About Me

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I am a twenty-something second year teacher living in the midwest. I am a Christian woman and proud of it! I am the middle child of three girls. I am the proud aunt of the very beautiful Lil E and Lil C!! I love TV, movies, reading, and baseball. I am in my second year of teaching , but my first year teaching kindergarten. It has been quite the journey!

24 April 2010

Jillibean Gets Crafty 2

Jillibean gets crafty 2
So awhile ago I did a post about me being crafty (). I always meant to do more (hence the part 1) but I haven't gotten around to it...

Sometimes I like to scrapbook or create special graduation present photo books for my besties!! Two of my most favorite girls at school are graduating next Saturday :( They've been such amazing roommates and friends; God knew what he was doing when he put them in my life!!!

So to recognize how much they've meant to me I made them each photo/memory books with about twenty-five pictures from our four years together at school.

First, I ordered 50 pictures from Shutterfly for free. If you sign up for an account they give you fifty free prints!! Jillibean loves free :)

Second, I cut all of my 8 ½ x 11 cardstock into 8 x8 squares on Mom’s paper cutter.
Then I put all of the pictures in chronological order and got to work. Since I had already used all of my cardstock for the pages, I decided to just use the scraps for my page decorations and captions and such. I also used some letters stickers and some music notes, but I didn’t want them to be super decorated. I was going for simple.

Here are some my favorite pages:
I love this picture and this memory- good times

I love this color combo. Whenever pink and green are together lil sis and I call it watermelon (i.e. What a cute watermelon shirt!)

This is from Valentine’s Day. I love the colors together and the sepia tone of the picture.

Next, I bound the books with a binding machine.
Finally, I gave the books to the girls when we were out for breakfast this morning. They loved them! And looking at each others.  It amazed me how different we look just four years later!! I am going to miss these fabulous ladies- but I know that God has amazing things planned for them <3

17 April 2010

A lil more art and a lot more baseball

Day Three in KCMO-

We decided to hit up the art museum, since it was open and free! (add it to the list of fun, free stuff to do in KC!) It wasn't nearly as fun as the sculpture park, but we found some pieces we liked...
This was my "Gnome with Snail" of the Kansas City Art Museum- I saw it in the brochure and had to find it... but unlike at the Louvre I was pretty impressed with it in person, it is made of beads!

Then we headed to the old Kansas City Train Station, which was very beautiful...
but, according to my dad, was supposed to be like a mall inside, and it wasn't...

This is a war memorial across the street. Dad told me to take a picture so it looked like we went there...(note the beautiful weather...that will change my friend.)
Then we headed back to get ready for a cold, wet baseball game. We got to the park when we thought the gates would open- two hours early. Turns out they only open 1 1/2 hours early. Fail. But we got a ride from our parking spot to the entrance of the stadium on a golf cart. Win!

It was very cold and cloudy, I was wearing my long johns! But we got to see batting practice again, from right in front of the dugout!!
My main man Maggs, and my boy Brandon were taking batting practice at the same time.

I also heard Gene Lamont call Gerald Laird "G-Money" which pretty much made my life!

I asked Maggs to sign my batting practice ball for me, but he said later and later never came :( But Johnny Damon signed a few autographs, so I got his :) I called Porch's name (Rick, not Porch) when he came off the field, but he didn't hear me (or did and didn't look up, but I choose to believe the former). So it's a good thing I didn't wear the wedding dress we found earlier at a flea market to the game in hopes that Porch would want to marry me right then and there...

After BP we went up to our seats and were amazed there was a guy sitting right next to us as there was nobody in the whole place. Then this guy with a headset asked if we'd like to be the seat upgrade people and we were like totes yes! So they made us sign a form and made Dad take off his Tigers hat :) Then they told us what we had to do. After the top of the first inning they came and filmed us and this random guy getting super excited about our tickets and we were on the honkin' screen!!! Hopefully we didn't look too dumb.

Then we got to ride down to our first level seats in a heated elevator, which we very much appreciated, because it was fahreezing!! And at that point raining. Our new seats were just under the overhang Yay! Plus we got free Digiorno (sp?) pizza. The Tigs lost the game in extra innings but Cabrera hit a ninth inning-two out- two strike homer to tie the game which was exciting!

