part of town can be next to a cruddy part of town. In fact, while on the historic homes tour there was a shooting a few blocks down from where my mother and I were standing and we heard it  and when walking back to our car saw the suspect being arrested less than half a block from our car. Yes, you have ignorant idiots everywhere, it's just fewer and further between in a smaller sized town and not as likely to be on your door step! 

I just can't wait to finally get our own place. (don't ask me when, it's still a little ways off.) 

Until then, it's okay to dream and right now I'm dreaming about this cute little home. 

Historic Home Tour pt. 1

This past weekend my mother and I went on the very first annual tour of historic homes sponsored by Preservation Greensboro. My mom and I had such a great time touring all of the eleven gorgeous homes that were featured! I encourage all of my local friends to join this organization and help our town preserve it's history. (I know I have some activists reading!) And, if you don't live in the Greensboro area then join the preservation society in your backyard, or start one! 

My account of the eleven homes! (bare with me this might be a long post):

I'm going to go in the order I toured them, just cause!

The Brooks-Carmichael House

This home, while not my favorite on the outside, was drop dead gorgeous on the inside! It have the prefect blend of modern and antique decor and the best layout and renovations. This house burnt down in 2004, but look how they carefully and accurately brought it back to life! 

Pickett House

I love mid-century modern! This house was so cute, while very small is was almost all open concept save the bedroom and bathroom. This home at one time was in very bad shape but with some renovation it was brought back to life. Originally this home was a two bedroom but was converted to a one bedroom to have more livable space. 

Hewitt House

This home is very grand is the only word that comes to mind. It's huge and elegant! Not my style of house, but very well preserved. They even had the grand (it was very large) fire place in the living room completely restored to the original! My favorite part of this home is the sun porch, i have an affinity for lots of windows.

H. H. Felder House

This home was the first home in the state and the third home in the nation to use 100% GREEN renovations. The renovations were done by Southern Evergreen. Another great style of home, craftsman, which has lovely characteristics inside and out. Unfortunately these people used interior colors what were very typical of the time period in which the house was built, which makes it look a little out dated.

Cannon Court

This is a group of condos that where on the tour and they are super cute. We saw two units one was a one bedroom, one bath and the other was a two bedroom, one and a half bath. They were beautifully restored right down the the picture rails. The kitchens were tiny, however. There were other units for rent to all my renter friends in town! 

Sweeney- Penn House

This home is for sale by Preservation Greensboro, Inc. This home needs lots of love, it was the former home a little old lady hoarder who let it go to ruins (just about.) I went inside (they had cleaned the hoarding mess out of the bottom floor.) and it just need love, there is some really great potential here! They are also having a huge estate sale at some point to sell the hoarding mess. (there was some really cool vintage things) So if anyone knows anyone who has the time a resources please let them know about this amazing home!

Wilson Sisters Double House

This home was a duplex. I think it's beautiful the way if doesn't look like a typical duplex or double house from the outside. It is just as beautiful and magnificent on the inside. It really has the space of a single family home and not too mention the backyard of one! The lady that owns the home and lives on the side we toured was somewhat eccentric and had some fabulous art work. This home really reminds me of the duplex my grandmother lived in while I was growing up.

The Clapp House

This house greeted you with a marvelous front porch with natural wood flooring! On the inside well these people definitely didn't believe in less is more. They had decor in every nook and cranny, however it was all very nice things and not on the hoarding level. It had a great simplistic layout which was fairly open for the type for home. It had a gorgeous professional grade kitchen, that anyone who even sorta likes to cook would stop and gawk!

Tar Heel Manor

Oh my goodness I really liked this house and I think the people who live here are pretty cool too! (they lived behind me when I was a kid and then a couple blocks away for the past few years, now they live here) I just don't even know where to begin with this home, it was amazing start to finish! It was originally two different homes that have been put together to create this lovely, spacious and all around cool home! It has modern, it has old fashioned, it has everything!

