Moving Down

Tomorrow is my first "official" day back at school. I am now a 1st grade teacher! For the last 4 years, I've been teaching 2nd grade and loving it. But due to some changes being made at my school, I was given the choice of moving to 1st grade or doing a 1st/2nd split. The decision was pretty obvious to me!I spent the last month packing up my old room and moving to my new one. I'm a very slow cleaner & organizer-- but luckily Brian came with me today and gave me time limits to finish cleaning. Anything I didn't file or put away in it's place before my time was up, he actually threw away! That was pretty motivating! I'll have to have him come in regularly to keep me from piling things up!

Our back-to-school theme is from the book, "If you give a mouse a cookie." I had so much fun making my bulletin board-- the decorating is one of my favorite parts of teaching. At back to school night, I'm going to have a treat table with milk & cookies. So much fun!!

The Suite Life

Yesterday, I went shopping with my mother-in-law, Bev, and my niece, Kaylee.

Bev told me that as they were driving up to my condo to pick me up, Kaylee said in amazement, "Brian and Dana still live in this hotel?" I can't decide if she was thinking we were too pathetic to buy a house or too cool to move out of our hotel suite!

(this was the only pic i could find to show off our 3-story condo/hotel)

I tagged along as Bev took Kaylee to Build-A-Bear to celebrate her upcoming birthday. This was my very first time seeing this store. It was amazing! Being pregnant, I couldn't help comparing the Build-A-Bear shop to my own Build-A-Baby experience. The biggest difference I could see is that the kids are happy and energetic as they build their bears. I, on the other hand, get to feel nausea, fatigue, sore muscles, dehydration, emotional breakdowns, and weight-gain as my baby is being "built." Oh, and of course there's that small difference where a baby is way better than a bear! =)After Build-A-Bear we got some lunch and did a little shopping. I got a couple new maternity outfits to start the school year off. Who says you're ever too old to shop for new school clothes?! Kaylee and I were both spoiled-- thank you Bev!

Beautiful New Niece!

We're headed out of town for the weekend. But before we do, I want to introduce my newest niece (and the only one on my side of the family): Olivia Clara Smith!!

Picture stolen from my sister's blog.

I haven't gotten to see her at all yet (Texas is a pretty far drive), but I'm already smitten! She's one week old and because she wasn't actually due until September, she only weighed 2 lb 11 oz at birth. My older sister is amazing and though I'm going to miss 'being pregnant' together, I'm thrilled to have my brand new niece!

Pool Party, Anyone?

The HOA company for our condos went bankrupt and I think they're in the process of transferring our account to another company . . . I think. Something like that! I don't really know what's going on except that our pool now looks like this:

Wouldn't you love to jump into that on a hot summer day?!!

Independence Day Goodies

I love making this centerpiece every year out of mini flags. It may seem nerdy to some (ie, my husband), but it makes me smile!

I made this jell-o treat just for Brian & I to enjoy before we headed off to watch fireworks:
And I made 40 of these babies for Brian's family picnic. Incidentally, the picnic got canceled and I now have heaps of cupcakes in my kitchen! I was going to take them to the neighbor kids today, but they're a little dried out so I think I'll eat what I can & throw out the rest. Luckily, I hadn't put all the flags in yet when we found out it was canceled, so I'm saving those for next year!

Announcement

Brian and I have realized we're both horrible at keeping secrets, so we thought it was time to announce that . . .

I'm Pregnant!!

The baby's due in January. And we're both very excited!

My Handsome Best Man

Brian was a best man today at his friend, Dave's wedding-- the same Dave who was best man at our wedding.

I was laughing so hard all night at the reception because the receiving line was shifted down a little further than normal, putting Brian and Dave right at the center of the backdrop. I thought it was hilarious! But I don't think anyone else noticed. =)He definitely knows how to strike a pose for the camera! ;) I'm trying now to think of more reasons to get him into a tux. I thought he looked so classy~!

Old habits are hard to break . . .

I have serious punctuality issues. This week I decided to do something about it. I remembered a project we had in my Educational Psychology class in college. We had to change or create a new behavior by supplying ourselves with rewards (Pavlov's theory). I changed my study habits that semester with a few simple boxes of Junior Mints.So I decided on Sunday (as we drove to our 1pm church at 1:05) that I would be 15 minutes early to everything this week. If I had 7 consecutive days of meeting my goal, I'd treat myself to Coldstones. I started yesterday. I did pretty well, but I was only 7 minutes early to work. Then today, I tried again and got worse. I was only 3 minutes early. As I walked in the door to summer school this morning at 7:27, my principal looked at me in amazement. Finally, he said, "What is going on? During the regular school year, we meet at 8:15 (implied: I'm never there at 8:15!). Now you're required to be here at 7:30 and you've been early every day???" I explained my ice cream reward to him. Unfortunately, I also explained that my goal is to be 15 minutes early and ended with, "It just seems I'm late no matter what time I shoot for!" (note: probably not the smartest thing to say to your boss.)

Seriously-- why is my mind so messed up that I can only be on time when I'm trying to be somewhere super early?! I don't get it!

Update: my reward is now contingent on being only 10 minutes early AND only for 4 days total --- I really want that ice cream!

a wedding in the family!

my older brother's getting married in october and i'm getting a new sister-in-law!!
i only have a picture of me with my brother. i don't have a single picture of abby because i haven't even met her yet! i'll get to meet her on the day of their wedding- weird, huh? i guess that's what happens when your family lives all over the country. my older sister & brother-in-law in TX didn't meet brian till our wedding either.

even though i haven't met her, i know she's won over the rest of my family and they all think she's the sweetest and best girl for my brother. i'm so happy!

I'm Getting Littler

No . . . I'm not blogging at school . . . on my lunch break . . .

Today was field day. One of the 3rd graders (who was my 2nd grader last year) came up to me and gave me a big hug. Then he pulled away and said, "Mrs. Nye, you seem like you're getting littler!"

I started cracking up! Of course it's not that he's grown a foot in the last year and now comes up to my shoulders-- I must be the one shrinking! However, I think I'm going to assume he was speaking of my waist size. Yes, I'm sure that was it!!