The Elf Race.

Guys. I was scared of my class today. Well, not all day. Just from after lunch until dismissal. I don't know what happened at lunch to make them so crazed. Something was in that ham on the lunch line. Had to be.
My kids were off the chain. I saw total "snow behavior" this afternoon. Except it's not going to snow. It's been like 70 degrees here. And it's not a full moon. I have nothing to blame. It was real life, authentic craziness today. I don't even know how to describe our afternoon. It wasn't a bad day. It was a day on speed. Very twilight zone. We still learned a lot and had fun. I enjoyed them. I just couldn't manage them. My room was one big pinball machine. The kids were the pinballs.

This is just one small visual I have from my day:

Yes. One of my little angels (I say that without sarcasm. She's truly gold.) cut some of her hair. When my angel children are bouncing non-stop and taking scissors to their hair, something is wrong with the world. Today, a lot was wrong in Room 109.

My assistant looked at me at one point this afternoon and said I had crossed over and joined them. I had been laughing crazily in a laugh that wasn't recognized as my own. I was all but saying nananana boo-boo to the kids. Come to think of it, I did eat the ham at lunch today....

While the kids were in P.E. today, Markie had to "go away". He left this note:

Short. To the point. Markie is an elf of few words.

The really sad thing is that it took my kids 45 whole minutes to even realize he wasn't in our room anymore. That's how out of control they were. I was doing everything to try to draw their attention to it without coming right out and screaming, "THE ELF IS GONE"!

Once the kids realized Markie was gone, they were overly dramatic about it, of course. It fit with their moods today. Some of them threw themselves on the rug to act like they were fainting and proclaimed, "We're gonna be on the naughty list forever!" and then they fake cried.

I give up.

And guys. I'm already exhausted with the whole elf thing. I already have a "magic mailbox" and a raccoon named Rascal that leaves the kids mail every morning in my classroom. After writing that sentence, that makes me sound crazy. Rascal and my magic mailbox is about as crazy as an elf on a shelf. And we all see where the elf idea has gone. National frenzy. I'm just ahead of my time.

As I was saying, Rascal and his mail combined with moving an elf adds a lot of stress to my morning routine. I haven't been all creative with the elf. I've just been moving him to different locations in the room in the mornings before the kids come in. Today I got real fancy with it and let him hold a marker in his hand because he was sitting in my marker bucket beside my document camera. The kids told me all morning not to even think about touching my markers today because I might accidentally touch Markie and then I would be on THE naughty list. The horror.

You know, the very marker that was in Markie's hands happened to be the marker he wrote his farewell note with. Am I prophetic or what? Spooky. Do you all have chills right now like I do?

Anyway, back to how I'm feeling elf stress. I wonder if there is a real diagnosis for elf stress. I bet it exists. If it doesn't, it's going to. All these poor parents around America just trying to keep up with the All-Star elf parents. It's an elf race. And it's insane. I see all these ideas on Pinterest of how people are very elaborate with their elf. Their elf causes mischief and does elf shenanigans and reindeer games. It's called an Elf on the Shelf. Emphasis on the words *on and *shelf. I thought he was just supposed to move each night and sit. Am I wrong? Marshmallow baths, drinking syrup through a straw, spelling out messages with M&M's, and covering a Christmas tree with toilet paper? I can't keep up with all that mess. Plus I don't want to clean up a mess.
I mean, I get to school at 8. The last possible minute I can arrive. Being creative with my elf would require me getting there early...

Totally random and off topic of elves:
I'm thinking I might need to start a Bachelorette: Blogger edition. I just need a date. I'm in the mood to go on a date. I'm not saying I want to date you guys. I mean, I like you all, just not like that. I just need you to find attractive men for me to date. Here's what we'll do. If you know of any cute bachelors out there, send them my way. Or they can choose to whisk me away to an exotic location. I'm okay with that too. Definitely okay with exotic location dates.