Crutchfield House

I think this home has tons of character! It wasn't overly big, but by no means small. It was completely restored to its original (or original to the period) luster. This home was also very nicely decorated with a combination of contemporary and traditional furniture. This front porch also had natural wood (by this I mean it's not painted.) Which if I ever have a front porch of my very own I would like. (I took a picture of the wood, however I am being super lazy and not uploading my pics tonight!)

The Beasley House

Last but not least, the Beasley House. It's a traditional farmhouse style home. It looks a lot bigger on the outside than it felt on the inside, however it had some pretty nice features and you could tell they put a lot of work into restoring the home and keeping it updated at the same time. 

Starting from scratch...almost.

 In honor of summer we are changing somethings up a little bit. We are going to have one "big event" each day of the week. This serves as both an attention/ interest grabber and incentive for my friends to make good choices. (This was Danyail's ingenious idea, I just helped, and came up with the names so don't laugh too hard. :-P)

The schedule will be as follows:

Make-it Monday- We will do a handmade craft for them to take home or we will do a cooking activity during the day as a class. 

Tell about it Tuesday- The kids will bring items for show and tell. (sometimes based on out curriculum.)

What happens When-s-day- We will do a class science project.

Thinkable Thursday- The kids will bring a book from home to share with the class.

Frosty Fun Friday- The children will bring in a game for two or more players from home to play with their friends; we will also eat popcicles on Fridays. 

I know some of the names are a bit of a stretch, they'll work though. I also know that a lot of people wouldn't agree with us doing this (we're micromanaging some would say.) But, I believe that, as a teacher, you need to try different things with each class you are given. Every class is going to be different from the last. 

We will still be doing our curriculum along with our big activity of the day.

Skate World!

On Saturday the kids and I went to one of my students birthday parties at a roller skating rink. 

This was Hayden's first time roller skating. He had a blast!

Carly had so much fun she fell asleep! :)

It takes a village...

to raise a child! 

This was our message at church on Sunday and I tend to agree. We as parents and as people need to know when to ask for help and to surround ourselves and our children with people whom share similar values. 

Asking for help is a humbling experience, as most of you know we live with my parents. It's hard sometimes, but it's practical and sometimes practicality is what is needed and prideful tendencies have to be pushed to the side. I believe fully that pride can and will destroy you.

This is a picture of my kids that my mom took while we were at work/ running errands. 

The times they are a changin'

This was suppose to be my post from yesterday, however this blog was down, so that didn't happen.

Wednesday I had a 3 and 1/2 hour lunch, I had to take 2 extra hours because of the staff meeting we were going to have on Thursday. I met Joshua and Hayden at our local farmers market and we went to the restaurant there.

It has down home southern food. I had a fried chicken sandwich (shoot me I ate something fried), Joshua had a pimento cheese sandwich, and Hayden had chicken and dumplings. I was pretty proud of Hayden for trying something new, and he seemed to enjoy it too!

The Conversation at lunch lead to Joshua and I discussing trading in our car. I love my car but doing this just makes more sense. I think we are looking into getting a hatchback/ station wagon like car. These are some of the ones we're looking at, does anyone have anymore suggestions? 

Teaching = Career

I haven't talked about my class very much, but today we got our mock ECERS scores back, and I wouldn't say they were horrible but some of the stuff we definitely didn't agree with and some of the things we have no control over. 

ECERS = Early Childhood Education Ratings Scale

Some examples of things I don't agree with:

We didn't provide enough materials for art, because we wanted them to decorate their cups that we were planting our greenhouses in with stickers. We provided all different kinds of stickers and let them choose which ones and how many they wanted to use. We choose stickers because realistically it was the only thing that would really work with a plastic cup. 

We set up a tent in blocks center (because we were talking about things you do in the grass, ie. camping.) The lady said it took up too much room so that meant our blocks center was too small. Our blocks center is bigger than any other I've ever seen, but okay, I guess our room is on the small side and we just won't use the tent again. 

