catch-up

Hey everyone, sorry it has taken me so long to update, but life has been busy. We had Halloweeen with our cool punkins. Spongebob and Frankenstein! The boys really had fun doing this.

Clay and I went camping the weekend of Nov 14th. It was very cold! It got down to 35 degrees at night and only 45 during the day on Saturday with 30 mile an hour winds! Whoo--cold! The weekend before Travis and Tristan went camping and it was cold for them also. Travis actually got pretty sick that next week and still coughs sometimes. Here's me and then Clay camping.

Thanksgiving was great. We had 11 people total for some good eats, smoked turkey, briskit, potatoes, green bean casserole, broccoli casserole, pink salad, macaroni and cheese, corn, leek and potato soup, spinach dip, cheese ball, pecan pie, buttermilk pie, sin cake, chocolate fondue with strawberries, marshmallows, pretzels, all yummy things. We all ate too much and were thankful for family, friends, jobs, and the ability to eat with everyone we love.

Hubby and me outside.

fun weekend and some other happenings

Here are some pics from Cuboree. Clay and I went camping at Camp Wisdom and did lots of fun stuff. First of course was the Rocket space playground. A huge habitrail for kids. Of course Clay wanted to do swinging and flipping, some parents didn't like that idea.....Here's our camp area with Joe. Fun cedar trees to climb in.....

There were lots of totem poles around, this is just one of them......A cool old airplane to play around in...Clay loved jumping off the wing...again some parents didn't like that......he always seems to scare people when he does his jumping thing.....

We had a great time with all the crafts and bb guns and archery. They had a pirate ship with water balls to throw at everyone, a castle with a maze, and a nature center with a 10 foot Burmese python-which was eating two guinea pigs when we went up there :( We had a campfire that the boys did a skit in and then smores--yum!

Here is Tristan at his first orchestra concert. He plays the viola and is really doing well and likes it! He also made the A/B honor roll for the first 6 weeks of school! We are very proud of him and know he can make the good grades.

Here's one of our furry friends that live on our creek. They love to come up and eat the cat food and the bird food. Don't know why, but they like it. Isn't he cute? Ok, have a great week!

Long overdue

Plano Balloon festival pics.........Clay and I rode down on our bikes and got to see a few balloons. These are our favs.
Yes, it has been a while since I last wrote. I have been so busy with work and cub scouts, gymnastics for Clay, training, training and more training for work and scouts. I am usually so tired on Saturdays after grading papers and doing the home thing. There's always something to clean up, wash, vaccuum, feed, sew, all those things a mom does without thinking. Teaching is going pretty good. I've finally learned 155 students names, who cares about grades and who really doesn't, who likes who, and what to do when they are just driving me crazy! It has been a realy learning experience. I have doubted my teaching skills and then been told that I'm the BEST teacher. What do you do?
The boys are doing good in school. Tristan is enjoying 6th grade, loves his Exploratory classes the most (Theater, Spanish and Life Skills), and Orchestra second. He can actually make some good noises with his Viola. Clay loves his teacher. He was a Music teacher before becoming a 2nd grade teacher and brings instruments to class, that's Clay's favorite time. Ok, have a great week, I'll try to update next week.

Anyone want to buy Boy Scout Popcorn? Gotta sell it--let me know if it's your favorite!

My first week of teaching

Wow, my first week of teaching was great! I was kind of stressed because I don't get to be in my own room the first two periods, another teacher is in there 1st period and then I have meetings with my grade level during 2nd, and I didn't think I could get anything done without being in my own room, but I think I've figured it out. I can get things done, but it takes some planning. My feet were killing me by Wednesday, but now they are much better. I've gotta look for some good squishy shoes. I did have a student taken out of my class on Thurs, he was expelled and sent to special programs school, and two more were expelled for a week. It's sad when your students

make the wrong choices.

Yesterday, we went out to a skeet shoot with some family and friends and had a good time watching the shooting and shooting a little. I took some pics of the longhorns and other interesting things there. Beer Belly? Not on this kid.....Shooter extraordinaire....Please push me, please?!

