Pickle Week 2012

We finished our 2nd day of state testing! Hooray!! My little fourth graders worked so hard this morning. Tomorrow we tackle the Math portion of the test, then we will be FINISHED! They are as glad as I am. To celebrate the end of testing AND because we have one more full week of school, my sweet class and I will be participating in Pickle Week 2012 which will be May 17- 28. I know what you must be thinking: There's a week devoted to pickles?? The answer is YES! I mean, who doesn't think this is a nifty idea?? Now, I didn't just magically find this out. I owe the credit to my fellow teacher friends. 

Next week my class will be learning all about pickles: where they come from, how they are made, the different types of pickles. They will even learn about their birth month pickle (seriously, there's a pickle for each month of the year. Now for the best part: Kool-Aid Pickles. I like Kool-Aid, and I like pickles. So imagine my surprise and happiness when I was given a recipe for Kool-Aid Pickles or Koolickles as the recipe calls them. In order to make these happen you need a few things:

1 gallon jar of pickles 

(obviously, from the pictures you will see I could not find a 1 gallon jar of pickles in Wal Mart....this is why I HATE Wal Mart....but that's another story for another day)

1 pound of sugar

1 packet of unsweetened Cherry Kool-Aid

(it calls for Cherry, but I couldn't find regular Cherry, and sometimes I like to deviate from the recipe so I bought Black Cherry.)

Drain the pickle juice into another container.

 Pour the packet of Kool-Aid into the container of pickle juice.

Add the sugar to the liquid.

Stir until sugar is dissolved.

Pour liquid back into pickle jars or jar...depending on which you find. There will be a little liquid left over. Just make sure it covers the top of the pickles.

 Put the top on those jars, and put them in the fridge for about a week (this is what I was told).

Voila! Koolickles!

P.S.- The leftover liquid is sitting in my freezer to make pickle-cisicles per the boyfriend's request. I've never heard of these things, but apparently they are good according to his stories about having them at the baseball fields. I'll find out tomorrow.

P.P.S- Pickle juice is also good for stopping hiccups. FYI.

Peace, Love, and Happy Pickle Week!!!!

Cinco de Mayo Wedding & A Storage Locker Surprise

I know this is quite an unusual title for a blog post. They have nothing in common, except for me.
My weekend started on Thursday last week when the boyfriend & I went to the wedding festivities of our two close friends who got married on Saturday!! (Congratulations again, Lindsay & Will!) They are now on their honeymoon in St. Lucia. The wedding festivities began Friday night with the rehearsal dinner and didn't end until late Saturday evening. There was dancing, cake, wine, and more dancing. It was truly a fairytale wedding for my very best friend who deserved nothing less. Stefan and I had a wonderful time. (I'm also just glad I didn't trip on my bridesmaid's dress walking down the aisle, and that I didn't cry during the song Ray and I sang.)

The beautiful bride & me.

Now on to the Storage Locker Surprise. My wonderful father (who is retiring this year after 30 years of teaching! WHAT?!) watches is addicted to the T.V. Storage Wars, and I'm not going to lie, I enjoy watching the show as well. Do I have any other Storage Wars watchers? Anyone? Anyone? Anyways, he bought this storage locker earlier in the week and found that it was FILLED with teacher stuff! Mostly K-1st grade things (which I will be able to use next year because I will be teaching 1st grade!!!) He immediately called me and asked if I wanted the things in the lockers, and of course I said yes! (Who would say no to free teacher things???) I offered to pay him for it, but because he loves me so & I'm his favorite daughter (shhhhh...don't tell Camille) he said I did not have to pay for it. I'm still giving him money though. 

Here is a picture of the front of the storage locker. 

I went through some of it today, but it is freaking HOT in Mississippi right now. In fact, I think we skipped over spring entirely this year. Needless to stay, I didn't stay very long.

Going to leave you on that note to watch GCB with the boyfriend! Season finale tonight!

Count Down: BFFFL's Wedding, MCT2, and End of School

BFFFL's Wedding: 12 days. MCT: 11 days. Last Day of School: 21 1/2

My life has been utter chaos the past few weeks. Preparing for my best friend's wedding, getting my sweet 4th graders ready for the state test, and helping Stefan get things in order for is internship for ESPN this summer (I'm SOOO proud of him!!!) I'm trying to come up with some super fun things to do with my sweet babies after all their hard work after testing. I am now welcoming ideas. I have a few pinned to my Pinterest board. 

