the games we play

for the past hour, while watching the mavs/spurs game, michael and i have been playing a game of charades.

it's hilariously fun.

i never realized how bad i am at this game.

i'm ready...and i hope you are too - this is a super annoying post

i'm ready for a house.

did you know that every time i wash dishes, water splashes all over the counter. that's not because i'm a messy dishwasher, it's because the sink is so small and the faucet sprays weird. it's annoying.

i'm ready for a house.

have i mentioned that when you turn on our bathroom lights, a really annoying vent/fan thingy comes on with it? it's loud.

i'm ready for a house.

i'm tired of having to clean up my dog's, ahem, potty break.

i'm ready for a house.

as wonderful as it was to finally have our real couch in our apartment, michael and i are getting really annoyed having to watch tv together like this. in fact, the other night, we had switched sides on accident and michael couldn't even watch tv. he honestly said that it felt too weird to turn his head to that side and he couldn't see the tv properly. how sad are we?

i'm ready for a house.

i need more room in a freezer than i have in this one.

i'm ready for a house.

i'm tired of hearing so much noise outside at night time. the other night, there was a guy and a group of his friends drinking and hanging out on his balcony. it was like 2am. they were loud. i almost went outside with the beebee gun.

i'm ready for a house.

maybe my friends and family will come visit more when they have a comfortable place to stay and they're aren't jolted awake because of a stupid vent!

a pain in the...

about two years ago, my wisdom teeth started coming in. it was really weird though, because only an incredibly small portion of my tooth was visible through my gums. over the past 6 months, those sweet, little wisdom teeth have started coming in more and more.

i think i know what babies feel like when they're teething! poor things! no wonder they're in such bad moods!

for awhile there, my teeth would hurt on one side for a day or two, then the pain would pass. in fact, the pain wasn't even that bad. now, in the past two weeks, the pain has been really bad and extremely consistent. it won't go away. my mouth hurts on both sides all the time. it hurts the worst right when i wake up. today, my mouth was hurting so bad that it gave me a headache. with all this never ending pain, my emotions have been starting to show themsevles. today, i left my room for a quick bathroom break (don't worry, my kids were supervised) and on my walk through the hall, i could feel my eyes tear up and a lump form in my throat. i got myself together before it was too late, but i still felt like a fool. i know hurting teeth is nothing to cry about, it's just that i'm just ready for it to be over.

michael and i are in the process of looking for a dentist and oral surgeon. it's just that we live in a really big city. i'm hoping he chose someone today and gives them a call.

it would be totally worth it for me, to spend my spring break in bed recovering, as long as i could be rid of this pain.

all of this pain, sure is a pain in the hiney.

a new birth

we are housing luna moth cocoons in our classroom.

today, one hatched. his name is Flameball. his wings are drying beautifully as he hangs upside down from a leaf.

we're all so proud.

chores stink

what makes it so stinkin hard to put away the 72 loads of clean laundry you spent your entire saturday working on?!

i mean, seriously! i did move my clothes to the guest room (which, if you recall, is where my dresser and tinsy closet are located). unfortunately, nothing made it past the bed.

except for the few piles i thought i would bring into the bedroom when i first got started, (that now sit on the floor), i have gradually piled all of michael's clothes into a laundry basket (it's overflowing). that basket remains in the living room floor where i left it 3 days ago.

i have participated in many washings, where directly after the dryer, i folded and put away. maybe i'll get that way again for the summer. sad to say, but i'm not that way now and i don't care.

if you are not like this and wonder how on earth i could, read this.

out with the old, in with the new...ugly style

well, on monday afternoon, i was forced to pack up my classroom like it was summertime. our entire school is having the carpet removed from our classrooms. it is being replaced with tile like the stuff that covered only about 1/6 of the classroom floor and all of the hallways. there is now a beautiful, two-square, forest green tile border between the old white tile and the new white tile.

classy, huh? to top that off, they aren't even gonna wax this floor until summer. talk about ugly.

it wasn't fun having my kids move everything around (see, I had to be ready for all of this at 2:45, the time the bell rings), and then sit on the floor for the rest of the afternoon. i guess maybe it could have been like a goodbye for them. sit on this nasty old carpet that you'll never see again.

the thing is, the carpet wasn't that bad and now i'm stuck with ugly white, bright tile that is hard and cold. it's too easy for the desks to move on (you know how i am about things being perfectly organized), it's too hard for the kids to sit on every morning during group time and every afternoon during stations. we don't even have a rug. sure, i could buy one from some great teacher supply store, but i don't really have $400 to spend on a rug for my classroom right now.

i guess i'll have to make due.

the kids actually handled everything okay today. they spent the day doing independent work and then afternoon stations while i put the room back together. it was stinkin ridiculous. could we not have waited for summer, or at least spring break, for this?!

