Five for Friday!!

It must be summer break b/c I am blogging!

And not only am I blogging, but I am actually posting my Five for Friday (first one in foreverrrr) on a Friday!

This is serious, people!

1. You may remember, from one of my sporadic school-year posts, that I am expecting our very first bundle of joy this coming September!  With the exception of a pretty difficult first trimester, this pregnancy has been wonderful and I am so loving being pregnant!  I'm almost 30 weeks and still sleeping through the night and only peeing 792 times a day, so I call that a win!

We've had a lot of fun documenting my growing bump...

Week 28 seems to have brought on "pregnancy face", or maybe it was just the humidity.  The caption for week 28's chalkboard says, "Wedding rings are barely on."  And well, they're almost never on, but I blame the summer heat more than pregnancy weight gain...at least that's what I hope it is!

2.  In related baby news, we've decided to take the plunge and try to cloth diaper our little one!  (No naysaying comments, please!).  

We are choosing to cloth diaper for a few reasons, the first being the financial aspect. I will be taking some unpaid time off of work, so pinching pennies where we can will be extremely helpful.

The second being environmental impact.  I don't know if it's this little one growing inside of me, but I have definitely become more environmentally conscious lately.  Not that I drove a hummer, drank only from plastic water bottles, and ran my air 24/7 before, but I have definitely stepped it up a bit.  We're not turning to vegetable oil to fuel our cars or giving up cable television anytime soon, but I like being able to do my part for this planet this way.

We'll see how it goes. If it's an epic fail I've read that newborn cloth diapers have excellent resale value.  And if it goes as well as we hope, well, my baby will have one cute little bum for the next few years of his/her life!

3. In non-baby news, I'm finally getting back on the TpT bandwagon.  It's been awhile!  Mostly due to my laptop crashing and needing the Geek Squad to get all my stuff off of it!  We had been backing up my computer on a pretty regular basis, but somehow missed some important documents (read: clip art) and we needed the help of the professionals! It was hard to create products knowing the perfect background was on my other computer, so gave it for awhile!

Here's what I'm working on at the moment:

I am thisclose to finishing my Non-Fiction Passages. I hope to have them posted by the end of the month.  These passages will complete my Reading Passages Bundle, so if the bundle is something you're interested in, grab the bundle now! The price goes up once I add these, so if you purchase before, you get the Non-Fiction Edition for FREE!

I'm also adding the finishing touches to this Noun Unit I started waaaay back in 2013.  Seriously!  It took so long mostly due to the aforementioned computer crash, but also because I used it along the way with my class.  So this Noun Pack is a real tried and true product!

 It has posters and printables for all different types of nouns:

But the best part of the pack is that it comes with tons of "noun cards" that your students can use many different ways. It makes the unit truly interactive, engaging, and fun!

Keep your eyes peeled for this one!

4. In semi-TpT related news, my favorite Owls are hosting a fun and useful linky called "Show Us How You Use It".  We're taking common household items and showing you how we use them in our classrooms, then giving you a chance to link-up with your own ingenious uses for things like popsicle sticks and aluminum cans.

Earlier this week, I showed one of the ways I use clothespins in my classroom: Clothespin Math!  It's so easy and such a great way to address different skills in your classroom!

Click the link down below to read all about Clothespin Math and grab a freebie to kick it off in your classroom!

And now for nothing related to anything else in this post, but equally as important:

5. We made these chicken fingers for dinner the other night and fell in love, so I thought I'd share.  Dave is a true miracle worker in that he can actually get oven-baked chicken fingers to come out really, really crispy.  So in our house, he is definitely in charge of all future oven-baked chicken finger recipes.

{Source}

PS: Yes, we did sprinkle green onion over the top!

PPS: I think you should totally follow me on Pinterest...especially if you like food, because I love food!!  Click here to follow me!

Oh, click the picture below to grab your clothespin math freebie!!

Thanks for stopping by and remembering I actually had a blog!  Hope you're all enjoying your summer! Go link up with DoodleBugs and share your five things from this week!