I Heart The Hungry Caterpillar...

Linking up from Kelly's Korner.... 

Here is the Pinterest Pin that I pinned of my: 

Project of the Day: Hungry Caterpillar Wrapping Idea

Step 1: Peruse your favorite paint chips and pick out a variety of primary colors. 

 Step 2: Punch out circles with "punchers" or whatever you call them.... Be forewarned, the paint chips are pretty thick, so this is a tad hard to do. My first one wasn't strong enough. I had to get the big girl puncher out. 

Step 3: Figure out what puncher works and go to town making circles of all sorts of colors.

 Step 4: First wrap your present in plain colored paper. I chose red. You could do whatever. Use double sided tape to stick circles down to make the ground. I like two rows, some bigger circles and some smaller circles. 

Step 5: Use the double sided tape and stick down the caterpillar pieces. I used different shades of green. 

Step 6: Draw a face, and since we started with plain red paper, it was easy to just draw the face. If you had white paper you could use red circles for the face, and if it's a large enough package you could even make a sun in the corner. 

And finally, here's my collage to show you the steps all in one picture! 

It was fun and I loved it. 

If you do this project, come back and link to it in my comments.

 I'd love to see how others make this work for them! 

Happy Pinteresting...

Confession: Pinterest Addiction

Woo Hoo, It's Friday! Oh....wait, it's the last day of my Spring Break.... 

Nevermind that excited for Friday business! 

I'm linking up for two things today.

First up, it's Friday Confessional with A Blonde Ambition. 

1. I confess that I woke up at a decent time today in order to get back on the regular schedule. It wasn't my favorite thing, but I've been super productive. 

2. I confess that I have had a wonderful Spring Break. I didn't need to go on any fancy trip, explore far off places, or fly away for a journey....instead I've enjoyed it in my own backyard. I've had a Spring Break bucket list and I'm almost through with everything on it. 

3. About that bucket list, I confess that I even put cleaning and organizing on it. Laundry too, would you believe it? 

4. I confess I'm quite giddy about this project my mom and I are doing for my sweet nephew, Andrew's 5th birthday. He asked for a book cake, and then mentioned the Hungry Caterpillar. Where else would a girl go than to none other than the world's greatest Pinterest? 

5. I confess, I'm about to start telling you about my next link up.... :) 

 Next, I'm linking up with Kelly at Kelly's Korner, which is Show Us Your Life: Favorite Pinterest Ideas!

So, I'm linking up with my current project that I'm doing exactly this minute. See, my cupcakes are baking. I've made chocolate and white. I've got all the ingredients for frosting, cute little graham sticks for the antennae, and Spree for the colorful ground. I can't WAIT to make this with my mom.

These are my two inspiration pieces. I can't wait to tell you all about it. Follow my blog and I'm sure to post the final product! :) The party is Sunday and mom is coming over tomorrow to help put it together! Wish us luck!

Pinterest Inspiration #1 

Pinterest Inspiration #2

And about Pinterest...I'm quite addicted. I've found it as a great tool to organize recipes, crafts, and most of all new teaching ideas! I spent one Sunday morning, for about three hours, repinning and organizing my Boards. They make me all sorts of happy. So, feel free to follow me. You can find me here. I'm still learning how to use it and such. I have my favorite people I follow, and I love it when I see something I pinned repinned. It's sort of nerdy, I suppose. Oh, and now that timer is going off. Gotta get the chocolate cupcakes out and put the miniature ones in next....  

A relaxing Spring Break

Hooray, it's my Spring Break (I couldn't hardly wait!) and Chris took off a few days to hang out with me too! We made it an adventure of eating a few new places and just enjoying our time without working. It has been the best. I still have two more weekdays plus the weekend before I go back and hit the ground running. So far, so good. 

Chris and I have our favorite Chinese restaurant in Tulsa. It's a cute little place called Wang Wang. One of the silly things I love about Wang Wang are their little take-out containers. They make for great leftover storage. They are the perfect size and they come in round and rectangle! So, we love Chinese. One of my friends has been telling me about this other place that's a little bit out of the way, but she had heard good things about it. So, I convinced Chris we should try it. I can't even remember the name of it now. Here's the story... 

