Kindergarten Creativity

This is a little late but I thought I would share what we did in Kindergarten for Thanksgiving! We have a very rigorous curriculum in my district and we try to make it as fun as possible! We take our state standards and local standards, search pinterest and make it work! One thing that we did was a craftivity using the book Turkey Trouble. I have to give mad props to Kelly Strange for finding this fun project! What you do is you take a turkey pattern and send it home with students. Their job is to make a disguise so that the turkey won't get eaten for thanksgiving! We sent the craft portion home for students to do with their families. At school we did a creative writing project. Students wrote "I am not a turkey, I am ____________. "Then they wrote another sentence about why they chose that costume. One of my students wrote: "Don't eat me! I am an Indian Barbie and I like to dance for everyone!" Also on the good work board you will see some turkeys with numbers on them. On the body of the turkey kids wrote a number between 5 and 8. On the feathers they wrote ways they could make that number. For example; if the number was 7 they could write 5+2 or 6+1...

For Thanksgiving we made pilgrims and then the kids wrote what they were thankful for. To add some technology we used an app called "Morpho". With the app the kids took a picture of their pilgrim and then added some 3D elements. They then recorded their voice and their pilgrim talked. It was a really cute project and I have to give a shout out to our Technology expert Alanna! She is awesome and helped us with the project! 

We are working on some December projects now and I will show those a little later! We did a reindeer project with non-fiction text for reading and wrote reindeer facts. Hopefully we will be back at school soon so we can do some more projects! There is a Grinch project, snow globe project, gingerbread stuff and some Polar Express things in the works. The kids love it when we get to do fun activities!

Going to the chapel and they're gonna get married!

Well, it's official. My brother is married. What a great weekend! On November 21 it was a freezing day in Texas. It was raining and cold and just plain dreary. The weather forecast called for wintry conditions over the wedding weekend. It did not snow/ice like the meteorologists predicted (I wish I had their job so I could get paid to be wrong!)

Anywho, on Friday we had the rehearsal/dinner. Thankfully we made it into the church with minimal rain on our hair. It was a little chaotic trying to remember everything for the wedding day. Catholic weddings are so long and there is a lot of sitting, kneeling, standing, etc going on. Our one job as bridesmaids was to say "Amen" with expression at the end of the vows. Our rehearsal was a B+ I think... or a C...

We then made our way to Gloria's in Allen for some yummy Mexican food. I was a bit nervous because I would be making a speech. I wanted to make sure that Eden and Craig knew how happy I was that they were getting married and how far we have come in our brother/sister relationship. Not an easy task, but I think it went great. Here are a few fun pictures from the evening.

My sisters! 

With my sisters and brother from another mother! 

My real brother on the left and my other brother on the right

When you marry Craig you get Adam too... :) 

Krukar Cousins

Cousins! Just missing Lindsay

My dad and his childhood friend/Craig's Godfather- Greg

Adam! He was sweet and sang me "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes"

Saturday - 6:00 AM - Get up and Shower! 7:00 AM - Call time at the hotel for hair and makeup! I had so much fun just hanging out at the hotel with the girls! We laughed and talked and just relaxed before the wedding. What an incredible morning until about 11:15 when it was time to actually get our dresses on and head to the church. It was all hands on deck at that point! Get to the church and get our wedding on! The ceremony was beautiful! Eden had borrowed our mom's rosary and it was woven into her bouquet. It was so beautiful and touching. Father Kelly did an amazing job with the ceremony and the homily was very beautiful and touching. Our "AMEN" was about an A! It would have been an A+ but we had to be cued. No one fell or tripped or forgot their lines. The reception was at the Old Flour Mill. I might be biased but I had the most fun at this wedding! It was amazing! At the end of the night we threw Rainbow Sprinkles as Craig and Eden left in a vintage jaguar. It was a fantastic night! 

Adam sang part of his best man's speech and did an amazing job! 

