Teacher Appreciation Week ~ Day 4

Boooring! I was too lazy to put any effort into today's gift. The theme we were working around was "Thank you for supplying my mind" and we were going to get them some new school supplies for the classroom. The possibilities for this were endless. We decided on some new stamps because the Writing Station is Allie's favorite place to go. At the Writing Station you can write, color, stamp, use stickers etc. We got a strawberry stamp, an ice cream cone, and 2 alpahbet stamp sets (one uppercase and one lowercase). Hopefully they enjoy it!

Looking So Grown Up

Teacher Appreciation Week ~ Day 3

Thank you for planting the seed of knowledge in our daughter! We just bought some pink tin "planters" and a package of flower seeds for each teacher with that little note.

Teacher Appreciation Week ~ Day Two

We knew we wanted to make a sweet treat for Allie's teachers today, but we weren't sure what. I found a cute idea here while searching the web on Sunday.  Brooke, of The Crafting Chicks, made it sound a lot easier to do than it actually was. I had such a hard time making these! My Oreo's kept falling apart or coming off of the toothpick so mine don't look nearly as good as hers.......but I did it, and they taste good.

I totally forgot about packaging these for the teachers. All of her ideas were so cute! Luckily, I went rummaging through our craft room (which is never used!) and I found some stuff. I think they turned out pretty good. I could only fit 4 of the "apples" in the jar, but that might be a good thing. I saw a couple other students with some sweet treats for the teacher today too! (box of candy, suckers, cupcakes)

Teacher Appreciation Week ~ Day 1

This week is teacher appreciation week. Allie and I decided we would take a little something for her teachers each day. It's not going to be anything BIG because she has 4 teachers and that could get pretty expensive. Simple & Sweet is what we're going for. We really do appreciate all her teachers have done for her. Because of them she absolutely LOVES school and is so excited about starting Kindergarten next year. She's come a long way since the beginning of the year!

Little notebooks with spring colored pens and a little tag

close up

We had Allie write a little note to each teacher on the first page. I wrote a note from Derek and I on the next page.

The Great Baby Name Debate

I don't know why Derek and I always have such a hard time coming to an agreement on names for our children! Here we are again........not agreeing on anything. Here is a list of names that either I like, he likes, Allie likes or we both/all sort of like. Feel free to comment on your thoughts, likes, dislikes, etc!! Middle name will more than likely be Brooks or James :0)

• Aiden
• Blake
• Brayden
• Emerson
• Hudson
• Layton
• Owen
• Reed
• Will
• Wyatt

 As far as the girls names, for any of you that were curious, that we liked -- I was set on Hayden and Derek actually liked this name too. I also really liked Presley and Camryn, but Derek didn't like those at all. I mentioned Allie coming up with an "A" name a while back. That was Alaina. I hear it a lot now, but she heard it in one of her Barbie movies or something (which is also how she came up with the boy name that she likes).

At the "Waterpark"

Not really the waterpark, but this is what Avery calls it!

Field Day

Today was field day at Scobee. The teachers must have been getting them excited about it all week because Allie kept telling me that she needed to wear shorts & a t-shirt and tennis shoes on Friday. Since Allie is in PM PreK her class had the games to themselves (the rest of the school had already finished.) Her class has 4 teacher and quite a few parents showed up so we divided into groups.......2 kids per adult. NICE and EASY! Plus, I had Allie and her best bud, Penelope........super easy! Of course I had Avery too and she kept running off for the playground. For the most part she was pretty good though.

Here are Allie and Penelope doing the joust.


Avery and one of her best buds, Emma.

We Beat the Odds!!!!

