March Break, Baby Showers and Cupcakes.. Oh My!

My apologies for the blog hiatus. Life got a little crazy around here. What with our new roomies and the district review at school, life just sort of got away from me. Oh mon dieu! I have been running around like a chicken with it's head cut off.

It's finally March Break though and I have some time to (breathe) get some blogging done. Hubs and I decided this year that we would not be going away for the break because (to add to the long list of craziness that has happened in the last month) we have BOUGHT A COTTAGE!

That's right mes amis de les blogs- we bought a little slice of heaven on a small island on the St. Lawrence about 40 minutes from our home. It needs a lot of work but the location is amazing and we plan on doing some serious renovations. (Pictures and details to follow)

So instead of a little March Break getaway, I am tackling all of those nagging projects that I haven't gotten around to and have been on my list for ages.

I'll keep you posted on how my projects are going:

Project Number One:

A trial run of the cupcakes I am making for a friend's co-ed baby shower.

My lovely friends are having a baby and decided to have a co-ed baby shower (a fantastic idea!). I offered to make the cupcakes and decided to get a little creative with them. The theme of their nursery is animals and dad-to-be is a huge baseball fan so why not cupcakes for both mom and pop?

I started with this little guy. A baby in  a tiger suit :)

Then I made him some friends :)

Now it's a whole zoo!! I also made a little guy with a baseball hat for the dad to be and a cupcake (not shown) that looks like a baseball.

What do you think guys? Will the mom and dad-to-be like them?

My Teaching Blog!

I was very ambitious (and surprisingly quite productive) this past week and I managed to change my blog design, write a few posts, post some teaching units on Teachers Pay Teachers AND launched my teaching blog: MADAME'S LITTLE MONKEYS!!

I often refer to my students as my little monkeys (because truly they are so adorable and silly) and I thought that my blog name should be billingual (because my life is billingual.. I hardly ever make it through a sentence without mixing in some French or Spanish words). So I came up with Madame's Little Monkeys and it stuck. I'm hoping to use that blog to blog about teaching stuff and keep this one for the rest of my ramblings.

I've noticed that there is a serious lack of blogs for French Immersion teachers and thought that I would try to start to fill that void and start posting materials and resources for French teachers. I would love it if you would check it out!

A Post-Valentine's Day Love Post

I have always had mixed feelings about Valentine's Day. When single, V-Day sucks. When hitched, V-Day can be great. I feel that Valentine's Day has become way too commercialized and over the top but I don't want to be a jaded person who can't celebrate this romantic day. I decided to start to view Valentine's Day as a day that is not just about romantic love but about love in general. I tried to tell as many people as possible that I loved them (my mom, dad, husband, siblings, roommates, students and girlfriends) and we celebrated love at school.

Here are a few things that I loved about LOVE day:

I LOVE that one of my students hand wrote and decorated every single one of his valentines and included personalized messages for his friends (for his little girlfriend, he wrote "You are really pretty and very kind") and for me "Tu es tres gentille et jolie. J'aime toi" (which roughly translates to "You are really nice and pretty. I love you")

I LOVE that my husband left me a little surprise gift beside the bed in the morning to start my day off with a huge smile in my heart.

I LOVE that nearly everyone at school wore pink or red- SO pretty to see!

I LOVE that a little boy in my class brought me a single rose the day AFTER Valentine's Day (likely taken from his mom's V-Day gift haha) and shoved it at me and said "This is for you Madame!" and ran away.



 I LOVE the mushy romantic country songs being played on my fave country station all day.

I LOVE that hubs and I didn't do something crazy and just stayed in with take out and candles and celebrated in a low-key way.

I LOVE that I sold my first teaching unit on Teachers Pay Teachers today!! (If you're a teacher, check out my Valentine's Day and Penguin themed units on TPT! I'm brand new to it but I think I've made some pretty ok units). This seriously made me jump up and down for joy.

I LOVE that my kinders created Project Love kits (a education project where students in Canada raise money and send school supplies to students in developing countries) and were given only the basic supplies to put in their kits but tried to add their own crayons and supplies from our classroom because "the kids don't have much and we have lots". SO stinkin adorable!

I hope you all had LOVE-filled V-Days! xoxo

Tsk tsk Madame!

