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!

14 May 2013

Best. Video. Ever

This afternoon Lil Sis texted to ask if I'd seen the new Judas Redux video (Some of the Starkids are putting on a production of "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot" this summer). I hadn't, so she said I had to when I got home.

And boy am I glad I did. Here's a link.

Here's a rundown...

It starts with Joey and Brosnthal hangin' out in a pool...
Which leads to them throwing their books into the pool.

Then they emerge from said pool to be greeted by Mia, Darren's possibly, maybe girlfriend
Who holds a giant towel in front of them while they remove their bathing suits...

Cut to Lauren Lopez randomly putting in her contact lenses.

Next some girl name Jennifer says her part as Lauren randomly wanders into and out of the camera shot.

Then Joey and Brian are getting ready together in a very nice looking bathroom...

Then "Dylan Saunders" aka Sean Astin of Lord of the Rings fame, shows up wearing a Team Dylan shirt, pretending to be Dylan while ironing a belt.
The Starkids became friends with Sean at a comic-con type event and thought he looked like Dylan...

Then we're back to Joey and Brosenthal looking dapper and sharing some celebratory champagne.

When who should appear but Darren Criss!!! What?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Wait. You guys are doing a play?

Then they all drink and laugh and Joey slaps Darren on the back causing him to spit his champagne all over the place.


Oh yeah, in between there they gave a lot of actual information regarding ticket sales, but please we were all focused on Joey in a bathing suit, Sean Astin as Dylan and Darren showing up.

Awesome!

Also, that's got to be Darren's house with the pool that they're filming at right? It's seriously way nicer than Joey and Brosenthal could afford.

Also, reading all of the cast bios made me so proud.






08 May 2013

April in the D

OK, so technically April in the D is over, as it is May, but this post is about Opening Day, which was during April in the D... so, I think it counts.

It was a beautiful sunny, and actually quite warm for Detroit in April day at the ballpark. We were ready for baseball! And to try to take pictures of the scoreboard the very second it went to black...

That's better! Happy Opening Day! Sadly we weren't in our normal seats, so we didn't get to see all of our baseball family. Plus we had tickets to Saturday, but we got to hang out in a suite instead, so we missed them again. One of these days I'll be home to see them again ;)

American League Champs on the dugouts :)

Lil Sis and I rocking our Tigers hats to keep the sun out of our eyes.


American League Champs banner unveiling

And it's magically, immediately up on the flagpole in the outfield!

Check out the GVSU sign downtown!

It's always fun to hear all of the Tigers players (and coaches and clubhouse guys and rando video guys) to be announced!!

Willie Horton throwing out the first pitch to Jim Price. (In full disclosure, I first started to type Dan Dickerson, why can I never tell these guys apart...)

The Tigers did win, I think, It's been so long ago, I'm not confident in that assertion... Sorry!

Oh, this is actually from Game 2 when we got to hang out in a suite! Which was good because it was soooooooo much colder with no sunshine! We spent the whole game inside, but came out before the game for the ring ceremony.

They handed out everybody's American League Champion rings, which was fun, plus Silver Sluggers to Prince and He-who-must-not-be-named.

Part of the 2012 montage that made me cry on Opening Day, but not the second game!

Handing out the rings.

Here comes Al Alburqurque

Prince's Silver Slugger

It's always good to be back to the ballpark after a long, but shorter than if we hadn't been in the World Series, off season. Go Tigers!

07 May 2013

Random Phone Pics

Here is a jolly collection of pics that have been accumulating on my phone lately.

Lil Sis are you sure you don't want a Wreck-It Ralph shower?

The headband I bought for Lil Sis's wedding

Sending Lil Sis pics of my proposed shower ensemble.

Showing Momma how clean my desk can be when it needs to be :) i.e. for Kindergarten Registration

One of our Oreo attempts for Lil Sis's shower. Thankfully they still tasted delish!


My copy of Lauren Lopez's cookbook, which I did not buy until she sold 100 that had been kissed by Mr. Joey Richter. Now I own one of Joey Richter's kisses! It was totes worth a cookbook I'll probably never use!

Lorax mustaches for an Earth Day craft for my class.

Pretty daffodils one of my kiddos brought me this week!

The dino currently taking up residence in our classroom.

New Darren Criss shirt I wore today :)

04 May 2013

I'm a Runner!

This fall I was asked to be a coach for Girls on the Run at my school. I immediately asked, "Do I need to be a runner? Because I'm not." I tried to run one summer I was home from college, but I didn't really know what I was doing, so it didn't work.

My friends assured me that I did not need to be a runner, so I agreed.

If you haven't heard of Girls on the Run, it is an awesome program for 3rd-5th grade girls. It is at it's heart a self-esteem building, empowering program which uses running as motivator and a confidence builder. GOTR was started by Molly Barker and ends with everyone running a 5K. It is a truly wonderful program and I love helping with it. We teach lessons through games and activities about gossip, inner beauty, positive self talk, standing up to peer pressure, bullying and so much more. We are building strong, confident girls who know they're beautiful inside and out! Girls on the Run is so much fun!

There is also the running. After every lesson we do a workout, which involves running, but usually with a fun twist. One day we had a scavenger hunt. Sometimes they have silly things to do after each lap. One lesson is like a big game of tag. So we're running, but we're having fun!

