Throw Back Thursday

Happy Almost Friday...don't you just love the weekends? I know I do! We have a full weekend planned and I love it. The Mobile Passion Play is going on at DWBC right now and we would be thrilled for you to join us! Check out the website here for additional info.

 Tonight, I was looking through old college pictures, throw back Thursday, and it got me REALLY missing my sweet friends. I truly believe I had the best college experience anyone could ask for. (I attended the University of Mobile if you were wondering.)It is rare to find such genuine friends like I was blessed to find. Let me share with you some of the people that I now call my best friends. Boy am I missing them. We have been through so many important life events together. I absolutely LOVE it.

Meet the girls who got me through college. There is something so very special about a college friend. Not only are they your best friend but they are also the people you eat with, share a space with, go to school with, grocery shopping, sleeping, and EVERYTHING else in between. It is a special bond and I am so very thankful my sweet Jesus placed these girls in my life to share these memories with me. 

Meet Hilary and Elizabeth. I have no words for these two. I love them both more than words. I met Hils and Liz my Sophomore year of college and we immediately became friends. I share so many memories with these two. When I was scrolling through pictures I couldn't pick just one to share with you. Let me invite you to recap life with me...I said earlier I was missing my friends and I am warning you now that this will be a long post.  Who doesn't love a post with a million pictures:)

Spring Formal at UM 

Can you tell we were always laughing about something?

We ALWAYS have the best time when we are together. 

Hilary and Elizabeth love coming to Toxey! This was their first trip to the country!!

These two pictures were taken during Fall Break. It was a roommate trip to Mexico! 

So. Much. Fun

Like I said earlier, we shared many important life events together. Weddings were a MAJOR part! Anna and Jake's wedding was first. Now if you are trying to keep everyone straight, Anna is Elizabeth's sister and also my roommate during my Junior year at UM. 

Laura and Hamilton were the next to get married! (Laura is Hilary's sister)

Graduations were celebrated.  

If you can't tell by now, I AM REALLY MISSING THESE GIRLS.

Next up, in my little recap, is my wedding and then Hilary's right after! It is crazy to look back on all these pictures and see where we are now. 

The sweetest thing is no matter how far apart life may take us we will always find a middle to meet.

Thanks for time traveling with me. I hope you have a fabulous weekend!

-Maggie

Meet Kalyn: Small Town Review

Happy Wednesday! Find joy in knowing that you are half way through the work week! Today, I am excited to have my very first guest on the blog. Meet my sweet friend Kalyn. I was so excited when she started following my blog and I adore getting to stay connected with her through the web. You can find her here. Thanks for reading sweet friends.

Hello A Weaving of Grace readers! I'm Kalyn, the blogger behind the blog Love.Laughter.Happily Ever After. I journal all my OCD and ADHD rambling thoughts of faith, amateur photography, completing my degree, the joys of having a Pinterest obsession on a Dollar Tree budget, fashion, and a little here and there about being a new wife. 

I am so thankful Maggie asked me to guest post today! Maggie and I actually grew up in the same small county in the deep south of Alabama, are from even smaller communities, and competed against each other when it came to many AISA school activities. Believe it or not, we actually both got married last summer and have chosen the same career path. While Maggie is currently an elementary educator, I am on the road to completing my educator certification. Can you say small town life translates into a small world? I was overjoyed the moment I found Maggie in this big 'ole blogging community! I love following along in her littler corner of the internet, as I am sure you do too. 

So, are you from a small town? 

You know you are from a small town when.... 

 You know the population of your town because it is on the sign as you enter. You can name everyone in your high school graduation class (of 18- dream big!). If you said a swear word, your parents knew about it within an hour. It was cool to date somebody from the neighboring town (even better if you could snag someone from the neighboring county!). You gave directions by people, not street names. (Turn at the Nelson house, go east to Andersons' and it is four houses left of Bob Locke.) You saw at least one friend a week driving his tractor through town. All directions included "the 4 way stop at the courthouse" as a reference. Your teachers mentioned when they had your parents in class. The closest mall, movie theater, Wal-mart, and McDonald's was a long drive. You've "parked" with a date behind a barn, at your school, or near the river landing.

Growing up in a small town was not easy. I will be completely honest and admit that I could not wait to leave once I graduated. I knew my neighbors in my neighborhood and those who lived three neighborhoods away on a first name basis. The same people I went to school with were the same people I saw at the grocery store, sitting across the pews from me in church, and at the community ball park watching baseball or softball games. As the old cliche goes, "everybody knows everybody," which can be both good and bad at times. When I was younger, I had no intentions of ever going back to my small town of less than 2,000. Back then, I only wanted to get as far from my little town as possible. Leave it to me, I married a small town boy and could not be happier with my southern gentleman. I never knew that I would find my soul mate at fifteen but I certainly would not trade our small town love for anything these days. 

