summer break

It's official. Summer break has officially started. Yesterday was my last teacher workday and now school's out for summer for students and teachers!

Today, tomorrow, and Friday won't be like the rest of my summer. In fact, the next 3 days will be much different. Julianna is finishing out her week at daycare so she'll be there while I'm at home. Since she'll be out until the beginning of August, I wanted to her to get in as much time with her buddies and she could. Plus, I can get a lot of stuff done around the house. Let's face it, when you have an almost 15-month old, you can't get a whole lot done around the house when they're at home or awake. It's so worth it though. I love her so much!

school's out for summer

School's out for summer... well for the kids, I still have two more days left to get my room ready for summer and to complete paperwork. Here's a note from some of my kids on the last day:

The last few days of school were fun. The students voted for our Soto Superlatives and they received their awards on Thursday afternoon.

We also had craft day on Wednesday. In my room, the kids created flower pots. Everything was made out of construction paper except for the flowers. We created the flowers using coffee filters. We colored the coffee filters with various colors and designs using markers then I dropped a few drops of water on each filter. It makes such a fun, tye-dye like design. Then we cut out a flower shape. They turned out great!

life and such

Another week completed at the Soto house. This week has been really HOT... literally very, hot. Our upstairs air conditioning unit has been out of order for over a week. It was completely miserable up there... over 83 degrees at bedtime! It was finally fixed today. I am so thankful to be able to live in an air conditioned home. Thank you Lord for allowing us so many blessings!

The picture above is of the lima beans plants my students and I grew. We have beens studying soil, seeds, and plants for a few months now. Our last activity was germination of seeds. We put a seed wrapped in a wet paper towel inside of a ziploc bag. We taped the ziploc bag to our window. About a week later, we took the germinated seed out of the bag and planted them in cups of soil. Some of the plants didn't make it but some of others grew like crazy! Within 2 weeks, one of the plants was over 15 inches tall! Apparently Mrs. Soto's class has a green thumb!

In other school news, this coming week is the last day of the school year. We will be voting for our "Soto Superlatives" on Monday. It's similar to the superlatives you do in high school but only positive categories. I did this my first year of teaching and it was a hit. Every student gets a superlative so it's a lot fun. The kids will vote on Monday and they will receive their awards during our own classroom awards ceremony.

Earlier this week, Josh and I decided on turkey burgers for dinner. He bought a new propane tank and then went outside to hook it up. When he lifted the grill lid, he discovered a bird nest full of eggs. Needless to say, we won't be grilling for awhile!

In other news, Julianna can finally stand on her own. She won't do it for long though, usually no more than a minute. But she's making progress! She loves pushing around her baby doll stroller.

We also bought her a baby pool on Monday to play in. It was a negative. She hated it. I think it could have been because the water was so cold. She loves water otherwise so I'm definitely going to try it again soon. But she did enjoy her baked beans later that evening...

 And a few pictures of Julianna this morning:

babydoll

Happy Friday!

This has seriously been a loooooong week. Probably several factors played into it feeling so long. Number one being the fact that Monday is Memorial Day. When there's a long weekend in the future, the time before that seems to just drag. Only 9 more days of schools for the kiddos. It seemed so long while it was happening but thinking back it's flown by! 11 more days of work for me and then Julianna and I will begin our summer vacation. She's going to be out of daycare for 2 months. They are already pretty sad that she's going to be gone for a little while. She's the life of the party! I plan to take her by once a week or so to visit her baby friends and her teachers.

This week, Julianna has been obsessed with her babydolls. They've always been lying around in her pile of toys but this week she decided they were interesting. What I found interesting was that she found everything in the toy pile that was a baby doll and put them all together to love on. How cute! She's also been pushing around her doll stroller/walker all the time now. Taking her baby out of it and putting it back in. I love to watch her do new things!

Tomorrow I'm having a Thirty-One party at my house. Apparently, I picked an awful weekend to have a party. Everyone is going out of town for Memorial Day. I didn't put together that this was Memorial Day weekend when I picked a date for my party. I think I may have a couple of girls coming though so that's good.

After the party, I'm having a girls night out with Amanda for some shopping! Josh and John are on baby duty while we enjoy some girl time. I'm pretty excited!

Have a great weekend, yall! :)

our week

Overall, we've had a great week. What a fast week it was. Friday came before I knew it. I'm surprised it felt so fast because school is pretty intense right now. We take the EOGs the week after next... keep my students in your prayers! I know they can do it... we will because we can!

I'll post more about Mother's Day tomorrow but yesterday, Julianna's daycare class hosted a Mother's Day Tea for the mommies. It was too cute! Cookies and tea (plus cheese puffs for the little ones). It was awesome to socialize with the other moms. We have been blessed to find such an awesome daycare for Julianna. Her teachers are amazing! I truly appreciate them!

After our tea, Julianna and I headed back to my school for our annual Spring Fling. Julianna had a great time until it started to rain (we were outside) and we had to stand under a tent. Baby girl doesn't like to be be still!

Check out a few pictures from our week:

school is back in session

The 2010-2011 school year has officially started and it's off to a great start! I have a wonderful group of 18 third graders. I dislike being away from Julianna but I'm happy to have a great class and great co-workers to work with.

Speaking of Julianna, she's actually doing very well at daycare. This week was so much better than last week. She actually napped for over 3 hours total on Friday! Yay Julianna! Her napping more=more time with mommy when she gets home... which is great thing!

She's also considered a roller at daycare now. She can roll back to tummy and tummy to back. They all say she's tiny and mighty! I love that little girl so much!

In other news, Josh and I got a new car this week. We traded in Josh's Honda for a 2010 Honda Accord. It's black with tan leather interior. I love it! I haven't had a chance to take a picture of it yet but here's one from the website: