I was found today.

Bon Iver found me today. I woke this morning to a post on my reader with a video from an artist I have never heard of:



And I loved it. I thought of it all day long.
Then, about 20 minutes ago, I logged onto Facebook. Only to see that name again. "Become a fan of Bon Iver" So I did.

Ironic. But lovely.

Busy Weekend.

We had a very busy weekend...letting us get no more than 8 hours of sleep in 3 days time. I went to Sharayah's bridal shower, Paul and I went to a concert an hour north of Pittsburgh, hung out with friends until the wee hours of the night, visited with Paul's family and went to Gavin's 9th birthday party...then drove home, watched Changeling and finally went to bed Sunday night around midnight- all to start work at 6am on Monday!!! PHEW!!! It was a busy weekend, but all-in-all a fun weekend, catching up with friends :D

Sugar cookies I made for the shower. Beaut's.

Cupcake truffles I made. Shot's approved.

The cookies, cuppy's and a fruit arrangement I created that morn. On 2 hours of sleep............

Cute! Tess was helping me set up the fruit- she liked skewering the fruit on the sticks.

BFF's: Cindy and Kathy

Nice little ladies :D

My momma!!

The "Who Knows the Bride the Best" game. I won this one! However, since I am a bridesmaid, I did not 'officially' win.

Punch! I LOOOOVE punch!

I scooped the sherbet into the bowl. And I loved every colorful second of it.

Sharayah opening her presents.

Gavin's party was funny. He had decided he wanted to get CPR certified as party festivities. So him and his friends did just that! He crack's me up...

Birthday cake

An awesome Rockwell calendar in the Fire hall.

Love it.

Present time!

Best drawing ever, I give it an 'A'

See! I was not lying, they really did get certified. haha!!

I was pretty worn out today at work...teaching needy kids with not much sleep sucks. I just wanted to walk out of the room multiple times and crawl away for some much needed slumber. But! I did not...

In other school news, the kids are finishing up their self portraits and have done pretty darn good. I have had some amazing portraits come out of this project and I am like a proud mama. (I have also had some that baffle me...not in a good way...but ya know...) I think that the kids have come pretty far, since at the beginning of the year they could not use a ruler (SERIOUSLY!) and now, they are griding pictures, critiquing art work, know some art history and have the elements of design down. Yeah baby! I also have one of my large value images, that the kids worked on, being hung in the library. Woot. Oh! and my one class is going to be a judge for a video contest at the University of MD, the other judge is one of the big wig news reporters out here. sweet. (My one students mom works at UMD so she emailed me and asked if we would participate.)

Workin..

Some beginning stages.

She is amazing. Beautiful work.

Hey!! She must have a pretty freaking awesome art teacher........

My sister also sent me her 50 mm lens since she got a new one. Her new one is super fancy and it makes the pictures crazy and warped- pretty cool- so she had no use for keeping this old one. I told her I suppose I could take it off her hands *grin* and she sent it my way *larger grin*...so I sent her some cookies and a bookmark that I made with my Martha paper cutter as payment for her lovely lens. I got it in the mail after work today and have been experimenting with it already. Here are some of my pics I got tonight:

Our paper lantern cluster

Sweetest little monkey you have ever met.

I'll testify to that.

Pretty bedside light

This picture pretty much sums up Shotzye...

...

And. A ring shot. I mean, why not?? My fingers look somewhat emaciated in this pic...if that is even possible.

Whew! What a packed post. I think I am fairly caught up now. See ya soon!

A sigh of relief.

School has been getting sooooo much better for me. I have been getting to know my kids a lot more and have been actually having some fun at school *imagine!* ... It is also spring time, which is naturally mood-boosting! Just getting to wear my sandals and airing out my little painted toes has been so relieving. Cherry blossoms are in peak bloom April 1-4...so Paul and I are going to be visiting downtown DC quite often in the next week or two. This weekend we are having a rushed trip to Pittsburgh (driving in Friday after work- arriving around 1am, sat= bridal shower, sun= gavins b-day p-tay + driving 5 hours back to DC...ugh...). Well, I hope you have been having a nice spring thus far!

A cherry coke + vanilla bean ice cream float

...notice the cherry blossoms right outside our window?



PURPLE! eye makeup...I realise this is strange. However, I am teaching self portraits in school and I have been staring at pictures of (180) students, and their eyes, helping them with their self portraits for 2 weeks now. yikes... So I figured I would make you all feel my pain.

Now sit in your seat and DRAW WHAT YOU SEE, DANGIT!

...haha...

Paul turns 25

Paul celebrated his 25th birthday yesterday. Because he had the day off, and we had talked about him doing this for a long time now, he came to school with me to talk to the kids about graphic design. It was "Take your husband to work day"...not really, but he came anyways. It was my 'bad day' at work so he saw the class that tortures me. Lets just put it this way..Paul had just finished a large coffee before that class and in the middle of the bad class, he had to go to pee really bad. Naturally, I told him to run to the bathroom (it was right next door) and he said, "No- I am not leaving you in here alone!" haha. Paul summed it up perfectly by explaining teaching my bad class as giving you the same feeling as, "Writing a 20 page research report and every time you hit save, because you finally got it perfect, the computer crashes...10 times in a row."

All jokes aside, the kids really liked Paul and he had a lot of fun teaching them (they loved his personal logo-it uses negative space-which I just taught those sucka's, so they thought they were pretty cool), it was a good day. He also realized why I get so tired after teaching them (tons of repetition and a million questions, plus the discipline involved) and when we got home, he said he was so exhausted from the day...so we took a nap :)
I made some miniature cakes the we snacked on, we went to Rita's Italian Ice for our free ice (spring equinox= free Rita's!) and watched 2 good movies. Paul also fit in some Wii Guitar Hero- a gift from his family- before the night was over.

