It's Still January

In honor of how January is the longest coldest month we hosted a January sucks party and had a game night last night with our friends. I love playing games and we definitely don't play enough games. It was fun. It's still January...but it's getting closer to the end. Not that February is much better but it's progress toward spring. So far this semester is way better than last. I'm hoping that continues. It makes a HUGE difference. I'm doing a lot of stuff for my school club (that I'm required to run). I hate doing extra stuff. We are trying to make money at games so we will be staying after to sell concessions at games at least once a  week for the next several weeks. I'll be curious to see how this fundraiser does. Fundraising is one of our club requirements. Yippee. 

I've invited some parent volunteers to come and have my classes cook their family recipes for the family unit. My first parent comes in this week. It's a great idea but the reality is always more challenging. I've been trying to get a recipe from this parent for awhile so I can get the supplies. So fun. I figure if a parent falls through we always have supplies for chocolate chip cookies and I will just have my classes make those if necessary. We will see how it goes...Oh and it's still January. Peace out! 

Cozy and comfy.

Cute.

I ordered this branch light. I miss my Christmas lights and need this light. Winter is dark and long!

I made homemade frosting for our cooking lab on Friday and I had leftover and was not letting that hard work go to waste. I came home and made sugar cookies. I love these sugar cookies so much! 

Scratched Cornea

 Last Sunday when I was doing some yard work I accidentally jabbed myself in the eye with the branch of a bush. It hurt a lot! On Monday I texted my brother Chase and he said I probably scratched my cornea and he called in a prescription for antibiotic drops for me.  Sunday night was probably the worst of it. I had a hard time sleeping and I had no distractions from my eye pain. Monday was Martin Luther King day so I didn't have to go to work. I went back and forth trying to decide if I should call in sick on Tuesday or not. I went ahead and put in for a sub and submitted sub plans. By Tuesday my eye felt a lot better and I felt a little guilty  for not being at work but the night before I couldn't keep my eye open for very long periods of time so it was hard to know! I was able to get a ton of work done and that was nice! I'm excited because I am coming up with some good ideas (I hope) for my Teen 2 class. I typically don't enjoy Teen 2 as much but if my ideas go well I might like it better! The first unit is on the family and on Friday I had the idea to have a family game night. I had three games (Pictionary, Guesstures, and Headbanz). I picked the groups and each group played each game for 12 minutes. Most of my classes did really well and had fun. Period 4 needed a lot of direction. Activities like that are a great way to form bonds and make the students get used to working together which is helpful for the cooking labs. I also tell my students that Teen Living is a life skills class and learning how to work with people you don't choose is a life skill! Our first cooking lab of the semester is this Friday and I will be curious how my students do. I will have a back up assignment for Period 4 for sure. I will be curious if they will follow instructions and be able to cook or not...Bless their hearts.

Scott helped Ryan study so he could retake his geography bee test. Ryan went from a 31% to a 69%! He got 146 countries correct. Wowza! Good work Scott and Ryan!

Poor Charly had surgery on Thursday. She was spayed and got a microchip. She was pretty sad on Thursday but has pretty much been mostly herself since then. She has to wear that stupid cone for 2 weeks! I bought her a recovery onsie and I thought she would like it better than the cone but to our surprise she did not! Cone it is. 

I think I took this picture on Monday, not terrible looking but not normal either. My eye still hurts just a little. 

My working buddy.

Post surgery. Poor sad puppy.

She does alright with the cone.

Look at this adorable onsie! It's supposed to help protect her from licking her sutures like a cone would but she HATED it. 

Dinner with girlfriends. We ate at a pub in the North End where I work and it was good! I did see a lot of Boise High and North teens when we went to Goody's to get ice cream afterwards...not my favorite. I only saw one of my old students though. It feels really awkward to run into students outside of school, the worst is Roaring Springs! 

Ryan uses his Christmas sweater to become a weird creature. It's so funny.

He pulls the best dramatic faces! 

Quiz time! RYAN'S CUTE VIDEO

Corbin's hair was so long! It's buzzed off now. Weird.

Napping buddy.

First Week of the New Semester

I've made it through the first week of the new semester. I'm so glad it's done and I'm hopeful for this semester! Last semester I didn't like my 7th and 8th period classes and I dreaded them everyday. My 4th period wasn't great but manageable. This semester fingers crossed...I only have one class that's not great. I think I will be able to manage them I just won't be able to be nice to that class. I'm really hoping my luck lasts and I can maintain good management in these classes. I get better every semester.  I don't like Teen 2 as well but I'm hoping I can find good lessons and like it better. I already have some good ideas.

