merry christmas!

“Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.” Matthew 2:2


source

fun christmas ideas

how creative are the awesome girls i teach with?


simple frame + the cutest rolled flowers = the most fantastic frame!






pizza pan + lots (& lots) of coats of chalkboard paint + cute fabric and ricrac = awesome memo/magnetic chalkboard



how awesome are they!!
thanks girlies!

so proud

guess who made 3 A's and 2 A-'s in their first semester of counseling ?


seriously, he comes up with these faces all on his own.



blurry, but how cute is he?

after all the hours and hours (and hours) of reading and paper writing, i'm so proud it all payed off!

(side note - how much does it stink that an A- isn't a 4.0 is grad school?! ugh...)

I'm so proud of you, Babe!!

Magic School Bus, Native American Style

It's that time again at Normal Park!
Time for our Native American exhibit!

a little background - for the last 9 weeks, our module topic has been Native Americans. We learned all about the 5 regions of Native Americans and as you walk through our halls, you're walking through the Woodlands, Plains, North West, Southwest, and Far North. The walls are lined with art, houses, artifacts, labels of what the kiddos have learned, and a story about the Native Americans, based on The Magic School Bus books, that our amazing 2nd graders wrote. There are also huge pictures printed out of each kid giving their most inquisitive looks with their "i wonder..." speech bubbles above them- too cute. They've worked on all these projects in our class, science, art, and even music. I can't take credit for any of this creativity - the girls I work with are amazing.

anyway, get ready for some picture overload...




































Sadly, the ice has cancelled the exhibit for tonight and we had to move it 'till after the holidays...
Next 9 weeks, we're starting Oceans!!

visitors!

guess who came to see us this weekend...


& Nalah too, of course


on friday, we hit up our favoirte Mountain Opry for some good bluegrass and they didn't dissapoint



Saturday, we found a little craft show at a newly renovated fire house

(james doesn't really like to be serious in pictures...)

I got a little hand painted ornament, james found some locally roasted coffee beans, and grace found some gorgeous pottery


of course, we had to do a little sight seeing from the top of Lookout Mtn

and stopped at an empty lot to take pictures

maybe a little rock climbing thrown in there




We stopped for our favorite stir fry at Ganghis Grill



and then watched the newest Narnia! so good...



we finished up the afternoon at Rembrandt's, our favorite little coffee place at Bluff View



and spent the night cuddled up watching more movies with Nalah


sadly, we packed her up sunday and sent her driving through the snow to get home!


thanks so so much for coming, grace!! we had so much fun with you here!!