I am sOOO not my mother, in some ways.

In other ways, like where we store our fat, our need for a treat after all meals, and our obsession with sprinkles, we are just the same.

However our major difference lie in two of her favorite things, wallpaper and decorating.

She loves wallpaper. From one vantage point in her house you can count 6 different patterns. My walls are all solid lovely colors - not a stitch of the sticky stuff in sight.

As for decorating, this too she does to the 'enth' degree. I remember in my teenage years being on the phone with someone (this is back in the prehistoric years when we had a phone, attached to a wall, with a cord - and at our house it was a very long, stretchy, tangled cord - all surrounded by a decorative phone shelf complete with seasonal tiny knick-knacks)... Anyhow, on the phone one day I walked as far as the cord would stretch counting pumpkins (it was pumpkin season). From one stretch of the phone cord I counted 116 pumpkins!! (All of various forms, materials, sizes and shapes). When I decorate for 'pumpkin season' I hang a fall towel on the front of my stove. (A towel purchased by my mother). But it is the 'holiday season' when you truly see the difference between my mother and I.

She starts about 10 seconds after the Thanksgiving pie is put away, and continues the process until New Years (I say the process continues because she can't stop buying more adorable festive decor and shuffling it into the mix.) She has trimmed down the stuff - it used to be something like 25 giant rubbermaid boxes - and now she's down to 15 (I think she just packs it better). With all the 'stuff' she decorates EVERYTHING. There is not a room that doesn't have some sort of festive garb.

Now, for those of you who don't know my mom you may be envisioning piles upon piles of plastic tackiness. This is not the case. Though hard to admit, her house is beautiful... magical... during Christmas. People come in and smile because they can't help themselves. At night, it sparkles in every room. It truly does embody the Christmas spirit.

Perhaps it was years helping her unpack, unload, mess-up, and then put-together the house; perhaps it was the massive project of putting it all away; perhaps it's the lack of visitors - either way, I am SO not my mother when it comes to Christmas decorations.

Yesterday (half-way through the season) we finally got our two boxes out. We went and picked out a wonderful smelling tree. Art put on the lights - we moved no furniture. I put away my 10 'general' knick knacks. I dusted my shelves and spread out my small little pile. We do gather an ornament each year so we enjoy pulling those out and remembering our choices. So, after 2 hours (including the trip to JoAnn's for more lights, a garland, and our first creche (Art picked it out, it's cute)). Now the house smells lovely, the tree sparkles, and it is beginning to look a bit like Christmas.

If it weren't for the pine tree in the living room, you might not notice it was Christmas at our house. But as I've learned, Christmas is not in the decorations - but it does glitz up the place a bit!

Weekend Escape

This weekend we had the chance to meet our friends that moved to Phoenix, in Zions. We were so excited to see them and have a weekend away!We had such a fun weekend. Marissa (who I used to teach with) and her husband Luke came up from Phoenix and Marissa's sister Laura (who I was friends with in high school) and her husband Tyler (and their two kids) came down from SLC.

Their family 'owns' a cabin at Zions Ponderosa. Well, cabin is not exactly the right word. It was more of a mansion. 6000 sq. feet. 6 bathrooms, beds for everyone you know. It was a beautiful house with a great kitchen and great room and a huge wrap around porch.

To give you an idea of how fun it was... I didn't go to bed until 1:00 in the morning! We stayed up late Friday night chatting and laughing. (There were three educators in the room, there was a whole lot of school talk).

Saturday morning we got up and went on a hike to Cable Mountain. Unfortunately it was chilly and 6 miles, so the whole group didn't quite make it. Only Luke, Marissa, and I made it to the overlook and it was absolutely amazing!
It started snowing while we were hiking. It got colder and windier the closer we got to the cabin, by the time we got back we were freezing and starving. We had a little lunch and then decided it was cake time. It was Marissa's birthday last month but I couldn't exactly make her a cake if she lives in another state. So, I decided I better take a cake to Zions. Which I am proud to say we FINISHED! It took all day, and a late football/Mexican Train game, but we got through it.

One of our funnest moments was when Talmage (Laura's son) convinced us all to play Sardines. 6 adults and 1 5-year old. Needless to say, it was hilarious. Tal didn't quite get the game at first and wanted to shout "I found them!!!" instead of hiding, but he quickly got the hang of it. He even was the winner when he found Art hiding in the cupboard under the sinkt. There was a great deal of giggling, and a bit of groaning.

