Aggie Football!

On Saturday Tony and I drove up to College Station with two friends of ours for the football game. Since the game was in the evening, we decided to go early and just make a day of it. Goodness I LOVE College Station! I sure do miss it!

Our first stop was the tent sale. Only, it's not exactly a tent anymore ... it's turned into a warehouse sale. I can only imagine how much money I would have spent if this had been around a few years ago. Surprisingly enough, I didn't buy even one t-shirt! haha who would have thought?!?

After the tent sale we paid to park by Langford and took a walk through campus. We ended up over on Northgate and had lunch at Antonios. YUM! I love their pizza! After our stomachs were filled with some food, it was time for some drinks. We went to dry bean, which is pretty much my long lost love. I forgot how awesome that place is! So many different yummy shots and they are only $3 each. We each bought a round for the group then decided it was time to start pacing since it was only 2:30pm haha.  We went next door to Fitzwillies to sit and relax with a drink for awhile.

After a bit we walked over to west campus where we had a tailgate party to stop by. We hung out there a bit, then had to head out to make it to step off in time. We watched the corps go by then checked out the new MSC. It is SO nice! They did such a good job of keeping the important parts, like the flag room, the same, and making everything outdated so much nicer.

After cooling off and resting a bit, it was game time. Our seats weren't great, first deck by the endzone, but it didn't matter. The weather was great and because the game was a total blowout, people left early and we had tons of space. Any game we win 70-14 is a good one!

After the game the 4 of us went back over to Fitzwillies for dinner, then decided to head back to Houston because we were all exhausted.

It was such a fun day! I cannot wait to go back again in November. yay! :)

CO Trip

Well, summer is officially over for me. I got back from a long weekend in Denver last night and it's back to the grind. I spent the morning up at school getting last minute things ready in my room. Tomorrow and Thursday I have all day trainings, then we officially start back to work on Monday. I really thought that I would be more ready to go back since I didn't work this summer, but that's not so much the case. I have REALLY enjoyed my time off this summer. I am excited to get back to school to start up in reading recovery, but I could use a few more weeks off.

Anyway, back to my quick getaway to Denver. Tony and I flew in to Denver Thursday morning and spent the day with my parents. My dad, Tony, and I spent a few hours that afternoon at the golf course. We played 9 holes and I must say I played pretty well for having not golfed at all since May! That evening we had a big cookout at the house. Woody was in town (with his gf) on his way back from his summer internship in Wyoming, Davis came by with a friend of his, and Bobby, Janet, Aunt Jane, and Uncle David all came over to eat. My dad made BBQ chicken and we all relaxed out by the pool all evening. The weather was PERFECT! I don't know what all those people in Colorado are complaining about ... it wasn't hot at all compared to Houston haha.

Friday Tony and I got up early to head to the mountains. The plan was to backpack for 2 nights ... but things didn't quite go as planned. T got hit by altitude sickness, and despite telling me he was fine and we could stay and camp, his wobbly walking proved otherwise and we ended up taking a nice day hike then heading back in to town.  I think it all worked out great though because we ended up getting to spend a nice weekend with my parents.  I really didn't take many pictures while we were out since we went to the same place last year. I figured I didn't need a repeat of all the same trails etc. Here's one of us on our hike though:

Friday night after we got back to town, everyone met up for dinner again then we stayed up late catching up. Saturday we went golfing again with both my mom and dad. We played this great little par 3 course and I was doing really well. I finally learned how to hit my irons so I felt like a golf rockstar haha.  We went back to the same course on Sunday and I played my best game of golf yet. We played 9 holes and I was 9 over at the end. That means that I averaged bogie on every hole. That's amazingly good for me haha. I'm improving!

All in all a very fun long weekend. It would have been great to camp, but I think it turned out just as fun anyway. Always great to see the family. :)

I changed the look of my blog (finally!), as it was in serious need of an update. If you are reading through google reader head on over to check it out. :)

http://kmccormack.blogspot.com/

Pinterest Project: Sundae Cupcakes

To go along with our hamburger cupcakes and sugar cookie fries, Michelle and I decided to make some ice cream sundae cupcakes. I thought these two would go perfectly together. Check out the original tutorial here.

