Monday, December 28, 2009

We're Home!

Hello friends!

We are now back in our wonderful home. We've been gone since Thursday afternoon, however, it feels like we've been gone since Tuesday afternoon.

As soon as I got home Tuesday afternoon, I made dinner and Nick's mom, step-dad, sister, and grandma came over to have Christmas. I made my Grandpa Dennis' famous soup and they all loved it. I'll post the recipe soon. We then opened gifts, played the piano, and watched "Elf". It was so fun.

Wednesday morning, I woke up, put a ham in the oven and my mom, step-dad, sister, and her boyfriend came over for Christmas. We played Guitar Hero, went to the highschool and shot baskets (well, the boys shot baskets...mom, sister, and I cheered), came back ate a wonderful dinner, opened presents, and watched "Christmas in Connecticut". We stayed up late, slept in, and then they headed home. Another great time was had by all.

Thursday, we got ready and headed out to eat with Nick's dad and his girlfriend, Nick's sister and her boyfriend, went to Nick's dad's house to open presents, then headed to Nick's dad's childhood home (now lived in by his cousin), ate dinner with all his siblings and their children, played Dirty Santa and dominoes, and realized all 17 of us were going to have to stay the night there:) It was a blast, but crazy to figure out where we were all going to sleep!

Friday morning, Nick and I headed to Pryor, my step-dad's son headed to Claremore to bring his sisters home, and my sister and her boyfriend headed to Texas. Boy, did plans change! My sister called and said she and her boyfriend got in a wreck. They totalled her car and had to stay the night in Eufaula, OK. They weren't hurt, praise the Lord, but didn't get to see his family on Christmas or ours:( My step-brother got stuck in Claremore with his sisters, so they weren't home on Christmas either. It was a crazy Friday!!

Saturday, Nick and my step-dad travelled the 3 hours to Eufaula to pick up my sister and her boyfriend and my step-brother came back home. Sunday, my step-sisters came over and finally had Christmas with us and then everyone departed ways on Sunday night.

I have pictures to post, but I'm not going to do that until tomorrow. Just wanted to say we're finally home, safe and sound. My sister and her boyfriend finally flew to Texas today to be with his family, and the Christmas season is over:(

I'm sad it's over, but the reason for the season is NEVER over!

He lives! He lives! Praise the Lord!

Friday, December 18, 2009

A Trip Much Needed

I can't believe it's been a week since we traveled the two hours to Branson and Silver Dollar City. I hadn't been since high school with Keith, Debbie and Katie Burden Stokes. Nick hadn't been since elementary, so it was much different this time. Let me tell you, we had so much fun!

That whole week had been crazy for me. I had my final for my college class, my 4-year olds were going nuts, we hadn't done any Christmas shopping yet, so I was ready to get away for a few days with my husband and just relax, enjoy each other and not let the stresses of Christmas, finances, school, etc. get in our way!

We headed out Friday after school and went straight to the Landing. We loved it there. It was freezing, but I loved the atmosphere. The wonderful Christmas lights, the fountain show (which unlike Russell and Erin it played a rock song), the shopping, and the food! We went to White River Fish Market. It's totally on the water. It was delicious and when you were in the bathroom, you could feel it swaying:)

Saturday, we woke up and went to Tanger Outlet and got a ton of Christmas shopping done. It was crazy busy there, but we got some incredible deals. We then went back to the Landing, did a little more shopping, and ate lunch. We ate at the San Francisco Oven and had the best pizza. It had been raining off and on all day, but we just hoped it would stop by the time we got to Silver Dollar City. We were wrong! It rained even harder when we were there. Our feet, socks, and jeans were soaking wet! We had a blast, but we were freezing. Luckily, we had our umbrella and I was able to buy some more socks.

We watched "A Christmas Carol", a potter, a glass-blower, a blacksmith, and laughed at all the things you can buy with your name on them:) It's such a fun place and we can't wait until we have children to take there someday.

All in all, we had a fantastic weekend and we can't wait to go back!

The fountain show


Nick outside the White River Fish Market


The food


Me in front of a beautiful reindeer.


The next day at Silver Dollar City, I turned into Davy Crocket


Nick spun the wheel to receive his fortune (it said he needs to smile all the time)


We stood in front of the Christmas tree


Rode the Christmas train


I got put in a coffin (you can see the rain on my pants)


And we ate some apple dumplins (thanks Russell and Erin). Pardon the hair...rain, remember?

