What a cutie!!!

I received a text message from my brother yesterday. Shocker, I know. But it said, "Claire wanted me to send this ASAP."

How precious is that?!?!?! I just wanted to jump through the phone and squeeze her to pieces! It also prompted me to rummage through facebook photo albums and get pictures of her ready to print off at Walgreens so that I will have them to post all over my house since she is so dang cute!

Here are a few of my favorites that I pulled off....

Apparently, this was her other Halloween costume. Girl is already changing her mind left and right about what to wear. :)

Catch-Up (per Pa's request)

Several days have run together in this busy week. Tuesday evening, I made these for all of my teacher friends. It isn't much but it our way of showing we support our co-worker during this difficult time.

Day 45 was Red Ribbon Day. Here I am in all my red. Yes, I know the two reds do not match.

That day after school, I went to my friend Jade's house to make some of these. If you want to buy one, hit me up. We make Pete with or without a bow. Jade is into the bow making business and can make much more!






This is my snazzy jogging suit jacket to "Team Up Against Drugs" in. I was sporting my Oklahoma State shirt under that hideous thing! :)

Unfortunately, my class picture disappeared from my camera! So, I have no pictures in my borrowed Crayola costume. :( Considering 5 year olds wearing their costumes all day, we had a pretty good day! The party went well and I am considering always having butcher paper down on the tables for the kids to draw on. They loved it and were content drawing away!

These are from the school Fall Carnival. We have an awesome dad at school that painted these!

LeFlore and I in the circus

Hubby and I

Sunday afternoon, we carved our pumpkins before the trick or treaters showed up. Here we are working diligently.

The finished products with our little cheerleader. Tobie said, "The ladybug costume is really cute, but not as easy to maneuver and chase away the trick-or-treaters. Can I just wear my OSU gear?" So, of course, we let her!

Happy Halloween!!!!

Day 44

First set of report cards sent home. Only three more left!

Today was an interesting day. First off, I couldn’t help but feel helpless for my co-worker but what really can you do besides pray? I cannot imagine how it would feel to have a trooper pick you up at your job and take you to see your spouse. I feel truly thankful for the men and women who put their lives on the line daily so that I can be safe. This story was all over Tulsa news. When I first heard about it, I looked it up online. Then, I made the mistake of reading people’s ignorant comments. Yes, you have freedom of speech but you do not have freedom of unsympathetic stupidity in an unfathomable situation. This man was a husband, dad, friend, son, etc. An online news forum is not the place to leave your speculation of what happened or why it happened. Who cares why or how it happened?

Needless to say, Captain Green passed away about 24 hours after the accident. The Lord had bigger and better plans for him. I pray for peace and understanding for his family, friends and work family.

On to a lighter, more humorous story….

Two boys came back from the bathroom saying a third boy was peeking into the stall while others were in there. When boy #3 came into the room boy #1 and #2 made sure to let me know. I informed that I would deal with it. In the meantime, boy #3 apologizes to boy #1. He responds with, “That just won’t cut it.” I laughed really hard in my head, thinking he must have heard that somewhere before.

Later, boy #3 cuts the handle on one of my expensive $1 baskets. When I asked him why, I got a variety of answers…..

“My body just made me do it.”

“Because my papa. I just like him.”

“Because I really like your shirt.” At that point I had heard enough so I said, “You cut my basket because you like my shirt???” “Yes.” “What if I said, ‘I really like your shirt, I’m going to cut your hair.’” He got a really scared look on his face and said, “No.” in a really scared tone of voice.
I never got a clear answer. We’ll see what his mom has to say about this.

As I am typing this I remembered that I, again, did not take pictures of pajama day. Tomorrow is red day, maybe I will remember. Mark day 44 off. I am off to paint my nails red.

Day 43

Fall break was lovely but made a regular Monday seem so long....

The kids were pretty tame today. We kicked off Red Ribbon Week with "Round Up Against Drugs" day. Here is our door decoration....

