Spring Break

It's been a good Spring Break!!! I hate to see it end. :( I went to a Dallas Desperados arena football game last weekend with a few friends. I didn't get very good pictures though. My camera batteries died halfway into the game!



I went home for several days to visit my family. Since my nieces weren't on their Spring Break, I didn't get to see them much. But here's a pic of Reanne posing, as she loves to do!!!



I also got to go visit Megan and Jolie at their house. Unfortunately Todd was at the BCM that night. Megan and I had a good time catching up and Jolie is precious! I hate that I forgot to take pictures!

My friend Sarah and I went down to Greenville Avenue in Dallas to the St. Patrick's Day parade yesterday. It seemed more like a Mardi Gras parade because they throw beads more than candy. It was fun! Then later that night we hung out with some friends in Addison and Bedford.

I have a prayer request...tomorrow my aunt is having triple bypass surgery so please say a prayer for her. She's in the hospital in Shreveport. Thank you!

Now I'm off to do some lesson plans and probably take some tylenol pm soon. My body is not used to going to bed early so tonight is going to be fun. But waking up early in the morning is going to be even worse! Have a good week!

Pics from the last couple of weeks...kinda random...

Last Saturday we had a wedding shower for Jilly Bean at my apartment. It was good to see everybody and catch up. Here are the hostesses with Jill. And here are some other girls that came. Several people were already gone by the time we took this picture.

I've never even been to the real Mardi Gras...don't particularly want to go actually. Remember when we used to get 2 days off for it in college though? It happened to fall on the TAKS Test Day this year. My friend Sarah and I found a Cajun restaurant that was giving out beads. Now I'm craving crawfish. :)

My friends Mike and Wendi invited people over to watch the Oscars a couple of weeks ago. We all filled out a ballot sheet but I had only heard of about 4 of the movies. So needless to say, I did not win! I didn't think the Oscars were ever going to end that night! Here's a self-portrait of me and my friend Jeff. He brought a Oscar-like trophy that he had received from work and we were over in the kitchen making acceptance speeches.


My niece Reanne emailed me today. She was at home sick with my dad. It was such a sweet email. My mom told her I'm coming home for a few days over Spring Break next week. She can't wait for me to come home. She loves her Aunt Mandy...what can I say. :)


We have Open House at school tomorrow night. That's where the kids bring their parents and show them what all we've been doing this year. We've got all kinds of projects hanging up everywhere, power points will be on every computer, the whole nine yards. We make the kids be their parents' tour guides so that keeps them busy and they won't want to conference with me...hopefully! Have I mentioned that I am ready for Spring Break next week?!?! :)

I'm sad there's not going to be a new episode of Grey's tomorrow night. I got spoiled to those for a while there. Like the title of this post says...random! Have a good weekend!

The big 3-0!!!

Happy 30th Birthday, Kristi!!!! I hope you enjoy this new decade. You'll have to let me know how it is. Send her an email or a comment on her blog and wish her happy birthday. For those of you that have already hit the big 3-0, do you have any good advice for her?

Mardi Gras

Well, I forgot to take any pictures once my Mardi Gras Bunco night started. But I did get a picture of the plates and sign on my door before everyone got there. Oops! We were having too much fun to remember to take pics.

Somehow I just deleted the rest of the pictures that were on my camera. I was trying to figure out a way to make them smaller and guess I hit the wrong button. Usually it will ask before doing something major like deleting everything, but not this time. I was going to show you some pics from the Stars and Sharks game yesterday. Oh well.

I did manage to download some pics on Saturday though. I went to Hobby Lobby last weekend and bought a few things for my walls. Here is a picture of the scrolly thing I bought to go above my bed. I was afraid it was too big, but once it was on the wall, it worked perfectly.

