Ask and you shall receive

Sadie at 4 months!

All I want is a room somewhere

As requested I am posting pics of my new furniture. I think that this arrangement works, although the addition of our Christmas tree will probably move some things around. Tried to include everything:
*new chair and loveseat
*train table turned coffee table creation
*tv shelf, made with love by Dad and Uncle Tony...Thanks!

Now all thats left is to get curtains, paint and hang pictures. Hope that won't take me another seven months.

It has been so busy lately that blogging has gone to the bottom of the "to do" list. The holiday frenzy has begun. We have family coming in this week for Thanksgiving, who we have not seen in awhile....AND (insert drum roll here) my sister and her family will be coming for Christmas! This is such an answer to prayer as I had not bought our plane tickets yet and with no winning lottery ticket in my hand I was moving closer and closer to the reality that it was going to be a blue Christmas without them. I am looking forward to a fun filled break from school. While I do love the actual job of being a teacher, I have to admit the Christmas, Spring Break and Summer vacation are definitely icing on the cake. Ang, thought I would show you how the improvements at the house have been coming along. One thing led to another, you know how that goes.

Aim high

Bible Character day was Friday and it was a success. Everbody showed up and remembered their lines. Can't ask for anything more than that. On Sunday we went trick or treating with some friends. It was a beautiful day. Just a little chill in the air with the sun shining bright. Even better was that the kids tired quickly and after a couple blocks said that they had enough candy and wanted to go home. I think it was a record 25 minutes of trick or treating. Hooray! Here's a pic of the little pilot. I had just posted the first one but thought I should add the one with him packing some heat. I tried to explain to him that I'm fairly certain pilots do not carry semi-automatic machine guns but he would hear none of that. I'm pretty sure that was the best part of the costume for him.

The little that I know

I had a great weekend. And, at the risk of getting some ridicule from the 49th state, I am going to tell you all the blessings (big and little) of my day:

1. A great breakfast with Abbie at Frank's diner. I am amazed that I never knew about this place before, it has been there since 1926. It was a wonderful little diner that reminded me of my YiaYia and Papou's house and I imagine that it sounded a lot like their diner that they had in Decatur many years ago.

2. Finding a fabulous winter coat, that looks great with my hair and eyes (hey, its the little things right?)

3. Shopping without kids

4. Giving the bathroom a complete cleaning - not the once over you do before people come over to your house but a bleach overload that leaves you feeling satisfied and accomplished

5. Having enough energy after cleaning the bathroom to clean the kitchen and living room too

6. Putting the ipod on shuffle and being rewarded with a song from Small Potatoes, that I had forgotten was on there. My sister, a friend and I used to go see them when they played at a coffee house in Bannockburn. Made me happy. That was over 10 years ago but by looking at their site, they are still around. Thats cool.

7. The wonderful scent of my Holiday Sage Yankee Candle somewhat making up for the cost : )

8. The Tigers winning game 2 (they are only in the 4th inning right now but I'm trying to think positively)

9. Being able to keep Wrigley off the furniture...um, yeah, I'll keep working on that.

What are you lookin at?!

One day of conferences down, one to go. The ones that I had today were good, nothing surprising. I got my hair cut and colored last night (those stubborn grays...thanks mom!) Then I had a dentist appt. first thing this morning, so I wasn't at school right away. I had let my students know that I wouldn't be there right away and had told them why. When I got to school there was the usual post haircut/color fallout. All the kids just stared and then the questions and comments began. Amid the cries of "You look like a different teacher!", was the following dialogue:

Student: Why did you color your hair black?
Me: It's dark brown. Its a little darker when you first get it colored but then it lightens up a little.
Student: When? Tomorrow?

Student: Why are you wearing lots of mascara?
Me: I'm not, it just looks different with my hair (I think "mascara" was a general term for all of the eye makeup, pretty sure I didn't just cake on the mascara today)

Student: I thought you went to the dentist, not the hairdresser
Me (stunned stare): I went to the dentist this morning and got my hair done last night.

Alright, Ang, I was going to just write "awful" over and over again in the space that a picture would take up but then decided to wait till Awana was over and someone would be at home to take a picture of me. Turns out that I'm worse at taking one of just me than I was at taking a pic of two people. Who knew! Given the above student comments you would think that I had gotten this drastic haircut, not so much. The pic doesn't really show the difference in color and I just got my shorter bangs back. Not too much, but enough to throw their day off. Gotta love first graders.

