DONE!!!!!!!!!!!

I am officially a CMU graduate!!!!!!!!!!

On Saturday, May 9, 2009 I graduated from Central Michigan University with a Bachelors degree in Elementary Education. It took me 5 years and a whole lot of hard work, but I made it! I even graduated with honors...Magna Cum Laude...the second highest honor (3.79-3.89 GPA- mine was a 3.82)

The family! The CMU Seal

I finally graduated!!

I loved CMU and I made a lot of new friends along the way! Although it was a great experience, I am happy to be done and ready to move on to the next step in my life. :)

My Wedding Shower!!!!

This weekend was my wedding shower and it was a lot of fun!! There was a ton of work that went into planning the shower by my mom and the Oglesby women and it turned out wonderful! Many people showed up, we ate lots of food, played games, and opened presents. It was a great time!

Thanks to everyone who helped out with the shower and to everyone who attended!!! Matt and I appreciate all the love and support!!!!!!

...but they are so cute!!!

It was a sad day for me...

I went through all 160 of my stuffed animals and parted with 3/4 of them. I sat in the living room and made 3 piles: 1 for the stuffed animals who were old and dirty, 1 for the stuffed animals to give to foster children in the their easter baskets (mom heard about it on the radio), and 1 for the stuffed animals I am keeping.

I am a sentimental kinda person, so as I was going through them, I could remember most of my stuffed animals names and where I got them from. This is what made it so hard for me to get rid of them...but I did it!

Here is the throw away box of stuffed animals...

Here are the stuffed animals that were like new that I am donating to foster children. They will be placed in children's easter baskets :)

And this is my keep pile!!! I kept about 40 out of 160. If you know me, you know that that's pretty good, since I didn't want to get rid of any of them in the first place!

Here I am, dragging the box of old stuffed animals to the end of the driveway... *sigh* I guess it had to happen soon or later!

Back in Kindergarten!

So once again, I am very delayed in posting this, but I am a busy person these days and kinda forget that I even have a blog!

Anyway, two Fridays ago was my last day student teaching in first grade. The kids all made me cards and a big poster with their names and pictures on it. They were all super cute! Then we had a little goodbye party and ate pieces of those huge cookies and some ice cream. It was cool and really sweet of my teacher to do all that. Every time I see the kids in the hall, I get lots of hugs...it's good to know that I made an impact on them and that they enjoyed my teaching :)

Last week was the first of my eight weeks in kindergarten. The kids do an every other day program so I actually have TWO kindergarten classes. It's fun, but it was a lot to get used to and a lot of names to learn! I think I have almost all their names down now though. I have less planning to do in kindergarten because I repeat lessons twice a week, so that is nice. I am able to get home a lot earlier than I was when I was in first grade. I do miss first grade, but I am enjoying kindergarten a lot too!

I really wish I could show you some of the pictures I have of the kids in my classes, but I can't post them on the internet. I am working on two cool bulletin boards right now though, so once I have pictures of those, I can show you at least something :)

Anyway, that's pretty much my life right now.

Oh, and by the way, here is a wedding update:
Did I happen to mention that Uncle Ken is going to be the pastor for our wedding now...cause he is! And we finally registered for our wedding shower at Kohls and Target. We ALSO booked our honeymoon...to Hawaii!!!! We are doing a 7 night cruise that hops the islands. Matt and I are super stoked! We are in the double digits for the countdown to our wedding now too...only 96 days left!

Double Layer Mocha Cheesecake!

On Valentine's Day, I wanted to make fiance Matt something special. Since he loves cheesecake, I whipped out my new cookbook (thanks to the Wegescheide family) and picked out a homemade cheesecake recipe. Matt loves coffee, and he loves cheesecake, so what better than a double layer mocha cheesecake!!!

Using my baking skills to piece together the cheesecake...the cookbook told me it should take 30 minutes to prepare and 45 minutes to cook...

It took me THREE hours to complete the cheesecake!!!!!!!!
When it was finally ready, we sliced it up to see how it tasted
Since I didn't realize that it needed to be refrigerated over night, it was kinda mushy at first. We still tasted it, then left it to chill till the next day :) Needless to say, it was pretty tasty and well worth the 3 hours!
On Valentine's Day, Matt surprised me up at work with some flowers! Isn't he sweet?!
I love you Matt!!! Happy Valentine's Day!

As of February 23, there is only 111 days until our wedding :)

Superbowl and Surprises

I am a little delayed in my blog posting, but better late than never! As you all know, last week was the Superbowl :) Sadly enough, the team I was rooting for lost, but I still had a great time with friends while watching the game.

This is the ice cream cake I made to take to the party. It was a big hit!

Watching the game (and the commercials)

We had our 3D glasses ready for the commercials that were in 3D! Since we only had 8 pairs and about 15 people, we cut the glasses in half and shared. See how Matt and I actually only have half the glasses on? It worked great!

Enjoying some of the yummy ice cream cake at half time

The whole group after the game...most very happy that Pittsburgh won...

But some of us were sad about the outcome of the game :( At least it was close in the end!

On a whole other note, I got a surprise visit this week!!! On Wednesday, there was a knock on the door and I saw my friends Chris and Danielle standing outside. I opened the door and was wondering what they were doing here, cause they live in Mt. Pleasant. Then they moved to the side and Mike was there!!!! He was home on leave this week from Afghanistan and surprised me with a visit! All four of us then went to Buffalo Wild Wings where Matt now works and we got some food and hung out. Matt served us :) It was a great night and I was super stoked to see Mike after him being gone since July. He is always full of surprises!

Life Update

It has been awhile since I posted...but I have been SUPER busy with student teaching and what not. Here is a little update on the life of Kelly...

Matt (fiance) is in Michigan now!!! As you probably already saw on the Oglesby blog, he moved here 2 weeks ago :) I finally get to be in the same state and time zone as my fiance! He will be living with the Oglesby's until it gets to be closer to our wedding. Then we will find an apartment for after the wedding :)

Student teaching is going very well!!!!! My coordinator has observed me twice out of six times so far and both times he said I was doing an excellent job! He told me that I was a great teacher and that he is not worried about me at all. He only had nice things to say...so that's a good sign :) This week I have really started teaching "on my own." My teacher has been out of the room all day so that she doesn't distract the kids from listening to me. I haven't had any huge problems yet, and the kids seem to enjoy it when I teach and they listen well to me. Of course there are some kids who are a little harder to work with, but even they have their super cute moments. The kids say the funniest things sometimes and I just wish I had time to write them all down while I am teaching! Student teaching is keeping me busy though, especially with having to grade papers, plan lessons, and gather and prepare materials for everyday. Not to mention the extra assignments that have to get done for CMU so I can graduate. It is a busy semester...but a lot of fun at the same time.

Sorry there aren't any pictures, but my life is student teaching right now and I can't share any of those pictures on the internet. Maybe some pictures will come after super bowl Sunday this weekend...but I can't promise anything.