Since I'm at a new school this year, I'm still in the getting-to-know-you phase with a lot of my co-workers. Many days, my non-existent dating life is the topic of the teacher lounge. As it was today. Even the custodian at my school is on the lookout for men I can date. Today he was telling me all about a man he knows that's "loaded and drives a good lookin' BMW". Too bad the guy is 60. He was really trying to set me up with a sugar daddy.

And I have 10 followers for my TPT Store! Say heyyyyyyyy! Thanks for following, friends! I'm planning to create more things once I get this pesky nuisance of a grad class out of the way. I'll be finished on Sunday. Praise Him.
I'm an educator that hates furthering my own education. How's that for irony? That's not completely true. I love being educated on things like new menu items at fast food places, weekly sales ads, celebrity gossip, reality TV. Those are things that matter most. Discussion boards and research papers and article reviews? Please. What's that helping me do? Nothin'.

Let's hope tomorrow has a theme of calm in the air.

We Got an Elf.

I feel like everybody has an Elf on the Shelf. I couldn't be left out, so this year my classroom has an elf friend. Yes. Santa decided we needed extra monitoring and positive behavior reinforcement, so he sent an elf to spend his days in my classroom. Poor little guy.

Back in October (I think), elfontheshelf.com had a promotional thing for teachers to sign up to receive a free Elf on the Shelf pack for the classroom. I'll do anything if it has the word FREE attached. I received a box at school at the end of October containing the book and the little squirt.

I wanted the elf to make his appearance yesterday, but I was out half of the day for a team planning day. I just couldn't do that to my sweet sub. That would have been very cruel. So, today our elf made his grand appearance.

My students have been coming to school for the past week sharing the stories of their home elf shenanigans during our morning community circle time. This morning I really played up the fact that I wished I had an elf. I was overly dramatic asking the kids how I could get one and if they thought Santa would ever send one to our class. We all wished really hard and talked about how we believed in Santa magic.

The secretary at my school will willingly take part in any kindergarten craziness I decide to do with my class. I wrapped the Elf on the Shelf book in pretty red wrapping paper and included a special note taped on the cover of the book for my class. We popped the book in the freezer at school for a couple hours to get it chilly. The secretary came down to my classroom later in the morning and delivered the special package from the North Pole. The wrapping paper had frost all over it. The kids all had to touch it. They were shrieking because they said all of our wishing really worked.

I read the note to my class and it explained that we would be seeing a special visitor from the North Pole when we were least expecting it. Then I read the book. And then we moved on and did math. Yeah, I killed all the magic.

While the kids were in lunch, our P.E. teacher went to our room to put our elf on top of our projector.

After lunch, my Assistant walked our class back to the room before I could catch up to the line. I had been in the teachers lounge stuffing my face with some of the greatest sugar cookies in this world. I ate a total of 6 today. And they were huge cookies. Oh well. It's the holidays.

I was still down by the office in the middle of the school when I heard the screams. My kids were full out screaming. It took them .3 seconds to discover our elf friend. I took off running down the hall (chomping down the last of my cookie) to join in on the crazy town that was down in my classroom.
I have never seen a group of kids as excited as my kids were. Screaming. Jumping. Doing front flips. Cheering. You name an excited gesture, they were doing it.

Once we finally settled down, we talked about some name ideas for the shifty-eyed, always smiling, plastic-faced creature.
Trying to name an elf is no easy task. I had to sit down once during the process to collect myself. One of my kids really suggested "horny". Then another kid said "porny". What? This is no time for rhyming, kids. I didn't write those suggestions on the board. We had some of the most off-the-wall names. Names I wouldn't give a rock, let alone an elf I'm going to have to refer to 586 times a day for the next two weeks. I regret not taking a picture of the names on the board to share with you all. It's a loss for everyone.

We narrowed them down to our top 3. Surprisingly, they were somewhat normal. Elf name material? That's questionable. Random? You bet.

