Happy 4th of July!

This is what life is all about...

This morning I let Nik sleep in (okay, really - he won at rock, paper, scissors for the opportunity to sleep in) and when he woke up I informed him that IT WAS NOT RAINING. I packed up the kids and some lunch and we drove to York Beach (Short Sands) to check out the new playground they put in. The smile on my kids faces, that's what life is about!

We're trying to teach Dougie how to swing himself, he LOVES the swings!

It was bright for Kate, she needs some sun glasses!

The slide was really tall!

Playin' in the ocean.

We had such a good morning! Playground, lunch on the beach, walk on the beach, the arcade, and then we each got a special treat at The Goldenrod. Came home, before the rain and the kids everyone had a nap!

Our new swing set comes next week!

Corinne's Tree

I don't think a lot of people know about my mentor, Corinne Devlin.  She was a wonderful woman, who taught me more in 6 months than I learned in my two years at UNE.  Corinne was my mentor and my friend.  She died in 2005, just a year after I finished my internship.  I never got to say goodbye, she went too quickly. The last time I spoke with her, I went to visit and told her I was pregnant with Dougie.  She came to my classroom once after that at the Junior High, but I had already left for the day.  She left me a note, telling me how proud she was and how great my classroom look.  I wish I would have kept it. 

This tree is planted at the school I currently work in, in her honor.  Most days I don't see it.  When I do, I always think of her.  I took this picture on Field Day this year.  I miss her.

Inside the cake...and my kids students.

I told the kids students that the cake was a surprise and that there was also a surprise inside the cake.  They were so excited (mind you, they had also just pigged out on pizza) that they really wanted me to cut it.  They were yelling out ideas of what they thought was in it (pudding! chocolate! M&Ms! pudding! pudding! I bet it's pudding!) Yeah, they really thought it was pudding.

The first slice looked AWESOME!  Exactly the look I was hoping for!

Birthday boy got the first slice...

The food coloring had some side effects.

but in the end, the cake was GONE.

This picture is just to show you that something went wrong with the yellow layer...why is it so much smaller?

A Baker...who me?

Tomorrow marks the last Monday that I will have to work until September 7th....so, I'm throwing my kids students a party to celebrate. (I'm trying to get better at calling my kids in my class, my students and my kids, well, my kids.)

I saw this cake on this website and thought I'd give it a try. My kids students have been through a lot more than the typical class this year and I wanted to reward them.  My long-term sub and I are buying them pizza for lunch and I made the dessert.  

Let's set the record straight.  I'm not a baker.  I wish I was. I can follow a recipe very well, but I am not a baker.  A baker tries to create their own recipes. A baker understands how ingredients will react with one another.  MckMama is a baker.  Her recipes always seem to work.  I am not a baker.  

I was very nervous to try this cake.

I bought two white cake mixes and had everything else I needed at home.  I started the night before by mixing the cake mix, making the colored layers and cooking the cakes.  I think I mis-measured the yellow layer, it was a bit smaller than the others!

I made butter cream frosting and then folded in a tub of cool whip to make it a little less sweet and also to help cover the cake...the cake is 6 layers!

I put a little bit of frosting on the cake platter to make the cake stick...

Trimmed the purple layer (it's purple...but looks like black in the picture.)

More trimming...more frosting.

All 6 layers! Looks good enough to eat! (But my red layer looks more like pink!)

The cake and the trimmings...

Started to frost...hmmm, the trimmings are dissapearing!

I found the culprit!

Nik likes the extra frosting!

The cake looks delicious!  I can't wait until my kids students cut into it tomorrow!

This picture just shows you how tall this cake is!  I had to take a shelf out of my fridge!

I'll post pictures of the cake tomorrow with the kids...I can't wait to see their faces when we cut it!

 

I opened a shop...

I opened my own shop on Etsy...finally!  I debated back and forth if I wanted to sell my pillows on Etsy and I decided to give it a try this summer while I'm home with the kids.  

My shop is called, "Sleep On It!" and its web address is www.sleeponit.etsy.com.  I have some pillows listed and lots of pictures...but my shop looks lonley with just three items for sale!  I'm going to play around with some things next week when school is out.  

Spread the news!

I'm down one useless organ

Yesterday I allowed my brother in-law to cut me up and take out my gall bladder, and I couldn't be happier. I don't remember anything about surgery, except all the pre-op (pre-drug) stuff in the beginning.  I remember being wheeled into the OR and seeing David in the corner by his computer and then I woke up in the recovery room. 

Let me tell you about life with my gall bladder.  The last couple months have not been that fun.  I've been to the emergency room twice with severe pain.  I had an ultrasound which showed that I had many stones and also that my gall bladder was very contorted. After my first visit to the ER, I scheduled surgery for June 19th, the day after the last day of school.  After my second attack, we moved the surgery up to June 3rd.  I couldn't live in fear of pain anymore. 

Yesterday, the pain after surgery was pretty bad (but you have to remember that I've never had surgery or really ever been hurt). Most of the pain was gas pain, since they fill you up with gas so they can see all around. Most of the gas pain is gone today and I haven't needed to take any pain meds. I'm off from school until Monday, then we have step-up day and I just have to be there, I don't really have to do much!

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to feeling better and not worrying about everything that goes into my mouth and whether or not I'll be spending the night at the ER. Hooray for being gall bladder free!