Tricks and Treats of 2015

It's December?!  What?!?  The blogging struggle is real for me lately.  (Obviously.)  But my love for reading posts from the past pushes me on to keep blogging...even if it's very, very untimely. 

The kids had the ultimate Halloween party at Ms. Dora's this year.  She takes them to various workplaces of the parents (mostly schools, most that Ms. Dora has had students from for years and years) and they sing songs and trick or treat through the offices.  It was the cutest thing ever!  I was so proud of my Darth Vader and Rapunzel.  (Notice that nearly every boy there was Darth Vader). 

 

Rapunzel's losing her wig a bit here.  The secretaries, principals, and counselors were so sweet to give all the kids candy as they came around to their desks.  Ms. Dora has quite the traditions established at the nearby schools and I'm thankful that I teach at one of them!

Was it not the best thing ever that Halloween was on a Saturday?!  We hosted a "trunk" for our church Trunk or Treat.  Minimal effort went into our design, but we got 3rd place!  Yay!

The church had carnival games and inflatables inside.

And various characters to meet!

For Halloween night we headed over to the Heine's and trick or treated some in their neighborhood (they give out FULL size candy bars over there!!) and watched the Royals game. 

It was SO fun watching the kids trick or treat.  I know I find myself saying this all the time now, but they are just at such perfect ages!  They bring excitement to everything but with both being potty-trained and mobile and such we get around so easily.  These are the days!

 

So that was our fun-filled Halloween.  A month later...

Lately...

Just a photo dump of what we're up to this fall.

Lately, according to my phone...

Crazy hair night at AWANA:  The kids have started going to the Wednesday evening AWANA program at First Baptist Church.  I grew up going to AWANA so I'm so excited for the kids to be in the program!  Reese is a Cubbie and Cade is a Spark.  They take their Bible memory very serious and enjoy working on their verses throughout the week and listening to the Cubbie and Sparks CD while we are in the car.

North Homecoming:  the theme this year was Disney so we decided to blow up our family photo from Disney World and put my advisory students pics over ours.  It turned out pretty funny and we got 3rd place in the door decorating contest!

I'm the Jr. Class sponsor again this year.  Our main gig is planning the Prom but decorating the Junior hall for Homecoming also falls under my jurisdiction.  I have a great group of kids this year for officers.  We went with a Classic Mickey theme and took 2nd place.  I'll take it!

As part of our fundraising for Prom, I coordinate the concessions stands for the home football games...and I occasionally have help.

We watched the lunar eclipse a couple weeks ago...it cracked me up to see the comments on social media about waking kids up to see it or kids already being in bed.  Our kids were definitely not in bed yet...and not necessarily because of the eclipse.  We just all have late bedtimes around our house, which I'm sure will have to change once they are in school.

The family got together to celebrate Grandpa Mike's birthday.  We were all so shocked when all the kids looked right at the camera and smiled all at once!  A birthday miracle!

Got a wonderful package of fall goodies in the mail from Grandmama!  The kids were so, so excited!

I'm trying my hand at Snapchat.  Feel free to add me: jkeeley10.  

The kids LOVE playing with the funny filters.

and maybe I do too.  My main beef with Snapchat is--the messages delete after someone sees it, which is the point of it, I know--but then it's not like I'm capturing the moment or spending time preserving memories.  It is literally a waste of time.  Because after you put it out there, it goes away.  And that's just not really what I need in my social media.  But the filters are fun.

Cade and Reese recently attended a birthday party at a new trampoline park place called Urban Air.  And this place was AMAZING!  I've heard it's pretty expensive, but since it was a party it was free for us that day.  Everything looked so cool!

Reese also attended a birthday party that had "Elsa" (from Princess at my Party).  She led dancing, activities, a scavenger hunt and painted their faces!  It was pretty cool.  Reese was star-struck for sure.

Swinging with Dad.  Matt is just the best dad around.  It's so fun watching him with the kids.  Seriously, he's the best.

T-ball practice.  Cade's team had practice once a week, which he always looked forward to.  It was our first time having something reoccurring like this for Cade on the calendar.  Makes it seem like he's growing up so fast!

The fall is flying by so quickly!  Hard to believe we're halfway through the semester already!  Holidays will be here before we know it!

Winds of Change

Well, those winds of change blew me to a new school district to kick off my 7th year of teaching.  Change is always difficult.  Especially self-imposed change.

I'm a small-town girl at heart.  I've always desired to work and live in the same community--the same district.  It became clear that when the opportunity presented itself, I needed to make my world a little smaller, and my commute a little shorter.  Interestingly enough, making my world "smaller" somehow involved switching from teaching at a middle school that was pushing 750 students to a high school that's nearly 2200 students.

Change has been, well, change.  I've mourned the loss of the familiar and experienced several "firsts" of my teaching career.  But I know this is where I need to be.  And with time, it will feel like home.  I'm thankful to have a job--a fun job that I do enjoy--and that the weeks really seem to fly by.

This is my 3rd classroom to "make my own" since I've started teaching.  The first one since I've had kids.  We all know how that changes everything.  The time constraints of the daycare drop-off and pick-up really can be a game-changer.

Some "before" shots:

It's hard to get a feel from how it's set up just from the pics, but there's a classroom area in the front of the room with my desk area, 3 computers, and seats/tables for 28 students.

There are 7 cooking stations and a large pantry in the back half of the classroom.  The equipment was quite intimidating at first!  

Every class I inherit seems to have these 1980s food posters that I am NOT all about.  Good-bye.

Some "after" shots:

I was very excited about my Julia Child/inspirational quote wall that I worked on over the summer.  

I really like how it turned out!

I replaced a "Cheeses of the World" poster with my shrine to Alton.  Love that guy.

The equipment here makes me desire an upgrade at home, to say the least.

This bulletin board was a bit of an after-thought that just kind of evolved into existence, but I think it turned out to be a pretty fun way to organize the make-up assignment options.

One adjustment is that high school kids are so much bigger than middle school kids!  When we are all packed into the front of the room (classes range from 23-26 students this semester) it's hard for me to navigate around the room as well as I'd like.  And when we are all in the back of the room for lab it just seems so chaotic with all the clanging of the stainless steel and hubbub of students at work.

I teach four sections of Culinary Prep 1, one section of Baking & Food Science, and one "Advisory"/seminar period.  (Less preps and fewer sections than ever before in my teaching career.)  I love the curriculum and going deeper with the content.  I've already learned a ton!  

There is a lot I miss about middle school and specifially MT...but know that sewing is NOT one of them.  Phew!

It's overwhelming to think about how time and time again, God has provided.  Life lessons, friendships, encouragement--all when needed.  As a planner, I often want to know and control how things will turn out.  But, especially lately, I'm reminded that God's plans are always better than mine.

I'm so thankful for all of the people I've met and friendships I have from all of the places I've worked.  It's been fun taking a little journey back in time looking at past blog entries.  Some of my former worries definitely make me laugh.

All school-related posts here.

My first high school classroom here.  (All WRHS posts here.)

My middle school classroom here.  (All MTMS posts here.)

I could not have predicted this change, but that's the fun of the journey, I suppose!