Friday Five

Today's Friday Five is all Pinterest inspired.  Thank you summer, and thank you Pinterest!

1.  I loved this idea that I found on Pinterest from Kathleen's blog.  I found fonts I liked, and typed it up and printed it on colored paper that will match the rest of my room!

2.  I have been looking for new ways to organize my classroom this year, as I will have 26 students!  The most that I have ever had, and more than I have had in many years.  Last year I had 19 when all students were in class, but most days I only had 18.  I was looking for different ideas, and found some really cool toolbox ideas.  I couldn't find a toolbox that was going to fit what I wanted, so instead I bought these drawer organizers at Walmart (it was cheaper than Target), and can't wait to put the colored pencils in here.  I hope this will help keep our community supplies a little more organized.  I am going to do the same thing with crayons. 

3.  We have been eating a lot of Pinterest inspired meals while we have been up at m parent's house.  The picture below, even though it doesn't look very good is a delicious chicken dish!  We loved it, and will be trying it again.  Below the chicken is a picture of the biscuits I made to go with it.  I followed the directions in the recipe, but next time I will not cook it nearly as long.  The biscuits were hard when we went to eat them.  I cooked them way too long.

                                      

4.  We also tried some other Pinterest recipes, but I forgot to take pictures of them.  One of our favorites is for a buffalo chicken, that we then turn into sliders.  I made this multiple times for Chelsea, and my mom requested it too!  With the leftovers we made a buffalo chicken mac and cheese, which was also delicious!  We only put blue cheese on half of it though, as Tyler doesn't enjoy blue cheese.  It made up A TON so we have been eating it all week for left overs too.  With a leftover chicken breast from the chicken dish pictured above we made a chicken salad dish.  I wasn't as impressed with this one, so I don't know if we'll make it again.  My piece of advice for that one is to make sure you are going to eat it all in one sitting.  We had saved some to eat later, and by the next day it had turned since it is made up primarily of avocado.

5.  The last thing we found on Pinterest that we experimented with while my family was in town were some drinks.  There were some delicious ones that we will have again, and some that are for sure never going to be poured in our house again.  My favorite was A Summers Dream, and even though the picture didn't look like this it was YUMMY!!  We tried another drink, called Sex in the Driveway, and it was GROSS!!  I even added orange juice to try and make it taste better, and it just wasn't happening.  I almost don't even want to give you the link, because it really wasn't good.  If you are going to make it, you are taking your own risk.  I am advising you to have a summers dream, not sex in the driveway!

Daily Five

1.  We have termites . . . again!!  YUCK!!  This is the third time that the have appeared in our bedroom wall, so instead of calling our same warranty company I decided to finally go with Terminix.  I was so happy with their service, and how prompt they were.  Now granted it is going to cost me a lot more than the warranty I was paying for before, at least I know that they will repair something if there is more damage!!  When I told them what our other company did they couldn't believe we waited so long.  If only I knew more about what people should do to treat termites!

2.  Our athletic banquet was last night.  It was fun to go and see everyone, and even more fun that a couple of us went out for a drink afterwards.  I forget by not going to work how much I miss my friends at work.  I love staying home with my kids, and if I could I know that I would stay home in a heartbeat, but I do miss them!

3.  I reread Lord of the Flies this past week.  I read the book while I was in high school, but as part of our bucket list this year we are reading 24 books.  I have almost reached our goal, but part of it was that we had to read some classics.  We agreed that a classic was anything that an English teacher might make you read.  I forgot how disturbing Lord of the Flies is.  It's crazy what would happen to a group of kids if you left them alone without adults, and what they could do.  I would recommend it, it is a great book.

buy here on Amazon

4.  I have started planning for next year!  I know it seems crazy, but we will be gone for a big chunk of June, and I have a lot to look into for next year.  Plus I will have 26 kids, so I am trying to figure out how I can best accommodate all of them, and still teach everything.  I have started working on my teacher planner first, and have found some that I really like on TPT.  I am too cheap though, and don't want to pay $8 for a document that I'm going to have to edit any ways, so I'm working on creating my own!  Who knows, maybe I'll even set up a TPT store this year!

This looks like a great planner, and where I got a lot of my ideas!

5.  Looking into next year, I have also checked out our new science standards for the state.  They are very different then the ones that we've had for the past five years I've been teaching, so it's time to look for all new material for science too!  It should be a fun year!

Friday Five

1.  My precious baby girl always wants to be held. I love this, but it makes for getting things done quite hard. Brandon was okay sitting in the swing, laying on the boppy, or on the floor. Mrs. Natalie loves laying on mommy. I'm going to have to try and figure out this baby wearing thing.

2.  I finally managed to get my wedding rings back on today!! They aren't as lose as they once were, but they're on!!

3.  My mind has been tossing and turning with ideas for school. I know I missed the TPT sale earlier this week, but I'm going to look through tons this next month, and hopefully they'll run a big summer or back to school sale.

4.  We tried two new Pinterest recipes this week. Both were shrimp recipes, and we probably won't try either one again. The scampi just didn't turn out good enough for how long it took, and the other shrimp was okay.  (I'll look up recipes when I am on the computer and not on my phone.)

5.  I'm excited for my dad to come visit this weekend and for him to be able to spend more time with the kids. Brandon loves his grandpa!!

2013 Bucket List Update

At the end of last year Tyler and I decided that we needed to make a list of things that we wanted to accomplish in 2013!  We knew that if we set these goals out, and held each other accountable, then we would have a better shop at accomplishing them.  Some of them we have done very well at, and some we are failing at.  That's okay though, that is why they are goals.

One of the ones that we are enjoying the most, of course has to do with food!!  We, (I), love pinterest, and finding new ideas, recipes, and things to try.  One of our 2013 goals was to try one new pinterest recipe a month.  Luckily for us, Brandon will eat just about anything, so we have been able to try way more than one a month.  Also, most recipes since I am making them myself I can still eat with this diet, I just have to eat some in moderation.

Check out some of our favorite so far!

French bread pizza

So easy, mac and cheese

Creamy garlic pasta, we added shrimp!

Looking through my pinterest board I just realized I didn't take pictures of all of the recipes that we have tried so far!!  They have all been so yummy!!  If you want to find things that I have already done, and you can see if we liked them or not as you are digging through then check out my pinned achievements board!