And here's the picture I got to go above my dresser. My favorite color is red, but I decided to go with blue and khaki for my bedroom when I moved last summer. The rest of the apartment is red so I thought I would try something new. Now I should be done buying for a while! But who can resist a 1/2 off sale!!! :)

So tomorrow is the big day...TAKS test time! It's going to be such a looooong, boring day. They've changed it a little this year. We have to actively monitor ALL day long...no sitting! Probably the hardest part for me will not to have my computer on. :) I told my kids that I knew it was going to be boring for them, but to think about me...all I can do is watch them! :) Please say a prayer for a few of my little angels. The whole not talking thing is going to be reeeeeally hard for them! The only thing I can tell them is "I can't help you with that, just try the best you can." They're so used to asking for help, which is a good thing, but tomorrow will be hard for them. We've been practicing though so it won't be a shock to them.

My school has decided not to let them read a book when they're done so they won't rush through the test. They're allowed to rest as much as they want. Well, the other day we were taking a practice test and one of my boys BaQuavious (his twin BaZavious) is across the hall) decided to take a nap and drooled all over his book. So I told them if they think they need to rest and might possibly be a drooler, for goodness sakes, close the book first and move it out of the way! :)

Jilly Bean

I am so sorry that I forgot to mention my fabulous lunch with Jill last Saturday. (see her comment from my last post) Jill, I was afraid that people would be jealous that I got to spend time with you so I didn't want to brag. :) We met at Gloria's in Colleyville and had some yummy bean dip and quesadillas. And as Jill said, our waiter was muy guapo! He must have forgotten that we were supposed to go out that night. :)

I doubt any of you have time to watch General Hospital, or care to, but in case you do...check out the commercial that comes on before the show each day this week. They had a contest called FANtastic February where someone from the show would come and do your job for a day and then they would fly you out to LA and let you be on their show. Well, my friend Jamye from my old school WON! So Bob the Bachelor and Jason Thompson who plays Patrick Blake went to Hanes and hung out in the 1st grade all day. Isn't that cool? Several of my friends emailed me that day and said how cute Jason was and how sweet Bob was. I only watched a couple of seasons of The Bachelor and Bachorette, but Bob was one of the ones I watched. Of course I'm sad that I wasn't there to peek in, but such is life. You can click on the link and watch a video with Jamye in it.

Only 2 more school days until TAKS!!! Ok, Jilly Bean, are you happy now? :)

Time flies...

I know, I know, I haven't blogged in a month! But I haven't done anything exciting enough to tell you about. :) And you know how I like to put pictures on here, and since I have no new pictures, I technically have nothing to blog about. :)

All I know about lately is TAKS!!! Feb. 20th is the day we take the Reading TAKS test. This is the one that my kids have to pass in order to pass 3rd grade. They get a 2nd chance in April, and if they fail again, they have to go to summer school then take it a 3rd time. And in April is our Math test but it doesn't necessarily count as much. There's just a lot of pressure put on the teachers. When the scores come back, it's YOUR name next to the number of YOUR kids that failed. It's no fun. But anyway...that's all I've been thinking about lately.

This Friday Bunco is at my house. It should be fun fitting 12 people and 3 extra tables into my 2 bedroom apartment. I've decided to go with the Mardi Gras theme. One girl is going to bring a King Cake from Central Market. I need to go buy some beads and stuff to decorate with. Being from Louisiana, I should have some stuff already but I don't. It will be good times. If only we could have beignets and coffee from Cafe Du Monde. Yum! I know I could try to make my own, but it just wouldn't be the same.



Well, I hope you're having a good weekend. Just wanted you to know that I am still alive and kicking. :)

Happy New Year!!!

I can't believe it's already 2007. It seems like this school year just started. That's the way I seem to measure my years...by when school starts and ends. I love being out of school but it's also nice to be on somewhat of a schedule too. But is it bad that I'm already looking forward to being off for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Yeah, I know...pitiful!

I had a great Christmas break. I spent about a week in Ruston with my family. It was nice and relaxing. I hate that I don't get to see my nieces more often. But it makes the time we spend together that much more special. Reanne left me a message the other day asking when I was going to move closer to her.

