So politically incorrect, but so funny!

One of the things I love about small children is that they can say the most outlandish things, but since they are so naive, it is innocent and hilarious! This is my new favorite one:

This boy in my class is moving to Japan this summer because his dad is military. The other day he walks up to me and with a completely serious face asks, 

"Mrs. Harris, when I come back from Japan, am I going to look like this?" 

He then proceeds to make his eyes into slits with his fingers.

I tried not to choke as I bit back my laugh and told him, 

"No honey, moving to another country will not change what your face looks like." 

Looking very relieved, he answers,

"Oh good, I like my eyes!"

Glad I could clear that up for him.

Bridal Shower Highs and Lows

A friend of mine at work is getting married this summer, so another second grade teacher and I threw her a bridal shower at school. Don't look too close at me... nasty Florida weather has hit and all the setting up in humidity took its toll on my appearance! Anyway, the shower went well.

I was really proud of the flower arrangement I made for the food table. It can't compare to my mom's skill, but since most people don't arrange flowers, a lot of people were impressed. The pictures don't do it close to justice.

 

I stole the idea of using cut up lemons and limes from my cousin, Taryn's wedding. 

Okay, so the flowers were one of the "highs" of the shower. Here is the "low": below is one of the table centerpieces I did, but it isn't what I set out to do. It was hard to put together something without breaking the bank, so I had this "brilliant" idea. Her colors are all shades of purple, so I envisioned these hurricanes with the the purple ribbon, purple pebbles, and... I wanted to put a purple Beta fish in each one so that they would be an interesting thing to look at. Unfortunately, I didn't realize Beta fish were $4.50 each, so that wasn't going to happen. I bought 16 .30 cent goldfish instead and was okay with the change. The nice man at Walmart put them in a baggy for me and knotted that baby up. I guess my lack of pets growing up didn't allow me to think clearly about the fact that even though fish live underwater, they still need oxygen. When I opened the baggy in the morning I found that 8 of the fish were dead. Oops. I thought, this is okay because I can still use one in each container. I proceeded to fill the hurricanes with water and yep, dumped the fish in. 10 minutes later they were ALL dead. I knew fish needed chlorine drops, but I was trying to save money and thought they would last about a day without them. I was mistaken. Bad call. Luckily I had brought in the leftover lemons and limes and threw them in instead. I feel a little guilty now that I was not sad at all that I killed 16 fish, but that my plan didn't work out. I know...I'm a cruel, heartless pet hater, sorry. 

I brought the chocolate fountain which was a high and low in and of itself. It was fun and tasted wonderful, but the person who melted the chocolate for me didn't melt it enough, so it was still too thick to run smoothly. Oh well.

We played a game where everyone had to be blindfolded and make a bride out of play dough. It was really hilarious to watch people give the bride eyes on her stomach and a veil coming out of her back.

The winner was the orange one because if you look closely you can see that she gave the bride huge boobs. That won Melissa over.

This was in 2nd because she added her own bling to the bride's finger/arm.

It was a fun shower despite the lows. I guess I shouldn't have told Melissa about the fish because I think I almost made her cry. I guess my laughing while telling it was a little inappropriate. Silly pet lovers. :) 

Finished Floors

Our floors are pretty much done and we LOVE them! I am so happy to be rid of our carpet and linoleum. Chris even made the comment that he thinks he can stay here for awhile now. Didn't know life was so rough for him before! It is nice to wake up to new floors though that we really love. I think they match our house well and feel very warm and "homey". 

All that's left is to seal the grout and put in the transition pieces. 

The bad part about remodeling something is that there is a domino effect. If you shop for flooring, you think about couches that will look better with the new flooring. If you see the perfect couches, you will then wish for matching coffee and side tables. If you see all that, you will start thinking about how all you need now is a new shower...and vanity...and lighting. Yeah, we haven't done any of that, but it wouldn't surprise me if I came home one day from work to find our handy friend ripping out our shower with Chris overlooking it. It feels like something from If you Give a Mouse a Cookie!

Finally a Decision!

This is what my house looks like right now and I am excited about it! Some of you may remember a post awhile ago asking for opinions on flooring. Yes, that was a long time ago and we are just now doing this. We ripped up everything except the bedrooms.

Chris and I couldn't decide/convince each other what flooring to get. All we knew is that we hated our ugly linoleum! He wanted Travertine and I wanted Bamboo. We did travertine in the bathrooms awhile back, but I didn't want it all over. 

We finally decided that a good compromise for us would be Saltillo Tile. It is tile, which Chris likes and a warm color, which I like. We both like the style of it and thought it would look great with our paint colors. This is our entryway without the grout and still kind of dusty.

