Step Two:

Sew each set of nine together, add in some unpicking and eye-rolling, a tad more sewing, then cut each set of nine right smack down the middle.

Step Three:

Have a really hard time picking and choosing which pieces to use in your set of two place mats. Date night anyone? Try to hold your horses for a little longer cowboy, I'm not quite done with these bad boys.

I think this one is my favorite so far.

I'm making place mats!

Step one: Piece together the fabric.

Do you like the set up?

2010: Festival of Colors!

Hare Krishna

What a hilarious mess. It was so fun to throw colors on strangers, but not so fun to be the shortest in the bunch. Everyone (mostly fun-loving strangers) loved to rub handfuls on the top of my head.

Pics of me coming soon.

I forgot a very important USU video:

Big Blue Crowd Surfing

Dra and I drove up to Logan to visit Em, Jaime, oh, and go to the last USU homegame.

Peacock in Logan? Now I've seen everything.

Ridiculously excited to go to the game.

Sisters hair commercial, don't you think?
Blonde, brunette, redhead.
All natural folks, all natural.

Hail the Utah Aggies!

Wild Bill is a must-see. I was laughing all of second half ...
until I noticed I could see his butt crack. Gross. Okay, okay, I still laughed.

"Show me the Scotsman who doesn't love the thistle ..."
This song should be my running song, pumps me full of energy.



Ever since I saw this on youtube, I wanted to participate.
So mean, so fun, so true.

WAC Champs!

What the? Man painted blue?

I forgot that whenever we win, the A's blue.

Favorite parts of the game:

• When Jardine blocked the guy then jumped over another.
• Emily thinking that one of our chants had a swear word in it.
• Zach's texts telling me not to get shot by Wild Bill and not to fall in love.
• Emily grabbing Big Blue's tail, and my mom's text telling her that was naughty.
• Dra sharing all of her videos and pictures.
  
• Laughing it up with my sissies.
  

I've been so ugly at school these days. My TA students raised a lot of money for our school-wide fundraiser. I offered motivation by telling them if they met certain goals, I would humiliate myself in one form or another. I shrugged it off because I assumed they wouldn't raise very much. They met every goal.

One day I had to wear my hair in a mohawk.
(I kept getting compliments which hurt my pride even more.)

Another day I had to be Batman all day long. (Probably the worst considering it's light out in the morning now, so a lot of U students got to see Batman scraping her car windows in the morning. Ultimate humilation.)
Only my 28 TA students knew what was going on, so I had to explain myself to all of my other students. Everyone soon got used to my shenanigans.

My kids are being so sassy lately. Thankfully it's the funny sass.

This week is Spirit Week. Monday started as Sports Day, so I wore an Aggie Handball shirt. One of my 9th graders smirked, "Ms. Bateman! How much money did your TA students have to raise for you to wear that awful shirt?" I laughed and shook my fist at him. What a sassquatch.

Tuesday was Crazy Day, and the students did not appreciate my cowboy gear. I tried to smoothe it over with, "Isn't it CRAZY that I'm wearing a cowboy hat?" They were all concerned with what I was trying to say about cowboys.

Today was Pajama Day. Another 9th grader mocked, "You wear your glasses to bed?" I kept muttering no, I, no, no, but ... then I just laughed. They did love the awful four curlers in my hair. I drove to work with my hood on the whole way. It was incredibly curly when I took it out after school.

Other funny things:
I'm teaching my 7th graders about probability, and we've been playing a lot of fun games. One day we were rolling two dice, and a 2 and a 2 came up, and one Sassafrass yelled, "Snake Eyes!" then clapped his hands over his mouth, but came back with, "I mean Spider Eyes!" and he emphasized it with spirit fingers. I put my head on the board and laughed.

Today, he, or his twin, I can't remember which one, saw on his paper: P(green) which stands for the probability of green. "P green!? Who pees green?!" Again, I just laughed.

see more Epic Fails

I had a fantastic birthday.

Thank you for all of the well-wishes.

From Family

The nephews loved the monkey mask card.

From Jed

From John

From Anna

Yes, that's a scorpion sucker.

From Kiera

I am rich in flowers this week!

Happy Birthday Eli!

I can't believe you're three; I have tears in my eyes just thinking about it.

I love you so much, and I've been thinking about you all day.

• Getting so mad at the zoo squirrel that you started to cry.
• Refusing to pet the sting ray but insisting that I had to pet him.
• Literally climbing up me because the octopus made you so nervous.
• Categorizing everything into "I like that!" or "I don't like that."
• Reading books with Ezra. Ezra: "Eli! You have to come see this!" Eli jumps off of his chair, "Otay! Wow!" Ezra laughing, "No Eli, this is bigger than a rhinoceros." Serious Eli: "But that's not real life."
• Dinosaur Mountain
• Standing on the chair, "Thank you everybody!"
• Eating cat food and making Ezra gag while he cried, "Beebye, no!"
• Watching you plow through piles of leaves in the neighborhood in your Scooby Doo costume.
• Calling cats Mows.
• "No! He's nice!"
• Waving and saying goodbye to all of the fish and sharks and starfish.
• "Goodbye!" then super sad face, "Dinosaur no say goodbye to me."
• You couldn't remember my name, then when I reminded you, "Oh yeah! Aunt Amy!" followed by a super big hug.
• I think you're starting to love me almost as much as you love Grandpa Brent. (I wish.)

