Pumpkin Carving Contest 2010

Last night, our town observed Halloween. All the little kiddos in their adorable costumes were ringing doorbells hoping for the name-brand candy to fall in their bags all over town. I love the silly Halloween. However, I have never gotten into the gross, nasty, scary side of Halloween. Last night, instead of handing out candy, we went to our friend’s house. Meg cooked an awesome dinner, and we carved jack-o-lanterns. It was so much fun. I had a great time visiting with everyone.

Megan and Daniel

Cathryn

Yes, we cheated and used a stencil.

Well, three groups used stencils…. Can you see which one was freehanded?? haha!

 

The Davis’ Pumpkin                   DT and Chris’ Pumpkin

 

The Motley’s Pumpkin            The Shelton’s Pumpkin

We had a blast hanging out with everyone. And there was a three-way tie for first place. ha!

97%

is what I made in my first graduate course. Woohoo! I was proud of myself. 
Today was fifties day at school. We have had crazy hair day, camo day, and red day as well for Red Ribbon week. I LOVE dressing up! The kids feel more comfortable with looking silly if their teacher is right there with them. I wish I could post some pictures of my kiddos. They were adorable. You can find some on my classroom website though.

This was after an extremely long day. And week. I am so thankful for the three-day weekend!

I am also thankful for my hubby. We took a walk together today with Mason. Our dog always gets the most attention when we take him out! It also doesn’t help that most of the students at my school live around us. They always want to come out to say hi and pet Mason. Good thing he is pretty good with kids. Bran said he would take more walks with me. I definitely need the exercise before we go on our vacation in the summer! So excited!

One Class Down….

and nine to go. I finished my first graduate course Friday. It feels good to have one out of the way. I have this week off before my next class starts. It couldn’t have come at a better time! I have been up at school for the past four hours getting my stuff together and organized for parent/teacher conferences and getting my lessons ready. Tomorrow is going to be such a long day!
Bran and I went and looked around at cars yesterday. I found a Chevy Equinox that I really liked. Since our last truck payment hasn’t even cleared the bank yet, we are going to wait a little bit longer before adding a new car payment to the budget.

Bran sent me flowers to school last week. They are so gorgeous!

They were “I’m Sorry” flowers. ha!

And I just realized this yesterday that I never shared my video of my precious nephew eating his first birthday cake. Yesterday one of Bran’s cousin’s baby’s first birthday was yesterday. That was a lot of possessive nouns! It made me think of Drew and his cake. So without further adieu, here is Drew!

Drew!

Why yes… That is all mine!

I just paid our very last truck payment!!! woohoo!!! It feels so nice!
I’m not sure what are next steps will be with our debt and Dave Ramsey. We for sure want to stay on the debt repayment path, but we need to start saving money as well. I will be needing a new car eventually (boo on the car payment!). Bran and I would also like to start thinking about starting a family. So…. I’m not sure where we are going. We are not going to spend $1,000 on our debt this month and next month since Christmas is coming up. Usually I get a Christmas bonus, but I don’t know if we will get that this year. It certainly is nice!  I guess I am off to crunch some numbers and make a plan!

Lovely

Today was lovely. Bran had a ju-jitsu seminar today, so he left at 11:00 this morning. I had the whole day to myself. I picked up the house, did my laundry, caught up on my homework, and made a pumpkin pie. It’s nice to have a day just to chill. School has been so crazy busy. Parent-Teacher Conferences are coming up, so I’m trying to get report cards ready. I am not looking forward to conferences… I love meeting the parents of my students and talking with them, but I dread the 14 hour day. It makes the next day so hard to get up and get to work on time. The sad thing though is that I won’t even get all of my conferences in on the day we are supposed to. I meet with parents 3pm – 9pm, 15 minutes per conference, with only a 30 minute dinner. That’s only 22 spots and I have 24 kids. *sigh* That means I will be meeting on other days as well. However, I am going to stop whining because I am blessed to have a job I love! So there.

I found a pair of boots I want.

I asked my sweet husband for them. He said that they’re not in the budget. Bummer. Maybe that pumpkin pie I made tonight will soften him up.

Franny K. Update

We won! Woohoo! Three free books and the award of the "Most Awesome Pumpkin." Woohoo!

Franny K. 2.0

I fixed her!

Thank you $2.00 can of pinto beans and $2.00 onesie! Isn’t it sad that the first baby clothes I have bought was put on a can of beans with a pumpkin head wearing a purple wig…

Franny K. Stein

Every year our library holds a pumpkin contest. Each classroom is in charge of decorating their pumpkin to resemble their favorite book character. My first year our book was A Bad Case of the Stripes. Last year we did Molly Lou Melon from Rotten Teeth. Both were super cute, but my class has yet to win! There is some serious stiff competition. I wish I had pictures to show you! My fellow teachers are so creative (or sometimes the mommas)!
This year my class chose Franny K. Stein as their inspiration. Here is the book from the series we chose.

Here is the Franny K. doll you can buy:

And now…. Here is our pumpkin!

I think something is missing though… I just can’t put my finger on it. I would love to somehow put a body under her head with a lab coat. I’m just not sure how to do it… Any ideas?