A look at lately: I made two very good veggie dishes for dinner tonight. E-mail me if you'd like the recipes!

I checked out the book below from the Springdale Public Library and really like it....especially the pictures below! :) :)

This weekend I hung out with Jana a bit (missed you Becca) and we went to Orange Mango, the frozen yogurt place on Dickson Street. We each got out for around $2.00 and enjoyed our treats immensely!

Brett and I worked on our house site this weekend as well. We had the perc test completed today and it went very well. Also, the electricity men will be cutting a path, and getting electricity to our house site sometime this week, hopefully.

This is a clearing we'll have to the left of our house. We plan on cleaning it up a lot, eventually :) and I hope, planting some fruit trees.

These are all of the rocks I picked up from the site. We might use them for landscaping later on. (They look better in real life, or maybe those are my rose-colored glasses kicking in again) :)
This BEAUTIFUL tree will be seen from the study and our Master bedroom/bathroom.

A student of mine brought these flowers to me on the first day! They were from their garden. :)
This is our new library at Westwood!!! Wooohoooo!

I read a book called "A Bad Case of Stripes" to my students, and then each kid (plus me!) made a mini stripe drawing and included things that they really liked (that maybe othe people didn't know about them).

Guess who came to see me at work today? :) My room is pretty much ready for school, but I still have an enormous amount of other tasks to do. Brett asked if he could come by after he got off work, and I was thrilled! I love that he cares about what I do :) :) :)

Here is a view of the back of my classroom, my work table (where I'll meet with small groups a lot), and our "Action" clothesline wall, where kids can write down times that they see their classmates displaying certain attitudes and attributes we teach at Westwood.

This is our Current Events board. We receive free newspapers several times during the week and this is where we will post stories that have to do with what we're learning. The kids can also write directly on the brown paper with their questions, thoughts, feelings, etc. about the stories.

This is our art area, where the kiddos supplies will go. We also have an area where I will put different items out every week or few weeks. The kids can then observe the items and ask questions about the "mystery" items (we're starting out with something easy-rocks :) ). I've been collecting things from the farm and various places to set out there during the year. I'm going to make a sign for this area that says "Eye Spy-Finding the interesting in the ordinary". The pillows are in our reading area-I sewed the middle one :)

My favorite spot!! This is the library and reading area :). The kids will place a number on the world map and then write the numbered location down on a class list as they read about various places in the world. It will be neat to see how we "Read around the world" this year!

This is our Reading Recommendation board. Kids can recommend books to others, and I'm going to put a tub out so that after they recommend a book they can place it in the tub for someone else to get. I also have labeled bins for each unit we teach ....."who we are", How the world works" are just a couple. We will also have a reader's choice section where the kids get to choose if they'd read MY pick or not :)

This is the top of the loft. I added the posters of places in the world, and a dry erase board on the wall for the kids.

I put a couple of the curtains momma made me last year on the loft this year (the rest are under the windows, like normal) I also added a banner I made :)

This is our lunch choice, and a calendar I made by cutting out various numbers from magazines, gluing them on construction paper, and then laminating them. Lastly, I put the wire racks together (thanks momma!) to make a bookshelf for our unit books.
There are more pics, but I think this'll do :)

Randomness: Before and After, Back to School, St. John, and House Inspiration

Before: After! Brett got us a new digital thermostat and it is working great! I am always so proud of him for being Mr. Fix-It :) Plus, what an attractive look he has going too!

School has basically started (for teachers anyway) and here are a few things I've been working on. On the left is a display of types of questions we encourage the students to ask, which will go on the window wall. The middle letters will be hung on the wall, and the right photo is a calendar I made using numbers from magazines. I'll laminate all the paper projects to make them look even better, and to last.

I cut up Brett's business magazine to make these letters! This is where our newspaper stories will go, along with questions and responses from the kiddos.

We've been going many places like Lowe's, Pottery Barn, OOPS, Lighting Emporium, and National to get inspiration for our house and to decide what we like. The photos here are the colors and look that we like. By the way, we are so pleased with Lowe's lighting selection and like what we've found there waaay better than Lighting Emporium! Surprising. :)

Haha-definitely NOT our aesthetic! This rug on the right was made from neckties, and this couch was hysterical. These will not be going in our home!

Here's a look back at St. John island. We rode on the top of the ferry the day we left and enjoyed the fabulous views. :)

On our forever long hike, we hiked up to a very beautiful waterfall. :)

Where our Jeep is parked is what the yard looked like at our cottage.

We named this lizard Henry :).

Meet my little friend that was in the shower with me the first night-AHHH!