Summa Time

Well....I am so glad it is finally summer!! I was so busy in  May that I didn't have time to post at all!! Here is a quick recap -
For Mother's Day, Cambry and Tyler took me to the Topeka Zoo!! We had so much fun!! Cambry loved the bears and monkeys but was a little disappointed with the penguins. When we went, they didn't have any of the activities up and running. We waited in line to see 5 penguins stand in place....But the trip was still fun and a great surprise for me!


Measuring up - She is about the size of the African Penguin

A little love from the orangutan

Also is May came the end of school!! Yipee!! But along with that came packing up 1 classroom and begin moving to the next.  I still am not able to get into the room and get to work - I have a lot to do!  I've been working on classroom manipulatives though - busy cutting and copying and laminating.  Good times:)

Lastly, the beginning of June brought about the departure of Brendan to the Peace Corps.  We spend his final weekend in the states at a Royals game and eaing lots of food!  Oh yeah - and a Sunday full of packing....YOU'RE WELCOME!! We will definitely miss Brendan and we look forward to Skyping and visiting Costa Rica next summer!!! YAY!

To start our summer off, we are fixing the siding of our house. The neighsbors should be pleased that the rot in the front of our home will be gone and replaced, looking shiney and new!! Well...maybe not shiney, but definitely new!! Here is a pic of the boys getting started this morning.  I will definitely be posting before and afters :) Maybe I will fall in love with my house again....



New Motivation

So I finally splurged and bought a jogging stroller!! Cambry and I took it for a spin this evening! I can't believe how smooth the ride was and how out of shape I am....
Cambry seemed to really enjoy the ride and I enjoyed the fresh air and exercise. We will see how long I keep it up and how well the newest set of wheels holds up in the Jackson household!

**GoAl**Drop 15 lbs before the end of the summer
Should be doable if I can stay away from all the temptations and desirable. I need to convince my mouth that Dr. Pepper and donuts are yucky and the water and celery are where it's at!

After selling Cambry's travel system - over sized and bulky and taking up way too much space - I decided up upgrade to this jogger. Check it out at: Walmart. It is the Instep Grand Safari. I am addicted to the color scheme and wanted a front swivel wheel. Only complaint so far is that it isn't very compactible. The journey will continue.....

Craft Fever

As I was laying around the house today, I felt a huge urge to craft come over me. I loaded Cambry in the car, picked up my sister and headed to Michaels!  After 1 1/2 hours and $20 (after sales and card member discounts), we came home with this:

Shopping list includes - 1 canvas, paint of your choice, brushes, ribbon of your choice, and sewing pins - we picked metallic colors for more color. (I already had the staple gun)

The goal is to create a new hair bow organizer for Cambry -  one that is larger and more functional for the bows we use on a daily basis.

My 1st step was to paint the canvas. I started with a solid purple base, then added pink and white for more color. Using a dry brush, I went edge to edge to blend the colors together. End look:



After allowing the canvas to dry, I cut and laid out the ribbons. I chose to alternate the thick ribbons around the thin. I stapled 1 end of the ribbon to the back of the canvas board and wrapped it around the front and stapled on the other end to wrap around the edges. 

Next, I cut down the sewing pins so they would not be longer than the width of the canvas. I put 2 pins in the wider ribbon and 1 pin in the smaller ribbon - random colors. This gives more accent but also keeps the ribbon in place after adding the weight of the bows. Some of the pins went through the wood frame, for those that went only through canvas, I used my glue gun to fasten them on the back side of the canvas.

For the wall hanger and accessory hangers, I used a long strand of plastic dress-up beads. I snapped every 9th bead off the strand to allow a place for me to staple them into place about 1.5 inches apart for the accessory hangers. As for the wall hanger, I took the remaining beads and stapled the ends between 2 beads 6 inches apart to have an even distribution. 

I was very pleased with the end product! It holds twice, if not three times as many hair bows as the original bow organizer I made, but also has a place for sunglasses and head bands - so it should grow with us for a while!

Birthday Fun!