This is what my students sometimes say to me if they catch me drinking Pepsi or forgetting to sharpen pencils (which is my duty and when not done- I hear about it, believe me!). It is also what I say to myself for not blogging in so long. I promised myself that I would blog at least twice a week so that I get the hang of it and get into a routine.

But man life has been busy. First off, it`s report card time and school is getting crazy. Also, I have decided to sell some of my teaching units on Teachers Pay Teachers and possibly start another blog (ok I can just hear you thinking.. but she doesn't even know how to do one blog, let alone two...).

AND.... we have three new roomies who have just moved in and we are all very excited.

I should explain that my husband and I are new homeowners and decided to take in tenants shortly after we bought our house last year. My cousin Katrina (who just started a brand new blog Kayo Fitness because I peer pressured her into making one) has lived with us for just over a year and has the lower level of our home to herself.

Our new roomies are my friend Iulia and her two fur children Tucker and Teemu.

That's Tucker (although he is WAY bigger now).

And this is Teeeeeeemu. (Don't you just want to smush his little face?)

And this beauty is the lovely Iulia.

Iulia is now living in our basement with her babies and we are still working on organizing her stuff and figuring a schedule for our dogs. (If anyone is keeping track, that's a total of 4 adults, 3dogs and 1 cat in one house. I'm thinking we should get some birds and just start a zoo)

So do you forgive me for the lack of posts? I promise to get better at blogging (and more interesting..I hope) when we're all settled in.

Help Bloggies!

Blog friends- a quick plea. How on earth did I become a member on my own site? And how do I remove myself as a follower? I love having my followers count go up, don't get me wrong, but I feel a touch foolish following my own blog. LOL Help!

Math Problem Solving Journals

So I thought I'd blog today about one of my faves- Math Problem Solving Journals!!! Our school's "School Improvement Goals" for the past few years have been numeracy centered and we have been focusing on problem solving throughout the grades. Last year, when we started talking about what we would do in Kindergarten to help develop and work on the foundations of problem solving skills, I came across some great ideas on Kindergarten Kindergarten.

My teaching partner and I decided that we would start weekly math problem solving journals. We make up a word problem (based on the different math skills we are currently working on) and the students paste it into their journal. We do a shared math lesson and activities before having the students work independently to solve their math problems. Before we started the journals, we talked about important terms and the reference page at the beginning of their journals and the steps involved in problem solving (and hung anchor charts in our classrooms).

  

* The reference page at the beginning of our journals. (Sorry for the sideways picture.. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to turn this thingy around)*

The challenge is making sure that the language we use in the word problems is very basic French and easily understood by our students, otherwise we're just stuck on understanding what the problem is in the first place and we don't get to the solving part. Here are a few of the problems we've done lately.

*We start with something very simple like this- "Write your name. How many letters are there in your name?"

*Then we work our way up to tougher problems like this one. It roughly translates to: " Pogo the penguin has more fish than Piwi and Zulu has less fish than Piwi. Piwi has 6 fish. How many fish do Pogo and Zulu have? " (Check for later posts with downloads of our math problems in English and French)

Freakin' Out (In a good way)

Ok so I'm freaking out... but in a really good way. I've been nominated for a blog award!!!

Um really?!? I actually couldn't even believe it when I saw the comment on my post from the super sweet and now my all-time fave Brittany over at Confessions of a Single Mommy.

 

Brittany and I are new blog friends but I am seriously crushin on this girl. So cute, so nice and a hot mama! Her blog is great and you should check it out!

 

So here are the deets about the Liebster Blog Award:

This award is for bloggers who have less than 200 followers and are newer to the world of blogging and have a FANTABULOUS blog that needs a little noticing!!

Here is how to participate in this nomination/award giving fun!

1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog

2. Link back to the blogger who awarded/nominated you

3. Copy and paste the blog award to your blog

4. Reveal your top 5 blog picks!!

5. Drop by your top 5 picks and let them know you chose them by commenting on their blog!


My picks in no specific order are….

-Brittany at Confessions of a Single Mommy

-Britt at The Magnolia Pair

Chelsea at As Chelsea Sees It
- Jenn at Going the Distance

-p!nky at p!nkpers!stence

Check out these blogs people!! They're great reads!

