The 5,972 Things We've Been Doing...

Seriously, I'm not kidding. March madness in our neck of the woods. Here's an update into our latest happenings:

Dr. Fubalous

Scott is shooting this hilarious web series about a doctor/rapper. We'll let you know when it is finished and online. When he was shooting this music video portion this homeless guy came by and stopped to watch. Then he started dancing, so one of guys working on the project told him to go dance with the dancers. He actually did. Soooo random.

EMERGENCY!
Scott went to the ER three times in seven days. The first two visits- he couldn't breathe because of pain in his chest and abdomen. (I thought breathing was important so we finally decided to go after dealing with it for hours.) Third visit - has a vein explode while getting pumped full of contrast solution during a CT scan. At the elbow, his arm swelled to the size of a large grapefruit in a matter of seconds. Apparently this is something that obviously doesn't usually happen, but if it does, is only seen in people over 70. He is doing much better now.

Happy Birthday to Me!

On March 31 I turned 23! Scott decorated the house and got up early to fix me french toast with strawberries and whipped cream. At school, my kids called me into their music room during their music time. They were all sitting in a circle singing an African song and had a chair set up for me at the end of the circle. Each one took turns coming up to me, whispered a complement in my ear and dropped a nerd candy in a goblet that was set in front of the chair. It was sooooo CUTE! My two favs were 1) "You're the best teacher ever and when I grow up I want to be a teacher just like you." and 2) "You're beautiful." (From one of the boys in my class.) Their music teacher explained that this is an African birthday tradition. Very neat!! After school Scott and I went ate at Outback Steakhouse (Mmmmmm!) and came home to open presents and eat ice cream cupcakes from Coldstone. I love birthdays!

And Getting Bigger...

Here's the photo from 29 weeks. I feel great, besides a little tiredness and being uncomfortably large. Last week I had the gestational diabetes test and rhogam shot done. I thought half the world was negative and half was positive when it comes to blood type. Apparently being negative is not that common. It's only like 17% of people, or something like that. Lucky me.

Catapults!

I've been teaching about forces and motion/simple machines in science this month. As a culminating project, my students made catapults at home and on a sunny Friday we tested them out with marshmallows. I even let them shoot at me, which they were very excited about.

Conference and Easter

Scott's sisters came down from Rexburg over conference weekend so we had tons of fun handing out with them. We all had tickets to the Sunday afternoon session so that was very neat to go to. It will probably be the last time Scott and I actually go to the conference center for a very long time, since kids under 8 aren't permitted. We really enjoyed all the talks, especially the many on teaching children in the home.

Lost and Found!

In November I lost Scott's car keys. I literally searched EVERYWHERE over and over again. I assumed I had thrown them away by accident. I finally replaced them in January. I thought it might be like 10 - 20 bucks to replace. Oh no. $150. Yikes. Those are some high-tech car keys. Sheesh. Well, the other day I was cleaning up our porch and to my utter surprise found the keys laying on one of thees benches out there. I couldn't help but laugh. They're super rusty and gross looking, but I'm very curious to see if they still work...

Moving

We just found out yesterday that we have to move in the next month. We knew when we moved here that the family upstairs were trying to sell their house. They actually took it off the market when we moved in, and had been trying to sell it for a few years now. Well, a friend of a friend was interested, came by, made a great offer, and don't want basement renters. :( Sooooooo here goes the house search again. The fam is so nice, they feel so bad and are trying to help us find a place, while also finding a place for themselves. This has by far been our fav apartment so we are sad sad sad to leave. I laughed when Scott told me. It's funny how these things always seem to happen at the most inopportune times. Oh well. That's life.

Scott's Second Trip to LA

On Sunday Scott leaves for LA for the next three weeks. He will be working on the set of ABC's Brothers and Sisters. They will be filming the season finale.

Goodness. If you made it through that, congratulations.

Scott's Visit with Emily Deschanel

This past week was quite eventful for Scott....

Monday night: Drove to LA with a couple friends.

Tuesday: They all went to a new media/film conference at USC. Here they got to hang out with some top dogs in the film biz including the production designer of Twilight and New Moon.

