Invitations Revealed!

There are quite a few perks to having a small, intimate wedding, in my opinion... Other than the obvious reason of being able to spend quality time with the people you know and love the most, instead of schmoozing with people you only sorta kinda know, and being too busy to notice all of the details of the day, or not being able to spend quality moments together with your new hubby!  Ugggh, shame!  But, one of my favorite parts about having a smaller, more intimate wedding are things like being able to make personal touches... because hand making 65 wedding invitations is a whole lot easier than hand making 250!  

Can I get an AMEN?!

Lucky for me, my guest list capped out at 63, most of whom are couples or families, which left me with the attainable goal of hand making 36 invitations!  Easy, peasy, right?!  Well, do you know how hard it is to do any sort of projects with a cat who constantly wants to help?  I'm sure all you moms with toddlers get where I'm coming from!

This left me with one option, to make all 36 invitation during my afternoon free time at work.  Lucky for me, this is my 4th year teaching in Korea, so I don't need all afternoon to plan for classes!  Oh yes!  I'm not sure how many days, or hours it took to make these little treasures, but I'd do it all over again if I had to! (Well, not for a couple years though!)  I'm such a sucker for hand made wedding invitations!

    

I love their fun, flirty, colorful, and personal feel, and hope that our big day is all those things!

Crack The Code

This year, I took on an extra class of 1st and 2nd graders who didn't know a lick of English!  I knew I was crazy to take it on, but getting paid $100 a week for teaching an hour and 40 minutes was just too good to pass up.  I remember the first day of class, when they all came in and looked at me like I was a crazy lady, mumbling things that didn't make any sense to them! One by one, they would get up from their desk and start walking around the classroom while I followed after them redirecting them back to their desk! Even when I spoke Korean to them they looked clueless! I knew I was in for a rough semester! 

I'm proud to say that I have one week left with them and all 13 of us have survived!  

Not only have we survived, but we've managed to learn a good bit... Me, how to manage a classroom full of little people who don't understand English, and them, how to learn English from a lady who doesn't speak fluent Korean! It was a joint effort, and I'm a lil proud to say the least! 

In the last 3 1/2 months, they have successfully learned: 

1. Their ABC's and the sounds that go with each letter. 

2. Numbers 1-20 

3. All 12 Colors in a crayon box. 

4. Classroom items (book, notebook, pencil, eraser, computer, desk, chair, clock, stapler, tape, glue, box, board, TV, etc) 

5. How are you? I'm fine/okay/great/sad/tired. 

6. How old are you? I'm 5/6/7. 

7. Can you _________? 

8. I like _________. 

9. What's your favorite color/food/animal? 

10. What's the first letter of (blah blah blah word). 

11. What's a word that starts with A/B/C/D/E.... 

12. Please / Thank you / You're welcome.

Can you believe it?! Their little brains are such sponges!  For today's class, I made a little worksheet I like to call CRACK THE CODE!  I was such a puzzle freak as a child that I could only hope that the lil ones would like it!  Good news is, they loved it, and it ended up being a huge hit!  I gave them this HINT paper, which showed the Korean alphabet next to the English alphabet, in case they forgot.
 (iphone photo)

Then, I gave them this back to back paper with Korean letters written under blank lines.  They had to crack the code and write the English word.  They could check it with the picture next to it... which I drew!  LOL  BTW: The yellow circles are how we "check" things in Korea.  Teachers don't just write X's when something's wrong, we circle it when it's right!  As you can see, sweet lil Lisa (1st grader) got "beg jom", 100%! 

 (iphone photo)

Can you believe they did it?!  One little boy, who's the social butterfly of the class, liked it so much that he asked me if he could take his "hint paper" home so he could study with his mom!  Aaaaahhhhh.... 

(iphone photo)

I'm so proud of my little Korean babies and a little proud of myself too!  :)