Last post I totally forgot my birds, top is Charlie, a blue fronted Amazon parrot, I have had him(or her) going on 18 years! Wow, that's a long time! Then Whiskey is below, he(or her) is a double yellow head Amazon parrot. He is older than Charlie, and I got them pretty much the same time. They are really loud, but lots of fun. Singing and laughing and crying whenever I do.
Whiskey.....
Ok, have a great week everyone! I'm only going to update once a week, cause I am so tired after teaching all day I go to bed earlier now.....C YA!

my animals

I thought I would post some pics of my animals. It was fun to take interesting pics of them. Two of my cats weren't as photogenic as my oldest one. So, here's Becka Lee our English Mastiff.

Here's our Molly Sue, chihuahua( Mexican cat terrier). Travis calls her that cause she has many cat like behaviors.Here's Rosie, 14 year old tortie(that's a color) kitty. I gave her CPR when she was a kitten. I found her on the street as I was riding my bike home from work(vet's office) and she has stayed with me every since.This is Oddball, he's just a kitty, but his brother is the kitty below with Molly. Quite the difference!Cosmo with Molly. He has such beautiful blue eyes, but kept closing them when I would take his pic.Our guinea pig, Buttercup. Very friendly and squeals with delight over alfalfa hay.Quentin the tarantula, going to my science class.Comet the corn snake, going to my class also. His eyes are blue because he is about to molt.Oscarina the tortoise. She really has a personality. Comes out when you talk to her..Red the Betta. I know original name, but Clay named him. We also have a Pac man frog that is at science class already. Forgot to take a pic of him. We have had just about any pet you could name except a ferret(too stinky for me), so if you have questions, let me know. Have a great week! We all start school tomorrow, so I know we will have a great week!

Some recipes

Here are two recipes that my family just love and there are some of you that have asked for them.
Leek and Potato Soup
1 pound of leeks, 4-5 medium, cleaned and dark green sections removed, chop in half lengthwise and then chop in little slices.
3 TBS butter
big pinch of Kosher salt plus a little more for seasoning
14 oz Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and diced small. I have used fingerling potatoes and it works just fine. A small bag of them works well.
1 qt vegetable broth
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 tsp white pepper
1 TBS chives

Take your butter and melt it in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the leeks and a heavy pinch of salt and sweat them for 5 minutes. Decrease the heat to med-low and cook until the leeks are tender-25 min or so. stir occasionally.
Add the potatoes and the vegetable broth, increase the heat to med-high and bring to boil. Reduce it again to low, cover, and simmer until the potatoes are soft, about 35-45 minutes. Turn off the heat and puree the mixture with either an immersion blender or pour it into a blender and puree it until it is smooth. I don't have an immersion blender so poured it into my blender and it all fits :) Pour it back into the saucepan if you had to pour it out, and stir in the heavy cream, buttermilk and white pepper, taste it and add more seasoning if you want. Sprinkle chives on it or some cheese and serve it, or you can chill it and serve cold. My family likes it hot and sometimes we put a little bacon bits on it, bacon makes everything better:)

Then for dessert you can make Buttermilk PIE
This is a true Southern dish.
1&1/2 cups sugar
2 TBS cornstarch
1/2 cup butter-melted
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
1 unbaked deep dish pie shell

Combine sugar and cornstarch in a large bowl, add buttermilk, butter and vanilla, mix well. Add eddgs one at a time, beating well after each. Pour into pie shell, bake at 425 for 5 minutes, thenreduce temp to 325 and bake for 1& 1/4 hours or until pie test comes clean. I also put foil strips on the crust of the pie shell so they don't burn until the last 20 minutes or so and then take them off. This is Tristan's favorite pie and usually asks for it for his birthday "cake" or whenever we're frying fish or something else way yummy.

Good luck and have fun!

overloaded with info!