Wednesday: Scott visited the set of Bones! He knows the Director of Photography, Gordan Londsale, who invited him out. Gordan told Scott that he gets countless emails from people wanting to shadow him on set, but there's no way to accomodate all those requests. It really says something about Scott that Gordan made arrangements to let him come. They were shooting on location, it an old abandoned prison. When he got there, Gordan had someone get Scott a chair next to his, (you know, those cool film set ones) and a wireless head piece to hear all the action. He was introduced to all the cast and crew as well. At one point, Scott was sitting in a tent with a couple of other crew members, where they had monitors to see what was being filmed. After the director called cut, Emily Deschanel (Dr. Brennan) came in and sat in her chair, which happened to be right next to Scott's. At the same time, the other crew members left, leaving Scott and Emily in there alone. Yikes! But, Emily actually turned to Scott and started talking to him and asking him questions! She was very nice and down to earth he said.

My Wednesday was not as exciting as Scott's but I did have a little surprise at the end of the day. As we were cleaning up the room, a student found a bunch of notes behind the garbage bin. One of the girls in my class told him to leave them there - they were notes to the leprechaun. (By third grade, kids are starting to outgrow the whole lephrechaun thing so I hadn't done anything special.) Well, after all the students left, I gathered up the notes (7 in all). They were so funny! Some excerpts:

"What is your name?"

"Prove that you are real so more people will believe in you."

"Leave me a pot of gold."

"Draw a picture of yourself."

"Tip over Spencer and Sam's desk because they don't believe in you."

Sooooooo I spent some time typing up reply notes, printing them on special paper, and tying them up with green ribbon. I put them in their desks and left some lemonheads as well. I even tipped over the two boys' desks as requested. It was so fun to watch them get the notes the next day! (The picture above is what I had for a drawing of the leprechaun.) How fun it must be, to be so sweet and innocent and totally believe that leprechauns are real!

Twenty-six Weeks and Twenty-six Teepees

We are on the homestretch, just 3 months to go! Latest prego pict at 26 weeks.

On Friday my students each made their own teepee since we are learning about Native Americans. They had soooo much fun! I love doing paper mache projects!

Paper Clips, Electrical Plugs and Third Graders Don't Mix.

My students learned a very important life lesson on Monday. However, let me preface this story by filling you in on some other memorable happenings that have taken place this year.

-Student A threw up ALL over himself, desk, and floor.
-Student B peed her pants and left a gigantic puddle on the chair and floor.
-Student C swallowed a magnet.

And now, this experience with Student D tops all of those, ten-fold...

We were having our usual read aloud time after lunch. The students gather on the floor in a designated corner of the room. There is a kidney bean shaped table against the wall, which students like to sit on or under. Well, Student D was lying on the table, with his head near the wall; right where a half circle of the table is cut away. (Meaning he can stick his arms down this opening.) I'm reading aloud "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane" (good book!) when all of a sudden D jumps off the table clutching his hand and screaming, "IT BURNS!!!!!!!" I look at the palm of his hand and it is all black, and the room has instantly started to stink of burnt something, and the kids are all freaking out, and I am utterly confused and ask, "How on earth did you BURN yourself?!?!" And he looks at me, says nothing, and then starts screaming again. So, I promptly send him to the office for burn cream. As soon as he leaves I ask the kids if anyone saw what happened and then a few of them say they saw a bunch of sparks all of a sudden. Well, I pull back the table and to my horror, find paperclips intricately woven into the electrical outlet. You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Of course, within 5 minutes I have the janitor, principal, and vice-principal all in my room to see the crime scene.

Apparently, D told them he didn't do anything to burn himself. It just happened... Then he finally said he "Barely touched a paper clip to the outlet." I wish I had a picture of it. The clip was unwound, stuck in both sides, and twisted around itself. I am completely baffled as to how he accomplished that without getting shocked sooner.

About half an hour later D came back to the room and thankfully, with his hand washed, it wasn't black anymore. He had bandages on his fingers though, but other than that was completely fine (thank goodness!) Later I asked him why he thought that would be a good idea and his reply was this: "I wanted to see if metal really does conduct electricity." Oh. wow.