I Heart Ice Fishing!! (Spoken like a true Canuck)

So it's Sunday night and instead of lesson planning and prepping for the week (what my teaching partner calls the Sunday night jitters or the excitement and nervousness that we thought would go away over time but even years into our teaching careers still exists before the school week begins) I am helping Mr. Hubby prep for his ice fishing trip. He comes from a small town, about 45 minutes outside of Ottawa and his family lives on the St. Lawrence river. One of the things I love the most about my new family is how outdoorsy they are. They've introduced me to many interested outdoor sports (such as hunting, fishing, snow mobiling, ATVing and ice fishing) and being an outdoorsy girl myself, I fell in love with them and their hobbies.

*A pic of our little family inside the ice hut warming up. This was a cold day and puppy needed to warm up too. She had been running around on the ice for hours and trying to eat the fish we'd caught.*

For those of you who are not familiar with ice fishing, it is really very interesting. When the ice is thick enough, we go out on the ice with an ice hut, propane heaters, folding chairs, an ice auger (like a big drill for making the holes in the ice), fishing gear, bait, tip-ups (little contraptions that attach to the fishing lines and tell you if a fish has grabbed the bait) and maybe a few thermoses with a little liquid heat. For Christmas this year, we gave my father-in-law a nice new ice hut so he, D and his best friend Cory will go try it out tomorrow.

*My man and his BF (one of our favourite peeps) ready to head out for a day on the ice.*

Sadly I won't be joining the boys tomorrow (damn job) I thought I'd send them along with a little cooler of snacks and lunch so that they are well nourished while out on the ice for the day. I am not a wonderful cook and quite far from the domestic goddess/mini Martha Stewart that I'd like to be but I tried.

*Some Chicken Parm snack wraps, hot chocolate packs, beers, tortilla chips, cookies, granola bars and clementines. (The clementines are really just there for show y'all. There is little to no chance that my boys will actually eat the healthy bits of their snack)*


So tomorrow morning my boys will head out at 5am with their cooler and gear and these poor little guys and hope for big, hungry fishies to come along. Cross your fingers for them ;)

*Live minnows. Ew.* 



10 Things That Make a Snow/Rain/Slush Day Better

After my admittedly whiny, negative blog post about the miserable weather, I thought I should create a post that reflects the way I live life. I always try to fix a bad mood or in this case a bad day (and bad week, if I'm honest) with things that make me happy and make my heart lighter.

So here it is, a silly post about what makes a miserably cold, dreary, slushy day allll better.

1. Wine. Enough said.

2. Handsome, Hunky Husbands Who Heart You (sorry, couldn't help myself. I love my hubby and I love alliteration.. I'm a nerdy teacher- sue me)

3. Coke Zero

4. A hot mug of peppermint tea

5.  Warm, snuggly blankets from Chapters.

6. This animal. Her slobbery kisses make my cold heart melt.

7. Non-teacher friends who listen patiently to your *educabitchin* (i.e whining about school stuff and dumb snow-day policies) and whole heartedly agree with you even though they have no idea what nonsense you're talking about. (Love you girls!!)

(A couple oldies for ya ladies)

8. The student whose parents didn't realize the busses were cancelled and stayed at the school for an extra couple hours. Her brave smile and the "tricks" and scary monster pop ups we played on many staff members today made me love kids and their innocence even more.

9. The fireplace channel on TV. (And pretending to warm your hands by it.. I swear they kinda feel warmer after)

10. These awesome blogs I've just come across:

Darlin' in First 



Project 3 Designs  



Teaching in High Heels    





Ms. Preppy     


And I am going to cheat (yes teachers are allowed to do that sometimes) and toss in number 11:

11. All of you!! Thanks for reading my nonsense blog. Je t'aime!

Ice/Rain/Snow/Slush Day

Ok peeps, not sure how much you know about my lovely city of Ottawa, Ontario Canada and I truly hope this blog doesn't make you strike it off your list of places to visit but ohmiword was it ever miserable today!! My little city is one of my favourite places  in the world (I've lived here over 26 years) and is full of fantastic-ness. We have rivers, lakes, forests, moutains (well big hills to hike), a canal that runs straight through the city and a perfect mix of big city and small town. We have bike and run paths that make my heart smile and wonderful, down to earth people... but gosh... it was (to quote my fave Babbling Abby) twenty five kinds of ugly here today.

