Picking up Toys for the 15 Time!?!?!

I have really been struggling lately with not spending enough time with the boys.  I am so tired and wore out by the time I get off work, my evening goes by so quick, I regret not spending the quality time with them like I feel I should be.  I have made it a point the last couple of weeks to plan a special activity with them each evening.  With Dr. Seuss' birthday being on March 2nd, it has helped a lot.  I picked out a story to read them every evening, planned an activity or art project to do with them as well as planned a Dr. Seuss birthday party and invited their friends.  Despite the weather, we still had seven kids and babies show up!  With that week being over, I feel much better about the time I did have with them; however, I still struggle with those little, extra moments such as feedings, diaper changes, car rides, etc.  Am I making the most of the moments I do have with them? Am I spending too much time on my phone while feeding?  Am I not making him smile and laugh while changing him enough?  I watch my husband with the boys and how he never seems to miss a moment to make them laugh. even if it's just changing his diaper.  I will go into the room when he is changing little man's diaper, and little man will be giggling and laughing.  He never seems to give up those small moments he does have with them in the afternoons. Today on my way to work I heard the song "Do Everything" by Steven Curtis Chapman on the radio.  It reminded me of the Bible verse I am constantly trying to teach my students.  "Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people." Colossians 3:23  My challenge this season leading up to Easter is to make the most of all the moments I have with my children, not just adding special activities into our day, but focusing on those car rides, feedings, and diaper changes as well.  I want every minute of every day I have with my children to be worth it! I want them to know it is the small things that I will miss some day.  I will miss cleaning up spit up, changing diapers, giving baths, receiving smiles and hugs and kisses.  I will miss those words and sounds coming from the back seat.  I want to cherish these moments now and know I did all I could for my family because it does matter.  It matters to God! I pray that everything I do, I do %101 for the Lord!  God sees what we do, and I believe it really does put a smile on his face!  I want to love my children and husband like He loves me!

Do Everything
Steven Curtis Chapman

"You're picking up toys on the living room floor for the 15th time today
Matching up socks
Sweeping up lost cheerios that got away

You put a baby on your hip
Color on your lips and head out the door

While I may not know you,
I bet I know you
Wonder sometimes, does it matter at all?

Well let me remind you, it all matters just as long
As you do everything you do to the glory of the One who made you,
Cause he made you,
To do
Every little thing that you do
To bring a smile to His face
Tell the story of grace
With every move that you make
And every little thing you do

Maybe you're that guy with the suit and tie
Maybe your shirt says your name

You may be hooking up mergers
Cooking up burgers
But at the end of the day

Little stuff
Big stuff
In between stuff
God sees it all the same

While I may not know you
I bet I know you
Wonder sometimes, does it matter at all?

Well let me remind you, it all matters just as long
As you do everything you do to the glory of the One who made you,
Cause he made you
To do
Every little thing that you do
To bring a smile to His face
Tell the story of grace
With every move that you make
And everything you do

Maybe you're sitting in math class
Or maybe on a mission in the Congo
Or maybe you're working at the office
Singing along with the radio

Maybe you're dining at a 5-star
Or feeding orphans in the Myanmar
Anywhere and everywhere that you are

Whatever you do
It all matters
So do what you do
Don't ever forget

To do everything you do to the glory of the One who made you,
Cause He made you
To do
Every little thing that you do
To bring a smile to His face
And tell the story of grace

As you do everything you do to the glory of the One who made you,
Cause he made you
To do
Every little thing that you do
To bring a smile to His face
And tell the story of grace
With every move that you make
And every little thing you do

In every little thing you do
In every little thing you do"

Dr. Seuss' Birthday

I love Dr. Seuss! Therefore, I wanted to plan a week devoted to him for my boys as well as my students. This week I plan on doing the following activities with my boys (J-8 months and E-7 years old).

Green Eggs and Ham-J played with textured Easter eggs I found in our closet.  He also enjoyed dropping and chasing the eggs around the kitchen.

Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose- We played with moose stuffed animals we have in our kitchen for decorations and explored their dad's deer hanging on the wall.  J loved petting the deer on our wall.

We also read If You Give A Moose A Muffin! I love those stories and knew J would also!

(Big bubby heard the part about hunters and decided to share his pretend rifle with his little brother! J loved playing with it!)

 

In A People's House-Big Bubby had a scavenger hunt to find the things in the house. (I did take pictures of some of these things.  Will post later)

Little bubby had his own little scavenger hunt! I placed in his box several of the items from the story including: a cup, hats, bottle, fuzzy socks, baby brush, flashlight, small pillows, and a copy of the book.  He loved pulling out and exploring different items from his box!