This-n-That-n-Stuff-n-More

Been a busy week so far. Parent-teacher conferences are coming up, so I 've been having to get things together for those. Bible Character Day (I hear the laughter all the way from Alaska) is coming up next Friday and we will have our first class party then too. I have lots to do that I am successfully procrastinating. Going to have the kids dress up as the days of creation. They like making their costumes and its a little break from the others who are actually dressed up like random Bible characters. No Ang, I'm not going as Jezebel or Rahab. Maybe I will go as a Pharisee and just go around pointing out everybody else's faults. I'm filled with wacky Bible humor.

Just saw a strange minivan commercial where it shows a mom carrying her sleeping children in from the car and then it shows her carrying her husband in 'cause he fell asleep. Very disturbing. Reminded me of the strange Robert Munsch children's book I'll Love You Forever, where the mom goes wherever her son is, even when he's big, and rocks him to sleep.

Following the Bears crazy comeback last night, the news reports have been filled with predictions of a Superbowl presence and lots of polls about Grossman but the most entertaining are the clips of the irate/unstable Cardinals coach. Last night's interview was a crazy, swearing, mic-hitting rant and then tonight he returned completely calm and rational, must have watched last night's interview on a loop before he came out again. I accidentally left the news on after the mets/cards game went off. I now remember why I like to get my news off the internet. I hate TV newscasts.

Pumpkin Head

Had a good day today, although it started out earlier than a usual day off but thats ok, it was for a good cause. My friend had a chance to go and spend some time with her mom over the weekend, so my son and I went to stay with her kids so her husband could leave for work this morning. The kids were great, of course. Played outside, rode bikes, happily ran errands with me. It was another beautiful fall day. We are going to get spoiled. It will make the inevitable winter all the more dreary. We came home and got to work on carving our pumpkin. Decided that I would leave the portrait less to chance this time and looked for templates online. My son picked out the one that he liked and I went to work. He is always very enthusiastic about the idea of carving the pumpkin but the first step (cleaning out the pumpkin) is not as rewarding or clean as he would like and he quickly loses interest. So I used the template and was very happy with the results, given that I have no pumpkin carving skill whatsoever I was glad to have something to use as a guide. We were going to go play tennis tonight but the early morning that I started this post with caught up with my son and he had a rough evening, which required an earlier than usual bedtime. I now get to go turn orange-slimed seeds into a roasted salty treat. Yum!

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

We had our first field trip yesterday to a beautiful orchard that is about 45 minutes away. It was an awesome sunny and cool fall day. The kids had a great time. Second grade went with us, so my son and I made use of the time to go off by ourselves and pick out a pumpkin and walk through the little store together. Some parent drama started on Thursday afternoon, so I had to deal with the fallout of that first thing in the morning on Friday but luckily I had some of the parents who were going with us on the field trip stay with the class, while I talked with the offended parent and then in the afternoon I got to lay the smackdown on the offending parent : ) It is all ok now. Yea! I hate drama. Especially on a field trip day, which are always extremely exhausting. I am so glad that I have Monday off. And with the end of the grading period and Teacher's Convention on Thurs and Fri, we only have one and a half days of school this week. So much for getting some actually learning accomplished. Wish we could keep the kids from knowing that they have time off. Maybe it would keep away the vacation mode that they so easily fall into. I went to one of my student's football games today. He is so cute. All the little kids out there trying to remember what position they are playing and all that that involves. Fumbling the ball, throwing interceptions, randomly running in circles and falling on the ground. It was all very entertaining.

Letterboxing

Hooray for a beautiful fall day! We were finally able to get out and go letterboxing. We had a great time and are 4 for 4 in our searches. The first one was fairly easy but a great way to start and ease us into the whole process. The second one took a little more effort and some math skills. As I was reading the clues "about 40 yards in and at 300 degrees", my son asked me if I knew how far 40 yards was. While I was trying to explain that I couldn't exactly know how far 40 yards was without some sort of measuring tool, he interrupted my great explanation to ask "Didn't you learn about yards when you were in school?" I think he doubts my skills. But after much searching we were able to find all of the boxes. We felt very fulfilled and successful and were rewarded with deer and bunnies joining us in our hikes. Here are some pics of our fun fall day. The nature center where two of the boxes were hidden had a great little pond that was so pretty and calm. We saw some "blue-gayells" (as my son calls them) and the reflection pics were fun to take.

Take me out to the ballgame!

Let's get some runs!

