and the "crowd" went wild...

because our kids had such a great week (and because we were all so tired) the first grade teachers decided a berenstain bears video about manners was in order. we piled all of the kids into one classroom and sat watching the video. as we were sitting at our table quietly talking, one of the cutest kids ever walked over.

nico said, "mrs. day, it's just that my nose is too crowded right now."

after we sent nico to get a tissue, we cracked up. now that's a great way to put it. "too crowded" is way better than "the boogers up there are hard and crusty."

ewww.

VICTORY!!!!

i have just folded a basket full of socks and every single sock had a match.

EVERY SINGLE SOCK HAD A MATCH!

that has to be the first time that has ever been done. ever. in history. in the universe. ever. first time ever.

i have tasted VICTORY!!!!! YES!

from teaching the kids, to teaching their parents

i didn't leave the school until 7:40 last night. it was parent orientation night. that's the night first grade invites all of the parents (minus the kids) to talk about school expectations and stuff. i had a really good turnout and think that most of my parents will be cool to work with. i do think there are some parents that will not be overly involved and some who are a little more sensitive with their kids than i really enjoy working with. oh well, i'm sure everything will be fine.

after i gave my big schpeal, i dismissed all the parents and was standing around talking to a few when one late couple walked in. i sighed and quickly went through the most important things again. they are really great parents and had a good excuse for being late so i wasn't all that annoyed.

when i got home, my feet hurt so badly i just sat in my chair before watching a few minutes of tv with michael and then heading to bed early. i always forget how hard the first week of school is. it's constant physical and mental trying. not that i have a big time physical routine, it's just standing and walking and walking and standing all day long. i was so tired when i woke up this morning, my feet still hurt and i took my complete shower with my eyes closed.

sad thing is, i don't get to sleep in this weekend. michael and i will be at the south african festival sleeping in a tent. wahoo. i can hardly contain my excitement. kidding. it really will be nice for michael to have the chance to talk about home and feel at home again with the cooking and the less than texan accents, i just wish we had an air conditioned room we'd be staying in there. :)

regardless of where we'll be staying this weekend, we get monday off so i'll choose to sleep in then. plus-on another unrelated note, tomorrow is jeans day. friday=jeans, school shirt and comfy new balances. hallelujah.

before you say no...just think about it

is there anything in the world better than a piece of your favorite cake?

no, you say? interesting answer. last night at 8:42 i would have completely agreed with you. however, when michael got home just minutes later, he declared he'd brought with him a prize...for me!

from my chair, i hear him ask "if you could have any cake in the world, what would it be?" without hesitation i confidently declare "carrot cake." he rushes in from the kitchen, shoves a plastic container in my face and says excitedly,

"well...how about carrot CHEESECAKE?!!?!!"

my eyes somehow bulg and glaze over at the same time. it was the most beautiful thing i'd ever seen in my life. a beautifully sculpted, gorgeously colored and perfectly sitting piece of heaven. as excited as i was to taste this ingenious invention, i paused for a photo session.

my piece of carrot cake cheesecake. don't worry, there was nothing green in my cheesecake, those are the nuts with some sort of weird reaction to the flash of the camera.

michael's banana cheesecake. it was super tasty too. he doesn't totally understand blogging so his patience was running a little low and he started eating during the photo session. stinker.

anyway, my carrot cake cheesecake was just about the best thing i've ever tasted. how on earth could anything be better than something that combines all of that goodness?!?! i mean, look at the glob of icing on the top! thanks baby, i'll never be the same! :)

a true wonder

my first day of school went just fine, as did my second. i have such a group of talkers this year, my goodness. i am usually overly strict for the first month of school and today was no different. i have a coworker's daughter in my class and i made her "pull a color" today. that was weird. but, it was necessary.

i have some real cuties and although they like to talk, i think i might be able to train them into quietness. i'll let you know in the weeks and months to come.

today was our first day to run through everything exactly like a normal day. we did stations and everything. we had rotated to our third station and i was walking around checking on everyone. i walked by "station 4" when nicole looked up at me with a smile. i leaned down to ask her how she was doing. she sighed and said, "everything's like a small wonderland in here..."

makes a teacher feel pretty good when they can make someone's day on Day 2.

thanks, nicole, you've just done something wonderful for yourself for the rest of the year. it's always good to have your teacher wrapped around your finger! :)

meet the teacher night

today from 4:30-6pm, our school conducted our meet the teacher time. of the 18 students i have right now, all but two showed up. from the looks of the students so far, i think i might have a good year.

