The United Nations is within my reach...

Every year, I anticipate the start of a new school year. For me, the first day of school is like New Year's Day for other people. I know that anything that happened in the previous school year (difficult students, difficult parents, etc), is gone and I have a new group of children to begin working with.

Because my school is an ESL Site (English as a Second Language), we have many students in various stages of learning to speak English. Some children live in families where a different language is the predominant language of the home, and English may or may not be spoken at all. Some families use their children as their interpreters. We have such a high Hispanic population that we have a full-time bilingual secretary, hired specifically to help us communicate with our Spanish speaking parents.

I've always been lucky in the past that, if I did have ESL students, a lot of the parents could communicate with me without the help of an interpreter. This year is different. In addition to having over half of my class represented by Spanish speakers, I also have four students from countries where we have NO interpreter at all! It's been quite the challenge to learn to work with these kids, but I also feel so grateful that the Lord allowed these kids to be placed in my class! I have learned so much from them already, and we have so many months to go. I can already tell it will be hard to let them go in June.

My school represents 28 countries, and my class alone is made up of students from 9 countries. This is so fascinating to me....I could almost make my own United Nations!

I have 8 students plus myself representing the United States.


There are 7 students who are from Mexico.


There are 2 students who are from Puerto Rico.


One student's family is from Colombia, South America.


Another student's family is from Guatemala.


One student is from Vietnam.


One of my students who doesn't speak English at all is from Turkey.


Another student who doesn't speak English is from Iraq.


And finally, my last two students who do not speak English are from the Karenni state of the country of Burma.

These two students are so special to my heart. They are refugees and have come from such horrible conditions. One of these students came to my class at the very end of last school year and is staying with me again this year. This girl read a Kindergarten level book to me a few weeks ago, and boy did the tears flow! It is so amazing to watch these kids learn.

So this is what I'm dealing with this year! It's exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time.

Fire Prevention Week 2009

This is a public service announcement from your friendly, neighborhood fire-chick!

October 4 - 10, 2009 is Fire Prevention Week. I thought I would share some information about this year's theme, and also give you some handy links, as I know some of you are homeschool mamas. Others of you may simply want to share this with your families, if it is not being included in your child's school. And some of you may just want to read this because it makes good sense to be prepared.

Fire Prevention Week was established to honor and remember the "Great Chicago Fire of 1871." This is the same fire that, according to legend, started because Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked over a lantern, which caught the barn on fire, which caught the city on fire. While this is not entirely true, 250 people died, and thousands were left homeless. Over 17,000 structures and over 2000 acres were burnt. The fire began in the night on October 8th, but did most of its damage on October 9th. Fire Prevention Week always falls around those two dates.

Some other interesting facts about fires...
In 2008, US Fire Departments responded to almost 400,000 home fires.

Every 81 seconds, a fire department in our country is responding to a fire.

Two-thirds of all home fires are in homes with either a malfunctioning fire alarm or none at all.

Cooking continues to be the leading cause of all home fires.

This year's theme is "Stay Smart: Don't get burned" and focuses on ways you and your family can keep from being burned in a fire.

For example, does your family have a home escape plan? Did you know you need at least two ways to get out of your house? Do your kids know how to get out of their room if they can't leave by the bedroom door?

Do you put all hot foods in the center of the table so they can't be pulled off by little hands?

Do you check the temperature of the bath or shower water?

Are lit candles out of reach of little hands?

Do you allow food cooked from the microwave time to cool before serving it?

Are all smoke alarms are tested by an adult each month...and work every time?

Is there a smoke alarm on every level of your home (and in every bedroom?)

Do your children know what the alarm sounds like, so they would recognize it in the middle of the night?

Visit the Fire Prevention Week website here. On the left side there is a link for teachers, or for kids and families. And those of you who homeschool (or teach in a regular school) will see the lessons are split by age and grade level. There are some pictures you can print off and color as well as helpful sheets for planning an escape plan.

As always, I'm not trying to scare anyone, but it's always better to be prepared! Our department, thankfully, doesn't have to go to too many house fires, but when we do, you can bet that those people weren't expecting their home to go up in flames either.

And The Winner Is.....

I know you have probably all been anxiously waiting to see who the winner will be for my giveaway.

I went to Google and found a random number generator. Out of 7 choices, the website chose #2.

Congratulations Beth!!! Please check out Beth's blog, where you can read about miracles, her cute kids, and even learn some random Spanish words....hee hee.

Beth, be looking for an email from me soon....

