Tuesday's Almost Over

OMG, what a crazy day! I swear my classroom phone did nothing but ring today at school. Lots of calls: would I take one of the other teacher's classes on my prep, because he overslept? Sure. Do I have any movies appropriate for kindergarten? Yes. Could you bring the movies over here, I have kids? Sure. Can I see (blank) to check his resource goals? Sure. Do you know there's an emergency union meeting today about the tentative contract? I do now. Etc. Oh my. It all seems so rush rush this week. I have a significant amount of work left to do in my classroom, to get it ready for the summer. It's been a slow process, but I did defrost my fridge. That was a mess. My plan is to get everything done tomorrow-well, basically I have to as my check out time is 9 am on Thursday morning. It will get done, and I will be less fussy. I promise.

I finished the doll for my friend's grand baby. I'm not happy with her arms.

Presents for the boys' teachers. I ordered oilcloth lunch bags, from RickRackQueen, on Etsy. I also ordered them a set of three reusable snack bags, also made of oilcloth, from the same seller. Do you know about oilcloth? It's really cool. I love it. I have some, and I made a tote with it, but it's kind of hard to sew with. I think I could do a better job sewing it with my new sewing machine, as it has a walking foot. My MIL says that may work better. Anyway, these bags are really cool.

Here's a close up of the lunch bag. It's quite roomy inside too.

Word of the Day: Ireallyhategoingtothepostoffice. (BIG word), I know! I had to go to the post office today for postcard stamps. I tried the mail center at Long's first, but the girl there was absolutely clueless about WHAT a postcard stamp even was! I attract these people, I swear! I explained that they are like regular stamps, but cheaper as they are made for postcards. I left. She didn't know. So, since that was a bust, I had to go to the post office. Once there I thought, "well, I'll just use the vending machine to get them." WRONG! The vending machine sells books of regular stamps. It also gives you the option to buy stamps according to denomination. Great you say? It would have been, had I known how much IT COSTS to mail a postcard ($.28)! I then had no choice but to stand in the giant line. I got my postcard stamps after waiting entirely too long, and headed to my emergency union meeting. What do I need the postcard stamps for? Well, obviously for mailing postcards. I had each of my students decorate a plain postcard for me. I will give it back to them tomorrow, with my address on it, and...wait for it...a stamp! That way they can mail it to me this summer to tell me what they are doing. Hey, it's better then giving 20 kids my phone number! Can you imagine that? Maybe you can't, but rest assured, if they had my phone number, there would be endless conversations about Pokemon cards, puppies, or how many times they went to Target. This is all fascinating stuff, but I do have a life to lead, and can't be answering the phone all the time. They will have my address to write me (building skills!) and the parents have my email.

Kirby, Report Cards and a Face Without Eyes

I made Quinn's day today, with a small purchase from Amazon.com.

Kirby arrived today. Quinn is fascinated with Kirby. He's from a video game, and Quinn draws him all the time. He is a huge Kirby fan. I was searching for a DS game with Kirby, when I noticed that Amazon had recommendations for me. This Kirby was one of them. Of course I knew Quinn had to have him, so I ordered him, and a Pokemon book for Riley, and another Black Eyed Peas CD for me.

Can you see the pure joy in his face? I had him close his eyes and I held it out. You should have seen the look on his face. He squealed with delight and told me "You're the best mommy in the world!" and I got a big hug too. He's pretty easy to please. He did hang onto this guy all night, and he's sleeping with him too. I have a feeling Kirby will be going on vacation with us.

These babies are finished! I completed all of my report cards yesterday. Today I added the attendance, separated them, put one copy in an envelope to go home on Wednesday, and filed the other. DONE! Feels good too!

Here's a doll in progress. I was hoping to finish her, but I had some trouble with her damn arms, so I had to redo them. I'll get her stuffed tonight, and her face sewn on tomorrow. She's for a friend's grand baby.

Word for the Day: Quick. Today went by so quickly! We had a field trip this morning, to the Peace Pavilion. It's a great place! Of course, I was not too happy that I had to talk to one of my girls, about being nice, at the PEACE PAVILION! Jeez! We got back to school just as lunch was starting. We had early release too. I plugged the kids into "Fern Gully," so I could get some more stuff packed up. Only one of my students has seen the movie. The rest of the afternoon I worked in my classroom, then came home and sewed.

My 2nd Post of the Day

Riley and Quinn were invited to Zack's (Quinn's friend-you may remember him from the talent show video) birthday party today. They had a BLAST! They have a little (well, sort of big) waterslide! I swear Riley spent the whole afternoon there. He didn't eat. He drank a little, but then slid the rest of the time.

Here's Quinn, doing his usual pose, on the rope swing. Glad to see he doesn't let a stinkin' rope get in the way of his usual "How you doin'?" pose.

Here's the slide, and Riley. Riley would sit at the top, and catapult himself to the bottom, bypassing the middle entirely. It was great to see him "being a boy." He had sooo much fun. Thanks, Michelle, for letting him attend. He left the party annoyed with his parents, for making him leave, but happy that he'd had such a "fun time." That's a direct quote from the man of few words.

This was part of my mom's birthday present. I made her one of my flower art frame thingys.

