Weekend Update!

Good Evening!!

I promised myself that if I finished all my necessary homework I could get on here and blog about my weekend! Good thing I stuck to my planner and got everything for tonight knocked out! I had a great weekend with friends, family, and birthday celebrations!!

On Friday, Cam and I met D and AJ in Topeka for dinner and some much needed chat time (D turned 22 in Aug. and we never got to celebrate, so we knocked out her celebration and mine on Friday!) We went to Olive Garden for dinner and enjoyed soup, salad, pasta, wine, and fun! We decided we needed some coffee (since it was quite chilly this night) so we headed over to Starbucks. As we got out of the car, we noticed a used DVD store next to Starbucks (this was interesting because we go to this Starbucks all the time with them, yet none of us had ever noticed the store before). The boys decided it was necessary to venture in, and boy were they glad we did! They found some outrageous deals, (and by outrageous I mean 5 DVD's for $15!!!) Cam and AJ decided to buy 10 DVD's for $30 each and D bought 2 DVD's and a season of  Weeds for $15...so you do the math...the grand total was $75, BUT we got 22 DVD's and a full TV season for that price!!

All of the fabulous DVD's we got for a cut rate!!

 These were my two picks that I conned Cam into buying for me :)

 AJ being a goofer

 Awww...much better. Two of my favorites :)

 And of course Cam and I :) AND, you can't see it, but I was wearing my boots for the first time!! I of course, loved them :) :)

We had a great time catching up with them and talking about the stresses of our semester, the latest news on job offers and future employment, and our fun living situations! It was great to see them both, and we all need to make a better job of catching up more often!!

Saturday was Family Day at KSU, so the good ol' parents made the trip to K-State to visit and attend the game with me! We tailgated with Cam's family for a bit (he wasn't even there with us, but I was so glad his mom and step-dad still asked my family and I to join them!!) We unfortunately, did not get a picture with Cam's family, but my parents got to meet Cameron's grandpa and his brother, Joshua, and step brother Josh (they had already met his parents before). We had a great time chatting with them and Jill and Gary got me a Vera Bradley bag and some make-up that I just love!! Thanks again for thinking of me on my birthday! After stopping by Jill and Gary's tailgate, we made our way over to my friend Shelbi's tailgate with her family and a bunch of other Kappas!

Some Kappa's with our dad's for Dad's Weekend!!

 The parents and I. Good thing the humidity was at its finest so Kimmy and my hair is lookin' realllll goood.

 Some Kappa Seniors...holla!!!

 A view of the stadium from our seats

 KSU pride baby!! (This is probably my last KSU football game as an undergraduate...weeeird).

Sunday was my birthday and my parents were still in town so I decided to take them to Manhattan's best breakfast place called "The Chef." (I personally had never been there, but I had heard great things so I figured we should give it a shot!) They told us the wait would be 45 minutes, but it was a beautiful morning, so they gave us  some coffee and hot chocolate and we waited outside (and, the wait only ended up being 20 minutes which was AWESOME!)

Mama and I by the front door posing with our hot chocolate and coffee!! (Note: The grey sweater I am wearing was a birthday gift from my parents from Target!)

Breakfast was DELICIOUS, and would have been well worth the 45 minute wait!  It was reasonably priced and great food, so I definitely recommend it to any Manhattan dwellers! (And, I'm not even a breakfast person, so that is saying a lot!) Not only was it good, but it was also on Cam and my bucket list so now that is something we can mark off! When we got back home, these were waiting for me...

  BEAUTIFUL fall flowers from Cameron! He knows me well...flowers are my weakness :) :)

Sunday night I was fortunate enough to have some friends come to Houlihan's to celebrate with me over a scrumptious meal!!

  I have some gorgeous friends, do I not?

Cam looks overly excited to be taking this picture, which NEVER happens!!

 The boys all seemed to congregate at one end...hmm...they were probably busy having boy talk!

Overall, it was a FABULOUS weekend! I got to see so many friends and family and I was able to participate in a ton of fun activities! I hope your week has been off to a marvelous start!

Until then,

Brittany 

Teacher Bridal Shower! :)

Good Afternoon!

