Home By the Creekside

Behold!!! My giant cupcake cake for sister girl! This was hit with my kids. My mom got me the cupcake pan from Wilton for a Christmas present. This cake is made with 1 1/2 boxes of strawberry cake mix. I used only one can of frosting. I colored it green. I was going to do pink but I had no red food coloring. Oh well. It turned out fabulous.  The middle is a strawberry filling between the top and bottom. Mom (me): What would you like for your birthday dinner? Daughter: Candles Mom again: What would you like for your dinner on your birthday? Daughter: Cake Mom again: Would you like pizza? Daughter: Cake So we had mini pepporini pizza on english muffins. I love the pizza sauce over at bestbites.com. Yumarama!! We sang Happy Birthday day to our little one and then she went in for the kill and blew out all the candles. We still had half a cake leftover for tomorrow's dinner. It was so stinkin cute. Birthday girl opening her presents from her sweet grandmas. She had a

This is my drifted snow area. Notice.....no snow but grass. This time of year it is usually a nice white winter wonderland. Grass is poking up thru the little snow we have. Clay decided to try to get this iced over snow out of our driveway to make room for fresh snow. Our back yard.....Notice a bitty bump of a drift.

The tree after SANTA'S arrival.    My little man tore thru everything in less than 14 minutes. He was so excited to receive a Leapster. He wanted a DS but I told him that he does not know how to read yet and "Santa" knows that. He's been playing with that periodically thru the day. He was so happy and it was great to see the excitement on his face when I told him that Santa ate the cookies. So cute!! Sister Girl is such a darling. She has really learned how to rip thru those packages as well stopping to see what her brother has received. She received all that she wanted. She too received a Leapster. She loved that thing and drained the batteries on it already. She played with everything today and kept busy with her brother. I love Christmas vacation. The kids were exceptionally good today even though they were hyped up on all the sugar from their stocking. Now, we can relax next week and they can play with their loot all day long.

We had a nice Christmas eve. Husband read out of the Bible about the birth of Jesus. Our son had a sticker sheet of wisemen, baby Jesus, the stable, and Mary and Joseph. As dad read, we put the stickers on construction paper and discussed the birth and how the wise men brought gifts to the new baby Jesus. We then told them why we have gifts at Christmas time. I think they understood pretty good. Then we let them open one gift on Christmas eve. New Jammies!!! Then we fed the reindeer with our special reindeer food. We placed cookies (decorated by the kids) and milk out for Santa.I heard they were yummy. Then we snuggled down in the basement and watched the Polar Express. We've seen it many times but it is so heartwarming to hear my son sing the words to some of the songs. What a nice way we spend our evening!

Okay now I just have too much time on my hands and I am defiantly saying no to my school work pile..so there pile of work that is big as Escudilla .Last week I got a Samsung netbook from school to play on and use. The web camera that is built in had this software so we decided to have a mini photo session. These aren't as good as Tyra's but very close..Don't ya think? My eye hurts. Can you see if I have something in it? (hee hee) Can I have some decongestant? Your spaceship left you behind with an awesome family. The Neverending Story?? Goofball. My new profile picture for Facebook. What do you think? Now booking sessions!! (jk)

I love teaching really I do! But this last week before break kicked me mentally and physically. I was tired of teaching kids (or even having anything to do with kids).  This picture is a mound of two weeks worth of papers to grade. Lesson plans to do. My goal is to do my plans for three weeks ahead and keep it that way (which I doubt but my intentions are there). I am going to catch up with all my work, planning, and clean up over these two weeks so I do not have to go to the school on my weekends or evenings. I put mind and life overload as my title. To help my mind and life overload,  I am going to cut back on things that might stress me out or take me away from my home after work (we'll see how that goes).  Alot of times I say sure or yes to things and wind of being too stressed out. This coming year I decided that I am going to be saying no to things more and just chill and go with the flow. (which won't last too long).

We really did not send any cards out this year.. Sorry. That was my bah humbug moment. So to make up for it. You can view our family wish for a great Christmas to you. Send your own ElfYourself eCards This one is different, I swear!! It was so easy to do this just upload your pics or use the ones that you have! If you try it, let me know. Send your own ElfYourself eCards

I made some glitter playdough for my daughter's birthday party. I was amazed at how easy it was to make and I wished that I would have found it sooner. I was going to make some for each of my students but I just don't have to time or energy 4 C all purpose flour 2 C non-iodized salt (not sure what that is but I used sea salt) 4 C water (add your food coloring to the water before you add it to the flour) 8 tsp cream of tartar 4 tbsp cooking oil Cook and stir on med-low. Stirring while it heats up. Careful not to burn. When it is a big glob (meaning you cant stir it anymore)), put it on your counter. Then start kneading glitter in as you knead the dough. The more you knead the softer it gets. Put it in a sealed container when finished. It made 9 good size sandwich baggies. Email me and let me know if you tried it! It was freaking awesome. http://deannasstuff.blogspot.com/2008/07/glitter-playdough.html

I am changing the name of my blog to something that does not have our name. As you will notice I am getting rid of my children's names as well. There are a lot of posts that I am going back into to revise and check. Why?? I had some creepy guy make two comments on my daughter and little girls in general. They weren't bad comments just enough to make me a little squirmish. That is why I don't let comments post right away. I have been thinking of going private with this blog. So for now I am making those changes.

At school this week, we are reading a story called "Raising Dragons" by Jerdine Nolen. I really like this author and some of the other books that she has written as well. To add a little flair, we are going to make paper dragons  tomorrow.  The students are going to write steps on how to take care of their paper dragon. We will see how the dragons look on Friday or if they need to revise their steps on how to take care of their dragon. As I making the model for the class tomorrow, B whined and whined to make one. So we did and I made sure that he knew what sound and letter dragon started with....L will make hers tomorrow night. She is sleeping peacefull with the one that I made. Stay tuned for dragon eggs.

My daughter's birthday is later this month at such a crazy time. We decided to have celebrate her birthday today with her little "princess" friends. I invited some from her primary class and from church. 4 attended and 2 were a no show. Glad for the smaller number anyways!  I did not know who to invite as L is a loner and I wanted it smaller so I would not go too crazy.  This is was so much better than my son's party. Girls were easier to plan for and were a hoot. First, I let the little princesses play with L in her room. Then we played a couple games: Pass the Tiara and Search for the Poisonous Apple. With the apple game, I tied green ribbons on the "safe" apples. Then I tied a red ribbon on the "poisonous" apple. They needed to find the poisonous apple before Sleeping Beauty did. Next the pretty princesses decorated their cupcakes with sprinkles, gummy bears, and gumdrops. PRESENT TIME! Presents were opened. These pretty princesses that