1. Chuck
2. Markie
3. Corgi

Chuck? Totally random, but I kind of loved it.

Markie? The kids said it was like me. Marcum, Markie. Makes sense in a very kindergarten way.

Corgi? That's an easy one. My kids love my dog. I have a corgi.

Since we did a pretty extensive election unit this year, we had a top secret voting process for our elf name. Markie won by one vote. Chuck was the very close runner-up.

So, please keep me and my namesake, Markie, in your thoughts for the next two weeks. Lets just hope he makes it out of my room still intact. I was really hoping he would be a positive behavior influence, but based on how our "good choices" went out the window (along with my patience) this afternoon, I don't know how much it's going to help. Sigh.

Here's Markie watching over the class. Yeah. The kids are running the show. I just sit back and let them teach. ;) 

And P.S.--Don't be jealous of my panda math illustrations on the board. 

TPT.

Well, guys. I finally took the plunge and opened a TPT Store. It's something I've wanted to do for quite awhile, so I bit the bullet and just did it. And it was a way to distract me from the huge project I should be working on for my grad class...yeah.

I'm a little bit intimidated by all of this. I've always been the TPT buyer. I've bought so, so, so, much. I've never been a creator. This is scary. I'm still very much a newbie and I feel like my items appear as such, but I'm trying and learning as I go. We'll see. I've been pleasantly surprised that it's geekily fun.

Anyway, I've uploaded two free Christmas-y items to my store tonight. Go by and check her out if you so desire. And maybe follow my store so I won't feel like a complete loser. And give honest feedback if you download something. For real. Except lie and rate it as 4.0 on TPT so I won't look lame, but then come back here and be truthful and break it down to me and tell me it's fugly if it really is. Friends tell friends their items are fugly if they are. Okay. Thanks.

Happy Cyber Monday, friends!

It's Thanksgiving.

I hope all of you had a fantastic Thanksgiving. I sure did. Good foods and good moods. That's the way I like it.

I had my last Thanksgiving family dinner tonight, so my belly is still really full and happy. I made a few dishes for the event. I figured I'm a big girl so I need to start acting like the almost 30-year-old that I am (Lord that was hard to type) and start contributing to family dinners. The crowd favorite was another recipe from Cara, her Rotel Cups. I think I've found my new favorite appetizer. They were so good and so easy. I don't do complicated recipes, guys. If it's got more than 5 ingredients, I'm usually out. Scared of that mess. Nothing in this life scares me more than a long list of ingredients.

 I made 45 of these little things and they were all gone within 10 minutes.

Stupid good. Make them.

Did any of you go Black Friday shopping? I did. I usually go out every year for some portion of the day. This year I left my house around 3:30 in the a.m. I had to get my belly full, so I hit up Chick-fil-A for a chicken biscuit and Coke. I had to start my day off right and be ready to fight the crowds. Now I don't do the whole stand in line for hours to get the Door busters deals. No. I don't need a TV that bad. That's doing too much. There have been years that I've gone out and turned around to go back home because it's too crazy. There is nothing I want bad enough and I'm just not patient for that.

This year I went to the mall and stayed there for four hours loving every minute of it. I saw it all. Ladies cheering and clapping. People getting pedicures at 5 in the morning. Long lines. Guys sitting in folding chairs for hours waiting for the 8 a.m. release of the new Michael Jordan shoes.Women tearing shoe departments apart. It was great. So great.