This past weekend we held a bridal shower for the beautiful Ms. Sarah Hambley. To check out her blog, click here! We decided to make her shower "theme" teacher centered since she is a soon to be teacher, and everyone needs good things for their classroom! We made a quick trip to Hobby Lobby to gather all the necessary supplies and then came back to my house to start getting crafty!

The kitchen table consisted of lots of hot glue, ribbon paper, scissors, and magnets!!

 We bought these adhesive stars and used them as name tags!

 This is the "Date Jar." Each person got two pieces of paper and they got to write a date idea on the paper. Sarah read them at the shower, and she can keep them at her apartment and when she and Mitch get bored, they can pull out a date idea!! So fun :)

 The cute banner we made to hang in the doorways! We gave them to Sarah afterward so she can hang them from her blackboard in her classroom someday!

 We found some cute teacher themed paper and used that for the banner! All the  pages were so bright and fun! (Please excuse the TV in the background..I'm sure it was either HGTV, Lifetime, or TLC knowing my roomates the way I do :)

 These were the favors we made! We took the little roses and hot glued them to lace and added a magnet to the back! Practical AND cute! :)

This was our table when everyone came in!

 

 Of course I found a use for chalkboard labels :)

 

 Everyone at the bridal shower in front of the house!

 

 All the lovely bridesmaids! :)

 

 The beautiful Bride-to-be and I!!!

 

 

  By the way, all of these pictures were taken with my new camera so the quality is GREAT!!!! I hope you enjoyed them and got some good ideas for the future!!

Until then,

 

Brittany

Crafty Things

So in case you haven't heard, wedding season has ARRIVED!!! I have so many friends tying the knot within the next year, and although that is a great thing that is sooooo exciting, it is hard to find good, creative gifts for everyone! I have attempted to become more crafty as of recently because who doens't like a homemade gift? Here are a few of my recent projects that were given to the dear Sarah Hambley whose wedding is in a mere 33 days!!! We hosted a teacher themed bridal shower at my house today, so here were my contributions.

It is a crayon teacher wreath! 

Unfortunately I don't have any shots of me putting it together, but it is so easy! Here are the supplies you will need:

-2 embroidery (sp? Sorry, it's late!) one big and one small

-3 48 packs of crayons

-LOTS of hot glue

-Ribbon

-Wooden letters

1. Place the small hoop inside the bigger one

2. Lay the crayons on the hoop to get the spacing right (this can be tedious, but it's worth it for everything to be centered!)

3. Once the crayons are in the right place, start hot gluing them down. (I only glued two at a time so the glue didn't dry out on me!)

4. Once the crayons are glued down, all you need is embellishment! I painted some little wooden letters for her last name and added some ribbon, but I have also seen it done with stickers as decorations! Whatever you want will look great!

I was so excited to put Mrs. Gardner on her wreath!! Soon she will be married, and soon she will have a classroom full of her own kiddos!! :)

 Since I was feeling crafty, I figured I should knock out another teacher idea that Ms. Hambley could use in her classroom!

 

All you need are some good ol' #2 pencils...

Some hot glue...actually, a LOT of hot glue..

And a whole lot of patience...

And you will wind up with this! A pencil flower vase!

Unfortunately, the back of the vase didn't exactly turn out according to plan, so I created this little sign to cover up the blemishes!

I had so much fun creating some things for the future Mrs. Gardner's classroom! I hope she can find some good use for them when she has a room full of her own kiddos someday soon :) Stay tuned tomorrow for a post chuck full of pictures from our "Teacher Themed Bridal Shower!"

Until then,

Brittany

 

Fall...Get Here Already

Is it Fall yet?!?!?! Seriously though...the weather has gotten significantly cooler as of this week, but it needs to be legit fall weather. I am ready for cardigans, boots, pumpkins, fall leaves, the whole thing. I got another early birthday gift and I am so excited for it!

So excited for these! I wanted some last year but they were all sold out, so good thing I snatched them early this year. Thanks Mom and Dad for this purchase!

 So now you see why the weather needs to shape up so I can wear these! I was inspired by the cool temps this week, and I wanted to make pumpkin bread, but it is still a little early for that, so I made chocolate chip banana bread instead. It is baking as we speak, and it smells delightful so hopefully it tastes that way too! I hope the following fall pictures will inspire you to do the fall dance and pray for cooler temps to stay here!!