It's My Blogaversary!! (and a giveaway)

One year ago today I started my blog! I was looking back over all my posts recently, re-living some of the events of the past year. It made me wish I had started a blog earlier. There were several events I had forgotten about....like Buddy's Citizen Arrest. Or the time I sent a wormy apple in his lunch. Or the Honey Baked Ham I found on our doorstep.

So I've decided to do a "Top Ten List" of my blog posts. These were the top-ten posts with the most comments for this past year.

Take a trip down memory lane with me. And then leave a comment on your favorite top-ten post. One lucky reader will win a $10 Walgreens gift card. You know how much I love getting good deals, and I've gotten a lot of them at Walgreens this year. (I'm hoping this will help bring some of my readers who never comment out of the shadows!!)

Do you remember....
#10--Quinn's Artistic Debut click here.

#9--My Mom's Miracle click here.

#8--Mr.Fix-It Click here.

#7--6 years of marriage click here

#6--Leaving my comfort zone click here.

#5--Why I didn't win Mother of the Year click here.

#4--The Pumpkin Patch click here

#3--Quinn's 1st Haircut click here

#2--Popcorn for two click here

and the number one post with the most comments

#1--My 100th post click here.

I will be leaving the comments open on this post for several days...probably until Thursday or Friday. Then I will close comments and announce a winner!

Thank you for following along, because This Is My Life!!

The 5th grade version of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"

I'm sure you are all familiar with the classic children's book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle. This is a wonderful story about a cute little caterpillar that eats his way through a whole bunch of things, only at the end to turn into a beautiful butterfly. I would say this book is probably appropriate in pre-K up to maybe first grade.

In fifth grade, though, the book should be changed to "The Very Weird, Horned, Ugly, Humongous Caterpillar and How It Scared The Teacher". Because that's what we discovered on the playground yesterday at recess.

Check him out....wouldn't he scare you if you saw this crawling around under a tree?

Of course all the students wanted to know what kind it was and what it would turn into. Was it poisonous? What are the spikes for? And about a million other questions that I won't bother typing up here. Of course this happened to be the time when the WHOLE 5th GRADE was outside, so I was getting these questions from all three classes, not just mine! So, like the good teacher I am, I spent the majority of my planning time on Google, researching this particular caterpillar.

This caterpillar is known as the Hickory Horned Devil, and is the larvae that turns into a Regal Moth. The caterpillar can be up to 5 inches in length. It has five pairs of antenna that resemble horns on its head. These "horns" and the black spikes along its back are used for scaring away its enemies. It has three pairs of legs directly under its head area. It has several pairs of darker "feet" that are actually not feet at all, but structures to help the caterpillar grip the bark of trees more easily.

The Regal Moth is nocturnal and has a wingspan of 5-6 inches! (Well, you would expect a big caterpillar to make a big moth, right?) It also has no mouth, so it only lives long enough to mate and then lay its eggs. What a life, right?!?

And here is a picture of the Regal Moth, what this caterpillar will turn into.

I can only imagine what kind of tales were told by my students when they got home. Would you really believe your kid if they came home from school and said they saw a huge green caterpillar with spikes and horns that makes it look like a dragon?? I wouldn't have believed it myself, either!

PS...these pictures are courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/. The pictures I took were on a co-worker's camera and the files ended up being too big to post on the blog. However, if you are my Facebook friend, I've posted pictures of my caterpillar there. It was quite the learning experience yesterday!

9-11-01 will never be forgotten

Today is the 8th anniversary of the September 11th tragedy. I can hardly believe that eight years have gone by since this terrible day. When I was growing up, I would always hear people talk about where they were the day President Kennedy was shot or older people telling about where they were the day Pearl Harbor was bombed. I'll never forget where I was when our country was attacked on September 11, 2001.

I was just beginning my junior year at Clemson. It was a Tuesday morning and my first class didn't start until 9:30, so I usually took my time getting ready. I had just gotten out of the shower and turned on the TV so I could watch the Today Show while I was getting ready. It was about 8:45. Not long after I turned the TV on, Matt Lauer announced that one of their cameras had caught images of a plane hitting on of the towers of the World Trade Center and they would be cutting to this camera and find out what was going on. Within a few minutes, I watched the second plane fly into the other tower. I remember thinking what in the world is going on....are we at war...was this a terrible accident? No one seemed to know what was happening. I continued watching the news until I absolutely had to leave for class. I remember that as I walked to class, I kept looking up into the beautiful blue sky, wondering how something like this could happen.

