I can't believe June is already over, and that we are in July!!  Our first month of summer is now officially over!!  Crazy to think how fast time flies!  I love that my anniversary is at the end of June though so we can always celebrate half way through the summer!!

This morning I am linking up with Farley for Currently!!  One of my favorite monthly linky parties!! If you don't link up yet, you should!!

When my babies get up in the morning before they are fully awake we have been watching some toons! This morning my baby girl asked for Incredibles!!  She wants to be just like her big brother!!

I am LOVING summer!  Enough said!!

I have been doing Whole 30, watching what I've been eating, and trying to get my 10,000 steps on my Fit Bit!  Instead of working on this while my babies were sleeping I decided to jump on our elliptical that we pulled back out of the garage instead!  Now, I'm starving!  Thinking about how yummy my eggs will be!! (I don't even really like eggs!!)

I am wanting longer days!  My babies are so fun to play with at this age, and we have a blast swimming TWICE a day!!  I wish our days were a little longer, and maybe even a little cooler, so we could spend more time outside!  If we aren't in the pool we aren't outside!

I NEED to start packing!!  We leave for Vegas on SUNDAY, but before we head to Vegas we are taking our kids to my parent's house and celebrating the 4th with them on Saturday!  I need to start packing since I have to pack for three of us!  Luckily I already have some thought about what I'm packing, just have to get it all to fit in a suitcase so it fits in the car!

I know I would never win the award for the world's best mom, but I know that I do a great job at taking care of my family!  I am able to comfort my babies in their time of need, laugh with them, share their excitement, and provide for them.  Do I wish I could be home with them more, sure, but what mom doesn't want to spend more time with their babies?  I know I am doing the best I can, and that is all that the expect from me!

I hope that you head over to Farley's page and link up for yourself!!  Thanks for stopping by!!

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Cassandra

Hi friends!  I am so excited for Vegas!  I can't believe that in less than a week I will be there!  I have been looking forward to this week since last summer!!  I had an AMAZING trip last year, and I know this year is going to be just as amazing!!

I am linking up with Teach. Inspire. Change and It's Elementary, My Dear! to bring you my outfits for next week!  Really, just what I have planned for right now!  I know I don't have enough yet, and I still have to pack!!

Both of these ladies have an amazing fashion sense, and I may secretly want to dress like them!

I bought my dress for the Wednesday night meet up a couple of months ago!  I saw it on Red Dress Boutique, and knew that it would be perfect for the meet up!!  I plan on pairing it with my Toms wedges that I grabbed on Zulily!!

Friday night I know I will be hanging out at The Primary Pack meet up!!  I am very excited for this meet up! I grabbed this dress from a second hand store we have never me!  I LOVE it!!

During the conference I wanted to wear something that was comfortable, but still business casual!  I decided of course to go with some dresses.  Do we see a theme here yet?

       

Of course I have to pack some of my favorite maxis and shirts, because I don't know what I'll be doing on Saturday!  Both of these are ready to go!

 For sures I am trying to get as minimalist as possible so I have room for more clothes!  Plus, I am going to be walking pretty far every day so I need comfy as well!  My Toms are a must for my dress Wednesday night!  I figured the brown and black sandals go with everything!  I need my comfy walking shoes for the days when I am hiking back and forth up the strip and my feet are killing me!

Since we are going to be getting there on Sunday I do have some other outfits that I know I am taking with me.  It is going to be HOT in Vegas, kind of like our AZ weather, so I know that I need to pack to stay cool!

I'm excited for these new Target shorts and tank I bought!  I can't wait to show them off in Vegas!!

I am really excited to show off my new lanyard this week too!!  I just put it together, and LOVE it!!  Now to figure out how to attach all of my name tags to it!!

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Cassandra

Vegas was AMAZING!!!

I am linking up with A Burst of First to share how amazing Vegas was!!

I am so glad that I was able to go for the SDE differentiation conference, but I wish I would have been able to go to the TPT conference!!

I learned so much that I can't wait to get ready for my classroom!!  I can't believe I start school in LESS than a month!!  That is a whole different post though!

Vegas. Was. Amazing!

I was so happy to see so many familiar faces!  I have been talking about these people that I read about, or see on IG for so long my husband couldn't wait for me to go!

In my first session of the conference I was so excited to realize that Katherine was sitting right across from the aisle from me!!  I was so excited to meet her!!  I love the way that she organizes her reading, and I can't wait to see what she is going to do in her first grade classroom next year!!

You can read all about my first day at the SDE conference here!

I went up to the booths, and I was so excited to go to both the Go Noodle both and the Creative Teaching Press booth!!  When I got to the CTP booth I was so excited to meet Heather!!  I had been emailing Heather a couple of months ago, so it was awesome to finally meet her!!

Alos, Greg was hanging out in the booth!!  He is so nice, and so funny!!  You should make sure you check out his awesome blog, and his mustache theme!!  I LOVE IT!!

On Wednesday I was so excited for the big blogger meet up!!  I was so excited to take my besties with me so that way I wouldn't feel as uncomfortable.  I am totally shy in big group settings, even when I am with my friends.  I have a hard time talking in such big groups.  

I was able to spend some time talking with an amazing girl who works at TPT!!

When it was time for them to start giving away prizes it was CRAZY!!  There were SO MANY people in the room!