We had a friend, Lance lay it last weekend and we love it. Chris and Lance went back to the store to buy more tile today when I get this phone call at work. It is Chris telling me that the store just got in some bamboo in the color I like and it is on sale. He is wanting to know (right then because this is how Chris works) if: I want to do bamboo instead or stick with the saltillo, or do the saltillo in the entryway and kitchen and the bamboo everywhere else.

After giving me a minute to think about it, I told him to buy the bamboo and start laying it, and I would come home right after work to see how it looked next to the saltillo. I figured if it didn't look good, then we would just rip up the tile. When I got home I saw that the bamboo didn't look good against our kitchen cabinets, but it has the same tone as the saltillo. So I decided to do the saltillo in the entryway and the kitchen and the bamboo in the living room and dining room. I hope it all looks good!

Here is all our furniture pilled in the dining room.

A studly worker. Oh, that's my husband!

Bridal Shower Card

This is mostly for my mom, who I told I would show her a picture of the card. My friend at work is getting married, and the 2nd grade team is throwing her a shower. I made the invitations for it. I thought it turned out pretty cute.

Happy Mother's Day to a Wonderful Mother!

My mom, me, and sister Audra

I happen to think I have an amazing mother and am so thankful and lucky to have her! She is the one I whine to, celebrate with, cry to, laugh with, talk to, shop with (when in town), and love very much. She is greatly responsible for making me the person I am today. I have learned so many skills and other important things that a lot of people my generation were never taught or didn't get to experience. When I become a mother I will look to her example and reflect on how I was raised because I truly admire her and the kind of mother she is.  I know Heavenly Father was inspired to send me to her care. I love you Mom and a huge happy Mother's Day to you! 

My Not So Green Thumb

I have never been good at keeping plants alive.  In fact, I am always amazed at how quickly I manage to kill them. This is really sad because I really love plants and admire people who's yards are covered in beautiful greens, pinks, purples, and all those other colors that come from plants that they can get to bloom and actually keep alive for more than a week or two.

This being said, it is surprising that every year I still manage to talk myself into having my students plant flowers and paint pots for Mother's Day. 

I really wish I had taken pictures of Round 1. I thought it would be great to get plants that hadn't bloomed yet a week and a half before Mother's Day so the kids could have the experience of watering them and moving them into the shade/sun daily to watch them grow and bloom. Instead, most of their science logs that I told them to keep looked like this:

"Monday- my plant is about 4 inches high and has 10 leaves. It is green and it's leaves are soft."

"Tuesday-my plant doesn't look as good as yesterday. I think it is smaller and the leaves are not so green. They feel dry and it looks ugly." 

"Wednesday-I think my plant is dying. I watered it, but it's not drinking the water or something. I feel bad for my plant. I don't think any flowers are going to come."

"Thursday-I'm glad Mrs. Harris said she is bringing new plants because mine is dead. The leaves are all crispy and brown. It is 1 inch tall now. It shrunk. I'm going to throw it away tomorrow. My mom wouldn't like it."

This is not round 1, it is round 2. Unfortunately, round 1 did not live to Mother's Day, hence the round 2 flowers that were bought very begrudgingly. Notice I chose a flower this time with very thick stems and leaves and bought them at midnight on Thursday night so they wouldn't have time to die before we planted them Friday morning.

I always feel bad blurring my students' faces out, but rules are rules and I want to keep my job. No student's faces can be posted online. Here we are trying this again.

It's a messy job, but someone's got to do it. I asked a student if he knew how to use a camera so he could take this shot, and he looked at me like, "No duh!" Should have known. If only he were that competent at listening and following directions...

Here is a shot of the painted pots with their new flowers. I have a class picture with all their pots, but it would have been too much blurring. Anyway, although the kids were thrilled to get to plant flowers twice, next year we will be doing something different! I give up on trying to have a green thumb and I don't want to scar my students into thinking that they have the brown thumb curse too.

The Big 30

The answer is no. Chris is having his 30th birthday this Wednesday, but I managed to bring out the juvenile in him by throwing him a surprise party at...

It is basically a Chuck E. Cheese for adults. Perfect for my husband.

 

I started by secretly inviting all his guy buddies that he does his "guy's nights" with, but started hearing from their wives that they wanted to come too. Who knew we had female gamers?! 

His parents were also able to come and spend the evening with us. 

Chris is apparently now old enough to receive gag gifts like Nair for his back (which he luckily doesn't need), that spray that is supposed to look like hair, and adult diapers.  It was pretty funny. 

It all turned out great, and he was really surprised! Now I have to actually take him to the movie he thought we were going to see. I'm glad I pulled it off and was able to do something different for his birthday.