 

 

The Sleep Book/Horton Hears a Who-We had a "sleepover" in our living room after reading this book.  We would have loved to have read Hop on Pop and eaten some popcorn with our movie, but with me having a meeting after work and going grocery shopping, we had to eat late and ran out of time to read a second story.  However, the boys still had fun.  Little bubby enjoyed playing with pom pom balls and inserting them into his water bottle.  It was a little difficult for him, but he did manage to get a couple in all on his own! We had to be very careful with this activity though, because he was determined to stick them in his mouth. He also loved playing with my Sam I Am and The Cat in the Hat.

 

My Many Colored Days-Finger paint and color with all different colors.

The Cat in the Hat-I will let them finger paint a red and white hat that looks like the cat in the hat. E will help me make a red and white water bottle shaker for J to play with. He loves water bottles!

One fish two fish red fish blue fish

Wacky Wednesday-Play dress up with silly hats! Sensory-Let J play with my fuzzy socks. He loves socks and 'playing' with them.

Horton Hears a Who: A person's a person no matter how small-Paint their handprints like an elephant and write quote on it to hang up in our house somewhere.

The Sleep Book/Hop on Pop-We plan to have a "sleepover" in our living room, watch a Dr. Seuss movie, and eat 'pop'corn to kick-off the school week of Dr. Seuss fun.

I hope to end the week with a birthday party for Dr. Seuss with cousins and friends! 
 
 

Even Daddy joined in on reading some Dr. Seuss this week!

Valentine's Day

With today being Valentine's day, I wanted to share an easy, free, sweet, thoughtful gift that takes little time and effort with pinterest, but can mean the world to your spouse. Today I knew I was going to be able to surprise my hubby with lunch because I was supposed to be working and he would never expect me to be off. Therefore I decided to find cute sayings from kid Valentines and send him pics and sayings every chance I got. Here are just a few:

Donut you know I love you a hole bunch!

You're one in a minion!

I'm bananas for you! Let's never split!

We were mint to be friends!

Owl always love you!

You make my heart flutter!

Thanks for beeing my man!

Sweet sayings mean a lot when you mean what you say and take the the time to find and think up these cute, clever lines and sayings!

Life and Prayer Journal

I've been wanting a journal that I can record everything in from grocery list to prayers and everything in between! When I couldn't find what I was lookIng for in the stores I decided to create my own...something unique to me anf that fits my personality! I figured if I created it, I would be more likely to use it!

This is what my cover looks like! 

I love to scrapbook so I took two sheets of paper anf connected it with ribbon that my mom had given me.  Then I added some scrapbook stickers and emblems to add my finishing touches! I love how it turned out!! The picture below is the notebook I bought from target originally. A little creativity and scrapbook things turned it into something unique for me! 

Inside my first tab, I made a meal planner and used monthly calendars from a calendar l got free from jo anns fabric. 

The next section, I am using as a place to specifically pray for my husband. I decorated tab as a way to make his section unique for him!

The next section is a place to pray for my children; therefore, I made a tab special for them also!

The last two sections are used for prayers for others, shopping lists and to do lists. I haven't finished those two sections yet. I will post pics when I finish.

Classroom Schedule

I wanted to share my busy schedule.  With the 90 minute reading blocks for all the older classes, we were given all morning specials! Talk about a busy morning!  The hardest part is we have some students leave at 11 as well as some only come three days a week; therefore, we have 3 main days of learning and the rest review days.  Below is what my schedule looks like:

As you can see my schedule is crazy this year! Not much I can do about it except ask for a more consistent specials schedule next year! Most things I can't get in every day.  There is just no way possible to go to every special and fit in all that we have to every day, so this year I had to be real creative in planning my daily schedule.  Calendar I add in literacy and of course we do math so that the students are receiving a lesson in those areas every day.  Of course with calendar, the students are learning numbers, patterns, days of the weeks, months,etc. but we also added in a daily message for the students to practice letters, sight words, and even some writing during that time.  I work in a Christian school; therefore, we try to have some form of Bible story, praying, Bible craft or activity every day.  Eventually we will start going to church every Wednesday with the  rest of the school, and that will take the place of Bible on that day which is our busy day already! We also had to  add in library on Wednesdays during our small groups time.  Our small groups are our Literacy and Writing groups.  The students rotate between four groups during this time: some form of writing (journals, practice writing letters in the alphabet, describing a story or something to go with our science theme to  get science in more), reading (picture reading, retelling, sight word and letter books, etc.), listening (listening to story on headphones), and some form of art, game or activity to go with the letter or sight word we are learning depending on student and what level they are.  Math and science groups work almost just like literacy groups except there are only three groups (You can see on my schedule, we only have time for this three times a week.) and they only go to one a day and rotate to a different group the next day we meet in science and math groups.     We usually do one science group and two math groups.  In math we start out the year  doing shapes and colors and then switch to numbers.  Eventually we get to patterns, sorting, adding, etc.  Science we usually stick to the Scholastic Clifford themes. 