Some examples of things I don't really don't know what to do about:

The children who are being shown positive interaction yet choose to not interact well with each other. 

The children who refused to wash their hands, or just won't.

Children who decide to eat food they've dropped on the floor. 

The good stuff:

Children are well supervised.

Teachers have positive interaction with children.

As you can imagine some of these are pretty jaw dropping, but my class never ceases to amaze me at what they are capable of, good and not so good. I was thinking about it, my group of 3 and 4 year olds may act more like 2 year olds much of the time, however they are all capable of being the sweetest kids ever, when they want to be. As challenging as it is to be a teacher in a class of this nature, I think it will make me better and stronger in the process.

 We did receive a little over a 5 (out of 7) on our overall average score for just our classroom. We are a 5 star center so we did fall within our 5 stars, just not quite as high as we would have liked. 

Mother's Day!

Let me start off by saying happy Mother's Day to all the mommies out there! It is truly a privilege to be one myself and know what all my mom and "adopted" mom's did for me. In honor of this holiday I'm posting about the message we received in church today. We started a four week long series about parenting. What a perfect way to start it on Mother's day! :)

Today our pastor spoke on eight tips or guidelines on parenting. No he did not come up with these on his own, our pastor is a big stats guy and does major research before speaking or making a decision about anything. These eight guidelines I really had to agree with him on, my husband and I try to do a lot of these already and some our kids are still too young to really accomplish , but we are trying to start a foundation for them, this is why I thought I might share. Some of you might not agree and some of you may agree whole heartedly, but no matter what your opinion I encourage you to keep reading!

8 guidelines to parenting:

1. Build a strong marriage

        I our house my husband and I think this is probably one of the most important thing you could do for your child to show them stability, love and how relationships work. My husband and I are not perfect and there is no such things are the prefect marriage. The will be disagreements and annoyances. In our house we have a few simple rules, we will never yell at each other in front of the children (we try not to yell period), We would rather sit in silence rather than yell and scream. There is no sleeping in separate rooms or telling the other not to come home, our bedroom is just that OURS.

2. Spend quality time with the kids

       I have been struggling with this lately because I just went back to work and am working from the time my children wake-up in the morning until it is almost time for bed at night. We do however eat dinner together as a family every night. My 4 year old son has recently gotten into playing board games so we try to play games as much as possible during our free time.

3. Discipline our kids

    I do not believe in being mean and hateful to children, I believe in teaching them your expectations (reasonable ones) and setting up consistent and logical consequences. Children need and as much as they will never admit it love boundaries, so we need to give them some. My husband and I have been known to make our son give up some of his toys because he didn't want to pick them up. If he has so many toys that it is difficult for him to clean up then it's time to get rid of a few of them. We teach our children to respect adults and authority figures, if the child has no innate respect for adults then they can never learn from a teacher.

4. Stay engaged

      Be involved in your child's life. Be there and know what is going on. Stay proactive in intentionally teaching them new things every day. This is something we in this household also struggle with. We currently live with my parents and our son is with my mother a whole lot, so we miss out a little bit on being the ones who are teaching him and being the one who are involved. It is however something we are working on.

5. Monitor Entertainment

    TV is not the devil, but sitting your child in front of a television or video game all day is not good for them. You want your child to get his/her energy out and to be spending time with you. Also, when it comes to signing children up for sports and other extra curricular activities, let's try not to spread them too thin. The majority of their time spent away from school should be at home, not shuttled between activities. Right now our son is at home all the time, soon he will be starting Pre-K, this is going to be a big change for everyone. Will keep you posted on how he does, although I'm sure we will do great!

6. Teach children responsibility

      Allow children to experience the consequences to their actions. By not allowing our children to experience consequence we are enabling them to repeat the offence and saying that the action is okay. We need to force our children to except the consequences of their actions and learn from it. With young children their are a lot of natural and logical consequences that go along with mistakes/ misbehavior. In our home we talk about them  and decide what we can do to keep it from happening again. Parents also need to allow their children to have responsibility at home, aka chores! I never realized how wonderful chores where until this past year. I growing up had very few and rarely did them. Our son cleans his own room, helps feed the dogs, waters the flowers and grass outside and even sometimes helps cook dinner. Since our daughter was born he has realized that he has to set a good example for her, so this keeps him motivated to do his chores.

