happy halloween

happy halloween from these deadheads

red ribbon week

this week  (oct 27- oct 31) at school we've been celebrating red ribbon week. schools & other organizations around the country use this special time to take a stand for a drug-free america. during this week we talk about the importance of making healthy choices that will lead to future success. at school we've had special themed days to get us all involved in red ribbon week in a symbol of unity by participating all together.
monday, october 26th- we are "red-y" to be drug free
all students were encouraged to wear a red uniform shirt to show that we are united in the fight against drugs! (livi was home sick so it's just me)

tuesday, october 27th- you won't see me using drugs
students came ready wearing camouflage.

wednesday, october 28th- to smart to start

students got to wear their favorite college jersey or shirt to show that we will work together as a team to encourage each other to make healthy choices!

thursday, october 29th- say boo to drugs
students got to wear orange & black or our favorite halloween t-shirt!

friday, october 31st- we have better things to do than drugs
today we wore our class t-shirt & enjoyed some healthy, outdoor fun at field day!

this week was also our LET"S DRIVE OUT HUNGER food drive. everyone brought canned goods to school to donate to helping hands!

5th grade yearbook cover contest

since i came to dickinson elementary in 3rd grade i've been waiting to enter this contest & now i'm finally in 5th grade & i can! every year any 5th grader can enter their own original art idea for the yearbook committee to judge to win the prize of your art being the cover of the school yearbook! this year's theme is pink/yellow lemonade: serving up fresh ideas. we were given a blank piece of white 12x18 paper to draw on. our art has to be lengthwise across the paper & parents may only help with ideas, but they CAN NOT draw or create or design. we had to either color the artwork with colored pencils or markers. i choose colored pencils because i think they fill in the spaces better, but i had to color darkly. we had to color all the way out to the edge of the paper, but keep lettering at least 1" from the edge. we also had to allow 1" in the center for the book spine. we had to include "dickinson elementary" & "2015-2016" on the front cover. if there is any misspellings your disqualified, believe me everyone in the house triple checked my piece to be 100% that everything was spelled correctly... you know me. we aren't allowed to put our name on our piece to ensure our piece will be judged fairly. when we submit our entry we will be given a number which will correspond to our name on a list. the deadline to turn in our pieces is tomorrow & i know i'll be the first to turn in my piece. yikes... i'm so nervous, i've been waiting to do this for so long. i really hope the committee loves my piece & i'll be surprised to see my piece on the cover of the yearbook!!! wish me luck!

this is the front: it's a student drinking lemonade from a mason jar in front of school getting ready to head in for a AMASON day... get it amazing. our mascot is a dolphin so i thrower in a subtle dolphin earring. 

 this is the spine with another glass of lemonade.

this is the back: it's 2 students selling some delicious lemonade with a serving of fresh ideas. i added our favorite school saying in the banner which is peace, love, dolphins. 

here's the whole piece together.... ahhhh, what do you think?!?!?!

happy early national candy corn day

ok, so you all know that we loooove halloween & since tomorrow is national candy corn day we decided to make all of our teachers a lil sweet spooky treat to celebrate it! tomorrow is going to be CRAZY at school because of red ribbon week coming to an end & field day so we celebrated a day early this year. so of course we made our famous "candy corn cookie bark"!  it's so easy & mmm, mmm, good we wanted to share it in case you wanted to try it too!

14 whole oreos, broken up. we used the halloween ones with the orange filling. 
1 C pretzels, broken into pieces. we used the small stick pretzels
1 lb. white chocolate or milk chocolate, almond bark or melts.
1 C candy corm.
1/2 C salted peanuts
halloween sprinkles or orange and black colored sprinkles.

cover a large cookie sheet with wax paper. spread broken cookies, pretzels and about 3/4 C of the candy corn onto the waxed paper.  place white/milk chocolate in a container and microwave for 1 1/2 minutes.  stir and then microwave for another 30 seconds until melted and smooth.  white chocolate melts faster and burns easier than chocolate.
drizzle the melted chocolate over the cookie mixture, spreading with spatula if needed to coat evenly.  sprinkle remaining candy corn and colored sprinkles over the chocolate while it is still wet.  do not let it harden.  place cookie tray into refrigerator until set and firm. remove and gently break bark into small pieces. store in air tight container.

tia liz... a special message just for you

happy birthday to you cha cha cha, happy birthday to you cha cha cha, happy birthday dear tia liz, happy birthday to you cha cha cha! we love you so so so much!!!

hue mural festival

if you know us you know we loooooooove street art & will travel all over to see it! so we were super excited when we heard about the hue mural festival! "artists from around the world to add unique design to houston's cityscape during week-long festival. houston first presents the city’s first annual houston urban experience (HUE) mural festival, celebrating houston’s diverse arts community. the festival, which will take place october 17- 24, 2015, will feature 90 artists from around the world, including brazil, colombia, mexico and spain, transforming Houston’s cityscape from concrete to color.  artists will have approximately 170 hours to create their designs using various forms of tools, techniques and styles of mural art including graffiti, muralism, paint brush work, airbrush, roller brush, wheat paste and stencil. once complete, the murals will cover 25 walls throughout downtown, including edao  east end and washington avenue arts districts, totaling approximately 20,000 square feet of wall space within a 17-mile roundtrip around the city."

so on monday while we were at school mommy & daddy went downtown to check it out. they met several of the artists & got to watch them work. 

when they picked us up from school they were so excited telling us about their afternoon. we all decided we had to go back later on in the week to see the progress the artists made & there were still tons of artists that haven't even started yet. some of the artists were done, some were just starting, some were in the middle & some were putting on the fishing touches. let me tell you it was one of the most amazing things we have ever seen! we made tons of new friends that was the coolest artists ever... it was AWESOME!

mommy & daddy found out that my old art teacher, ms. marjon had a piece there & surprised me with it. i would know it was her art anywhere, she can create the most amazing life-like eyes out of every painter i've ever seen. isn't it beautiful?!?!?!

we do have some bad news about the festival. thursday night some people tried to ruin several of the murals & it made us all very mad & upset. these artist had flown in from all over the world to help make out city prettier & these people were jealous & tried to ruin it. a lot of the artists pulled together to help clean it as best as they could & paint over to fix the pieces. mommy & daddy had gotten to know this artist & took this picture of us to remind her to stay strong. even though her piece had been covered up we still think she's super talented.

while we were there we were interviewed by channel 13 news about the vandalism. we didn't know it was a news station till later on when mommy's phone went crazy with people texting her saying we were on the news. we were so embarrassed & hoped we had sounded & looked ok... sheesh. here's the video of us on the news below. it's super tiny so you have to click on the arrows to make it bigger to see our 15 seconds of fame.