Summer Happenings

How's that for a creative title?

With school out for summer, I have been surprisingly busy (even after all the craziness in the last post). Last week I spent a couple days with my sister-in-law, Kelly, helping her get settled into her new apartment here in Dallas. I wish we had taken before and after pictures because we got a decent amount of stuff hung - including curtains - which entailed using a drill and anchors and screws (so what if we ended up putting a couple extra holes in the wall in the process).

Friday was Matt's birthday, so most of the week was spent gearing up for his birthday celebrations :) We had originally planned to have our friends James and Kaylan over for dinner on Thursday, but apparently being out of school has ruined my ability to keep a calendar in my head because I forgot that I had agreed to babysit on Thursday night. So, James and Kaylan came over on Matt's actual birthday instead -- and I made all of Matt's favorite desserts. I started with orange pear salad (which is like a jello/fruit salad- and I add pineapples so I guess I should call it orange pear pineapple salad), next I made 7-layer bars (although I couldn't find flaked coconut, so they were technically just 6-layer bars), and last I made cupcakes with Allison's recipe for cream cheese icing! I would post pictures of the dessert montage, only Matt has already eaten all of the fruit salad, half of the 7 layer bars and about 2/3 of the cupcakes. If only I had thought ahead to take before/after pictures ;)

Enough about my husband's eating habits -- we also bought a grill on Saturday, which we are super excited about! Here she is -
We are having a few friends over this coming weekend to "break-in" our house, and a grill was a must for a summer-time gathering. We tested it out last night by grilling hot dogs for dinner -- it is amazing how much better a hot dog tastes after being on the grill versus just the microwave!

We have a few updates on the house as well -- I'll post those when I have more time to upload pictures. I need to get back to my coursework for my certification. Speaking of, I did find out last week, after a few days of anxiously waiting, that I passed my EC-4 test! One step closer -- now if I could just find a teaching position!

Catching My Breath

Well clearly I have been way behind (read: lazy) when it comes to blogging lately! So much has been going on since I last posted that I thought I'd do a quick photo post to catch you up with us!

First - a quick picture of Easter (yes I'm that far behind on this blog)
Matt and I went to Austin to spend Easter with my family (since Matt's parent's are still living in London) - in addition to my family, Katie's boyfriend Matt and his sister Emily got to spend Easter sunday with us as well! We had a good time celebrating!

Two weeks later, Matt and I were lucky enough to spend the entire weekend at the Marriott Horseshoe Bay on Lake LBJ (just outside of Austin). Matt's friend, Clay, from highschool was getting married and Matt was a groomsman. We had such a great time -- Mary Jane and Clay have such a fun sense of style and everything was just gorgeous!

The view from our room!

Husband and Wife!
We got to catch up with some good friends over the weekend too - which was so much fun! The day after the wedding a group of us went to the Chili's in Marble Falls to celebrate Liz's 26th birthday!

We spent the next couple of weeks in town -- and finally got our new sectional (that we ordered almost 2 months ago)!

In May, I kicked off Mother's Day weekend with a celebration in the classroom. My co-teacher and I made lunch for the mom's and had a "luncheon" where the kids served their moms and got to eat with them. After lunch we headed back to our classroom where we had set up a "spa" and the kids gave their moms pedicures, manicures and made them jewelry and cards.
I don't have any pictures of this - but my parents came up Mother's Day weekend to bring Matt and I a piano! I am so excited to be able to start playing again. We also just got to spend a couple days hanging out with my parents working on the house :)

The last week of school was CRAZY! We had splash day on Thursday (14th) and only had about 20 minutes of sunshine for it, but that didn't stop the kids!
Our last day of school was Friday the 15th -- very bittersweet to say goodbye to my first class of kids. I will miss them so much next year!

I didn't have much time to feel sad about the end of the year, however, because Matt and I hit the road as soon as I left school to head down to Austin/San Marcos for my sister's college graduation!
Congratulations Katie -- we are SO proud of you :) We got to celebrate with lots of good food and family (which was apparently setting the tone for the following week as well).

While all of the above was going on, I was also studying for my EC-4 content exam for my Texas teaching certificate.