The paper clip was melted into the outlet so the janitor had to replace the whole thing. And by the end of the day the entire school knew. Good grief. And of course I had a very serious talk my students about how you never, ever, ever, EVER put anything in the outlets and that D is lucky to be alive, and if any of them go near any of the outlets in the room I will kill them... or something like that. :)

Valentine's Day Excitement

Being a teacher, I not only got to celebrate Valentine's Day with Scott, but also with my class. I had the students write poems about the "Five Senses of Love." They turned out so cute! My favorite one (written by a boy!) went like this:

Love tastes like berry muffins that came out of the oven.
Love looks like the cleanest house.
Love smells like honey from a big beehive.
Love sounds like someone playing soft music on the piano.
Love feels like a new bed with soft covers.

For our Valentine's class party, the parents had the students use conversation hearts to create stories about how "Mr. and Mrs. Winn met." So funny. We played some other games and passed out our Valentines.
Scott and I usually are pretty lame when it comes to holidays. (We didn't get each other anything for Christmas.) But we decided to actually do something this Valentine's Day. Since we live only an hour away from Park City and have never been, we went up there and spent the night. We walked around main street getting some fab picts, eating the best ribs in town, and checking out a bunch of photography exhibits. That night at the hotel we actually got to watch the Olympics!!! (This was very exciting because we don't have cable at home and have been dying to see them.)
The next day we shopped and came home with nothing but baby clothes. Check out the stylin' outfits our lil guy will have:
This coming week is teacher appreciation week. (Yay!) So, my parents decorated my door and I thought it was such a clever idea to tie in the Olympics! All the Olympic peeps have the heads of my students on them. I'm in the middle, standing on a first place platform. Cute!

Noteworthy Updates

These past few weeks have been so much fun! I love Christmas time and it's so fun to teach during December too. I've forgotten how exciting it is for kids who still believe in Santa! In social studies we learned all about Christmas around the world and made tons of fun crafts for each country. You can see their oh so cute work on my bulletin board. (Which by the way, has red lights around the border but you can't tell because of the flash.)

Friday was our last day so the kids had a blast at our Christmas party put on by the parents. They decorated gingerbread houses, played a funny game of trying to unwrap a present with oven mittens on, and saw how many "snowballs" (marshmallows) they could scoop out of a bowl while blindfolded. They also colored little stocking ornaments and wrote a note about "Why they like Mrs. Winn" on the back. (My fav being the boy who wrote, "I like Mrs. Winn because she is beautiful.") I gave the kids a Christmas activity book, pencil, cute erasers and a copy of the multiplication songs we practice in class. I didn't realize they would get so excited about the songs. They couldn't wait to go home and listen to them! I also got a desk full of goodies from them. (Perks of being a teacher!)
As far as other things going on, Scott is super excited because he got this new flash for his camera and can use it to change his white backdrop to any color. Here's a sample pict he took of our friend Brent when he came out to visit from New York. Scott also has a lot of photography shoots coming up. Yesterday he shot an 11 year old actress' head shots. (They are really cute!) He also has a wedding today, then the day we get back from WA another wedding. What's even better is that both weddings are at the two temples within 10 minutes north or south of our apartment. (Draper and American Fork)
FINALLY, Scott and I took the time to take my first pregnancy picture. 15 weeks and nothing to show for it yet. But hey, it's a start! Now that I am in my second trimester I am feeling slightly better. I was never really TOO nauseous to begin with. I would just start feeling that way if I don't eat a meal at least every hour. The same is still true, so if I take care of that appetite I feel great. I'm still pretty tired in the afternoons but have been able to stay up past 6 or 7 lately! (Although I always seem to wake up around 4 - 5 so that probably has a lot to do with the early bedtime.) I do feel like I have more energy too; enough to keep the house clean instead of leaving it for poor Scott. I'm not bugged as much by smells as I used to be either. This is probably because my nose is constantly stuffed up or runny. (Even though I'm not sick.) Anyway, I think that's about it for random updates. Tomorrow we fly to Spokane for Christmas with Scott's fam! My family is driving over there to hang out during the first part of the week too. Such fun! How great is it to have in-laws that are close with each other?!