Sunday morning we woke up to beautiful snow! We laid around and ate some breakfast, then realized the snow wasn't just beautiful but sticking and falling fast. Art and I packed up and got out the door about 11:15. It was a tumultuous drive home. We drove 20 mph a lot of the way and ended up stopped at the top of a pass after the whole mountain became covered in jack knifed semis. Finally we got through and made it home, in 7 hours. But it was worth it! Thanks for the great trip Marissa and Laura!

update

The play has begun.

170 little dancers and singers.

1 down, 32 dances to choreograph and learn.

5 Bird Girl headpieces made, 20 more to go.

Yup, I love this stuff - sometimes I just need a reminder.

On another note;

It's the end of the term!

30 journals, math notebooks, math journals, Read-O Boards, and Interconnections notebooks to grade and get in the computer. Yeah!!!!

30 report cards to fill out

30 SEP's to prepare for

Oh, and we're building a Box City - in the next two weeks.

And, I found the perfect house in Logan, for such a great price - we just have the little problem of owning a home here, not having jobs there, having to live here until June... but it's so perfect! It has a two car garage AND a shop! That means you don't have to store wood in the living room, and kitchen, and shop, and guest bedroom. And, you can let the dogs out of the house directly into the backyard. I ask so little, I just want it now!

So, that's the update - exciting huh?

I really cook!!

The other day I took some leftover cupcakes to school and someone said,

"Do you guys just live on cupcakes and frosting?"

NO! (though it does sound good)

I had to explain that my husband doesn't even like 90% of my cakes and frosting, so there is definitely a need to cook.

So I thought I better get photographic evidence... Sunday Dinner

All from scratch, all very yummy.

And yes, that's a pie. It's the only 'treat' he likes!

Note to parents...

It was midterms last week. I have been answering emails and notes and phone calls since. (Apparently we are meaner in 5th grade than in 4th)

And then I recieved this email, I have taken out names (not that anyone reads this at my school, nor that you would know them, but I did anyway)....

Note to parents.... please take a lesson from this one...

Ms. Reina

_______ came home today with his mid-terms. To make a long story short he cried pretty hard (please don't ever tell him I told you that). It was a FANTASTIC Love and Logic moment. His grades were, well needless to say, terrible. I couldn't have been happier. Before you think me an animal of a mother; I just have to say that he excels at everything he does and I have been hoping for some time that something would be hard for him so that he could learn early on that it's not always that way. Initially he felt very hopeless and said "well, this is what I"m going to get". After some discussion he made the decision that it would be best to make an appointment with you to try to clarify the grades and do some problem solving with you.

I LOVE THIS MOTHER, and more-so I love her child. He's one of my best students (he went out of town,it's hard to catch up, she's vowed NEVER to take her kids out of town during the school year again) I have to keep reading this when I get all the rest of the emails stressing about every little point.

Welcome to 5th grade, it's time to learn responsibility.

Back at it again....

I've been thinking about blogging for the last few weeks, but I've had a terrible cold. And when I have a cold I find that a very good excuse for slacking on things - like exercising, planning, grading, and blogging.

I'm officially over the cold (thank heavens - knock on wood - PLEASE not again!), so it's time to get back at it.

That would be fine and lovely except it's not that easy.

You see, just about the time I get the school year really moving along, you know when the children are trained and doing what they are supposed to and you kind of have a clue about what you are teaching.... well, about that time every year is when I begin the play. (duh duh duhhhh - sorry that's just the sound effect in my head and my edit button doesn't click on until 6)

This year we are doing Seussical Jr!

It's an adorable play with SO MUCH cute music and lots of fun familiar characters. I am excited because it has such a great message and those are always my favorite productions.

We are also excited to be performing at Olympus High School this year! We were hoping to go back to Evergreen, but they were lame about sharing their stage and could only give us a date in November. (I would have been putting on the play in 2 weeks - yeah, I don't think so.)So we went to Oly and they were SO nice and helpful, so we're taking the show on the road. (We actually rehearse in our own gym until the last week then we get 5 days on the actual stage to build the set and rehearse - it's awesome! (note sarcasm)).

Tomorrow the auditions begin, which means I get to hear 150-200 kids sing and dance their very best in hopes of scoring the elusive JoJo part. It's great fun, and really hard.

