Sweet gifts are always the best (Carabox Reveal)

I haven't participated in a Carabox Exchange since February, mostly beacuse of  money (saving for a wedding), time (the wedding) and also some of the themese didn't get my ideas flowing.

But when I saw that this was the last monthly one for awhile, I knew I had to join in.

In case you don't know, Cara Box is an exchange created by Kaitlyn over at Wifessionals. It's a swap where you get assigned two bloggers to get to know. One sends to you and the other you send a box of goodies too. This month, I got assigned Jennifer who blogs over at Jennifer-Blake. Jennifer and I had a bunch in common, so it was fun to get to know her.

Avery, who blogs over at The Kasper Farm, had the task of sending me my box. I knew from the minute I read her first email that she has such a fun and spirited personality, so I knew my box would match that!

I received my box last week, on the first day of school! Perfect timing Avery!

By far the prettiest way I've ever seen a Carabox addressed to me. I cut it out and stuck it on my fridge. Wish I could show more, but I don't want any stalkers!

All the goodies that I found in my box!

Avery wrote cute notes explaining her thinking behind all of her gifts. And the answer to this question?? NO! :)

She sent me some Plumeria Sugar Scrub from her shop. It smelled divine and left my skin feeling so soft!

I will be making these for my first gathering for football. They both look so yummy!!

And by far my FAVORITE thing in the box...

In case you haven't realized it, I am a HUGE Jaguars fan. They recently got a new logo and I promised I screamed when I saw this! You did an AMAZING job on the logo. First thing out of J's mouth when he saw it? "I want one too!"

So thank you so much Avery for the amazing box. I'm so glad I got to know you! 

Wedding Wednesday

Last Tuesday, J and I finally got our pictures from our AMAZING photographers. They came over and did a home presentation. It started off with a beautiful slideshow that literally brings me to tears every time I watch it! It ended with looking at options for albums.

I figured I'd share some of my favorites with you! Rather than slam you with a bunch, I'm just showing my favorites from getting ready, first look and portraits.

If you didn't laugh at the above picture... we may not be able to be friends!

Captured the moment perfectly!

Our first look... <3

All together now... AWWW!

Thank you Pinterest!

Hope you liked what you see... I'll post more next week!

Whoa...another week gone by???

Man! I had SO many great ideas for blog posts this past week, but they all went out the window.

FOR REALS! I completely forgot how utterly exhausting this time of year can be. Add to that the fact that the bus the majority of my students ride hasn't been showing up until 3:45...man I was pooped last week.

So I've decided I want to nip this feeling tired thing in the butt. Here's my resolutions for the week:

• In bed by no later than 10:30. Yep, even if I don't fall asleep I need to be in my comfy bed. 
• Wake up as soon as I feel awake (if it's before my alarm goes off). I woke up completely refreshed at 5:00 this morning. But rolled over. Then at 6:00 I was dragging! Boo!
• Go for a walk in the afternoon at least three times this week. J and I did that a few times before work started and I think it will help.

I hope that some of these things will help to regenergize me. I have a sweet little group and when we go to the extended school day next week (meaning in school until 4:00!!!) they're going to need me at my best!

Got any ideas for fighting the I just wanna crawl into bed at 4p.m. feeling??

First day, surprises and a sweet idea

Ever since my first year, when I broke down in tears two minutes after the last bell, I judge the success of the first day by how flustered how I am at the end of the day.

Even though when I came home, I immediately did this:

I still consider today a success. I have a sweet group of kids, and some sassy ones, but overall they're going to be great. I got a ton of hugs from my old kiddos, including one who asked "Why didn't you invite me to your bride?" Translation: "Why didn't you invite me to your wedding?" :)

Plus when I got home, I had two great surprises waiting for me:

My AMAZING Carabox from Avery who blogs at over at The Kasper Farm. I knew from the beautiful writing that the inside would be great and I was RIGHT!

And gorgeous daisies from J. This vase was a shower present. At my shower, my friend told me there were two gift tags in the bag, one for me and one for J. Mine said every bride should have a beautiful vase to hold flowers from her love. J's said to fill the vase with beautiful flowers and that he would be rewarded with the same smile I had on our wedding day. 

She was absolutely correct. I'm pretty sure that the smile on my face when I saw these matched the smile on my wedding day! It was the perfect thing I needed  after a long first day of school!

So now off I go to change into comfy clothes and cook a quick dinner. I hope tomorrow is as wonderful as today!

We look so happy!

Just had to share. I can't wait to see the others!!! :)

Back to the grind...

If you reading this and it's between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. I am officially back at work. I'm not panicking yet, but kids will be in my room in exactly ONE week. AHHH!

So since this was the last weekend of the summer for me, I knew I wanted it to be fun. Friday was exactly 28 days since J and I got married, so we met up for a really nice lunch:

We went to JJ's Bistro, this super cute French restaurant. Lunch was a bit pricey, but SO GOOD! We also inhaled a delicious lemon coconut crepe cake (hence the no pictures of said delicious cake!) I want to go back for dinner some time, but we will be saving up for that adventure!

