Flowers!

I think that today would have to be my favorite day of Teacher Appreciation week! Today we got flowers...and wow, I was amazed with the beautiful flowers that I got today! I loved them all and I sooo appreciate the thoughtfulness of my keiki who took the time to get me flowers...because flowers make me happy!

I know that I have the wonderful opportunity to work with the beautiful creations of flowers...but I still LOVE and always APPRECIATE when some gives ME flowers! Oh, how I love love flowers...so very much!

Here are gorgeous anthoriums from Benji. There are two of them...one plant is pink and the other is red. They are so vibrant in color...so beautiful! I love them! :)

Here are gorgeous pink calla lillies from my Brody...I love them. They grow so fast and so beautiful! I love them!

Now this amazing flower, I get to keep FOREVER! From my little "handsome" Jahziah. It was made with coffee filters...! Amazing! And gorgeous colors! :)

And I can not forget my amazingly, beautiful, and breath-taking phalaenopsis orchids! Aren't they just the most gorgeous ever! Roses and orchids will forever be in my top favorite flowers (bill balls taking top favorite! :))

And I just adore the way that they made it personalized for me. They are from my lil opih'i Elijah.

Yes, I loved today. I love that my keikis brought me flowers...I love my job. :)

"Let the beauty we love be what we do."--Rumi

Stationary.

Well, it is day two of Teacher Appreciation week...and today was stationary and note cards...and I was not disappointed with the cute cards and papers that I got. I did leave most of them as school so that I can use them there...but I did bring the two gorgeous note card packs that I got from my keikis home.

Also pictured is the cute quote with pen and goodie from my boss. I rarely see her anymore since it was announced 2 months prior that she was going to a different school to be the director there...I miss her...I know that she will do well where ever she ends up...I'll just miss the friendship that we had. It hasn't been all roses and candy with her...but I know that she will always try to go the extra mile if she can...and I can honestly say that I will miss her.

I appreciate all my keikis. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have this opportunity to be their teacher...and I absolutely love being apart of their amazing lives. Yes, we have our ups and downs every day...but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

And I so agree with this quote. It really does take a big heart to help shape little minds. Not saying that if you do have a big heart...you have the patience and understanding to be around little minds...but it really does take a huge heart to be able to be around this little "monsters" every day with out throwing the towel in. I love them so much and I am so proud to be a teacher.

So, before I took down all my artwork from last month to make room for all the artwork that we will be doing this month (I have been behind is things this month! I haven't found the time until today to take everything down and I already have plenty of things to put up! *laughs* And it's only the 6th of this month!)...I took some pictures of the things that we did!

Our topic for this month was Spring time and Things That Grow...and so here is a flower that we did and some seeds that we grew. Well, not those seeds that we documented! But they were from the same packet that we used! But we planted beans, carrots, radishes, broccoli, and cantaloupe and they grew SOOOO fast that I ended up having them bring him home earlier than I wanted too! I wasn't able to take a picture of their own little garden they made...but they had fun doing that.

The flower was a spin art that they did. They love doing that activity...and then I just posted up as a flower because flowers grow! I had a lot of fun doing that art project! 

(I adore my classroom boarders! My room is definitely a "bully-free zone" and I tell them that all the time...so they know it!) 

We did some Easter artwork...collages...and paintings. I love the paintings because I had them paint their interpretation of how they saw their garden as it grew! They loved that a lot! Well, my keiki love painting all around...so it wasn't that difficult for them to fall in love with that project! *laughs*

I had my keiki cut/rip/tear their own "grass"...and glue it on the paper and then we made hand print flowers. And then we measured their height, arm span,  foot, and hand...I wrote it on a laminated flower and then the yarn is the length of how tall they are! It was a fun activity to do with the kids. Unfortunately, as you can see, I had a little one pull the yarn off of three of my "flowers"...but it's okay, I saved it and put it in the respected child's art folder. :)

These are just other projects and art work that we did. We have fun in my class and I love being with my keikis. :)

I am going to try to take pictures of the artwork that we do each month...but we'll see how long I can remember to do that! :)

"It's not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless."--L. R. Knost

Fruits.

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week...but tomorrow is officially Teacher Appreciation Day. Not because I am a teacher, but I really think that teachers are under appreciated for all they do. From experience and also from what I see from my teacher friends... we do work so hard because we love what we do. I think to be in this field, you definitely have to want to be in this field...the pay is seriously junk...but the kids love makes it up.