Merry Christmas all!

Cockroaches in the Classroom

When I was a kid I loved making my own terrariums. I remember making one in a big pan and decorating it with all sorts of rocks and leaves. Then, I frantically searched the yard for all the worms I could find. Soooo easily entertained! Well, in class we are learning about living and non-living things and today we made terrariums. I had a parent bring in some creatures but I had no idea she would show up with six hissing cockroaches. The kids had SOOOO much fun but I'm definitely grossed out. I wonder how long these things will stay alive...

Ahhh the joys of teaching.

Celebratory side note: Totally just realized that Oct. 7 was my one year bloggin anniversary. Yay for blogs.

Making a Difference

Well, Friday was my last day of school, and a bittersweet experience for sure. I bought my kids t-shirts and sharpies so we signed those for a long time. All the kids wanted me to write my phone number on their shirts. I didn't think they would actually call, so I did. We listened to music, played games, laughed and had fun. For the last 20 minutes they gave me countless hugs. Some got teary eyed, others wanted school to go all summer long, and many asked if I could teach them in fourth grade next year. While this was going on, I turned around to find everyone signing my whiteboard. By the time school got out it was full of their expressions of thanks and love. And sure enough, just hours after they all went home, I had about five students call me. Each left an indecipherable, but cute message on my machine.

I love my job.

"A hundred years from now, it will not matter what kind of car I drove, what kind of house I lived in, how much money I had in the bank...but the world may be a better place because I made a difference in the life of a child." ~Forest Witchcraft

So much time and so little to do... wait, strike that, reverse it.

In the past few months we have...

Tiptoed through the Tulips
A while ago we went to a beautiful tulip festival in Thanksgiving Point. Sooooo pretty. It was a blustery day. Like in Winnie the Pooh. That totally reminds me of the Kenny Loggins song; One of my all time favorites.

"So help me if you can
I've got to get back
To the House at Pooh Corner by one
You'd be surprised
There's so much to be done
Count all the bees in the hive
Chase all the clouds from the sky
Back to the days of Christopher Robin and Pooh..."

Here are a few picts from the festival. We happened to go at a very eventful time. There was a dance show beginning just as we arrived at the waterfall theater. That definitely made me nostalgic. Sometimes I really miss dancing. Oh, and we also happened to witness a guy propose. And was a guy playing bagpipes throughout the park.

Shared the Joy
I gave a talk in church! It was about the happiness found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Ironically, the week before the talk I was having my students write poems about what happiness is to them. I was so impressed with their poems! I compiled some of the things they wrote about into one poem and used it in my talk. Allow me to share because it's just so darn good and I believe that these things are what WILL bring us happiness...

Happiness is playing with my dog, having a birthday, sleeping on the top bunk.
Happiness is glazed donuts, a warm cookie and chocolate.
Happiness is reducing, reusing and recylcing. (You can tell someone was listening during our Earth Day discussions.)
Happiness is a song, getting a hug, doing something right.
Happiness is laughing and having fun.
Happiness is using my brain, my imagination, and being myself.
Happiness is achieving a goal, thinking about the future, and believing in my dreams.
Happiness is having a body, being active, and being healthy.
Happiness is going year sailing with my mom and fishing with my dad.
Happiness is parents staying calm.
Happiness is helping and sharing and serving.
Happiness is the church, having a bishop, and feeling the Holy Ghost.
Happiness is family, the temple, and living forever.

Celebrated the Scholarship
Scott has officially qualified for a full-tuition scholarship from BYU with a GPA of 3.90. He managed to do this while working 20 hours a week and doing his own film side projects, photography and still spending time with me. Amazing! To celebrate the accomplishment, we went out to eat at The Mayan. True, the food was not anything to shout about, but holy cow the restaurant was sweet. For those who have not heard of it, it's like a disneyland ride. Totally decked out as a rain forest with an indoor waterfall and cliff diver shows every half hour. It was way cool!
Shot a Short
Scott was the Director of Photography on a 48 hour film festival project. The crew turned out to have too many cooks in the kitchen, if you know what I mean. But, everyone was impressed with Scott's filming and this has opened up a lot of new opportunities and good contacts. He has also updated his reel with some of the shots from the short, such as the "smoky tango." Check it out on his website!

