For a early (and much needed) birthday gift to myself… I bought myself a new desktop computer! I’ve had a laptop for the last 10 years but I always wanted a desktop with a nice big screen. I went back and forth a bit on figuring out if I wanted to make the switch to a Mac or stay with Windows. Ultimately, I got the best of both worlds! I found this awesome computer on sale (before Black Friday!!) which runs Windows but has the feel and look of a Mac. I’m in love!

Thanksgiving was so much fun this year! After I had my amazing Friendsgiving, I was ready the short week at school! My students and I did a drawing activity found from Art Projects for Kids. I wanted to add a little writing assignment so I quickly created this prompt, “If I Were a Thanksgiving Turkey”. They had so much fun drawing, painting and creating a silly story.

After the short week, I was off to my parents house for a nice family dinner and time with my favorite puppies!!

After the tasty dinner, one of my best friends and I headed out that night for some shopping. I’m not usually a black Friday shopper but I was talked into going out. It was actually crazy and so much fun! The best part is I got ALL of my shopping done in one night! I got home around 3:30 AM but at least all my shopping was done, right? 🙂

For my birthday, my boyfriend and I drove down to Seaside, Oregon for a extended weekend. It was by far the best trip we have been on! The room was great, the weather was decent and the town was so adorable! We were pretty much the only people in every restaurant we went to.

It was a much needed trip away for the both of us and the BEST BEST BEST BEST part was my birthday (/early Christmas gift) from my WONDERFUL boyfriend:

I’m truly in love with my camera…. and my boyfriend for getting it for me!! 🙂

This last week went by fast! Had a belated birthday dinner with my family and friends, got some amazing gifts from them (see all that beautiful Chevron!?). In school, we had a photo-shoot with props (using my new camera of course!). For gifts for home we used the recipe for Rice Wreaths from Teacher Idea Factory. The kids LOVED getting all messy and mixing up all the ingredients. We decided to decorate them with red hots versus the red beads. Sadly, I wasn’t able to send them home with them because we had a snow day on Friday (giving us a extra day of break!!). The kid and exhausted teacher in me was joyous but the OCD in me keeps thinking about the mess I left at school.