Our baby girl turned 1 on March 29th! We celebrated with friends and family!  It was a great time planning and hosting!! I wish we had more reasons for celebrating - maybe we can make up some new ones!  Through all the excitement, it is still bitter sweet. To think that 1 year ago, I was holding the smallest most precious gift anyone could ever receive. And I grew her - for nine months I was the only one who could give her the care she needed. Now, after 12 months of having her to hold, I feel so blessed and happy and thankful. She is a healthy, beautiful toddler....There, I said it. My beautiful baby has grown up into a beautiful TODDLER!!
I do want to share some of the things my mom and I did to make Cambry's birthday such a wonderful celebration. First of all, that onesie and tutu are the doings of my mom (and Pinterest).

These are the party favors. I upcycled some empty baby food jars by spray painting the lids silver. I filled each jar with some small candies - jelly beans, M&Ms, skittles. Then added colored paper to make the the jar accents. These were a great success and super cheap!! The kiddos all loved them especially with a balloon tied around the top. They also were great table decorations! Way to multi-purpose!!!

 

This was by far one of my favorite creations! A lollipop tree accented with jelly beans!  I made this with a 4 inch styrofoam ball, a dowel rod, and 4 bags of Dum Dums. First, I created the lollipop of Dum Dums by taking cutting down all the Dum Dum sticks to about 1.5 inches. I started in 1 spot and filled in around it. Second, I glued a cylinder piece of styrofoam into the base and weighted the base down with marbles. To help secure the styrofoam, I put a few wash cloths between it and the bucket walls. This helped keep it from shifting as well as made a good seperation for the jelly beans. Finally, I stuck the lollipop tree into the styrofoam and added the small windmills I found for 99 cents at Hobby Lobby. It was a crowd pleaser after they realized they could eat it!!

Another favorite of mine was the cupcakes my mom and I made together. They were nothing fancy but worked really well and made everyone happy. We simply used boxed cake mix (it was too much for us to bake from scratch). We decorate them ourselves using the STAR tip for most of the decorating. It always gave us a fun, bright point.  The best part of the whole day was watching little miss dig into her cake (we used a pot pie aluminum pan to make hers). She loved digging in and getting dirty!! She is just too cute!!

The Sun Exists!!

Oh my...After 5 days of cloudy skies and rainy days, it is odd to see the bright round object in the sky that they call the sun.  My how we have missed it this week! I had to turn my heat back on and try to stay busy indoors - not easy to do with a mini outdoor explorer! We tried to get out inbetween the rain showers, but they were few and far between.

Yesterday was a big day for us. Cambry and I loaded up early and headed to Columbia, MO with my grandma to visit some cousins and the newest addition to the family.  Cambry handled to 2 1/2 hour trip like a pro.  The morning ride went well considering she only slept for about 20 minutes. She started to get fussy about not being able to move with an hour left in the drive. However, she did not cry or scream. Instead, she made pathetic whimpers for attention and sympathy.  It is AMAZING how much joy the Little Piggies routine can give an almost 1 year old!  I also discovered how great I am at multi-tasking while driving..YIKES! We enjoyed the visit and most of all, enjoyed making Grandma smile:) 

Today, I began the frantic panic that little misses birthday party is just 2 days away.  Do I have enough cupcakes? Do I have all the decorations? How many balloons? How much do they cost? What should be the beverage? Who all will be there???????? The questions continue to race around my brain encompassing most of my thoughts.  I think I need Friday to come so I can get the details completed with my mom.  Then my brain can rest...maybe?...

**SpRiNg BrEaK!**

So today marked the 1st official day of spring break and the eve of our spring season.  It was fitting that it rained on and off all day starting at 11:00am and projected to continue to rain for the rest of the week...boo.  As gloomy as today was, it was still productive in the Jackson home.

