The BALL, some crafties, and update

The Military Intelligence Ball was fun, it was more fun to get all dressed up for a "for reals" BALL!!! Here's the thing, I didn't know WHAT to wear...so I went shopping...had I not waited till the last minute I would have considered sewing myself something, but I didn't want to put that kind of pressure on myself so late in the game. So...what do Adults wear to a Ball? It's formal...the servicemen and women wear their dressiest duds, bowtie, shiny shoes, all their decorations etc... Now I went to a Ball in Jordan, but I was told that the Ball here wasn't as formal...well...okay, but still what to I wear??? SO I went shopping, only to run into the same problem as I did in high school, slinky, sleeveless, strapless, loads of glitter (Which is WAY fun and adorable and appropriate for the Prom...but a ball? I don't know!) So everything i found was too teenager-ish, immodest, expensive etc. So I decide that I should wear black, anything in black looks classy, right? Well, long story SHORT (ish) on a whim I stopped in at Ross, and tried every.single.black.dress. in my size. (like 15 dresses) and told myself I wasn't even going to look at price tags, John told me I could spend like 60 dollars...generous no? So I tried on dress after dress...and found one that was fun to wear, black, sassy, and something I felt dressed up in. It is in NO way a ball gown, but I'm okay with that, I felt pritty:) I wanted to do a pretty up do, and I fell in love with Taylor swift's hair at the CMT awards, and I did my best to re-create it. It was fun. I wore some jewelry I had (Emily, do you recognize my necklace???) I bought a Belt and some shoes to dress it up some more.

Doesn't my prince look SO dashing AND charming?!



Turns out I fit in just fine with my not-a-ball-gown dress :)
Our "TEAM" We love hanging out with these great guys and their wives! Always a hoot!
This is another dress I made with my favorite pattern. I usually don't take this long to get ready for school, but it was picture day! :) I forgot to take a picture close up of the print, it is beautiful! It's my new favorite!
Oliver turned ONE!!! (And Nate had a birthday too...)
I was itching to make something with applique, I didn't know it was SO fast and easy! YEAH!!!
I wanted to do long sleeves since we're heading into fall and winter, I LOVE the stripey tie!

And the "look at me I'm ONE" shirt. Applique is such a satisfying project!
I added a comfy pair of brown pants to the set. It was so cute all together!

I bought this dress for 2.oo...that's right, 2 bucks, on super clearance at TJ Maxx...to tell you the truth I don't know that I would have picked out the checks over like a flowery print, but you know, when there's a dress that's my style for 2 bucks, do I say no? No. So I decided to bedazzle it tonight :) It look all of like 15-20 minutes and I did it while i was watching women's conference :)
Added this trim I happened to have, to girly it up a bit... it also added 2 inches of length, which I am grateful for, I'm tall :)
And I made this flower out of the trim, and a matching one for my hair




All the girls in my class on picture day:)

Labor Day...I know.

Sheesh. I just uploaded a boatload of pictures, now I'm too tired to Narrarate them...ugh, I'll do my best! We went to Yellowstone for Labor Day, camping with James, Miekka, Seth, Jacob, Lia, and Joe. It was so much fun! It was a good camping trip. Beautiful things to see, at night we could hear the wolves howling, and elk bugleing...it was outstanding!




What would a trip to yellowstone be without some close encounters with Buffalo?! Massive creatures.
Prism Pools....a.maz.ing.

Old Faithful!
A beetle-Bum (Bumble bee) I just thought this shot was super artsy and cool. posted for Dad...:)
Miekka James and Seth., Seth did the Junior Scientist AND Junior ranger programs! It was fun,a nd reminded me of when I did the junior ranger program at yellowstone when I was younger :)
Again, Old Faithful! (Does anyone else think of Dennis the Menace when they say "OLD FAITHFUL!'???

CUTE SETH
CUTE LIA
We lovingly crammed into the mini-van the majority of the excursions in the park, there was a lot of driving. I tried to stay awake but I slept a lot of the distances...
These two boys have the BEST imaginations, also, Jacob didn't take of his "Robin superhero cosyume the entire trip! SO hilarious, he even had a mask much of the time, Seth of course was Batman. :) Robin was capturing Batman...or maybe he was a bad guy, I never can keep them straight.
Lia was my snuggle buddy, she kept me so warm all bundled up, and I promptly became her favorite entertainer :)
JACOB...LOL...poor kid ran right into a pokey-outie tree branch that was halfway broken off...look how close the scratches got to his eye!!!
We had a GRAND time! Thanks Lances!

True story...rated PG-13 for a swear word

It's too late...12:23 am...I had parent teacher conferences tonight. We are going camping to Yellowstone tomorrow, John is still up and will be all night working on unpacking LOADS of junk from boxes we brought from our storage unit...

