DIY Teacher Gifts

    It's almost Christmas!  Yaaaaaaaaay!!!  I had hoped to have this particular project done a few weeks ago, in case anyone wanted to do the same thing for this year, but who am I kidding.  The queen of procrastination doesn't do anything a few weeks before it needs to be done.  So what is this project I speak of?   Teacher gifts!  This is my first year to do teacher gifts, and wouldn't you know that between his two schools Ian has two teachers and three paraprofessionals (I'm guessing that's a fancy word for teacher's aide).  Of course, I didn't want to spend an arm and a leg, so I thought I'd make gifts.  I found this wonderful tutorial for flower pins on Pinterest:

http://www.notmartha.org/archives/2010/04/23/a-flower-pin-for-you-favorite-mom/

So cute!  I didn't want anything too "teacher-y," and I decided that this would be a nice gift for any lovely lady.  So I went to Hobby Lobby and bought all of my supplies, including the little boxes to wrap them in.  I spent approximately $10 for all of it.  Later I went to WalMart and bought Dove chocolate to put in each little box.  That cost around $8 for two bags.  Here's the final project:

    I chose five different colors and then let Ian decide who got what color.  I think they turned out great.  It was fairly easy, but time consuming.  Each flower took approximately an hour and a half.  Of course, that includes a number of distractions.  "I'm hungry."  "I need something to drink."  "Wesley's in the bathroom and he wants you."  "Put the cat down right now!"  "Ian just hit me."  "What's that gross stuff on the floor?"  This list could go on and on and on.  I had to stop every ten minutes.
    On the link I posted above you will find a link to the tutorial and also a link titled "a few notes on what I learned."  I recommend you read the one about what she learned as well.  It has some helpful tips.  And I'll add to that.....  Do not use too much glue!  Otherwise you'll have a terrible mess.  Those little glue strings will be everywhere and your flower will look like it has a spider living in it.  Not pretty.  Another helpful note.....  Don't freak out over cutting the petals.  When I first realized I had to free hand cut each and every petal, I almost hyperventilated!  I am very much a perfectionist and I had no idea how I was going to make each petal the exact same.  Good news....  You don't have to!  I spent minutes on each of the first few petals trying to make them all the exact same size.  Minutes is a long time when you have 40 petals times 5 flowers to cut out!  I soon realized it didn't matter.  Because you're cutting each petal from squares that are the same size, they'll all be the same size.  Who would have thought....  They may not be the exact same shape, but you can't tell.

    So to wrap this up.  I put a piece of tissue paper in each box and threw some candy in it.  I figured anyone who works with 4 year old's all day deserves a little bit of chocolate.

Then I put the flower on top.

Wrapped it up.  Closed the box. Voila!

Five teacher's gifts for around $18!  I'd say that's pretty thrifty!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Rachel

Sorta Kinda Answered Prayer

Remember this from my last post....


""Dear God, please give me something mildly debilitating.  Enough to keep me indoors on Saturday yet still have me well for church and running the kids to school.  I know it's my time for sickness and I will gladly accept it.  Amen."

God doesn't always answer our prayers with a yes.  At least he hasn't answered this one yet.  He'll probably do it sometime in the middle of next week."

Well guess what?  I've been sick every day this week.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  Up until this morning it's been stomach issues.  (I tried to put that politely.)  This morning I woke up with a sore throat and throbbing ears.  Ugh.....  This is what I want to do today....

Curl up in my nice warm bed with Da Tote and Da Smidge.

Here's what I need to do today....

Take this out.

Put this in order.

Feed this umpteen times.

Take this to school later.

Tackle this.

Put this where it belongs.

Let this thing out 28 times today.  (You'll have to tilt your head to the right.  For some reason it's loading on its side.  Sorry.)

Save the cat from this kid 1,637 times.

Give yet another sermon on why this is NOT ok.

Wash, dry, and put away the ever growing pile of this.

Drag these two out of the tree 793 times.

But who am I kidding....

I'll probably do this most of the day.

I have a good excuse!

Sincerely Sick,
Rachel

My 5K Snow Day!

    If you had asked me one year ago if I would ever participate in a 5K I would have said, "BaaaaaHaHaHaHeeHeeOhHoHaaaHaHaHa...No. Never. Ain't gonna happen."  If you had asked me one year ago if I would ever participate in a 5K in the freezing cold and snow and ice, I would have completely ignored your stupid question. 

   Guess what I did today.

    It seemed like a good idea on a warm, sunny, breezy, summer day at the church picnic when a few friends convinced me to join in the "fun."  I thought, sure, why not.  I'm all for a fun day with the girls and I could use a little exercise in my life.  I left that day with the intention to start training for my big race.  You can guess how much training I did.  If you said none, you'd be correct.  My excuse....I had no running shoes.  I held on to that excuse until the night before the race, when I finally decided I had no choice but to buy running shoes.  I guess I could have backed out because I was unprepared, but when you make a promise at church, on holy ground, you can't just not follow through with it.  Too much Jesus peer pressure.  

    Approximately one week ago the forecast began showing snow and freezing temperatures for our "big day."  That's when I started to panic.  I'm from Louisiana.  When the temperature drops below freezing we close schools, call in sick for work, and bundle up on our couches and drink from water jugs that we filled the night before because our pipes are frozen.  We don't run 5K's.  I confessed to the girls at lunch today that I prayed for sickness the last two days.  It would have been totally appropriate.  In the last few weeks my boys have been sick twice and the hubs had a virus. 

"Dear God, please give me something mildly debilitating.  Enough to keep me indoors on Saturday yet still have me well for church and running the kids to school.  I know it's my time for sickness and I will gladly accept it.  Amen."

God doesn't always answer our prayers with a yes.  At least he hasn't answered this one yet.  He'll probably do it sometime in the middle of next week.

     So this morning I crawled out of bed, looked out the window, shed a tear, and got dressed.  I put on long johns, sweat pants, running pants, a long sleeve shirt, a short sleeve shirt, a fleece jacket, a winter jacket, a pair of fleece gloves, a "buff", a fleece hat, and my red "Dashing Divas" ball cap and I was ready to take on the cold.  I was determined to show up.  I did not want to be the one who didn't come because it was too cold.  Upon arriving at our designated meeting place, so we could all ride to the race together, I was presented with the news that HALF of our team was not coming.  In that half.....my walking buddies.  The four ladies I was going with had intentions of running.  They had trained.  I had not. 

    I pressed on!  I made the best of it!  I stayed warm during the race!  And shockingly, I actually ran for a little bit at the beginning and at the end of the race!   Why is this shocking?  Because the goal I had set for myself (and I have it in writing to prove it) was to finish and remain breathing.  I had no intentions of pushing myself to the limit, but that's exactly what I did.  Cause I'm good like that.  And what's probably more shocking.....I really enjoyed it!  And even more shocking.....I can't wait to do it again! 

Thank you Cris, Merci, Elissa, & Rebecca for the encouragement!

Go Dashing Divas!