I just love these. The frosting is what really makes them. It looks like a scoop of ice cream with whipped cream on top, but really it is just two different frostings in different textures.

We made ours a little different. Since we already had a dessert with brownies, we made Dan's chocolate cake (as cupcakes) instead. YUM! The frosting turned out great, just like the original. The only issue we had was with the "whipped cream" frosting. I went ahead and bought a can of white frosting with the tip you can pipe right on. Unfortunately, it was sort of more of a clear/white and mostly just blended in with the other frosting rather than have a completely different look. No worries, they were still awesome. What do you think?

Everyone at the party today loved them.

Pinterest win.

Pinterest Project: Hamburger Cupcakes and Fries

I saw these great cupcakes on pinterest a long time ago and had been looking for an excuse to make them. We're having a big BBQ tomorrow for the fourth of July, and since we will not be having the traditional hamburgers and hot dogs (but rather the most delicious brisket, ribs, and chicken), I thought they would be the perfect addition to our meal.

Michelle came over yesterday to help me put these together. The idea is simple. Bake a yellow cupcake and cut it in half. Bake a pan of brownies, cut circles using a biscuit cutter. Place brownie circle between two pieces of cupcake and pipe frosting on to look like lettuce, ketchup, or mustard. Sprinkle sesame seeds on top to make the cupcake look a little more like the top of a hamburger bun. On the original website, she had a printable for the cute little baskets to put these in so of course I was all over that. And I went ahead and modified the fry package to say Happy 4th of July instead of Happy Father's Day.

The second part of these are the fries. Sugar cookie fries to be exact. The idea for these is also pretty simple. Buy sugar cookie dough, roll out, bake, cut into strips, and sprinkle sugar on top to look like salt.

Here is our finished product:

What do you think? I love them! They were a HUGE hit today at the BBQ! :)

pinterest win.

Pinterest Projects: Story Elements

I am always looking for new fun things to use in my classroom to make ordinary lessons more fun. In first grade we are constantly reviewing story elements in fiction books and practicing retelling the story using beginning, middle, and end.  Doing this so often, it can get boring so I wanted to come up with some new fun ways to work on this skill that the kids would be excited about.  I found two cute ideas on Pinterest, and quickly put them together at the teacher center one afternoon.

First up, the story map board:

First graders LOVE sticky notes. I mean they really LOVE them! Anything automatically becomes a million times more fun if a sticky note is involved. I love this story map because the kids can be actively engaged using sticky notes. Give every kid a sticky note, and assign them a part to listen and record while you are reading. After the story you can review the story elements using the kids sticky notes. If two kids write the same thing (which they should in this instance), just stack their stickies on top of each other. Every kid is actively engaged and having fun. Love it. Here's mine:

Another fun project I found were these story element wands:

These didn't have a tutorial, just the picture, so I just figured out how to make them myself. I used some felt and a di-cut machine to cut out two large stars in each color. Then I used a smaller star di-cut and some white felt to cut the middle of each. Using a sharpie, I wrote each story element on the center piece of the wand (I made: characters, setting, problem, solution, beginning, middle, and end). First, I sewed the small star to the center of a larger star. Then, I cut a piece of quitting batting (just a small square) and placed it between the two big star layers and sewed around the edge, leaving a small space for the stick. At hobby lobby I purchased a set of wooden dowel rides, which I wrapped in glittery ribbon and hot glued inside the star. Simple, and fun.

I really think the kids are going to love using these to practice retelling the story and describing story elements. Can't wait to use them next year!

Pinterest Project: Brownie Batter Cupcakes

It had been awhile since I made any new cupcakes, so one afternoon last week when I got bored I decided to try a new recipe I saw on pinterest.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of these cupcakes after I was finished, but let me tell you, they were amazing. They looked super cute and they were delicious!! I used a yellow cake mix to make the cupcake but modified the recipe by adding some sugar, sour cream, and vanilla. The cake turned out moist and full of flavor (much better than the simple box cake mix by itself). In the middle of these cupcakes is a bite of brownie, yum! I accidentally made more brownie bites than I needed for the cupcakes so we kept some of those in the fridge to eat as a bite size treat. That is the first dessert I have found that I cannot keep Tony away from. Those brownie bites inside are DELICIOUS! You could make that as a treat all on it's own.

