Oh what a life: Back and better and long winded

OK, I'm cheered up...it's the weekend! :-)

Made scrambled eggs with mushrooms and pepperoni and cheese for breakfast...yum! Kendall slept in until 7:30...go baby girl!

Got my organic onesie I won from http://www.zoeandsprout.com/ It says "My stroller is a hybrid". I'll have to post a pic of her wearing it. The site is pretty cool, and I have a code for 20% off if you want to order anything, let me know!

I've been cooking a lot more lately. We got in a bad (and expensive) habit of not planning our dinners very well, and then having to go pick something up. I've been making meal lists for the past 3 weeks and doing better. We haven't eaten out in awhile...actually can't remember the last time we did. I make the meal list, Joe does the shopping, sounds good! I've been wanting to try a new recipe a week, as well as eat our standby favorites: spaghetti with meatballs, tacos, etc.

We've had new recipes: lasagna soup (a hit), mac-n-jack salad (pasta salad with pepper jack cheese...it was OK), mushroom egg souffle (needed more zip, chiles, maybe? But Spence dug it!), and what else...hmmm...can't remember. I've been getting recipes from the pre-school cookbook. You know those are pretty easy and kid friendly. I've also put two mom and kid friendly cookbooks on my library hold, so I'll be sure to post reviews.

So excited that it is November...Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming....love these times of the year! Plus, lots of school vacations! My little hitter was still out yesterday. And now another student is gone after his mom made a threat to our office manager. Crazy...I actually work at a good school, not sure where these drama kids are coming from! He actually isn't in the school boundaries, so he goes to "his" school on Monday...whew...luckily all of his drama happened in the afternoons, so I was out for those times! Maybe things can settle down...sure you want to be a teacher, Michelle??? A lot of veteran teachers are thinking of leaving because we keep having to do more and more...like more testing the kids, more paperwork of the testing and strategies, more things they need to know...if we each had a personal secretary, we could maybe get it all done, but we don't. As it is, my Fridays are full of assessing, which I then take home and copy the results into an Assessment Binder and onto weekly progress reports for the parents, and some of those results get copied again onto forms to turn into the office...thank goodness I have only 20 kiddos...19 now! But it truly is about the kids...I love 'em! and to see them reading already, wow! I love it! Next step is to focus on the writing. First graders think they have to spell everything correctly, which of course they don't nor do I expect them to! And I want them to use words like "suddenly" or "horrible" and not follow me around asking me how to spell it...I read somewhere (think it was Lucy Calkins) that we praise our babies for their first steps, which includes lots of falling and tumbling, and first words, which means lots of babbling and incorrect grammar, but when it come to kids' writing, we expect them to be perfect right off the bat! I told my class that analogy to make them feel better. Spelling is only one part of the writing! They seemed to understand that (sorta) and wrote more. I'm trying to help Spencer with that, too, as he begins writing. He's doing great at it! Always uses his spacing! :-)

OK, off my school soapbox now....if you're still there...

OK...GIVEAWAY...not on my blog, silly, I don't have anything to give away that you'd want!...but one of my FAVORITE blogs... http://www.simplemom.net/ is giving away this printer combo that looks awesome! She's picking the winner soon so check it out if you are interested! Keeping my fingers crossed!

And my 7 month old!