I also got to visit the Barr family and the Davisons while in Ruston. I didn't get any pictures of it, but I went to dinner one night with 6 girls I went to high school with. We had a great time catching up. I hadn't seem some of them since graduation. I usually have my camera in my purse but forget about it.

Anyway, here are the pics from Christmas. I promise I have friends my own age, but it's more fun to take pics of kids. :) Happy New Year!

Wedding BELLS

Saturday several of us headed to Tyler for Chris and Amy's wedding. First, we met at the Renshaws for lunch. Oh my gosh, their 3 girls have GROWN! Kennedy is almost as tall as Coreen! And sadly, they didn't remember us from when they were little. Kennedy and Stephanie are in the 6th grade and Stephanie is in 3rd.

Here are some pics from the day...

Mr. and Mrs. Drake cutting the cake

How 'bout them Dawgs?!?!

Kayla & Clay with their kids, Shannon, and Ashley

Coreenie

Todd, Megan, and Jolie--quite the entertainer she is!

Me, Jill, and Shannon

The Renshaw bunch

Me and Todd

Greg, Jeff, and Todd solving the world's problems

The girls

Unfortunately, Stacy Colvin is only in the group pic. She was a busy bee being part of the house party. Sorry, Stace! :)

I’ve really been slacking at updating this blog lately. You’ve probably stopped checking to see if I’ve written anything new. :) I caught up on reading all of y’alls blogs this afternoon. I love all the pics and all the deep thoughts. But after reading everyone else’s, it makes me think I really don’t have anything to write about. :) But today I do…

Last night my church hosted Mission Colleyville. It’s an outreach where we invite less fortunate families, especially focusing on the Hispanics in the area, to come to our church for the evening. We have each family register when they get there (that’s where I worked for most of the night). Then they get a free meal, a concert by the Christian group Salvador, a box of groceries from Feed The Children, and a voucher to come to our “toy store” in a couple of weeks. They set up a huge white tent in the parking lot that seated 5,000 inside and it was overflowing. Unfortunately the fire marshal made them turn off the heaters because they were a fire hazard, so it was quite chilly all night. Jay Lowder from Wichita Falls preached while another man interpreted the message into Spanish. There were 75 decisions made and 3 baptisms. They announced this morning that approximately 5,300 people came and looking at the registration cards, there will be about 4,500 kids needing toys. And our goal is to give each child 3 toys. It was such a blessing to be a part of this last night. We lost our pastor a few months ago and therefore several hundred members since then, so I was curious to see what kind of response we would get. But God's plans are so much bigger and better than ours!!!

I enjoyed time with family over Thanksgiving. My niece Reanne spent the night with me. She wanted to put on Aunt Mandy’s makeup so of course I said yes. Is there another answer to such a cute face?!?! She had a blast. It reminded me of when I was little and did the same thing. I can remember my brother coming in my room and telling me, “I didn’t know we were playing circus. I want to look like a clown too.” Sad thing is that I don’t know how to put on makeup any better today than I did then. :)



I was quickly reminded that whenever you get out a mirror or a camera, Reanne loves to look at herself and pose. She acts like a pro. We even watched “What Not to Wear” together. Apparently she likes that show and Rachael Ray. Why does she like to watch a cooking show at such a young age? Because Rachael Ray likes to talk a lot, just like her!

Have a good week!

Workin' at the car wash...

Jessica and Meg and I got to go to a wedding shower for Amy Fewell this weekend. It was quite fancy. It was at the Four Seasons in Las Colinas. That’s where they have the Byron Nelson. It was fun catching up with Amy. The other girls had all worked at Pine Cove. It made me miss some of my old Cho-Yeh friends. Anyway, we played a game where Amy had to answer your question before she could open your present. We ended up learning a lot about her fiance’ Chris so that was fun.