You may not know much about Ottawa weather so allow me to educate you. During summers, we have beautiful, but overwhelming heat and humidity and 30 to 40 degree weather with humidex ratings. Spring and fall are delightful and varied, but winters are RIDIC. We have -30Celsius weather (colder if there is a windchill) and we frequently have 2 foot snow drops or freezing rain so bad that the ice that accumulates on branches makes entire trees fall over.

This blessed morning I woke up with a slow, sleepy smile as I realized it was vendredi (Friday for all of you working on your French. We say "Dieu merci c'est vendredi" a.k.a Thank God it's Friday). And then *POP!* (That is the sound of my bubble bursting) I checked my phone and saw a text message from my teaching partner saying that the busses are cancelled due to severe freezing rain warning and snow fall advisory. Yes, that's both snow AND freezing rain in the same day.

Now you may be thinking, oh what wonderful news! A snow day- school will be closed!  Non. Not the case. In Ottawa, we could have 15 feet of snow and the schools would still be open. Teachers would be handed a shovel and asked to dig their way in to their classrooms. For real. The last time the schools closed was for the Great Ice Storm of 1998 and the whole city was out of power and there were trees falling on cars and houses.

Now, I don't say this to complain because no one likes a complainer, but the system is a bit wacky. The school busses are cancelled because the road conditions are so awful, but teachers are still expected to drive in and parents are still expected to drive their kids to school and then to work.

This is incredibly difficult for parents who have to take time off work, and it is heartbreaking for teachers and administrators who have to figure out what to do with the sweet darlings that get caught in the scheduling mishaps and chaos that the school becomes on these days.

Well folks, cross your fingers for better weather for us.

Bachelor Run Date...Ruined

So this post may end up making me seem crazy (correction- *crazier*) but I need to vent, and as my wonderful hubby has just said "Are you going to blog about this? 'Cuz you should. Isn't that what a blog is for?" (Yep- just one of the gazillions of reasons I heart him).

So hubs and I are training for a half marathon (his first) and have decided that to make a training schedule work with our busy and different schedules, we would try to start on training on the treadmills at the gym. We both have a secret (well not anymore, eh?) obsession with the show The Bachelor and thought it would be fun to watch it while doing our Monday runs.

This worked out great for our first few weeks of training but today we showed up at the gym, promised our first born (ok ok we paid the drop in fee), searched through 20 machines (seriously... I counted) and finally found two semi close together that had sound and started our jog just before our beloved joy began.

Then .... dum dum dum.... the TVs weren't set to the right channel!! Never fear! I scurried off to *ever-so-sweetly* ask the staff to change the channel for us. And they refused!! Like just flat out said NO. I'm not sure who was more disappointed, me or Mr. Hubby :( Poor soul just wanted to see who got the rose!!

Anyway, whilst on the topic... I thought I'd put in my two cents about this season of the Bachelor.

1. Not really sure how I feel about this season's bachelor. Is he cute? Do I like his longish, curly-ish hair? Very much on the fence about this one (so is my husband).

2.  One of the girls on the show may actually appear in my nightmare tonight. She is truly frightening.

3. I have yet to decide who I think he will marry (or have a brief, phony engagement with and then very heinous and public break up with) but I think that these two are my top picks:



or



4. I fall a little more in love with my husband every time we have an in-depth conversation about the shenanigans of the bachelorettes and the ridiculous wonderful-ness of this show. The fact that he "pretends" to like the show for me (had to put that in here unless he reads this... The boy would murder me if I told him I'm blogging about this stuff) is pretty awesome.

Anyone else watching this season?

The Power of 'One'

So I guess I am officially a blogger- today I got my first follower. After hours and hours of cursing at my computer (yes, people- it is totally my computer's fault. It should know how to do these things!!) and messing around with fonts and headers, etc. I have finally set up my blog the way I want it (at least for now... Knowing me- I will continue to obsess over it).

