Happy Birthday Cara! My California Girl!



Me and my ADORABLE god-daughter :)




Cara and Annie, Brunch at the club, Easter 2010




Happy Birthday!




Angels - Yankee Game  Cami, Cara, Ry, Jack, Annie and Danny

Wish we were together again this year celebrating!!!  Hope you have a great day, miss you all so much!! Love you!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

This years Leprechaun Trap.



2011




2010 trap, actually a little lame now that I see it again.




This trap we had for years, until the leprechaun destroyed it 2 years ago.

 Hope you all had a wonderful St. Paddy's Day!  It kind of crept up on me, I didn't even put out the decorations this year and John and I didn't realize it until today.  I just have too much on my mind to think about the fun little stuff that I should be thinking about.  I just hope poor sweet Danny does not get jipped.  Every year, John builds a "Leprechaun Trap"  they are always quite elaborate, well yesterday around 3 he realized we haven't built one this year yet.  So he rushed off to Home Depot to get some wood after work to build this thing, Danny thought it was great, but I'd like to compare it to years past....although last year was pretty lame too, lol.  Anyway, the boys enjoyed green bagels, green rice krispie treats, shamrock cookies and grapes for lunch.  One of my students came in this morning and said she had green milk, I wish I had thought of that.  I hope they thought it was a nice day.  Speaking of a nice day, my principal is the sweetest guy, he made us all breakfast this morning, and I mean breakfast!  He cooked bacon and eggs in the cafeteria and sent us down to another room where it was totally decked out in green, we had green bagels, fruit salad, coffee and juice.  The moral at my school is so great, I love it there and ya know it all starts at the top.  What a good guy!  Hope you all had a great day too, TGI almost F!

Major randomness......

Annie you have got to make this......YUMMY! 
This was my day.......

• Laundry, laundry and more laundry.  Start the major overhaul of the basement.
• Danny basketball 12:30-1:30, Danny invites his little buddy to go to the pottery place
• Saw someone at the game who told me he is convinced MY school is going to close because of the budget cuts...which put me in a great mood....b/c I don't think that is going to happen at all.  That is a consideration if the town council votes to go lower than the first selectman's suggestion...so it will never happen..right?  I better be right.
• After the game we race over to Hands on Pottery to paint the platters and bowls for the 1st and 4th grade projects
• I haven't been to a pottery place in a million yrs, Danny and his buddy picked some little guys to paint that I thought were $1 each, they have 9 altogether, then they ask to paint treasure chests, so I say ok, because I still have to work on the bowls and platters.  In the meantime, poor Jack came with me too, because he was bored and I thought I'd only be there for an hour.  Finally, 2 hours later I'm done, I want to get out of there, the lady is wrapping up my stuff, I'm telling her what paints I need to bring to school to have the kids paint their little fingerprints with...blah,blah,blah.....CA-CHING I almost died with Danny and his little buddy's bill, $67!  WHAT  was I thinking?  Most expensive playdate EVER! Not to mention, the bill for the school projects was $275.
• Drive to get Colony Pizza for Jack who was a saint today,  I'm sure he was bored out of his mind.  Anner next time you're home, you have to try it out. 
• Come home to find my basement transformed, yay! into our family room.  John is the best!
• Leave to go back out to Homegoods to find a shower gift for my cousins fiance whose shower is tomorrow.  Love the platter I bought for her, hope she does too!  It's simple and white and not heavy
• Get gross McDonalds for Danny, sorry if you like mickey dee's I just can't do it anymore, have to be starving
• Cut John's hair
• Blog but I keep looking at the clock because we want to go to 9am mass tomorrow which will really be like 8am mass so I better go to bed or I will never get up in time, nighty, night!!

St. Paddy's Day........

We've read several St. Paddy's Day books this week, but this is the only craft, if that's what you want to call it that we've been able to do.  I have been assessing out the you know what.  Report cards go home on the 25th.  Plus.....I am chairing our adult night out fundraiser at my little guys school, it's a Murder Mystery/Art Auction.   I can't wait for it, I always wanted to go to a murder mystery show.  We're using Murder Mystery Inc, I just hope the show they put on is entertaining.  The art auction part is what is putting me over the edge a little.  I decided to do it a little different this year and have theme art projects per grade level.  So all the first grade classes are doing platters, the kindergarten classes have painted on canvas etc.  But one mom is in charge of each grade level. And because I felt a little bad about asking people to do this, I'm getting a lot of their supplies, not to mention I'm doing the first grade projects.  I ran this about 4 years ago and we had the room mom's do the projects and it caused a lot of tension and anxiety.  Now I'm the one with tension and anxiety, ha!  And.....today I found out it is pink slip time once again -36 of us will be getting them.  So.... probably for the next few months I might be b*tching and moaning about my job :(  sorry.  Anyway, so glad it's Friday, this was a long week.  Happy Weekend people!