Had my 20 week ultrasound today and we're having a BOY!! We are ecstatic. Of course, we would have been happy with whatever the baby was but this is a new adventure for us!!! There was no denying that it was a boy either. :0) In fact, the ultrasound techs said it was very noticeable from the get go. They said if it turns out to be a girl they will be extremely shocked. I was measuring at 21 weeks 5 days.....technically I'm 20 weeks 3 days. I don't know if that's much of a difference for them to change anything. I guess I'll find that out at my next OB appointment, which isn't until the end of May. Baby looks to be healthy although I was a bit worried when they said they wanted to take another look at the heart after going over the ultrasound pics with the dr. They assured me it was nothing to worry about - - just needed a better picture. Hope it's not anything.

When I called to tell Derek he didn't believe me at all. I could tell the excitement in his voice. It was so sweet. The best though was a call just a few minutes after we hung up and the first thing he said was, "You're not joking with me are you?!" I'm happy he'll have his little buddy to hang out with. Even tonight when he called again just the sound in his voice was pure happiness.

Allie's reaction, however, wasn't as thrilling:

And it got worse.........


And this went on for a good 30 minutes....maybe more. She's fine now. We went and got the 31 cent ice cream at Baskin Robbins to celebrate. Then we went to Old Navy and the girls got to pick out a few outfits for their little brother. Now they are asking when he's going to get here!!

The Great Flood of 2011

Well Happy Easter to us!! The girls woke up early and they enjoyed their Scavenger Hunt to find their Easter baskets.....however because they were up so early they were both pretty cranky today. We went to church in two separate vehicles today because Derek needed to leave a little early to go into work and get stuff done for the trip he's leaving on tomorrow. Since the girls were being so cranky earlier I decided to skip the last hour (we have a three hour block for church). However, I'm wondering if there wasn't some greater reason as to why I decided to come home early. We go home walked in our front door and saw a very flooded house and heard what sounded like roaring rapids coming from the kitchen. I'm surprised I didn't start crying, but I did PANIC! I had no idea what to do!! I ran outside and turned what I thought was the water line off, came back inside and we still had roaring rapids. By this time the girls were crying hysterically. They were scared out of their minds and I'm sure my panicking didn't help any. I couldn't get Derek to answer any of his THREE phones so I ran to the neighbors to see if they knew what to do. By the time the neighbor got her husband I had finally gotten a hold of Derek and he was finally able to tell me how to shut the water off (it took him awhile b/c I think he was in shock). I knew he believed me though because I was so panicked while I was talking to him. He rushed home.....in the meantime our KIND, KIND, KIND neighbors came over and helped me start moving furniture outside and sweeping out the water. The girls tried helping too, but they kept falling down. I was afraid they were going to get seriously hurt! The water was about an inch and a half deep in the ENTIRE downstairs! Another set of neighbors came over to help with a wet vac, and we borrowed 2 others. So there were three of us doing that. While the other two people were soaking up water with towels and blankets. Another neighbor took the girls over to her house to get them out and let them play with her kiddos. I am just so thankful for wonderful neighbors who were so willing to help us out (on Easter to boot). And thankful that this happened on one of the 6 days that Derek is actually home this month.

We decided to tear up the carpet for fear of mold........the wet vacs were getting the carpet dry but not the padding underneath. We ripped out all of the padding.........we're trying to salvage the carpet.

SOME of the blankets, towels, etc hanging out to dry

The girls taking a well deserved break. FYI - Mom & Dad.......this is why Avery was SO dirty. She was sticky from the Popsicle and then played outside and all of the dirt stuck to her!

And finally, we had someone come out and take a look at the damage. We know how holes drilled in the bottoms of our cabinets to suck/dry out all of the water that leaked through. We have 2 dehumidifiers going and 6 industrial fans. It's going to cost us a whopping $1100 and will not be covered by home owners insurance b/c USAA sucks and has a ridiculously high deductible. We have to leave all of this stuff running for the next 2 days to hopefully get everything dried up so there won't be any mold. These things are so loud you can't even hear yourself think. We were hoping this would be our year........luckily it's still early in the year and we can still be a little hopeful. But right now things aren't looking too good.