During

It's true that it takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a village to get a teacher ready for school. I don't know that what I would have done without my family and friends!

I want to be sure to let everyone know that my favorite thing about my classroom is not necessarily the fact that it looks AWESOME (oh - and it does!). My favorite thing about my classroom is that when I walk in I think of my family and friends who helped me put it together! I'm INCREDIBLY BLESSED!

First, my mom and younger brother came. Mom cleaned EVERYTHING - even the unifix cubes that my students will use for math and science. My brother Tim helped me put the bulletin boards together and he also hung up all the posters that are out of my reach - which is practically every poster. HAHAHA!! My brother Aser came by one day and helped me punch out the pre-cut letters for the bulletin boards. He also had fun writing funny things on my white board.

Look at the difference in the WINDOWS (top right clean!)!!

On this day, I had promised we'd leave early and I didn't follow through.
BUT we had a delicious lunch! The room by this time was lookin' pretty good.

Aser had a lot of fun writing on the white board.
Ask him to read what he wrote to you! You'll laugh because his accent is HILARIOUS!

Another day, Angela was SUPER sweet to come help me with what Tim and I hadn't finished. We got 3M strips and covered up a chalkboard that I don't use. Now I have more "bulletin board" space and everything looks more uniform.

I didn't get a picture of Angela...but this is a cute one of us at a friends wedding.

And finally, this past Thursday I sent a picture text saying: "Are you good with scissors?!? This is how I'll be spending my time tonight. :o)" Look at that! It's a never ending roll of laminated stuff and I was going to do it BY MYSELF!

Looking at the amount of laminated stuff made me want to cry! (not really - I just whined about it until I got help)

It would've taken me all night and I still wouldn't have finished. Luckily, one of my friends - Ryan - said that I should go over to his work place and bring scissors. OMG! I jumped on that! I brought 5 pairs of scissors and put them to work double time!!

Ryan is THE super star for offering the much needed help!

Corey was either cutting out stars or showing off his guns...still haven't figured out which!

Chad was multi-tasking!

Jeremy said he wouldn't help unless he got to use the Christmas Tree scissors. haha!

Real men help first grade teachers cut out stars and such!

There were other people that work with Ryan that helped & aren't pictured.

I feel like saying THANK YOU isn't sufficient. The work EVERYONE did is seriously priceless!!