Helloooo....Eric Carle

I know- pretty random considering tomorrow it's going to be all things Dr. Seuss.  But the board of ed took our February vacation away about 3 weeks ago, leaving very little time for parents and teachers to change their plans, so I didn't want to teach anything really knew to the kids. I had 13 most of the week. I decided to do a mini author study on Eric Carle, I love his illustrations!  Throughout the week, we read
 and a few others when we had a few extra minutes.  The kids loved them, and to my surprise many had never read A House for Hermit Crab and The Grouchy Ladybug, so it was great, we could really get into predicting what the stories were about, the problem and solutions, character traits etc.  Whenever I teach a unit I have the kids make these little folders to put all their papers and projects relating to whatever subject we're covering.  See below:

Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?

The Grouchy Ladybug

A House For Hermit Crab

Retelling The Very Hungry Caterpillar

I love these the most, I think they came out great!

It was fun, and artistically they did a great job.  I love how my little guys are really getting into details now.  In other news,  we had an action packed weekend.  John and I, ok mostly John is painting almost every room in the house.  I do the trim here and there.  We both hate painting with a passion, but it needs to be done.  To get us through we keep thinking of the end result.  When we moved in to this house almost 7 years ago, it was sparkling, the gal who we bought the house from was very crafty and LOVED to paint and wallpaper.  We had basically the same taste, so we didn't have much to do, but now it's getting all worn, everything seems to be breaking at once, ya know it's time.  I also decided to go back to zumba.  I love it, but I get pretty lazy in the winter and since summer is around the corner, it's time to go back.  My junk food has gotten the best of me.  Ha!  Anyway, Jack had 2 basketball games, which I am praying is coming to an end this Thursday.  I know that's kinda mean but just like the snow, we are done with bball.  He also had football on Sunday morning, they won, woo hooo and he had 2 td's, he played great!  I was one proud mama!  Ryan and Danny really had no activities and were busy at friends houses. And before you knew it, the weekend was over!  I've spent the last 2 days getting my room ready for tomorrow and the big Dr. Seuss bash! That's all for now, have a great night!

How cute is this.......

If you're into Dr. Seuss, check these ADORABLE cookies, http://www.mypapercrane.com/blog/?p=1911.  And, totally random but..... have you heard of Razkids?  Our district bought it for all the schools this year, it's kind of like webkins only you read books.  My school had it last year so I was very familiar with it.  I added Danny to my k class list last year but he wasn't that into it.  His teacher went on with them today at school and what a difference a year makes.  He just spent the last hour listening, reading and taking comprehension quizzes trying to add up points so he could go to "raz rockets" to buy things for his rocket.  It's really an awesome reading tool.  Check it out, maybe your school may want to invest in it, I totally recommend it.  Well, it's getting late, have a good night, tomorrow is F-R-I-D-A-Y!

Dr. Seuss and other random stuff...

What we're doing for our Dr. Seuss party next week.....
On Tuesday I am going to read after we discuss Dr. Seuss, the kids will make Cat in the Hat headbands.  I have red templates all set up, the kids need to cut them out, add white strips and glue onto red poster board to make the headband.  I will save these in our room for our party the next day.  The kids are set up in groups of 4-5.  We will have 4 centers set up and will rotate every 20 minutes.
After listening to part of The first group will go to snack and eat green(lime) jello egg shaped jigglers along with alphabet cookies and juice.  I have a student who is allergic to almost everything and this is what she can have.  I would love to eat green eggs and ham though, maybe next year!
The next group will listen to part of  after they will fish for rhyming words from a blow up pool.  I bought these at Michael's and wrote words from the word families we have gone over so far.  After they pick up a fish, they will write what is says on a cute little worksheet and write a rhyming word in the fish next to it.  If I knew how to download I would, I need to figure that out :(  sorry.
Group 3 will listen to part of .  We have a button maker at school and we ordered Dr. Seuss buttons that say I Love to Read!  that the kids will color and make into buttons.

Group 4 will listen to part of  and make these adorable Cat in the Hat pictures with different color hats and bow ties that the children will choose.  They will then cut up the sentence "The hat on my cat is ____." and put it back in order and add a color word.  Danny came to school with me today and he made an example:
We're only reading part of each book because of timing issues but Dr. Seuss is my author of the month and I will read those during March.  I thought it would be fun to have a mystery reader throughout March as well, I know the kids will get a kick out of guessing whose mom or dad or grandparent is coming in to read to our class.
In other news, we all went skiing on Friday night and had a blast. I haven't skied in probably 17 years and I loved it. Skiing is like riding a bike, once you get going again it's a piece of cake. All 3 kids made it look so easy. Ryan and John had gone just a couple of weeks ago and Ry picked it up right away, so I didn't really see him the whole night. I felt a little sorry for Jack, it was his first time and all of his friends have been going for years, so he kinda just hung out with me and John. Something a 14 year really wants to do...NOT!  His buds were going on black diamonds and he was stuck with us :( Maybe next time he goes, he'll have more confidence and try the bigger hills. Danny was awesome, he looked so cute skiing down the bunny hill, so serious too, it was so funny. Unfortunately, it started to thunder and lightning which freaked him out so we called is a day, but he hasn't stopped talking about it since. The rest of the weekend was filled with basketball games and YAY!......football. Jack is playing in a winter indoor league and the jamboree was on Sunday, our real games start this Sunday coming up. Woo Hoo!  I love watching him play. And today was back to school and back to reality.




Danny riding up whatever this is called, sort of like an escalator.  Pretty cool.



Jack and Danny.



Even when he fell, he was all smiles!