I took the test on Tuesday the 19th, went to our end of the year teacher luncheon and got home just in time to unlock the door for my in-laws! Matt's sister, Kelly is starting nursing school here in Dallas (and we are SO excited to have her here!), so they were all up to move her in! We have spent the last 4 days eating entirely too much, shopping (the girls), golfing (the boys) and teaching Kelly about how scary/mean Dallas drivers can be.
WHEW. What a fun last month!

Hopefully now that school is out for the summer I'll be able to keep up with blogging better! We've got Matt's birthday coming up and then a trip to Cabo! I love summertime!

Why I love preschoolers

"Dear God, I hope that William, Paris, Neal and Emma are not sick. I hope that they are healthy. And please let everyone come to Jack C.'s birthday party tonight. Thank you. Amen"

Again - I know this is not the most advanced blog topic, and while most people are discussing the inauguration and the implications of Obama being our new president, my blog will continue to stick to the cute/funny quotes that my 4/5 yr olds say in class. The above prayer was from Colin today (who is super bright), listing off the 4 kids who were not in class today while he was "blessing" our snack time.

Also - I had another "you know you teach in Highland Park when..." moment yesterday.

While holding my hand, Frensley looked down at my ring and said "ooh I love your ring, my mom's is the same one.......... except hers is much bigger"
I love this age - because everything is so simple - she was just callin it like it is!

A movie from a 5 year old's perspective...

"Did you know that a robot named wall-E.... he scoops up trash in his tummy and then it goes in there and then it's in his back and then his tummy opens back up and the trash is in a square."

In case you were interested in seeing the movie Wall-E and hadn't seen it yet... I just thought I would share the plot with you. :)

I guess when I don't have updates on the house, and not a lot of adult interaction throughout the day - this is all I can come up with to blog about!

I'm back...

Obviously, I decided to take a small hiatus from blogging over the holidays - but I'm back and although it's not an official new years resolution - I'm going to try to blog more!

Matt and I had a wonderful Christmas break. As most of you know, we went to London for a week to spend Christmas with Matt's family this year. I was really looking forward to a relaxing trip, and that is exactly what I got! Thankfully, we went to London over the summer, so we were able to do most of the touristy things at that point (read: when it was warm), so I didn't have slave-driver tour-guide extraordinaire, Kelly, forcing me to go out into the cold. Kelly and I got to go to the spa at Selfridges one day, which was my kinda day if you know me at all, and Matt's parents also got us all tickets to see Spamalot and Chicago. Speaking of Spamalot - I was tricked into coincidentally sitting in the "special" seat, which meant I got pulled up on stage! (Quick background: because we walk everywhere in London, I always asked what shoes I should wear so I didn't slow us down. This night in particular I wanted to wear boots that have a sort-of high heel and everyone had told me that was fine, but we did have a pretty good walk after the show to get ice cream. SO... during the show I decided to take my boots off so that my feet weren't tired at all after the show.....) Fast forward to the show: I get pulled up on stage with only my socks on. (Thanks Matt for telling me to put my boots back on when you knew I would get pulled up -- I owe you one.) Oh well - I represented Texas well, and won the "Best Peasant" award on stage :) I'll spare you that level of detail for the rest of the trip - we ate, played games and shopped! Thanks Maggy & Rick for a wonderful Christmas trip! Here's a few pictures from our trip...

The Eye, Westminister Abbey and Big Ben

A monument in Sloane Square

After Spamalot - with my award (and my boots on)

Kelly and I in Sloane Square

Matt and I in Sloane Square

Matt and I in Sloane Square

At Benihana's with my sister-in-law and mother-in-law

After London, we came back to Dallas for a few days before heading down to Austin for a belated Christmas celebration with my family. During our brief stop in Dallas, we had our pre-sheetrock meeting at the house and my parents were nice enough to come up for that! I have to say, though, that I did feel a little sorry for the builder -- they say engineers are their worst nightmares! Not only is my dad an engineer, but he knows pretty much everything there is to know about home building, so our builder, Todd, had a pretty tough critic. I'm so thankful they came though, because Matt and I are pretty clueless since this is our first home! Thanks mom and dad!