We walked in and it was about 12:30 on a Saturday. I thought there would be more people there, but nope..we were the only ones. We ordered some dumplings and our dinners. It was alright, but we both still prefer our favorite Chinese place. I loved the ticket though, it was written in Chinese! How cool is that. It was pretty legit....it wasn't bad, it just wasn't our favorite. 

Beef and Broccoli with Fried Rice

Cool Chinese Characters

So, we tried to go see Oz, but Cinemark crashed their system and they couldn't do credit cards or gift cards. We didn't have enough time to get cash and come back so we just skipped it for the day. We'll go back again. 

We always take B'Elanna with us when we go places, and she's just adorable. Since Chris got the new car we've banished her to the back back of the car. Poor thing, I think she misses being up by us in the backseat. She loves to go. As soon as she hears the keys picked up off the desk she goes running down the stairs! 

Riding in the car...

Saturday night was another adventure. We couldn't decide on dinner. I had been trying to convince Chris to try Weber's Root Beer in Tulsa on Brookside. However, he wasn't totally sold on it. So, we agreed to Panera, it's a fave. However, as soon as we got there he decided it didn't sound good so he thought Weber's sounded good. We drove all the way over there to pull into the parking lot and bam... it was closed. apparently they close at 5:00 on Saturday. Are you kidding me? So, we ended up with Elmer's BBQ, which is a good place too, and we've both wanted to go there as well. It was a win-win situation, but I am determined to make it to Weber's before Spring Break is over, even if it's just for a Root Beer float!

Panera, our first almost stop...

And, it was closed...

 

Thank goodness, it was so good. 

We've been to the dog park, ran errands, ate out, cooked in, baked cookies, cleaned house, did laundry, relaxed, and just enjoyed being with each other. It's been the best. I treated myself to a pedicure and manicure today, which was wonderful. Tomorrow I'm having brunch with my mom, and I'm super excited about that. Should be good times. I've got a few things to do for school, and I've become quite technologically organized over the last few days too. I've downloaded google drive and placed all my documents on there, as well as updating my Chrome Folders with all my blogs. Ironically, the minute after I finished doing that I found Feedly, which will replace Google Reader, so I then imported all 87 blogs that I read to it and I LOVE it. It's been fun finding new apps for my iPad that I can use with kids as well as organize myself.... such a good Spring Break. And then, only 8 weeks left..... oh man, it went by so fast! 

Snippits from school...

Ah, I love the school stories. Part of our weekly work includes using their Word Work/Spelling words in sentences. They have to write a sentence using each word, or if they have a large group of words, they only write ten. I have one of my little ones who loves to give Safety Tips, and I couldn't help but crack up when I read his last sentence of the day. He's so darn creative. I love their minds. 

I had a substitute for a few days due to attending a conference recently. While grading the papers I came across some gems. I had to take a picture of this one. I thought it was priceless. "If I was a teacher I would never come to school." I laughed and told them they wouldn't have a choice if they were the teacher. They thought it was funny too!

I recently embarked on a re-labeling night for all my personal books as well as labeling the new books I received from our school book fair. I'm amazed at how much we are supported by our book fairs. I love Scholastic, but I love them even more now. I signed up for Book Clubs and I think I'm going to use them next year with my little ones too. And, have you checked out their new app, Storia? It's awesome. Just go sign up, check it out, and thank me later. Anyhow... back to my story. I let the dogs help me with the labeling and sorting process. They loved it. 

Apparently leveling and labeling can wear a dog out... 

Aw, such good workers. 

He's a Mo Willems fan! 

Personally, she chooses nonfiction pieces of work. 

You win some, you lose some...

  I'm trying my first link up from Stephanie at her blog, Beautiful Mess. She talked about making "Guacamole Salsa." I can't wait to try it!  I'm also linking up with Katie at Keep Calm and Carry On. She did a cute DIY Acrylic Tray. 
 If you know me in real life, you know I'm a fanatic over Pinterest. I'm always pinning, obsessively to say the least. I've reorganized my boards lately and it's the best thing ever. I've sorted the school items out into categories as well as the cooking items. I'm so proud of my Type A OCD skills taking shape with my Pinterest addiction.
Part of the fun is coming up with new ideas to try in the kitchen. I'll tell you about two I've done recently, one was a smashing success and the other one was a miserable attempt at a burger.