Happy (almost) Fall! :)

Until then,

Brittany

Happy Birthday, Kimmy!

Today is the most beautiful, wonderful, strong, courageous, encouraging,  energetic, motherly, kind, sincere, person's birthday and her name is Kimberly Dawn Boyers!!!! She turns the big...uh...53 today? (She is gonna kill me if that number is even a little bit off! haha). This weekend since it was Labor Day I had the priviledge of going home and getting to hang out with her to celebrate an early birthday!

We all call her "Mama Kimmy" it's a little family quirk :)

 As I stated in a previous post, I purchased the best gift in the world for her! We went to the Farmer's Market in Manhattan and met a husband and wife who sell "letter pictures" to people. The letter pictures look like this...

They explained to us that they spent two years traveling the world and finding pictures of letters to take! They now reside in Topeka and sell the pictures to make full words! When I heard their story I just couldn't resist, and I thought Kimmy would LOVE to have one of her own to decorate our house with! (Besides they had a great deal that day where you could buy 8 letter for $20, so I just couldn't pass the opportunity up!) Here is the finished result:

She absolutely LOVED IT!!! She couldn't stop talking about how unique, yet personalized it was and how she can't wait to find a spot for it in the house! Scoreeeeeeee. Kimmy wanted to go to Cheddars for dinner and no one contested that (Cheddars is one of my family's favorite places, you should definitely check it out if you have never been!) We talked and bonded over our favorite drink, peach tea and had a wonderful dinner together!

The birthday girl and I :)

It was great to go home and see her and my dad and get to celebrate another year, another birthday!! Speaking of birthdays, I may have made a pre-mature purchase for my birthday today...

  More on that to come soon!!! :) :) :)

Until then,

Brittany

Classroom Inspiration

Attention all future educators!

As you all may know (or may not) I have become obsessed with blogging, but more importantly, I ADORE following fellow teachers already out in the field! There are sooooooo many good great OUTSTANDING ideas out there for classroom set-up/do it yourself things it is ridiculous! First year teachers spend so much money elsewhere, that finding cheap ways to make cute things is a must! The following are some cute ideas I have found from some fellow bloggers. I follow some awesome women, so please go check them out! :)

A simple file cabinet makeover! All you need is a few pieces of scrapbook paper and you are good to go!

 I actually found this on a home makeover site, but I thought it was so cute and definitely could be utilized in a classroom somewhere! The chandelier was a thrift store find for $.50 and it was spray painted and some beads were put on it and Vuala, a beautiful piece for the classroom!

This is a fun, cute way to store your art supplies for your "extra supplies" center. Old tin cans and scrapbook paper made this project come to life!

I ADORE the homemade banners hanging from the ceiling! They are bright and colorful and add life to a classroom!

 These seat covers were made from milk cartons! They are made from wood and fabric, and then placed on top of a milk carton for kid seats, extra storage, and an extra pop of color!! :)

Cupcake liners can be a great, inexpensive way to make a banner for your blackboard or around the edge of your walls!

 I love this super cute chair makeover! A normal desk chair was turned into a cute additon to any classroom!

 I adore this Author's Chair! A simple, old wooden kitchen chair turned glam-ified! I love the detail of the boa around the seat and the writing on the top of the chair! I think kids will learn to LOVE writing if they know they get to sit in this chair and share their stories with the class!

I hope you enjoyed some of these ideas! It is crazy the amount of possibilities there are out there! It isn't possible to see all the resources available, but getting some great ideas for my future classroom this early on is so great and you should do it too! If anyone wants links to any websites let me know and I will send them your way! It's officially the weekend for Block C kiddos since we have no Friday classes AND a long Labor Day Weekend! Enjoy it and get some much needed relaxation in!

Until then,

Brittany 

Tranquil Waters

I'm interrupting my study/school time to write you this post to tell you a new obsession.

This stinking $10 candle from Hobby Lobby smells absolutely wonderful! It is a breath of fresh air and it just illuminates my room (smell and the light the candle itself gives off!!!). It is making my studying much more enjoyable as I lay on my comfy bed with this candle burning and some oreos by my side. If I could put the smell of this delight-full-ness through the computer I would so we could enjoy the smell together! But seriously, what more could you ask for on a night like this?!

Happy Sunday! :)

Brittany