I find so much humor in just being out amongst the people on Black Friday. The whole idea of that day is really just comical and crazy. I love being out and watching people. You really see animalistic and survivor instincts kick in...and not over a basic need like the last bottle of water on Earth. It's over silly things like bath towels.
I also love the whole thing of stopping and thinking, "Wow. It's 5:00 in the morning and I'm eating an Auntie Anne's pretzel and buying clothes at the mall". I mean, that's crazy guys. It's also crazy that I had Chick-fil-A and then had a pretzel not long after. Oh well. It's the holidays. The season of eating all you want.
Probably my favorite thing is that I love making small talk and chatting to strangers while in line. I love getting their scoop on where they've been and what deals they've scored. It's so fun to make BFFN's (Best Friends For Now). One of my BFFN's was a woman I was in line with at Old Navy. We talked about all kinds of stuff. First about how hot the store was. She told me the mall needs to do what the casinos do and pump oxygen into the stores. She said it would really make us all a lot happier and not as sleepy. Then she told me all about how her daughter slept in her car in Kohl's parking lot on Thanksgiving night so she'd be there for the midnight opening. I love talking to strangers. So fun.

I really think I picked the best time to go out to shop. The crowds were apparently horrible earlier in the evening and then the afternoon of Black Friday was horrendous. I didn't have to wait in any crazy long lines and was able to buy myself a lot of things. Yes. I only bought for myself. No one else. I bought 3 sweaters, a cardigan, two tops, a pair of boots, a pair of earrings, and a scarf. All for around $120. Girl did good. Real good.

I also got a $10 mall gift card. Free money! Yessssssssssss.

Have you all seen the It's Thanksgiving video? It's produced by the same guy who made Rebecca Black a household name. You'll see the similarity if you watch. Enjoy. It's another hit.

"It's Thanksgiving. We, we, we, we gonna have a good time."

My favorite part is her singing into a turkey drumstick.

Thanksgiving break is almost over. This makes me the saddest of the sad. I will be trying to cherish Sunday so hard. I hope you all do the same. 

Hunting for Beer, Bruce Bogtrotter, and Toilet Tattoos. Another Winning Blog Title.

So I'm popping in for a hot minute. Two days in a row? Give this girl a prize! This never happens.

It's Thanksgiving week and I am so excited. Only one more work day and then it's time for jubilation. My favorite holiday of all holidays.

My kids made some adorable little Native American children. Templates found HERE.
 I felt they needed feathers for some extra pizazz. I just really wanted an excuse to use the word pizazz in my blog post. And now I've used it twice. Success. I could end the post here and be completely satisfied, but I'll keep writing.

We've read many books about the Thanksgiving story and we've talked about how the Native Americans helped the pilgrims. They "Synergize: together is better" as my kids would say. They're all about The Leader in Me.

This is what I got from one of my kids:

The Native Americans taught the Pilgrims how to hunt for beer.

I didn't realize they went beer hunting, but I learn something new from my kids every day. 

I guess I need to work more on b and d reversals with my students. 

I didn't make him change it. I cracked up and shared it with my assistant. She cracked up. Then we laughed and laughed and texted it around so that others could laugh with us. Then we knew these had to go in the hallway for everyone to enjoy.

I can't make a work display without making it a rainbow production. It's beautiful. Once I finished hanging all of the work up, I stood in the hallway for no less than five minutes just marveling at the majesty of the board. Behold!

I love kid artwork. Just look at the sets of lips on these kids. 

I survived the potluck today. The food I ate seemed safe and was tasty. I'm not sick from it, so it was all made in clean homes from people that didn't lick all of their fingers as they prepared it. Hopefully.

At the end of the day, I went to pick up my dessert dish in the library. 

This is what I like to see.

Seeing the plate reminded me of Matilda, which was one of my favorite childhood books and favorite movies. Please tell me you've seen it. My favorite scene is when Ms. Trunchbull makes Bruce Bogtrotter eat the chocolate cake, the "entire confection". 

I tried to upload that segment of the movie to give you all a delightful "brain break" from reading, but the only video I found that was decent had Spanish subtitles and it ended before Ms. Trunchbull smashed the cake plate over Bruce's head, which, in my opinion, is the best part. I've always found that part sickly hilarious. It's the combination of the uplifting music, the crowd cheering, and the insane glutinous eating, and, well, the glass breaking.

I was just wishing I had a head to break my plate over today. I'm kidding. Totally kidding...except I'm not.

