First Week of School

Last weekend, Michael and I babysat the nephews.  Drew would not sleep in his swing so this was our position for over two hours (I didn't mind in the slightest).

Don't feel sorry for Jake...he was having so much fun with Michael...also known as 'Boy'.  Jake called him Boy all night and it was so funny.  We got him to say 'Mike' a few times, but then he would just switch back to Boy.  We cannot wait to babysit them again soon!

Jake came right up to me and Drew and was giving us this look for a while. Ha!

I survived my first week as a 4th grade teacher!  Overall, it was a pretty good week other than the exhaustion.  I've been leaving the house by 5:30am almost every morning which has been tough.  Is it Christmas break yet?

This is the sign that hangs outside my classroom.

Back to School

Remember all of those pictures I put up of my classroom?  It looks nothing like that now.  I ended up moving a bunch of things around and I took some stuff off of the walls.  The district doesn't want many 'manufactured' things (aka. posters) on the walls....instead, we are supposed to add things we do with the class throughout the year.  I left up the word wall, calendar, and map (Michael worked too hard on it for me to take down!) but almost everything else came down.

I had all of my computers set up yesterday (5 for students and one for me). It is all starting to look and feel like a classroom now. I also got my class (homeroom) roster.  Here is how it works....I am the reading/social studies teacher and will teach 3 separate classes.  One will be my homeroom and will begin/end the day with me and the others will just switch throughout the day.

It has been a hard transition to get up super early and go non-stop all day long. Tomorrow I have a meeting at 6:30am.....so while I would love to blog everyday, my updates will be more scattered from now on.

On another note, HOUSTON HAS WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE!  It took me 40 minutes to get home from work today (and I went the back way to avoid the traffic).

All in all, we are still transitioning to our 'grown-up' life in the 'big city'.

A Work in Progress

I finally was able to get into my new classroom on Monday.  It has been nothing short of a storage room for random furniture and junk for years and years.  Deborah (another 4th grade teacher) spent all morning with me, helping clean out all of the cabinets and making multiple trips to the dumpster.  I recruited Michael to help me the rest of the week and he was a HUGE help!

It is still a work in progress, but this is what we have done so far.

That map on the wall is really a puzzle and it is Michael's masterpiece.  He spent over an hour putting it up piece by piece to make sure it was perfect. :)

I'm still missing my desk, a couple of student desks, and lots of chairs, which I will hopefully get soon!


School starts in less than two weeks!

Home Sweet Home

The Anderles came for a visit today, so I finally got around to getting some pictures of the apartment up.  The screen on our nice big TV just went out, so we had to move the little one out into the living room.  We just have to squint to watch TV now.   :)  That is also half of our entertainment center....the other half broke in the move...but it actually worked out better!

Kitchen

Bathroom

Bedroom

We still don't have much on the walls, but we are slowly working on it!

Sweet Jake

Jake was letting everyone smell the flower in his book.

After a couple of hours, everyone was ready to go "night, night!"

We had a fun afternoon!  Tomorrow morning, I am heading up to school to begin working on the disaster zone that is my classroom.Wish me luck!

Natalie Grant - Your Great Name

A couple of months ago, Michael and I went to a concert featuring Brandon Heath, Natalie Grant, and Mercy Me. It was by far the best concert we have ever been to. I was completely blown away by Natalie Grant and have become a huge fan. I wanted to share my favorite song with you all, which always humbles me and makes my day a little brighter.

Hello August!

It is officially August which means 2 things:

Rachel and Michael turn 22!
BACK TO SCHOOL

I officially began my "teacher duties" yesterday.  I am attending workshops all day, every day this week.  I still haven't been able to get into my classroom yet, which is making me crazy.  They had summer school on our campus and are doing a massive cleaning, so teachers can't have access to their rooms until this next Monday.    I am ready to dig in and feel like I might know what I'm doing! :)

I keep intending to post pictures of our apartment, but whenever I remember, it's not clean enough for pictures.  I will try to do that this week and get pictures of my classroom up as soon as I can!