Yesterday was fun, but whew, there was a bunch of info to decompress. It was good that I was at this school for subbing for 7 years cause we were divided up into teams and we had to find different rooms for a scavenger hunt. Of course I got on a team with the new PE teacher who is young and very fit! We ran from one side of the school to the other and back and forth! I knew where all the rooms were and which ones we could cut through to get to the next place faster. Very fun and of course we won GOLD! (I love the Olympics!) We got to choose 3 different prizes from all the ones on the table. Very cool! And then today I had lab safety, lab safety, lab safety for science, although it was very informative and I heard from other new teachers that their class was soooooo boring they were doodling and couldn't understand why they were being lectured to when we are told not to lecture to students but to have them up and doing group work! One day and one week more of training. There is more to teaching than just getting up in front of kids and telling them stuff!
My boys are missing their mommy and want me to quit playing blog, so....don't forget to comment and let me know you were here. C YA!

Things I need to do!

Well, tomorrow is my first day at school, all that wonderful new hire info. It will be a long day of info and more info and more info on how to teach and how to get along with everyone and still do my job! So here's a list of things I need to get done before my real first day on the 25th!
1: Finish my "ME" spiral for class.
2: Go through my big giant binders(3) and make sure things are in order again for class.
3: Get some lettering and calendars for my bulletin boards.
4: Go through the files left by the last teacher, who taught for 25 years, and revamp them.
5: Go through all the misc books she left and figure out what to do with them.
6: Go through all the pictures(3 boxes) for bulletin boards she left and figure out what is still good and what is not.
7: Get a small refrigerator for the room. I know, kinda weird, but I don't want to use anyone else's fridge.
8: Get my son's 6th grade schedule and make sure he has the awesome teachers!
9: Finish my "ME" spiral for class!

So, instead of doing these things I am trying to finish some books, play with the boys, do laundry, get Cub Scout schedule going, Vacation Bible Xtreme, take Tristan fishing with his friend that is a girl, keep Clay out of their hair by taking him to the skatepark, do breakfast, lunch and dinner and clean up from those, do more laundry, take care of the animals(that's a great post!), get the boys to the dentist, check my fav blogs and some new ones, and live life until tomorrow! I guess I should try just a little?

Pics

This is a little late due to the AC going out upstairs where I have my computer and it was two days before it was fixed! Can you say "wow, 98 degrees in the house?!" Anyway, here are some pics.....So, we stopped in the state capitol(Austin) and took a look around. It was pretty cool. This is the floor and then the rotunda from the inside.Here's Tristan in the first of many lazy rivers. It was hard to take pics cause they would go by so fast, no, it wasn't very "lazy", and I didn't take a waterproof camera, so I was kinda stuck at how far I could take it. Schlitterbahn is HUGE! And if you are riding a tube thing, there's not much else you can do.

This was our first time to see Reece. She's 4 months old and quite the cutie!Here are Cade-4&1/2, Payton-7 and Clay(the weird face)-7. They had fun playing in the many pools all around.

Clay and Payton finishing a cool boogie board slide coming down about 4 stories high. They wanted to go again and again!

Here's all the kids. This was the first time they were all together. Reece and Tristan, Cade, Clay and Payton. All with Nana...And of course we had to go down to the Alamo(San Antonio) and see that. Then we went over to the Wax Museum....it looks kinda real--is it Tom Hanks? Tristan was trying to steal the box of chocolates!

We had a grand time. If you plan to go to the Schlitterbahn make sure you have two days to do all the rides, there are two parts to it and the West side has more stuff to do, the East side has some cool rides but it takes hours and hours standing in line for the slides, so be prepared! Have fun!