We went to my cousin Marcus' wedding reception, and as all of the girlies were gathering to catch the bouquet, I was absolutely not in the mood to take part. "Nah. Look at all those girls, too many, not worth it," but then they started blasting Single Ladies. My bubble butt just can't help but move to that song, so I let it carry me through the crowd to Emily. Right as I was about to make her laugh really hard with my latest practiced Beyonce moves, all the girls started screaming because Dayloni was about to throw the bouquet. I kept my eye on the prize, accessed my go go gadget legs, and I got it! Me! The shortest short girl in the bunch! Emily said it looked like I was rocketing to the moon. I didn't know what to do, I laughed and jumped up and down, then kept asking if I was supposed to give it back. Then Dayloni ran over and hugged me, and rushed me over to the cameraman for pictures. I was an instant celebrity. Eli ran up and begged me to hold him, but he refused to smell the flowers.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Probably shouldn't fall asleep while I'm around.

"I will run forever, if we run together."

I think only Zach will get this reference.

It's official.

Maybe I'll see these two again, but this time, I'll get a medal too.

I survived another Parent Day at my school.

Today parents were allowed to stomp around with their students to each class.

Occurrences:

• My Dad came and watched one of my Geometry classes and mingled with my students' parents. He was a great little spy/seller of my teaching skills.
• My overhead projector overheated in the very same class it overheated in when it spat fire.
• My TA kids met their first goal of bringing in $45 for our Haiti Fundraiser, so now I have to wear my hair in a mohawk on Monday. What have I done? Once they meet their next goal, I have to dress up as Batman all day long. Again, what have I done? The parents laughed really hard.
• A parent of a student I had last year stopped me in the hall to congratulate me on my running. What the what? Apparently, she's seen me at the gym, "You run fast!" Not all the time lady. She tried to convince me to do a triathlon with her. I was too embarrassed to tell her I only know how to froggy swim, and I had to promise her I would think about it.
• I've had an interactive Promethean board in my class for a year and half now, but just last week, I started using what I call, "Clickers." They are fabulous gadgets that let the kids text in their answers. They have to enter their names in first so I know who's answering, and Jazz put in Jizz on accident. One boy couldn't stop laughing, but I honestly don't think he realized exactly why this was so unfortunate. I'm sure the parents thought this was hilarious or extremely offensive.
• One parent brought me a cookie.

* Picture of one of our clickers. They're fabulous.

Majority of my students while I'm trying to get them excited about the topic:
"Have you taught this yet today?"

Me: "Nope, you're my guinea pigs."

Extremely excited students: "We're your G-Force!?!"

Promised my mom I would document everything I make from now on.

Rose - This would have been yours. Unfortunately, it has some orange in it. It's not pure red. Yours is coming, don't fret.

Anyone else want to throw in a request? (I love making deals.)

In relief society yesterday, the lesson was on our three ward goals, one of which is spreading the gospel. One girl raised her hand to make a comment, and she has the most monotone/slowest speech in the whole history of man learning to talk. Here goes:

"My ... mother always said ... before you 'warn' ... with an N ... your neighbor ... you should 'warm' your neighbor. Warm (then she spelled this next part out) W - R - M - E. Um ... I think I did that wrong ... but we should warm our neighbors first ..." and she went on to finish her point.

What? Why isn't anyone else at least kind of giggling? I must be the biggest jerk. I put my head between my knees and tried to keep it together. It was the funniest thing ever. W-R-M-E? Are you kidding me?

Happy Birthday Jackie!

2nd attempt was a little cleaner.

Don't worry, Jackie already has her hat. I made sure I posted after I gave the birthday girl her present.

Watch out, I'm pretty proud of myself.

I've been crafting it up during my holiday break: scarf after scarf after scarf.

Dra asked me to make her a beanie.

I think it's adorable, and I probably should have looked for a tutorial, but I'm beaming with satisfaction for figuring a pattern out on my own.

What do you think?

All of the nephews are over at my parents'.

Here's Ezra playing with my mom's Christmas present. He loves wearing the apron; he and my mom made us sugar cookies with sprinkles with the cookie press I gave my mom for Christmas.

Earlier this morning, after I had showered and readied myself, I ran downstairs to continue playing and Ezra stopped mid train crash, "Hey! You look pretty good. I mean your hair."

Last night while waiting for our dinner at Cracker Barrel, my mom wandered back from washing her hands.

Ezra: "Grandma where the heck have you been?"