2012 Year in Review

2012 was a wonderful year for me! I wanted to recap the highlights of the year and share some of my favorite pictures!

January: I went back to NMU for my last semester of undergrad classes. This was by far my toughest semester, but I survived. We had one snow day right away. Some of the highlight events were our After Christmas Dinner and sledding behind the school of education offices.

The view behind my building on the snow day...do you see the path?

February: We continued our cold winter with a trip to the Eben Ice Caves, driving through the deep snow to our destination. We also had our Valentines Dinner with the church girls and a dance at church. February was topped off with another snow day on the leap day, in which we got dumped with 18 inches of wet heavy snow.

The ice caves

March: We started off March with a family trip to Wisconsin Dells! After a little car stress and more nasty weather we made it to our favorite condo at the Wilderness Resort. We enjoyed the wave pools and the toilet bowl slide. March also happened to be my 22nd birthday in which we took a trip to my favorite Buffalo Wild Wings. We had a totally random weekend of 80 degree weather which is unheard of. We took in a gorgeous sunset at Presque Isle Park before going out for ice cream.

The sunset on St. Patty's Day at Presque....80 degrees out

April: April quickly became crunch time as our last semester of college was quickly coming to the end. The majority of my life became consumed by my Diagnostic Assessment class. I also took and passed my first set of education board testing. We had some great dinners out and I got to go home for Easter weekend. Our church year was wrapped up with a party out at Lakenenland Sculpture Park.

Lakenland Sculpture Park

May: In May I moved back home and moved back in with my parents. I started student teaching in special education. It was awesome to get into the classroom every single day. It was really affirming to know this was the right job for me. We took a trip to Door County for Mother's Day to enjoy the beautiful Tulips. We returned again on Memorial Day weekend for lots of hiking, biking, swimming, and enjoying the beautiful weather.

Memorial Day=kettle corn

June: Summer got off to a hot start and stayed hot. I took my cousins to the local amusement park and we finally tried the new roller coaster. Overall June was quite uneventful and filled with many days inside enjoying the conditioning. We had a few graduations to celebrate for family this year. We also built our new garden on a hot Saturday.

Our beautiful lilies, quickly devoured by the rabbits

July: July continued to be a hot month. We had multiple days over 100 and most days were well into the 90's. We went to our aunt and uncle's house for the 4th. We've never found the Bay to be that warm. We only found cold water after being dumped while tubing. We took a weekend trip to another relatives house for a second round of swimming, tubing, and campfires. It was nice to get away and relax during the busy work season.

This sums up July

August: August brought us our yearly family vacation to Door County. We managed to go the only cold week of the whole summer. It was nice to sit back and relax since the beaches were too cold. We went to Packers Family Night at Lambeau, which was an adventure. Erin went back to school in August and I started getting the classroom ready for student teaching.

Hiking at Door Bluff Park

September: Back to School meant student teaching resumed for me. I spent 8 weeks in a first grade classroom and loved it. The first few weeks were terribly hot, but we survived. Mom and I got to go to the radio show One-on-One with the Boys, which is a local Packers radio show. I had a friend come and visit, and we took a day trip to Cedarburg. We enjoyed touring the local winery. We also visited Erin at college for a day. The Madison Farmers Market on the square was truly amazing.

The amazing farmers market in Madison

October: October held my parents 25th anniversary. We celebrated with family and they also took a trip. I started my second half of student teaching later in the month, going back to the special ed placement. Before I left, I went on a field trip with my first graders, and it was quite the adventure. I also taught my cousins how to carve pumpkins/touch the guts.

November: November blew by very quickly as student teaching continued. My dad celebrated a monumental birthday and his office was adequately trashed with our help. We had a nice family Thanksgiving with both families and did some shopping like normal.

The Christmas Tree quickly became my subject as I played with my new camera

December: The highlight of December was my college graduation!!!! I graduated Summa Cum Laude from NMU! We also had wonderful Christmas celebrations with both of our families. Erin and I attended the Packers-Titans game, which was a complete blow out. We had two decent snowfalls, including one major blizzard. The top announcement of December was my hiring at a local elementary school.

Sadly I have no family Christmas picture to share...but graduation works fine.

What a year we had. I look forward to 2013. I am beyond excited to get into my new classroom and start teaching. Hopefully this year will be filled with more fun and good health for all.

Stay tuned for Wednesday. I will be doing a review of my top 10 products/trends/etc from 2012. A look back at all my new favorites from the past year. 

I Did It!!!!!

I am officially a college graduate!!!!!!!! After four years of hard work and an awesome semester of student teaching, I am officially a teacher.  My university held this commencement exercises this past weekend, and everything was wonderful. We had an Educators Reception the night before, and it was a blast. The speaker was hilarious and one of my professors pinned me. Saturday morning before the ceremony we had an honors breakfast. I received a medal for graduating with top honors- Summa Cum Laude. Then was the ceremony. I love how all the speakers talked about persevering through the tough winters.

