100th Day of School!!!

Yesterday we celebrated the 100th day of school! Only 80 more days to go! I can't believe how fast time has gone by. Thinking back to the first couple weeks I seriously (I mean SERIOUSLY) never thought this school year would end. But now, its amazing that we are over half way through the year. It is so neat to see how much my students have improved since the beginning. I'm actually beginning to think I do make a little bit of a difference. We had a blast celebrating the 100th day of school!

Every student brought 100 objects and we did a bunch of 1oo's activities.

1. Sort your 100 objects (groups of 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10) and see which numbers can make equal groups.

2. Roll a quarter 100 times and graph your results (heads vs. tails)

3. Subtraction Game (they are having a hard time with the double-digit subtraction right now. Any suggestions?). Start at 100, roll the dice (blue is tens and red is ones) and subtract that number. First one to 0 is the winner!

4. 100 good acts of citizenship. Each student got 4 leaves for our "citizenship tree" and they wrote 1 good act of citizenship they were going to do on each leaf. We then had 100 good acts of citizenship for the day.

5. They then got to create some sort of illustration with their 100 objects, which I took a picture of and will put in a class book. I put pictures up of some of my favorites.

And of course what is fun without some yummy treats. A bunch of the kids wanted to share their 100 objects with the class. They filled up with root beer barrels, fruit loops, Hersheys kisses, marshmallows, cheerios, chocolate chips, suckers, and gold fish (you notice how I said they right? I wasn't about to put those germs in my mouth haha).

Basketball

Last Wednesday we went to the BYU vs. San Diego State basketball game. It was kind of a big deal around here. Blake really wanted to go and waited outside for 2 hours before we had to wait inside for 2 more hours. Fortunately, I had a book to keep me occupied (Book Thief- great book). It was CRAZY in the Marriott Center. I have never been to a game so wild in my life. BYU ended up winning, which always makes games more fun.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday to my beautiful Mom! I wish that we could be there to celebrate with her (hopefully next year we will). I am so lucky to have been raised by someone so caring and selfless. My mom always puts her family before herself. It has killed me to be so far away from her these past several years that I have been in Utah. Thank goodness for cell phones. Our daily phone conversations are the highlight of my day. Anybody that knows her knows what a loving and happy person she is. I hope I can be a wonderful mom like her someday. Love you Mom!!!

Goodbye Jacksons!

These are our AMAZING best friends the Jacksons. Unfortunately, Kristi and Blake recently moved back to California and left us behind. Kristi and I have been friends ever since sixth grade. I remember the first time we met. We were in sixth grade choir together and sat next to eachother (we had to sit in alphabetical order. Her maiden name Dow and mine Donaldson). We hit it off right from the start. Over the years we have become the best of friends. Kristi is truly one of the sweetest most amazing people I know. We came up to college together and were roommates our Freshman and Sophomore year. We have been with eachother through it all.

What makes our friendship even more special is our love for Blake's. It was so perfect that two best friends like us were able to marry such wonderful guys that got along so great that were both named Blake. These past years with them have been a blast! We are going to miss them so much! Fortuanately, we have the hopes of reuniting with them again someday in California!

Love you guys!

P.S. Sorry the picture quality is so bad. My camera has been broken and so I have been taking pictures on my cell phone. Luckily, I got a new camera for Christmas so the posts should start coming again and the pictures better quality.

Oh Christmas Tree...

We have had so much fun decorating for Christmas this past week. It is so exciting to have our own little place to decorate. We couldn't have done it without our moms. They loaded us up with wonderful decorations when we were home for Thanksgiving. Thanks Mom and Cindy!


The little stocking is for our cat, Elby (we got him one to match ours ha). We love putting a different ornament on the advent calendar every morning!


We decorated out tree today. My parents brought up one of the manzanita trees from our wedding a few months ago and we figured we could use it as our Christmas tree.







We look forward to eating our yummy candy everyday!


Last night we went to the Mustachio Bashio. Blake and a bunch of his teammates had grown some great mustaches for the party.

Thanksgiving Festivities

So today it just hit me that Thanksgiving is in a week! I am so excited! I think what got me so excited was planning out Thanksgiving Festivities for my classroom on Tuesday. It brought back some great memories of Thanksgiving celebrations when I was in Elementary school. So what do you think....

We are going to rotate our classes through the second grade classrooms in 25-30 minute blocks. For my classroom we are focusing on the Pilgrim aspect of Thanksgiving (we are trying to make it educational, while still doing all of the fun activities).

First I am going to read a cute story about the pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving.

Then they are going to weave placemats using an assortment of fall colors (orange, yellow, red, etc.).

While they weave the mats they are going to take turns making homemade butter (this was one of my absolute favorite things to do growing up).

Then they get to enjoy some homemade cornbread with their freshly made honey butter. And of course, a side of apple cider.

I am so excited! What do you guys think? Any other suggestions for fun activities I could do that day?

One of the other teachers is focusing on Indians and they are going to make Indian head bands. The other teacher is focusing on the giving and grateful aspect of it so they are going to create a grateful tree out of their hands. I sure love Thanksgiving! Such a great time to reflect on all the things I'm grateful for!

Hooray for October!

I absolutely LOVE October! Especially since I have lived in Utah I have really come to appreciate Fall. Last week, while Blake was at priesthood session, I had the sudden urge to decorate for Halloween. We put cob webs on the banister outside, hung a glittery black"trick or treat" sign, decorated the manzanita tree with webs and fake spiders, and put some festive pumpkin, ghost, and witch decor inside. It definitely feels like Halloween is approaching around our house.

Some more October/Halloween celebrations began Friday night.



Our best friends, Kristi and Blake, came over for some pumpkin carving and caramel corn making.

The Blake's strategizing on their pumpkin carving.

They mean business when it comes to carving pumpkins. A drill, really?ha

We are going to miss them when they move away in December :(

This was my first time ever making caramel corn. I have enjoyed others making it, but never tried to make it myself. It turned out so yummy! We have been craving it ever since!

This is the new furry addition to our family-L.B. (please don't judge us crazy cat lovers). He basically adopted us a few weeks ago. He showed up on our front porch and has not wanted to leave since.

Final Products

Blake J, Kristi, Whitney, Blake T

I am so lucky to have a wonderful best friend like Kristi!

October to do list:
Make caramel apples
Make pumpkin pie
Make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (don't you love how all my to-dos so far have to do with food)
Decide on and create Halloween costume
Make "gak"
Buy dry ice and make a yummy drink dessert
Come up with fun activities for Halloween classroom party (any suggestions?)
Go up the canyon once all of the leaves turn colors