Welcome to my Class!

Whew...we made it through day 2 of school! Yesterday was our first day of school...yea...and boy was I tired when I got home!! I was really ready to get back into a routine. Since this is the first week of school, I thought I'd show you where I spend my days! So...Welcome to my classroom (2nd grade)!

This is my carpet area/classroom library/calendar area! ....we spend lots of time on that bright carpet!

Just a view from the back corner!


These are the charts I use for my stations for our guided reading block...I LOVE these charts! (I've had them for 8 years now...made them my first year of teaching!)

Love this too...my word wall (The letters of the alphabet are on each of the colored stars.) I write right on the cabinets with dry erase markers and it comes right off with a Clorox wipe!!! Love it! The yellow stars are our sticker charts!

Part of my computer area....

Our work wall!

These came STRAIT from "George and Clay Walker"...AKA my mom! She is so sweet and sends me flowers every year on the first day of school!!!! Thanks mom, they made my day!

I am now off to make an enchilada casserole for dinner...mmmmmm....Have a good rest of the week!

Banana Poppy-Seed Muffins

I get so sick of cereal in the mornings and I always seem to forget about our bananas and before I know it, they are way over ripe! So....I don't throw them out, I make yummy muffins!

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees

Mash 2 very ripe bananas.

In a large bowl....

Mix together: 1 egg

1/2 C sugar

1/4 C vegetable oil

Add and Mix: 1/2 C milk

2 teaspoons of poppy seeds

the mashed banana

In a small bowl mix together the following...

1 1/2 C flour

2 teaspoons of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon of baking soda

Add the flour mixture all at once to the liquid mixture. Stir just until the dry ingredients are moistened. (The batter should look lumpy.)

Pour the batter into a 12 cup cupcake tin that has been greased or sprayed with "Pam."

Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean!

What's for breakfast??? Muffins and some fresh fruit!...and so easy! yummmyyyy!

Busy, Busy!

Well, it's that time again! Summer is gone..over...poof!!! Ahhh, so sad! I went back to school today, the kids come next Monday, so it is also an exciting time as well. Time to hit the floor running, things are going to get busy and crazy fast now!

I officially feel O-L-D...my mom spent the weekend with me (hubby had a show in Ft. Worth, so she came so we could have some good ol' girl time!) and I ran into a parent of a former student...y'all this child is now a SOPHOMORE in high school (I had him when he was in 3rd grade!)!!!! That means I am now OLD.... (I guess at least he is not graduating from college yet like some of the babies I used to babysit!) have I really already been teaching for that long???? It's bad enough that I'm getting ready to hit the big 3-0...oh man, where does the time go?!

Hopefully later this week I'll have time to post a few more recipes...yea!!!!

Show Us Your Life: Riviera Maya

It's that time again! Kelly is doing "Favorite Vacation Spots" this week for Show Us Your Life! We are not exactly world travelers, but we've done the Vegas and a road trip here and there thing. We prefer anything tropical when it comes to vacationing. Our FAVORITE vacation spot by far is still the Riviera Maya, Mexico. We went for our honeymoon and have been ready to go back since we left! We stayed at the El Dorado Royale and LOVED everything about it...the food, the views the entertainment....ahhhhh, I'm ready to get on a plane!

We loved the grounds at the resort!

The beach is beautiful...the water is crystal clear....

Now, if you visit my blog, you know how much I LOVE food! I love to bake, cook, eat...yup, the food there was fabulous! We ordered these nachos every night we were there! We loved them that much!

This was my favorite lunch while we were there...grilled beef tenderloin pita....YUMMO!

Other than snorkeling, we also went on another excursion this is a giant cenote, which is basically a HUGE sink hole! It was beautiful! Those are roots that you see hanging down from above! It really was breath-taking, the walk down to it, so neat!

After visiting the cenote, we went to Chichen-itza, one of the Mayan Ruin sites. It was really amazing too. This pyramid was used as a calendar, each of the steps on the four sides plus a platform total 365!

This is just one of our favorite pictures that I had to include! :-) Thanks for stopping by! We highly recommend the El Dorado!

Where does the time go?

