The Biggest Loser

Are you a fan of The Biggest Loser? I am! It is one of my favorite shows. It is amazing to me how people can lose so much weight just by eating properly and exercising.

Now that school is finished, I won't be super stressed out and exhausted all the time. I can start going to bed at a decent time and even have time to exercise! I feel like my life finally has time to welcome the challenge of losing weight. Even though I will still be in school next semester, things will be a lot different. I won't be sitting at home on my butt all day at the computer and going to sleep at crazy hours of the night. I will have a regular work-type schedule and I will be on my feet all day. I also won't be able to munch whenever I feel like it.

I feel like one of the reasons I have not been successful at losing it weight is because I never learned how to cook. There are a few things I know how to cook, but not much. I already have The Biggest Loser Cookbook but I wanted more options. So, I purchased a few new cheap cookbooks. As I have been looking through the ingredients on a lot of the recipes, I have noticed that a lot of them have similar ingredients and very few ingredients. I didn't know cooking could be so easy! So, I am really excited to start this new journey in my life next week.

Below are the cookbooks that I will be using to start this weight loss journey. (I purchased them from Amazon.com because they were much cheaper and also offered free shipping.)

This is the cookbook that I already had that I will be using:

Most of the recipes in this book (below) are for 4 servings, which is perfect for us. :) (I am going to try and get Kyle to eat healthy too... keyword: try :) )

I am especially excited about this book (below)!!! If you are a sweet eater like me, you can imagine why I am so excited!

I have not looked at this one yet but it is by the same author as The Biggest Loser cookbooks so I am hoping it will be good, and easy as advertised. It says it is for the super busy and that is going to be me in about a month when I start student teaching!

I never thought I would be so excited about cooking and eating healthy, I think because I never knew how to make healthy taste good and not be boring. I am going to try and plan menus for a week at a time and if possible prepare ahead, especially next semester, so that I don't have to do a lot when I get home.

I'm Done!

I'm done! I'm done! I'm done! I am officially done with my course work!!! Now all I have to do is my student teaching and I can graduate! I think I might have to do a happy dance!!! Now I just have to wait to see what my final grades will be...

P.S. Still trying to get my placement for student teaching changed. It is going to be tought, stressful journey getting things changed so please keep me in your thoughts.

Student Teaching

It is with bittersweetness that I am able to announce that I have received my student teaching placement for next semester.

The person over the school district had asked me where I would like to be placed. I had my first choice and also requested to be in any of the schools on this side of the district. The reasoning was because I am having to take out student loans to pay for childcare and gas since I will be basically working for free. Even though student teaching is a 40 hour work week, the class load is (for some odd reason) considered part time, so my aid package was lowered since I will not be a full time student.

Well, today I got my placement and I am not on the side of the district that I live on. In fact, I am on the complete opposite side. It is a little disappointing and frustrating and I am definitely worried about the long drive and the cost of gas, especially since I will not be making a paycheck to compensate for it. I am trying to stay positive and hope that the Lord has good plans for me and that there is a good reason I have been placed so far.

I will be student teaching in 3rd and 5th grade which I am very excited about. :)

UPDATE: I am currently trying to get my placements changed. I am so irritated. They placed me in math-only classes for my 60 days of student teaching. I will have a generalist certification, which means I will be certified to teach ALL subjects, which means I NEED to know how to teach ALL subjects, not just math. This is not going to benefit me and not look good when I try to get a job and I only have experience teaching math. If I wanted a degree in math I would have gotten one. So, I am currently fighting to get it changed. I don't understand how they even thought this would be okay? GRRR

Just Checking In

Hello All,
Words to describe the past week and the upcoming week... stressful, exhausting and crazy.

For the past few nights, I have been up between 2-4:30am trying to get school work done. As I am approaching the end of my semester, so many things are due all at the same time. I am officially in panic mode!! I know that I WILL be graduating with Honors. However, there are 3 levels of honors. In order for me to get the top honor, I have to make all A's this semester. One class is finished and it was an A! So, now I need 4 more. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers that I can have the mental and physical strength to keep pushing hard and get through this next week.

I will update you as soon as I know where my grades stand....

Love,
Tammy

Busy Busy Busy

I have been extremely busy with school so I haven't had much time to post. :( I have about 3 weeks of school left so I am trying to play catch up with the assignments I pushed to the side. I hope to post more in the next couple of weeks.

I am excited to announce that this morning I registered for my LAST set of classes!! I will be student teaching in January and graduating in May!! This morning I registered for my student teaching courses.

Hopefully in the next few weeks I will be able to let you all know if I will be graduating with Honors and if so which level. Also hoping to find out my student teaching placements as well in the next few weeks.

Reminder!

Please don't forget to follow me at my new blog: http://www.threadedthingsbytammy.blogspot.com

I will still be using this blog for personal posts and I will be using my new blog to post various handmade projects that I have done.

Halloween & Colton's Birthday

So much has been going on lately I have had practically no time to post pictures! I have been crazy busy with school as the end of the semester is approaching. My mom took Colton and I to Shrek Live, we had our first real Halloween and Colton's 4th birthday! We opted to not to a birthday party so we spent the same amount of money and took Colton to San Antonio for the weekend. :) Below is a few pictures to recap the past few weeks... Above: At Shrek Live (I would also like to add that I think Colton looks a lot like me in this picture... Quite frankly I am tired of everyone saying my children "look just like Kyle.")

Colton as Woody from Toy Story and Tayler as a little Halloween fairy. (She refused to wear the wings or shoes.)

Colton was so excited, he kept running and got tripped up in his cowboy boots and went face first into the concrete. It scabbed pretty bad the next few days but is better now.

Since this is the first year that we took Colton trick-or-treating and handed out candy (and it is the first time that I can remember be able to celebrate Halloween) I had to at least dress up a little bit!

The Birthday Boy!
Last Friday, Colton turned 4!

Since we did not do a birthday party for Colton at the house, we did a mini party at his pre-school. They all sang happy birthday and I gave the kids toy story decorated brownies and a toy story themed goody bag (which Colton passed out.) Also, in the picture, to the right of Colton you may notice another special child... Tayler! She sat at the table and was so well behaved. She fit right in with the big kids.
When we got home, we did cake, presents and packed to get read for our trip to San Antonio! (These pictures will have to come later because I am quite tired after posting all of these!)

Below: Blowing out the candles on his strawberry cake with chocolate icing (Hey, it's what he wanted!) Toy Story themed cake.

Below: Colton with some of his gifts..




Colton LOVES puzzles so we got him a panoramic puzzle. It is 3 seperate puzzles but they all fit together. One is "easy" one is "medium" and one is more difficult.

Colton loves anything educational. He especially loved this V-Tech educational texter. It has various activities with letters and numbers.

Isn't this face just priceless!?!? This was when he opened his Toy Story flashlight. :)

Colton has the game Hungry Hungry Hippos but he hardly gets to play it because Tayler likes to try and eat the balls. So, when I saw the travel game, I knew he would love it! All of the pieces are enclosed in a plastic shell.

"Colton, do you like all of your presents?"

"Yeeeeeeeaaaaah!"