Chose a Theme
Next year at school every teacher needs to have a theme for their room. The theme should be woven into everything, like classroom rules. I finally decided on my theme and I'm so stoked! The theme is... (drum roll please)... Disney! I'm still formulating all the elements but I can't wait to get started decorating. One of my rules is going to be, "Reach for the stars," (said by Woody in Toy Story). Above the door outside my room will be some cutsie sign that says, "Dreams come true here." Also on the door I want to have that saying as you enter Disneyland, "Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy."

Answered the Call
Scott and I were asked to serve in the junior primary at church. We don't teach, we are just permanent floaters to help where needed. So, after Sacrament, we spend two hours with little kids. So fun! We usually sit with the 3 - 5 year old kids and remind them to listen and be reverent. They are just so cute and say the funniest things.

Settled for the Lesser Choice
We have been eyeballing Death Cab for Cutie concert tickets for a while now. Easily one of our favorite bands, we were hoping they would come to Salt Lake. But, nope, no concert here. Until, randomly we checked tickets again and they added a show in Utah! This would have been a really happy moment except it's already sold out. Grrrr. So, we went with another band. On the 4th of July here they have this big concert at the BYU stadium along with fireworks. Everyone we have talked to RAVES about it. We decided what the heck and bought tickets since Death Cab is out of the picture. The headlining band: Jonas Brothers.

Photographed Memories
This month Scott and I did two weddings; one at the Salt Lake Temple and one at the Provo Temple. The latter was actually for our insurance agent who was marrying a girl that graduated from BYU-I in ECSE. Small Mormon World. Scott has been sqeezing in time to edit the pictures so I wanted to share some of my favorites so far.
Reminisced of Home
Scott recently edited this picture of Olympia. We are so excited because in just a week we will begin our looooong rode trip to visit! Scott's sis Heather is graduating so we will hit that up and we also plan to spend a few days in Seattle and BC. Since that didn't get to happen over Christmas break because of the yucky weather. However, we just realized the passport rule takes effect June 1st. Do I have a passport yet? Nope. That presents a predicament...

Earth Day and Love Notes From Younger Guys - Life Couldn't Get Better

Happy Earth day! I love the Earth! This morning as I was driving to school at 6:20, I got to see the most beautiful sunrise. Well, to be honest, it didn't compare to those in Rexburg, but was definitely worth getting excited about. Today I also got to see Earth, the new Disney movie, while on a field trip with my third graders. The movie was good but all the footage was from planet earth the TV show, so I'd already seen it. I can't stand watching the scenes where poor baby animals are being hunted. Tooooo sad. Anyway....... it was 80 degrees today! Absolutely beautiful.

On an even brighter note, I received my first love letter from one of my students. Oh my holy heck it is the funniest thing. I'll keep his spelling and grammar so you can try to decifer it yourself. It reads:

Dear Miss Winn,
Roses are red vilets are blue But niether ov them are as prety as you. the first time i saw you i thought i was blind. i never thought that somebody could be that prity. i have bin dreaming about you this hole yaer i have been thincing about you this hole year Nothing can be priter then you. nothing that i can thinc about. Please do not talck about this in class or at recsecc or at the end ov school i ment all this love, Jack

PICTURES!!!

Yay! I love pictures... Welcome to my classroom: the 360 degree tour. I'll have you know the walls and shelves were completely bare when I was hired. Needless to say, it's taken a lot of sweat and stress to get it to look this fabulous. :)

We went grocery shopping the other day. Super exciting, I know. However, as I was unpacking the food I saw quite a difference in the food Scott choose for his lunches and the food I choose for mine. Had to capture it. Can you guess whose is whose?

So speaking of stress, Scott's been so overwhelmed lately with midterms, work, and getting his film program application in, that he is starting to age prematurely... and quite rapidly.