Hey friends! First, I want to start by saying thank you to all of you for the amazing ideas you post every day! And I want to apologize for not being around as of late. With simply being a substitute, the ideas aren't exactly flowing out! I promise to get back in the swing of things soon.
With that being said, I want to bring a very special program to your attention. As an independent consultant for Thirty-One Gifts, I have the honor of using my business to give back. Especially at this time of the year. We are all privileged to be spending our holidays with our loved ones, where as there are many soldiers who are defending our freedom many miles away. And those men & women will not get to see their family on this special Christmas day.
As a way to say thank you to those who are serving, I am hosting an event called Operation Zipper Pouch. You, either individually, with your family, or with your classroom may purchase a zipper pouch for $12 and then personalize it with the words THANK YOU for an additional $7. The overall total comes out to $22.16 with tax & shipping to me. I am using any commission I make on the sales to purchase different items to stuff the pouches with. Then over the holiday break, a group of young girls and I will be stuffing the pouches and sending them overseas. You are encouraged to include a note to the soldier, if you choose not to, I will add one.
This is a great way to "adopt" a soldier for Christmas and teach your students about the true meaning of the season. Giving.
The website sometimes gets tricky, so please email me if you have any questions.
Hurry friends! Today is your last chance to enter to win one of these ---
and one or the other of these----
These two ladies are some of the most creative crafters around right now. So you seriously won't want to miss out!
And to sweeten the deal for you, if you enter come back here and leave me a comment for an extra entry. (I'll just combine these comments with those left over at Behind the Scenes)
Week 2 of my Grand Opening Giveaways is going on right now!
You could win a rosette clip from Miss Paige over at...
And a zipper pouch OR some cutie earrings from Miss Heather over at...
There are lots of ways to enter, so click on over and find out how you can win!
And because I love my bloggy friends & I haven't given a freebie in a few days, here is something I call Sailboat Spelling. The sample shows you what you should do. I print mine on colored card stock, laminate, then use with dry erase markers in one of my literacy centers.
I know you have all heard about Natalie from Johnny In A Dress. And I would love to introduce you to Trisha from Trisha B Designs & 3 Four And Under.
So click over and enter to win some of their amazing things.
A Bloomin Broach or Barrette from Natalie.
A Chrysanthemum necklace from Trisha.
You know you want to! I'm wishing I could enter this! So let me live vicariously through all of you while you enter & then wait on pins and needles to see if you win!!
Imagine my surprise when I got a super sweet email from Melissa over at Plug-n-Plantelling me, yes ME, that she was giving me the Top Ten Blog Award (from TBA)!!!
She also provided some encouraging words that touched my heart!
Thanks Melissa, you're too kind :)
And now I get to pick my top ten blogs.
Some are new gals I have found recently & others are ones I've been reading for awhile.
But all are A-MAZING and inspiring!
Here are my favorites:
This gal has created a homeschool program for her super cute kiddos called Raising Rock Stars! Although it is primarily for homeschooling, a lot of the activities can be done in the classroom! If you are a Christian parent or teacher, you should head there pronto and check her out!
Such a sweet blog. Especially since she throws in some baking recipes! She just posted pics of her to-die for classroom, so if you are still looking for some classroom inspiration for your room go there now!
Are you looking for a ton of bright colored decorating ideas? This is your chicky! She also just posted about her new behavior plan for this year & I'm excited to see how it works!
Talk about a perfect name! This lady shares lessons & ideas like it is a factory! I'm not complaining though, I've gotten a TON of from this friend.
Sydney has to be the sweetest gal around. She has been so open about her struggle with landing a teaching job. Obviously I can relate. I'm not sure why she isn't running a school by now with all of her fabulous ideas!
Oh. My. Goodness. This gal will have you laughing while your learning. Such a great resource for upper grades!
Are you ready to get lost in reading? If so, this is the place you will. Hours & hours of ideas to "borrow" from Miss Gladys.
One of the first friends I made in blog land because she hosted an Accessory Swap & she was my awesome partner. Of course she showered me with goods, on top of sharing loads of fun on her blog!
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Brooke is awesome. She just moved to 3rd grade & thus has 2 blogs. I'm counting her as one! She wrote about these things called "Brain Feelers" that I'm dying to try out in my future classroom!
This blog friend has been a bit MIA lately, but I'm blaming that on the fact that she was getting married in July! She did this post on fractions that seriously had me wishing I could hire her to come teach fractions to my firsties. Go give her some blog love & hopefully she will come back soon.
There ya have it friends!
I tried to seek blogs that had not been awarded yet!
Of course there are hundreds of teaching blogs that I attempt to read daily!
Now it's your turn bloggy friends.
Click above & go claim your award!
You all deserve it.
You will have to read the directions and pass the award on to your top 10!
Thanks for being so inspiring and creative and encouraging and kind and awesome and motivating.
Whatevs, I know you all love freebies, no matter what day I dish them out for you :)
You all know Olivia right?
(maybe my favorite book in the collection)
My class always went ga-ga outrageous for Olivia.
It just so happened that we were learning about the long O during the week of Olivia in our Basal.
So I had to make a fun game using Miss O.
During our literacy centers, there was always a building words center, focusing on the letter or sound of the week.
The whole letters on index cards gets kind of extremely boring if you ask me.