For the Word of the Day, see the post below this. It's a double post day!

More Bridging and my 1st Post Today

I promised you more pictures of the bridging. I would not want to let you down.

The boys from the next rank up, change the kerchief of the rank just under them. These two "blue" guys are now Bears. They were Wolves. Their job is to flip up the collar, change the kerchief, add a new slide, and give the boys their new book.

Sliding the pesky kerchief slide.

All the way up.

Celebrating his new Wolf rank, with his new book held high. Quinn is enthusiastic about everything!

Word of the Day: Finished. I finished my report cards! I don't have to do them again until the fall! Yay!

Bridging

We spent four hours in Sunol today, at a regional park. The weather was pretty near perfect, but a tiny bit chilly at times. The shade was quite comfortable. We went to this park for the culmination of the cub scout year, the bridging to the next rank. Quinn and his den earned their Tiger Cub badge, and are now official Wolves. We had a potluck picnic, played games, got awards, and then bridged.

This is Quinn, and his dad, walking across the bridge to bridge to the next cub scout rank. We really used a bridge for the bridging! How appropriate. I have more pictures of the boys from the former Wolves den, making the switch. I'll post those tomorrow.

The first game the boys played was a balloon relay race. They had to hold the balloon between their legs, and hop to the other side, and hop back. This is Quinn starting out. His balloon popped, so someone had to hand him another one.

This is Riley at the mid point, stopping to show his "what?" pose.

Next the boys played Tug of War. It was actually quite a good game, and several moms were super cheerers. It went on for quite awhile, with both teams doing well, until one side finally weakened. 

PULL! PULL!

Word of the Day: Birthday! It's my mom's birthday. She is so excited because she got an iPhone! She's super hip. It has a pretty pink casing on it. We went to BJ's Brewery (?) for dinner. The boys got her Hannah Montana perfume (she asked for it), and we gave her a Canasta card game, and some Amazing Grace perfume, oh and I made her one of my flower frame art thingys. 

Feelings, whoa oh oh feeeeelings...

Happy Friday everyone! What a busy week, and a busy weekend. It's all good though. Three more days of school. It's really exciting, the prospect of the lazy days of summer. It's also bittersweet. Happy to have more free time, but sad to say goodbye to my cute little class, and their awesome parents. I feel that I have worked my magic, and now I look forward to seeing what they can and will do. They'll still wave to me on the playground, and say hello EVERY TIME they see me-no matter if it happens to have been 5 minutes before. It's cute. Like a fan club. Ok, so I have to share Quinn's "Feelings" book with you. I was only going to post two pages, but I couldn't decide which two. Then I figured, crap, it's my blog and I can do what I want. I'm going to post ALL of the pages. Don't go crazy there, it's only 5 pages long. I figured if you don't want to see this yumminess, then you can scroll on down to the "Word of the Day," but why wouldn't you want to have a look see?

The Cover. I love the glasses! Looks like him too!

Page 1. The word is "shy." Look at how cute that face is. He looks shy!

Cry me a river! Sometimes he feels "sad." See his missing bottom teeth? They are in now.

LOVE this one. "Angry." Nostrils are flaring! Angry eyes and eyebrows.

So sweeeeeeet. I can't take it! Look at the little tooth hanging out. He really should feel like this every day, cuz we love him so!

Word of the Day: Nordstrom. I went to Valley Fair tonight. I swear that is the best mall around! I love it! I found a few things at Nordstrom, and also at Sephora. I am loving that place more and more. The woman downstairs, in the perfume department of Nordies, thrust some lotion at me. She told me the name of it, which I forgot, but her big selling point was that it was the perfume/lotion that Michelle Obama uses. I found that funny. I guess people rush right out to "be like Michelle." It's kind of funny. I mean I like her, she's cool, she's stylish and hip, but come on! That has to be your hook? It smelled pretty good, but I wouldn't buy it just because Michelle (yeah, we're friends) uses it. She has good taste though.

A New Travel Bag

Kind of a late post tonight. I have just finished with party number two, a Southern Living home party. People just left a little while ago. What a blast! It was totally fun. I still have to clean up, but you know, priorities! I had to get the blog updated!

So I ordered this bag from Sherpani. It was on sale, for $35.00! It's my new travel bag. Usually I carry a backpack with all of my crap, but I really like the messenger style bag. It's got pockets galore, and it's very roomy. I love the shocking green color too. I won't get lost in a crowd!

Here's a really lame picture of the inside. Mostly I just want you to admire the pretty flowers inside. Awww. Aren't they sweet? I have another of their bags, also green, but darker. It has flowers inside too. It's their signature. So girly, yet rugged.

See that? It's a little pocket on the handle! There's one on the other side too, and water bottle pockets as well. on the sides of the bag. Those little pockets are so cute! Perfect for my keys! Or lip gloss! Not for Chapstick though. That's bad, very very bad. Here's why. Visit Kevin's site.

Word for the Day: Whew. Almost another week over! School ends in 4 days. It has gone by so quickly. It always does when you have a nice class. It's slower then molasses when it's a horrible group. Busy weekend: Bridging for Quinn to Wolves. My mom's b-day, and a birthday party on Sunday. I have GOT to start my report cards! Seriously. I need to stop partying, and get them done.