between the 10 boys and 8 girls (with some siblings of my last year's children), i think our personalities might mix well. i do have a student with autism again this year but his autism affects him differently than my student last year. he seems to be a little more impulsive but academically on par where as my student last year couldn't do very much on her own. it will be a different experience but i think i'm up for the challenge.

most of my parents seemed very enthusiastic and supportive and one mom even asked me for my wish list. i happily told her to come to the parent orientation night on wednesday and i'd give it to her! :) plus-i got so many visits from my old students. they were all so cute and tall and huggy! such big ol' second graders! oh...tear. :(

it never fails, at this time of year i start to get a little nervous for the first day of school. what if i don't know what to say? what if i just sit and stare at them? what if they just sit and stare at me? oh wait a second, i hope they just sit and stare at me as long as they're listening and quiet! yeah, i think i'll be just fine.

the 1.5 hours of meet the teacher flew by so quickly that when it was over, a wave of exhaustion hit me. i cleaned up, drove home and sat in my favorite chair with my feet up. now i'm watching tv, blogging and thinking about heading to bed pretty soon.

this is my last weekend before months and months of kiddos so i'm planning to sleep in tomorrow. i don't think i could be more thankful for anything else in the world.

redeemed

before we moved to this house, we lived in an apartment complex 2 minutes from my school. my commute was always fast and furious and left little room for meditation or reflection. oddly enough, that is one of the things i looked forward to most with this move. the drive.

this week it has taken me about 20 minutes to get to work during rush hour. i've spent that time praying and worshiping. my drive has been a blessing. today however, as i rounded the last bend on the street to my school, my mind was assaulted with past failures, wrong decisions and bad mistakes. it was so sudden it felt like a punch in the gut.

i will never understand why satan attacks like he does. but i do know, that my Jesus has thrown those mess-ups into the sea of forgetfulness. He doesn't remember them and when i beg for forgiveness again, He doesn't even know what I'm talking about. thankfully. i began to pray, instead, for comfort and peace and although comfort didn't come immediately, it did come.

thank you, my Lord, for calvary. you are an amazing God full of mercy and grace and assurance. i am grateful that even when the enemy does his best to knock me off track and drag me down, you hold the key to set me free. i am no longer captive by my past. you have proven yet again, you are my redeemer.

a dream realized, again.

from my mentor's in san angelo, i have adapted a certain way to run my classroom. it deals mostly with my stations (or centers) and it works very well. my team leader here and another team member have decided, after much research, that this is the way to go.

rosemary and karen have been spending some money to get their stations up and running, just as i did four years ago. it's been fun having them look through my stuff and ask questions and seek advice. it's also been fun helping them spend their money on fun learning games and manipulatives. yesterday, while having yet another discussion about our stations, rosemary tells karen that while she thinks this year will be a little expensive on them, they will have all of this stuff next year and for years to come.

unexpectedly, my heart sank a little. now, i'm not saying things will work out just as michael and i have planned, but if they do, we could possibly have a baby next year (no i'm not pregnant and no we're not even trying yet). the original plan was for me to stay home and be mama once that happens. so at rosemary's comment, i sat in that room and pictured my friends and coworkers at this very exciting time next year, planning and spending and being excited about trying to make a difference in lives...without me. it actually made me rethink my decision to stay home.

now, i'm not saying the decision has been made one way or the other, but i am oddly happy that i experienced this bit of sadness. in the world of teaching, it's easy to forget or overlook the lovely things and uplifting times. yesterday, i got to know for sure that i am doing what i love to do. i love it enough to rethink leaving if i were ever given the choice.

i know the day may come that because of my own children i could not possibly think of going back to work. but for right now, i am genuinely grateful that because of someone else's children, whom i've yet to meet, i cannot possibly think of staying home.

just breathe

my sinus situation continues and with it, plenty of headaches. everytime i slow down enough to be able to feel anything, i realize that everything sort of hurts. my head hurts, my nose hurts, my eyes hurt. okay, not everything but the seemingly most important things.

i feel like my eyes are moving very slowly. if i try and look around the room, my eyes feel like they are separate from me. i'm not blinking slowly like i do when i'm tired but...i'll stop. this isn't even interesting.

wow. i'm stopping completely. i can't even believe i'm about to publish this super silly and boring post.

i apologize.

random updation

please recall "updation" was added to my blog dictionary sometime last year.

well, we traveled again this weekend. surprise, surprise. we drove to lubbock for a friend's wedding that was on sunday. it was a long drive. we drove 12 hours in less than two days. we left directly after the wedding and got home to san antonio around 1:30am. yucko. the good thing about it was that we did get to see several of our friends and even got to stop in on landon and sarah and the babies on the way there, and mom and dad on the way back. it was a good but very quick visit.