First up, the Chicken Alfredo Roll Ups, which were the smashing hit. Easy as pie, cute as a button, and Chris said he loved them and to add them to our list of dinners! I took a shortcut and used a jar of alfredo sauce, but I think I want to make my own sauce next time. I'm just now beginning to love being in the kitchen.

The other one, which apparently considers itself to be the Best Burger Recipe Ever, was a miserable fail in my book. I'm not sure if I didn't use enough meat, or too much barbecue sauce or what. Needless to say, they fell apart on the grill and Chris offered to take me to Panera. Of course I happily obliged! 

So, I'm always pinning new ideas and wanting to try new things. I don't know what I'll do next. The opportunities are endless!

My Valentine...

Happy Valentine's Day 2013
It's our 1st Valentine's Day together!

We had made reservations at the Melting Pot in January so I knew we were going there for dinner. Before dinner we exchanged our gifts at home. It was fun. He surprised me with a new Vintage Pearl necklace that I love. He got me the secret love message heart. It's adorable. It has a secret message on the inside of the heart. He gave me a beautiful necklace for Christmas that was a longer one, made up of charms representing our love. I love it, but it was hard to wear everyday. I wanted something I could wear everyday, and this is perfect. I made him an "Alphabet Book of our Love" that I created off of a Pinterest idea. It was cute and he loved it. He also was super excited about his own copy of Battleship. After we did our little gifts we headed to dinner.

The funniest thing. As I got into the car I noticed something different. The music started playing. Chris's music plays through his iPhone in his car. It's bluetooth. It's always the same music and I recognize most everything. This time it was different. I knew this song. It was Donna Lewis' song, "I Love You Always Forever". I started singing it. As we were pulling out of the garage I looked over at Chris, smiled, and said..."Um, that's funny. This is a new song. Did you plan that or something?"
He just smiled at me and said, "Maybe." It was the cutest thing ever. He had made a playlist for our drive to dinner! Too cute. Too creative. I love him so.

We had been to the Melting Pot one time before, with a special Teacher Discount event. This evening was much different, but totally wonderful. It was a fantastic meal and we loved every bit of it. It was a special time with just the two of us for our First Valentine's Day together. We finished our lovely dinner, headed home and relaxed for the evening.

Happy Valentine's Day, Chris. I love you.

Pre-Valentine Dinner -- It's an iPhone front camera picture...so it's a little blurry.
But, it's us. I think we're cute. 

YUM. 

I heart him. So cute. He accidentally picked out the pink fondue fork for dessert.
I ended up with the black one. I thought it was funny.
His favorite was strawberries.
My favorite were bananas. 

School Valentine's Day...

Most of you know that I teach school. I am a Special Education teacher for upper elementary, er...middle elementary kiddos. I teach 3rd and 4th grade kids this year. I love them. Apparently, they love me. I was showered with love on Valentine's Day. I didn't even expect it, so it was a nice little surprise for me! Here are a few pictures from the day. 

I brought these for my assistant and her sidekick. He loves donuts.
I wanted one, and I thought it would be a special treat for Valentine's Day. 

This was the 4th grade Language Arts Conversation Hearts  love story.
They all had conversation hearts and each  kid had to use one of their hearts in a sentence.
The story built up over time. It was cute.
I hope you can read it. 

Here is some of my loot from my kids.
Chocolate, ring pop, necklace, fresh cookie from home (brought in a tissue), & a coffee mug and stuffed puppy!

Wow! Flowers. I have no idea what kind these are.... but they smelled amazing.
However, the smell was so strong they gave me a headache! :) 

Fantastic Saturday...

We had the best time one Saturday in February. Our math specialist, Mrs. H., has an Annual Mother-Daughter Cupcake Cookie Party around Valentine's Day. I saw the invitation in the Teacher's Lounge earlier in the week and thought it was too cute. I was trying to figure out how I could show up to the party. It sounded too fun. Clearly, I don't have a daughter. I am a daughter, so I thought about my mom. But, I also thought about taking my only niece, Kate. So, I grabbed Kate that morning and my mom met us at the house. 

