Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. I love the no pressure to have the right gift or send the perfect card. I love that we just can enjoy each other's company and eat some awesome food. I have hosted Thanksgiving once. I decided it was way too much for me. I will now stick with making some yummy sides and going to my parents and in laws for lunch and dinner. Thanks to blogs and Pinterest, I've found some great recipes that I have tried out over the year and I'm actually taking some for lunch/dinner today. However, I'm also sticking to some family favorites and traditional dishes that we have always had. I'm including a recipe for one of my favorite family traditional dishes that we usually have at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
This is my Aunt Jan's famous, well almost, baked mac and cheese. It's very different from your traditional creamy mac and cheese but it's equally as good.

Aunt Jan's Macaroni and Cheese
1 cup uncooked elbow macaroni
1 egg, beaten
1 large can evaporated milk
12 ounces grated sharp cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Boil macaroni until al dente but do not drain (this is important). Meanwhile, grate cheese. Combine milk and beaten egg and add cooked macaroni. Pour into a 9x13 inch baking dish. Add cheese and mix well. The mixture should be incredibly soupy, if it is not, add water from pasta. Bake for 30 minutes or until slightly brown around the edges. Enjoy!

Well, Well, Well

After a few of my twitter friends and a few emails and even some real life friends begged and pleaded for some new posts, I have finally made room on my crazy busy schedule to blog a bit. So, here you have it, words from the wise!!! Ha!!!

What I have been up to in the past month...apparently taking tons of iPhone pictures. I had 637 pictures to download before I could blog. I will not post them all or maybe I won't post any of them. Many of them are school stuff that I'm sure no one cares to see but it's things that I wanted to remember. Also, there are several Pinterest projects and ideas that I took screen shots of because that app dislikes me...alot! If I take a screen shot, I can easily go back to it without having to fight that app to work. Anyone else have this problem?

Other than that, I've just been working. Working at school, working at home and working on all kinds of junk. I've been told I have a hobby in every room of the house! Which unfortunately is a little bit true.

I plan to do a little more blogging. I haven't blogged much because I don't bring my laptop home from work very much anymore because it's on it's last leg. It makes a horrible noise and I've been told to back it up because it may go out at any time. Awesome!

So, I'm hoping to blog as much as I can from my iPad and we shall see how well that works! Thanks for sticking around through my many weeks of no words!

Christmas Time Is Here...

Okay well not quite yet but almost! Christmas decor is out at many stores. I think Hobby Lobby had their items out in July! I went to Hallmark recently to pick up a few things and saw these...

They are a wireless Peanuts band. Each character will be released at different times and each plays a different instrument and 2 different songs which means you get a total of 8 songs. How it works is, you press a button on one character and it will begin playing and then the others chime in. It is so cute! I should have taken a video of the whole band. I have my first character and am anxiously awaiting the rest. I have my calendar marked for the premiere dates so I can go pick mine up! I love Christmas time!

Happy 32nd

Well it's official. I am now 32. My birthday weekend started off nicely. At school on Friday I got several nice gifts from my students including 2 beautiful flower arrangements. Friday night we went to T's parents house and had dinner and cake. I also opened up gifts, including the one that was in this bag.

I ended up with a Keurig from the in laws which I am so thankful for. I have already used the heck out of that thing!
Okay, I got several tweets about what was in the bag. I opened the bag and inside was a box then a another bag and this was the beauty inside all of that!

I am very happy about having a new handbag and can't wait to pair it with some great fall outfits I've been pinning!
So, Saturday morning, my actual birthday, I got up and got ready to take this little girl to the vet for her weekly shot.

Then we went to my mom's and had lunch out with her and ran a few errands. I was actually suffering from a horrible headache so we headed back home so I could nap. I ended up napping for almost 3 hours! I did finally wake up in time to go and grab some dinner at a local Italian spot. I had the manicotti and it was so good! Afterwards we made a trip to Home Depot so I could get some hooks for a project at school. We made it back home to catch the last few innings of the baseball game! I got the best gift ever...the Rangers are headed to the World Series for the second year in a row!!!! I'm totally thinking they are gonna win it all this year! It's a great time to be a sports fan in Dallas, well except for the Cowboys!

5 Senses- Teacher's Post

So, this post is for my teacher friends. Recently, our Kindergartners participated in a culminating activity for 5 senses. This day is filled with various stations that the children can participate in. We block off the library and the hallway and recruit parent volunteers to run the stations. This day is the brain child of our team leader.
I can't remember all of the stations but a few were:
tongue tasting- students tasted salty, sweet, bitter and sour items
salt/sugar tasting
playdough- we used koolaid scented playdough
extract smells- we used different extracts and the students had to identify them
texture collage- various items pasted on a sheet of construction paper
sidewalk paint- made from cornstarch
colorblindness testing- done on the computer
walk the line- use binoculars to walk a tape line
koolaid painting- koolaid and elmers glue
glurch- elmers glue and liquid starch
sound shakers- film canisters filled with different items and students have to match the sounds
listening bingo
make a kazoo using toilet paper tubes
tasting white foods
smelling vegetables
smelling fruits
hide and seek with items on a tray
sight shoe boxes
tin can telephones
mystery bags

If you want details on these activities, feel free to email me.

Happy Birthday Big Brother!

Happy Birthday to my big brother!

We have had our ups and downs. We have seen each other through good times and rough ones too. We have had times where we were the best of friends and others when we couldn't be in the same room together. However, we have gotten through it all together and I want you to know that you are one of my best friends and I hope today is a fantastic day for you!
Just a note, my brother despises the camera! These are the most recent pictures I have of us together- and they are almost 7 years old! Yikes! We have both changed a lot since these pictures!

Top Ten Tuesday

Today's Top Ten is all over the place. I can't think straight...it could be the 20 kindergartners that have taken over my life the past four weeks! I have thought about lots of things so here it is...the top ten things on my mind!

1.School- I live there so it should be on my mind.
2. Dinner- I am trying to come up with new things to cook, especially in the crock pot. I love coming home to dinner already made.
3. Shopping- my birthday is coming up next month so I'm creating my list.
4. Working out- I used to work out with a neighbor but that went downhill so now I'm trying to find something to keep me motivated.
5. Housework- I need a housekeeper...the end.
6. Laundry- does this ever end? I love the 20 seconds a day when ALL of the laundry is done!
7. Christmas- I went to Hobby Lobby in July and they had their Christmas stuff out. I may have bought a little something :)
8. The State Fair- I love the fair. We get an entire school day off just to attend along with a free ticket! Hello corny dogs and fried snickers- see why I need to workout!
9. Sewing- I have several friends who have asked me to work on some projects for them and I just need to sit down and do it.
10. Friends and Fun- I need a day to hang out with my friends and do some of the things on this list. I miss my friends!