When I was first telling the kids about Red Ribbon and why we have it, I asked for suggestions on a door decoration. I got: skeletons, black cats, haunted house! So, there we have it. They were allowed to draw any scary thing.

Today, when we signed our pledge to be drug free I heard some good stories about home. "My dad doesn't smoke much cause mom smokes all the cigarettes so he doesn't have any left. Then he has a beer." Or, "My grandma smokes and drinks all day long." No worries parents, I only believe half of what they tell me!

Please pray for a co-worker's husband and their family. He was in an accident today in Sapulpa. This summer, I saw what prayer can do for a hairy situation and have faith that things will work out.

I am off to get my PJ's ready for tomorrow! I love Red Ribbon Week and all the dress up days! I told our counselor we should extend this for a while since we have seen former students around the school smoking. Obviously, we need to make more of an impression on these kids and get to wear our PJ's while we do it! :)

How could I have forgotten????

On Tuesday, a visitor came to my classroom.

This is Herman. You can probably tell by the shade of red my face is that I was ready give him back. But it was pretty cool! How many times in life do you get to hold an alligator???

This is the look on my kids faces when Herman came out of his ice chest.

They each got a chance to hold him, pet him or just take a picture with him. They were pretty excited!!

Decisions, decisions...

Tobie has a big decision to make. Thanks to her Grandpa Oltmanns for going to pick up her Grandpa Snow some OSU gear, we found another costume (which could also be gameday attire).

OSU cheerleader or ladybug????

Fall Breakin'

Teacher meetings on Wednesday were stupid. I don’t know too much about our new math series but I feel like I knew more than the “fruity” guy that presented.
That afternoon I went thrift store shopping with one of my teacher friends. We were on the hunt for cowboy boots since next week is Red Ribbon Week. We are having western day on Monday so what is better than cowboy boots? We didn’t find any but we did find matching wind suit jackets, shoulder pads included. Mine is turquoise and hers is pink. I am sure there will be pictures to follow.

Unfortunately, I went to another teacher meeting today. You see, when I looked at our school calendar I thought that Wednesday and Thursday were professional development days. When I got a flyer to go to OECTA (Oklahoma Early Childhood Teachers Association), I thought, “I would rather go to that than something stupid at my school.” So I paid my $35 and signed myself up. I found out on Tuesday that Thursday was not a professional development day but since I paid with my own money and my Benji from high school was going to be there, I got myself out of bed and went.

As the garage door is opening and I walk out of my house into the garage, I notice a red car parked behind my driveway and think to myself, “There’s a car parked behind my driveway again. Don’t back into it.” Two minutes later, my PaL comes out in me and I bump into the car. If you know my Pa, you know he has a tendency to back into parked objects. The most annoying thing, besides someone rudely parking directly behind my driveway, is that I saw the stupid thing and thought, “There’s a car parked behind my driveway again. Don’t back into it.” Needless to say, it was not the kind of start I really wanted to my Fall Break. Luckily, there was little to no damage done. I think a Magic Eraser or a buffing by Hubby can fix the mark on both cars.

OECTA was good though. The key speaker had some good ideas. The first presenter sucked. I could have read all of her information in a book I already own. The second one, I got a lot of good ideas from and have already stopped at Dollar Tree to implement some of those ideas. The third one was very informative too. Just maybe, I will put something different in my sensory table now that I have 70 ideas!

When that was finished, I stopped by another thrift store in hopes of finding some cowboy boots. No luck… in my size. I did find Tobie a Halloween costume! She will be a ladybug this year.

I heard from Daddy-O that puppy’s name will be Petey, as in Pistol Pete. So, welcome to the family Petey!

Tomorrow, maybe, we head to Stillwater for a weekend of homecoming festivities. For those of you who don’t know, Hubby likes to think he is a homecoming king along with his two friends. We will just relive the glory days now...…

If you know what is good for yourself, you won't ask him, Cody or Coleman about it. ;)

Here’s to staying up late tonight and sleeping in tomorrow!!!