Things Kids Said on a Monday

 A little girl was picking at the corner of a bulletin board in the hallway and peeled some of the paper up. "Is that wall made of graham crackers?!"  I wish it was- it's really called cork board.

A little boy did some sort of somersault thing to make his way to his spot on the carpet.  Pretty much the whole class told on him at the same time. Before I could respond, another little boy said, "Guys, he is just trying to be awesome."  

A group of girls were playing/talking during choice time. One of the girls said, "hold on- I gotta fart" and walked away from the group.

One of my boys told me his sister said if he is bad then he 'is going down with the devil' and he sounded a little concerned. I asked him if he was worried about that and he said, "No. It's really messy down in the devil's room and I don't like when my dad makes me clean my room. I like it when I can keep it messy. I'm mad cuz she broke the tablet! Ugh!!"

One of the girls wanted to share what she did this weekend. I said we could go around the circle and everyone could share ONE thing. I gave an example of what one thing sounds like. When it was the girl's turn, she attempted (because I had to cut her short) to tell me every. single. detail. of her weekend. She said it really fast, so in her mind it only counted as one thing.

I told a little boy he had to pick a new spot on the carpet (which meant moving away from his friend). He tried to get me to let him stay where he was, but eventually he realized I wasn't going to budge. As he was moving, he said in the most dramatic voice ever, "My life is ruined!"

As one little girl walked into school, she yelled across lobby, "Ms. McElwee! I looove your new boots!" Thanks for noticing!

Weekend Goodness- La Crosse Edition

My roomies from college (Sarah, Steph, and Alli) and I spent the weekend in La Crosse. We started the weekend by visiting Starlite Lounge to get delicious martinis. 

We walked through campus to see if anything had changed. 

We stopped for bloody mary's and popcorn at a bar called Bodega's

We took a tour of Pearl Street Brewery. 

Sarah, Steph, and Alli shared this flight. I tried a sip of a coffee beer. 

The view from our hotel room. Even though it's in that not quite winter/not quite spring phase, the Mississippi river still looks beautiful! 

We had the perfect balance of activities and relaxing. 

I love Milwaukee but miss the bluffs and the river that La Crosse has. 

Alli and Steph at one of our favorite restaurants. 

Me and Sarah.  Haha! 

That's better :)
Oh yeah, this is the place (Pizza Amore) that has gyro pizza. Which, of course, I ordered. 

The infamous fish bowl.

Dan and I went for a walk in a little nature area by our home when I got back from LaCrosse. The weather was just too nice to stay inside. 

Weekends like this are some of my favorites. Delish food, great friends, gorgeous weather, and walks with my husband :) Happy start of your week. 

Things Kids Said on a Wednesday

I don't have favorite kids, but if I had to pick, I could name a few :) Yesterday I got an email saying it was one of my little guy's last day in my class. He is switching to the school his older brother goes to. I told him I was sad and I would miss him. He speaks spanish at home, and although I'm pretty sure he understands english pretty well, sometimes things get lost in translation. Today I was explaining to the rest of the kids that he isn't in our class anymore because he goes to a new school. A little girl (who speaks both english and spanish) said, "Do you remember what he said yesterday?" I said, "That he's going to his brother's school?" and she said, "No! What he said in spanish!" I didn't remember (and I didn't understand). The girl said, "He said to you, 'I will miss you so much. The rest of the kids will take good care of you.'" I miss that kid already :(


During snack, a girl asked me if I have a daughter. I don't. She then asked me if my wedding was a fake wedding or a real wedding. I told her it was real. She didn't think it was. If it was a real wedding, I would have a baby. Her mom had a baby when she got married.


They had a discussion about whether or not they have met Mr. McElwee. Some kids thought the substitute teacher they had while I was gone for my wedding was Mr. McElwee. Mr. L., the sub, is definitely not my husband :)


We taste tested carrots, broccoli, and sugar snap peas today. I told them they all needed to take a tiny bite of each vegetable- at least taste it- and if they truly don't like it, they don't have to eat it. I tasted each vegetable, too. I talked about how much I like sugar snap peas. One of the kids wanted to be like me, or impress me, or something and also claimed he liked sugar snap peas. I kept munching on them and he kept asking for more. After about five peas, he started to gag. I told him he didn't have to eat them, so he ran to the garbage and spit a huge mouthful of peas out. He said, "Actually, I don't really like peas."