After a few weeks, I wasn't running much due to supervising girls, handing out their activities, etc. and decided I'd better get serious about this running thing, because I have never run a 5K before in my life and I don't want to be the last one to finish! So I started running more during practice and it was fun to see my number of laps completed and the amount I could run before needing a walking break increase.

This week we have our practice 5K, so I decided that I needed to do my own practice ahead of time, to see if I could even complete the thing! So this morning, I set an alarm and headed over to our school track bright and early. On our track 5 laps = a mile, so I needed to do 16 laps to approximate a 5K (at least that's the math I did, if I'm wrong, don't tell me).

I texted my mom to let her know I was starting and that I had no idea how long it would take me. I decided to push myself to run three laps and then fast walk one and so on. The first couple of sets were pretty easy and then it started getting warmer and other people showed up, but I kept going! When I was on my last set of run three, walk one, I decided to do the walking lap after only two running, so that I could run the final lap.

I crossed the "finish line" (when luckily everyone had left) with my arms in the air! I was so proud of myself. If you had told me three months ago that I would have run a 5K in about 45 minutes, while actually running 3/4 of it, I would have thought you were crazy. I haven't run since freshman year of high school when I had to run the mile for PE. It's so crazy, but really exciting! And now I know that I will not have to be embarrassed when we run our 5K in a few weeks ;)

It's cool that not only have we been helping our girls become more confident as runners and human beings, but I've been able to become a confident runner, too! Hopefully I will keep it up once our season is over!
P.S. Here I am after finishing my run :)

03 May 2013

I'm Grateful For... A Fantastic Shower

Last weekend was Lil Sis' wedding shower!!! It was a lot of planning, but such a joy. I had so much fun planning all of the little details. The theme was Up, as it is such a sweet, romantic story that Lil Sis and Kev saw together. Here are some pics from the planning and the shower.

Since their wedding colors are pool (Tiffany Blue) and yellow, I decided to go with those colors for the shower, too. I spent a lot of time wandering Party City to get paper products.
I got blue food and cake plates, yellow bowls and adorable blue and yellow popcorn containers. They were in the candy bar aisle, but they worked so well as popcorn holders! 

I was so excited when I found this decorative suitcase at Michaels. I was trying to play up the travel theme from Up and this was perfect! At the shower we used it to hold all of the popcorn containers. I swear I took a picture, but it is not on my camera :(

I had seen on pinterest someone who wrapped their silverware in doilies instead of napkins, which I thought was really cute. But you still need to have a napkin, so I did both :) I bought yellow silverware (Dollar Tree, people), blue napkins, white doilies and yellow curly ribbon. I wrapped them in the napkin first and then the doily. I put them in a light blue Easter Basket I found a Goodwill.


We covered the tables in plain colored plastic tablecloths. We set the favors and silverware out on the tables, mostly because at Big Sis's shower we totally forgot to give out the favors until half the guests had already left. We were left with far too many chocolate covered pretzels.
Momma made the candy covered Oreos in yellow and blue to look like Up's iconic balloons :) They are delish!

The centerpieces were a piece of travel-theme scrapbook paper, a double picture frame with a pic from Up and one of Lil Sis and Kev's engagement photos. We also tied a single blue or yellow balloon to it.



Kev's sister made wonderful banner with alternating pictures from Up and Lil Sis and Kev's engagement pictures. It looked awesome! (Their engagement pics were taken by another one of the bridesmaids).



So cute!

For food we had a variety of subs from Subway, Caesar salad, and popcorn. It was all so yummy and a great combo! For dessert we had chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with Dum-Dum suckers to look like balloons (another pinterest find). Lil E helped put in the blue polka-dot and silver cupcake liners, unwrap the suckers and stick the suckers into the cupcakes. They looked so cute and tasted yummy!

The shower was a big success! We had a great crowd, all of the female members of the wedding party, both moms, three grandmas, lots of aunts, cousins and their kids as well as our childhood babysitter. There were lots of little girls (and a couple of baby boys) who had a lot of fun playing together.

Our childhood babysitter, Jeanne, and Lil C. She was our second mom growing up and seeing her and seeing her play with Lil E and Lil C was one of the highlights of the shower!

Bridesmaids!

Grandmas!


After we ate we played a couple of games. We also had all of the guests write anniversary/well wishes for Lil Sis and Kev to read in the future. I had printed out travel scenes from Up as postcards. Big Sis had this awesome idea!
I wrote their names and wedding date on the back where you would put the address. 





We played two games, Bridal Bingo while she opened her gifts and a Disney Couples matching game :)

Sorry these pics are sideways, Kodak is not letting me rotate them and I can't find a way to do it on Blogger...
Game prizes brought by the bridesmaids. It was fun to see the different ideas everyone had. Everyone loved their prizes!

People were super generous and they got lots of wonderful gifts!!! And had quite the entourage of little girls to "help" her open them :)





Here's the card I got her: It has flaps that you open, which I thought was pretty awesome. I also got her a High School Musical Cookbook, because every new bride needs one :)



It was a great shower and I can't wait to celebrate the big day later this summer!


Big shot-out to all of the awesome ladies who helped make this day so special. My Aunt who offered her home and helped plan and took care of getting all of the food!! Momma who spent hours perfecting her candy-coated Oreo making technique. My lovely fellow brides/groomsmaids who offered planning tips, designed invites, made an adorable banner, brought awesome game prizes, helped set up and helped the party run smoothly. Lil E who helped with the cupcakes :) This shower would not have been possible without you!!!