So my point here (there is one), I now have a new reason to slack - it's play season. But I will try hard not too, because I love reading blogs and I feel like I should write one, just to be fair.

My weekend...

All last week I was anxiously looking forward to having NO SCHOOL on Friday! I had grand plans to clean, garden, grade, and bake a cake for Lizzie's Birthday. Well, it didn't quite work out that way.

First, Heidi asked me if I could make a Derby CupCake for her last bout celebration party. Since I'm poor at attending derby (it's so loud for my sensitive old lady ears), I thought I could support through cake.

Then, a friend in our ward called to see if I would make a cake for her sister's birthday, and she would pay. Can't say no to a paying customer!

So I got up Friday and did ALL my cleaning, weeding, errands (must buy butter!), and chores (that I had intended on spreading throughout the weekend). Then I sat down to create all the gumpaste flowers.

Lizzie had requested flowers in orange, pink, blue, and green (somehow I didn't actually get green on the cake, oops). Lizzie is a creative, high-style kind of girl, I didn't think 'real' looking flowers suited so I thought I'd try this layered look. It took a lot of cutting, but they came out cute!
Next I had to attempt some derby logos. The Sisters of No Mercy logo is a flaming skull nun...hmm, don't think I have that cookie cutter. I came up with my own version and some black and gold jammer stars.
Saturday Art had to go to work (pheww, I needed a distraction free kitchen), so my baking started at 5:30 AM with a mountain of butter. Literally, a mountain.
By 8, I had baked a chocolate cake, a vanilla cake, two mini chocolate cakes, and 7 dozen mini chocolate cupcakes.
Up next, frosting, LOTS of frosting. 4 batches of vanilla buttercream, double batch of chocolate buttercream and a double batch of chocolate ganache. Do you see the need for the mountain of butter?

I think my poor mixer is going to give out, buttercream takes a lot of whipping!
Chocolate Buttercream and Ganache take cooling so I went to stacking the vanilla buttercream cake. This was for the girl in my ward; she requested vanilla cake, vanilla buttercream, no fondant, no colors or flowers, very simple and maybe something to do with dogs, but for an adult. ???????

Mini cupcakes dipped in ganache...yummy...
Well, lets just say the rest of the day consisted of stacking, frosting, coating, frosting again, decorating, piping, and DISHES! Fortunately Art came home and proceeded to make his famous red sauce, so he cooked red sauce on one side of the room and I decorated on the other. Family bonding.
My request for a new house is a BIG fridge. I can't shop if it's a cake weekend.

This is also the only picture I got of the finished derby cake, Heidi said she would take one and send it to me. It had gray icing ("Gray icing, I can't begin to imagine how you make gray icing!" - Heidi will get that.)
Here are the finished products: The PLAIN Vanilla Cake

Lizzie's #11 Birthday cake with flowers and fondant (she requested the fondant, she actually thinks it tastes good!)

It was actually a very fun weekend and I enjoyed all the baking. It wasn't as exhausting as I thought it would be, however, it's now Wednesday, and I'm home sick. No voice yesterday (I'll have to post about that, my kids were so cute.) Maybe it was a bit much for one weekend!

Finally...

I finally restarted my computer so I could use my camera card to upload pictures (yeah, it's an issue). So here it is... (FYI, I should be planning my day, oh well)

The Art Corner...home to all things creative...
The United States, empty... we haven't discovered them yet!
All the important stuff... jobs, schedule, calendar, mystery bag, volume wheel

The Queen's Throne... and yes, it is that clean every day, or I would go nuts!
And that's all for now...

should be...

Do you ever have one of those 'should be' moments?

Like, I should be cooking something for dinner, but instead I'm making Mint Cookies.

Or I should be updating my blog with picture and antics from the first week but instead I'm reading.

I SHOULD BE doing a lot of productive things today, but instead I woke up with a migraine that made me nauseous and have spent the day in my jammies trying to convince Art he should go find me some sort of baked good.

So in a meager attempt to redeem myself, here's what I know about the first week of school:

1. It is EXHAUSTING (Yes, Libbi, even after 9 years) - I was in bed and asleep by 9 every night this week, 8:30 on Friday.

2. All 10 year olds LOVE to talk, but none as much as last years

3. 10 year old boys CAN be polite, "Thank you Mrs. Reina for teaching me today." "Thanks Mrs. Reina for being a great teacher" "Did you have a nice evening? It's good be here today!" - Yes, I have heard this over and over from a student this week.

