Kreative in Kinder

Egg Carton Flowers

Crystal — Fri, 03 Apr 2020 10:50:40 +0000

EGG CARTON FLOWERS

We are excited to share this fun craft. Egg carton flowers are super easy to make and fun for all ages. To start, you will need these supplies.

First, paint your popsicle sticks green. You can save some paint by leaving the top unpainted. You’ll be gluing your flowers here. Set sticks aside and allow them to dry completely.

Cut the top of your egg carton off. You’ll use the flat portions to cut out leaf shapes for your popsicle stems. Cut two for each flower.

Paint your egg carton leaves green and allow them to dry completely. Once your leaves have dried, glue them onto your popsicle stick stems.

Next, cut each egg section out. Gently tear each of the four sides down to create the petals. You’ll need two of these for each flower. You are welcome to leave the flowers as they are or you can clean them up. I tore off any rough edges to make the flowers look more delicate.

Now you are ready to paint your flowers. You can use acrylic or washable paint. Let your little ones dip their fingers into paint to dot the center of your flowers!

This next step is a fun one! You can either leave your flowers a solid color or let your little ones take a pom pom to stamp colorful paint all over the petals. Allow your flowers to dry completely. Once your flowers have dried you will glue one flower to the front of your popsicle stick and one flower to the back of the popsicle stick to create a 3D effect.

You are now done with your flowers. You can add them to a decorative pot, front of a card or wrap them in tissue paper for a fun, personalized gift.

Happy crafting,

Crystal

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Easy New Year’s Eve Party Idea

damjanovicilija@gmail.com — Mon, 24 Dec 2018 10:25:56 +0000

Are you planning a New Year’s Eve party? I can’t wait to ring in the new year with my people. Last week I placed an order with Oriental Trading and it got here super quick. Since we aren’t hosting Christmas at our house this year, I went ahead and set everything up so you can see the awesomeness that came in my OT box.

My kids are so excited about the photo booth backdrop. That thing is huge and totally reusable.

We are ready to ring in the New Year with hats, necklaces and noise makers.

And we can’t forget the champagne flutes, ehem. Maybe we will party like it’s 1999. Ha! That was a good year.

Oriental Trading is my party spot for sure. They had me at “online ordering” and “delivery”. Speaking my love language y’all. Now, my house isn’t really this yellow so don’t be fooled. My husband said, why does our house look so yellow? I think he wants a disclaimer. Ha.

Merry Christmas friends and Happy New Year. 2016 was a blessing and I can’t wait to see what God has planned for 2017. Whatever season of life you are in, be present. Be purposeful. Live AND Love BIG.

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Decorating For Fall

Crystal — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 09:24:35 +0000

Fall is definitely my favorite season. I cannot wait to bust out all of my decorations, open up the windows and enjoy pumpkin spice everything. My house usually looks like a decorated pumpkin farm but this year I decided to spice it up a bit and throw Halloween into the mix. Thanks to Oriental Trading, decorating for fall became a breeze.

For The Love Of Fall

As a teacher, Oriental Trading has always been my go to for all the things. Branching out to home decor was a new thing for me but boy they didn’t disappoint. I grabbed a bag of decorative leaves, this super cute spider web center piece cloth and table runner for my living room buffet. Who new spider webs could be so fashionable?! But y’all, my favorite part of my house currently is my mantle. It takes the cake. This banner is so fun and the pin wheels make it pop. Can you believe I got them all at Oriental Trading? When friends would come over, they would comment on the cuteness and I told them where I got it and they were shocked. Not that OT doesn’t have great stuff but because we have wired ourselves to think teacher needs and not home decor. Ha. So, I am sharing with you so you can Ohhh and Ahhh and then put this in your file for your home decor need in the future. Not only was it adorbs, it was affordable and let’s be honest, there is probably a free shipping offer out there so grab it and get to decorating.

Are you ready to spruce things up? Check out Oriental Trading here for more info. I can’t wait to see what they have for future holidays and seasons. They are always my go to for my teacher needs but they may just be my new favorite for home decor too.

Happy decorating!

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Thirteen in 2013!!

Crystal — Mon, 23 Dec 2013 10:57:00 +0000

Greetings friends! I am excited to link up with my sweet friend Hadar
from Miss Kindergarten for her 13 in ’13 linky party. Brace yourself, this one is a doozy! (Insert
vulnerability)

Oh 2013, you didn’t fail in excitement or surprises. So, what are my top 13 memories/events from this year? Here we go!

I decided to do some remodeling this year of our living room and kitchen/dining area. I think over the last few years my style has totally changed and I am super happy with how it turned out. In our last house, we remodeled and made it perfect for someone else to sell it. I refuse to do that this time. It should be perfect for us.