So anyway, the Library Assistant told me that my dessert was the "hit of the potluck".
Well, well, well. Way to go, Sarah.

I made one of Mrs. Cara Carroll's recipes--Sopapilla Cheesecake. You can't go wrong with anything made with cream cheese. It's a crowd-pleaser alright.

I've made so many of her recipes from her cooking blog. They are ALL good. Cara and I could be good friends because this girl knows good food. 

Before I go, I just want to give you all a heads up on some HOT items before you hit up the Black Friday sales. If you go to Wal-Mart, which you probably won't be able to resist, you probably need to add these items to your shopping list.

First up: 

Toilet Tattoos.

Yes. I know. Too good to be true. Yes! Same here! I know! I've been waiting for these all my life too!

And, they just happen to be on clearance. For $3.96, I believe. Bargain. Go get several. Give them to all your friends. You'll quickly become their favorite.

Or at least buy one for a great Dirty Santa gift. This would be a gem among gems.

And last, but definitely not least:

Men's Clothing.

Dang Wal-Mart. I don't know if I can handle you right now. If I saw a man dressed in either of these shirts, it would just be too much to handle. I'd be howling...or perhaps...growling for that man.

So fierce. Rawr.

See you guys soon. Real soon.

Gobbling Up Some Randoms.

The other day I was thinking about how we all used to have a flair board on Facebook. Do you all remember that? Facebook has had so many different fads. So weird.
Hmm. I wonder if the flair board app provided inspiration to the creator of Pinterest. I feel like he must have been a huge fan of pinning flair on his Facebook. Bam. Pinterest was born. So now we all know that creation story.

Have you all had the new Churros at Taco Bell? The wrapper holding the cinnamon-sugar stick of pure fried, golden goodness tells no lies.

Speaking of food, I was having a conversation about McDonald's with one of my students.

Student: "McDonald's isn't healthy. Not even the apples. If you eat there 50 times, you will die. I saw the movie."
Me: "Why aren't the apples healthy?"
Student: "Because they don't even keep them in the refrigerator."

This is the kind of stuff we talk about in my classroom.

Last week our reading series story of the week was Jack and the Beanstalk. My kids are obsessed. It was all about ogres and Englishmen in my room. All week long. All I heard from the kids were things like, "Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman" or "I'll grind your bones to make my bread". If you didn't know that was our focus of the week, you might think we're an extremely violent bunch.

Last Saturday I had to fulfill my teacher auction duty. We had an auction at school several weeks ago and the kid that "won me" went with me to an indoor play place for a couple hours. There was a clown there. I don't like clowns. So this clown walks up to me and tells me to pet his dog. It was an imaginary dog on one of those stupid clown dog leash things. I really wanted to slap the clown and tell him he was inappropriate, but kids were present, so I very unhappily played along. He told me his dogs name was "Imagina-bull". I wasn't amused. That situation was definitely one of the most terrifying and lowest points in my life to date.

I had to strongly resist to make this entire post about Breaking Amish. I've held off as long as I can. We need to talk about it. Do you all watch this show? It is so good and I'm so sad it's over. Last week was the season finale and Part I of The Shunning Truth after show. Tonight Part II of Breaking Amish: The Shunning Truth comes on. I can't wait to hear about the rest of their dirty secrets.

A couple of my favorite quotes from the season:
Abe referring to guys that wear Affliction type clothing: "Those are kids that need an ass kickin'." I agree, Abe. I couldn't agree more, actually.

"The building was big enough to fit 300 elephants in there without even trying."  -Abe in reference to the casino where they had their Bachelor/Bachelorette weekend.

"The stripper had a pimple on her ass."  -Sabrina

One other observation: HDTV is not friendly. Jeremiah's teeth...yikes.

On a related note, my parents are having some renovation work done at their house. Three Amish men came with the construction crew to do some of the work. Mom texted me and wrote, "Breaking Amish on S********* Drive". Hilarious. She was dying to snap a picture of them working and send it to me, but she didn't want to freak them out.