Dentist

We had a great time at the Schlitterbahn! We went on many, many tubing rides, slides and wave pools! We also had a history lesson going and coming back from New Braunfels, more pics and etc later.
Today the boys and I had dentist appointments. We love our dentist, but I can't stand it when they use that gritty stuff to polish your teeth! It feels so gross! I don't mind the machine sound or even the scraping off of huge plaque pieces, but the gritty stuff I could do without! Clay has one cavity-upper tooth, Tristan has two cavities-lower teeth and I have a space between my tooth and an old filling and need a crown on a tooth. So next week before school starts will be full of dentist time. YUCK! I know we need to do it, but who wants to spend time in the dentist chair? You're laid back with a light in your eyes, mouth open, lips getting cracked, trying to remember to move your tongue to the opposite side, but forgetting and thinking "Do they notice your tongue is moving all over", giggling, knowing they can't ask you a question cause you can't talk, thinking "Will they find that piece of beef jerky you lost in your back tooth and can't get it out? Or the popcorn you had last night and wow, here comes a kernal?" Hee, Hee! Ok, back to the grind of a house and two boys. Laundry, laundry, feed the animals that the hubby tried to feed while we were gone, but really didn't, groceries, cleaning(?), play a little.........catch up on blogs!

Wow, a week already!

It has been a week since I wrote anything, not much going on here at the house, but here are a few things that we did do.....
--We made an awesome Leek and Potato soup and I didn't think to take pics until we ate it all. The boys ate it and didn't complain cause it was soup and there wasn't any meat in it. I'll try to remember to take pics next time. If anyone wants the recipe, let me know.
--We did a lot of playing this week. Going on bike rides to the pond/park nearby, going fishing, lego's, lego's, lego's, and we didn't go swimming at all! Amazing! Since we all have rec memberships now it doesn't cost us anything to go to the pools. I take snacks and drinks so the boys are happy.
--I got to finish two books this week, Jodi Picoult and Luanne Rice are really great authors if you like good books.
--I went up to my new classroom and tried to get it organized and put up posters, bones, little things to make it "my" room. The animals will go later, Comet the corn snake, Quentin the Tarantula, and Emmitt the pacman frog. I'm trying to think of something else, but can't think what. Clay went and helped one day and discovered roller chair racing. he loved riding up and down the hallways when there is no one around!
--We head to New Braunfels tomorrow to go to the Schlitterbahn! Woo--Hoo!
So, more things next week, have fun!

A couple things happening...

My friend Krista who lives in Colorado came down to visit her sister and I got to see her! We have been friends since 8th grade! That's a long time, really! It was good to get together and talk. She is such an awesome friend, wife, and mom!

Clay and I went early Sat morning to "Meet the Troops" at DFW airport. It is such an inspiring time. The soldiers come out and all kinds of people clap and say Thank you, Welcome back! There were families there to meet their son/wife/hubby/daughter/dad/mom. It was amazing. Clay was standing at the end of the line and shaking the soldiers hands and one of them stopped and gave him this patch off of his uniform! Wow! I've gotta do some research and figure out what it is for, but it was so neat and awesome! Clay is even more interested in being in the ARMY or MARINES now. I highly recommend this to everyone!

Then we went to the Boy Scout National Museum and it was pretty cool. There was so much info on Boy Scouts and when it started, what you can do,
where you can go, all that good stuff. Clay's favorite
things were the lazer shooting, pinewood derby cars,
and finding the birds. Here he is with a wax figure of Baden-Powell.




Ok, that's it for now, everyone have a wonderful, blessed day!

Bubbles and sisters

Hey everyone! Well, last week my oldest got a late birthday present from my lil sis Chickie. It was a giant bubble maker that my boys really loved.

It doesn't look like much but it makes the most fabulous bubbles! See...they're pretty big!

Anyway, she lives in Ft. lauderdale with her two precious girls, M & E.

Her 38th b-day!

She teaches Yoga to pregnant moms, and she is finally going to use her Doctorate she recieved back in 1999/2000? I can't remember when it was, but she is starting up her practice. She is also sooooo crafty. She makes quilts for little ones, potholders, fairies, crayons, all sorts of things. So here are some pics of her, her girls, and her crafts.

Chickie and M....

E, what a cute smile!

Fairies! yes, they are handmade!

Quilts.....they are so beautiful!

My boys and I, with my mom, took a road trip to see her last summer for a couple days and had so much fun at the ocean. She's my lil sis!

My boys with my mom and M.