Today was entertaining. I teach reading for all the low readers in third grade. I love them. They are adorable. They really struggle and I have to try really hard to motivate them and get them to have fun in reading because most of them hate it. I don't like doing things I'm not good at either. I came up with this game on the fly today: teams of three kids per team. Personal white board, marker, one person is the writer to write the sentence, a reader to read and make sure the sentence makes sense and a speller to make sure the spelling word is spelled right. So I say, your first word is 'lamp' write a sentence using the word lamp. They do, they get points accordingly. Their sentences went like this: The lamp is pink. She turned on the lamp. etc etc. The next word, black, write a sentence using the word black...the cat is black...I have black shoes....and then one group is taking awhile to show me their sentence, I can tell they are arguing, I give them time. They bring me their white board. They look at me frustrated because they can't figure out how to spell one word, I look at the sentence:

"I have a black sh!t"

True story. They wanted to write shirt...ahhhhh...awesome day.

School

First week of school. Survived. My class is so adorable! I knew they would be, but it's just thrilling to have them with me! I feel so privileged to be their teacher. They are some remarkable kids. We spent the week doing routines and get to know you games, and art and math games and writing and lessons on being good people...like making friends and helping others. I also had to do some testing to see what groups each child should be in. In my new school the students rotate for math and reading. The bad news is I teach all the really low readers, which means I teach low kids, ones that can't recognize letters half of the time. It will be a challenge for sure, but I am really looking forward to building them up and making them confident little people. I have some real chnaracters in my class, one with a lischp...teascher, teacsher...whastch tchime isch lunsch? And one who is a refugee from Somalia, ZERO english skills, but a beautiful beautiful girl, and eager to learn, she wears a hijab and everything :)

Bummer: I am sick. already. I know its a combination of stress and a new schedule and GERMS, but I wash my hands all the time, my students always put hand sanitizer on, they just pick their yucky little button noses and thier boogers end up all over the place, in their mouths (BARF) on their clothes, rubbed onto their own hands, desks, pencils, etc etc etc...and they make me ill! Darn it! I'm hoping my immune system with kick it up a notch. I am so achy and stuffy I don't know what to do! Drugs are the answer I think...any 'sure thing' magical remedies out there? Let me know!

I LOVE the way my classroom ended up looking

First day of school! Can you tell this dress is my FAVORITE?!?!?! It was John's first day of the semester at the U too, cute yes?

With my lunch bag and everything...so exciting!

Please ignore the MESS that is my desk...it always looks like this, organized chaos!

"THE" leaf, remember how bad I wanted this leaf, I wish I had 2 more! Penelope hanging out...lol....hanging out! LOL!!!

The reading corner..it didn't quite turn out how I had envisioned it, but it's still pretty cute. The owl, the leaves, the BOOKS :) Love it! The kids REALLY love it, they think our classroom is the "Bomb" their words...not mine. I like it.
I made this word wall...if they don't know how to spell a word, they go over and see if it's in the word wall, for example, if they don't know how to spell 'friend', they go look in the 'f's. if the word is there, they take it to their desk, spell it, and return the card to the 'f's. If the word is not there, they bring me a card and a pen and say "friend". I write it on the card, and they use it to spell. this way I don't have to tell kids a trillion times how to spell the word 'friend'. nice. and SO cute!

All my chairs were mismatched, anad my desks were different heights. I begged the custodian to be my friend and help me switch out chairs and fix my desks, I am a little ocd about them all being the same color, height, etc. I love it when things match, and I LOVE these old green chairs!

View from the back of the room

View from the door

All these bulletin boards will be full of things eventually, like art and vocabulary words etc...

Notice the flags at the top, made by me out of fabric, they took me FOREVER to make , but I will use the FOREVER so it's okay :)

Had to bedazzle my computer desk, just some extra fabric I had...nice touch though right?
My wall of embroidery hoops, inspired by Jessica! Thanks Jess, I love them! I am working on some curtains that match these...they are taking far too long to finish...bit off more than I care t chew at the moment! :)

A few more things....

Found FIVE dresses for FIVE dollars EACH!!! Talk about a five dollar FREAK OUT!!! This is the first of the five that I have worn, paired it with a sassy black belt thanks to Jana, and I wish you could see my hair twisted back...it was adorable.

butter yellow with Grey polka-dots, I love the collar and the buttons, sorry the pic isn't the best, feeling WAY to lazy to edit photos!

Also, Jana took John and I to float down the Provo River, it was GORGEOUS! (And a little cold) but so much fun!


One more thing, I just finished this dress! I LOVE it, i'm even making 2 more with this pattern, (the same as I have made in the past) it's seriously THE most comfortable thing to wear! I love when I can be comfy and cute at the same time! I got the green fabric for like 50 cents a yard at a wal-mart close out...SCORE! And the middle section is an Amt butler print that I LOVE!!!