anyway, i'm glad the whole process is over and i'm just hoping our principal will have mercy on our souls and give us some carpet. it's just too stinkin loud with 21 first graders and nothing to muffle the sound...

westover hills

michael and i tried out a new church this morning.

westover hills ag.

i must say, it was one of the strangest experiences of my life.

don't get me wrong, the church was beautiful (and big), the worship was nice (although there were many songs michael and i didn't know) and the preaching was good, but...i just have a certain expectation for preaching.

i've had my own experience of visiting other churches, well up until fourth grade anyway. since then, i've gone to my dad's church. i must say that i've rather enjoyed that. i just love saf. i love the worship there, i love the people there and i love, love, LOVE the pastors there. it's just weird for me to be looking for another church, knowing that any that we find could never compare to the one we truly love.

the pastor this morning preached on God's pay days. the main idea was prosperity in things not only wordly but in the blessings God gives you. pay attention to things that are not only monetary. He gives graciously to his children.

every time he mentioned pay days, a picture of a payday candy bar popped into my head. now, i know we've been eating really healthy this week, but still, it was a little ridiculous.

anyway, though we liked whag okay, we think we'll keep looking. maybe something a little smaller, maybe something a little more like home.

no matter where we end up, we know Jesus will be there.

i miss you daddy.

alright, something exciting!!!

i've done 7 loads of laundry and i'm not done yet. what does that tell you?

yea, we've been living lazily lately.

i'm sorry you can't all have this much fun on a saturday.

on a lighter note, i did sleep in until 11:30 this morning. eat your hearts out ladies.

i know, i know. enjoy it while i can before i have kids.

what do you think i'm doing?

the thing is

that by the time i get home from work, i can hardly focus long enough to see what's going on in everyone else's lives, let alone focus long enough to post something myself (how do you women teach children and then go home to children?!).

i've always been a reader. it's what i love to do. give me a long book or a short post and i'm happy. i've never been a writer, and although i love blogging, there is some times something so blah about writing my own.

i'm sorry that i am so boring. it's just that i come home from work, read your blogs and totally zone out for about 45 minutes watching the food network. i'm just tired of thinking. if my six year olds would back off for a few minutes everyday, i'd be a little better. well, who knows actually, because i've actually had a pretty good week with those little twerps.

anyway, i'd just like apologize and say that i wish i had something other than my piles of laundry and 1/2 in dust covered furniture to talk about. i guess i could post about how much i miss my friends. spending a couple hours (maybe if we're lucky) once a month, is just not good enough for me. why did i say i wanted to buy a house here? why not san angelo? stupid.

well, maybe i can write later this weekend about how i don't have any laundry or how i've taken beautiful pictures of my children...oh wait, nevermind.

i'm such a sucker

michael left before i got out of bed this morning. he had a training session today in austin.

i went to work as usual and let my kids pass out their valentine's right before lunch. then, i went to lunch. i was sitting there eating a sandwich when the secretary from the school walked in holding a red vase full of red roses and purple flowers.

"mrs. kotze...these are for you."

it caught me off guard just because i wasn't expecting anything, but the flowers are beautiful. they are exactly like a bouquet michael sent me when we lived in san angelo. aaahhh, they were my favorite flowers ever and he remembered that. the card said,

"everyday feels like valentine's day with you in my life."

i almost cried. i am such a sucker for the cheesy, sweetly romantic lines. i totally want my husband to feel that way about me...at least one day a year.

i proudly carried my flowers back to my desk and breathed them in for the rest of the day.

my flowers are beautiful and so is my husband and my marriage.

thank you baby. you are the love i've always dreamed of and so much more. thank you for making me feel super special and loved today. you are totally speaking to my romantic heart. i can never express how i truly feel about you. "i love you" just doesn't do it justice.

selections committee, please come forward

this afternoon, michael and i spent 3 hours, did you get that...three hours, at the design center at our community. we picked out everything for our new home.

it was ridiculous and i'm just happy it didn't take any longer than 3 hours.

we picked out the look of the outside, paint, flooring, cabinets, counter tops, a million other things, the color of the toilet for goodness sake. it was fun and stressful and tiring all at the same time.

but, i think i can say, it's gonna be perfect. for us anyway. we designed our house to perfectly suit us.

from what barbara says, the should be pouring the slab in a couple of weeks. it should be finished about the end of july. then, we'll be open for visitors.

i'll be posting pics as they come.

giddy with glee!

we have a new address! it is a beautiful address.

it starts with some numbers and ends with a something cliff. i wish i felt safe enough to post it, but you know how that goes.

it's beautiful.

i'm so excited!

after much time in prayerful consideration

like um...one day, we've decided to do it!

okay, not really one day, but we seriously have decided to build our new home.

we're headed out to the summit (the community where we want to build) to put our earnest money down on our lot and get the ball rolling.