Later that night was the first pre-season game and we got club seats!

Which, if we are being honest, weren't THAT much better than my own seats. Our seats were on the edge of the club section, so the only REAL perk was going into the Touchdown Club. Oh and free refills on sodas. Priorities right?

The Jaguars lost (enter sad face here!) but I'm not totally discouraged. They won 3 of these things last year then went on to be the worst, so maybe this will have an opposite effect???

Saturday, J let me sleep in. I've got a good one on my hands that's for sure! Especially since when I told him my brother was coming over because he was feeling a bit down about his girlfriend leaving, J came up with the BRILLIANT idea to take him to an indoor trampoline arena (and ew. sorry about the run-on sentence going down right here!):

Yes, that would be my husband in the background and my brother jumping off the wall. Needless to say, we were by FAR the oldest participants but I think we had the most fun! The day ended with pigging out on some Wild Wings that my bro bought for us!

And yesterday was low-key. My mom was adorable, because she wanted to invite us over for dinner but didn't want to seem like she was intruding on the newlyweds. So I invited us over! It's nice just relaxing with family.

And since I couldn't sleep (because I never do the night before anything BIG!) I stayed up to watch my new addiction:

Yep. I got sucked into watching a reality TV show about WWE female wrestlers. It's completely mindless but it's fun!

Funniest part? I think because of the whole connection to WWE, my brother and J are more addicted than I am! (Both were ridiculously obsessed with WWE when they were younger!)

Pretty much sums up my brother and J.

Hope you had a great weekend! What's your newest TV addiction?

FOOTBALL'S BACK!

Ladies (and gents, for the one guy who reads this... hi J!), tonight is the FIRST preseason game of the 2013 season for the Jacksonville Jaguars. THANK GOODNESS! I've missed going to games something fierce. Best part? We aren't even sitting in our regular seats. J's friend is giving his CLUB seats. SCORE!


So tonight I'll be rocking my new Jags tee (that I can't seem to find a picture of!) and cheering them on. I know it doesn't matter how we do right now, I mean they won three of these preseason games out of four last year and went on to win 2 regular season games! Still doesn't mean I'm super AMPED to go!


Any of you football fans out there? 
We girls have to stick together you know! 
Have a wonderful weekend!

Geek Out

I'll be the first to admit it, I'm a huge nerd. Especially a huge TEACHER nerd. I had fun this past spring writing tests for district curriculum guides. (Didn't hurt that I met a rad group of fellow teachers. Sad I can't meet up with them tomorrow!) I can spend hours perusing the education section of Pinterest. I love being in my classroom by myself. In fact, I'm going to go in tomorrow, not because I need to but because of the reason I just stated. It's calming. Expect when you spot a snake outside your classroom window:

The black racer that chose to make my bushes his new home...

So while some might think that spending 2 hours creating a student data notebook sounds COMPLETELY lame... well to me it was fun. And I'm proud of the final product. Not proud of enough to sell it on TeachersPayTeachers (seriously, when do those people have the time?!) but still pretty darn proud to brag about it.

On that note, off I go to watch something and just lay out on the couch.

What makes you nerdy? Do you embrace your inner nerd? :)

Running out of weekends...

I have ONE more weekend until school starts. Well, until I am mandated to go to work. I went to my classroom today and was SMACKED in the face with a sauna.

Every year, after we've been gone awhile, the district controls the AC units in classrooms. My teammates rooms don't get as much sunlight, so their rooms are workable. Mine, on the other hand? Not so much! And come to find out, dear wonderful Mr. J (our custodian) can only override it for two hours.

So tomorrow I will be heading into work with a fan as well as other various cleaning supplies. Besides the heat, my room was left in a workable state, so I should have things done by Thursday.

Anyways! Enough about school, let's get going with the weekend!

On Saturday, J and I cleaned and hung pictures, and just finally made this place feel like home!

I'll be posting a house tour soon, because I have fallen in love with our little place.

Saturday as included the mounting of the TV. It was kind of an ordeal, just because who knew it would take so long to mount??

Sorry for the blurriness; only have my iPhone at the moment!

J sold his old TV to my uncle. Last week, we went and bought a 55" and I really thought he would be the one to complain that it was too small. Nope. I did. :) So we returned it and got the next size. Best part? Between a nice wedding gift and other money we had saved, not much came out of our pockets! Plus it's a SmartTv, which means it has things like Netflix and YouTube built in.


That night, it was back to football!!!

First Jags event as husband and wife! :)

J, my brother, his girlfriend and I went to the Jaguars scrimmage. It was fun but man I want the real deal to start! Preseason starts THIS Friday and the real deal starts in September.


Sunday, my friend Lauren came over and we went to lunch. She also gave us the cutest belated wedding gift.

Apparently this bakery is awesome in Savannah. J's parents live around there and I've never seen, but I will be looking for it, because the recipes sound DELISH. Plus who doesn't love cute cookware?

How was your weekend?

Linking up with Sami, Molly and Carly.