I can't even begin to do it justice by describing it here. I should have taken better pictures, but I just didn't do a good job with that. Her house was decorated all out for Valentine's Day. Pink, Red, Hearts, and everything you can imagine. She had baked hundreds of cupcakes and cookies. She had made all the icing you could imagine. She had all the decorations you would ever find at Hobby Lobby. There were boxes for the desserts and crafts to decorate the boxes too. It was just too much. We had the BEST time ever. It was a nice slow morning of eating a great little breakfast snack that she had prepared, mingling with school (old) friends and meeting new friends. Kate had a lovely time, my mom had a fabulous time, and I'm dying to go back next year! Here are a few pictures of our adventure. 

Mom, Kate, & Myself 

Kate modeling her cupcake decorating skills with her cupcakes she had already designed!

My mom entertained herself by decorating one of the cupcake boxes. She loved it! <3

I had a hair appointment that afternoon to get my hair chopped off. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I had a few images pinned to my Pinterest board. I was going to a new lady at a new salon and was hoping for the best. Turned out, she was amazing and I loved it! Here I am, the new Emily! I'm such a short hair girl. I don't know why I was growing it out. I was CRAZY to think I could do long hair. This girl needs a bob. 

And, this is me...post haircut. Ah, soooooooo much better.
 I don't know why I thought I would grow it out.
I am just a short hair kind of gal. It's super cute and I LOVE IT! 

Evolution of an Artist

Ah! I'm an artist! 

I had the chance to go to the coolest local place, Pinot's Palette, for a girl's night out for fun! 

It is the greatest thing invented since sliced bread. 

It's a step by step guided tutorial like program that walks you through painting a picture. 

They have a billion designs, and this is the one our girl's night out did that evening. 

We started with a blank canvas and ended with the final product. 

I have to admit....I'm still amazed at myself. 

I was so proud of the work that I showed the process through pictures to all my kiddo's the next day at school. They loved it. They couldn't believe their eyes. And, to be honest...I couldn't hardly either!

It's February...

I can't believe it's February! 

In honor of the month of love, here is a post with my favorite song for my sweet Chris, whom I love more. 

Picture with a print from somewhere in the blog world. I'll do better to bookmark next time.
Banner is from the $1 bin at Target.
Colored with love by yours truly. 

Never knew I could feel like this

Like I've never seen the sky before

Want to vanish inside your kiss

Everyday I love you more and more

Listen to my heart, can you hear it sings

Telling me to give you everything

Seasons may change winter to spring

But I love you until the end of time

Come what may, come what may

I will love you until my dying day

Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place

Suddenly it moves with such a perfect grace

Suddenly my life doesn't seem such a waste

It all revolves around you

And there's no mountain too high no river too wide

Sing out this song and I'll be there by your side

Storm clouds may gather and stars may collide

But I love you until the end of time

Come what may, come what may 

I will love you until my dying day

Oh come what may, come what may 

I will love you 

Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place...

Come what may, come what may 

I will love you until my dying day 

Come What May 

Moulin Rouge Soundtrack 

Wonderful weekend...

Chris and I had a great weekend. It was about two weeks ago when we happened to have a three day weekend for school to celebrate MLK, Jr. That weekend I decided to go in on Monday to do work for the week instead of my regular Sunday. See, since the beginning of the year I had gone in every Sunday to work on school things, paperwork, lesson planning, cleaning up, etc., to get ready for the next week. It became a stressful thing for me. I dreaded Sunday afternoons and it was beginning to depress me.I would honestly cry a little to him before I left for school on Sunday afternoon. That wasn't good. I felt like I didn't have a full weekend. So, that weekend I decided I wouldn't work anymore on weekends (at least at the school...). So, it's my goal to work really hard during the week, staying late or whatnot to get caught up and leave on Friday ready for Monday. I've now had two full weekends together and it's AMAZING! Chris and I've been able to really enjoy two full days together and it's been the most wonderful thing. Seriously, it's the littlest things that make the biggest difference. I feel less rushed on Sunday and I just have more time for me. It's so nice. This weekend I did work a little Saturday night on the computer to get some paperwork done, but it wasn't a big deal because he's on his computer and I'm on mine.... and I like that. We're in the same room at the same time. I'm always perusing blogs and pinterest for classroom ideas..it's my newest obsession/hobby. Anywho...back to this weekend...... 

