Happy Halloween!

Tonight was c|Life’s trunk-or-treat at Chickfila in Forney! There were some pretty cool trunks, games, and costumes! Casey’s family showed up and Caleb (our nephew) attended his 3rd trunk-or-treat this week! Lucky boy! Sadly I didn’t get any pictures of him dressed as Larry Boy! Afterward we all went to Martinez. Yum!

Today was also:

Laura K. Bond’s 24th birthday!

Old woman! :) Here’s a picture of us with Princess Peach from Mario Brothers :)

Princess Peach, also known as Aubrey Kay! :)  I think it’s funny that Lucy’s head is in the bottom right of this picture. And here is Lucy’s Halloween shirt – just some pumpkins and “Happy Halloween!” It’s funny because she has learned to take this shirt off on her own. I have found it in the bed, in the yard, and in the couch this week! :)

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Happy Halloween everybody!!

Don’t forget to set your clocks back!

One hour of extra sleep! That works great for all of the kiddos on sugar rushes from trick-or-treating. They’ll need that extra hour in the morning! :)

My Name is Lauren and I'm an Addict

Lately my need for Starbucks in the morning has gone too far.

I have been calling my husband once I have gotten to school begging him to stop by Starbucks and bring it to me on his way into work. He has been generous enough to do this several times this school year, but a couple of weeks ago he informed me that it was the last time.

I would promise a Starbucks builder/owner that I would stop at his/her Starbucks store EVERY SINGLE DAY if they would build one on my route to school. Both the Starbucks by my house and the one by my school is not on my route. They either require me to go the wrong way when leaving my house, or going way past my school and then turning around.

Ps. If you're interested, my favorite cold drink is a Green Tea Frappucino (w/ no whip) and my favorite hot drink is a Mocha White Mocha Cappucino (w/ no whip), also known as a Zebra or a Michael Jackson, lol.

Lovin’ My Job Right Now

There were soooooooo many times last year where I did NOT like my job. For whatever reason there were bad days. Either the kids were bad, I hated morning duty, I felt like my principal and AP did not like me, I hated all of the paperwork, I didn’t feel supported by my team or at home, or I felt that I just wasn’t good at it.

This year is not last year.

I looooove my job. I love my kids, I love my principal and AP, I love my team, I love my husband, and I am GOOD at my job. (I still don’t like morning duty or the paperwork, but the rest of my job makes those things so small:).

I know I am teaching my kids something.

I can feel it in my veins.

They are learning things about reading, culture, respect, common sense, and even Jesus.

Yes, I said Jesus. (They have learned that I will answer any question they have. It started with them asking me what the moment of silence was for, then it turned into what I do during it, and then that ball just kept rolling. But really that story is for another day).

Tomorrow is my PDAS (my evaluation). I am not scared like last year. I am ready (I think:). I am not even doing anything differently than I would any other day. Obviously, more thought goes into making sure all of the main objectives they want to see are covered in the tiny time they will be in your room (45 minutes, when I have each class for 90). Heck, I left work earlier today (the night before my PDAS) than I have any other day in the last couple of weeks!

Last year I would not have thought I would care enough to stay at work late to make things BETTER. I was just concerned with staying afloat.

Anyway, here are a few cutie pictures of my super awesome students. (Don’t worry guys, we have waivers from all of their parents saying that they are allowed to have their picture posted on the internet – Forney’s website – and this blog has thousands of less readers – 41 total to be exact. :)

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The first picture is of my current 6th graders hanging signs at the new high school for their homecoming game (their school is right across the street from us). The one next to it at the top is ME in a firefighter’s suit. That is from last year. That thing was crazy heavy. I look funny. Ha-ha. Next to it are some kiddos from this year carrying the posters to the high school. We did that the beginning of October. The 2nd row on the left is when the pumpkin patch came to our school. Each kid got to pick out a pumpkin for $2. The bottom right is a picture of all of the 6th graders from last year posing with the firemen. :)

Have a great week everyone!

Ps. Can you all believe that the holidays are almost here? I am so excited! I realize it is more than a month away, but I can’t wait to put up our Christmas tree! Yay!

The State Fair of Texas

A couple of weeks ago Casey & I went to the fair!   It was a lot of fun!    Fact: Did you know Texas has the biggest state fair in the United States?    Fact: Did you know the Texas Star is the biggest the ferris wheel in the Western Hemisphere?    Everything’s bigger in Texas!

Here I am with Elsie at the Borden exhibit! :)

 

Casey & I at the petting zoo! Feeding the lama and ostrich…also loved the baby camel! :)

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Casey tried to shoot a faraway shot to win basketball tickets – it was SO close, but didn’t go in.

  

Fried Snickers: so yummy it received a thumbs up!

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Casey in front of the Texas Star – the 25th tallest in the history of ferris wheels!

Overbooked

Is anyone else feeling overbooked these days?

I am.

I have had this type of week. Or month rather. This school year has just felt this way altogether.

First off, I have all these after school meetings. Today I had 3 obligations... I had to leave one early to get to the next one, and I had to skip the third one altogether. Makes me feel bad when I have to do stuff like that.

The same thing is going to happen next Monday when we have a somewhat important faculty meeting at school, but I will also have an ESL meeting at admin from 4-7 (which is wayyy too long to be working if you ask me - that's 12 solid hours - not to mention all the other after school stuff I need to do). I have my PDAS evaluation next week (most likely Wednesday) and that's something else that stresses me out. All of my teacher friends out there are understanding that one. (Shout out!)

