Pizza for Dinner

Garlic, Tomato(e?)s, Oregano, Basil, Red Pepper Flakes, Salt, Pepper, that's all I had and it turned out good :) 

Working on Rising 

Mmmmm 

Sauce. Basil. Mozzarella.

Mmmmmm

It's Kind of Like Glamping

The electricity in half of our house hasn't been working since Saturday night. The living room, dining room, our bedroom closet light, and bedroom outlets don't work for some reason and we didn't do anything new or different to cause a problem. I had a cold day yesterday and was forced to be productive due to the lack of tv, a bright place to sit (other than my bedroom), and a car (Dan took mine to work and his is not the most reliable). I cleaned, baked, cleaned some more, did some laundry, and waited for some guy to come over to fix our electricity. The guy, who is really a handyman and friend of our landlord/upstairs neighbor, couldn't figure out what is wrong with our electricity. He's having an actual electrician come over on Saturday to try to find out what is wrong. This leads me to three short stories...

1. I knew that today was going to be another cold day. Since I was so productive yesterday, I wanted today to be a little more relaxed. I don't slow down often enough and sometimes need to force myself to not be constantly on-the-go. I don't have any new books to read, so last night I went to the grocery store  to pick up some snacks and magazines. I got in line to check out and the woman in front of me kept looking at my pile of stuff with such a judgmental look. I have never felt so much judgement at a grocery store except for when I had a tantruming toddler with me while shopping once. She had a mixture of disgust and pride in her eyes. She had a loaf of gluten free bread, some oranges, a few different veggies, and organic chicken breasts. I had frozen processed chicken nuggets, frozen restaurant spinach dip,  two peanut butter cups, and three celebrity gossip magazines. For about one second I was slightly embarrassed when I realized she was judging me based on what I was buying. And then I remembered that she doesn't actually know me. First of all, I almost never buy frozen meal things like that and prefer fresh, homemade food. Second of all, I can buy chicken nuggets if I want.  When she was checking out, she said "Can you fit all of my things into one brown paper bag? I forgot my reusable one at home." I asked for a plastic bag and thought it was hilarious. 

2. Dan is kind of annoyed that our electricity isn't going to be looked at until Saturday. Our landlord asked me if it was okay because the electrician is a friend of his and is doing the job as a favor, so we have to wait a little while. I said it was fine as long as our kitchen and heat continue to work. It is an inconvenience to have a couple rooms and outlets not work, but I secretly like having to snuggle up in our bedroom with the dogs. It's kind of like glamping- you know, glamourous camping. We bring in snacks, get snuggled up, and watch movies on a laptop. We don't have to sleep in a tent but we are missing out on the s'mores. I will be happy when we can use our whole house again, but for now we will just have to glamp :) 

3. So far I am successfully slowing down (mostly). I woke up, fed the dogs, made and ate breakfast, did some laundry, read a magazine, and plan on spending a good chunk of the day like this: 

I can't stay here for too long though. Maybe I'll bake something. . . 

Weekend Goodness

I was going to post this last night, but we're having electrical issues and my laptop ran out of energy, so here it is today. . . .

Check out this sunset! 

Nella's new toy. It know's it's not going to last long (and it didn't). 

Maggie is so good :) 

I love a good sunrise :)

Brunch

Treats after brunch. Mmmmmm! 

He laughs so hard watching cats tease dogs. :) 

I love fairy food

I also love thai tea and banana streusel cake. 

Mom, Dad, Dan and I spent a chilly afternoon on a Sprecher Brewery tour. My glass is the one with the root beer :) 

On the tour with my beer-loving guy

1. I had a great lunch/manicure date with my wonderful friends.
2. Sprecher makes delish orange cream soda. Mmmm

BIG Baby Puppy

Dan and I stopped at my parents house tonight to hang out for a while. They got an Irish Wolfhound puppy a couple months ago and he is growing SO quickly! He's such a big baby!

Look at this big baby! This is Seamus.

This little baby is about four and half months old. 

His paws are HUGE. 

All he wants to do is snuggle :) 

The Lights on the Bus go Blink-Blink-Blink

Photo: ©byMcKee 2013        

This picture is from my wedding and is a selection of some of the aunts, uncles, cousins, and siblings who could make it.

