It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

 My sixth graders whipped through my yearly Nutcracker drawing assignments.  Regardless they are still so well drawn!

Snow globes. I usually teach this to 3rd grade, but I upped the requirements and it was perfect for my after school art kiddos. 

3rd grade just finished their santa windsocks. I love these, forgot to snap some pictures of these completely finished.

I also had my 1st graders finish their clay, now glazed ornaments! more to come on those! Super adorbs!

Have a great weekend bloggies! 

The ugly truth

Perhaps some of you soda drinkers will give up  diet soda after reading this! 

Sucralose is turning up EVERYWHERE in many of consumers food/drink products. 


The most misunderstood fact about sucralose is that it is nothing like sugar even though the marketing implies that it is. Sucralose was actually discovered while trying to create a new insecticide. It may have started out as sugar, but the final product is anything but sugar. According to the book Sweet Deception, sucralose is made when sugar is treated with trityl chloride, acetic anhydride, hydrogen chlorine, thionyl chloride, and methanol in the presence of dimethylformamide, 4-methylmorpholine, toluene, methyl isobutyl ketone, acetic acid, benzyltriethlyammonium chloride, and sodium methoxide, making it unlike anything found in nature. If you read the fine print on the Splenda web site, it states that "although sucralose has a structure like sugar and a sugar-like taste, it is not natural."

"The presence of chlorine is thought to be the most dangerous component of sucralose. Chlorine is considered a carcinogen and has been used in poisonous gas, disinfectants, pesticides, and plastics. The digestion and absorption of sucralose is not clear due to a lack of long-term studies on humans. The majority of studies were done on animals for short lengths of time. The alleged symptoms associated with sucralose are gastrointestinal problems (bloating, gas, diarrhea, nausea), skin irritations (rash, hives, redness, itching, swelling), wheezing, cough, runny nose, chest pains,palpitations, anxiety, anger, moods swings, depression, and itchy eyes. The only way to be sure of the safety of sucralose is to have long-term studies on humans done.

Splenda is a product that contains the artificial sweetener sucralose, but that is not all that it contains. Sucralose does have calories, but because it is 600 times sweeter than sugar, very small amounts are needed to achieve the desired sweetness so you most likely won't consume enough to get any calories. The other two ingredients in Splenda are dextrose and maltodextrin, which are used to increase bulk and are carbohydrates that do have calories. One cup of Splenda contains 96 calories and 32 grams of carbohydrates, which is often unnoticed due to the label claiming that it's a no calorie sweetener. Because this is found in so many products and can be used in cooking, it can be possible to consume 1 cup or more each day. For people with diabetes, this is a significant amount of carbohydrates, and for people who are watching their weight, this can be a problem. Consuming an additional 100 calories a day can result in a weight gain of 10 lbs. per year!"

Aspartame you can read about HERE

Some of you might be like "okay C Mae I get it--- lay off the sweeteners!" or Some might be saying, "why do you care so much?" 

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I just think there are a lot of naive women/men youth of people out there and they just don't know, or live in the bubble of "nothing bad will happen to me" mode. 

If you are one of these people, I can honestly say I cannot feel bad for you if one day down the road you get cancer from this crap. The point is, the TOOLS and information on what causes cancer are out there & are AVAILABLE (and all over the net) so if you chose to ignore them, then it's your own fault! Then you have no one to blame but yourself. Take the proper precautions now, and odds are you'll live a long happy cancer free life! I realize there are tons of things out there that cause cancer that we aren't aware of that we can breathe in, but being a smart person is doing our part on the things we do know are bad for you.

Your choice. Take it or leave it. 

16 Years Ago Today

In the last 3 years, I have really taken big steps in "bettering" my life. I work out a lot more than I ever did in my life. I never worked out much once soccer ended at the end of High School. 

 I don't drink diet soda. 

I don't smoke. 

I gave up tanning.

 I steer clear of people that smoke anywhere in the vicinity of me.

 I wear sunscreen. 

The list could go on and on. I don't want to die at 39. I want surpass my mother's dying age. We have the tools today to know what can cause cancer. The question is do you CARE enough, love yourself enough to take the proper steps in living a cancer free life? 

I feel like being a teacher not only means educating my students, but educating others. Even if that means I'm blue in the face from preaching about certain things I continually see/read bloggers talk about. (COUGH COUGH ALL YOU DIET SODA DRINKERS just wait till you read tomorrow's post!!!) I have written NUMEROUS posts on things that cause 

Post on Tanning/Cancer Read HERE & HERE

Post on Being BPA Free read HERE

Post on RBGH free Milk read HERE

Post on being brave and getting my first Mammogram HERE

RIP Mom. I can only hope, pray, trust in the Lord that I will continue to surpass you with age and live a cancer free life! 

Ali & Roberto No More...

I saw this in the check out aisle today, and had to have it. 

I follow both Ali and Roberto on Twitter and FB, and I was in shock when I read that an online article on Thanksgiving said they had split. I was like WHAT?!?! NO WAY! I mean follow them on twitter, both had just tweeted cutesy lovey dovey stuff not all that long ago!