We're having a potluck at school tomorrow. I kind of have a raging fear of potlucks. So much stress. What if my dish remains untouched? What if it makes people sick? What's safe to eat? Was this casserole made in a clean home? Did someone lick all of their fingers the entire time they were making these brownies?

See? Stressful.

I thought about making this meat and cheese stadium, but I'm a little short on time today. Maybe next time.

What's your go-to potluck dish?

And because we I can't get enough of Daisy, here's her latest pictures. She's enjoying a caramel apple sucker.

Check out that tongue!

I'll be back soon. Promise. Because I only have a two day work week, so I'll have extra time for fun blog games. Later.

Voting, Tricking out the Tree, Toilets and Such.

I bet that title made you curious. You can't pass up reading a blog with a title like that.

Happy Election Day! I had the day off school, so it's been a pretty great day. I woke up when I wanted to. Not when my alarm told me to. That always makes for a fantastic day.

I rocked the vote and rocked the 'I Voted' sticker even harder.

Daisy learned how to wink tonight while we were watching the election coverage. Luckily she did it for the camera so I could share for all the world to see. 

I probably shouldn't even go where I'm about to go. I'm not making the following comments to start debate or discussion, and honestly, I don't want debate. Any and all hateful comments will be deleted, so don't waste your time. This is MY blog and I'm just going to share for a minute. I'm not going to get all hateful and do any candidate bashing. That's not me. I'm a private person when it comes to politics. I am usually very tight-lipped in this area of my life. My policy is to not really discuss it with others. I keep it in the family. It keeps the peace among friends and it's just safer, but since it's Election Day, I'll break my own rule because I am the President of my blog! I vote, 'Do what you want to do, Sarah'. 

I am disappointed with the outcome of the election. There, I said it. I just wanted to get that out of the way. In case you missed the elephants on my shirt in the picture above, now you know. 

Now, with that being said, Obama is our re-elected President and I will keep him and his administration in my prayers during this second term as they lead our country. As a Christian, it is my duty to show respect and honor and to pray for all elected officials. Regardless of who is in office in Washington, I have faith because I know the ONE who holds this world together and who appoints our leaders. The things of this world are only temporary. For that, I am thankful.

I'm proud that I have freedom and a right to vote. 

I'm proud to be an American. And I'm proud of Kentucky. And I'm proud of the South and all that RED!  :)

 Regardless of our beliefs, moral stances, and viewpoints, it's important that we are kind to one another. I've seen some ugly comments on Facebook and Twitter from members of both parties. We can all have different viewpoints and still be friends and still be a UNITED nation. 

Like High School Musical, we're all in this together.

:End of political rant:

Now let's all join hands and sing.

 "Kumbaya, my Lord..."

And just for election fun and giggles, I wrote my brother's name in on the line for Mayor. The news reported tonight that the one and only running candidate for mayor received 100% of the vote. I know that's a lie.

And now...

On to thinking about joyous things like twinkling lights and hanging ornaments...

So. I tricked out my tree. No. Your eyes are not deceiving you. My Christmas tree is up in all of its black glory. The tree went up on November 5th. A full 50 days before Christmas. Not a day too soon, if you ask me. I decked the halls and sang my fa-la-las.

Glory.

Just a random story for you all: 

My dad got a recall notice in the mail for their TOILET!?. Yes. One of the toilets in their house is being recalled. For risk of exploding. EXPLODING! I know. I can't believe it either. All I know is I'm not sitting my butt on that toilet until the problem is resolved. I don't want to be blown sky high. I'm scared for them. Having a deadly hunk of porcelain in their house that could blow to smithereens at any moment is scary.

And, hmm. What else have I been up to? Let's see. Just taking pictures of my dog. Wearing glasses. Because it's fun.

It's been a long night. I'm taking myself to bed. 

Happy Wednesday, friends!