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Christmas Time is Here!

Hello All!

I've been missing for the past few weeks. My last post was about fall and now it's time for Christmas! I can't believe how fast this time has come. It seems just yesterday I was getting ready for the first day of school and now this first semester is almost over!

These past few weeks that I haven't blogged, I've had strep throat, Thanksgiving, my birthday, Christmas decorating, and a busy time in my college class (that is now over! yippee!!).

Here's what's been going on in our house over the past week. Here's the dining room and our two trees we got on Black Friday at Wal-Mart. I love them. My sister got me the cardinal plates for my birthday. Pardon the empty candlesticks. My mom found some candles for me, but I don't have them yet.





Here's the mantle. It has lights, but you can't really see. My wonderful aunt made me this wreath last year and I absolutely love it. Since the wall behind my fireplace is a peacock blue, my theme is peacocks:)


Here's my piano. I have two deer and a wonderful nativity set. I've never had a nativity set until now. My wonderful friend (see earlier post)found out I didn't have one and she gave me this one that she got in Africa this summer.



A closeup of the nativity.



You have to have Christmas candy lying around:)



Here's my tree.



And with the flash off.



Here's the tree in our front living room. Nick got to decorate this room, so notice Jovie's stocking hanging on the lamp behind the tree! (Sorry just noticed the tree skirt seems a little crooked)





Thanks for taking a tour of my house. Tonight I will try to remember to go outside and take a picture of our house
with the lights Nick put up. They look amazing! Until then...have a wonderful evening and stay warm:)

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Chestnuts Roasting On an Open Fire

Nick is gone right now chopping wood. This only means one thing...FIRE!!! One thing that sold us on this house was the natural fireplace. I love the looks of gas fireplaces, but there's just something about seeing smoke coming from a chimney. It's so comforting. I love the fall and winter when we can start a fire, snuggle up, and enjoy our evening together.

Now we can go from this...


to this...


Happy Fall Everyone!!!

Monday, November 16, 2009

Reason for Delay

I don't know what happened to my week or weekend, except to say I had to do this!

This is for my college class. I mentioned in an earlier post that I'm taking Children's Literature for my alternative certification. One of our assignments was to come up with a poem (we didn't have to write it), decorate a poster board like we'd decorate a bulletin board in our classroom, and teach our fellow students the poem like we would teach our class. We also had to come up with an activity to do with our fellow students that we'd do with our class to help them remember the poem, or learn it's concept, etc. I know that was a long run-on sentence!

I chose the poem, "Gray Squirrel, Gray Squirrel". Here's the poster board I made.


It says,
"Gray squirrel, Gray squirrel
Doesn't make a sound
As he buries acorns
Underneath the ground.

Later when it's cold out,
And food cannot be found
The gray squirrel will dig
His acorns from the ground."

So, I had motions to teach to my class and I also decided we'd make dough"nuts" for our project. They're supposed to look like acorns. You buy doughnut holes, peanut butter, chocolate iciing, toffee bits, and pretzel sticks.

This is what they look like. Aren't they cute?


I was so happy with the way they turned out. I couldn't wait to show everyone in my class tonight!

So, I headed for class early so I could make sure I carried everything up there in time, and guess what! My class was cancelled:( I was so upset! I worked so hard on their dough"nuts" and now I couldn't even present. So sad:(

I ended up taking the pretzel sticks out and freezing them, so we'll see how they turn out. If they don't, I'll be sad. I just wish I would've known we weren't going to have class. I would've waited to make them.

Oh well. Good lesson for Pre-K teachers...gotta be flexible:)

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Overcome with Emotion

I heard some very sad news about an old friend last night and I am overcome with emotion.

Without naming names or going into too many details, I heard this friend is getting a divorce/already been divorced. I'm so shocked by this!

I used to be very close friends with this person and I'm so sad to hear that his marriage is over. My heart aches for him and his wife/ex-wife. I can't imagine him making the decisions he did to end his marriage. I am angry with him , but I cannot help but just offer his situation to the Lord. I don't know all the details myself, but it hurts when a friend is hurt.

I pray that the Lord will bless his future and show him the way to true happiness with Christ. I pray that the Lord will comfort his wife/ex-wife while she deals with this.

