It's Official!

Well, today was the big day! Jonathan got his learner's permit. I'm so excited for him and at the same time pretty nervous for me... I mean, having him behind the wheel of my car has me worried. I know he will be a good driver after having enough practice, but it's the practicing part that scares me.
Getting the permit was the first step in the process, though. We showed up in time to get a number and wait for over an hour. After waiting, Jonathan took his "written" test. He passed on his first try. This did not surprise me at all. He had studied and always does well on tests.

Jonathan hated his picture. He thought he looked like Justin Beeber. (He kinda did.) Welcome to the world of horrible photos on licenses, Jonathan.

He's 15 now...

The big deal with turning 15 in Tennessee is that you are old enough to get your driver's permit. We had planned it all out. I would leave work a little early and rush home so that we could go to the license branch to get Jon's permit. BUT when I checked online to be sure I had all the necessary paperwork, I discovered that it was closed on Mondays. Of course! So Jonathan has to wait another day before the "big day".

Despite this sad news, we had fun celebrating Jonathan's birthday. I made him a car shaped birthday cake. Since I didn't have 15 candles, I stuck several candles in the "tailpipes" and coming out of the "hood" so that it looked like a car that was on fire.

Sammy and I got kind of silly when wrapping presents for Jonathan last night. We ended up wrapping "empty presents" as well as real ones with funny messages on them. It was nice to celebrate in a low-key, family way.

Boots

Today I was laying on my bed trying to rest when Sammy opened the door to my room and said that the neighbor was at our house and wanted to talk to me. I admit that I was half asleep, but when I opened my eyes, I realized that Sammy was standing in my doorway holding a puppy! Well, that woke me up pretty quickly!

It turns out that Sammy had walked over to the neighbor's house and asked if she could walk their dogs. Our neighbors are so nice and agreed that Sammy could bring this little puppy home for about 30 minutes to visit while they had lunch.

I have to admit that the guy was pretty cute - especially the way he crawled right into Sammy's lap and stayed there the whole time he was at our house. I'm sure he was unsure of where he was and probably a little scared too. Sammy loved having him visit and did her best to convince me to keep him.
Sammy LOVES animals - especially dogs - but since we are renting, we can't have any pets. Although the neighbors are trying to find homes for their adorable puppies, we will not be adopting one at this time...

M-m-m-marshmallows

A few weeks ago, we were shopping in Wal-Mart and we came across these enormous marshmallows. I swear, they are so big that you have to eat them by taking bites of them. They're called "roasting marshmallows" - I assume because they would be excellent to use for just that! We saved them for a while hoping to visit Costa and Andrew in Indiana and have a bonfire where we could roast them in style. When our plans fell through over Labor Day weekend, we ended up opening the marshmallows anyway.
Jonathan posed for a silly picture that he could post on Facebook. Sammy wanted in on the fun as well. I posed for a couple too, but you won't see those here!

First visitors...

Today we had our first visitors to our new home in Clarksville (other than the family that helped us move in in June). The Ostlunds were on their way home from Georgia and took a detour to visit us for a couple hours. It was so great to see them.
On a side note: On the way home, Tracey ended up missing the exit that would take them up to Bloomington. They ended up going about four hours out of their way. Not such a great way to end their trip, but we are still grateful they came by!

It's finally coming together!!!

I have wanted to post pictures of my classroom ever since school started, but it has really taken me until tonight - Open House Night - to get the classroom all put together.

When I first got to my classroom this summer, I found that the teacher before me had left all of her things in my room. So, my first three days were spent cleaning and sorting through her things and unloading a lot of boxes from my car. Take a look at the before shot below:It doesn't really look too bad, because I forgot to take pictures of the other side of the room where all of Mrs. Santos's things were piled. But it does look pretty bare.

I spent countless hours in my room before school even started trying to get things organized and decorated so that when my students came the first day of school, they would be welcomed into a room that was "ready" for students. Over the next month, I continued to refine how I had organized things and now I am pretty pleased with the results.

Here are my teacher's center and calendar of events:Below you will see my desk, small group station, and standards board:Next, my technology center - complete with student profile pages hanging on the wall: My word wall and student writing wall:And finally, my content area bulletin boards in the front of my room:I really had a good time coming up with fun ways to display work and information around the room. I love bright rainbow colors and that has become a theme around my classroom. I think I managed to create an inviting place for students to learn. I know that I am happy here and enjoy going to work each day.