my inservices started on monday and so far, so good. we had workshops monday and tuesday morning but had the afternoons to work in our classrooms. we have something all day tomorrow and friday morning but the rest of the time will be ours. how nice is that?! it's made for a very relaxing preparation for the new year. my classroom is completely ready and i'm excited to spend the rest of the week getting my stuff ready for meet the teacher on friday afternoon and the first week of school.

in other news, i'm getting another favorite chair this week and really can't wait until it's here. i'm trying to figure out a color to paint that room that will make it look warmer and more comfortable. if you wanna look at the chair again, look here and give me your opinion on a paint choice. remember, this chair goes with a very dark brown leather couch.

also, our dining room furniture will finally be here next week. we ordered it almost two months ago. i think our house will feel even more like a home when you don't have to walk in the front door and look into an empty room. fingers crossed that everything comes okay.

i came home yesterday to an incredibly muddy dog. i was overjoyed.

i am having a crazy sinus/allergy situation right now and i can't breathe through my nose. i hate not being able to breathe through my nose. gggrrr.

i love watching the olympics and the journalistic travel stories that occasionally accompany the broadcast.

michael and i are going with greg and sascha to the south african festival in two weeks. that will be exciting and fun and a great learning experience for me. it's just a weekend get-together of all of the south africans in the austin and surrounding areas. they have good food and good stories and it's a great time for michael to be able to feel like he's a little closer to home. i'm happy to be able to go. i'm also glad we get to stay home a weekend before we go again.

i think i might be ready for bed.

a nut in the classroom

i'm tired and it's only my second day of work. not only that, but i didn't even get out of bed until 8:30 this morning. when school starts, i'll up that time by 2.5 hours. what the heck am i gonna do?!

my classroom is slowly coming together. it never fails, each year as i try to make sense of everything in my room and get it organized, i get crazy. i mean, like in the head kind of crazy. i'll pull a basket out of my closet and start to unload it and put things away. i'll be walking from the closet to my desk with a can of sharpies when i see my bookshelf empty. i'll put the sharpies down somewhere, go back into the closet and get out a stack of books. on my way to putting the books in the bookshelf, i'll notice the empty pocket chart on the wall and carry the books halfway back to the closet before i remember the sharpies. see...crazy.

it takes me almost as much energy to stay on task during the two weeks before school starts as it does for my friend to run a 10k.

i'm heading back early in the morning for another full day or organizing. if you can even call it that.

i'm outta my pj's

and have been for 11 hours. hope that makes you feel a little better about yesterday.

today i made my first journey to school from home. it took 18 minutes while stopping to get a cappuccino. i didn't even speed. not bad, in my opinion.

we started the day with a workshop on science and some other stuff that i obviously wasn't paying very much attention to. it was just dandy. i had lunch with my coworkers and spent the afternoon trying to arrange my classroom. the room is a little weird, and in the middle of the year last year i got a gigantic 12'x12' rug that takes up an awkward amount of space. i worked and worked and became super annoyed with minimal progress. in fact, zero progress. i asked our head custodian to come help me move some stuff. he did. then we moved it right back. it was ridiculous. finally, at the end of the day rosemary, my team leader, came in and helped talk me through a few options. we ended with one i think i'll enjoy. i'll make that decision in the morning when i walk back in my room.

in other wonderful school news, i am excited about a few new things i've gotten for my classroom. just fun games for stations and school supplies. i'm also very happy to see my sharpie's again. they missed me almost as much as i missed them.

another plus? it rained here all day! it stopped just a short while before i got home. it smelled great and looked great and the only thing that could have made it better is if i were home with a book and a blanket. mmm...

right now, i sit in my favorite chair, watching rachel ray, waiting on my husband and more rain. it might be quite a nice evening, once i get back in my pj's anyway.

pj's?

yup.

pj update...

still in 'em

now that's a way of putting it

paula dean just said, "a cinnamon roll so good it'll make your tongue wanna slap your brains out."

hmmm...interesting.

weekend wonderfulness

this weekend was really wonderful. i had plenty of time to play with ellie and hold grayson. i got a new haircut! saturday night, we went to amy and alex's reception in odessa and followed it up with a bit of taco villa. on sunday, i got to hear my dad preach and had a little more time to spend with family.

it was really hard to leave.

on one hand, i was ready to be home and sleep in my own bed but it was really hard to leave the babies. plus-i knew as soon as i got back, i'd have one day to get home ready before going back to work. now, i must say that i have it a little better than most of my friends. they go back full throttle tomorrow. i have a workshop tomorrow but plan to spend the rest of the week at school getting my classroom ready. our pd workshops don't start until the 18th. i know that's a lot easier to deal with than 9 days of that stuff. sorry guys.

