New Baby Boy!!

This morning Brad and I became an Uncle & Aunt a second time over! My sister had her baby boy back home in North Carolina at 10:06 am and a healthy 6 lb 12oz.

We're sad that we couldn't be there to be with you all today and enjoy his newborn-ness, but cannot wait to meet him soon!! Congratulations on the baby boy Sis, Grahm & McKenna!

Welcome to the world, Jake Kelson!!

We LOVE you so much!

New Job!

I think most of our friends/family are already aware of this fact, but yesterday I officially accepted a position at a great school in the Dysart District out here in Arizona. I announced the great news with this super instagram:

Who has two thumbs and a new job as a first grade teacher in AZ?! THIS GIRL!!!!

Ironically, it's name is Mountain View... which is the name of my fantabulous elementary school I attended as a child. I will be teaching first grade and will have four other teachers in my grade to work with! I am very excited to be working in a high achieving school and think I'll fit in quite nicely.

Now reflecting on the job search as a whole...
I was a little shocked at how many interviews/offers I got compared to when we were in North Carolina. Not that it was in the double digits, but when I accepted a position at Southwood it was the only offer I got out of two interviews I had. Kind of a buzz kill, right? Well here... I had four interviews (and a call for another which I declined) and three job offers. Not trying to brag.. it was just a completely different experience!

Anywho, here's to celebrating the fact that I will have a job come August! Now on to finding something for the summer... (grumbles)

Cork Overflow

What do you do when you have an over abundance of wine corks? Well, one would probably be more than slightly intoxicated.. but no worries, the corks I possess were obtained from a previous boss back home. He and his wife collected them over several years and were just going to toss them out.

Crazy right? I have since made a "cork" board from the corks for my mom, and the rest have rested in a grocery bag in the attic until now.

We've got a lack of coaster situation going on in our living room. We've got a set we picked up on our honeymoon, but when they're on the other side of the room and we have people over... no bueno.

Instead of packing the cork collection up for further storage, I decided to craft some coasters out of them!

I used an x-acto knife, craft glue, corks (of course) and some cork pieces I had leftover from making my scrabble tile coasters from Christmas. For the corks to stick well to the cork bottom pieces, I cut the wine corks in half vertically to increase the surface area that would be glued.

I think they turned out pretty darn good!

Wedding Wishes

A few months ago, one of my best friends Kayla showed me a creative way she found on pinterest to compile the cards her and her husband received from guests at their wedding. I'm not sure if this is the exact pin, but here is a more simple example.

I decided I'd like to have one too for our wedding cards so we can go back and reminisce whenever we want! I went to the arts and crafts store and chose some cute, sturdy scrapbook papers and copied her design exactly. She's got one of those fancy cricut machines and a sticker maker, so we went to town to create mine!

Kayla and I spent one of my last evenings in Boone putting the front and back covers together... with a lot of help from her hubby since we somehow managed to cut crooked lines using straight edges. I still don't get it!

Either way, once we got here and unpacked our things, this project was one of the first things I tackled!

Here she is:

Thanks Kayla & Nathan :D

Will Work for Food

Let me start this out by saying that Brad and I absolutely love it out here and have really enjoyed meeting so many great people already.

It has been a relief for Brad to fall into his steady job instead of working odd jobs and me bringing in the steady paycheck from my part-time job. However... now I'm the one who is seeking out anything I can get my hands on.

There are a L-O-T of hoops to jump through in switching over my NC Teaching License to AZ.. and a lot of papers to fill out (I think my hand is still a little sore from writing so much). Arizona has this fingerprint clearance thing.. sort of like a background check that they require before you go to work with kiddos because, well.. you don't want a child abuser in the classroom, right?! Well this thing takes 4-8 weeks to process once it has been submitted... stress me out.

One district in the area agreed to interview me.. and then I never heard back from them about the position for which I interviewed. They called a couple days ago and offered me a position. Thing is, they're 30+ minutes away and I was really torn.

Other districts are waiting for this fingerprint thing before they'll interview me. Won-der-ful.

WELL - IT CAME IN THE MAIL TODAYYY! YIPEE!!

Also, I landed another interview at a school 20 minutes away for a position I'd really like to have.

Things are falling into place, no?! If you've been praying for us, thank you. We appreciate it and feel it! Please pray that the Lord will lead me to a wonderful school where I'll fall into the swing of things and have encouraging co-workers.