I can't believe I'm now in the last two days of my summer vacation! Where did the time go? It seemed like the summer was never going to end just a month ago and now BAM! It's gone come Monday! I just about have my room together and I have the first two weeks of lesson plans done!!!! At least next week, I'll have plenty of time to do the details of running copies, and writing my new "babies" names on stars for the hallway, my leader tags, popsicle sticks, name plates and tags and clothes pins! Whew, then it will be time to meet my new little ones and their families! Oh how I love the time off, but I am kind of ready to get back into a routine.

I've been spending this week being lazy and doing laundry and other odds and ends around the house. Tuesday, I got to have lunch with my best friend from high school, Leslie. We had so much fun shopping around town, visiting and doing lunch. We haven't been able to get together in forever it seems like and we finally found a day that would work. Yesterday, I went to the outlet mall and did some shopping...Banana Republic was my best friend yesterday! Gotta love a good sale!

STRAIT to Houston!

This weekend we headed STRAIT to Houston for the George STRAIT concert! My mom got our whole family tickets as a retirement gift to herself....woo, hooo!!!!! The concert was awesome! There were a TON of people there, sold out and we did not see too many empty seats!

My brother, Eric and sister in law, Heather

My mom and dad

Me and mom

First up was Julianne Hough from Dancing with The Stars. I loved her on that show! She is SO pretty! She preformed really good, but we didn't know too many of her songs.

After her, came Blake Shelton, he really puts on a good show, he was actually pretty funny too! He has some really good songs out too!

Then came Sugarland! They were AWESOME! She has such a strong voice, even though she is having voice problems right now, you'd never know it! They are so energetic and entertaining...I wouldn't mind seeing them again!

And then.....

came GEORGE!!!!! I don't care how old he is, he's still one good looking cowboy!!

The rear view! I really think he turned around every now and then just to see how loud the crowd would scream!...look at all those people! We took a ton of pics, so these are just a few of our favorite! ....what's your favorite George Strait song? Thanks mom and dad for the tickets, we had a great time!

Show Us Your Life: Reception

I'm participating again in Kelly's "Show Us Your Life," this week we are continuing with the wedding theme and we're now on to the reception! I am oh so excited!

After saying "I DO," we took some pictures and headed to our reception...

I wasn't excited or anything!!!
Our reception was held at an old, restored opera house, Seekatz Opera House!

My brother, mom and dad. Dinner was catered by one of our favorite restaurants. We had pork tenderloin, a mashed potato bar, salad and rolls....mmmm..... after dinner we had dancing that started with The Grand March.

Our huge wedding party!

Our centerpieces, I love how they turned out! We had these on some of our tables and the others we had these really pretty glass urns with a candle in them.

In addition to the traditional bouquet and garter toss, we also did a candy toss and a mini bouquet toss for the kids that attended our wedding! We wanted to give them something fun and different!

Hubby's friends from back home...

My cake...I love how it turned out!

We love to tube, so C wanted to have a tubing cake somehow, so this is what our cake lady came up with!

What's a wedding without the "YMCA??" Our DJ had all of the head pieces for the song...we had a little fun with it!

Since this has been the never ending post...you can go HERE to see a few of our honeymoon pictures(some are repeats of wedding pics, but that's ok!) We went to the Riviera Maya, Mexico and stayed at the El Dorado Royale and LOVED it! We took like 400 pictures on that trip!
Thanks for stopping by and visiting our blog! Have a great weekend!

Memory Lane

I was looking at some old pictures on my computer and decided to do a memory post today! I LOVE pictures. Here are a few that I came across...oh how time flies!

This was taken at a 25 year reunion for our high school dance team! This is Leslie and Kelly (Kelly and I have actually known each other since 4th grade!).

I love this picture! It was taken at our other friend Kelly's wedding, we all danced together through high school. I wish we all lived closer! (Leslie, me and Kelly J.)

Me with my best friend Corby and my other friend Lori. Corby was one of my college roomies and Lori was my roomate after college for a while.

Corby and me at her wedding!

Lori, her hubby Kyle and me at Corby's wedding.

Mmmm...love this place, great views and great food...a perfect place to go with great friends! My friend Amy is on the left of me with her friend, next to my hubby are our good friends Morgan and Lindsay.

A trip one summer to Port A. Candice, hubby's older sister, me and my hubby and our friends Weston and Paula. Hubby and Weston lived together for a while in college.

I'm off to go cut out centers for school! It's getting close and summer will be gone in just a few weeks!