Thanks for letting me vent to you all, my blogger friends.

Leave me any vents that you may also have. I'll listen. :)

Pokeno Pronounced Po-kee-noh

Last weekend me & the girls had our first Pokeno Night! We are having these monthly get togethers on the first Friday of every month. The first month was at my house. Each month, the host chooses how to get the word out (ie. invitations, e-vites, facebook), cooks dinner & dessert, and choose the gift theme. This first month Laura & I co-hosted it. I sent out invitations & made dinner, and Laura brought lots of yummy desserts! I made baked spaghetti from a recipe I got from Brenda at church! It was extra yummy, and we had plenty leftover for Casey to eat (which he has, several times). We decided that the gift would be “anything” this month since it was the first go around. I am already excited about next month! It will be at Natalie’s house on November 6th! If any of you girls out there would like to join, let us know! This month we had a group of 5, but it can be as big as 10, I believe!

Here we are holding up our game boards and cards with our milk and desserts on the table :) I forgot to mention that you put your gift in a paper bag so you can’t be swayed by wrapping paper. Everyone gets a gift. We had some really fun and cute gifts this month! I won an awesome pumpkin spice candle from Jenna! It is burning in my living room as we speak! :)

Playing Pokeno!

We kept putting our cameras on timer and running over to get in the picture! It was pretty funny!

Happy Sunday!

Double the Fun

Last Sunday after church two of my students from last year got baptized. I wrote about their story before, here http://caseyandlaurencoats.blogspot.com/2009/08/power-of-prayer.html?zx=c344d56dc7615d99 They are now in 7th grade and in Casey’s youth group. It has been awesome to see them accept Christ and then show that step of faith by being baptized. I love both of these girls so much and it makes me love my job so much more! It is cool to have kids who I taught last year join our church and youth group the next year when they are in 7th grade. We have 3 of my former students at our church now, and none of them were members before. I can’t wait to see if any of my current students will start coming!

I love this picture of Madison getting baptized with her sister, Paige watching in the water, waiting her turn.

Madison

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Paige

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It just so happened, that on the same day, Kristi’s (my team teacher from last year) neices were getting baptized as well! So, Kristi was there! It was a funny little coincidence that both of the twins’ 6th grade teachers were there to see them get baptized. Here is our little reunion picture! :)

Kristi, Lauren, Madison, & Paige

GO STARS!

A couple of weeks ago, Casey’s dad’s friend gave us his season tickets for the night! This is probably our 3rd time to get his tickets and go to the game and park for free! It’s always good fun. This time I got to buy a shirt in the store inside of the American Airlines Center.

At this game I saw more fights than ever before! Casey said it was the most he had ever seen, too! We probably saw 8 altogether – 3 being drop-down-knockouts! They took off their helmets and gloves and beat each other with their fists! Crazy!! But highly entertaining! haha. Stars won 3-2, I think (I can’t remember the score for sure)! I had to miss the season premiere of Grey’s Anatomy to go to this game (although I had it on DVR, but still!), and I’m still glad I went, so that means it was a really good game! :) Here are a couple of pictures from our night at the AAC.

 

Barktoberfest

This past Saturday Casey & I woke up and went to Ft Worth to BARKTOBERFEST ‘09 at the Ft Woof Dog Park!! :) It was loads of fun and also a little bit hilarious! :)  When we showed up we walked around and saw the booths, the Ticket 1310am announcer guys, and signed up to win A&M vs Arkansas tickets for that night (which we did not win). After that we went to the off-leash part of the park where Lucy just ran around with other dogs…well, kind of. For the most part she just ran to humans—any human.  It was her first time ‘off-leash’ and she didn’t really know what to do. One time there were about 4 dogs who were running and chasing after each other and she joined in for a minute and then ended up huddling up under a guy sitting on a bench. It was pretty funny there for a minute though :)

After all that there was a dog costume contest for Halloween! That was by far the best part. They paraded through while one of the Ticket announcer guys announced what he saw. I will post several pictures of the dogs in their costumes. I wish that we had dressed Lucy up, but didn’t have time to get creative. She did wear this funny pink shirt with a fuzzy hoodie though :) You’ll see it in the pictures of our fun outing! :)

Lucy & I in the car on the way to Ft. Worth – she is incredibly good in the car. She just lays in my lap and sleeps most of the time or she perches up on the window seal and looks outside :)

 

Just arrived at the dog park…

Doggies in their costumes!  Here you have an angel, a ghost buster, and a doggie witch :)

Funny story, when the huge angel dog walked by, the announcer told the woman that her dog looked like a boy dog dressed up like a girl he said, “I’m sorry ma’am, but your dog looks like a cross dresser!” He/she ended up winning 3rd place in the contest :) The Ghostbusters won 1st place (there were actually 2 of them, but I only put up a picture of one of them)

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Look at this funny Chihuahua as a Seniorita!

Okay, and something really funny….they had a pastor come out on the field and say a ‘dog blessing.’ She told everyone to put their hand over their dog while she prayed. I thought it was funny and played along while Casey made jokes during the doggie prayer. We both thought it was really funny – they called it the Blessing of the Animals. :)

And now for a family picture to end the day at Barktoberfest ‘09! :)

The whole day was really fun and we’ve already decided to go to more dog stuff if we hear about it (please don’t judge us, it’s not nice:), not just because we love Lucy, but because other dog owners are pretty crazy and we get a kick out of laughing at them with their dogs! Yay for pets! And free, fun events! :)