Receiving my diploma

Processing out

Outside the Superior Dome.....where it is always cold and windy

With my parents afterwards

And the big news you've all been waiting for.....drum roll please....I have officially accepted a job with our local school district. I will be teaching through the end of the school year. I am in a bilingual resource room for Special Education!!! My dreams have officially come true.

The End is in Sight

Can you believe it? I graduate on Saturday. Yes-Saturday. I'm still in shock. I only have two more days left of student teaching. I'm going to miss my students so much. But hopefully I get a job soon.

I sat down this weekend to make some thank you cards for various people I have worked with. I just can't spent the money to buy a store bought card. You won't be surprise.....but I used alcohol inks again. They are just so fun and easy. I'm in love with my new big snowflake stamp. I got it for cheap at Michaels a few weeks ago. I had a little snowflake background stamp that is way too difficult to stamp with, but I like this one.

For all of the cards I did the reverse embossing technique. You can tell I need to invest in some more "thank you" stamps. I almost always use the stamps at crop night at my scrapbook store. I really love how all of these turned out. The colors were great, and I love seeing the design when I iron off the embossing powder.

Did I mention I splurged on Small Business Saturday? My amazing local camera store had a great deal on a Canon Rebel with two lenses. Needless to say I am in heaven right now. All the Christmas stuff has been my subjects so far. Needless to say you get a peek at my favorite shot.

We're hunkering down for Winter Storm Caesar. So far we've gotten an inch and the lawn is covered. The snow is supposed to pick up for the football game tonight! I'm sure you will be seeing some winter pics soon.

The Mirror Ball

I live in Green Bay, WI. Donald Driver is a reciever for the Packers. When he went on Dancing with the Stars this spring, the whole town rallied for him. After he won, the Mirror Ball Trophy made its way all around town.

One day it happened to show up at my office, so I got to see it in person. It is sooooo shiny and pretty.

I don't know who makes the paper, but Lori at my LSS always helps me pick papers when I am at a loss. I love how shiny the paper is, and it resembles the shininess of the trophy. This was the perfect excuse to do a blingy page!

Fourth of July

For the Fourth of July, we went to my Aunt and Uncles house. They live on the water, north of town. We had my cousin's jet skis and tubes, so we were set for a fun day. It was crazy the weather this day. We were in a hot spell, and the water is normally pleasant, after you get in for a bit. Its normally a bit cold starting off. This day the water was like bath water. The only place I found cool water, was 20 feet deep, when I got dumped from the tube.

 Right now the water is out very far. Its at least a block walk through the grass to get to the edge of the water. So we didn't get any pictures of jet skiing and tubing, because no one wanted to carry the camera out to the edge, and then back to the dock.

The patterned paper is from WRMK. It was actually one single sheet, that I cut us and layered. I cut the stars on my cricut and jazzed them up with some Perfect Pearls.

The Amusement Park

 Every year we go to our local amusement park with my cousins. This year was extra special because both of the kids were tall enough to try new rides. "A" was tall enough to try the roller coaster, and he LOVED it. He still talks about it months later. And "E" was tall enough to ride on the bumper cars. We had a blast on the roller coaster, ferris wheel, bumper cars, and the slide. I love experiencing the joy through the kids eyes.

 I was so mad when I loaded my pictures and found my finger to be blocking the lens. So I cut off what I could and still scrapped the picture. I loved the smiles so much, I had to keep it.

One again, I as in a misting mood. The patterned paper was from WRMK. I used a red glitter pen to outline the page, and frame the pictures a little more.

The Hot Summer

 This summer was just plain hot. We don't get into the high 90's very often and even more rare is too see it above 100 for an extended period of time. After a week of 100's I realized that I need a picture to sum up this summer. So I snapped an iPhoto of my dashboard thermometer one day. This picture was a way to summarize how hot it was this July. Even the lakes were bath water warm. 

For this page, I started with a plain white piece of paper. Then I used my Mister Huey's mask and some Smooch Inks to mist. I love how the reds, oranges, and golds signify the heat that we were feeling. I used alcohol inks on a piece of aluminum can, and ran it through my cuttlebug. I love how this page turned out. I am trying to use other mediums on my pages. Of course I keep my pictures mounted on cardstock to be safe.

Tulips on Mother's Day

 On Mother's Day weekend we decided to take an impromptu trip to our favorite Door County. There is a restaurant called The White Gull Inn. They won the Good Morning America breakfast challenge. So we drove up for lunch. They have the most beautiful flowers and outdoor decorations no matter what time of year it is. The tulips happened to be in bloom when we visited.