It only took me about fifteen minutes to walk to class, but by then people were sharing new details. A third plane had hit the Pentagon. Both towers had fallen. A fourth plane landed in a field in Pennsylvania. I don't remember learning anything in class that day. Within a few hours, a lot of professors began cancelling classes, out of respect.

We all know what became of this day. We remember the stories of survivors talking about all the firefighters who were running into the Towers as civilians were trying to get out. We remember the stories of the people on that fourth plane taking matters into their own hands to keep the terrorists from committing a final act on our country. We remember watching all the members of Congress standing on the steps of the Capitol Building, singing God Bless America.

But now eight years have gone by. Are our memories of this day as fresh as they were that day? Probably not. No one wants to constantly re-live the worst day of their life. Just as we want our worst memories to fade, the memories of this day are fading too. However, we should never forget.

We should never forget that almost 3,000 innocent people lost their lives that day.

We should never forget that 343 firefighters lost their lives that day, simply doing their jobs and answering the call of duty.

We should never forget what our country went through on this day.

We should never forget.....

Labor Day Weekend 2009

We spent our Labor Day weekend at my sister-in-law's house. You may remember reading about our previous trip to "Aunt Kristel's" house back in the spring. We always have fun at their house. Buddy has three older sisters, and Kristel is the youngest of the girls. Her youngest son, David, is three months older than Quinn. The boys really had a fun time playing together this time. Our first visit since both boys were born, Quinn was barely crawling. The visit back in the spring, Quinn was still very unsteady on his walking. This time though, they ran around playing together. It was so sweet to watch them.


Kristel and Ed didn't have too many plans for us, so we went back to the park we went to before. The weather was so nice this weekend, so we did more of the outdoor stuff. Back in the spring, the weekend we were there was so cold and rainy, that we did the indoor stuff.

Saturday was a beautiful day so the first thing we did was ride the train around the park. Quinn had never been on a train before, so I was really excited to get to do this with him. This is us waiting our turn.

Because Kristel and her boys have ridden the train before, Kristel stayed on the deck and took pictures for me. Quinn and I rode the train with my nephews. Trey is the boy in the blue shirt, and you can't see David who is sitting on Trey's lap. (Trey is a SUPER BIG BROTHER, by the way!!) Quinn was too busy checking things out to "pose" with me!

After the train, we went to the park area. Quinn of course had to slide down the slide. Here he is climbing to the top with cousin David. Cousin Trey was waiting at the top to help the boys.

For some reason, Quinn wouldn't slide by himself this time. I think because the slide had a twist in it and he couldn't see me while he was waiting at the top. He made Trey slide down with him.

We came home and ate Chick-fil-A that Buddy and Ed, (our brother-in-law), brought home for lunch! That's mine and Kristel's favorite place! The little boys took naps in the afternoon, while Buddy, Ed, Trey and I took in some target practice. Ed's dad has some land nearby and so we went down to the field, set up a target and took aim. Turns out: I'm a pretty good shot!

Ed did some grilling for us for supper, and afterwards we all went outside to play. Quinn found a tricycle and tried his best to ride it like David. Quinn is tall for his age, but David is about two inches taller....which makes his feet hit the pedals. Quinn's feet just didn't quite make it! He had fun sitting on it though.

This is Quinn and Uncle Ed riding on the 4-wheeler. Now, don't worry. Uncle Ed did not drive very fast at all while riding with the little guys. I believe he didn't get out of first gear. Either way, it was fast enough to get a smile out of Quinn.

Then Buddy and I got to take a turn. We went faster, and it was so much fun. Ed and Kristel's yard is plenty big enough to go for a ride. If only it wasn't soybean season and we could have ridden in the field as well. Maybe next time.

Then Buddy took Quinn around a few times. Doesn't it look like my boys had fun?!?! And check out the sunset in the background. It was such a beautiful evening.

Here's Kristel and Trey. Trey's a big middle-schooler this year.....6th grade! Kristel is a nurse. Besides David and Trey, they also have a daughter named Rebecca. (Doesn't it look like Kristel's shirt coordinates with the sunset??)

After having lots of fun outside, we all went back inside. The little boys and Rebecca went on to bed and the rest of us tried to watch a football game on TV, but one by one we all crashed! Playing with toddlers is tiring!! We had hoped to watch our CLEMSON TIGERS play, but the game this week wasn't televised. We still got the win though! I've mentioned before that Buddy and I are both Clemson Grads, but so is Ed....he got his Masters at Clemson.

Kristel, Ed, and family...thanks again for a wonderful weekend. You all are welcome at our house any time! Love you!!