Spring Art Show 2014

Our Spring Art Show was last week.  We had a lot of great work and set it up a little differently this year.  It seemed to work well and was a lot cheaper than what we have done in the past.  We also made buttons this year for our students to wear to promote the show.  Those were a big hit!

They were designed by one of our seniors.  I think she did a great job!

Here are a few pieces made by some of my students:

We pulled 17 finalists and had a few artsy community members vote on their favorite.  Here are the top three:

A self portrait made with pastels and charcoal

A weave drawing made with charcoal and colored pencil

And a surrealist piece made with Photoshop

It was a great show!

Mother's Day 2014

Mother's Day this year was pretty low-key.  I got to relax while Rob spent most of the day in the garage making stands for our art show.  Nola came home on Friday with a cute gift from daycare.

It was filled with Hershey's hugs and kisses.  Nola was pretty excited to give it to me.  She called it her cone and wanted the candy :)

Being a mother has been pretty amazing.  It's hands-down the best thing I am and what I enjoy doing most.  

When this Mother's Day rolled around I couldn't help but think of Nola.  She gave me this holiday and I'm so thankful that she did.

Being her mother has been an easy transition and I think that's because I have such an awesome mom.  She showed me how to be a great mom all my life so I didn't know any different when Nola was born.

So I want to say THANK YOU to my mom for being so loving, patient, goofy, and smart.

And THANK YOU to Nola for making me a mother and letting me love you so much.

Happy Mother's Day!

Easter 2014

We got to spend Easter weekend with everyone I love!  My whole family was together for a few days in Wichita and then we spend Easter night with Robert's family in Lincoln.  When my family gets together we always have a lot of fun and I take A LOT of pictures.  Nola loved all of her Easter egg hunts, chocolate bunnies and extra attention.  

On Monday we were still in Lincoln and Nola and I spent the day shopping.  It was so much fun.  She is growing so much.  She tried on several pairs of shoes at my favorite shoe store and managed to talk me into buying a copy of Frozen at Sams- that's a whole other post.  Let's just say "Love is an open dooooooooooooooooooor" has been stuck in my head for 4 days.

Variety Show 2014

For the last few years we've had a Staff vs. Students Variety Show.  We put together a few skits/performances that make us look like idiots and the students show off their talent.  We have never won...  and we never should.  It's always fun and that's what matters!  This year I made a #hashtag video, a selfie video and we did two skits live.  In one of them three of us fought over a cute new English teacher while "Call Me Maybe" played.  

Students loved this one because they think he is just the cutest thing ever.

Our last skit was my favorite because I got to use my karaoke skills.  We had the judges come up on stage and did a parody of The Voice.  They were told to turn around if they heard something good.  What the audience didn't know was that we told them backstage not to turn around until the last act.  One of the students' favorite subs is an 80 year old former choir teacher so we wanted her to be the big finale.  Maggie and I sang "Total Eclipse of the Heart."  We played up the "TURN AROUND" part.

We rocked it.  I know they would have turned around if they could :)

Reunited

My friend and Ikea cohort, Libbi, was in Omaha visiting family last week.  We got to meet her for dinner one night.  She has a little girl who is only 6 days older than Nola and I was really excited to see them together!  We had a great time and the girls LOVED each other.  I hope we can get them together this summer so they can play and we can drink hangout.

Bacon Fest

Last weekend we went to the first ever Bacon Fest in Columbus.

  We walked in and saw a friend of ours dressed in a pig costume.  Nola was not happy about that.  It was the clown incident all over again.  Eventually, she calmed down and started playing in the kids area.  She really enjoyed pig plinko and the bean bag toss.

Then she found the treasure dig.  We recently discovered her love for sand so I was nervous that she might jump into the sand instead of stay on the outside and dig. 

 Every time I turned around she got closer and closer to jumping in.  Then she just went for it. 

She was a mess, but it was fun.  There were vendors from different restaurants there that each had different bacon treats.  They were all delicious!  It was a fun day.

That's what she said.

Me: What did you do today?

Nola: Talked to Gabby and Nixon.

Me: What did you guys talk about?

Nola: Shit.

Me: Nola, you can't do that.

Nola: Mommy, you're being mean to me.

Me:  Do you want to go down the slide?

Nola: No.

Me:  It will be fun.

Nola: I'm not fun.

Boy at park: What's your name?

Nola: Nola. Nola Jane.

Nola: My tummy hurts.

Me: What do you do when your tummy hurts?

Nola: Eat cookies!!

Nola: I have something in my butt

Me: What do you have in your butt?

Nola: Poopies

Rob: Yawns

Nola: You're pretty tired daddy?

Rob: I am pretty tired

Nola: Do you want to go in my crib?

I took Nola's chair to use as an example in an auction. She walked over to where it normally sits and said, "My chair's not home yet."