My son's first Cubs game did not disappoint! Here he is on the train and in front of Wrigley Field. He wanted to make sure that Laney got to see the back of his jersey, so he requested that I take a "looking out the window" picture. Our seats were the best that I've ever had. We were eight rows back from the field and about 90 feet beyond first base. We had a couple foul balls come by us but no chance to use the glove, which we made sure to bring. There's some pics of Matt Murton as he made his base loading hit and then the team celebrating their 2 out 9th inning win. Nothing like getting your money's worth!

I should've brought my gun...I mean, This should be fun!

So I went to my class tonight, and the above quote from Grosse Pointe Blank was what immediately came to mind. The video that we watch has a commentator that I want to punch. I'm looking forward to the session evaluation where I can put that in writing. Yes, I am aware that it is probably the fact that I have to be at this DivorceCare class that is angering me more than the narrator but believe me, on his own, he is still pretty annoying. I did get to come home to watch the recorded Gilmore Girls premier. Always reminds me of my sister and me in our wacky, witty, sarcastic conversations so it makes me happy. They play racquetball like you and I would, Ang. So, I made two purchases this week (well, to be honest I made more than that but only two are in this picture). A cool file cabinet/entry table kind of thing, I think that was the official description in the catalog. And then the alien ipod speakers which are for my son's room. This company comes in and displays stuff in the school office for the teachers to purchase. This was one of them, it also came with 20 music downloads. I thought that the downloads along with the speakers were worth the $18. I know its silly but very enjoyable.

School Daze

It's been a busy week. Just normal school stuff, but I always try to stay on top of everything or else it gets out of control. If I don't keep a close eye on things, I will quickly have stacks of papers to grade and lesson plans to do. Even though I have been very blessed with a smaller class this year, there are always the constant weekly 'teacher' tasks that have to be done. My son has a book that he is reading for school. It is a pretty long chapter book that has him completely intimidated. I was asking him what was going on in the story so far and with a completely straight face he looked at me and said "I was reading the words but I didn't know I had to think". I think this philosophy may explain many of his other activities as well.

I would love to say that I have been out bike riding, playing tennis or doing any sort of physical activity at all, but sadly I have not. Next week, definitely. The past two days were exactly what I needed though. I was able to spend some time with my friend, Abbie. Even though we see each other every day, its usually in passing, with our students in tow. It was great just being at her house with her and her family and being able to relax, with the added bonus of getting to hear Jerred sing the New Testament Books of the Bible song : )

The sun'll come out...today!

Wow, 2 days in a row with sun! We watched the soccer team get shut out and then went and hung out by the lake. It was a little windy but a beautiful night. The soccer game ended later than I expected so we didn't get to play at the lake as much as my son wanted but he made up for it by running through the fountains. I told him he could get as wet as he wanted but that he couldn't complain about being cold after he did it. I only had to remind him of that one time, as he was shivering in the backseat on the way home. Crazy kid. Here are some pics. The one of him shivering on the rocks was before he got wet. Yeah, he's never getting a call from MENSA. We saw lots of deer as we drove through the forest preserve, they were really close to the car and even though we have deer a-plenty around here, they were very pretty and I couldn't resist taking some pics. I am still trying to perfect the one handed picture taking of the both of us. Seems that I either cut somebody's head out of the picture or we both fit but our eyes closed and our faces are unnaturally contorted. You can never win. Speaking of never winning, how 'bout them Cubbies.

Scratch-n-Sniff

Be very thankful that with all of our advanced technology we still do not have 'smell-o-vision'. I was woken up early this morning to be told that "Wrigley was hit", and the logical ending to that sentence would be "by a car" but, no, the correct ending is "by a skunk". After much gagging at the smell that permeated the house and a mad dash to the grocery store for tomato juice, we welcomed the sun as we drowned our dog with 3 times his daily serving of vegetables. It really only washed him off and got the initial smell off of him. The skunk funk still hangs in the house and on him.

Stormy weather

The sky looked awesome as we were coming home from the circus. I took a detour to try and get some good pics. Enjoy!

Big time fun

We went to a circus tonight that a local school PTO was hosting. It was a sort of second hand invitation, a friend of a friend, etc. So I didn't really know anything about it. But it was an actual touring circus and it was good. The kids enjoyed the flying, tumbling, juggling, animals and bubbas! Here are some pics of the hoop twirling lady (thought I would give Laney and Julie something to aspire to), the elephants and the bubbas on their way into the steel cage to do tricks.

Don't come around here no more

Here's what happens when I let someone bedazzle my blog, they think they can come in and post crazy pics without my approval! I'm sure you guys are probably still laughing. I didn't want to spoil all your fun so I went ahead and left one of them up but the other one, with just the two of us, was way too disturbing...I couldn't do it. Enjoy the Butte-head switch.