Nothing much else is going on. We are enjoying a lazy long weekend. I need to spend a lot of time looking for lesson ideas and that is really hard. I will spend a good chunk of my day doing that tomorrow. The sun came out today and I was able to rake some leaves in the front yard that have been bugging me. Our house is located such that all the wind blows and traps leaves in our yard. We rake our front yard so many times and there's always new leaves. I was so happy to be outside and do some yard work. I also made some dinners for next week and homemade rolls. 

I found this on Teachers Pay Teachers and had different stations getting to know you stations. It's really good to have any type of group activity with instructions because if a class can't handle that, they can't handle cooking.

All three of the kids fell asleep during our Saturday night movie. That never happens! So funny.

Piper didn't want to watch the movie and she was the only one left awake.
 

None of these leaves are ours!

So much better!

Cutest.

I love when her ears are up like that! Haha.

Time to Go Back to Workie

My long break is over. It's been SOOOO nice! I've had a lot of nightmares about the first day of class so I will be happy to put those to bed. Reality is much better than the scenarios my brain comes up with in my sleep. I'm anxious to start a new semester. I have a lot of returning students that I'm not excited about and a lot of new and unknown. I am ready to get the first day over with. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I want to do tomorrow. I have a semester plan laid out so I'm glad about that. Teen 2 is harder for me all around. I don't enjoy the curriculum as much and the students only want to cook (Teen 1) and they don't want to sew. The rewarding part of Teen 2 is that the most students enjoy sewing more than they think they will. It's especially fun to see the boys get into it, but teaching a classroom of students how to sew is SO FREAKING HARD. 

The break was really great. I had enough time to be totally lazy, to visit family, to deep clean and organize, and lesson plan. It's been really nice. I am anticipating this coming week to kick my butt a bit as I get back into the swing of things. 

Geography bee update, I stole this from from Facebook: 

Scott got inspired by the movie “Captain Fantastic” and he decided he wanted to challenge the kids to a geography bee. They had to buy in with their own money and then if they scored high enough on a graded scale he would double their money. They studied for 2 weeks and took the test today. Scott is trying to help our kids not to be ignorant ethnocentric Americans. I represent the ignorant ethnocentric American. See results in pictures below. Piper got the most improved score since she went from knowing 3 countries to successfully identifying 185. Another victory was Corbin thanking Scott for the challenge.

I helped Noel make some cookies.

It snowed a ton on New Year's Day in Utah. It was beautiful. It made for a scary drive from Carole's house to Nana and Papa's house. Luckily the roads were clear for our drive home the next day.

Geography Bee

Piper celebrating her victory.

Results

The kids had a fun time teasing me while I was taking the test.

I was craving my Christmas décor so I bought decorations for a January station. Still warm and inviting on these winter nights.

Ryan getting comfortable to do some reading to earn his roaring springs pass.

Cutest puppy.

Charly makes it  hard to get up sometimes.

I decided to add a wreath to this mirror decoration. Why didn't I think of it earlier???

Ryan is going to take a retake on his geography test. He was supposed to get 50% of what Scott got. Scott has been studying with him. 

Happy New Years!

We had a great week. Corbin's birthday was on Tuesday. He turned 15. Crazy! He is such a great kid. He had a special breakfast and dinner and he had a sleepover with his friends that day. The next day I took the 3 littles to POJOs because they really wanted to go and Corbin didn't so we went ahead and did POJOs without him. On Thursday we headed down to Utah to visit the Cannons. We have had a ton of fun with all of the things. Food, presents, games, cousin time, Dr. Seuss bake-off challenge tv marathon, sledding, the works! It has been snowing all day today. It's so pretty and Nicole and Rustin's backyard is the perfect sledding hill, plus it's SO CONVENIENT. I love it! We head back tomorrow, I really want the snow to stop now. I don't want to drive home in a storm.

Scott was inspired by the movie "Captain Fantastic" and wanted to challenge our kids to a geography quiz of sorts. They had to put their own money into the pot and they have to try to beat Scott on a graded scale. Corbin has to get 90% of what Scott gets correct, Gabby 70%, Piper 60%, and Ryan 50%. The kids have been studying all of the countries all week. I'm not sure if the test is happening today or not. If they beat Scott they get double the money and if they don't beat Scott they lose the money. It will be interesting. It was funny to have Ryan tell me that he only got 44% of the countries in Africa, um that's better than me!  

Piper and Ryan helped Scott with the veggies when he made stir fry.

Piper studying geography.

Cute new traveling buddy. She did great!

Scott loves to read his many books in his reading chair. 

Cousins!

They were playing some type of game that involved Corbin attacking them or Corbin being attacked by everyone else? Not sure, it was loud, but they had fun. 

The Corbin game.

Studying!

Sledding!