 I am blessed to have grown up in a safe, close knit environment even though times were difficult. Despite the gossip or limited opportunities, I am thankful for my roots. I am thankful for those who left footprints on my life. Going out to eat or gathering milk and eggs at the grocery store was always a social event turned into a helping hand experience. Whether striving for success when competing in the local Junior Miss program, State football championship, or SGA conventions, I learned what it meant to be respectful, honest, hard working, and how to live simply. Today, I apply these traits to my daily life. Now that I live the fast pace city life it is always pure joy go home for a quite weekend to visit family and friends. Driving through a sleepy southern town brings comfort and peace like non other. From seeing the dark sky full of stars, to hole in the wall restaurants, my hometown is truly relaxation and rejuvenation at its best. I will admit that the convenience of the city lights call me home after a few days away though. :) 

If you are adaptable and take easily to change, transitioning from the city life to small town life (or vice versa) may work well for you. While each have their pros and cons, there is nothing quite like the country life! Each can be a time of transition and experiences that range highly in culture shock. However, I do believe that you can live simply in the city with the same common attributes learned in the country. 

Thanks so much for taking the time to read today, friends! I have enjoyed writing about my small town USA and sharing life with you. I hope you will visit my little corner of blogsphere to say hello. I love meeting new bloggers, making new friends, and finding awesome blogs to read! 

Love, Laughter, Happily Ever After can be found on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, and Bloglovin'

As always, until next time- Happy Blogging!  

Shaving Cream Shamrock

I woke up this morning and before my feet even hit the floor I thanked my sweet Jesus that it was Friday! I think Spring Break forgot about MCPSS..we are ready for a break! This past week we have been reviewing and taking EQTs (end of quarter test). This makes for a long stressful week. I promised my kiddos that if we could make it to Friday that we would do an art project. Well we made it and we loved every minute of art!

I wanted to share the project we did today. It was of course Pinterest inspired but I modified it just a little!

Shaving Cream Shamrock

Material
shaving cream (1 can was more than enough for my 18 students)
paper plates
paint
napkins
paint brushes
spatula
card stock


**Before you start the project you will need to copy an image/template (I did a shamrock) on card stock. Have the students cut out the image first.**
**Pass out paper plates and napkins.**

Step 1
*Spray shaving cream on the paper plate
*Have students spread out the shaving cream using their fingers. (They don't want to smooth the shaving cream out totally, just make sure the whole plate is covered.)

Step 2*Pass around the paint (I went around to each student and let them pick our their paint color. I then squirted the paint on the plate. Since we were making shamrocks I just had different shades of green. Paint color depends on the season/project)

Step 3
*Have student use opposite end of the paint brush to spread out the paint. I encouraged my kids not to mix all the colors together. We used our paint brush to create swirls, circles or zigzag lines.

Step 4
*Place the image (shamrock) face down on the paper plate. Use your fingers to press the image. After you feel like your whole image is covered, gently pick it up and leave it on the table to dry.

Step 5
*Allow your project to dry. (I would say 1-2 minutes)

Step 6
*Take the spatula and scrape off the extra shaving cream.

Step 7
*Allow your project to dry one last time :)

FINISHED PROJECT..

My students LOVED this project! They loved getting a little messy with the shaving cream and thought it was so cool to mix it with paint!

It was a great day in Mrs. Tait's 3rd grade class! 

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

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Keep Calm

IT. IS. ALMOST. 4TH QUARTER...need I say more. That phrase could possibly be my favorite right now.  I have almost completed my first year of teaching. Whew I am a tired teacher. Right now my kids are ready for spring break (still several weeks away) and I am too!

I feel like this sums everything up...

Now don't get me wrong...I LOVE TEACHING. I love getting up and going to work every morning, I love seeing my 18 kiddos everyday, and I love that light bulb moment when they learn something new. At this moment I am just ready for SUMMER! 

I wanted to share a few things going on in my classroom. I have been horrible about keeping up with my 1st year of teaching, on my blog, and I am promising now to do better in the years to come! 

Last week we had a fun Friday by getting to video conference with a 3rd grade class from Michigan. I signed up for the conference a while back and could not wait for my kids to get to experience this use of technology. The goal of the conference was to tell your partner class about your city, using a reading strategy or book. We decided to persuade our friends to visit the great city of Mobile. We have been learning about author's purpose and we have learned that an author may write a story to persuade the reader to do something! WE HAD A BLAST! We talked about Mobile's history, sports, gardens, Mardi Gras parades and seafood. 

Last Friday we also had a Dr. Seuss celebration! We started off the day by eating green eggs and ham and then had some pretty cool celebs read us a Dr. Seuss book via the web! (I definitely got cool points for that one)

At this point in the year you really don't want to change your classroom around simply because it is almost summer. NOT ME. I am itching to get in my room and totally transform it. I have started a running summer "to do" list. There are so many little things that I have found that must be done! 

One thing that I did go ahead and do this year was a vocabulary board in my classroom. ERD has school wide vocabulary that must be posted somewhere in your room. I really could not find the place for it until I was given a new bulletin board...BINGO! I went right to work. 

Whatcha think...

This will hold my "lets redo everything/reorganize" urge...at least until summer!

If you are a teacher reading the blog let me know some organization tips you may have! 

Right now we are floating in fraction land...everything is a fraction!

PS: I am addicted to making anchor charts for my classroom!

Happy Tuesday!