Daily Grind

I always like to envision what other people (who are close to me) do during their day to day life so I thought I would share a few pictures from my daily life.

My day starts with getting up and getting the house ready to get the dog up. After I get him up and take him out he gets breakfast. While he eats I go and get ready for work. Now, if Matt is home he is super good about doing all this so I can just get up and get ready right away. After I'm ready, Hunter gets locked up in the kitchen with his special snack and we walk out the door with a, "Be Back." Usually he doesn't bark and just devours his snack. I hop in my car and hit the surface streets until I come to 280 N where, if I'm lucky, I'll only sit in traffic like this:

Otherwise it's bumper to bumper and takes awhile. Thankfully with my work hours of 9:30-6:30 I can take the carpool lane for at least part of my time on 280. Once I exit I take a really long road into work. 

This road has at least six traffic lights, which no exaggeration, can each take 2-3 minutes each. This road connects to an equally long road with as many equally long lights. Over time I have found a nifty shortcut though. And it turns out it's really beautiful!

This road connects to Stanford Ave which is the edge of the campus and where I work. I didn't take pictures of it but it's full of BEAUTIFUL homes (for coaches and faculty to rent) and amazing trees that canopy the street. Typically the weather is sunny and warm with a bit of a breeze and I really enjoy it. 

Here are a few pictures of my classroom. I just redid my bulletin boards and we change them every few months. Every classroom has to have a Parent Information Board, Family Board, Birthday Board, and a Curriculum Board. (You can make all photos bigger by clicking on the image.)

Corner of my classroom. The babies love to play on this pillow turtle and look in the mirrors. 

Parent Information Board: Our daily schedule (not in this pic), our school calendar, our school philosophy, and our teacher bios. 

Curriculum Board: This is a board that I can post their artwork and pictures of them making it. The parents love this board. It also states our curriculum philosophy. 

Family Board: This board has each child's family picture and the names of the members in their family's, including their pets. To make the Family banner I printed the letters and used modge podge to glue them to construction paper. I used the same process on the family cards.

For confidentiality purposes I won't post pictures of this other project but I wish I could because it turned out so cute! I needed to make personalized signs to go over each of the baby's cribs so I took an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of cream construction paper as my starting piece and added layers. I added their name at the top, cut out with cute scissors. I added a circular picture of the baby, which was also cut out with the same cute scissors. These were both bordered with colored construction paper cut with the same pattern. The picture was glued at the bottom of the page. In between I glued a color copy of their feet print (as can be seen in curriculum board pic). I love that it turned out so cute AND so personalized.

To wrap up my day I head back on the same roads and finally walk in my door where I get to greet Matt and a very excited puppy. We take a walk, come back to feed the pup, and then work on dinner for us (if Matt doesn't already have it ready). The evening is filled with getting ready for the next day, laundry, dishes, playing with Hunter, and hopefully a little down time before bed.

There you go. A day in the life of Staci.

Hunter Updates

Most people blog about their kids but since we don't have any, I thought I would blog about our puppy. It turns out that our miniature dachshund is not so miniature. He wasn't supposed to be bigger than 8-11 pounds and so far at 4 months he is 10 1/2 pounds. *Sigh* There go my hopes of a cute little lap dog. His personality is making up for his mammoth size though. He loves people, kids, babies, and other dogs. He is walking really well on his leash and is obeying simple commands. We still plan on taking him to puppy classes though. His potty training is going really well too! Here are some pictures of him (I hope I'm not turning into a crazy dog lady). 

Our dog is technologically savvy. 

He likes to snuggle. Score!

He even likes his baths!

We nap together. 

And he keeps me company, especially when I'm sick. 

He loves to make friends!