I sent a dozen of these to work with Tony (because we don't need to be fatties and eat 18 cupcakes all ourselves) and they were devoured by the end of the day. Definitely a hit. If you like the taste of brownie and are looking for a good cupcake, I suggest you try these.

another pinterest win.

Pinterest Project: Sunbathing Towel and Pillow

Last weekend Tony, Michelle, and I planned to take a day trip down to the beach the coming Friday. A few days before, I was playing around on pinterest, and found this awesome tutorial for a beach towel with a pillow that rolls up into a tote bag.

I knew I had to make one before our beach trip at the end of the week. I made one important change from the original. In the tutorial they stuffed the pillow part and sewed it together. This seemed like it would make washing it extremely difficult. So instead, I bought a full size pillow (on sale at Target for $4!) and made a pocket with velcro to slide it in. Now when I want to wash the towel I just slide the pillow out and throw the thing in the washing machine.

This project was really simple. You don't have to measure anything and the sewing does not have to be perfect. Check out the link above for the tutorial if you are interested in making one (though I highly recommend making the pillow part a velcro pocket instead of stitching it closed for ease of use). I used mine at the beach yesterday and it worked wonderfully! With the added length the pillow portion adds, my feet no longer hang off the end of the towel when I lay down on it. It was so much more comfortable to lay on a long towel with a pillow than the regular beach towel. Michelle was jealous of how awesome it turned out, so we've decided to make her one during our craft day next Tuesday (we'll be making a number of pinterest projects that day so stay tuned). I just love how this turned out. It took about 30 minutes from start to finish and I have a great beach towel for laying out. yay!

another pinterest win!

Pinterest Project: Weekly Menu Board

After a very long hiatus from blogging, I'm back! haha

Summer is in full swing and I am greatly enjoying my time off from work. Since my sweet boys moved to London about a month ago, I am not working this summer. I thought I would be miserably bored, but I have found the break has actually been wonderful.

With all this time off, I have plenty of time to play on pinterest (my latest obsession). I've already made something like 15 projects for my classroom next year. As some of you may know, not everything you see on pinterest turns out exactly like it looks when you make it haha. Sidenote: one of my new favorite blogs to read is _______. She blogs about different projects she tries from pinterest that turn out as total failures. It's sort of hilarious if you are bored and want to check it out. Anyway, since I've been trying out projects and tricks learned from pinterest I thought I might blog about some of the successes (and failures, though I haven't had a major failure yet).

First up: my new weekly menu planning board. Here is the original I saw on pinterest:

This looked like something cute and simple that could actually be used in my house. I am really trying to be more diligent about menu planning each week so we end up eating less fast food and I can better budget money for weekly meals. The only problem I have is I tend to forget half of the yummy meals we have had before.  My solution: this menu board. I color coded the cards by different types of meals, soups/stews, pasta dishes, casseroles, meat dishes, and misc. I have also marked them with symbols to show healthy meals and crockpot meals. This way I can plan a variety of meals each week. To use this, all I have to do is flip  through the meal cards and clip my choices next to each day of the week. Another great thing about this, is on the back of each card I have listed the ingredients needed for that meal. That way when I plan my weekly meals, to make my grocery list, all I have to do is flip each card over and record what I need from the store. Easy!

The original I saw was thin and could be clipped to the fridge. I wasn't such a fan of that idea because things are forever falling off my fridge if it bumps the wall at a weird angle. Instead, I found these great wooden plaques at hobby lobby for just a couple dollars. I used a cute piece of scrap paper and some modge podge to add color, then glued on mini clothespins for each day of the week. This fits perfectly in a cookbook stand and doubles as a cute kitchen decoration. One change I'll probably have to make soon is adding bigger pockets for meals. For now, all the meals we have made and eat regularly fit in the small pockets, but as we try more meals I'll need a bigger space to keep them like the original.