4. It takes WEEKS to organize and label it all (shorter for me thanks to Roxy, Lacy and Shelby my organizers extraordinaire), and the children destroy it in a matter of minutes.

5. There is no such thing as totally prepared.

6. I will survive

And one day soon add photos...

coming...

I took pics and mentally prepared a blog entry. And then I taught all day, and then there was no more. Man I am tired, and it's day one. (ok, day two now)... More to come, if I survive.

I thought....

I thought I was ready.
I thought I had labeled, organized, sorted, copied, cutified, and prepared until I could do no more.
I thought I was excited for somehting to fill each day.
I thought I had spent enough time buying school supplies and it was time to use them.
I thought I was bored reading, weeding, walking and baking.
I thought wrong.

I have to go to school tomorrow, and children will be there, and I"m NOT READY!
(I will be about 9:01, but until then I'm going to mope)

New stuff...

My cake decorating stuff had become out of control, entirely too much, in entirely too little space. So I finally bought a bigger, and better box (I should mention that I LOVE boxes with tiny little organizational spaces - I could put everything in my house in a box, that's how much I love them.)
AFTER:

New fun project.... cake pops - yup, cake and frosting dipped in chocolate! And then the decorating possibilities are endless!Really, I've spent most of the week in back-to-school land. I am bound-and-determined to take pictures of my classroom this year.... so I can cherish the one moment it is clean and organized.

Dear Marissa,

If you're out there, silently reading my blog, never commenting - I miss you.
Getting ready for school is not the same without you. And we never got to have a goodbye get together so I could make cake, and now I have to make cake without you.
Who am I going to write notes to and doodle with during faculty meeting? Who is going to justify my need for treats? Who is going to understand my feelings towards Biggest Loser Workouts?
You're missed, and Phoenix is too hot for anyone.

Update...

If Jamie can do it, so can I....

It's been a busy month for us. I've been gathering my school supplies, keeping up on my weeding and sneaking in a bit of baking. We also went on some hikes, took a great road trip to Oregon, saw the hot air balloon fest (yes, that should all be capitalized, but I don't want to go change it), and celebrated Anna's wedding! Here is an overview...

Hike to Dog Lake with Grandma and Grandpa
I took my parents and their dogs on a hike up to Dog Lake a few weeks ago. The wildflowers were beautiful and the dogs had SO MUCH FUN!

Oregon Coast

We headed to the coast for a week of cool air, relaxation and beautiful views - we found them all! We drove up via Hwy 138 which is amidst the most lovely waterfalls. The next day we hiked to more falls then drove to the coast. We spent the bulk of our vacation overlooking Port Orford. It was a wonderful relaxing fun trip. The dogs fell in love with the ocean and swam to their hearts content. We had great company with Mom & Dad and Butch & Sharon, and they were fully supportive of ice cream and reading time. Needless to say, I have somewhere in the range of 300+ pictures to sort through, I will leave only a sampling today, perhaps I'll find more motivation and add more later.Toketee Falls
Battlerock Beach - this is what we saw from our window (and my bed) every morning!
Lulu LOVED the ocean!
Rudy did too, especially if there was a stick involved!
One of the many beautiful, and windy, vistas.

Hot Air Balloon Fest
Every year there is a balloon festival that happens at the park just down the street. The last few years we've been taken by surprise by the blowing air over the house, or the balloon that landed on the field next to me and the dogs. This year we decided to get up and go see them inflate and launch. It was a beautiful morning and the balloons sparkled in the sun, unfortunately there was a slight breeze so they didn't get to fly, but we still got good pictures!
Anna's Wedding
Today was Anna's wedding! She FINALLY tied the knot to Sam after dating for 6 years (they started dating at the same time that Art and I did, we just moved a little faster. She had a very beautiful, non-traditional wedding at Log Haven. They had a ceremony on the deck followed by brunch on the patio. It was breakfast, she wore pink shoes, there was no cake. How do you serve cake for breakfast she asked? Well, I don't think anyone should get married without cutting the cake so I made one for her and Sam to take with them. The flowers on top matched the flowers she made for her dress and the pleating on the bottom matched her dress. (She was gorgeous!) Hopefully I'll get to see some pics from the wedding and then I can post, I took my camera but really didn't want to take pictures.
Pheww. That was exhausting. Now I have to think about going back to school in a week!