The guy in the grey sweater at the bottom right side of this picture is my Grampa. He's a pretty cool guy- he has a good sense of humor, a great heart, and is a wonderful story teller. My mom (the one in the lacy dress in the front row), my aunt (mom's sister- the one with the short hair in the second-ish row), and I went to visit him on Monday. When we got to the place he's staying at, he asked right away how married life was going and what's new. I told him about the kids in my class are really cute but very busy! This is what he told me:

He drove a school bus after work and would take kids home from school. He heard that the bus kids were a wild bunch and he quickly found out that was true. So, being the smart guy he is, he came up with a plan to get the kids to be more well behaved. He drove the bus the police station and told the kids that they would be arrested if they didn't shape up. That didn't work out so well- the kids still were pretty crazy and my Grampa knew they couldn't actually be arrested for being wild kids. For a while he wasn't sure what to do until he let one of the kids put the flashers on. Whenever they reached a stop, Grampa had to put the lights on so people would be aware of the kids leaving the bus. The rules were obviously much more relaxed at that time, so he would let a kid or two push the button to turn on the lights. They loved it. He told the kids that whoever did the best job on the bus would get to push the flashers. Of course they all wanted a turn- who wouldn't want to make the flashing lights come on? So the kids settled down and Grampa just went down the list of names to make sure everyone had a turn. He didn't have any (or at least many) problems after that!

Weekend Goodness

I've been on a smoothie kick lately. This delish one includes blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, spinach, and carrots.

I'm obsessed with homemade pasta. I think I need to invest in a pasta press thing. 

Just look at that beautiful dough. Mmmmmm. 

I got a little excited about the dough and tried to take it out of the food processor (one of my favorite kitchen appliances/awesome wedding gift) without taking the blade out first. My finger suffered a small injury. Lesson learned: those things are sharp!

Reason why I need a little pasta machine- this takes more time than my hungry self wants it to. 

I like mine with butter and salt. Dan likes his with pasta sauce. 

Dan made garlic bread to go with our pasta. Yum! 

A little road trip selfie :) 

We decided to take a mini road trip to Ikea for something fun and different to do. 

Dan had never been to an Ikea before and was surprised at the very diverse groups of people that shop there. He also learned that he doesn't really like shopping at Ikea, but he did pick out some bamboo shoots for us to take home. 

I've been living on these things this weekend. What a good treat :) 

The beginning of one of my favorite treats: start with whipped cream

Add some strawberries 

Sprinkle on some chocolate chips (the mini kind are my favorites), and enjoy the deliciousness!

My sister is home from her world travels!! Yay!! If we both look like we just woke up, it's because we pretty much did :) 

I fell asleep on the couch and someone decided to join me :)

At Least No One Got Hurt

The 4Kers were c.r.a.z.y. today. Like tackling each other, screaming, crying, not listening at all kind of crazy. The morning class had to sit at their tables with their heads down twice today. I had them do that once at the beginning of the year and they hated it. Usually I can remind them of "that time they had to sit quietly with their heads down" and this little light bulb goes off in their heads and they are like, "oh yeah, that wasn't fun. I'll be a better listener." Not today. The heads were down two times.

It's not really my style to have them do things like that. I'm pretty good about figuring out why they are acting differently and then coming up with a solution that solves the problem.

Sometimes they have a ton of energy to burn off so we do some dancing, yoga, or some sort of action game. Tried it. All of it. They still had energy to tackle each other football style during story time. How that happens, I don't know.

Sometimes they need to get out of the room for a little while- have a change of scenery and come back ready to learn. So we took a bathroom/water break. It didn't help. One kid spit at the dean of students, another kid couldn't find her walking feet anywhere, and another kid kept locking stalls and then crawling under them so they would be locked with no one in them.

They could not calm their bodies down after multiple attempts at singing songs, jumping around, and trying to read a story, so they got to rest their heads on the tables (almost) silently. It helped for about 10 minutes.

Sometimes they are hungry- easy problem to solve- we eat snack a little earlier. Tried it. Snack ended up all over the floor and then there were tears because they had to clean it up. At least picking up all of the tiny little pieces was a fine-motor building activity.

Sometimes they are overtired and get super silly like overtired little kids do, so we sing a song to focus, read a story or two, and move on once we are calm. We couldn't get through a song or story- not even their favorites. I tried yoga again (they love yoga) and some slow, deep breathing. Nope.

So we had read-to-self time. They were awesome for the 5 whole minutes (we've built up from 4!) that they had to spend quietly reading to themselves. We're working on building our reading stamina- they can't handle more than 5 minutes yet and start getting really antsy at about 6 minutes.

Then we tried to move on to math time.

It didn't work. I had an interactive smart board game planned that would normally be super engaging. Today the only thing that was engaging (other than 5 minutes of read-to-self) was breaking rainbow loom bracelets into millions of little pieces and sprinkling them all over the carpet. Heads-on-table-time #2 started now.

At the end of the day, I was tired from their craziness, but I also thought it was hilarious. I had to let go of being frustrated and just go with it. On my way home, I was still trying to figure out what was up with them and if there was something else I could try tomorrow. I was almost home when I made a turn and saw the cause of their craziness:

A full moon.

