mother's day gifts.

The last couple years we've made these for Mother's Day gifts. Just happy little gifts with sweet little notes. 

I tried to do this again this year, but our grass didn't grow. They were pitiful looking little things. I had to come up with a plan B super quick.

Once again... Pinterest to the rescue! I think these were my favorite Mother's Day gifts ever! They were inexpensive, simple and they turned out super cute! (and we had just finished a ladybug unit... perfect timing!)

I bought 13 cent ceramic tiles at Home Depot and a can of spray sealer. The rest was just red and green craft paint (fingerprints for the ladybugs and a small paintbrush for the grass) and a black Sharpie. So easy. I wrote Lovebug for all the boys and let the girls choose between Lovebug and Little Lady.

I also made a couple for my mom and Corey's mom. I didn't do it for my student ones, but on the others (and the ones for Miss Amy) I hot glued a piece of felt to the bottom. Since they're spayed with the sealer, I think they could use them as coasters. (but I'm not 100% on that...)

We will definitely be making these in 1st grade again next year!

last day.

Today was my last day with these crazy little people... (plus one more crazy who left early and didn't get in the picture)

They've been so fun. A perfect little class for my first year at a new school. 

We've had all kinds of fun the last few days. I saw this idea on Pinterest (of course), but can't find an original source. (Here's the pin: http://pinterest.com/pin/127156389451713916/)

I bought my students all a beach ball (96 cents at Wal-Mart, I think), wrote "We've had a BALL in 1st grade" on them and then had the kids all sign them. They loved it. We even managed a bit of crazy time with them afterwards. They had so much fun. 

I also used this same idea from last year...

(Swedish fish)

And we made these for my sweet para, Miss Amy. She's leaving us next year. So sad.

(Just realized I never posted our Mother's Day gifts! They were super cute! Lots of catching up to do!)

I have loved this group of first graders. 

They were so much fun and so sweet. 

But I am so ready for summer. =) 

farmhouse.

Things are happening crazy fast out at the farm! I took these pictures just over a week ago and it already looks so different! So fun and exciting to go out and see all the progress... 

mother's day.

My favorite little people. The little people who made me a momma. 

And one of my most favorite people. The person who taught me how to be a momma.

It was a happy day, spent with people I love the most.
And, of course... a few hours devoted to cows.
Can't forget the darn cows.  =)

circus.

The kids got to experience their first circus a few weeks ago. Lawson started out the evening telling Gretchen how scary clowns are. He's super helpful like that.

We were boring parents and didn't let our kids ride the elephants... or ride the ponies... or buy sparkly wands and light sabers... but we still had a good time.

See all these tigers lined up in a row? They would wheel out one cage at a time and then they all connected together like a tunnel. They would pull out front and back panels and the tigers could just walk through the tunnel to get into the big circus cage. (This will be important to know later...)

Blurry picture, but, um... yeah. That's a tiger, walking around loose in the arena. They were filing back through that tiger tunnel and one of the back panels on a cage didn't get put back into place before they pulled the other one away. So the next tiger just hopped on out.

It was pretty exciting. He walked around the entire arena, then headed out one of the doors to the hallway/concession area. He went 3/4 of the way around the entire building and ended up in a women's restroom. I saw on Facebook that one lady came face to face with him in the restroom. She said it was the scariest and funniest moment of her life! There were some reports about it afterwards that said spectators weren't even aware. Um, no... not even close. We were completely aware of what was happening. Luckily, we could tell when the tiger was caught again, too. 

The magician and his assistant did this changing dresses trick. It was pretty amazing. A lot like this act: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EAKgsNcL4U

Motorcycles scare me to begin with... two of them zipping around in here together was pretty impressive.

The kid balancing on here was maybe 11 years old? That's a round cylinder on the bottom...

I took way too many pictures of these motorcycle guys flying through the air. It was pretty crazy!

The kids still talk about the tiger getting loose... you can watch someone's video of it here: http://youtu.be/5pBo7ofDHss?t=1m44s and Gretchen left saying that clowns are funny and silly. Whew. =)

more farmhouse.

The last few trips out to the house have been my favorite so far. They have the main floor all framed out, so you can actually walk around and see where rooms are, how big everything is and imagine furniture. So far I'm loving it all! Whew. 

The great room (living room, I guess.) and kitchen/breakfast nook are at the back of the house, behind the craft room and dining room. 

This is going to be one of my favorite things about the house, I think. The opening on the right is a big bay window in the breakfast nook. We're planning to have a little bench built in to the window and scoot a table up to it. The opening to the left is going to be a 9 foot section of doors. (Actually only 1 door, the first 3 foot section, closest to the bay window.) They will look like french doors, but the only door will be a sliding door. (Cheaper, and less worry about furniture placement, since the door will slide instead of swinging open.) So basically, this whole wall is going to be windows. I really like windows. =)

Living room (fireplace in the corner), stairs to the left and our bedroom straight ahead. I was standing in the breakfast nook when I took this picture.

Still standing in the breakfast nook, looking at the kitchen and into the dining room.

There is also a mini office area and a full bathroom off the mudroom. Then the mudroom connects to the garage and there is another door that goes out to the deck.

Dining room window, kitchen on the left...

Kids are all in the basement, along with a big family room, full bathroom, a utility room and a big storage/storm shelter room. Most of that is framed out, too, but is harder to get pictures of since it's darker down there.

We met with the plumber and our builder earlier this week. They both called me "easy" at one point and I took it as a compliment. =) We'll see if the cabinet guy feels the same way next week. =)