One of the best parts of my day is watching my kids sing and dance to the song "boom chicka boom".  They request it almost everyday and really get into it. It makes me so happy to watch them having so much fun.

I Don't Like Pizza

I don't like pizza.

You read that right. I don't like pizza. As far as I can remember, I never have. I try it occasionally in hopes that I will have this new found love for the stuff, but nope. When I'm somehow included in a pizza eating event (you know, like dinner), it's not usually something I'm excited about. Sure, I'll eat it- but I scrape ALL of the toppings off which are then passed off to Dan. Basically, I end up eating bread with a smudge of sauce.


Currently, there are three exceptions to this:

1. Chicken-Bacon-Ranch pizza. I tasted it (very) late one night in college and I thought it was good. Thinking this was a possible fluke based on the circumstances, I tried it again and still liked it. It's a pizza I can eat without peeling the whole thing apart.

2. Gyro Pizza. The first time I had gyro pizza was while Dan and I were in Alaska. I was obsessed. We were in Anchorage for about three months and we probably had Moose's Tooth five times. I would say that's a lot for being in a new place and having lots of new restaurants to try out.  If you ever have a chance to go to Moose's Tooth, do it. They have SO many types of pizza, but my favorite was the gyro pizza. I haven't found anything quite as good as Moose's Tooth gyro pizza.  Kate's Pizza Amore in La Crosse is delish, but not the same. I make my own from time to time too. Mmmm!

3. Margherita Pizza. It's so good and simple. I made some for dinner tonight. Sometimes I make the dough myself and sometimes I buy premade dough from the grocery store. I like the homemade stuff better, but it takes time and a little preplanning. Some of my kids were talking about pizza today at school and it sounded really good. So a stop at the grocery store on the way home it was! I picked up some dough, mozzarella cheese, basil, pepperoni (for Dan), and sauce. Sauce is another thing I like better homemade, but tonight I didn't have the time or energy to make it. When I make pizza, I use my pizza stone thing. I put it in the oven, turn the oven up to about 500 degrees, and wait for it to preheat. Meanwhile, I assemble my pizza. Once the oven hits 500, I turn it off, put my pizza on the stone, and turn on the broiler. The pizza gets cooked so perfectly in about 5 minutes.

Insect Drawings

We were talking about insects. Their job was to notice details and make careful observations. How many legs did their insect have? Did it have antennae? What color(s) was it? Then, without tracing their insect, they had to draw a very careful picture of it. 

It was fun to watch. Many of them counted the legs and told their neighbor their insect had six legs. They were so excited when their neighbor's insect had six legs too! 

 Each kid told me a little something about what they drew. "Mine had a some purple!" "My insect was the same as Eli's!" "My insect is scary!" "I think mine's a beetle!" 

Then this kid showed me his paper:

"I didn't wanna draw an insect.  I drew Spongebob."

Weekend Goodness

This weekend was a pretty low key one. Dan was gone all weekend, fishing with friends and I worked on some projects.

We've lived in our duplex for almost a year and I still haven't hung up any art. One of the projects I worked on this weekend was getting some things organized for a wall in the living room.

I made another batch of ball. These ones included walnuts and extra coco powder. I'm not so sure I like the flavor the walnuts add. It's okay. The extra coco powder helps mask the walnut-y flavor :) 

Thai Tea

These guys were patrolling the Target parking lot. 

Maggie always finds the sunny patches. 

Bearcats And Brackets

I didn't want to take calculus my senior year in high school. I would have much rather been in an art class or an english class. My options were calc or FST and FST sounded easier. I think FST stood for functions, statistics, and trigonometry. For the stats portion of the class, my math teacher thought it would be fun for us to fill out a bracket for March Madness.

I know nothing about basket ball or brackets or March Madness. As proof, before I wrote this I asked Dan, "Do will fill out the bracket for March Madness?" and I did finger quotes around 'March Madness'. He laughed at me.