I would be lying if I said that money doesn't matter...because in this world, money does play a big role in society...and there are so many other fields out there that you can go into that will pay you more...but I make by, just barely, but I stay in this field because I adore and love my keikis. And that being said, Nicole (she is going to take over the director position at the end of this month) made a list of suggestions and reminders to the parents to appreciate their teachers. At first I was like WHAT?! You can't send that out...but she said that technically we as teachers aren't sending them out...but her as a director is sending it out because she appreciates US and she wants us to know it. So that makes sense. :)

But this is the list that she  hung in my classroom.

So, as you can see today was fruit day...and so some of my keiki brought me fruit...and just watching them come up to me with the fruit with a huge smile on their faces just totally made my day! I am so blessed to be able to work with this amazing age of kids. I love the two year olds. I simple love this age. I would say that this is my favorite age. My second favorite age would be the older 3's...but it's the two year olds that hold my heart. I love them.

Here are some of the fruit that I got. I was joking with Ashley and Jess that we will get lots of fruit that we can use in our afternoon smoothies! *laughs* And I did use a banana that I got as part of my smoothie for the day...:)

Lil' Elijah's gift of banana and chocolate dip made me smile. He had decorated with stickers! So cute! And so ono! :)

Well, I have been getting hassled that never show what my classroom looks like...so I was going to take picture of my classroom before I took down our projects for the month of April. I still haven't been able to take anything down...so hopefully I'll be able to take more picture tomorrow when my keikis are not in the classroom...when I whip out my camera...they LOVE pictures...they wanted me to take picture of them! Yep, they are definitely NOT camera...but I also will NEVER post pictures up of my keiki...I can't really understand how other people can, I'm not saying that they can't...it's their decision...but for me, I will never. Unless it's of my own family.

But yes, I love "my" keikis. They appreciate me. I appreciate them. They are amazing.

"Always smile back at little children. To ignore them is to destroy their belief that the world is good."-anonymous

Smells yummy.

Today I forced myself to stay home and study. I got so much accomplish school-wise, so that is good. But my goodness...my butt hurts from sitting down! Before I call it a night, I wanted to write about this yummy thing that I made today! :)

So I was really craving cinnamon rolls...so I went to Safeway to grab some pre-made, pop in the oven right away cinnamon rolls. But when I got home I remembered that I didn't like the way the store bought, ready-to-make rolls were super dry and not very tasty, so I wanted to try something different to make the cinnamon rolls taste even better.

I but the rolls up to bite size pieces and mixed it up with a large apple cut up in tiny pieces. Since I do love the taste of apple cinnamon. Then because I didn't like how dry it tasted last time, I made a sauce to spread around the roll dough/apple. I melted about 2 tablespoons of butter and mixed in about 1/3 cup of brown sugar and then added 2 spoonfuls of corn syrup. Then I added even more cinnamon to the mix. Then I poured that over that concoction over the apples and dough.

Oh yeah, I forgot to say, but I had preheated the oven to 355 degrees. So about the time that the oven was ready is how long that it took me to make the dish thingy. I made sure that the dough was coated in the gooey yummy smelling sauce thingy. Then I popped it in the oven and set the timer for 21 minutes. By the time 10 minutes passed the kitchen was smelling so yummy!

After the 21 minutes was up, I took it out and let it cool for a bit...I was disappointed because it looked pretty dry still...and I thought that maybe if ever I would make this again I would add more sauce...then I saw that there was still sauce on the bottom, so after I let it cool just a little bit, I took a spatula and lifted the sides up and then turned it over on a plate.

Oh, mandope! Now it look more moist! *laughs* I took the cream frosting that came with the cinnamon rolls and warmed it up and drizzled it over the cake thingy...and it was super yummy! It wasn't dry at all...and I would have to say that it was a success. :)

Here, enjoy it one last time. Or at least until I make it again. :)

Well, I have to call it a night now because Jackie is still sick so I have to go in for her...and she starts work at 5:45am...so yeah. At least I can leave work early. :)

"It's always nice to have someone in your life who can make you smile even when they're not around."-anonymous

Ocean Wishes.

One of the good things about going to school online, on your own pace....is that if I want to do something random...like paint my nails...I still can. I usually type a lot of my homework...and I have already learned and mastered the art of careful typing with wet nails...and so I decided to paint my nails and between each layer read. Because that is what I'll be doing anyways...reading...might as well do something to prevent me from being bored...and anyways, I decided to do one of the easiest designs.