Anyway, I'd like to thank my one lovely 'follower' for absolutely making my day. Heather over at Heather's Heart (a fantastic blog for firsties- you should check it out!) made me actually jump for joy by joining my blog today and by posting sweet comments about my ramblings. I was over at my parents' place for dinner at the time and my family just looked at me like I was crazy. I showed them my blog and Heather's comments and her logo under the "My followers" section of my blog and then showed them her blog. They were all "you only have 1 follower?" and I would normally have pouted but I was just so HAPPY!! My husband gave me a big hug because he knows how much of a blog nut I am and how pleased I was that someone other than him checked out my site.

This is the Power of One- One little action, one follower, one short comment and sweet action made my entire day. I know it seems silly but it gave me that little gold star that I was secretly hoping for after all my hard work. Thanks Heather!

Photo Intro

Well, first post done. I thought I'd try out some other types of blog posts to see if I'm able to keep the hot streak going. Also, some pictures migh help you to get to know me more before I start tell y'all all about my little world.

My husband and I have been married for almost 6 months and we had a beautiful, intimate wedding last August, followed by a 2 week honeymoon in Hawaii, a.k.a a small slice of heaven. If you haven't been you HAVE to go. Anyhoo, here are a few of my favourite pictures.

We took our engagement photos at our cottage and have some beautiful pictures of us ot on the lake and in a field of daisies that a neighbour farmer graciously lent to us for the afternoon. Our photographer, Anne-Marie from AMB Photo was absolutely fantastic and we have been raving about her and recommending her to family and friends since the moment we met her.

 One of our first smooches as a married couple ;)

Every time I look at this picture I tear up. These are my girls. My call them whenever I need to, love me unconditionally, do anything for me, make me smile ear-to-ear girls. People said that eight bridesmaids was excessive but these 8 women are phenomenal and I had to have them standing up there with me.

As for that little cutie, she is my favourite little girl in the world (and I tell her that all the time). This is G-my little monkey (and niece and flower girl). And taking off her shoes on the golf course and spinning around like a fool, giggling away during wedding picture time is just one of the reasons that she is my all-time fave kiddo.

The view from our condo in Hawaii. :)

Our surf boards, on the beach in Waikiki.

&*#@! Resolutions!!

Pardonnez-moi for the obscenities but ohmondieu this whole blog thing is difficult! I should re-phrase- this whole blog thing is difficult for technologically brain-dead me.

As it is January and I have always been a fan of New Year's resolutions, I decided to start my paying it forward resolution with starting a blog. I have spent countless hours of time blog stalking (I am particularly obsessed with Babbling Abby (and her blogs Babbling Abby and The Inspired Apple) and wanted to try to bring some of that joy to others.  (Ya that's right... That's blogs plural- the woman is 'twelve kinds of amazing' (I just used one of my favourite "Abby-isms") and has more than one blog!! I can't even wrap my head around one at this point...)

A few problems with my plan:

1. I have the patience of 5 year old.

2. I suck at all things computer and have been pulling my hair out for hours trying to make blog headers and backgrounds, etc.

3. I am a *wee* bit of a perfectionist and will not allow myself to stop until it's just right.. I mean I'm talking at least 8 hours of non-stop work here people.

4. This particular resolution is affecting my other resolutions (Namely my 'eating healthy and working out more' resolutions, because I have been sitting my lazy butt on the couch with my computer chugging back Diet Cokes and foregoing the gym in order to get my blog launched.)

5. I am starting to seriously doubt that anyone will want to follow this blog anyway because who wants to read the ramblings of a twenty-something, Coke guzzling, sloth who doesn't even really know how to blog?!

But alas... I have faith that due to all of my blog stalking, and to my almost daily reflections on other fantastic women and their blogs, I will be able to figure this all out. I am hoping that some of you will want to read about my stories of teaching kindergarten to adorable, Anglophone students entirely in French (oui, c'est vrai.. I teach 5 year olds French Immersion and speak only in French to munchkins who have never even heard the language before) and about my life as a newlywed who is hopelessly in love with my terrific husband and living in our brand new home with two tenants, three dogs, and a cat in beautiful Ottawa, Canada.

My life and my ramblings are nothing spectacular but they certainly are interesting and I hope that you agree and follow my blog.