Do you see Joseph? LOL

My husband’s family lives in West, TX and we were touched
at our core when the explosion happened. I had to do something! Within three
days (with the help of my amazing blog buds), we raised $20,000 for the West
teachers and schools. Both the middle school and high school were completely
destroyed in the explosion. It was such an honor God to chose me to serve in
such a mighty way for this amazing community. This was a weird experience for
me. Some people knew about my blog but this really put me out there to my
administrators and local people. I don’t tell my student’s parents about my
blog and really don’t like to bring it up. It’s my thing. I do it for me
because I think it helps me be a better teacher and I love connecting with
people. I really am mortified to know that people in my own town read my blog.
For realz. My teammate asked to see my lashes after Thanksgiving break. My
first thought…GASP she read my blog post. I know its crazy but I am totally
cool with being invisible.

I was so fortunate to travel with my oldest, Grace, as a
chaperone on her High School band trip to NYC. It was an amazing experience to
share with her and her friends. We saw Phantom on Broadway and it was amazing!

I was totally lucky to score Notre Dame tickets on
stubhub when they played at Dallas Cowboy stadium. ND is hubs all time favorite
team. I remember in High School, he had a ND jacket he wore all the time, lol.
Seriously, I think I have seen the movie Rudy five
million times. True story.

I had a great time hanging out with my blogging besties
in Vegas this summer. I can’t begin to tell you how blogging has changed my
life and how much I love these ladies. They are my virtual
“team” and I am a better teacher because of them!

So, at the beginning of July I had this crazy idea of
taking my youngest son and nephew to Legoland in CA. I was really feeling
sad for Joseph because he couldn’t go to youth camp. He just wasn’t ready. He
has mild, high functioning aspbergers and well, he has a lot of quirks that
not everyone knows how to handle. On the flip side, he is crazy smart and LOVES
legos. He can build the most amazing things with them. I hope he works for them
one day! Anywho, within 24 hours I had a crazy trip planned for three of us to
Legoland. It was amazing. Everything he had ever dreamed and everything he
certainly deserved. I would never be able to do that without TPT so I am
thankful for YOU and your willingness to try out my classroom creations. It
really has been a blessing to my family.

Oh, I love my team! We added a new teammate this year and
it has been wonderful. We went to Frog Street Press Splash Conference this
summer and had a BLAST. We even wobbled together. Oh yes, these girls have
moves. Everyday is fun because of them and when I am a mess, they take such
good care of me. Seriously, blessed.

Back story…I haven’t worn my actual wedding ring in
over a year because I have lost weight and it is way too big. Since my fingers
are smaller, my previous ring wasn’t so comfortable in the back. It was too
thick. We went to a few jewelers over the last year to try and get a new but
smaller band or rebuild it. It was kind of a pain in the butt and I said forget
it and wore a fake ring. It really didn’t matter. I just had to wear something.
Anyway, we went out shopping on Black Friday and I found this jewel. It was 50%
off until 2:00 p.m. and we got to Gordon’s at 1:30 p.m. It looks so much like
my original ring but even though it looks like several bands, it is only ONE
thin band in the back and I LOVE it. It’s perfect. We bought it and I don’t
ever plan to take it off. Ever. The next week we celebrated our 12th
anniversary. Oh, how I love this man! I may not be certain about many things in
my life but one thing I know is true, God created him for me!

This year I opened up my own t-shirt shop. It has been fun designing t-shirts for teachers and even their kids. Everyone I
know thinks I am crazy because I already have a ton on my plate but to me, this
is FUN! You can see more shirts HERE.

This is my sister, Lindsay and I. She has an awesome
fitness page, Losing it With
Lindsay. She has been
helping me meet my fitness goals. It’s hard people! Over the last two years I
have lost 80 pounds. I’m not going to lie, since school has started, I have
gained a few pounds back. I have accepted that and I am ready to get back in
the zone. I let a little depression set in, but JOY comes in the morning. I
choose JOY and I choose ME.

I really don’t have a pic for this but I presented at the
Texas Kindergarten Conference and Frog Street Splash. They were totally
terrifying but I did LOVE it. I never thought that would be something I would
want to do or be good at. It’s pretty amazing the places this little blog has
taken me. I will present an entire day at the Texas Kindergarten Conference in
February and a day at I Teach K in Vegas this summer. I will be at Frog Street Splash in San Antonio, TX too. I hope to see you there!!