There you have it, my weekly menu board. Pinterest win. :)

"The Skanks"

Today we read a book called Aliens Love Panta Claus. It goes along with the book Alien's Love Underpants. The premise of the story is the aliens are helping out Santa, but keep using underwear for everything. They use them as a hat on the snowman, exchange the stockings for underwear, use them as ornaments on the tree etc. After reading the book, I wrote the following sentence on the board and the kids had to finish the sentence in a creative way and illustrate. Then I put all the pages together to make a class book:

"The aliens might use the underwear to______________"

One little girl brings me her paper and it looks beautiful. Her handwriting is perfect (better than mine, I swear haha), her picture fills the page, and everything looks fantastic. I read her paper to discover this gem:

"The aliens might use the underwear as gifts and deliver them to the skanks."

no. freaking. kidding.

The picture is of a house, and on the house it says "The Skank's House". Next to the house are the gifts that have been delivered by the aliens and they are labeled with tags such as "To Mrs. Skank".

I couldn't even bring myself to ask her what it said because I was laughing so hard tears were streaming down my face (not in front of her of course, this happened when I immediately ran to show Michelle haha). Best I can figure, she either has some friends with a similar name and sounded it out wrong, or she might have been trying to write "The Skunk's House" because a number of other kids had the brilliant idea to write things about skunks and thought it was funny.

Either way, this one is a keeper.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

So many things to be thankful for ... here are just a few:

- I'm thankful that after last years group of hellions, I have a small class of perfect angels this year
- I'm thankful for my AMAZING team that I work with. It is not possible to have a better group of ladies to spend my days with. They are truly my friends and I look forward to seeing them each day at work.
- I'm thankful my whole family is able to spend Thanksgiving together this year (and I'm thankful they are coming to Houston so I don't have to spend my break traveling!)
- I'm thankful for my wonderful best friend who came home from China early to cook a turkey for my family. He's so good to me!
- I'm thankful for my naughty kitten, who as we speak is climbing the Christmas tree, yet again!
- I'm thankful I didn't move to Colorado after all last year, because life turned out pretty damn good here. :)

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving surrounded by friends and family!

Christmas Stockings

When my brothers and I were born, my grandma made us each a quilted Christmas stocking. Maybe it's because I grew up only ever seeing these homemade ones, but these are really the only ones I like. Whenever I go to other people's houses, or look at stockings at the store, none of them seem right to me. Last year when we put up the Christmas tree, we bought some cheap stockings from Target just to have something to hang, but I really didn't care for them. So, this year I decided to make us some! I found a pattern (via pinterest, LOVE that site!), picked out some fabric, and got to work yesterday morning.

The first few steps were easy. Cut the outer pieces, lining, and batting, using the pattern, make a quilt sandwich, quilt the pieces together however you want (I did straight diagonal lines on mine, and followed the pattern of the squares on Tony's), put the pieces right sides together, sew a 1/4 seam around the edge, and flip right side out. Around this point I was feeling so proud of myself because this project was turning out to be pretty simple. Then I got to the band at the top and got incredibly frustrated because the directions were not very clear and I could not for the life of me figure out how to get these pieces sewn together. I had to take a long break and come back to it later. Once I googled directions and saw a picture of what the directions were asking I realized how simple it was. Took me just a few minutes to finish them up from there. yay!

Here are the finished products. All I have to do is add our names to the top. Hopefully I'll be able to finish that up tomorrow. I think they turned out pretty nice if I do say so myself! :)

 My stocking

Tony's stocking

Wonderful Evening

Last night I had such a wonderful evening with the sweet boys I nanny for in the summer.  Their mom messaged me a few weeks ago asking if I could take some pictures of their family. Of course I said yes! We met up at Pecan Park at 4 and took some pictures of the whole family, the three boys, and some individual shots as well. I'll edit those in the next few days and you'll be able to see a few posted on my photography blog.

After the pictures at the park we drove over to the new fire station by their house. It just opened a few weeks ago and Jennifer had asked me if I would mind taking a few pictures of Quinn in front of the fire truck in his halloween costume. Quinn is obsessed with firemen and wants to be one when he grows up. She bought him this awesome costume for halloween that looks just like the real thing. Well when we got to the station the firemen there were so friendly. I took some pictures, they let the boys play in the truck, and gave us a tour of the whole station. The boys were ecstatic. it was so much fun!