Then we went back to the hotel and crashed before our early morning flight!

15 April 2010

KCMO Day 2

Our second day in KC was baseball gameless, so we decided to check out KC's art museum and sculpture park. Sadly the art mueseum was closed, but we had fun checking out the scupltures outside!

First were the giant badminton birdies!! Such fun. This is my kind of art :)

My dad told me to pretend to be trying to lift it, but you weren't supposed to touch them... this is the result.

This artist's sheep liked to play around this sculpture, so he titled it Sheep.To me it looks like a couple of sheep all right...

Many of the sculptures were created by Henry Moore, who is pretty much my favorite artist now :) *snicker* Here's a link to his wikipedia page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Moore Apparently he's sort of a big deal. This was one of Mom's favorite- the aptly named Woman on Snowmobile.

Here are some more of Henry's pieces which be began to be able to identify and guess their titles by the end of the excursion. This is woman standing # something.

And of course- Seated Woman # ____

Mom by a sculpture depicting the relationship between a woman and her child...

We had lots of fun "interpreting" the sculptures, mostly just mocking them, but it was a lovely day out :) and we got to spend time together :) and took some fun/funny picutres... btw that is me trying to illustrate how this sculpture (probs my man H.M., but I don't remember) shows a human figure :)

We also checked out the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. The Tigs always go there sometime they're in KC. We hope by going on their off day we'd see Rod showing Austin Jackson (aka apple jax) around the place. They weren't there, but it was still cool. Alas no photos allowed and the gift shop was under construction...

Then we went to the Hallmark Visitor's Center- which was free! (p.s the sculpture garden was also free. yay!) Awesome! We got to see some peeps making cards and got to make our own gift bows. Here's my mom hanging with Maxine.

After that we ate at this awesome Italian restaurant on the Plaza, got cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory and ran back to our hotel in the rain. But we got to watch Lost so it was all good.!

14 April 2010

April in KC

My spring break was at the same time as my lovely mom's, so my parents and I went to KCM (Kansas City, Missouri)for four days to see the Tigers open the season in KC. We flew out on Easter Sunday and went to the Opening Day game at Kaufman Stadium on Monday. The day started off warm, but cloudy.

We got there in time for Tigers batting practice, which was fun.

Fu Te Ni threw me a ball :)

It was exciting to see all of the players I've missed all winter! It's my main man Brandon!

They sure know how to tailgate in KC. There were people who brought their own porta-potty...

Me rockin' my Busy Bee Lauren headband and my Inge jersey- I had to cuten up my baseball ensem a bit.

I love hearing all the Tigers get announced on Opening Day! Although KC only announced our starting line-up: I felt bad for Javair Gilette and Truckie (aka Phil Coke).

The sun came out just as the game started!!! It was perfect. Plus the Tigers won :) As we were leaving a Royals fan in front of us said sadly, "It's going to be a looooong year." We feel ya buddy, we've been there!!

We went out for some famous KC barbecque after the game. Who should be eating at the restaurant but Ryan Raburn!!! Awesome. We didn't say anything to him because Mom and I had to consult each other before we were certain it was him. Needless to say the rest of the trip we had our eagle eyes out looking for Tigers around town.

Stay tuned for recaps of the rest of our trip.

02 April 2010

The Most Fabulous Headbands in the World

When Busy Bee Lauren published the pics of her new headband line I almost died. They are soooooooooooo beautiful!!!! http://busybeeshoppe.bigcartel.com/ This girl is going to make me go broke with all of her amazingspice headbands.

Her current line is based on fictional characters from books and movies. When you click on each headband it will explain how the headband design was inspired by the character. One of my favorite parts was reading how she interpreted each character into a headband.

The characters are from a wide range of books, movies and TV, including- Edward, Peeta, Jace, Mr. Darcy, Legolas, Harry Potter, etc. My favs are Peeta and Troy Bolton, doesn't hurt that I love the characters too :) Although I also love Legolas and I've never read or see LotR.

Lauren is a fabulous designer with so much talent! Check out her headbands and support this lovely young lady :)