Happy 3-0 to my Hubby!

My incredible husband, Z, turned 30 today! Unfortunately, he’s at Parent/Teacher Conferences, but as soon as he gets home, we’re going out to dinner to celebrate! I tried to find a more embarrassing picture of young Z, but it’s on a flash drive that is MIA. Wah wah.

Here’s the best I have, Z during his Ben Affleck inspired high school phase…

And here’s the handsome devil nowadays doing what he does best!

Happy birthday, my love! Thank you for everything you do for me, I appreciate you more than I can ever express!

UCET This Week

This week is the UCET Conference (think: Techy Teacher Rendezvous) and I’m putting the finishing touches on my presentation. I’ll be presenting on using social media in the classroom.

Last year I attended the conference and learned so many great things! I hope to learn some fun things again this year and hopefully a few people will learn something from me!

You can check out the wiki I made for my presentation here.

A Peek Into My Classroom

Back in November a few of my favorite tech gurus from the district came and filmed my students using their iPods and computers. Here’s the YouTube they created. I love how it turned out! It’s fun to see my students “showing their stuff”!

Zucchini Pizza

Alright. I promise not every blog will be Pinterest inspired, but since I’ve had the time to conquer some boards over my *very* long weekend, here’s another Pin Win. (Did I just coin that term, because if so… DIBS!)

Z (the husband) isn’t much of a vegetable eater (read: I’m hiding veggies in every dinner via a super chopper my cousin Amy gave me as a wedding gift). I found this recipe on Pinterest and decided to give it a go with my own twist. (As I couldn’t really just put tomatoes on top of a zucchini and except Z wouldn’t notice he was eating healthfully.)

First, I started by finding zucchinis at the grocery store. Not an easy feat for produce oblivious like myself, but after two grocery stores, I found some yummy zucchini. I washed them and cut the green guys in half. Then, I took a spoon and scooped out the middle (easy and not scary at all).

Then, I mixed together some olive oil, minced garlic, salt and pepper (the amounts don’t matter, you’ll do fine) in a little prep bowl (thanks, Mary!) and brushed it on the zucchini (yeah, I had a food brush thing, who knew?).

I put them in the oven on 350 for about 20 minutes and then took them out and added some Classico pizza sauce (though I’m sure any pizza sauce will turn out equally delicious) and popped them back in the oven for 5-10 minutes. Next, I put on the TURKEY pepperoni (eating healthfully here, folks) and put in back in the oven for another 5-10. The times here are approximate because I was busy doing many other important things like playing with Scout, laundry and wandering around looking for stuff.

After I felt that turkey pepperoni had enough time in the oven, I pulled out the cookie sheet and set the oven to broil, added on the mozzarella cheese, drizzled on a little balsamic vinegar and watched it very carefully (think: 1 minute).

It looked beautiful when I took it out then (no picture, ish), but being the cheese snob I am, I had to sprinkle some sharp cheddar and put it back in the oven for another few seconds. AND THEN… VOILA!

Delicious, quasi healthy, husband approved meal! If you can’t see me right now, I’m gloating a little bit. I’m just so proud of my veggie success! You see, while I eat vegetables and sneak them into meals, I’m not much of a main dish veggie kind of gal, but hey! I guess I am now! Woot!

Valentine’s Day

It’s always good to teach elementary school on Valentine’s Day. I always get so many goodies from my adorable, sugar-powered students (I’m pretty sure they all have Sweethearts for breakfast on Valentine’s day). They’re always a little bummed to learn that we still have normal school for most of the day, but not too bummed to shower me with gifts!

Z has a little competition, no?

After work, Z and I exchanged gifts and cards (my favorite part is the cards). Z gave me beautiful flowers, fuzzy socks (my fav) and a new gold chain for my favorite necklace that I had broken. He’s always so thoughtful and remembers things that I manage to break (it happens more than you’d think). I gave him a cool print (dare you to figure it out) and we hung it with a wedding pic in our hallway.

After our gift exchange we had made an early reservation at Oyster Bar for dinner and managed to come home and get to bed at our normal (early) bedtime.

My kind of Valentine’s!

Valentine’s for the Fourth Graders

Yep, another Pinterest craft. (Be glad I’m not posting all the meals I’ve made off that website!)

For this one, mother and I melted down my “crayon orphanage” into a silicone ice cube tray that was shaped like a heart. It was super fast and easy. Then, I taped (couldn’t find any rubber cement) the crayons onto a little Valentine.

They’re all ready to pass out to my surely crazy fourth graders on Tuesday. I love being able to pass out something fun and NOT CANDY for Valentine’s!

Here’s the finished project!

So cute, no?

Pinteriffic

As I am sure anyone who has been on Pinterest has done, I’ve made a huge list of projects that I have every intention of doing (but will never do). However, as of lately, I’ve been on a bit of a crafty streak and have actually managed to get some Pinteresting done.

The first craft I managed to finish were these super cool decoupage vases. So I wrangled up some help from my friend Sarah, vases from my mama and lace from a craft store and went to work.

Here is step one: Modge podge lace to vase.

Step two: (Did I mention there are only two steps – my kind of project) Spray paint vases.

ANNNNND VOILA! New Vases (complete with some pretty roses from Z).

eMINTS Visitor

Tis the season! This time every year people who are in the eMINTS program in my school district come visiting the more “experienced” teachers. I graduated from the program two years ago – so I guess that makes me a vet!

Last year I had around 20 people come at different times to visit my classroom and today I will have the first visitor of this observation season! (Some teacher don’t like having visitors in their classroom, but I love it! I love meeting new teachers, I love the opportunity to clean up my classroom and if you know me, you know, I love being the center of attention.)

I’ve really done a lot this year to start integrating social media into my every day classroom teaching and it has been a riot! I can’t wait to show this teacher all the fun things you can do with twitter, edmodo, YouTube and a bunch of other awesome tools!

Plug from my fourth graders: FOLLOW US! @FourthGrade23

Yum (New Years Update)

Cooking two meals a week has been going A LOT better than expected. I really love cooking and only taking one grad class this semester has freed up tons of time! I’ve been cooking a lot of new recipes and surprisingly, my very picky husband has been loving them all! (And I’ve even been cooking vegetables. Grown up of me, right?)

In any event, I thought I’d link our favorite receipe so far. It’s the Spicy Chicken Rigatoni from Buca Di Beppo and I found it on Pinterest (so adddictive) from tastebook.com. Click here for the deliciousness.

(I’ll add a picture when I get home – d*mn iPad doesn’t mesh with photo uploads.)

Bad Bride

In two days I will have been married six weeks. Yes, that does happen to be the exact amount of time you have from your wedding date to the day your friends and family receive your thank you notes.

Well. I’m just starting them right now.

Before you lay on the guilt trip – I’ve been waiting on my thank you notes (they’ve arrived) and a wedding picture to throw in (I have that, too now). So, I have no choice to start.

If you need me, I’ll be in the corner massaging my writers cramp.