i've been so excited at the thought of a new home that i haven't been able to sleep soundly for a couple of weeks. now that it's come down to really doing it, i'm nervous! can you believe that?! is that normal or am i a total weirdo?

a few days ago i couldn't stop thinking about how it would feel to live in a house again, how i would decorate, how comfortable our guests would be when they came to stay with us, the babies that would grow up in that house and how jules would feel to have a back yard again.

now all i can think about is our "getting out of debt" plan, the house payment, a possible drive through early morning traffic, the lot we have chosen and the market the way it is right now.

i mean, we have things worked out financially, so i'm not really worried about that. it's just all of the other things that are trying to put a damper on my joy. michael is excited. i'm excited. we've prayed about this. we've thought and talked about this. i think we're making the right decision and in about 30 minutes i'm going to head out and prove that.

oh...jesus...

i would just like to say

in regards to that last post and it's comments,

duh!!!

valentine's day...are you serious?

i'm starting to believe that valentine's day is way over rated. now, i'm gonna sound like a hypocrite but, i want something.

i the biggest sucker for flowers and a sweet card, but what the heck do you get a man for valentine's day?!

it's ridiculous. valentine's day is good for women because it reminds their husbands to write extremely sweet things in a card, but for men...

any tips?

the opinions expressed in this post are not the opinions of this blog or it's author. they are the opinions of a woman going through a crazy moment of stupidity and hypocrisy. please do not hold it against me later. :)

goodie, goodie

how long has it been since you've had plain ol' blue bell vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup on top?

me?

about 22 minutes.

it was so delicious. it reminded me of when i was a kid. long, hot west texas days. swimming pools in the summer. bike rides from the blanco state park to the convenient store where they sold blue bell by the scoop.

sometimes it's just good to feel like a kid again.

now, it's almost my bed time. that's the only part i hate about being a kid, an early bed time.

amazed once again

michael's sister, claire is engaged!

she and her fiance, bevan have been together for a few years and we are all excited to see them tie the know blissfully. i've been emailing with claire discussing wedding plans and having fun as girls do when planning a wedding. it's been great so far.

bevan competes in iron man competitions and is very good. he has an iron man in march and has now qualified for another in the netherlands. he will try for another in hawaii later in the year. because of all of these wonderful opportunities for bevan and some other things, they have decided to set the date for april 2009.

on michael's way home from work today, we were talking on the phone and i was explaining all of these things to him. he suddenly thought about the fact that the bride's parents usually pay for the wedding.

michael's parents have both passed away. bevan was so honorable, that he called michael and christopher, michael's older brother, to ask if he could marry claire. it was incredibly sweet and thoughtful.

michael had the amazing idea to call christopher tonight and suggest the two of them pay for their little sister's wedding.

how amazing is that? i have the most wonderful husband this world has ever seen. i love the way he takes care of people. i am so proud to be michael's wife.

to buy or not to buy

michael and i are looking for a new home. we think we've found a spot we like and we've definitely found a floor plan we love.

if we decide to go with this home, it's a little big for our family now. but hopefully, in the not too distant future (no i'm not pregnant) we'll grow into it.

we will have space to have family and friends come visit. we will have space to keep all of our furniture in one place, rather than an apartment and a storage unit. we will have enough space to keep all of our clothes in one closet (shocker! i'm still going to make him get rid of some of his, he has the big closet here!!!). we will have enough space to both be in the kitchen at the same time. we will have enough space in our back yard to let jules walk around with a leash around her neck.

as you can tell, he still has quite a bit of selling to do. i'm not quite sold on the idea yet! :)

we are trying to be reasonable and responsible in our decision.

so, yea, i think i'm ready to sign the papers.

okay, we are really trying to be prayerful and thoughtful and have been thinking about this for a while. i think we are planning to make a decision in the next couple of days regarding what we are going to do.

hmmm...

baby no. eight thousand three hundred nintey one

my team leader and fellow first grade teacher, rosemary is having her second son tomorrow. (this is like the millionth baby of people i know!) :)

ryan

great name, huh? it's so traditional but modern and totally perfect for this little boy i'm picturing. i'm really excited for her and can't wait to meet the baby.

today was the weirdest feeling just knowing today she was going to leave school like any other day but not be back for 7 weeks (including spring break). i'm feeling a tiny bit selfish wondering what i'll do the whole time she's gone. see, we're neighbors and if i ever have a question or comment or great idea for lunch out, i run next door and spill it. she really is a great help and i'll miss her being there. i can imagine though, that teaching with me probably doesn't compare too much to giving birth to a beautiful baby boy of your very own.

i'm praying now that labor will be good to baby and mama. i just know it will be.

organizing myself into a good day

i worked hard today. i taught all morning. taught a few new things for stations this afternoon and set to work organizing my room a little bit!

sadly, that kind of thing makes me pretty stinkin' happy.