Rain, Rain Go Away

Had a good weekend, always goes by so fast, and even though I did a lot there is still so much that I didn't get done. We did watch the movie "Hoot" tonight. I had read the book over the summer to see what it was about. It was pretty good so I thought my son would enjoy the movie. He did. The movie was actually a decent one. The book is always better but some manage to be made into good movies too. It has rained here all weekend long. Was hoping to keep up with the bike riding and tennis playing but the weather put an end to that. I hope the weather is nice during the week. I got an email from a student that I taught a couple of years ago. They were transferred overseas and she periodically sends updates on her daughter. They attend the American school there and the teacher posts pics on a photo share website where the parents enter the password and can look at pics the teacher has taken during the school day. They can buy them if they want or just use the site to see all the things they are doing. I really like that idea and think that I am going to 'steal' it. Will check with the admin tomorrow, just to make sure they are ok with it. I figure if I just take pics during the week and then update it at the end of every week that won't be too much additional work required on my part. We'll see how it goes.

Bicycle built for two

We went for another bike ride today but I think we might have doubled what we did yesterday. We were very tired when we got done. We rode the trail to the end but then took that street down to the lake. It was a beautiful evening and of course I forgot to bring my camera (thought that my backpack felt a little light). So I did my best to recreate the beauty of the evening complements of KidPix Deluxe. Don't you just feel like you were there? Yes, there are a few differences. My 7 yr old is really not bigger than I am. I was not dancing wildly on the beach. There was no one bathing in the water. And, sadly, there were no mountains in the distance. Other than that it was just the same.

We did the customary throwing of rocks into the water, the trip wouldn't have been complete without that, and then headed home. Will definitely take the camera next time we go. And as if that weren't enough physical activity, we then went and joined Abbie and her kids at the tennis courts. It was so much fun. I think we might have gotten a little better. It didn't take us quite so long to warm up and we had a lot of good volleys. The kids played baseball right outside the courts, occasionally rode their bikes through the courts and Kate chose to walk around the courts while reading a book, Abbie and I both agreed that if we did that we would get sick.

When I got home I found out that I had missed a dentist appointment today. Not looking forward to finding out how much I owe them for breaking it. Yuck! Its bad enough to have to pay them to work on your teeth, I really don't like paying them to do nothing. Found out that the dentist did call last week and left a reminder message but that message never made it to me, was a little frustrated. Also found out that I had been accepted to the master's program for education (yeah, I really don't know when that message was left). Just a little frustrated right now.

New Set of Wheels

I bought my son a new bike last night...best money I ever spent. He had been making do with his 16" (or maybe even 14", if they make that size) but after his growth spurt over the summer I went ahead and got him a new one. We went on a bike ride and it was wonderful. With the smaller one I spent most of the ride turned around trying to make sure he was still there because no matter how hard his legs pedaled that little bike could only go so fast. But this time he was right beside me, we had such a great time. So we went on a bike ride and then stopped at a coffee shop for sandwiches for both of us and coffee for me (yea!) which probably undid all the good of the bike ride but it was yummy.

Double Vision

So I opened up our yearbook, which the kids got today, and guess what pic was on one of the collage pages? The same one that I posted yesterday. Those two deadpan faces staring out at me. Was kind of funny, they had a caption under them about how they were "performing at Bible Character Day". Looked like they were staring off into space to me but what do I know.

I was finally able to play tennis again tonight. Thanks for inviting me, Ab, it was a great time. Well the exercise was, can't say that my tennis playing was all that good.

Had plans to get a stamp and get ready to go letterboxing but couldn't find any stamps when we went to Walmart. I know that one of them I've been in had some but I think we were at the ghetto one today, no stamping going on there. Have to go to Michaels, they have a bigger selection anyway and we have a better chance of making sure we get a stamp no one else will have. My son is also very interested in geocaching, since his cousins started, and is getting the two confused. He keeps asking if we get to both stamp our books and take something. Hopefully he will enjoy it once we get started.

All the Cool Kids are Doing It

Alright, alright. Here's my blog. Now stop with the harrassment. While I don't have any insightful comments about my day, I did find this gem of a pic from last year's Bible Character Day. Doesn't it look fun? This year's is fast approaching... the boys can hardly wait.
Definitely have to figure out how to make the page more exciting. That's a warning Scott, I am on my way to steal from yours. I won't let all your hard work go to waste.