branson snow

although we don't in any way compare to my little waukesha friend laurita, we definitely had some WEAthah! saturday morning we woke up to the most beautiful snow of the year -- soft and fluffy... here's erica on her way to unearth her car.
we had monday off for president's day and still had a snow day on tuesday so it was like a mini-break -- got me to thinking about freedom and summer and all the fun things that go along with that... just 3 more months!!

trentuplets (would that be for 30?)

i know it's not physically possible to have this many children at once, but let's just pretend...
i didn't want ya'll to think i had it easy with my measly little class of 7, so here's a more normal sized class... this is actually only 2/3 of the class -- the other 10 are skulking outside the picture. high school insecurities or something.
this was salad dressing day during spirit week, so there's a chef somewhere in there and a greek girl and a 1,000 island native...

my version of babies

they're pretty big, but they're mine so i love 'em! this is my smallest class -- they each get a table all to themselves. the girl in the brown sweatshirt is maggie -- i have her for 3 hours a day! she's a senior, so 2 art classes helps fill up her schedule, then she's my teacher's aid for another hour. she's my buddy.

babies

in keeping with the blogging tradition, i decided my blog definitely needs some cute baby pictures. these are my nieces and nephew -- i won't put a picture of the whole clan of kids since they now add up to EIGHT! but these 3 will work to validate this site forevermore.
here we have dan's youngest ryan with the smile, andy's youngest kaitlyn in the curls, and zac's first baby, brayden. you can see plenty more of the wee little brady if you go to zac and alyssa's link o'er yonder...

youth groupies

well, actually i'm the youth groupie and these are all the certifiable youth groupers -- i just like hanging around them and pretending i'm still cool like in high school... these plus a few more are the coolest of cools though, no joke. just gotta love 'em!

neighbors AND friends!

the infamous erica, of the singing duo 'jeremy & erica' (in case the name sounded familiar to you...) i tried to attach their website to the links over there, but every time i clicked on it, it'd take me to some educational career site?! i couldn't figure it out. so just go to jeremymontgomery/myspace.com and check out their super smooth tunes, man. 

rachel, me, evonne, amy, & abby

just don't think about the awkwardness of this pose... aren't we adorable?! 

much less awkward. 

axe girl to the rescue

there's nothing like a little log splitting after church! my friend loaned me his splitting maul by bringing it to church and i just couldn't wait to try it out as soon as i got home... it's so empowering to break a log in two! yes!!! it's only equalled by the depressing feeling of inadequacy when the big ole ones wouldn't give themselves over to me -- i had to have my muscle-bound friend tim come over for some high power splitting.
i'm so ready for central heating and air.

the next big thing

my very own friend erica and other friend jeremy had their cd release concert -- they're going to be famous! here's their soulful singing faces.

my cute house

as requested, here are some pictures of my house -- outside and in... i do very much love this house, more than words can express. it's like a little cocoon of warmth and goodness.

friends

here's some of my favorite female branson people...
here are their names, see if you can match up name to face by intuition alone: susan, erica, lindsey lawson, drea, elizabeth, allison, lindsey hamm...

welcome to my art room!

i would give you a walking tour of every aspect of my amazingly cool art room, but you've probably got all you can handle with the detailed tour of the art work coming out of this art room, so i'll just leave it at that...
but yo, props to principal johnson, the best principal in all of blue eye! (key point #1: blue eye is population 128. key point #2: he's never going to be reading this, which is the only way i can say 'props' and his name in the same sentence... oh, and key point #3: if you ever need to be a commentator on televised pre-teen snow sports, you're going to need to add several words to your vocabulary -- the top three being 'props', 'stompin', and 'representin')

bate's klog

i'd like to present the klog. a teacher's best friend, worn in rain or shine, dressy or casual, the official mascot of this website.

encyclopedic exposition on high school artwork

we're having a district-wide contest in march, and these are some of the ones that i'll probably be entering -- i have no idea what the area high schoolers' art is looking like, but this is the best my little conglomeration of students can do so far... it'll be good to gain perspective on where they should be compared to the rest of all those other high schoolers out there.
my favorite is this green and reddish brown one -- the assignment was learning about composition and what makes an interesting arrangment of lines, shapes, colors, etc... also they've been practicing blending colors from dark to light. it doesn't come naturally, evidently.
the action figure assignment was focusing on proportion -- comparing parts to each other to figure out the right size, shape and width. in case you can't figure out what the one fellow in the hat is doing, he's a break dancer (of course).
the striped painting is from one of my middle school classes. they had to start somewhere on the color wheel, then gradually paint their way around it, going from color to color. allegedly they would then be color mixing geniuses...
the black and white charcoal is the only one of that project that i still have, but they turned out so well! for freshmen to have their drawings look great, that's quite an accomplishment. they were studying 'chiaroscuro', the dramatic change between light and dark that artists like carravaggio were amazing at...

and this concludes entry #1 in this week's encyclopedic exposition of high school artwork. tune in later for an update on the contest!


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the budding artists of blue eye, missouri

aHA!

i have finally found the missing link! to blogging bliss, not evolution, mind you. who would have known that the little orange 'e' square is actually a secret portal to the creation process?! well, the lovely alyssa would, to answer my own question...
i suppose it's one of the many little things that make the blogging world so exclusive and fun.
here's the back of my head, for all interested. it seems that's the only picture of me saved on this computer -- i think i was showing someone how gloriously long my hair has gotten -- it may seem trivial, but in this 6-year-long journey of trying to grow my hair out, believe me, it's not trivial. soon to come: pictures of high school artwork! YES! hold your horses though, it might take me a while. to all my fan base: you've been an inspiration, i couldn't have done it without you.

maiden voyage

hello, oh world of blogging! i've always been last to join a trend, so it's only fitting that i should be the last person on the planet to create a blog... and considering that i have no children and have not been recently married, i'm not quite sure what the purpose is...
perhaps you will enjoy the journey of finding blogging purpose with me.
if not, i'm sure there's many other things out there for you to be doing other than reading these inconsequential ramblings.