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures while we were in Austin (Katie - why did we not take pictures in our pj pants??). We had a great time while we were there though -- lots of good food, games and good company!

One last update on the house front -- once it passes all of it's inspections they will start the brick/stone and sheetrock! I can't wait to have walls! Once there's some new progress I'll post some more pictures. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas -- Happy 2009!

Overheard in my classroom...

"But Mrs. Coleman... I jus' did not get enough sweep wast night!" - One of my 4 year olds explaining why she was taking so long to finish her project

"Ok - who knows why we are bringing in canned food?"
"For people who don't have money!!"
"Yeah like my mom- she always tells me she doesn't have any money."

"Oh my goodness - what am I doing?!" - Another one of my 4 year olds who decided what he was coloring was not what he meant to color

"Mrs. Coleman! I I I - I decided I am going to change my name..."
"Really? To what?"
"Umm... probably Picachu I think"
"Oh ok - should I call you Picachu then?"
"Nah... just call me Neal"

"What would you give Jesus for His birthday?"

• A skateboard
  
• Seashells!
• A race car
• Socks
• Love

"Colin - there's enough of those for you both to help!"
"Well THAT'S convenient isn't it?"

"Who knows what a pilgrim is?"
"OOOH! I know! Ummmmm...... an elephant?"

After practicing our sign language to the song Silent Night for our Christmas "show" -
Rhett: "Cooper - I am SOOO sick of this song, aren't you??"

buttah-fwys! and a wedding

Most might call them Monarch Butterflies, but to my 4 year olds, they are buttah-fwys, and they have taken over our playground. The past week or so we've noticed a huge increase in the amount of butterflies outside (supposedly they are supposed to be migrating to Mexico for mating season, but they seem to be getting pretty comfortable at the Park Cities Baptist Church playground. It's the funniest thing to watch the kids when they find one; it's like watching a game of pickle in the middle - only there is no ball, and really no one on either side of the kids - just a group of 8 or 9 4 year olds running back and forth, back and forth across the playground chasing the butterfly who just happens to fly above their heads, just out of reach. After today, however, they may decide to pack up and move out. Two of our kids (who happen to be twins) caught butterflies today while we were outside - and seeing their little faces light up when they came running up to show me the poor, frightened, slightly squished buttah-fwys they had caught made my day. Here's a couple pictures of the two who caught them.

Don't worry - we let them go so they could continue on to mating season...


On another note - I wanted to share a few pictures from the wedding we went to in Austin last weekend. This was quite possibly the most extravagant, beautiful wedding I have ever been to! Congratulations to TJ and Becky!
The ceremony was held outside on the shores of Town Lake (or ladybird lake as it is now supposedly called...I'm not into that name so I'm not going to call it that) right at sunset at the Four Seasons. (longest run-on sentence ever).

Martini ice bar/sculpture - shaken... not stirred.Enjoying the private fireworks show just for the newlyweds

Hanging out with friends outside of the photo booth

Our table
The largest cake I have ever seen!All these pictures were taken with my shiny new camera! What do you think??
Thanks dad! :)

Munchkin Room

So someone (who will remain nameless) has been repeatedly asking for pictures of my new classroom and I've been a total slacker... until now! My co-teacher Brandi and I took some pictures of our classroom today finally (mostly because for whatever reason we had 6 of our 14 kids out today so we felt a little more relaxed).

Here's a shot from the front door
Here's one of our reading center - which is just to the left when you walk in. The kids have little cars with their names on them, so when they walk in the room, they grab their car and park it in a spot in the parking lot so we know they are there that day!

Here's part of their cubbies -

And a close up of the "license plates" we made for their cubbies
These are part of the welcome signs we made to put outside our room.

Here's one of our bulletin board and the "A is for Acorn" art we did hanging in the window
And this is one of our "dramatic play" center - nothin fancy over here - with our "lining up our helpers" clothesline hanging in this window.
Last but not least - the boys were working on their "B is for buttons" art today and wanted to show you what a good job they did :)