I just pray. There's nothing else I can do.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

The Promise of a Future

A dear friend of mine used this quote in her blog a few days ago when she was speaking of a friend of hers. I loved it and all the possibilities it brought to my mind.

Nick and I have some friends that we just really started hanging out with this summer and it has blossomed tremendously! They have two kids already, with another on the way, so they are extremely busy and it always makes things chaotic, but they definitely give us "the promise of a future".

The way we connect with them is something I haven't experienced in a long time. We have shed tears together and many moments of laughter, and living in a town where you don't know many people and your husband's friends have all moved away, this is rare and special.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Poetry

I am taking a college class at our local community college for my alternative certification...Children's Literature. I love it! It's helped so much. I'm learning about good authors to read to my students and finding out so many different kinds of books there are to read. We are discussing poetry right now and I came across my old Shel Silverstein books. I received these books in the 4th and 5th grade from my parents for Christmas and I was reading them last night and thought I'd share a few of my favorites.

"Early Bird"
Oh, if you're a bird, be an early bird
And catch the worm for your breakfast plate.
If you're a bird, be an early early bird -
But if you're a worm, sleep late.

"Scale"
If I could only see the scale,
I'm sure that it would state
That I've lost ounces...maybe pounds
Or even tons of weight.
"You'd better eat some pancakes -
You're skinny as a rail."
I'm sure that's what the scale would say...
If I could see the scale.

"The Monkey"
1 Little monkey
Was goin' 2 the store
When he saw a banana 3
He's never climbed be4.
By 5 o'clock that evenin'
He was 6 with a stomach ache
'Cause 7 green bananas
Was what that monkey 8.

By 9 o'clock that evenin'
That monkey was quite ill,
So 10 we called the doctor
Who was 11 on the hill.
The doctor said, "You're almost dead.
Don't eat green bananas no more."
The sick little monkey groaned and said,
"But that's what I 1-2 the 3-4."

Friday, October 30, 2009

There's Just Something About It

Friday Nights in the Fall = One Thing

FOOTBALL!!!!

My dad was a coach when I was younger and the only way my mom, sister, and I were going to be able to see him was to go to the games, whether they be far or near. So, we loaded up every Friday night and traveled wherever the Pryor Tigers were. The big rival growing up was Locust Grove, but since I went to church there and all my family was there, it wasn't so much a rival for me, but a reunion! Before I cheered in high school, I would spend one half on Locust Grove side and one half on Pryor side. In high school, I couldn't do this because I was cheering, so my reunions at the football field eventually became non-existent.

That is, until college! In college when I came home on the weekends in the fall, that's all the games were about...reuniting. It was a chance to see some high school friends, chat with my mom, watch Cassie cheer, and live in the past, if for only a few hours. I have always loved Friday nights in the fall. My mom would cook chili, we would get all bundled up, we would cover ourselves in spray glitter (only during the cheerleading days), and we'd be off!

Since I've been out of college, the Friday night ritual has been few and far between. Nick and I have been to a few Miami games, but they're not so good this year and our evenings at home are just so rare, we hate to give them up. However, we are travelling to Pryor tonight to watch the Miami Wardogs and Pryor Tigers battle it out. Now, the dilemma. Which side do we sit on? Nick coaches at Miami High and he has many students that play football. I'm going to the game to see my mom and Cassie. Do we split up and watch it from opposite sides? Do we spend a half on each? It's going to be pretty cold, so we'd have to lug all our blankets and things to both sides! What do we do, oh what do we do?

Despite this, we will still get to participate in some good small town football, and that's what it's all about anyway, right?

Oh, and spending quality time with my mom and sister:) Which is probably where we'll end up sitting the whole time, anyway!

Thursday, October 29, 2009

A Day in the Life

As a teacher, you may be wondering why I'm able to blog at 10:44a in the middle of the week. Just one of the many perks of being a Pre-K teacher.

I have the swine flu!

No, there is nothing different from this stran of flu than any other flu, but it just sounds disgusting. I've had a fever and a sore throat and I've missed school this whole week! Fun, you may say. However, another perk of being a Pre-K teacher is the parties. Tomorrow is our Halloween Party and I will not be there to see it. All the candy, goody bags, games, and smiles. I love my job, but my immune system is still not built up yet:(