So, I filled out my math class bracket based on the mascots and colors I liked best of the teams. We did some statistic thing with it and ended up getting second place! It was only fun because I won (and yes, I consider second place winning when I have zero skill or experience with this).

Fast forward to now. Last night I attempted to fill out a bracket (which remember I know absolutely nothing about) because Dan thinks it's fun. It was kind of fun. I think there is a team who's mascot is the bearcats. Not sure what that is, but I picked them to win at least one game because it sounds cool. :) I think I have Florida playing Louisville for the winner. My bracket is also in some sort of contest with Dan and his side of the family. Maybe I'll "win" this one too! Haha!

Taser Guns and Thank You Notes

Going back to school after a break can be hard. It's hard to go to bed earlier. It's hard to wake up so early. It's hard to get back into the daily school schedule, especially when the weather is slowly getting nicer. 

I woke up 2 minutes before my alarm went off this morning. It was chilly in my room and hard to get out of my warm bed. The dogs were whining. It wasn't a bad morning, it was just hard. Mornings like this make me nervous that the rest of the day will be really hard. 

Then I noticed this text I got while I was sleeping:

These are the kids I nannied during the summers while I was in college. I also happened to work part time at the daycare the two little ones went to and I taught Irish dance to the oldest one. I love them so much and miss them tons! This was a good thing to wake up to :)

The school day was pretty good. During choice time, one of my girls made a tower of legos. She came up to me and said "Ms. Minster, do you want some?" I asked her what it was. She told me it was chocolate perfume with a little vanilla mixed in, so naturally I needed it to be "sprayed" on me as I turned around (her instructions). Right after that girl doused me in in her pretend perfume, another girl (who the first one was playing with) came up and asked if I wanted some of hers. Of course I did. She made a psssst noise like she was spritzing me with perfume and then said, "Haha! I just tased you! This isn't really perfume! It's a taser!" Most hilarious thing ever. 

In the afternoon, I got a pile of thank you notes from one of the kindergarten classes that came to watch my mini dance lesson. Here are a few of my faves: 

This is a shamrock. 

That's me and all my hair. 

I like the details in this one. The kids sat near the blue carpet in my room. I wore my blue solo dress that has a big cross on the front. I have a blue crown that goes with my dress. 

This on is just cute. If you can figure out what that word(s?) says, let me know :) 

I made mac'n'cheese with brussel sprouts and bacon for dinner because I love brussel sprouts and bacon and like mac'n'cheese. Happy Tuesday. 

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

This is how I looked when I met my classes in the hallway to pick them up:

Their reactions ranged from silently staring at my hair, to asking if it was my birthday, to being freaked out. One little guy (who is an english language learner/ spanish speaker) kept saying "wooaah! real?" with a frightened look on his face. Once he got past my major change in hairstyles, he noticed my "crown". For the rest of the day, he would say things like, "Ms. McElwee- Crown. You princess!"  

I invited the kindergarten classes to my room to watch me dance for my morning class. I don't think 4 classes of little ones have ever been quieter. I might need to wear my Irish dance stuff to school every day :) The afternoon class got to watch my mini Irish dance lesson with their 4th grade book buddies. The 4th grade teacher told me that all of her boys tried to do the jig when they got back to their classroom. It was really fun to watch a bunch of kids learn about something they have never seen before.  It was also fun breaking out all of my dance gear again :) 

Happy St. Patrick's Day! 

Happy 30th anniversary, mom and dad! 

Weekend Goodness- St. Pat's Edition

I know this is blurry-he is such a wiggly puppy!
 He's 6 months old and still growing! 

Corned Beef and Cabbage: round one.  

The sunsets at my parents' house really are the best. 

My parents' 30th anniversary is on the 17th. We had as many people as we could write them a poem and then put those poems in a book with photos from their 30 years together. They loved it! 

I got to see my brother for a little while this weekend! Between college and random trips, he's a hard guy to see :)

3 of the 4 sisters on parade day! 

Possibly a leprechaun

Scotch Eggs for breakfast mmmmm

My spring break is over- back to school for St. Paddy's Day tomorrow!