My Favorites...

1. Color: Blue and burgundy
2. Symbol: Infinity
3. Number: 7
4. Day: Saturday
5. Food: Mexican
6. Dessert: (currently) Banana Pudding and Pazooki's (spelling) from BJs
7. Animal: Penguin
8. Candy: Kit Kat, Milk Duds, or Sour Patch Kids
9. Activity: Blog
10. Show: Parenthood and Dexter
11. Sport: Dance... I do enjoy watching Ray play Frisbee
12. Outdoor Activity: picnics and camping
13. Sonic Happy Hour: I am loving cherry coke and cherry limeades
14. Favorite Flavor: almost always orange
15. Favorite Insect: Ok I typically dislike all insects but lady bugs and butterflies are pretty cool

What are your favorites?!?

Our Boys in Maroon & White!

This afternoon the boys adorned their maroon and white as they watched their Aggies take on Oklahoma State University! Our Ags were not victorious but our boys still had a great time cheering them on! Sadly I was unable to join them as I have been a bit under the weather this weekend. Thank you Kristin for sending me this picture of an afternoon filled with fun! WHOOP!

Thought Bubble...

Toby appears to be in deep thought. Here are a few additional tidbits and thoughts of mine lately.

1. God truly blesses us in more ways than we can ever imagine but it is in His timing. As He is the author of our story, I truly know that He is greater than all things.
2. I have learned what true exhaustion is... or at least for now:)
3. I am absolutely missing my family. But it looks like we'll be visiting in about a week or so.
4. I just got my hair did today and it feels fabulous. Maybe 10 weeks is a little too long between hair cuts?!?
5. 7 months until we are out of this apartment and hopefully in a house.
6. I am so thankful for this weather. I cannot wait for Fall:)
7. I am so excited that the State Fair is around the corner. Bring on the fried desserts!
8. I wake up to the tune of Kindergarten songs going off in my head.
9. 5:00 AM is my new wake up time.
10. I want to bake a pie.
11. I can't wait to cheer on the Aggies on Oct 15th with our college friends.
12. I am excited about creating my Halloween costume this year. Still not sure what I'll be but I love theme parties! Any ideas?
13. I love carrot cake and red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing. YUM!
14. Our ABF class is multiplying next week. We will be known as Purpose!
15. I love Dexter. We are currently watching Season 5!

I guess 15 is good for now. Any new Tidbits for you?

Ray's 5K Corporate Challenge!

PFS took home another Gold medal in their Richardson Corporate Challenge 5K! What a great year for PFS! Keep up the good work!

My Husband's a Champion!

My Husband's a Champion!

It's that time again for PFS Web to compete in the Richardson Corporate Challenge! Ray has currently competed in both dodge ball and kickball and has taken home a gold and silver respectively. He will also be competing in the 5K and Dominoes challenge over these upcoming weeks. I am so proud of him and look forward to many more competitions in the future! I am one proud wifey!

A Great First Week!

We celebrated an AMAZING first week in KINDERGARTEN!

Since last Saturday, I have spent hours upon hours in my new room on "Kinder Way" to get everything prepared for my kiddos. Conveniently this is located around the corner from my previous room in the ELC. Working as the new Kindergarten teacher is such a wonderful opportunity but it is even more amazing to be at my school that I've loved for the past year.

This week they met the new Kindergarten teacher and became a separate class. We've discussed our classroom rules and procedures, learned about the letter M and studied new sight words, met Gregory our green talking monster, introduced language, math, and reading stations, discussed our warm fuzzy box and earning rewards, we studied the calendar, math and sorting, and integrated lessons, played at center time, and even danced to some groovy tunes! What a fun fabulous week! Enjoy a few more updated pictures of our room!

My "Busy Bees" Art Work!


The Very Hungry Caterpillar watching over our reading station.

You never know what you are going to find in your pocket.

MIA because of Kinder Way...

and I LOVE IT!

If you have been wondering why you have not seen my typical updates... it is because I have spent all my time here!