I was so lucky though, I didn't win once, but I won TWICE!!  Can you believe that!?!

I won the fantastic Teacher Anchor and I won the amazing pencil sharpener that everyone has been talking about!!  I can't wait to get both up and working in my classroom!!

Wednesday night I also saw Katherine again, and I was able to meet Molly!!

I think Molly was one of the first bloggers I started following!  I didn't get to talk to her very long, but it was a joy to meet her!!

Thursday night was AMAZING!!  I have been stalking following Ashley from Schroeder Shenanigans in Second!!  I love everything she creates, and I love her drive!  I wish I had half as much talent as she does!!

She invited me to have dinner with her roommates, so I was able to meet some other amazing bloggers who I have also been stalking following for a while!!  Angie, Marcy and Dixie were so fun to hang out with!!  They were so inviting, and I loved being out with them!!  I wish I could have spent more time with them!  There is always next year!!

Friday was the TPT conference and I heard what a great event it was.  I wasn't able to make it, this year because I was at the DI conference.  I plan on being there next year, no matter what!!

Friday night Courtney and Kristen put on an amazing meet up!!  They are both super sweet, and had these amazing cookies to pass out!!  They put together a great give away too!!

I was able to meet some more amazing bloggers, and hang out a little more with Ashley and her roomies!!

I was so sad to leave Saturday morning and drive home, but the amazing week had to come to an end.  I can't wait until next year!!

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Cassandra

I am linking up from Vegas with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday!

I have spent the week in Vegas, and it has been AMAZING!!  I have learned so much this week, and I have so many great ideas to go back to school with!!  I wish I was at the TPT conference today, but I am excited for what I am going to learn today at the DI conference!

Last night I was able to meet a friend of mine!!  I love all things Schroeder Shenanigans in Second, and last night I was able to spend some time with the amazing girl behind it!!  If you aren't following Ashely yet, or if you are here in Vegas, make sure that you seek her out!  She is not only an amazing teacher, and makes amazing products, but she is the sweetest person!!

I have been so blessed to spend my week in Vegas with my amazing friend from school, and my teaching bestie who moved to Vegas!! Without both of these girls I don't know how I would have made it through my last few years teaching.  I love going to conferences with Bridget, as we are both very similar in things we want to do!!

I have started reading the second edition of the Daily 5 book!  I am so excited to get a fresh look at Daily 5 before school starts again.  I am hoping that I will be able to share some of this information with other teachers and that we will all be able to reach the needs of our students where they are.

My husband has been in Africa since last Wednesday, July 2!  He is having an amazing time, but it has been really hard to talk with him.  I am so thankful for technology, and that we have been able to FaceTime every day! Plus he has been able to talk with our kids too!!  Check out these amazing pictures of the animals that he was able to see up close and personal!  I can't wait to see the pictures of the house they built too!!

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Cassandra

Our walk down to the Venetian today wasn't as bad as has been earlier this week.  The weather was really nice when we were out too!

My morning was amazing!!  I didn't run into any new friends, but I sat through two amazing sessions!!

My first one was all about math, and using 8 mathematical practices.

Then in a reading session I found great new ideas for my students to show me what they are reading about.  She also gave a really great idea about using a die to roll how we would read the story again for the second or third time.

I really like this idea, and can't wait to find some cute clip art to use to show the different options that I'll give my kids to read their stories.  I might have already added some Edu-Clips sets to my wish list!!

After lunch I was able to go to another math session by the same presenter from this morning.  She was that great, that I wanted to go back and learn more!!  I was able to learn a lot more about math journals, get some AWESOME free websites to check out for performance tasks!  We played a bump game too, so I started creating my own bump boards with my room colors.

Last night was the big blogger meet up!!  It was crazy!!  I will spend a whole blog post talking about it later when I can get home and process everything!!  Let's just say . . . . it was FANTASTIC!!

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Cassandra

I am so excited that we are here in Vegas!!  We drove in Sunday night, and I was able t spend yesterday relaxing!  My friend is going to iTeach 1st Grade so we weren't able to spend our day relaxing together, but she had a great time at her first day!!  Plus then she'll get a day to relax before we go home at the end of the week!

My first session today was pretty funny!  I sat through a session about reading mini lessons, and learned different strategies to reach all learners.  I also saw sitting across from me a familiar face, and made sure to introduce myself after the session!!

Sure enough right across from me was The Brown Bag Teacher!!  Make sure you go check out her blog!  She has some amazing things going on, and I love her new word wall!!

My second session was great too, and I learned a cool new math trick!!

The guy at the end of the video says he doesn't know how it works, but hopefully us teachers can explain to our kids that it works because all of the kids will make combinations of 10!

After lunch I went up to check out the exhibit hall.  There were so many people up there this morning it was way too overwhelming.  When I went during lunch it was a lot better because all of the iTeach 1st Grade, and iTeach K had gone to sessions!

While I was up there I checked out many of the booths, but my favorites of course were Go Noodle! and Creative Teaching Press!

While I was with Creative Teaching Press I was able to meet Greg from Smedley's Smorgasboard of Kindergarten!

I love the new chevron pennant I got too!  I can't wait to hang it in my room!!  I was able to get it in pink and green!!

Now I am excited to be sitting in my hotel room, relaxing with my bestie!!

See you tomorrow SDE!!

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Cassandra