Insert BIG gulp here.
I am going to put on my big girl panties to share #12 because I haven’t told
some of my family yet but surely they don’t read this thing! If you have
followed my blog for a while, you know that I have been trying to get pregnant
for a longgggg time, twelve years now. We adopted our three children and oh do I love them. It’s
been a hard journey. When I wrote my last post from 2012, I whispered that I hoped
to get pregnant in 2013. I had no idea that I was actually pregnant at the
time. Doctors said I may never be able to conceive because my body never
ovulated…that is until October 2012. I had been sick for several weeks and finally went
to my obgyn because I had lots of pressure among other things. I thought I had
a cyst. My doctor advised me to go back on birth control but I didn’t want to.
We had a hard conversation. She said if it was really my desire to get
pregnant, we needed to go see some big specialist in Austin and that would be
costly. That night Nick and I talked, cried, and decided to move forward with the
specialist. The next morning my doctor called and said I was pregnant!! I about
fell to the floor. I actually told my team first. I was in such shock! For two
weeks we watched the levels rise and fall. It didn’t stick. But, it gave us
HOPE. To us, that was God’s way of saying don’t go to the specialist. He is in
control and will give us the desire of our heart. I was sad to miscarry but
was filled with so much HOPE!

The next month, I got
pregnant again. This was it. I could feel it. I had prayed for so long to know
what it was like to feel pregnant and let me tell you it is no fun. I was so
sick. I was thankful though. I could take it. Because of my situation, I went
for lab work several times a week to monitor my progress. I had several
ultrasounds. We were blessed. As soon as God gave my baby a heart, I got to
hear it beat. It was amazing. The most beautiful sound. Then I went for my 11
week appt. That sweet heartbeat was gone. I’m not sure how I got home. I’m not
sure why I even went to the appointment by myself. I had so many though. I
wasn’t prepared for that. I think my tears came from the depths of my toes. We
were planning to share with the world the next week. We never even told our
sons. I had never felt such a deep pain. I had a D&C. They did every test on my and the baby and the doctor said there is no reason I can’t carry a baby to full term. More hope.

Here is the necklace hubs got me for
Mother’s Day. It is an angel with two kids. It means the world to me.

Here are the quotes I read often to help me. I keep them
on my phone and when I feel discouraged, I read them.

Which leads me to #13. Another pivotal moment in 2013.

I found out that I miscarried on a Friday and that Sunday didn’t think I was
strong enough to go to church. What a thought! I texted my friends and asked
them to take my family to the cross that morning. I logged onto my computer and
received a FB message from a friend that resonated with me. She said to cry out
to God because he knows what it is like to lose a child in the worst way. That
gave me immediate peace. It gave me an understanding that God would never allow
me to suffer such pain (knowing how horrible this hurt was) if it wasn’t for
his greater plan or purpose. I emailed a group of my friends that night and
shared with them the revelation that God had given me, asked for prayers, and
told them that JOY will come in the morning.

God’s plan was still
at work. One of my best friends had gotten pregnant a week before me. We had
shared everything so far. The nausea, the exhaustion, the plans for future play
dates. The next day, Monday, she went to the doctor and found out she had lost
her baby. She already had a healthy child and didn’t have the problems I did.
She was in complete shock. When she got home, she opened my email and read it
to her husband. It was the email of the message God gave to me Sunday morning.
They cried and prayed together. She came to see my after my D&C and told me
how much God used my story and that email to provide much healing and peace to
her and her husband. I cried and told God that if I had to lose my baby to give
her HIS message and peace, then I am okay with that. She later shared my email
with a friend of hers when she miscarried the next month.

Then, last month my other best friend miscarried. Actual, we have a group of five and three of us have miscarried this year which is just craziness. I was the first and I was certainly there to hold their hand during their time of sadness. I have always been the “mom” of the group so it just seemed fitting that my role was to have the greatest empathy as we walk this journey together. God’s word for me has become a message of hope to others and that helps me to heal.

This is the reason
for my latest tiny bout of sadness. My baby was due in November and well, that
was hard. I put on a few pounds and shed a few more tears but I know God is
faithful. I will continue to be a living vessel for his will.

Why do I share this
now? Well, I think it’s a good refection for myself. I want to look back on
this post in a year and see how far I have come. It’s proof of the
difference a year can make. I have also learned that I am not alone. No one
should ever have to suffer in silence but I am proof that JOY comes in the
morning! Posting this is crazy because much of this I haven’t shared with my
all of my family or even my children but I do feel compelled and it must be
purposeful. Really this is the cliff notes. I could write a book about my journey this year.

So my word for 2014 is

because I am standing
on the promises of God. I believe he will give me the desires of heart. I hope
to find a better balance so I can be the best wife, mother, teacher, and
friend. I *hope* this will be the year we add to our family but no matter what,
I feel blessed. I just want to make a difference and to know that I did
everything I could to leave my mark on 2014.

Whatever you plans
and goals are for 2014, I wish you well!

Love and virtual hugs!

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