Hooked on Friday...toddler edition

Don't forget to drop in to see what others are Hooked On over here....

My toddler is all about Dora so today's Hooked on goes out to her with a sampling of our Dora empire. (*Note: she did not get all these toys but these have been collected over the past 8ish year from her sisters' Dora days as well as her own.)


First the important potty training devices all Dora-fied. We have the seat that sits in the normal potty (her preference at the moment) and the stand alone potty. She likes to destroy and reconstruct this as it is modular. For instance the base can be a step stool and the other pieces can be used in other means as well.








Of course we have the Dora house with all the furniture. You will have to forgive me for not setting it up for you but I am happy no pieces are out right now as they are walking hazards.





I would bet we own about 90% of the plastic figurines and about that much of the larger dolls. Here they are peeping out of one of the drawers. There are at least 3 like this. I specifically pulled out the tennis Dora in honor of Serena's recent win.









I think we are only behind by one DVD from owning all of them and I bet that will be purchased soon. We rock the Dora fiesta CD music in my minivan. Yesterday, when stopped at a red light the three girls in the middle row were loudly singing with the CD (which I had cranked up for them) and the man in the pick up truck nest to us gave us a look. I could not interpret the look. I think to him it was like a car wreck b/c he could not look away. I was proud and embarrassed all at once.

So as you can see we are big time hooked on Dora here.

Hope you have enjoyed a look into my life!

Hooked On Friday Party

Check out what the others are hooked on here.

This week I have been hooked on scanning paper copies of the lessons, labs and other useful papers for my teaching arsenal into PDFs. Then the PDFs will be used in my blackboard as well as having the papers in 'copy ready' form. (See prior post describing blackboard.) In my district the paper copying is electronically out sourced which means I need a version I can send through cyber space. No more old fashioned c&p for me. Kind of bitter sweet.

Here is the stack so far. It continues to grow larger.


Here is the beastly scanner, printer, copier that I have been canoodling with for my digitizing.



Speaking of growing and since that is not the most entertaining thing to be hooked on I also want to share my tomato plant story. In May-ish we bought a planter box and decided to try to plant some tomato seeds (2 packets - 1 beefeaters, 1 cherry variety). I had "help" planting by way of my three girls so half the box was the packet of one type the other half was the other packet. Those of you who are agriculturally savvy can predict where this is going.

Here is the box and the growth after just a week.


A little crowded, eh? So I try transplanting them into anything I could recycle into a big enough holder. Here you have my "redneck garden". Some I left in the planter but joining it are two milk jugs, Gatorade bottle, butter tub, Sam's club cheese ball vat bottom and two pots I had from other things.






So, what do you think are they going to live to die? What can I do to help?

Hooked on Crocs

I think I have an addiction....but I suppose there are worse things I can be addicted to, right?

No, these are not all mine, some are the girls. And sadly some are not pictured that the girls have out grown. Conversely some of these are hand-me-downs from friends.

This is our newest lot as Crocs.com had a major sale. As you see there is a toddler wondering where her crocs are in the first picture but after that I was able to 'shoe' her away from the camera. (Ha, ha. I crack me up.)
I LOVE my leopard Malindis. They will be my "pop" of color in my mostly black/brown/khaki wardrobe.
Oops. Got my toes here. There are my 3 most worn pairs this past school year. (Remember I can wear 'dressy' flip flops so I guess I should clarify that these are my most worn closed toed shoes.) Black and brown Malindis on each side of my Orange clogs. The students LOVE the orange clogs that I usually wore on Friday with some sort of school shirt. Our colors are Orange and Black. Every Friday a different student would notice these shoes as a 'new' thing even though I wore them almost every Friday and some one in that class would comment on them. lol
Army green ones are not a preferred color in the wearing rotation but the Mammoth crocs are a favorite winter wear. Got more wear up north but came in handy here a couple of days too - only without heavy socks. :)

Croc flip flops what I was wearing when I broke my ankle at 7 months preggo so I am hesitant to wear them now (the pothole I fell in was more to blame than the shoes but I just don't want to temp fate). The platform heels on the other hand are very wearable and are comfy enough to wear all day at school teaching when I am feeling more dressy than usual.
Currently fitting (excluding the new ones) of the oldest.
Hand me downs to me from a dear friend.
Bronze heels. :)
My take-the-dogs- outside crocs along with the hubby's size 13 manly crocs. The toddler's fake crocs - her feet are growing too fast for the real deal yet. Although on an ordering mess up on my part, she does have a pink pair of mammoths that I forgot to photo - sorry.
Two pairs of hand-me-downs to the Middie from another dear friend (one with a blow out issue we will fix soon). Her Mammoths and her Mary Janes. The Oldest also had purple Mary Janes but out grew. They are being stored for the Middie's foot later.
The Oldest's first pair - purple to wear with her then cheer squad stuff, My brown Mary Janes. I have a Burgundy pair as well that are currently MIA. :( I think the apartment ate them. Still no necklace yet....St. Anthony I am begging!!!!


Seeing how we just returned to our state yesterday afternoon I have lots of updates to make so be on the look out for posts!

Also don't forget to see what others are Hooked on this week here.

Hooked On....Planning

I am all in the planning mindset with school almost over for the summer. I would call this my summer plans but I think some are going to take more developing than that. Here goes....

1. Hubby and I are going to come up with a value scale for the girls. Since the oldest is 7 she gets $7. The Middie is 5 so she gets $5 each week. The trick will be to keep all that money. For instance (we're still working on developing this) if they don't hang up their towels after bath they lose $0.25. If they don't put their dirty clothes in the basket they lose $0.50. What money remains at the end of the week they actually get and can use as they wish.


2. I am going to actually buy the Twilight series so I can reread them (that is what everyone has said I need to do before I move on to some other series). Then I think I am going to get the Sookie Stackhouse series and see if I like those books. I am shocking myself that I WANT to read - thanks to the Twilight books!


3. This summer I want to digitize as much of my teaching arsenal as possible (scanning papers and organizing them on my external drive). AND I want to set up my Blackboard (the district's web server for educational purposes - like a specifically formatted, hosted web page) for my classes next year (which I hear right now is all Chemistry).

4. Organizing a binder for my coupons and getting serious again about couponing.


5. I hope to try more new recipes to add to my cooking routine. Many great recipes here and here.

I have all sorts of other plans floating around in this graying head of mine but many depend on the house up north selling so I can find a house here and and begin 'living' in a dwelling again (I haven't hung any pictures and somethings I refuse to unpack since I consider this a temporary establishment for us even though we just signed our lease for another year). I do miss my scrapbooking very much. :(


Don't forget to drop in to Hooked On Houses to see what others are hooked on this week..