We enjoyed the outside weather with the pets. If it's nice outside we tend to leave the patio door open for the animals to come and go as they please. They love it. Zoe is in the picture below showing you her acrobatic skills. All three will go out there and sunbathe together. Saturday we ate lunch and ran some typical errands, including showing Chris some of my new favorite pieces at Vintage Pearl, while also eating some yummy FroYo from Orange Leaf! I fixed delicious chicken alfredo with broccoli for dinner and it was a relaxing evening at home.

Zoe loves to play outside. She really loves to scare me by leaning over the edge. 

We love our fro-yo dates. He also entertained my wish to go visit one of my favorite stores, The Vintage Pearl. 

It was her lucky day to go along with us. She loves to take trips!

Sunday was a nice day for us too. We were up and out of here by about 11:30 and headed to the grocery store. I'm trying to cook more in the kitchen each week and determine our favorite meals to put in the rotations. Chris is guy who loves to eat fast food, which I love that he loves and he spoils me that way too, but I do want to learn how to be a better cook at the same time. So we balance it out. I plan some meals and we plan to eat out each week. I made my list and we were out the door to Wal-Mart before noon, along with everyone else today. I should have known...it was the beginning of the month. We finished and grabbed some Arby's on the way home. Speaking of trying to be a good cook...I was going to make Taco Soup for dinner today (in the crock pot). While at the grocery store I asked Chris if we should get dark or light kidney beans and he said neither. I discovered he didn't like beans. After deliberating I realized he really wouldn't like dinner tonight at all....(we ended up getting him Subway!). I was telling him it's such a balance to figure out things that both of us like, cooking for two (that doesn't leave us with a million leftovers), cooking healthy, and cooking on a budget. It's so hard. Anyhow....I went totally off subject. For the record, I still made the Taco Soup and it was delicious... soup for me for lunch for the week!

After we ate lunch we decided to detail my car inside and out! We switched car spots and pulled mine into the garage and gave it the works. We probably spent two hours on it. He did an amazing job. It's as clean as it was the day I drove it off the parking lot. He did such a good job. We worked together, but he did most of the work. He's so darn handy. I love him to pieces. Took it for a drive through the car wash and it's nice and clean! Then we were off to the dog park with the dogs. They had a great time and enjoyed themselves. Met a few new dog friends and ran around until they could hardly stand up anymore. They love the dog park and it's so good for them. We've been home for a little while now. I've had my bowl of Taco Soup, watched some of the Puppy Bowl, and now I'm about ready to relax for the evening and crawl in bed and get ready for my week!

We had a great weekend!

Did you know he was a car detailer in an earlier life? Just kidding. Although, he could make a good living doing it. He does a mighty fine job of it! 

I think the last time my car was this clean was the day I drove it off the lot! 

The canister was full of junk from my car. Yuck.

Confessional Friday...

Well, there is a first time for everything.... let's get confessing! I'm joining Leslie from A Blonde Ambition with her Confessional Friday. 

I confess that I've written a blog before. I had a previous blog but I decided to start this new blog to symbolize the story of my sweet Chris and I. I still have the old one for my own sake, but I don't post to it anymore. I think this will be the one for now.

I confess that I really missed my kids when I was sick this week. I also confess that I'm glad they sort of had a hard time on Wednesday with the substitute. It made it nice returning to the classroom Thursday. They were all so happy to see me. Those hugs were extra special. They were still hugging me today, my second day back.

I confess that I am crazy in love with my dog B'Elanna. She was the best cuddler ever when I was sick this week. She has the biggest brownest eyes. She's a border collie and the most well behaved dog I've ever met. I sure love my Chris, but he brought along a great dog with him too! :)

I confess that I'm no longer Zoe's favorite. She is always wanting to be with Chris. Case in point. See the above picture. She's always wanting to sit on his lap and help him play his computer games. It's okay though. I've got B'Elanna wrapped around my finger!

I confess that my newest favorite thing is photo stream. Chris hooked up my photo stream and streamlined my iphone, ipad, and computer to all by synced together. It's a wonderful thing. I love his technology skills. He's so handy like that!