Precious Giveaway!!!

Look at these fabulous and precious portfolios that are being featured in this giveaway!!

Thanks to Primary Graffiti and Doodle Bugs Paper for hosting!!

Here are just a couple of examples of the portfolios - head on over to her website and check out all the cute things she has to offer!!

Cups and Threads....

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!! On Sunday, I went to the "Southern Women's Show" with my mother in law and sister in law, we had a really good time looking at all of the different booths. While we were there I was able to purchase two things I have been wanting for some time now. The first thing was a Tervis Tumbler, I have seen so many people carrying and blogging about these cups around lately! Many teachers at both of my student teaching placements use them on a daily basis. I love that they do not "sweat", in the past I have always used a camel back water bottle but those can be a mess by the end of the day. I was thrilled to see that there was a booth selling these tumblers and they have made a believer out of me!!

I am not too excited about the design I bought, but we did go on Sunday and their stock was running low.

I also bought a cute orange lid, so it will be just fine! After all, it is JUST a tumbler!! HA!!

The next thing that I did was THIS....

I have been wanting to get my eyebrows threaded for months but have never slowed down enough to get them done. I was so happy to see a booth there at the show and was very impressed with the whole process!! I cannot even begin to explain how they use a thread to pluck out your eyebrows and yes, it hurt! I have heard that the more you get it done the less pain, I was very pleased with the outcome. I told my sister in law that I should have taken a before and after picture! HA!!

Have a great week everyone!!!

Book Worm

Addison may look just like Shawn but she has inherited my adoration for books!! She asks almost every day to go to the Bartlett library and could sit and look at books for hours! I love that she has such an interest in reading and hope she always will.

She checked out TEN books today, two of them being Junie B. Jones. I had read Junie B to my 1st graders at Kate Bond and thought that Addison would love them. I could not have been more correct!! She loved them and actually could read them herself!! She does not quite understand the concept of a "chapter book" yet; she wanted to just open them and start at Chapter 4!!

My little book worm with all her books from the library!!

***A student teaching update, my new placement is in a 3rd grade class at a Shelby County School. I am absolutely adoring it!! The kids and teachers are fabulous and I have already learned so much! I am welcoming my FIRST spring break with open arms, and cannot wait to hang out with Shawn and the girls this week!!

I am THANKING the Lord that "spring forward" happened this week!! I will have a little over a week to get used to losing this hour of S L E E P!!!

Hope you are having a fabulous weekend!!

So Hard To Say Goodbye...

Today was my last day of my Memphis City School placement. It was a bittersweet day for me as I am super excited to move onto my 3rd graders tomorrow, but I will miss Mrs. Stephen's 1st graders terribly!!

All day long I was showered with pictures and cards that the children drew for me, I brought home at least 40 pictures/drawings from these precious babies. As I looked through each and everyone one of these pictures tonight, it became more and more evident that I am most definitely on the correct path. I want nothing more than to help these children succeed, I want to give them the education that I expect someone to give to my girls.

How fabulous is this bin of teacher goodies? All of the wonderful ladies in the first grade hall gave me this today! Such a sweet group of women and I appreciate their kindness more than words can express. My cooperating teacher also gave me a gift certificate to our local teacher supply store as well as some cute boy/girl hall passes.

I am sad to close the door on my journey in first grade but I am eager to see what people and children The Lord has planned for me to meet at this next placement.

Adventures in Student Teaching...

I have totally switched into teacher mode, my days consist of teaching my first graders and then coming home to research lessons or ideas on the Internet. I have found so many amazing teacher blogs that have some of the cutest and FREE downloads. I am using some of their items in my lessons this week and hope to post about them in the next few days.

Student teaching has been one of the most overwhelming things I have ever done. I have enjoyed getting to see the "real life" classroom verses teaching a lesson in front of my peers in my college classroom. There is no doubt that teaching is what I was meant to do, I love these kids and I am going to miss them so much when I move to my next placement on March 2nd. The school system has "rules" about photographing the students but I am hoping that before I leave these sweet kiddos that I am able to snap some shots of them. Many of them remembered me on Valentine's Day and brought me little candy gifts with sweet notes, it just melted my heart.

I have been thinking ahead to my future classroom and hit the jackpot with some teacher purchases from Dollar Tree this weekend!

I bought several charts, window clings, stickers, and hall passes. Dollar Tree has some of the best teacher stuff, I plan to make a visit weekly to see what other goodies I can find.

I hope you all have a good week!!

These are a few of my favorite things...

I have recently been watching "Season 25: Oprah Behind the Scenes" on the OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) channel. Last nights episode was about all the extremely hard work that goes into Oprah's annual favorite things episode. It was really interesting to see all of the producers contact these different companies to see if they would like to be a part of the "favorite things". I was REALLY surprised that when Oprah's people contacted Apple, they first said "NO" to donating 300 iPad's for the show. Apple eventually changed their mind and at the last minute they gave the iPad's as part of the "favorite things" loot.

I thought that it would be fun for me to list some of my current favorite things...

If you are a "friend" of mine on Facebook you have heard me sing the praises of this gadget. Shawn gave me this for Christmas and it is wonderful!! We use it daily for coffee, hot chocolate or cappuccino.

Next, I am currently reading "The Firstborn Series" by Karen Kingsbury. I cannot say enough about these books!! They are a follow up series to her "Redemption Series" and they have just been such a good inspirational read. It has been nice to read about fictional people who are going through the ups and downs of life but yet they turn to the Lord for guidance. I have read all 5 of the books of "The Firstborn Series" in two weeks - I have loved them all!!

Last but NOT least is my NOOKcolor. Shawn gave me a regular NOOK for Christmas last year and I loved it so, unfortunately a few weeks ago it started having small etch-a-sketch looking lines all across the screen. Each day the lines became worse and I eventually could not read it at all. Barnes and Noble was wonderful and because the price of the regular NOOK had dropped considerably since he bought mine they replaced mine with the NOOKcolor!

Thanks B & N!!

With that being said if any of you have a NOOK and would like to read any books that I have, just shoot me an email and I would be happy to "lend" you any that I have.

Well I am off to read - have a good weekend!!

New Year - BIG Changes!

Happy 2011 everyone!!! I hope that each of you had a Merry Christmas, ours was absolutely wonderful! My brother and sister in law came for a visit a few days after Christmas, it was nice to see them both and Addison really enjoyed seeing her Uncle K and Aunt J!

I have several favorite Christmas gifts that I want to share over the next few weeks, but the first one is a devotional book that came from my mom.

I cannot say enough about this book each day has a short devotional and it is written as Jesus is actually speaking to the reader. I have loved reading these during my quiet times at night before bed, and just reading all of the promises that He has for me and my life. I also found that there is a Jesus Calling app for the iPhone which is the same as the book - I encourage anyone to check it out. You can go HERE to read a few pages of the book.

On December 26th this little man arrived!! Congrats to my sister in law and her hubby on the birth of William Anderson Fambrough - we are so excited to finally have a BOY on Shawn's side of the family.

Mommy (Shawn's sister) and William

And I FINALLY have started student teaching!! I am at Kate Bond Elementary School and loving every second of it except for one part, I am ALREADY sick!! This is my first week and I already have a pretty rough head cold and ear infections in both ears. I went to the minor med clinic this morning, so hopefully I will be good to go by Monday. I am missing my 1st graders all ready! I have really switched into teacher mode, I have found myself coming home every night and looking on the net for different lesson plans and activities that I can do with the kids. I am working on some cute things for the 100th day of school so if any of you teachers out there have any ideas please send them my way!!