There was absolutely no other reason for the way they were acting. I should have realized it earlier, especially because it's happened before. Next time, I need a warning and then I need to change my expectations from getting things done to just making it through the day without constantly wrestling or crying. Hopefully tomorrow will be slightly more low key :)

"It's Moscato!"

I went to bed last night in a bad mood with a headache. One of my morning kids didn't get picked up until 11:40 and they are supposed to be picked up at 11:00. I know most teachers don't have as much planning time as they need, but because this mom was 40 minutes late, I had about 30 minutes of actual work time/lunch time. The mom also does not currently have a phone and he emergency contacts were not up to date so I was not able to contact anyone to see if someone was coming to get my 4 year old. We had a planned, then cancelled, then partially reinstated/partially rescheduled staff meeting- that means I will really have two staff meetings this week, instead of one. One of my afternoon little ones was also not picked up until an hour after school was over. Again, I was not able to contact anyone. During the staff meeting, we talked about changes for next year and I was feeling unsure about how I want things to go next year. I called Dan on my way home to talk through how I was feeling, he wasn't being the best listener, and it didn't help me feel better. (He kept trying to tell me I sounded frantic, which I probably did. I wanted to talk- I didn't want advice- and I don't think I communicated that very well).  Traffic was slow on the way home so my long drive became longer. When I was walking up the back steps, I fell pretty hard and now have beautiful, huge, purpley bruise on my knee. Dan and I had a disagreement about green peppers. I don't like to take medicine if I don't have to and fell asleep with a headache last night. 

Usually when I fall asleep with a headache I wake up with one. I was so worried that today would be a bad day. 

The morning was normal. I woke up, didn't feel like getting out of bed because it was still dark, but did it anyway, and realized I didn't have a headache! Dan got me a muffin for breakfast. Thanks Dan :) 

I saw the most beautiful sunrise on my way to school. I wanted to take a picture so I could share the goodness with everyone, but figured it would be too dangerous while driving. It was pinkish, orangey, and glowing- and I got to drive into it almost all the way to school. What a great way to start out the day. 

As I was driving, I was thinking about the kids who got picked up super late. A lot of my kids get picked up late (but not that late) on a semi-regular basis. I was trying to come up with a way to get the parents to school on time. In my wandering thoughts, I remembered that the first girl who was late doesn't have a car. Her grandma or aunt drops her off and when they can't, she takes the bus with her mom. Her mom takes the bus to pick her up and then they walk home. She could do the easy thing and not bring her kid to school. 4K is not mandatory- she doesn't legally need to be here. How cool is it that she works so hard to bring her kid each day? I wonder if the mom realizes that she is doing an awesome thing by teaching her kid school is important? 

After a semi-smooth morning (very unusual- morning are almost always crazy) , a productive prep time, and a quick lunch, I was ready for the afternoon. They were extra adorable today. 

Cute things that happened:

1. We were working on patterns. I created a pattern but included a "mistake" that they had to fix. Instead of taking away or switching a couple of the pieces, they rearranged and added pieces to make an even trickier pattern. They are such smarties :)

2. During group time, a little girl stood up and said "Ms. McElwee! I have something for you!" and gave me a big hug :) 

3. One little guy was having trouble cutting out a handprint and almost in tears because he was frustrated. I was going over to help him out when I heard the kids at his table telling him "It's really tricky, but you can do it!" and "Ms. McElwee said it's a little deal if you cut off a finger. It's not a big deal- it's a little deal. Just try to stay on the other lines." :)

4. A little girl brought me a glass from the dramatic play area and I asked her what she brought me. She said, "It's Moscato!"  When I asked her if she knows what that is, she said it's a drink that moms can have and I would like it too. Smart girl :) 

5. A little girl said, "Ms. McElwee. I love you. I only tell all of my family members that." :) 

I've been in a spaghetti squash mood lately. The grocery store was out of them the last time I was there. I stopped on my way home (we needed something for dinner anyway) and they had some! So we had spaghetti squash with ground venison and butternut squash marinara-like sauce and brussel sprouts with bacon. Mmmmm. Dan suggested we go to Gilles for a sweet treat. 

Antiques on Second

My mom, one of my sisters, her friend, and I spent our afternoon at an antique store. It's a three story store that I could probably spend an entire weekend in and still need more time to see everything.

We found some hats.

Who doesn't need a lucky kitty?
 (I guess I didn't today. . maybe next time, Lucky Kitty, maybe next time.)

I found some more hats.

I wish I had a reason to wear all sorts of hats (even the goofy ones). 

 

I found this thing that looked like an antique peg leg. I don't actually know what an antique peg leg looks like and was slightly creeped out by what I was imagining, so I made Rosie pose with it. Then I looked at the tag and found out that it was really a scope. Haha! 

My purchase of the day: a tea pot!