For anyone that has followed my blog, knows I'm a die hard Bachelor/Bachelorette fan and Ali by far, has been my favorite Bachelorette. I really thought these 2 would make it. 

What I gathered from the article...

their break up was pretty much the result of squabbles and fighting. No one cheated or anything along those lines. 

I wish them the best. 

Only 2 Bachelor Bachelorette Contestants are still together/and or married

Trista and Ryan 

Jason and Molly

Hmmm now what are the odds that Ali will call Jake back up?

...::::Sigh:::....

Either way, Ali & Roberto, your cutest power couple status will be missed...

Little Rascals: 90s Edition

Whatever happened to predictability, the milkman, the paperboy, evening TV…and the young cast of 1994 full-length film, The Little Rascals?

Bloggy peeps keep telling me how much they like my nostalgic where are they now posts, so here's another!


*All info and pics are VIA web searches! :)

Alfalfa, played by Bug Hall

was a mainstay of 1990s kids’ movies, starring in The Big Green alongside Steve Guttenberg, The Stupids, Disney’s underrated Hercules, and the direct-to-video Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, the third and final film in the series. When the 20^th century became the 21^st, the leading roles for Hall decreased, but he’s made plenty of smaller appearances in TV shows, ranging from CSI and The O.C.; movies, like Tobe Hooper’s Mortuary; and TV movies.

So in other words, he he still in the acting business. 

Spanky, played by Travis Tedford 

His Twitter bio reads that he’s “that one kid from that one movie...”), who wouldn’t appear in another movie or TV show until four years later (unless you count those adorable Welch’s Grape Juice ads), when he was cast in Smart Guy, Profiler, The Pretender, Slappy and the Stinkers (a crappy version of The Little Rascals), and A Bug’s Life, providing “additional voices.” He now lives in Texas.

Darla, played by Brittany Ashton Holmes

According to her MySpace, “I was a actress when i was little, and did this movie called Little Rascals. It's like really embarrassing to watch, and i don't want to act any more.”

Froggy, played by Jordan Warkol and E.G. Daily

The demands of playing Froggy were too much for only one person, so the amphibiously-named character was split in two: Jordan Warkol provided the body, so to speak, and E.G. Daily the voice. What else do the thespians have in common? They both did/do voice acting work: Warkol owned the roles of Chocolate Boy on Hey Arnold! and Eddie “Prince of the Underworld” Valentine on Rocket Power, while Daily worked on another Nickelodeon show, Rugrats, where she voiced Tommy Pickles. She can also be heard in Powerpuff Girls (as Buttercup) and the theme song for Two and a Half Men, lip-syncing Angus T. Jones’ part. Daily continues to be one of the most respected and widely used voice actresses out there (she has three projects coming out this year, including Happy Feet 2), while Warkol is now attempting a career in standup.

Buckwheat, played by Ross Bagley

His most recent role was voicing Gible on a 2010 episode of Pokemon. Little else is publicly known about his private life, other than he really, really, really likes the Los Angeles Lakers.

Waldo, played by Blake McIver Ewing

A.k.a. the kid who looks like a Culkin, but isn’t a Culkin. Outside of playing rich-kid Waldo, he also played obsessive-compulsive Derek (Michelle’s friend) onFull House, Junior’s pre-teen enemy inProblem Child 3: Junior in Love, Arnold’s soup-can headed pal Eugene on Hey Arnold!, and has performed on albums with Natalie Cole and Phil Collins. He’s released a choir album, On This Christmas Night, and has an impressive theatre resume, including tours for Ragtime (for which he received an Ovation Award), The Light in the Piazza, and Teen Witch the Musical. And he’s still not a Culkin.

And there you have it!

Oh and my most favorite quotes everrrrrr from the movie?

"Quick! What's the number for 911!?" 

"That wasn't sand, that was kitty litter"

"dear Darla, I hate your stinkin guts!" 

"I got a dollar I got a dollar" hey hey hey hey! 

"Boys ewwwwwwww girls Yuccccccck"

"This is the He man woman haters club!"

Sunday Funnies

Ha. Ha. Ha. 

Classic. 

Happy Sunday loves

Winter Festival

 19 kids helped me glue down 2 out of 3 sections I teach of 2nd grade art. It took NINETEEN kiddos to help get all this completed and ready for show 24 hours before our winter festival at school. 

 Outside our front gates to our school -4th Grade Ornaments 

2nd grade Snowmen Chalk 

 3rd Grade Large Snowman

 5th grade Partially cropped snowman head

For the last month I have been teaching my after school art students how to make water color cards. I taught them every technique I know. I think it's safe to say they are now water color EXPERTS when t comes to making the perfect water color painting! 

Each card is one of a kind, made by a student. We sold six packs out of 20 packs made. They were 12 cards for 15.00. Even though there were a ton of vendors that came tonight, (SCENTSY & PAMPERED CHEF etc etc) it was very apparent that times our tough for families, as I did not witness a whole lot of sales for many of the vendors! 

Regardless, the compliments made my night. Parents were thrilled to see their kids art hanging, for me that constitutes a successful evening! 

December already!

The Countdown is on! 25 Days till Christmas!