Many of you may recognize this guy as the reddit alien.  For anyone out there who hasn’t checked out this social media website, I highly recommend it.  While I spend my free time pining away, my boyfriend is usually catching up on reddit every chance he gets.  Alex is on reddit from the time he gets up until the time he goes to bed!  In fact, if we are out and he has forgotten his phone or it is dead, he thinks that automatically frees up my iPhone for his addiction!  (but I don’t mind babe!)  Alex has been a redditor since around the time the site has been created.  I cannot tell you all the amazing content that you can find on this website.  The reddit community in general is so amazing.  Redditors do the most wonderful things all around the world.  There is something for EVERYONE on reddit.

Alex is always talking about all of the good things reddit does around the world.  For instance, I am participating in redditgifts for the Teachers 2013 , which is an amazing way teachers can get supplies for their classrooms.  Last year’s program rallied up almost $150, 000 worth supplies for the new school year!  Alex, being the amazing boyfriend that he is, emailed me the link to check out in case I needed some things for my classroom.  I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to get some good read alouds for my classroom.  Many people do not realize that teachers actually provide their own books for classroom libraries.  We spend a lot of our own money on our classrooms and unfortunately we do not make a great deal of money for all we do.  I was telling someone the other day that I had to buy something for my classroom and his response was, “well you can claim it on your taxes.”  I quickly informed him that we are only allowed to claim $250 of our personal funds that goes towards classroom purchases.  I spend a lot of time sifting through books at thrift shops to get new books for my classroom.   If there are any Dr. Seuss books on the shelf I always make sure to snag them up!

The reason I am writing this post is to describe my classroom and the supplies that I need for my care package.  I signed up to try to get some good read aloud books for me to use in my classroom. For my non-teacher friends, a read aloud is a book that we read aloud in class.  I love good read aloud books that have a good message for my students.  There is this fabulous author named Julia Cook that writes these amazing life skills books for kids.  Julia’s books teach such real lessons and I would love to have more of her books in my classroom.

This book is hilarious.  It is a great story about a boy named Louis that has a hard time shouting out and interrupting others.  His teacher and parents are always getting onto him for interrupting.  Louis has so many important things to say that he just can’t hold it in!  One day, Louis gets a taste of his own medicine.  It is his day to be star student and there are several of his classmates that interrupt him during his 15 minutes of fame!  Louis learns the importance of waiting his turn and that it is rude to interrupt people when they are talking.  My kids LOVED this book.  As you can imagine, I have a few of these so called “volcano mouths” in my classroom, especially at the beginning of a new school year!  This book gave us a chance to talk about real issues that we deal with on a daily basis at school.  My Mouth is a Volcano is the only book in her collection that I currently have.  She has written a ton of other ones that would be a great addition to my classroom!  Click here to see some of her other books.  A few particular ones I would like to get my hands on would be Personal Space Camp, A Bad Case of Tattle Tongue, Bully Beans, But it’s Just a Game, and any other book in her collection let’s be honest!

If you are one of my teacher friends, you should look into signing up!  If you would like to sign up to send a care package to a teacher in need, all you have to do is click here to get signed up before the morning of September 3rd, 2013!

***UPDATE

I received a package on Saturday afternoon from Amazon.  I was a bit puzzled, as I had not ordered anything recently from Amazon.  It was my gift from redditgifts for the Teachers that I signed up for last month!  There was a gift note from the sender that read, “Hope your classroom enjoys these!”  Thank you so much for gifting these amazing books for my classroom!  I am excited to read them to my class!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It has been far too long since my last blog post!  I promise I have been busy working on projects and cleaning my house before I go back to work!  I have not had a whole lot of extra time/energy to do much of anything else.  Chloe and Mia have been bringing chiggers in the house, and ALL of us are suffering because of it.  I spent last week shampooing the carpet, spraying everything and washing, washing, washing!  It has been a total nightmare.  Alex and I have been getting bites and they are so painful.  Chloe has a huge rash on her tummy and the vet told me to put baby oil on her to help smother the chiggers.  It has not been fun all around.

My mom came down last weekend to celebrate her birthday and we had a blast! We went to Saints by Oak Park Mall for dinner because they have an amazing patio area and that is what she wanted to do.  They were even having a car show while we were there!  We ended up trying out Kanza Hall, which is a new country bar by Fuel in Overland Park. There are 4 bars in one area and it was a pretty good time!

