a lot of teacher thoughts, because I'm a teacher.

day #4 of being parents of five, and I'm happy to report that we're alive!

...and the kids are too! ;)

haha, we love every second of this little gig.

we have SOOSOSOSOSO much fun with our pseudo-kids.

like I wish I could just record them 24/7 and show you all how witty they are. it's unreal.

last night, taylor and I decided to treat our little ones to some ice cream.

we decided to visit the oldest, karlee, at chick-fil-a (where she was working)

we went through the drive through to have her take our order, and didn't reveal who we were.

the littlest ones were laughing so hard in the back--they just thought it was the funniest thing.

which made taylor and I laugh our little heads off.

then taylor asked, "can you tell me how many chocolate chips are in the chocolate chip cookies?"

and that's when all of us in the car lost it. 

poor little karlee had to put up with taylor's pestering.

when we pulled up to the window and she saw who we were, we all had a good laugh.

GUYS. this morning, I received the nicest parent email.

I always get a little nervous to open parent emails--some parents just aren't nice.

and this particular parent went out of their way to send me an email JUST to tell me nice things!

I had tears in my eyes while I was reading it--it was just so nice, and the perfect start to my day.

also...she referenced my blog, and I had a brief moment where my stomach dropped and I thought, "oh my goodness. do parents see my blog? what have I said on there that could get me into trouble?" HA...too late now! 

and a quick update on the speakeasy party, since I had some questions on how it went.

we had two different parties on thursday.

the first one---was a bust.

it was awful.

there were some "issues" that we had to deal with, which made it so we couldn't do a lot of what we had planned.

and so the students in that party kind of got the raw end of the deal.

when that party ended, I tried really hard not to cry--there was just a lot of "wow, this really sucked" and "worst activity ever" comments as students left.

and I wanted to tell them, "yeah, I know it sucked. because some students messed it up for all of you. but also--this took the history teachers hours to plan, so stop being meanie-heads." (I inserted meanie-heads instead of the mean words I was thinking HA)

in between the two parties, I headed down to my classroom to compose and rework some of our plans for the next party.

One of my wise professors once told me to keep a folder of "heart-warming-letters" and to read them on the bad days or the times that your lesson just really takes a dive.

and man--probably the best advice I was ever given.

I have a folder of about 50 of these, and on thursday, I pulled them out.

it was the perfect recharge I needed to get the energy for party #2.

and party #2 was a success! THANK GOODNESS

definitely can improve next year, but it was night and day comparing the two parties.

us history teachers took a deep breath that day and high-fived each other.

and now we are excited to make it even BETTER next year!

(if you are a history teacher wanting to do something similar, email me and I'll send you the details of what we did and what did/didn't work!)

aaand a classic high-school-ism:

yesterday, while talking about the KKK in U.S. history, the projector started making a funny noise.

I looked at one kid who was sitting right below the projector and said, "hey, I'm really sorry if this projector blows up on you. just don't sue me."

then another student says, "is it ironic that the KKK is up on the screen right now while this is happening?"

the student sitting below the projector so happened to be african american...

HAHAH I tried so hard not to laugh, but when I looked over and saw the "under-the-projector-kid" laughing, I lost it.

if he laughed, I guess I could to ;)

also, just finished the glass castle.
SO GOOD. read it.

and just started "the selection"--a mix between the bachelor and hunger games. HAHA