Photography Show, Spring Break, and Crayon Art

It's FINALLY Spring Break!! I thought 3:20 on Friday afternoon would never come. But it did and I am one happy lady.

Last week, Stefan and I attended an art show at our friends' studio. Renee and Will Reedy own a studio in downtown Columbus. Renee is a photographer (like myself) and Will is a cinematographer (like Stefan). Stefan and I met this lovely couple through our church. Will is our new worship leader in our contemporary service, and Renee plays the keyboard in the praise band. When we found out that both Will and Renee were into photography and cinematography we were ecstatic! Since then we have had many chats about church, faith, and the arts. Stefan and I are both looking forward to what God has in store for this new friendship.

I have been meaning to be more crafty lately, but time has been something I have not had. I took the opportunity on this beautiful day to do something crafty after my sister and I came back from shopping. I have seen this crayon art deal going on through Pinterest (where else?), and I thought I would give it a try. I apologize that I didn't take picture throughout the project. You'll just get to see the finished product. The one on the left is the version that is seen on Pinterest. I used an 8 x 10 canvas and just chose different shades of the same crayon. (I bought a box of 96 crayons just for this occasion!) The one on the right is a different version of crayon art (Stefan's idea but my work.)

As seen on Pinterest.

 Stefan's idea of crayon art. I did the work.

I know this picture isn't crayon art. I just like it. Stefan doesn't like pictures so I rarely get one with him in it. 

Writer's Block

I'm still here, just with a bad case of writer's block. I hope to have some things to post soon.

'Tis the Season

It's Christmas time already! If you know me, you know that Christmas is one of my most favorite holidays. I look forward to it because I get to spend time with my family all while celebrating the birth of Jesus. This Christmas has been a humbling experience for so many reasons. One reason in particular shed quite a bit of light on what Christmas is really all about. It's so easy to get carried away with buying and giving gifts, and sometimes we forget what this holiday is really about. It's easy to focus on the materialistic things of Christmas. My prayer for myself for these past few days has been to help me to not lose sight of the "reason for the season" (for lack of a better phrase....I know it's a corny phrase, but it's true).

I'm out of school until January 9th. Though I am in need of a break, I will miss my sweet little 4th graders. I'll be working hard to get things in order for this next semester. It's hard to imagine my first year of teaching is halfway over. It's had its ups and downs, but nonetheless it's been a wonderful experience. I'll be doing literature circles when we start back, and I'm so excited about them. I've been doing a good bit of research about them. If you read my blog (do people even read this?) and have some knowledge of literature circles or even ideas, let me know! Like I said, I'm very excited about starting these in my classroom.

I'm using this break to catch up on my crafts board on Pinterest. I feel as if it has been neglected lately.

If I don't write until after Christmas, Merry Christmas to you and your families. I pray that you have a safe and wonderful holiday.

Recycling Glass Jars

In my family we have a few odd traditions. Where we spend our Thanksgiving depends on where the Egg Bowl is played that year. We watch the Christmas Story 24 hour event every Christmas. And we drink milk out of frozen mason jars. People that come to my apartment say it's quite strange. If you were to open my freezer you would see about ten of these said jars. I decided to downsize the number of jars, but needed something creative to do with a few of them. Of course I would turn to Pinterest for this project. I found this article in my research of crafty things to do with my jars, now all I needed was some spare time. Between teaching, lesson planning, daily chores, and a social life, my spare time is just that.

Two weekends ago I had a free weekend. Stefan was at UAB working the MSU v. UAB game. I had some friends come into town from the coast. While I was waiting on my friends to arrive I decided to dive into making my jars into tea light candle holders.

The materials needed.

Put the twine on the jars in different designs. It helps to tape the the ends to the inside or on the bottom.

It's also nice to have some helping hands! (Thanks, Mom!)

Jars after coats of white spray paint. I put 1-2 coats.

Let it dry for 10 minutes.

Take the twine off and you have beautiful tea light candle holders!

Pretty easy, don't you think?