Oh, you didn't ask?
Eh..I'm telling you it DOES!
In an effort to jazz things up in the Edwards Education plan, I put those letters on cute little Olivia bodies.
Printed them.
Cut them out.
Laminated them.
Cut them out again.
Put them at the building words center.
And the kiddos went ba-nanas!
No, seriously it was like I had just given them Justin Beiber, in the flesh!
They went that crazy.
Who knew a letter on Olivia's body would do that to them?
I have just made your week of teaching long O with Olivia much more exciting.
You're welcome friends.
And now if you would kindly click over to my new personal blog & share some blog lovin.
Oh and the fact that I have about a million awesome giveaways coming up over there too should really get ya interested!
I have decided to start a personal blog. I felt like maybe, just maybe I was being misleading here at First Grade Frenzy. Because I wasn't posting strictly about school related things.
Sorry!
Now you can go follow my new blog.
There are some crazy exciting things happening there, such as a GIANT giveaway.
(perhaps bribes to get you to follow it :))
I am so nervous that I won't have anybody that reads my new blog, so if you read this one and feel like we are already bloggy friends, please visit my new blog and follow.
It will make my heart smile.
Don't mind that it isn't exactly chock full of posts yet, all of this came about in the past 2 days & I'm still entertaining family from out of town so busy busy.
So today I planned on posting about this amazing new challenge in my life. A good challenge. A happy one.
But instead I'm not.
Life, seriously.
It just keeps knocking me down.
I'm feeling angry and upset and hurt and frustrated.
My faith is being tested. My mouth is being tested. My friendship is being tested.
Although, I'm not entirely sure there is much of a friendship left.
I'm supposed to be in my best friends wedding in October. By best friend I mean the girl I lived with for 2 years and the girl who used to finish my sentences. Now I'm questioning what I did or didn't do. Because this friendship is teetering on the verge of ending and I'm completely heartbroken.
My first mistake came when I even agreed to be in her wedding. I should have said no.
She is not marrying a Christian man.
"Stop forming inappropriate relationships with unbelievers. Can right and wrong be partners? Can light have anything in common with darkness?"- 2 Corinthians 6:14
It's black & white in the Bible. DO not marry non-believers. My "friend" feels as though she is going to be the one that leads her "mate" to Christ. I thought that was possible until she got engaged. That changed it. Now she is about to enter into a partnership that does not honor God. I have told her how I felt, long before she got engaged. I expressed my concern immediately following her engagement, but yet I said yes.
I said yes because I'm selfish. I'm weak.
I felt like I was such good friends with her that I absolutely had to be part of her wedding.
And now I am being treated so poorly. I am being accused of stealing her day and being difficult and complaining.
Let me rephrase that, I am being accused of stealing her day because I have been asking questions and wanting to learn details of her special day, while offering help.
I have been accused of being difficult because I refuse to dance in a seductive way with a stranger during her choreographed wedding party dance.
I am being accused of complaining because I only have one working car and can't rearrange my only income to attend dance practice. And because I won't be able to make it to the beginning of her bachelorette party.
All the while being told that I am the only one causing this type of problem. Which makes me the only one getting her wrath. Yet in talking to other bridesmaids I find that they all feel similar.
What do I do?
I tried calling her in the mist of text messaging and she ignored my phone call.
I called her a month ago and she never called me back.
When I tell her that I don't want to fight or argue through texts, she says she has nothing more to say.
So does that mean I just stop?
Of course I called my mom. She told me that my heart has never been fully in this and that maybe this is God's way of giving me the chance to express one more time how I feel about the union and then bow out of being in the wedding
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I just can't give anymore.
I'm exhausted from trying.
I'm tired of the tears. Tears over losing such a special friendship.
Pain over ending something that has meant so much to me for so much of my adult life.
I can't help but think of Francesca Battistelli's new song, Motion of Mercy.
"Living for the lost
Loving 'til it hurts
No matter what the cost
Like You loved me first
That's the motion of mercy
God give me strength to give something for nothing,
I wanna be a glimpse of the Kingdom that's coming soon."
Should I be loving til its hurts? Loving my friend til it hurts?
Because it hurts. Right now. It hurts.
The cost is our friendship, something that I'm seeing means more to me than her.
I have been praying for a change. A change in both of our hearts.
My husband sees my pain. He is my partner, my priority. I value his opinion. I respect his advice.
He knows my friend, he knows she has changed. He tells me I should walk away.
How do I do that?
I'm asking you, my friends, to pray for me. I'm struggling so much.
I plan on calling her until she answers, but then what?
Do I tell her how I feel & end this?
Or do I bite back everything I believe & feel & try saving our friendship?
Sorry for this. Sorry for rambling. Sorry for asking this of you.
I just feel so sick. Of all of this.
I can't continue to feel so horrible when I think about this situation.
My sister in law & her family are in town, so we are on the go. All. The. Time.
For example. I was here yesterday. With not a care in the world.
I have lots of fun things to share with you, but for today I'm trying to get a week load of laundry done in a 2 hour time span so I can get back to my in-laws to deliver a su-pwise to my nephew.
So, please sit back and enjoy the many faces of my little sis Gianna as she steals my iPhone and takes self portraits.
And because he is just so darn silly, here's the Mr. playing with the fat face camera.
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