Teaching 6th Grade

Tomorrow is my final day of teaching 6th Grade. As scared and intimidated as I was to teach them at first I have really grown to love these kids. I looked forward to getting up every morning to go to school just because I wanted to see them, and I knew that they wanted to see me too. Over the past (almost) 2 months I have seen these students laugh, cry, get upset, tell jokes, open up to me and most importantly learn. It is amazing how these students have grown even in the short time that I have known them. I'm going to have a hard time leaving these kids. I don't know how teachers do it. Come the end of the school year I'm not gonna want to let my students go. This experience has made me realize that I love teaching and I am so blessed to have had these students in my life.



At conferences last week one of my students moms was telling me how her son talks so highly of me. That comment is something that I will never forget. I realized that day that I may not make a difference in everyone's life but I just made the difference in one persons life and that is all that matters. That student then brought a cupcake cake to class to celebrate my last full day of teaching.

Here are some pictures I took of my students reading. These photos make me SMILE:)

update

Once again I haven't wrote on my blog in a very long time so I thought that I would fill everyone in about what I have been up to since my last post.

Brad and I are getting cows. Yup, you heard me COWS!!! We plan to get 3 Jersey cows no later than this coming spring. We have been getting the barn reading and have been Baling Hay. Here is Brad Baling away on the tractor.


My sister Jessica came to visit and to see the new house. The kiddos had such a great time. :)


We spent our time trying to catch kittens


Drawing with chalk


and playing with Play-Dough


Brad and I went to the Ren. Fest this past fall. We go every other year, switching between the Ren.Fest and the State Fair. Here is a picture me and a pirate. Arrrrrr...


Here was a great shot of the both of us!


and here is Brad by the Dungeon.


On the way home from the Ren.Fest we stopped at MN Largest Candy Store! It was a great time. They have lots of goodies there...


and I'm proud to say we didn't leave there with too many things!

Well to start off Brad won the Derby on Friday Night of the Nicollet Co. Fair



We Went to Halfway Jam again this year and had a great time with our friends!



Brad turned 28 in July!



We have been working on the house here and there. Here is what it looks like so far...

Student Teaching

I received my first student teacher placement for this coming fall. I will be teaching 6th grade in Cleveland, MN. I excited that I will be so close to home, and a little scared of working with 6th graders. They are intimidating to me, so I hope all goes well.

Odds and ends

Here are some other random photos of the last month in our house.

This is what our farm looks like from the road

I'm finding that life after buying a house is all about compromising. In this case Brad got the upstairs closet in the spare bedroom for all of his hunting stuff and I got the white cast iron sink:) Yay, and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!

If you haven't noticed in the posted pictures below...everything in our house is yellow, the house is even yellow. Yellow just so happens to be my favorite color but not so much when anything and everything is yellow. So I painted my yellow door Red. This was one of the many compromises I had to make with Brad, I can't remember what Brad got out of the deal but all that matters is that I got a red door. :)

My new looking counter tops. I used Rustoleum Counter top paint and painted over the old yellow laminate. It looks amazing if I say so myself.

The new bath tub/shower, waiting to be put in

Turns out that you need to read/look at the post below....from the bottom up it was posted backwards...only I am capable of doing that I think. ha

Before/afters and in the process

Pepper Spray and Origami!

This weekend there has been 2 sexual assault attempts on the little campus of Gustavus. CRAZZZZZY! Sooooo I now have pepper spray in my back pack at all times and never walk alone.

On a happier note, there is an origami guy coming to campus this week. This announcement was on our college homepage and the picture next to this article was none other than a...


MOOSE! SO now I have to go, because it's my favorite animal of all times and I just gotta know how to make one.


oh yea and we close on the house on WEDNESDAY! Yipppy Skippy!!!

Last semester of college

This semester has been flying by already. All my classes are with the same 14 girls and we have really gotten to know a lot about each other and have become very close. We spend most days practicing our teaching and if we are not practicing we are pretending to be elementary students.I have now become a pro at morning sing-alongs (not to mention the silly little dances that go along with them), reading picture books,raising my hand, show and tell, handwriting and last but not least... sitting Indian style(cross legged). These are all things that have consumed my 7 hour school days, and I'm absolutely loving it.

My show and tell the first week of class was Crowley, my new puppy that Brad and I just got. Brad had brought Crowley to class so that my prof and all my girlfriends could meet and see Crowley. She was loved by all:) It was also funny cause Brad's face was beat red when he came into my class...I don't think he has every been surrounded by so many women.



I consider this semester to be my "how to..." semester, meaning that I am learning how to teach math, science, social studies and language arts. I never thought I would say this but school is actually fun and I look forward to going everyday. Each week we get to teach a lesson in these subject areas, which has been helpful because we get to practice both writing lesson plans as well as get to teach.

This week we had to design our ideal classroom and provide a rational as to why we chose the layout we did, now I wont bore you with my 4 page rational but I was thinking it would be kinda cool to share my classroom with you.

So here is my ideal classroom



and to end this post I will share a couple more picture of my adorable little puppy:)

Life reflection

This year I will be 23 years old. I feel as though this year is a huge turning point in my life. I would like to take a few minutes to recap my 22 years. In my 22 years I have had 6 families. My biological family, 3 foster families, 1 in which would remain my family to this day and 2 adoptive families, 1 that didn't quite work out and 1 that became who I call my mom and dad:) This year will mark 10 years since I have been adopted, making it the longest time I have been with 1 family and lived in the same town. I was a member of the basketball team and softball team and was a 6 year member of the swimming team in which I was the captain my Senior year. I graduated from High School with Honors and then furthered my Education and went to College. I went off WI for a year to major in social work at Carthage College only to move back to St. Peter for the love of my life and went to Gustavus for Elementary Education in which I will graduate this May. I have had 5 jobs my entire life which include, Holiday Gas Station, Michaels, Post office, Custodial and a Group Home. I have been dating my best friend for 4 years this April and we have currently just bought a 5 acre farm. This fall I will be student teaching and then will be looking for a teaching job.

I have come so far and have accomplished so much in my life but there is so much more to look forward too. I get to look forward to decorating a house, living with my boyfriend, having a career, getting married, having babies and making a family, watching my children grow up, all the moments and adventures with family and friends, growing old with Brad and becoming grandparents. These are all things that I want to accomplish in my life. I still have over half of my life to live.

All these thoughts have been on my mind this month, especially with the anniversary of my brothers death on Friday. January 14th 2007 was the day that my brother passed away at the age 23. When I think of all the things that he had accomplished in his life and all the hardships, moments and memories we have of his 23 years of life just makes me think about all the things he never got to do and experience. What would he look like, what would he be doing, would he have a family? I'm so fortunate to have all these things to look forward to but I feel guilty that I get to do so and Zach never did. I miss him a lot this week.

This weekend I went up to Cambridge to visit my family and every time I go there It stirs up so many emotions. Every thing about that town makes me miss Zach. Usually every time I drive there I stop at the cemetery on the way into town. The last time I went up there I found it hard to go but eventually stopped on the way out of town but this time was different. I couldn't bring myself to go this time. This year it just really hurt. It brought tears to by eyes even driving through the intersection by the cemetery.

This year I plan to live life to the fullest, so this year is for you Zachy. Miss and love you

Our friends Scott and Amanda Jaeger had their second child in November. Older sister Addison got a little baby sister, Ella Jean. She is just so precious!

Christmas has come and gone. Here is a picture of a couple of girls in my sorority and myself at an UGLY Christmas sweater party!

And to bring in the new year... Brad and I got a house. We close on the 20th! We both are very excited!