About Me

My photo
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!

31 October 2010

Jillibean's Halloweens

I was inspired by Lauren's look into Halloween's past so I created one of my own:)

My first Halloween! All three Bean girls were Detroit Tigers players our first Halloweens :D


A little bunny rabbit :) I think this is the Halloween I was 1.


Wasn't I a darling little ghostie?


My mom made these rockin' dino costumes! They were refashioned somewhere down the road into Baby Bop costumes, but no photographic evidence of this could be found... These were great costumes also because they allowed us to be very bundled up underneath them, great for cold Michigan Octobers!!

This is one of my favorite pictures ever!!! Lil Sis being scared into dropping her beloved Daddy Baby because she was so scared of our dino masks or pretending to be scared of them...



Carving pumpkins with Daddy's help.


Wasn't Lil Sis the cutest Pebbles ever? Momma made this one too!


My first grade class! I love that someone was a peacock.

I was a princess. This night unfortunately it was cold and rainy, meaning I had to wear my white boots. My pretty red dress ran and turned my boots pink...


Another adorablspice pic of Lil Sis, she was seriously the cutest thing ever (still is :)


Sisters and their pumpkins


Second grade Jillibean is very excited/ disgusted about cleaning the guts out of her pumpkin.


My all-time favorite homemade costume and top two costumes overall- the Tooth fairy. I wore Megan's hand-me-down gypsy skirt, a white blouse, fairy wings, a crown, a wand with a tooth at the top instead of star and a little purse shaped like a tooth for collecting teeth. It was pretty epic.


Possibly my favorite costume ever!! My Belle dress. This was one of my very few store bought costumes and I loved it, still do. Tried to fit into it once in high school, not a pretty sight...

I can't really explain what's happening in this one... childhood excitement?


Circa fourth grade- not one of my favorite costumes, but my bff and I were both scarecrows, so what can you do?
Doesn't Lil Sis look adorablespice in my old Belle costume?


Fifth grade (aka 1998, aka the height of my figure skating obsession)

In case you're wondering, yes I did have a pair of figure skates that I wore over my shoulder while I trick-or-treated.


Who knows what happened to the pictures of Halloween from two years in middle school... But I am very sad to discover that there are no photos of me as Inspector Gadget, because that was definitely in my top three favorite costumes... I wore a trench coat and a slinky on my arm as go-go gadget arms and a hat with a claw or something on it. Awesomespice.


This is the only year in memory that all three of us coordinated our costumes. We were an Harry Potter trio. I was Harry, Amy was Hermione and Megan was Sir Nicholas DeMimsy Porpington (aka Nearly Headless Nick) Pretty fun stuff.


Why yes, I'm wearing Harry Potter glasses over my own.



This was our last year with all three sisters home, before Big Sis left for college...

I was supposed to be Juliet... One of my few store bought costumes and one of my least favorites.


These are from my last year trick-or-treating. I was a doctor. Lil Sis was a witch. Her hat blew off at one point during the night, we never caught up to it.


Our rockin' pumpkins

Pretty much sums up our relationship


This is from my junior year in high school, the first year my parents wouldn't let me trick or treat. So Lil Sis and I had a Halloween Party instead. Here I am dressed up like a Princess, eating donuts off a string with my friend Jenni, who was a marshamallow.




Lil Sis keeps our pumpkins company. Lil Sis made a rockin' Olde English D. I made the crazy face on the really tall skinny pumpkin and Mom and Dad made the Brandon Inge inspired one. Normal's overrated :) I have no idea what I dressed up as this Halloween...

Freshman Year of College- I was a Tigers player :)


Me as Gabriella Montez from HSM my sophomore year of college. I passed out candy to kids at a local church. So much fun!


Junior year I visited my friend D in K-zoo for Halloween. She was Miss Scarlet (we were going to a Clue inspired party) and I was Magglio Ordonez.

My roomies and I made a French Jack-0-Lantern.

Little kids came trick-or-treating at our apartment senior year. My roomie L was a princess and I was a witch.

This year I'm being Belle again, as Momma followed through on her promise to make me a Belle costume when I became a teacher. :)

30 October 2010

I am Grateful for... the Monster Mash

I am grateful for... the Monster Mash. The school where I teach threw a Monster Mash yesterday before our Halloween parties. It was so so so much fun! It was basically a school-wide dance party that our music teacher put together.

We danced to the Monster Mash, the Addams Family Theme Song, Thriller, the YMCA, I've Got a Feeling, the Cha Cha Slide, and Break Your Heart. It was a blast!! It was fabulous to be able to just hang out and have fun and dance with my students!!! We rarely get to have that kind of experience, outside of learning with our students and it was a great way to connect with them!

They had fun, we teachers had fun, the parents had fun watching. I didn't take any pictures (I was too busy dancing) but I'm sure I'm in a lot of home videos and photos.

I was rockin' my mom-made Belle costume, which was fun, but my feel killed after dancing in my golden heels for half an hour! And there was gold glitter all over me! but so worth it. If you are a teacher I would definitely recommend adding a Monster Mash to your Halloween festivities next year.

27 October 2010

Girlfriends are the Best!

Last night I got some much needed girl time with one of my best girlfriends! It was very much needed and so very refreshing!!!

I hung out with my very dear friend Holly. We've been friends since the second grade and I don't know what I would do with out her!!! She is my go-to when I need advice. I trust her advice 100% :)

Last night it was so great to just relax and talk and vent and gab. No pressure, no worries, just fun girl talk! I have such fabulous girlfriends, God has given me some amazing women of God, who are fun and funny and who I get along with so well.

I love that we can pick up where we left off after not seeing each other for months. It's like no time has passed, which is such a gift after going to college three hours apart for four years. Now we're back living at home about ten minutes apart and we still only see each other maybe once a month.

We also spent some time looking through our sixth grade yearbook. So much fun! We laughed at how dorky and gawky our middle school crushes looked and speculated what our classmates are up to now. Lots of laughing and good-hearted mocking ensued :)

I am so blessed to have Holly in my life!!!!

26 October 2010

Autumn

It seems as though Autumn is fast fading into winter.
The beautiful Indian Summer is gone.
Most of the trees have shed their leaves.
The trees that once burned with color are now bare.
The warm summer air turned crisp and cool.
Now the crisp, cool air has turned into a cold, biting wind.
The days of apple picking, cider drinking and hay riding are coming to an end.
Soon we'll be shoveling, and scraping and plowing.
But we'll remember
the way the cider tasted on our tongues...
the beauty of rusty colored leaves against green grass...
the way the rake cuts into our hands...
the satisfying crunch that comes from stepping on the perfect fall leaf...
the feel of the wind gently tousling your hair...
the ooie gooieness of pumpkin guts on your hands...
the sharp, warm smell of leaves burning...
the feel of an itchy sweater on your skin...
the glory of God's creation.