I've done galaxy nails several time and that's what I did here...I basically used the method I use to do my galaxy nails...except with different blues and greens...coz lately I've been feeling super stressed and whenever I'm stressed, the ocean always has a way to make me forget my chaoticness for awhile...I have this thing where whenever I'm super stressed out, I would say that I wish that I were a mermaid so that I can just swim away and disappear. *laughs*

And that is where "Ocean Wishes" come from...well these are the colors that I used.

I absolutely love this polish...I used this as my first layer (after my base coat of course!) and I was thinking that if ever I could only paint my nails one color...this would be the color. It's so beautiful looking and it looked really nice on my nails on it's own.

I got to use the new nail polish that I got from my Birchbox last month! Yay! It's not as shimmery as I thought that it would be...but it applies well! I think that if ever I were to use this as a first layer color...it wouldn't need a second coat...I like that. :)

I adore this blue glitter...and even though you can't really see it in my pictures...it's the small details that is in my nails...because I just sponge dabbed it on parts of my nail. And the effect is amazing.

It was really hard to capture the details on my nails...it looks like only one color...but it's not...as you can see from the colors that I used, I used 5 different colors. I actually used a sharpie to add the waves/seaweed...(btw, if ever you want to try that, I suggest spraying hairspray on your nails before applying your clear coat because the ink will smear if you don't...and that's not good.)

Yeah, you would have to see it in person to see the 3D-like affect that all the colors created. I used a sponge to dab on the other colors on my nails...

"Some people come into your life and you just know you will never be able to replace them if they left."-anonymous

Elephant Pillows.

So here I am studying the night away when I hear the front door open...then I hear my brother and Amanda come down stairs and tell me..."We got you something!" I love presents! *laughs* And as impatient as I may see...I also love surprises! I might hackle you until kingdom come to find out what it is...but I love happy surprises...:) So, this was a happy surprise as well as a welcome break from my continuous studying. :)

My brother's company supported a local fundraiser for the Maryknoll school in honor of this one lady who has given a lot to the community. I think that is what he was telling me. So basically, the lady that they were honoring, her sister is my brother's co-worker and so my brother's company supported the employee for the sister. If that made any sense...but yeah, I think that that was really nice of them.

Amanda said that it was a really nice affair and her looked really nice to...so totally dressed up and looked smashing. :) My brother is one lucky guy...she is an amazing person...hope she can be my sister soon! *laughs*

Well, anyways, they said that there was this silent auction...and they bid on some things...but they said that when they saw the elephant pillows, they KNEW that I would LOVE it...so they placed their bid...and guess what?! They got it...and they are absolutely right! I LOVE LOVE LOVE the pillows!

They came home rather late...so I had a hard time keeping it down...coz yes, I do squeal...and I am also known to scream if I am excited or something makes me happy...and this definitely made me happy. I know that my neighbors were sleeping already and I didn't want to wake them up...but look at the them! They are SOOO cute!

As the little sign says they are hand printed by one of the clubs at the school. I think that that is a genius idea...make the kids make things to auction off. Because I really think I love them even more knowing that they were made...and I have the only of cute pillows like this in the whole entire world! *laughs* And I am all for handmade presents and arts&crafts. So I totally approve...and absolutely LOVE! :)

Aren't they SO cute?! I think so. I love them. And they are so soft feeling too! They are a bit small, but that's okay...because I still love them. :)

I think that they make an excellent addition to the pillows that I have already on my couch. So, many thanks to my awesome brother and his amazing girlfriend who got me these CUTE CUTE CUTE pillows. All for a good cause to. :)

"If you have the power to make someone happy, do it. The world needs more of that."-anonymous

Happy Birthday, Jyn!

I know that I haven't spoken to this girl for awhile...but she is one of those friends where you know that you don't have to talk to all the time...but when we do get together or even talk to each other...it's as if no time or distance ever separated us. She is "that" kind of friend.

I remember back when I first met her in 2004, we didn't hit it off...it was my first year in the Philippines and it wasn't until she saw me being very sad coz I was homesick...and she came in my room, hugged me and told me that she knew how I felt. And from that day she has been like a sister to me. And I miss her.

She currently lives in Thailand...and I know with no doubt that I will see her again. She has been dating my cousin for nearly 10 years now...and so yes, I am pretty sure that I will see her again.

So, for now...Happy birthday, my dear friend. I wish you the best in everything...and I can't wait to see you again, Jynnylicious!

"In my imaginary neighborhood, you live right next door."