On Saturday, we shopped for a dress for my mom to wear to my sister’s wedding coming up in a few weeks.  I wanted to do something more low key Saturday so we could visit and have some good grub.  I decided that I wanted to try crab legs on our Traeger.  I have been wanting to try it for awhile and we love crab legs, so it seemed like a good time to try it!  I was amazed at how easy it was!  Don’t get me wrong…it was pretty expensive, but man it was worth it!  It was a good experience and we will definitely be doing these again!  Alex found a recipe on the Traeger website.  Click here to see their recipe.  We pretty well followed what they said to do, but we did 5 lbs (which was MORE than enough!  Alex and I had leftovers last night!).

King Crab Legs

Ingredients:

5 lbs King crab legs

1 1/2 c melted butter

1/2 fresh-squeezed lemon (slice up the rest if you are a fan of lemon juice with your crab legs!)

Cajun Seasoning

3 cloves minced garlic

1 large roasting pan with wire handles

Directions:

Start your butter melting in a pan.  Turn Traeger on smoke with the lid open for about 5 minutes while you prepare the crab legs.  After 5 minutes, turn the Traeger 350° and let it preheat with the lid closed for about 15 minutes.  Combine melted butter, minced garlic, and lemon and mix well.  Layer crab legs in roasting pan and drizzle with butter mixture.  I did this in layers to make sure all of them got a good coat.  After pouring the butter on, sprinkle cajun seasoning before putting your next layer.  Repeat until all of the legs are covered and ready to go!  Once they are ready, throw the roaster on the Traeger for about 30-35 minutes.

Make sure you baste the crab legs 2 or 3 times in that 30 minute period.  There is no need to melt more butter for dipping.  In fact, the cajun gives them quite a kick, I hardly used any extra butter like I usually do.  You can use the butter in the bottom of the roaster if you desire.

I think we were all amazed at how easy these were to make.  I was worried about making sure they were cooked all the way through, but I looked up the temperature online.  Apparently all King crab legs are cooked immediately after coming off the boat to ensure the freshness.  Check out this website for more information.  Unless you buy live King crab legs, they are already cooked when you purchase them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last summer, I created what I like to call a Granny Sweatshop as my most wonderful grandmas both helped me throw 30 of these together for my classroom!  I did not have my blog up and running yet, so I figured what a great time for me to post these with school coming just around the corner!  I have been so busy cleaning the house and doing projects that I have not had a lot of time to blog.  I would like to do some posts for back to school since that is the stuff I need to be getting done before my summer is over!

First off, chair pockets that you can purchase are outrageously expensive.  They are not exactly something that the school provides and my fellow teachers would agree that we cannot afford to buy EVERYTHING we want for our classrooms.  Did you know teachers can only claim $250 of things purchased for the classroom?  Let me tell you right now, that does not cover much!  So I decided to take matters into my own hands.

Here are a few pins that I debated on before deciding to do the jean pockets…

I cannot seem to find the pin of the other jean pocket that I used as my inspiration for my final product.  If I run across it I will make sure to post it!  What I love about my jean pockets is that they were donated so the only cost I had was thread!  I also love that they are made of jean material, so they will last FOREVER!!  My grandmas both set up camp at my Grandma Bloesser’s house with both of their sewing machines and we just cranked it out in a few hours.  My sister Heather came over and helped me cut and pin them.

I love these chair pockets and they are still in great condition!  The only thing that is frustrating is when you are trying to move desks around.  The chair has to go with the desk because the students store their own stuff in them.  They also drag the ground a bit which I was worried about, but the jean material is so sturdy it really doesn’t matter.  They are such a cute addition to my room and I get so many compliments on them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alex and I have been working hard to get back on the bandwagon of eating healthy and being active.  We have been doing really well for the past few weeks.  I feel like when I am eating good, I am feeling good.  That does not mean I don’t indulge in the things that I love! If I eat better during the week, I don’t feel so bad when I do indulge a little here and there.  I have been going back to boxing and feeling SORE and amazing! Alex tried boxing out with me last week.  He loved it!  It is a really good workout and will whip your ass into shape quick!  I think he is going to sign up and go with me on Saturdays!  It is so much fun getting out and doing something like that together.  Since summer school is over, I have been making it my job to get up, go to boxing and walk the pups when I get home before it gets too hot.

Alex actually just started playing in a mens softball league.  He has talked about how much he wanted to play softball again for a LONG time now!  We met some people at a pool party and now he found a team!  I have been helping him practice pitching and playing catch!  I like it because it is a time for us to get out and do something good for us!  Today poor Chloe took a hit to the head while watching us practice before his game tonight….poor babe!  She loves to think she is part of the game!

We have been going strong on a salad kick for the past few weeks.  Alex could eat salad everyday all day.  I sometimes need a little more but I have noticed the more yummy salad ingredients I come up with, the easier it is to eat them everyday.  We have been grilling chicken for salads for the past week and it was time to switch it up.  This was the perfect meal to fuel my man before his big game!