Here are a couple pics from the night:

Little cake #1

Little cake #2

Little cake #3
These were cherry cake filled with cherry preserves and milk chocolate cream cheese frosting.


"I am 25!"

Oh, I forgot to mention, Paul is acually terrified that he is 25 years old.

A Whole Lot

We have been up to a bunch lately. Pauls fam came out and visited us this past week/weekend and we had a great time hanging out, being tourists, and relaxing at home. Paul's fam seemed to have a really great time out here, eating up a bunch of yummy food that Paul and I made for them: our french toast, the AWESOME chocolate chip cookies, lasagna, Mmmmmm.... We also went to Alexandria, downtown DC, checked out the white house, went to museums, watched movies, played Wii (a lot), and took them around Waldorf (Oooo- exciting!!), all in a matter of 2 1/2 days!

In other news, I have been trying to get my classes under control...it seems that they are getting more and more restless with school. Spring break on the horizon, only 1 more quarter left, state testing, and some pretty hefty projects are adding up for them, and it shows. I would say twice last week, I was about to call it quits. Its like dejavu from the beginning of the year. Well, enough about all that bummy stuff, lets check out some pics!

OH! OH! OHHHH! I forgot to tell ya guys, I did win the bake sale- Most Unique- for the cake pops. I am still waiting on the gift certificate though. grr. I want to go out to eat :D And there were a lot of entries...so each award went to another person. I was hoping for a clean sweep. But I cannot complain! My choc chip cookies were GOOONE (I suspect I should have won best tasting on those sucka's...not many other treats were all gone! Yeah baby!)

A Paul tattoo update: Peely

Here are some of my students in my best class...They are working on the Mona Lisa (they didn't know it yet, in this picture)


New shoes. AH! They are reallllly comfortable! Crazy, I know, but they honestly are. I cant wait til it warms up a bit so I can sport them at school.

Bridesmaid dress. We decided on the bow in the back.

Me layin down with beebee leeloo.

At a museum in DC. Very cool waves!! Art nouveau at its best.

Super sad sculpture titled, "I am Nobody"

It reminded us of Leeloo's sinewy body.

Creepy colorful fish.

We said it represents Gavin's brain at all times: colorful, crazy, busy.

Family Portrait- Lovin' Tessa's pose!!

Gotta love this!

oh, and it was a yucky day that Saturday...rainy- blah, but still fun.

Tess and I on the metro

The chocolate chip cookies

These are what dreams are made of.

Some donuts I made! I realized I had never made them before, so I made a batch. Mmm.

The star of the show: Shotzye (in her 'bed' - a free box from costco- beats the $ 25 I wanted to get her- she loves the cardboard)

Shotzye was a crowd favorite when we had the Haggerty's over. In fact, while we were out, we asked Tessa if she wanted anything, and she simply replied, "Yeah, Shotzye"

haha!

Spring Forward!!

Today we all sprung forward. Yesssss we did. It was SO AWESOME outside today, it was about 80 degrees! Makes me want to run around all day. But instead I ran errands. I went to JoAnn Fabrics (which is relocating so they had a massive sale), AC Moores, and to the mall to visit Paul. I got tons of fabric for 75% off!! I also picked up some ribbon, a Martha Stewart paper punch in a lacey pattern (i HEART martha stuff) and some beads for Sharayah's wedding jewelry. Here are some pics.

Hard to believe this was only 1 week ago!

Fabric swatches!

The fabric under the table! Yay!...all hemmed and sitting pretty.

Paper punch! (against my Martha kitchen aid :D)

Ribbon!

Wedding beads.

It's a Bake Off!

So. My school is having a bake-off among the teachers on Wednesday. Guess what beautiful babies? I am entering that crap. The competition is on best looking, best tasting and most unique. I decided that I want a clean sweep. So I am hitting them with my cake pops (decorated with the school colors and logo) to win the most unique and best looking. I am also going to be making the chocolate chip cookies that Lauren recommended (NY Times recipe by Jacques Torres) because HOLY SMOKES!! they are awesome. They are time consuming to make since they sit for at least 24 hours to develop their caramely flavors...and they also include some strange flours (cake and bread). However, they are sprinkled with salt before they bake, they have a crispy shell with the most delicious chewy inside. So yeah, I am going for best tasting with those babies. Anyways, tonight I did my cake pops, my cookie dough is resting, and life is good.


In other news, there was a HUGE snow storm here...so school was cancelled today (Monday), there is a 2 hour delay on Tuesday and Wednesday the kids are off, so we have an in service day...I LOVE THIS WEEK!

I piped the logos in dark chocolate.

There they are, aren't they cute!?

Red velvet balls.

Dipped the sticks in the chocolate then let them chill a bit to cement them in

Diiiip

Swirlllll

Ta-daaaa!

Then ya stick the logo on

**These pics make it seem very easy, however, I must admit this was a messy and difficult process. These pictures just showcase a moment in time...It maybe means that the cake pop slid off of the stick and the logo fell off...

It maybe means that I am not perfect people.

But my pop's sure are :D

Ok, now for the cookies.

Here is the dough at first...kinda grainy.

Lets see what it looks like when it gets WHIPPED! for 5 minutes.

Look how fluffy 2 1/2 sticks of butter and about 3 cups of sugar can get.

Hey- I did not say these are good for you, but I am not the one eating them, the judges are. And guess what- BUTTER AND SUGAR TASTE AWESOME!

Look how much dough!! geesh. This recipe makes a million cookies.

A million.

A hilarious text message situation.

A random person texted Paul...and he decided to mess with them.

My cute hat and ring. I wore this too the tattoo place when Paul got his tat done on Saturday. People liked.