The Magic wears off at the stroke of midnight... or 3 am...

I wish I had a Fairy Godmother who could make a beautiful ball gown and get me to a ball. The only bad thing would be that the party would end at midnight! This Halloween party did not end until 2 am! LOL!! Even then we had to get "tacos" at What-A-Burger. 

So, after last year's awesome costumes as the Big Bang Theory, my friends decided we should be Disney Princesses! How is this Disney Queen going to say no to dressing up as my favorite thing? I'm so grateful to have such amazing friends who go all out with Halloween costumes! I think we had every princess and a few of the princes represented this year. Here are some of the pictures from our Day After Halloween party! 

Celeste and I as Princess Aurora and Cinderella (complete with Gus Gus)

Churchills in Downtown McKinney

Mary Poppins, Aurora, Cinderella, and Merida!

Bert and Mary Poppins! Step in time! 

Rapunzel!! 

The awesome GARAGE! 

Princesses and Mary Poppins

The guys! Rufio (from Hook), an army dude, Bert, the Beast and Prince Eric

The Disney Group

Thanks Matt for always letting us use your garage to hang out in! 

October Weekends!

Is October over yet?? I've been so busy that I haven't had time to clean my apartment or do laundry in awhile! I've had to get creative and search my closet for "new" clothes. The past 2 weekends have been SUPER busy, not to mention work has been busy as well! So here are the fun things I've been up to! 

Two weekends ago we threw Eden a bachelorette party in Ft. Worth! It was so much fun and very different from any other Bachelorette party I had ever been to. We stayed at this swanky hotel called the Worthington which was walking distance from the restaurant and the bars we wanted to go to. We had a painting party at the hotel where we got to do some fun sketches. The token male in the picture below was our art specialist! 

We then left the hotel to get some dinner. We ate at Reata which is a very great steak place! The mashed potatoes were excellent and I had the filet. My sister had chicken. We also ordered the mac and cheese which was to die for! We sat on the roof which had this awesome dome ceiling. It was really cool.

After some dinner we hopped over to Pete's Piano Bar for some singing and dancing.

Here is my beautiful future sister-in-law.

After some loud singing we made our way to the Library... bar... not as quiet as a real library. We had a blast.

This poor soul had too much fun... I'm sure his Sunday was spent recovering from the night before :)

Here is the lobby of the hotel...

And the Valet area. It was a beautiful day outside!

This past weekend (the 26/27 of October) was super busy with friends! On Friday I babysat a former student and his brother. I just love that family! I got to play Mario (or should I say they threw me in the lava and laughed at me) and we played Mario Party (which I am a little better at but still let them win a few times). I even was given a "Rainbow Loom" bracelet which is all the rage right now. 

On Saturday I went to a bridesmaid luncheon at Ocean's Seafood in Plano. The owner is so sweet and a friend of Eden's. 

After lunch I got ready for Evening Under the Stars which is a charity dinner for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. We had a great time. Here are some pictures of my friends and I at the event: 

My BFF and I all dressed up for the charity event :) 

The beautiful Hanvey sisters. I am so blessed to have these ladies in my life! 

Some of the garage party gals

My group of friends. I am so lucky to have so many amazing people in my life. These are just a handful of the people that make my life what it is. 

Some of my book club ladies 

Some of the garage party peeps #realfriends

We started to collect all the bundt cakes that were left over. This shows just a few that we collected. 

Oh, did I mention that it was raining outside? 

The weekend was not complete! Celeste's annual pumpkin carving party was on Sunday, October 27. I look forward to this even every year! I don't like to carve pumpkins but I love spending time with these guys. This year we had a new addition: Rachel and Kyle had a little baby girl. Charlotte got to join in the festivities this year! Also, my sister Christy was invited to come. I can't wait until next October! 

The whole crew

My friends are sooo creative! I don't take credit for any of these pumpkins. 

Smith sisters and Hanvey sisters