7. Use your words carefully

    I think some people are under the impression that kids are stupid, well they aren't. It is important for use to speak respectfully to our children. The thing we say can and will affect them deeply, we are their world. It is important to correct our children, but by doing so we must never bully them into submission. That is immature and abusive. I know as stressed out parents we've all had time when we have snapped and said somethings we shouldn't have said, we must actively try to keep these moments at bay.

8. Teach your children to have a relationship with God

      Some of you do not believe this is very important and t each their own, I however owe everything I have to God, so this is extremely important to me. We try very hard to model a mother and father who have a servants heart, filled with compassion and forgiveness, in hopes that our children will see us in our relationship with God and want to pursue their own.

I hope this made sense and I did not ramble too much, I tried not to be preachy and keep it from my perspective. This was not meant to offend anyone, everyones life situation is different. Hearing this in church today was really a blessing and a reassurance to me because I agree with it 100%, which is why I decided to share it with my friends.

Better Late Than Never!

For Valentines Day, Joshua gave me a jewelry box he created on Lego.com (from legos of course.) I was suppose to post pictures of the box and process of putting the box together ages ago, but just got around to uploading the pictures onto my computer last week. So I guess in this case it's better late than never! 

Without further adieu my lego jewelry box! 

Getting set-up!

Pieces all separated and ready to go.

The box, Josh designed, and the instructions.

Starting to put the bottom together.

Looking good!

The bottom is complete! 

Getting the top finished!

Success! 

I Love You! 

My wonderfully creative husband thought of this out of the box v-day present idea all on his own and designed it using Lego Digital Designer on Lego.com. For those that are interested, the program can be downloaded on the website for free! You design anything you want and can purchase it right there. Such a cool concept. Josh is super creative and artistic, right now he is painting pictures to fill our future home! I will do a post on his artwork later on! 

Epic Fail

So as I left my house this morning I grabbed my camera because I had every intention of photographing the "special snack" my class was making today.  However, when the time came for our class to make the "special snack" I totally forgot my intentions! oops!

(I did however steal this picture of what it sort of looked like off Google Images.)

Let me start of by saying this month our theme is about dirt. Today we talked with the children about things that you could find in dirt and how dirt has different layers. The children even brought in bags filled with dirt from home for show and tell. This afternoon in honor of dirt and Cinco de Mayo we made a layered chili cheese dip! I know it isn't the healthiest of snacks but not the most unhealthy either. Most of the children loved it, some where scared to try it, and some of them helped us make it! I really enjoy doing cooking activities with my class it's fun and delicious! We of course ate our dip with tortilla chips. Yum yum!

Recipe for Chili Cheese Dip:

1 pkg Reduced fat or fat-free cream cheese

1 can of turkey chili with beans

layer shredded cheddar cheese on top ( I used cheese from a local dairy and am pretty proud of myself for that. I know I'm lame.)

heat until cheese is melted

Wish me luck/ pray for me! Tomorrow and Monday, my co-teacher, Danyail is going on a much deserved vacation. Change in routine is very difficult for my class to handle, so I am expecting a couple rough days!

We might not have it all together...

But together we have it ALL! 

Thought I might share some pictures of my little family...

My amazing husband, Joshua! He is holding our then newborn daughter, Carly. 

My kids, Hayden and Carly. Hayden is a four year old boy and Carly is a 6 month old girl. They both have tons of personality and smiles that will melt your heart. 

This is definitely what I am dying to come home to at the end of the day. 

I thank God every day that He has blessed me with such amazing people to share this life with! 

(You all excuse the bathing suit picture, I still have a few more lb's to lose! )