Tablet for the Teacher Giveaway / My Birthday / Gotta Go Back, Back, Back to School Again

Teacher's Notebook is giving away a free iPad Mini, Kindle Fire HD, or Nook HD. Click the picture on the right side of my blog to go there and enter. The contest runs from January 5 to January 31, and you can enter daily. If the winner comes from my blog, I could win one too!

My birthday was Friday and I celebrated by taking my niece to Universal for the day. A little cold and rainy, but we enjoyed ourselves (except a little sad because my aunt couldn't go as she was hurt from falling at Universal the day before so she stayed back at hotel to rest). My niece loved getting to ride The Mummy five times - she is a little roller coaster fanatic. Then we rode ET two times (this is her favorite ride there). We also saw Shrek and the Beetlejuice show. Then we went back and picked my aunt up for dinner at Don Pablos. When I lived in Orlando, this was one of my favorite places to eat so I was super excited to find one since I know most have closed. We had a wonderful dinner and then drove back home Saturday. I wrapped up the celebrations with dinner with family and friends at Olive Garden - what a fun night!

I am so exhausted today - the break went by WAY TOO FAST! I am looking forward to seeing my class tomorrow, but I could really use like 1 or 2 more days to unpack, do laundry, clean up, and rest up before going back to work. I go back to both jobs full swing tomorrow.

Hope everyone going back Monday is able to find the alarm not too disturbing when it goes off in the morning - for me I know it will be a Starbucks kind of day - and thanks to the many gift cards I got for Christmas and my birthday - that's not going to be a problem! :)

End of Year Giveaway / Winter Break Happenings

I am running a giveaway on my most popular product at my teachers notebook store. The item I am giving away is my original cause and effect game. This has been my best seller on both Teachers Notebook and Teachers Pay Teachers. Three lucky winners will win the game. Hop over to enter today - giveaway ends on January 1.

This winter break I have really enjoyed so far some down time. It has been wonderful to catch up with my Tivo, my Kindle, and my family and friends. I also went to Tijuana Flats Teacher Hero Day on December 27 and got my free meal and my mom bought a meal - we were told proceeds were going to those affected by the Sandy Hook incident. What a great thing the people there are doing to help others and to honor teachers. I enjoyed some Christmas time with my brother and nieces as they came to visit and I am looking forward to seeing my nieces again with my sister-in-law when I travel to Universal for my birthday in a few days! What fun :) Going with my aunt and my little cousin, plus meeting up with one of my teacher friends and her kids for lunch one day. This has been a great break so far. Having a puppy at Christmas time was fun too - Snowball thoroughly enjoyed the holiday! I also celebrated my mom's birthday over the break.

Licking his lips after enjoying his new peanut butter bones!

Passed out after way too much excitement for the day!

On the teacher side, I got report cards done, lesson plans for first week back done, and I made one game because I know I have measurement coming up and teaching the conversions is always so difficult for the kids. I made an "I Have, Who Has" game for both customary and metric conversion practice. If you want one, comment below (good for 4th -6th graders). I will give copies to the first 2 people to comment with their e-mail address.

Hope everyone had/is having a great vacation. May we all be rested and relaxed as we return back in January (and may the light bulbs start going off for our kiddos when we return).

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you out there! This Thanksgiving I have so much to be grateful for.

1. My God
2. My family (this includes my loveable fur-baby, Snowball)
3. My friends
4. My jobs
5. My class
6. The great family/work trip I just took (read more below)
7. Three Golden Apple Teacher nominations
8. Facebook so I can keep in touch with family and friends spread far and wide
9. Time off
10. The holiday season
11.  LIFE!
12. All the goodness God has given us...
13. And more things than I can even think of.

 Work/Family Trip

    This week I went to Orlando for a combined work/family trip. Over the weekend we attended a wonderful dance convention called Dance Revolution. It is a faith-based dance convention, but the steps and technique and joy brought to the kids is just amazing. My acro team go rave reviews! It was their debut performance. But, what brought me to tears of joy was my little niece (ok she's really a thrid cousin, but we think of ourselves as "aunt" and "niece" - easier for her to understand) won a scholarship to go back next year - only one from our studio and only one in her age division. SOOOOO PROUD of her. This is only her 2nd year of dance. The scholarship was based on her attitude, work ethic, and skills in classes. :) She was wonderful. This little girl has come so far in the short time she has been dancing...she used to be shake when someone she didn't know would try to talk to her; this weekend she RAN up on stage all by herself in front of probably a thousand people to accept her award. NEVER would have happened without finding confidence from her Lord and in the love of the teachers/owner of our studio and all the friends she has made there.
    On the family front, after Dance Rev, we met up at Universal and enjoyed some great family time. Would have been better if we weren't all so sick and it hadn't been so blastedly cold in Orlando. Forgot how much cooler it can be there than in this area. It was ridiculously cool, but we still had an enjoyable time. Looking forward to maybe going back up for my birthday since we got an amazing price on tickets - $115 for 2 park unlimited until Jan. 31. This is the first time my birthday has fallen over winter break in a long time, so it would be fun to get to do something for it.

Kayla with her two favorite Dance Rev teachers - Ms. Misty & Ms. May Beth.

Harry Potter Land - can't believe it is still so crowded there

My first and probably last Butterbeer - way too sweet & way too expensive, but after reading all the Harry Potter books I had to try it for the experience

My LOWEST score on Men in Black ride...when I lived in Orlando I used to ride this ride like 10 times in a row at least, I was addicted to it - what can I say, I am ultra-competitive - was happy to see after 7 years of not riding this ride, I still had this skills; however it killed my hand

MIA & Problem/Solution Freebie Game

So I've been missing in action all week - spent the week in the hospital - so not fun. Of course, this is my "haha" for lesson planning all the way to Thanksgiving break the day I went into the hospital. So much for trying to get ahead. I still don't know quite what's wrong, but I am going to try to go back to work on Monday. Hoping all stays well and that I can survive the week until I can get in for a follow up with my own doctor on the following Monday. While I was sick, I apparently picked up some new followers so I am giving away my newest game to the first 3 people who comment below with their name and e-mail so I can send it your way. Made this game up today since I am working on problem and solution in class next week. Thought this would make a fun center game.

 

You can also purchase these at my teachers pay teachers store or my teachers notebook store.

Hope everyone has a great week. :) 

My fur-baby

Snowball around 4 months old

My adorable Maltese puppy (he's currently 9 months old as of July 13). His name is Snowball. He is trouble with a capital T right now! He's into sneaking out of the house, chewing on shoes, and walking all over my keyboard while I am trying to set up my blog. However, he is so cute and cuddly and lovable :)