When we were getting ready to leave the station Matt asked me if I would like to join them back at the house for dinner. I had such a nice time with them! Jennifer and I sat outside and watched the boys ride bikes (they can ride on 2 wheels now!), and tossed the football with them as it got dark while Matt grilled some delicious steaks.

I love that sweet family so much! And those boys always manage to make me smile :)

Reasons I love my job

This morning I went to see one of my students play in his football game. At the end of the game I was giving him a hug and telling him goodbye when one of his little friends standing nearby overheard us talking and walked over ...

friend: hey! is that your teacher?
student: yeah
friend: aw man I wish MY teacher would come see me play. Your teacher is awesome! You're so lucky.

I looked back at my student and he was just beaming.

Christmas Vacation

I am SO excited about Christmas break this year!

One of Tony's good friends, Kyle, and his wife Jacky, rented a super fancy RV to take a 2 week trip to Colorado over Christmas break (I'm talking multiple bedrooms, heated floors kinda fancy). The four of us went to the gun range yesterday, and then out to lunch afterwards. At lunch, Jacky and Kyle invited us to join them for a leg of their trip. So, I spent the evening coordinating with Jacky, and working out flight arrangements with my dad to make this possible

I was already going to be in Denver the 22-26th for Christmas. Now, instead of flying back on the 26th, Tony is going to fly up to Denver to join me (thanks Dad for getting my flight changed, and using the miles to get Tony to Denver instead!), and we are going to meet up with Jacky and Kyle in Breckenridge to spend a few days playing there then road trip back to Texas in the RV with them! I'm so excited! I get to see my family for Christmas and go snowboarding with them, AND I get to go on an awesome road trip with friends. I seriously cannot wait for Christmas break now! So much fun ahead! :)

Dewberry Farm

Last week we took the kids on our annual field trip to Dewberry Farm (have I mentioned how much I LOVE that place?!? SO fun!!). The bus ride is actually pretty long for first grade standards. It takes about 40 minutes so by the time we get there the kids are usually getting pretty antsy. We were almost there when one of my cute little boys turns around and asks:

"Ms. McCormack, how much longer until we get there?"
"We're almost there D"
"*big sigh* I hate when people say almost!"
we then round the corner so we can see the farm
"Look D, we're here"
"Wow, that really was almost!!"

too cute!

We had a great day at the farm, just like last year. The kids had a blast even though it was FREEZING cold and incredibly windy!

Tony's Halloween Costume

I know it's been a number of weeks since Halloween, but I just haven't been in the blogging mood so this hasn't made it up yet.

I came home from school one afternoon, a few weeks before Halloween, and Tony informed me he wanted to be dead Caesar for Halloween, and he wanted me to make his costume! I was not quite sure how well this was going to turn out given that I have never sewed any type of clothing before, but he assured me I could do a better job than what he could find at the store. We spent some time picking out fabric and researching what a Roman tunic should look like (I also whipped up a toga, but that was much simpler and didn't take any time at all). When it was finally time for me to get to work on it, I was SO nervous I was going to screw it up. Tony had such faith in me, and I had no confidence at all that this project was going to be a success. I am happy to report though, that the costume turned out great! I think it turned out better than I could have hoped actually. The whole thing just came together really nicely. Tony loved it, and everyone knew who he was right away, so I would consider it a success overall. I felt so proud of myself for actually making something that not only fit him, but also looked great. Here are a few pictures so you can see how it turned out:

Mad Shooting Skills

Today we went out to the gun range with Jacky and Kyle so the boys could shoot their new guns and I pretty much put them all to shame.