This is our afternoon schedule.  There isn't much to it except the Daily Five. We usually do four groups instead of five and two of the groups are led by the teacher each day.  The students' alone groups are listening center and reading center. (They can read alone or together with a buddy.)  The teacher leads working on writing and working with words or letters most days; however, there are those days that the students will play a game, write the room, etc. by themselves while the teacher assesses students or works one on one with a student.  

What Should I Take To Hospital When Having A Baby

This was a topic I looked up several times when preparing for my stay at the hospital; therefore, I wanted to share what I felt like were musts when packing.  Below are a list of the 15 things I felt were most important:

1.)  Spaghetti strapped tanks and nightgowns- I only brought one spaghetti strapped tank and wish I would have had more.  It made breastfeeding so much easier.  Plus I felt better in it than the hospital gown!
2.)  Snacks for my husband as well as myself after the baby was born.
3.)  Extra baby clothes-the hospital provides infants with outfits; however, I enjoyed being able to dress him in cuter clothes for all the visitors and pictures we took!
4.)  Soft music-made sleeping a little easier as well as made the atmosphere more inviting.
5.)  Socks with grip- Keeps you from sliding around when you can barely walk as it is.
6.)  Boppy-Would have made breastfeeding so much easier those first few learning days.
7.)  Maternity bras-I loved being able to just unsnap and go with it when feeding my little man!
8.)  Phone or other way for internet access-Kept my mind off the pain and made time go by a lot quicker being able to text and browse online.
9.)  Camera, video camera,etc. You will want to take a lot of pictures and videos!!!!!!!!
10.) Husband or other support person and a few encouraging Bible verses-Definitely made the labor process so much easier!  He was amazing walking me through the contractions and rubbing my back, praying with me, etc.
11.)  Going home outfit-loose fitting as well as something that aren't too low on your waist in case you have a c-section.
12.)  Notepad or journal-my husband and I wrote a note to our little man those last, painful hours before he arrived.  I can't wait for him to read be able to read them!
13.)  Toiletries- deodorant, contacts, glasses, solution, etc.
14.)  Pony tail holder-  You will hate your hair in your face the whole hospital stay!
15.)  Your own pillow just in case you have a c-section.  I so wish I had one for the car ride home.  It would have made the trip a lot less painful!

10 Must Haves for New Moms with Newborns

As a new mom, there are a few things I've realized are very important to have that has made my life as a new mom much easier!
     #1. Swaddles- From the day he was born, he loved to be swaddled! We tried blankets; however we couldn't wrap him tight enough.  A friend of ours gave us swaddles with velcro.  What a night saver!  He slept so much better being wrapped as my seven year old says, "As snug as a bug in a rug!"

     #2.  A camera (or phone)-I don't think I could have survived without one!  I love taking pictures of all his firsts to have as memories.
     #3.  An infant stroller-I love getting out of the house for some fresh air and exercise!  It has been used multiple times a week since week 2!  And he loves it! It's one of the few ways that will put him to sleep!

  
  #4.  A bouncer-He sits in it while I clean, shower, etc.  I love that it is small and light enough to fit in my tiny bathroom!
     #5. Moby Wrap-Seriously one of the best inventions!!  I used it when I had set up my classroom, taken walks, done chores around the house and even during Zumba!
    #6.  A bassinet with a shelf on bottom-For all  those times I wake up at night, this has been a life saver.  I love that I can reach over, pick up my infant, diaper, wipes, and burp rag all without leaving my bed!
    #7.  Spaghetti strapped nightgowns-These have made it so easy to breastfeed during the evenings as well as throughout the day when I don't feel like getting dressed. 
    #8.  Spaghetti strapped tanks-Again for breastfeeding; however, these make it easier to feed when out and about. It is so much easier to pull top down rather than all the way up!
    #9.  Nursing cover-So much easier and lighter than a blanket when feeding your little one in public!
    #10.  Tommee Tippee-This bottle is amazing especially when breastfeeding, but also wanting to get your baby used to a bottle for a babysitter, this is the one you want! My little one will drink from this bottle like a champ, but also still breastfeed and be good at it!