I absolutely love my kiddos already. I have such a good class filled with so many sweet kindergarteners! Today was our family picnic at school. I even had the chance to speak with many of my little friends' parents. I could not be more excited about this amazing opportunity and am absolutely looking forward to a super fun year!

Birthday Pedis!

Last year, a birthday tradition was born. For each birthday, Kristin and I enjoy a ladies night out that includes dinner and pedicures. This year we traveled to our usual nail salon and and enjoyed a relaxing time that ended with super cute toes! For dinner we dined at Pasados in Plano. They have delicious Mexican food, tasty drinks, and free dessert. Here are some pictures from our evening.

Newly Wed Game: Spousal Trivia!

Saturday night our ABF hosted its annual Newly Wed Game at the church. After an extremely long day in my classroom... I had decided it was time for a much needed break and a fun night out with friends. So we made our way to Richardson to join a fun yet competitive game of spousal trivia.

From the very beginning I had determined that we may not do well as I was so tired from the previous 9 hours worked at school that day and the 13-14 hour days I had previously had. I just didn't think we had a chance.

Some questions for the men included: Mother in Laws birthday, husband's first car, official job title, favorite super hero, most money paid for shoes, childhood nickname, meal he would order at wife's favorite restaurant, which of seven dwarfs describes your wedding night, favorite crayon color, favorite and chore.

Some questions for the women included: perfume, what activity would you spend 6 hours on, favorite car, number of bridesmaids, number of boyfriends since 16, etc. Well I guess the previous 10 years of practice sure showed me as we took home the gold and won first place and a gift card to Bed Bath & Beyond!



And as it turns out Ray does an excellent job listening to his wife... it may help that I repeat things just a few times. Here are some pictures from our night out. Thank you to the Janes for putting together another amazing gathering and Newly Wed Game:)

The "wedding cupcakes"

Our hosts the Janes

The Howards in 2nd Place

The Zoutendams in 3rd place

The Links and Hutchinsons (old rivals:) tied in 4th place

Consolation Prize...
the food goes to the Stones and Hoopers

The Hanks!

I love having the opportunity to grow, serve, and share with these amazing couples! What an absolutely hilarious game of chance! I am thankful for my partner and teammate... my husband and best friend!

WeLcOmE to my cLaSrOoM!

This past week has been filled with so many emotions. I am so thankful for my amazing opportunity to teach Kindergarten students, disheartened to know I will be leaving my team and ELC kiddos, and exhausted from all the changes. But again with a week filled all of these emotions and hours of work, it is all absolutely worth it. Each day I have spent hours on end turning a room filled with "stuff" into a room that I will grow 20 amazing Kindergarteners and of course have LOTS of FUN in the process! So here is my journey as a first year "official" teacher in Kindergarten!


Welcome to my classroom...
(volunteering my time this weekend... here is a start to my room set up)




I even had some amazing volunteers! To Kristin... a very big THANK YOU goes out to you and your sweet family for helping me set up, giving me great tips, bringing in lunch (a fabulous motivator and reinforcer... thanks Michael and Bryson:) and just for helping me keep my sanity! To my husband who is fabulous at setting up borders and all that you have done and put up with... I am truly grateful! Thank you all again!


....more pictures to come of the final product! Welcome to Kinder way!

Belated Birthday at Buca!

Tonight the husband and I joined our best friends at Buca di Beppo for my belated birthday dinner. We enjoyed tasty family style eats, delicious drinks, amazing conversation, and great catch up with friends. I absolutely love these people and am so blessed to have them in my life. We of course were missing some sweet friends but know we will all be together again soon. Here are some pictures from our night out celebrating Family Style at Buca!

It even ended with a fabulous celebratory song! What an amazing night with friends celebrating Twenty Seven years! When we returned home the puppies were all smiles! A truly blessed day indeed:)

His & Her Buca Celebration glasses

Today...
1. I enjoyed a fabulous belated birthday celebration with my best friends
2. I signed my professional teaching paper work
3. I drove to the school 3X as I forgot my camera right before dinner and had to make an additional trip back to the school
4. Bryson and Jacob met for the first time:)