After lunch we went to the state park to hike and bike. When we were sitting on the rock wall at the light house a snake crawled out next to us. And the butterflies were also out. I didn't like how these pictures fit with the page, but I didn't want to toss them. So I put them in the pocket.

Happy 50th to a special someone

Since you don't have a facebook and I can't come wreck havoc on your office...I get to embarrass you on here :)

Nothing creative about this card. Just lots and lots and lots of glitter.

Here's to a happy birthday from your princesses!

 

Join me in wishing my dad a Happy 50th Birthday!!!!!!!!!

I'm Still Here

I can't believe how much I have been neglecting my blog lately. Lots of good stuff has been brewing. I have four and a half more weeks of student teaching left. Then I graduate in December! Since my last post I finished student teaching in first grade and I am now doing my second placement. This placement is a bilingual special education classroom for upper elementary students. I am so in love with teaching. I job hunting and looking forward to the future.

So here's what I've been up to this fall:

The capitol in Madison, WI. Beautiful fall day visiting my sister at college.

Who knew Madison had gorgeous fall colors and hiking.

My first field trip as the teacher. We caught a turtle during our pond study session.

My favorite bike trail

My pumpkin-a real creation. I drilled it this year. Way messier than I anticipated. 

I've got auto posts now scheduled for Wednesday and Saturday mornings. I've been scrapping a little here and there, as I have free time. I am looking forward to my Deer Widow's Crop on Friday night at my LSS.

My Special Ed Classmates

This latest page is very near and dear to my heart. This page is my 13 special ed classmates. I've been with some of them from our first class freshman year, and met the rest two and a half years ago when we started our special ed classes. We have become a very close knit group. Of course I needed to get a page scrapped about our group.

Within our program there are 14 special ed majors. 6 of us studying for our cognitive impairments degree and 8 studying for their emotional impairments degree. We had many of our classes all together, and some more specific classes related to our majors.

During our last month of class, our adviser took us outside for her annual picture day. We had to take the normal nice picture and the silly picture of course. For our silly picture we decided to roll down the hill behind our academic building we have called home for the last 4 years.

On our rolling adventures we managed to kick some one in the head and get some pretty nasty rashes....and really dirty clothes. We managed to clean out a tide-to-go when we went back inside.

And here is the page-

I wanted to do some detailed journalling, and write down everyone's name. Also our rolling down the hill picture didn't really fit in nicely with the rest of the page. If you haven't figured out yet, stitched pockets are my favorite. So my first tag was jounralling, the second was everyone's names, and the third was the picture. They are all nicely tucked in the pocket.

I'm pretty homesick for my old town/friends/old life. I miss Marquette so much .The leaves are turning here, but its just not the same. One a good note I had my first student teaching eval and it went stellar. My kids were awesome.

Easter 2012

Holidays are always a big occasion in our family. I love when everyone gets together. We our known for mini golfing at weddings, and games at holidays. For this Easter we played the game where you have to open wrapped presents while bundled in winter gear. I got some great pictures from that day. 

 The paper line is an old Heidi Swapp, that a friend gave me. I love the brown paisley paper the best. I am starting to buy whole paper lines, realizing how easy it is to make a series of matching pages.

 The flowers above are an alcohol ink creation. I mixed the pink, pool, and lime green together, and then stamped the flowers over the alcohol ink. The stamps are from Stampin Up.

I have a minor love for buttons.

You can tell how awesome my extended family. Our February/March/April birthday picture is a small portion of all the birthdays we have to celebrate.

Basement Makeover

As many of you know, I'm a basement scrapper. I should be thankful that I have a scrap spot, but the basement was kinda gloomy for me. I had some blast from the past carpet, that was pretty atrocious. So when we re-carpeted the family room last month, I got the old carpet to come downstairs. Since we live close to a river, and are just out of flood plain, we just throw down the carpet on the floor. We don't bother with the pad and everything else. This was good enough for me. I was happy for any facelift.

Along with this room being my scrapbook area, it is also the storage area for ALL my college stuff. Aka kitchen stuff, living room stuff, and more. So I was trying to be really creative to cover up all the ugly boxes. I wanted this room to have some personality and homey-ness. 

My scrapbook station. I built this myself from scrap wood about 8 years ago.

Paper storage and my cuttlebug station

My favorite part (besides the obvious carpet) is the fabric cover on the entertainment center. I cannot sew....or thread the sewing machine...to save my life. So I got some fabric, ribbon, and liquid stitch glue from Hobby Lobby. And from there I cut out the dimensions of the covers, and put ribbon along the edges to hide my sloppy cutting.

I am super happy with my renovations. This room is so much nicer and has charm. Its no longer a pile of boxes. I'm still sick....I got the cold 9 days ago from my little darlings. I've got 2 scrapbook pages to share in the next few days. I've got lots going on, but I'm loving life!