Big Spring Elementary

Yesterday was my first day of practicum. I'm doing my internship at Big Springs Elementary in Richardson Independent School District.  Yesterday was an Assessment and ARD day.  My supervisor has one day a week that basically all she deals with is referrals and ARD's for existing students. So all I did yesterday was follow her around to meetings and watch her give the DIBELs which is a reading monitoring assessment.  I actually did a ton of research on the DIBELs last semester in my learning disorders class.  It was interesting seeing it in action. Anyways today is my only day of class.  Normally I'll go to practicum in the morning and then class in the afternoon/evenings but my supervisor was giving more (non SLP) assessments today so I skipped out.

Forgot One Picture!

Lucy loves her new jungle gym in our living room. She even has her own piece of furniture! Last night she decided to watch Funniest Home Videos (the dog segment duh) from her perch right in front of the tv! I tired to get a picture of her standing and trying to climb onto the entertainment center, but as soon as she saw my camera she had to pose instead!

William and I will be reenrolling her in puppy school soon hopefully! She's a little bit of a daddy's girl... and he needs to learn how to impart some structure in her life. She walks all over him... literally!

Our Home!

So tonight is the night that our apartment makes it's blog debut! We may not both be living here much longer... so it's good that it makes it's debut now! (More on that later though.)

Without further ado... Our Apartment!

When you walk in the front door... our living room!

New TV! The other side of the living room!

Dining room complete with diplomas

Dining room, cross collection, and my desk! Ignore the pile of jackets (it's super cold)!

Diplomas

Bathroom with beautiful new shower curtain!

Our cookbook collection!

Kitchen

Our room! It's cozy.

William's desk and my shoe holder... yea i have a few shoes!

We also have two dressers... due to space issues!

Our bed... it's still a work in progress... I would like to have some throw pillows, but everyone I find is goose down and William's allergic!

And one VERY VERY full closet! Thus the reason for two dressers!

I know that was a lot of pictures... I was trying to make it look bigger! hahha! Anyways we are very cozy and happy here. But today William got a job interview with Halliburton in Oklahoma City. The opening is for a field engineer and would be a very good job for William to get into the oil and gas engineering business! They are paying for him to go up there for the day on January 19th! He also has some interest from Total in Houston. This would be for a gas controller job.  More of the business side of pipeline operations. We are really excited about both opportunities! So who knows, maybe in a few months I'll be all by myself again :(. But at least we might have an income!

Tomorrow is take your husband to work day. In other words, William is going to help me "nanny" for the evening. The Shippey's are going to the Dallas Stars game (hockey) and I said I'd pick up the kids from school and stay until they got home. I also enjoy chances to "expose" William to kids! He's already a pro at putting the carseats in my car. A little scary isn't it? Anyways, Reagan is enamored with him and she can't wait for him to pick her up from school!

Stay Warm!

(Not So) Creamy Chicken and Noodles

I cooked in our slow cooker again today.  I made "Creamy Chicken and Noodles".  Ours should have been called Not so Creamy Chicken and Noodles Rice.  It was basically homemade chicken noodle soup.  For some reason ours was not so creamy though. We ran out of noodles so we made rice instead! William gave it 2 stars. But Monday's dinner received 4 stars on leftovers night! It was way better the second night.  


Yesterday I got my Richardson ISD name badge! I'm all official! I met up with my supervisor as well.  She's probably only a few years older than me and seems really cool! I'm going to be working at Big Springs Elementary Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday until about 1pm, and Thursday.  I should get a lot of hours and experience.  Most of my kids will be receiving articulation therapy or language therapy.  I will also have a few kids doing social skills therapy.  There are also some kids using augmentative devices and kids with auditory impairment that I will be seeing occasionally! I will also be getting to experience ARDs (which stands for Assessment, Review, Dismissal) and the school assessment process! I'm taking 4 classes also this semester. Two are in school classes. Two are "independent study" classes. So on Wednesdays I'll be sitting in class for 6 hours. But that's the only day I have to show up at school. Kinda sweet! Then I have 22 articles to read for my independent studies. I have to take quizzes on each one... but once I do all of them, that's it! Also nice!


Tomorrow I'm going to post some pictures of our "new" apartment! Anyone interested? We had to get a 5X5 storage unit because everything wouldn't fit! 


Anyways, I'm off to make sure Lucy and William haven't froze to death yet. They've been outside on a walk for a little while! We are supposed to get subzero temps until Saturday. Brrrr! 

"So how's married life", you ask.

So many people have been asking us this question.  To be honest, it doesn't feel all that different yet.  We spent 4 weeks running around Texas and Vegas with the holidays and everything.  So that basically meant we were at one of our parent's houses or completely checked out of normal life that entire time.  Now that we are home we are getting settled in. But there's still no routine yet because I'm not in school yet and William's still without a job.  So here's the play by play on married life:
Closet space: down
Money: down
Food bill: way up!
Bed space: down
Cell phone minutes used: down
Nights spent alone in front of the TV: down
Good company: way up!

Does that sound about right to everyone?

Anyways, I cooked last night. I made something in our new slow cooker! I put it on around noon and it was ready when I got home from work!

Here's the recipe:

Chicken with Creamy Chive Sauce (from the better homes and garden cookbook)

• 6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
• 1/4 cup of butter or margarine
• 1 0.7oz package Italian salad dressing mix
• 1 10.75 oz can condensed golden mushroom soup
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1/2 of an 8oz tub of cream cheese with chives and onion 
• Hot cooked pasta (optional)

1. Place the chicken in a 3.5 or 4 quart slow cooker. In a medium saucepan melt the butter over medium heat. Stir in dressing mix. Stir in mushroom soup, wine, and cream cheese until combined. Pour over the chicken in cooker. 

2. Cover and cook on low heat setting for 4 to 5 hours. Serve chicken with sauce over the pasta!

William gave it 3 stars. We decided it wasn't very creamy even though the title claimed it was going to be. Next time maybe we will throw in the whole thing of cream cheese. I think it was a good first attempt.  I did it all by myself. William tried to help make the pasta, but apparently that's one thing I can do better than him.

I'm off to go get my picture ID for Richardson ISD.  This semester I will be doing my practicum there.  I'm basically working full time so it should be a lot of fun and a good experience. I also have a meeting with my supervisor today. She just wants to get together and talk about everything before next week.

If anyone has any good slow cooker recipes, send them my way!