Cambry and I woke up to Daddy making breakfast. Sausage and egg burritos hit the spot and started the day off right! I love my husband! We then decided to head into Lawrence. First, we accomplished a 3-round bath fest - Mommy, Cambry, then Daddy. We packed up the necessities and headed towards town.
Stop 1 - Home Depot (1 of our favorite stores). We bought some river rock on sale to finish off the front walkway. We also purchased a wonderful shrub to replace our depressing brown stick that remained of the one we planted last year. Hopefully planting earlier will give it a fighting chance! Lastly, we looked into our next outdoor project: fire pit in the backyard! What a better way to hang out with friends and family on summer nights!
Stop 2 - Macxperts. We bought iPhones and in hope of getting some assistance, failed. This store is more for Mac computers.  Why can't Lawrence have a true Apple Store?? Aren't there enough Mac owners and Apple users in this college town??
Stop 3 - Orschlen's. We stopped to check out fire pit rings. That was unsuccessful as well, however, we did discover Cambry's love for baby chicks.  Do I sense an Easter gift?? She watched amazed by the little guys and quite smitten. I don't know if they felt the same way with the banging on the cage and finger pokes through the wires...maybe another time???
After the not-so eventful trip to Lawrence, we headed back to Baldwin. We did decide to stop and get a couple movies to fill our rainy day time with. Real Steel, despite how it may sound was a hit with the whole family! The Big Year...not so much.
To occupy my need for moving around, project Deep Spring Clean-Out began!  I was able to part with a full tote of Cambry's clothes, still keeping 1 full tote. We also decided to donate a trash bag of miscellaneous toys and other baby things.  It felt good to make a little room for what is coming on Saturday for Little Misses Big Birthday Blowout! Tomorrow - I tackle our bedroom and possibly the playroom closet.  We will see.  It is definitely time to at least say good-bye to the big sweaters and hello to the little camis! YAY spring!!

Although this was not an exciting post, I do enjoy sharing it.

Working Our Way Out

So, many struggle to work their way out of debt. We do everyday. For years it seemed like everytime we paid something off, a new debt would accrue.  I think we finally found the method that works for us!
With having a new baby, a new car payment, student loans, a mortgage, and a few nice store credit card debts, out debt seemed to keep piling up.  However, after only a few months, have knocked out about $3000 of debt and saved just as much!  Here is what we did:
1. I first read Dave Ramsey's book, Total Money Makeover. You can get this book at any bookstore or at daveramsey.com. His plan is a little more extreme than ours, but gave us a great idea as to how to get started.
We already had $1000 in savings, but wanted to have more because of everything on our plate. We also knew that setting a super tight budget and going cash only would be very difficult for us. We also lucked out that I was hired for a full-time teaching position which gave us a little extra money to put into savings.
2. I created an excel sheet that layed out all our debts. It is close to exact amounts, however, I'm not too saavy in interest equations to make them come out exact. This layed the order in which the debts would be paid off, what month they would be paid off, how much would be paid each month and how much would be in savings. For me, I need the visual to see the progress.
3. Using the Debt Snowball approach, we tackle 1 debt at a time while paying a small amount to the other debts - at least minimum.  We set our own minimums a little above the required minimum.

Using this system has worked wonders for us.  We were able to get new tires on both vehicles and some repairs on another without being set back. We just post-poned the snowball 2 months and resumed again.  I won't say that our system is flawless, but it has put us more at ease financially.  We are able to plan for home renovations and family vacations while getting out of debt! YAY US!!

1 More Attempt

Once again, I come bearing my sincerest hopes to become a true self-blogger. This is my, dare I say, third possibly fourth attempt to become a committed blogger.  I feel with my life changing as fast as the days come and go, I need a place to release and share some of my thoughts, projects, and parts of my everyday life - teaching and mommyhood! 
As a young mother, I have a urge to share my daily tribulations and heartaches as well as the many surprises and amazing benefits of being a mommy.  My daughter, Cambry, is the light of my life! She has brought so much joy and love into our new growing family.  As she approaches her first birthday, my feelings are bittersweet. So sad for the past year going by so fast, but so joyful for what is to come next.
With the coming of my most favorite website, Pinterest, I feel the need to post my own creations as well as pay tribute to the pins I have used.  I use these ideas for my daughter, my home, and my classroom. I like to craft and try new things.  I'll post several classroom ideas that I truly use and show that anyone can do it. I'll also post all things Cambry!! I do most the crafting myself with the help of my wonderful mom! We'll have 3 generations of crafty crafters!
I do hope that this becomes a place for me to share my life with others. Enjoy!