Years of Birthday Cakes

I thought it would be fun to post Saige and Savannah's birthday cakes from their other birthdays! So much fun!

Lady Bug Cake: 1st Birthday

Pink M & M Cake: 2nd Birthday

TWins are 3: Despicable Me!!!!!!!!!!!!

Saige and Savannah are now three! Crazy to think that only 3 years ago, these sweet little tykes joined our family only to bring us JOY! We love them to death!

For their birthday, we started out by celebrating on Saturday, by making their birthday cake. It has become tradition for me to make their cake and they help me make it! They have so much fun! This time, I decided to make an ice cream cake so the process took a LONG time! Here are some pictures of the process. I didn't take as many as I wanted to, I was so worried about getting the cake done in time, that the camera was the furthest from my mind, but at least I have these!

Here we are making the Minions!

The girls picked out the color of the cake.

Despicable Me cake...Tada! Me and the girls made all but Gru and the moon. Thanks to my friend Wendy...you are the best!

There were about 55 people that came that night. A lot more than I anticipated. But we are so glad that so many people came to support Saige and Savannah on their special day! Needless to say, I was very busy and not even sure who gave them what. It was a mad-house when they were opening presents!!!!!!

SO Here they are, they have gone from this:

To this:

This was our very first family photo. Please don't mind me, I look like I just had two kids!

I just thought I would share how cute my kids are! There is a tradition in my school that each class will "heart attack" another class. So on the big heart they write their names along with a Valentine Message and then decorate with other hearts too. Well, one of my Kindergarten classes attacked my door! I just thought they were cute and how much it meant to me to be remembered, even though I am not a "classroom!"

Attitude

Its amazing how one minute you can feel absolutely great, fabulous and wonderful, and the attitude of another can change that in a blink of an eye.

This week has been a very busy week. With sick kids and juggling work...it seems like I am damned if I do and damned if I don't, but with a positive attitude, I have seemed to accomplish more than I expected to...Until just this very moment. All the hard work I have put in this week seemed to have just crumbled just by one person. Its amazing that no matter how hard you do try, its not going to be good enough somewhere or with someone.

Listening to feelings...interesting concept. It is interesting how everyone expects to be heard, but not willing to listen to you. I ask myself, "Why do I let myself get bulldozed and then when I finally do stand up to it, I am the problem?"

Expectations...another interesting thing! What others expect of you are obviously not what it seems. Sometimes, it can come back to bite you in the tush, or just completely level you to the floor.

Body language....speaks 1 gazillion times more than actual verbal communication! Witnessed it first hand and never has been more clearer to me than just now!

So my question is, how do you know when you are being absolutely, positively what everybody wants?

Answer, never! Attitude says everything.... I am who I am and I am sorry you had a bad day, week or month! Get over it. What you will never know is how it has affected me, positive or negative...that will be up to me, NOT YOU!

Too Cute To Not POST!

I thought this was really cute. Today I went into one of my classes and for Counselor Week, they had prepared for me a book with pages from each child of the reason they like me. I couldn't help but to not laugh at some of these because they are just so cute! I love my kids, they are the reason why I love my job so much! Really, there isn't a better job!

This picture was drawn by a boy who loves sports and is a well liked kid! He drew a picture of me, and said, "Sorry I messed up your face!" LOL, but most importantly, he drew a picture of a lesson I did on Anger with Hershey Kisses. I am sure glad someone is listening!!!!!

I thought this one was also very cute. The girl who did this picture is very quiet in class and never makes a peep. You would never know that she was even there unless you know to look for her! After I came back from China, I did 2 lessons about it. The first week I showed them all the pictures and taught them what I had learned. The second week, I taught them how to speak and write Teacher, Principal, Student, and Class in Chinese. They had a blast with it! I think that was their favorite lesson so far, that and the Hershey Kiss lesson when they all got Hershey Kisses from me!

I love and care about each of my students, they are like kids to me! Here is something I found, that sums up what it is like to be a counselor or a teacher! Today, one of my kids nearly broke me! It is amazing to hear their trials which have happened in their short life. Far more than any of us will go through in a lifetime or more! Please watch....

http://www.heartofateachermovie.com/

The LOVE of Making Cookies!

The girls are "kind of" sick so we just decided to stay home from church today. Instead, we decided to occupy ourselves by making cookies. I used to do this with my Gram, since, well, the earliest I can remember is before Kindergarten. I will have to go find a picture of me making cookies at Grams house and get it on here. That was the greatest and I wanted to make sure I passed this nice little treasured memory down to my kids!

I forgot to take pictures while we were making the cookies, so I got them when they were putting icing on them instead! But we made nice and delicious sugar cookies, some with white icing with purple sprinkles, some where dark pink, and some light pink.

Reagan enjoying her cookie....ok, the frosting!