Where's Gracie?

Putting Gracie to bed also means putting her dolls and bear to bed too. She asks for them each by name. Maggie (the doll I sewed for her), Tilly (the cabbage patch doll), and bear, (and sometimes Lilly, but not very often so she isn't pictured).  Doesn't she look as snug as a bug in her crowded rug?

A little bit of This and A Lot of That

We've been busy lately, but not to busy to enjoy life with each other and family members. (By-the-way, we are never to busy to get together with our families...always worth the drive!)

I love that I don't have to work on Fridays! I get to play with the kids, stay in P.J.s for most of the day, cook, prep art examples for the coming week, and waste time looking at all the hidden treasures at ROSS (Grace absolutely loves that store, mostly because I let her rummage through the toys to make her own little discoveries...we never buy, but its fun to play with them while we're there.)

One new fun thing we do on Fridays is have tea parties! I make cookies, or small peanut butter sandwiches and hot apple cider or hot coco and we have all the makings for a grand tea party! Grace absolutely loves this! I do too!

 I found Grace's little tea set at Ross's (of course)

(sorry for the blurry pic)

 And I had to buy a tea set for me too, so I could host our little tea parties. (I can hardly believe I never had one, considering my mother owns a ton.)

 My little cuties, dressed up and ready for church! Sundays are so exciting at our house, the excitement of nursery is more than we can handle!

 We made a trip to Idaho on Martin Luther King  weekend. We went to Malta for a quick visit and had fun hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa Barrett's house for a few hours. Then up to Newdale to eat Sunday dinner with the simper family (well, a few of them anyway). Then on Monday we Drove to Pocatello and played in the snow with Debbi's family and Eva and Porter. The snow was so wet, we were falling in all over the place. I spent most of the time, in the car with Seth, but it was fun to watch the others get down and dirty in the snow. The highlight of the visit for me, was laughing around the kitchen table with my sisters for an hour or so after the snow play.

 Eva and Grace...they look so cold! But they had so much fun!

 Look at those rosey cheeks! 

 Seth! So Cute! Just hanging with me in the car...we stayed very warm!

 Another moment in the hall, they spend a lot of time there while I dress for the day. (okay, not A LOT of time, I can usually dress in 45 min or less...USUALLY.)

 Brag time. 

I made this little skirt, it was a Christmas present. Now, what I am most proud of, is that I didn't have a pattern! I just kind of went with an idea I had after seeing one like it on the babygap web site that cost 32 dollars! YA RIGHT! I made this skirt for less than FIVE!

So there you have it, A little bit of this and a lot of that! Such a random post, I know.

Welcome to My Classroom

I have been the art teacher at Birch Creek for three school weeks now and I am loving it! I thought it would be fun to show you around my classroom. I am still working on it, but I'll show you anyway,

My Favorite part! My name right outside the door...I feel so official!

It is such a beautiful big class! Can you see the little snowmen families the kids have been working on? I've been putting them up (pretty slowly) as the kids finish them.

Birch Creek's mascot it the bulldog, so It's all about them in this classroom. Each table is a colored bulldog and they work together to earn their dog bones each week. The teams total over all points (in dog bones) throughout the month earn them the opportunity to take Arty, the bulldog back to their class for a month. They LOVE it.

Ooh, those precious dog bones...

Arty the bulldog and his clone. (The two classes with the highest points get to take them, they love Arty)
And this is the first real project I've done with them. It turned out pretty successfully! The first graders did the small guy, we called him our double decker snowman. and the second graders did the tall ones. The third graders are still working on theirs, they have an extra element to theirs...check out the picture below.
Cute right? So I taught the kids about character and style, leaving the eyes and nose off gave it a personal character and style. I taught them about dry brushing (technique), about art in play (building a snowman is like building a sculpture, creating a work of art) and finally, I taught them about art in nature, the snowflakes are an original piece every time.

So the first project was fun and turned out cute. It was hard to start out right away with a painting project. It was a lot of hard work. Classroom management was an absolute must and TONS of cleaning. But I'm glad I jumped in with this project, I know I can handle anything now.Next week's projects are going to be so fun (and cute) I'm pretty excited to see how the kids do.

My Life On and Off the Sub List

Well, it wasn't a very long run on the list, but it was a beneficial run. I started this school year as a substitute teacher. I absolutely loved it! I mostly subbed for teachers from Sunrise, but soon I began to build my regulars and found a few schools that I looked forward to teaching in. I loved being able to pick and choose when I worked and where, I loved the freedom of determining my own schedule, but at last, my life on the sub list came to an end.

In December a job posting came up on the Cache County school district web site. It was a job I could not resist. The Art Specialist. A part-time, Monday - Thursday gig that would be loads and loads of fun. I applied. I interviewed. I prayed a ton about it. I was offered the job!! I was thrilled to accept.

So, now I have a new life on a different list, the faculty and staff of Birch Creek Elementary in Smithfield, Utah list. We are doing some fun projects that I will happily share in my next post. My goal is to be creative and fresh, teach the same old art with new and fun ideas.

I sure am lucky to wake up 4 days of the week, excited to get to work!

More to come....