I talked to my friend Karen today. She taught with me at my last school and lives in the neighborhood across the street from me. She’s one of my friends that is always watching out for a single guy to set me up with. One day she almost brought home a guy she saw at the car wash. She then asked if she could start carrying around a picture of me so she could show them what I look like and they wouldn’t think she was totally making it all up. (No, I did not give her a picture!) So this weekend she and her husband were walking around in their neighborhood (of Sandlin homes—this comes in later) and noticed that one of the houses that they like was open and someone was about to move in. So they go up to it and this young guy is working in it. Come to find out, he’s Mr. Sandlin’s son. And he’s moving in. So Karen’s husband Jeremiah proceeds to befriend him and finds out that he’s single and will be living in that big house all by himself. Karen said I need to come over and go walking in her neighborhood with her. :)

Speaking of marriages (jk!)…in less than 2 weeks my friend Lisa will be getting married to Glenn. You’ll never believe how they met?!?! ;) Congratulations, Lisa!

The computer tech person at my school was finally able to put a picture of my 3rd grade team on our website. This was taken the day before school started back in August. I'm having trouble adding pictures today for some reason so that's why they're so small.

Tomorrow my assistant principal is coming to observe me. Every year we have to be formally observed. It always makes me nervous to think that someone is listening to every word I say and watching every move I make. It’s one thing for a bunch of kids to do it, but it’s different for it to be one of my principals with a notepad! Anyway, it will be during my math time so that’s good. We’re starting temperature so that will be quite interesting. I’ve decided to pass out the thermometers in the morning (during reading time) and get that excitement out of the way. Then maybe they’ll act better the 2nd time they see them. :) Oh, the little tricks of teaching!

Boo!

Look how cute my nieces are.

Their Aunt Mandy mailed them these Halloween shirts.

The little one really likes to have her picture taken.

Here she's blowing me a kiss. :)

Last night I went out to eat with some friends at Anamia's.

Mike and Wendi's little boy Connor stole my heart

from the day he was born.

He's 2 now. Isn't he adorable?!

He's going to be Buzz Lightyear for Halloween.

He's already started wearing his wings and won't

take them off when they go places. He's so funny!

Start spreading the news...

Last Friday, Sept. 29th, a group from my church choir went to New York for the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir Music Conference. We went last year and had so much fun that we decided to make it a tradition. We arrived in New York and went to our hotel in Brooklyn. Then we walked to lunch at a pizza place under the Brooklyn Bridge. (I still prefer Johnny's Pizza though.)

Pastor Jim Cymbala's wife Carol is the choir director and leader of the conference. Many of you might remember some of their songs we sang in college. It's so cool being there after reading their books. Friday nights are their usual choir practice time, so the whole choir came and sang with us, then sang for us. On Sunday, we got to go on stage and sing with them the songs we had practiced. Carol told us about the whole process of getting into the choir, auditioning, being interviewed, etc. It made me glad that my choir director didn't make me audition! A lot of their choir members don't read music so Carol teaches the notes like Shayla used to teach me in children's choir when I was little. Carol holds her arm in front of her and moves it up if the note goes up and then down, etc. I can sort of read music but I can't necessarily sing what I see. So this is a good method for me. Although anytime you want to hear a G in perfect pitch, just ask Todd.

Here are my roommates for the weekend...Mitzi, Natalie, and Debbie. On Saturday, we went sightseeing. We're on our way to Canal Street to do some shopping. We even went "underground" for some purse shopping. Quite an experience!

That night, Natalie and I went on a night tour on a double decker bus. It started raining a little while we were waiting to leave.

No matter where I go, I always seem to find some men in uniform. What's sad is that they look 12! That must mean I'm getting OLD!

My favorite part of New York is Times Square.

Radio City Music Hall

Mmmmmm...the Hershey's store!

The Wall Street bull

On Sunday after church, we went to Ground Zero.

This is part of a steel beam that made a cross shape.

This is the view looking down into the where the towers were. That's the subway system below.

Here's a poster showing the Freedom Tower that's going to be built there.

There were 18 of us that went. Here is part of the group waiting for the subway. That's my new fake Coach purse. :)

Good times!