We started at the pistol range and I shot my .22 a few times while the boys played with Kyle's .45 and Jacky shot Kyle's .22. The boys were shooting pretty well, every shot hitting the target, but sort of all over the place, when Kyle suggested I try shooting it. I was a little nervous because that is the biggest pistol I've been around. He put three bullets in and told me to give it a try anyway. I lined up my shot, and hit the bullseye first try. The boys were shocked. I turned back around, lined up my second shot, and quite literally shot straight through  my first shot hole. Lined up the third shot, and hit the same exact spot again. I turned around and all three of them had their jaws dropped. Apparently I put boys to shame with my mad shooting skills. I was pretty impressed with myself! Turns out that is a fun, powerful, gun to shoot!

Later, we went down to the rifle range. I shot my .22 for awhile but got bored because I've shot so much at 50 yards that I can pretty much put a hole in the bullseye no matter how many shots I take now. Kyle got out his AR-15, and shot a good cluster a little high and right of the bullseye. He handed it over to me and told me to try it out. I put 10 shots in a 1 inch cluster on the right side of the bullseye. Kyle says I should quite my day job and become a sniper. haha.

I also got to spend some time shooting T's AK-47 and SKS. The more I shoot, the more I find I like shooting the bigger, more powerful, guns. Such a fun hobby! Who knew I'd be so good at it?!? :)

Gun Show

On Saturday I went to my first gun show. My aunt texted me and asked me to compare and contrast gun show vs quilt show. Here was my response:

Quilt Show: MUCH bigger, more colorful, more women, but way more old people
Gun Show: more men, more tattoos, more scary people, more people walking around holding guns

The gun show was actually pretty cool. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was surprised by how many hundreds of guns there were laying out in one place. Tony bought a Russian WWII gun so overall the day was a success.

Of course after the gun show we had to go to the gun range to shoot haha. I was proud of myself for trying his new gun, though I MUCH prefer to stick to my .22 haha. His gun was big and scary. It went boom, and after only two shots my shoulder was sore because it kicks so much.

Tony already has a list of classic guns he wants to buy so I'm sure this won't be the last gun show I attend haha.

Phone Conference

Yesterday I had, hands down, the funniest phone call of my life ...

 

Yesterday was parent teacher conference day and I had a list of parents that requested phone conferences. I dialed the first number and the student's grandmother answered the phone. She didn't speak a word of english (they are middleastern so I didn't know a word of their language either).

 

Grandmother: hello??

Me: Hi this is Ms. McCormack calling from JSES. May I please speak to *Susie's mother or father?

Grandmother: hello

Me: um, this is Susie's teacher ....

Grandmother: TEACHER TEACHER TEACHER (screaming!)

Me: May I please speak to Susie's mother or father?

Grandma: TEACHER TEACHER TEACHER

 

the grandmother then pulls the phone slightly away from her mouth and starts screaming across the house in their home language. I can hear the mother screaming back. This goes on for a good 5 minutes back and forth. Finally, a new voice picks up:

 

Mother: hello

Me: Hi this is Ms. McCormack, Susie's teacher, calling from JSES

Mother: hello

Grandmother (still on the line): TEACHER TEACHER TEACHER

Me: Ma'am, can you hear me?

Mother: hello. hello. hello

Grandmother: TEACHER TEACHER TEACHER TEACHER

 

at this point I'm not sure what to do. Obviously there is a complete language barrier here but I can't just hang up the phone on them, yet I can't tell them goodbye either. Then, a third voice picks up the phone:

 

Susie: hello?

Me: Oh, hi Susie.

Susie: hi Ms. McCormack. I'm so sorry, but my mom doesn't know English. She doesn't know what you are saying.

Mother (still on the line): hello. hello.

Grandmother (also still on the line): TEACHER TEACHER

Me: That's okay Susie. Does your dad speak English?

Susie: Yes, but he's at work right now. He won't get home until about 5:00

Me: okay, thanks sweetie. I was just calling to tell your mom and dad what a great job you are doing in my class.

Susie: Thank's Ms. McCormack. I'll see you at school tomorrow.

Mother: hello hello

Grandmother: TEACHER

Me: see you tomorrow Susie. Have a great day.

 

When I hung up the phone I literally cried I was laughing so hard. This seriously could have been on the show punk'd hahaha! Thank goodness my student picked up. What an adorable girl she is and so smart!

 

*names have been changed

 

I'm still laughing when I think about how this phone call went. Completely ridiculous.