Gingerbread Competition!

This year my siblings wanted to do something as a family other than music, so they set up a family gingerbread competition!  They got everything set up and all I had to do was show up and be creative.  It was so much fun!  And we all got a little competitive:

 This is my sorry attempt at making the Hogwarts Castle, complete with Hedwig, a dragon, and the Quidditch Pitch.

 My sister tried to make the manger scene and ended up putting them in an igloo instead of a stable.

 This is my little Hedwig.

 ... and Hogwarts before it snows.

Since my dad drives a school bus for a living, he decided to make one!

This is Halloween...

This Halloween I did what I have been wanting to do for many years.  Since I nanny and take care of kids on a daily basis, and I used to carry a giant bag that had anything you could think of in it, I used to fancy myself Mary Poppins.  I have actually been called Mary Poppins by family and close friends, so I decided to take it and run with it this year!  My entire costume cost $30 this year, as I bought most of it from Deseret Industries and other thrift stores.  I made the umbrella handle and the hat, and I borrowed the carpet bag from a friend.  I think it all came together pretty dang good!  One of the best things was hearing my students get so excited about my costume.  They couldn't remember the name of who I was, since none of them had ever seen the movie Mary Poppins. One of my students ended up calling me Harley Popper!  So cute.

#RedForEd

I write this here because I want to get this out, but I don't want to inundate people with it on social media.  I tend to post a lot about the #RedForEd movement that is happening right now, and that is because I believe in it 100%.  Here is why:

When I was a little girl, my favorite thing to play was school.  I would use stationary paper from my grandpa's CPA office as assignments for my dolls, and then I would "grade" them.  I knew, even then, that I wanted to become a teacher.  As I got older, school was like a second home to me.  I loved being there, learning new things and being able to help others do the same.  It seemed like every teacher knew me, and my teachers were my heroes.  They still are.  I would sit and chat with them before and after school as I helped them grade papers or set things up for the next lesson.  In high school, I began to notice how things around me were being affected by the budget cuts in schools.  Pretty soon that was all you heard about, and it was the main topic of many of mine and my friend's discussions during lunch. We knew what was happening.  In volunteering to help with elementary school orchestras, I quickly found that the fine arts program's funding was very slim to none, and that that was the first thing on the chopping block in the next round of budget cuts.  In high school and college, I campaigned at concerts, assemblies, and on social media about keeping the fine arts in our schools, because that is one of the things that our kids need the most!  Unfortunately, this was a battle lost.

Over the last ten years, I have desperately wanted to become a teacher, because that is who I was born to be.  It is not a choice for me, it is a calling.  However, I have taken so many other routes in college trying to steer clear of this profession because I knew the outcome was not a financially stable career.  Heck, I changed my major in college eight times trying to figure out what else I could do that would measure up to even a fraction of what the teachers do on a daily basis, but that could pay me more.  I went and got a Bachelor's degree, with two minors and a language certificate, and that still wasn't enough.  I needed to be a teacher.  I am currently a paraprofessional in an elementary school and I love every minute of it.  In addition, I have decided to go back to school to pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a teacher, and I am working on classes to get my teaching certificate in Special Education. I know that there are lives of students that I can change for the better, because my teachers were the ones who changed my life.  Sadly, I can't even go and visit my former teachers anymore because most of them left not long after I graduated. With this in mind,  I know that funding public education should be the top thing on the governor and legislator's lists right now, but it is not.  They have tried to ignore us, to shove us out and write us off as greedy, among other fun name-calling endeavors they have decided to pursue. This is not okay with me.  This is not only un-professional of them, but it is personal for me.  The way that our state government is acting right now tells me that they never cared about my education while growing up in AZ, and they don't care about me now as an individual who is doing everything in her power to make sure that the children she comes into contact with on a daily basis have a better and brighter future because of their education. Our schools desperately need more funding, and that is what we are fighting for!  #RedForEd  #SaveOurSchools