my plan for today is to have the house clean and laundry done. i know there will still be a few things left undone. we aren't getting our dining room furniture until september! so we have a few pictures and decorating things left sitting in that room until i figure out where to put them. i'll finish the day off with grocery shopping.

i also plan to sit around a lot, watch tv, check blogs and read. i'm reading sackett's land by louis l'amour. i love it.

i really want to enjoy my last day off so i really feel like i did all i could do to prolong summer. i don't even know if i'll get out of my pj's today. okay, maybe i will to go to the store. other than that...i make no promises.

wherever you are today, enjoy it for me, it's my last day off.

an evening full of neices and nephews. fun!

we spent the evening at landon and sarah's. mostly i played with ellie. some, i held gray. he's such a sweet little guy. ellie is beautiful and wonderful and fun. i always enjoy my time with her and right now it seems extra special. she's a doll and she definitely knows she is loved.

can you believe i forgot my camera for this special weekend? yes, forgot. silly. here are a couple of my favorite pics from grayson's birthday.

just wanna point something out

there is no number 28 in the one word answers post. anywhere. on anyone's blog. how did all of you teachers and ocd people miss that?!

one word answers

1. Where is your cell phone? nightstand
2. Your significant other? coming
3. Your hair? straight
4. Your Skin? soft
5. Your mother? hostess
6. Your Favorite Thing? home
7. Your dream last night? weird
8. Your favorite drink? dp
9. Your dream/goal? momness
10. The room you’re in? comfy
11. Your ex? who?
12. Your fear? disappointing
13. Where do you want to be in six years? home
14. Where were you last night? hospital
15. What you’re not? near
16. Muffins? blueberry
17. One of your wish list items? discipline
18. Where you grew up? odessa
19. The last thing you did? carried
20. What are you wearing? ponytail
21. Your TV? ginormous
22. Your pet(s)? sweet
23. Your computer? new!
24. Your life? cherished
25. Your mood? happy
26. Missing someone? michael
27. Your car? paid
29. Favorite Store? target
30. Your summer? buuuusssyyy
31. Like someone? daddy
32. Your favorite color? green
33. When is the last time you laughed? lunch
34. Last time you cried? yesterday
35. Who will/would re-post this? marme
36. Whose Answers are you anxious to see? everyone's

gray on day 2

this is for uncle matt who is dying so far away. he says this will be the longest day of his life. poor guy...

gray-

we love you even more today than yesterday.

a great day...one of the top three ever

today, was a glorious day. it rates way up there on the scale of glorious days. of my top three, there is march 10, the day i married the man i love. there is also feb 13, sweet ellie's birthday.

then, (sigh) there's today...august 7. grayson's birthday.

my sweet nephew was born today at 12:43 pm. he weighed 8 lbs 9 oz and was 21 inches long. big ol' boy. he has a beautiful head of dark hair and he is really sweet and cuddly.

i must put this out there. i was the only aunt/uncle here today to love on this little bundle of joy. i have to enjoy that though because they were all there for ellie's birth while i was going crazy 4.5 hours away.

anyway, they will all be coming in this weekend and will get to have plenty of grayson time. he is a sweet baby and i know they already love him, just like i did.

grayson reed-
i am so happy to be your aunt. you are such a beautiful, little thing and i love you more than life. i know you are going to grow into an amazing, Godly man. but right now, we're going to enjoy you being so wonderful and snuggly. i love you, gray.

a rough day, for some of us..

right now, i'm sitting in my favorite chair. i've only had it about 3 days, but it's my favorite and i think it will be for a really long time. sneak peek? okay...

now, it's only a sneak peek because i'm not showing the rest of the room yet. it's hardly done and as you can see by the boring wall and boring floor, it's got a bit to go. however, the chair makes it okay because i love the fabric, the nailheads and the mega comfyness. i have another chair just like this one coming and they go with a dark brown leather couch. it's really pretty!!

so, as i sit on this wonderful chair in the cool air conditioning under a fan, michael stands in the killer hot sun, in the backyard, staining our fence. well, the sun isn't killer hot anymore, but it's been hot all day. he's just finished the fence and it really looks good. poor guy, he's had a pretty rough day. the water is so hard here that we had to put some kind of protection on the wood. thank goodness michael used a sprayer so it was done in about half the time.

other things are coming along slowly but surely and i'm just sad that i have to be back at school in a couple of weeks. there is still so much i want to do. it's always been hard for me to do things in stages. i guess i better get used to it.

however, i think getting used to it might not be so bad in this comfy chair.