Snow Day

Today was a completely lazy day. This is crazy, but I don't think I've ever stayed in my pajamas all day unless I was sick. But I did today! And it was FUN. :)

We slept in this morning (hallelujah!!) Here is what our deck looked like when we woke up...


Today I caught up on reading everyone's blog which I was happy about. We watched some TV movies and played some games. I beat Steve in Trouble AND Scrabble!


I made some cookies too! Mmmmm...oatmeal raisin with a big glass of milk. :)



I also got on the treadmill and Steve did his P90X. We are still trying to work off The Melting Pot (and the oatmeal cookies)! haha

Tonight we went over to our next door neighbors' house. Our neighbors who live two doors down came, too. I took some of the soup we still had plus I made fajitas and homemade guacomole. Everybody brought something yummy and it was all great!

After dinner we played the Wii. Candy and Skip won the Wii bowling tournament, so we gave them a trophy just for fun!


Steve has been dying to go sledding all day, so we did it tonight. That was really fun. The whole street was one big sheet of thick ice and we were going so fast!! We even had races. Here I am with my sweet neighbors, Candy and Carol. We were doing our Charlie's Angels pose and just being silly.


After we went sledding, we put on some dry warm clothes and played Mexican Train Dominoes and had some hot chocolate.

It was a really fun day today. I am all cozy in my warm house now and about to watch Miss America that I TiVo'd earlier. I just learned tonight that Gretchen Carlson from Fox News was Miss America 1989. I didn't know that!! I watch her every morning! :)


You know what I was thinking today? That even though there is all this snow on the ground right now, do you know what we are going to see before long?? Daffodils!


They are always the first flowers to come up in February. And as fun as snow days are, I can't wait for spring! :)

Don't Even Know

Well, I don't even know what to title this post since I have so many things to say. I almost called it "Socializing" because that is what we have been doing tons of this week!

I told you about John's birthday dinner on Monday night. Then Wednesday, I went out with my fun second grade team for appetizers after school. It was my assistant's birthday and we went to Firebirds which is such a good restaurant. I love my team and we have so much fun together! I am thankful I get to work with people I like! :) Meanwhile, Steve hosted a Men's Bible Study at our house that night.

Thursday night was Steve's parents' 53rd anniversary! That is alot of happy years together!


To celebrate we went to The Melting Pot for dinner.


This is the card they had on our table when we got there, which I thought was really sweet.


This week in Charlotte we are having something called "The Queen's Feast" (named after Queen Charlotte...that's who our city is named after). Anyway...you can get an appetizer, entree, and dessert for $30. Restaurants all over Charlotte are doing this and I think it's a pretty good deal.


Have you ever been to The Melting Pot?? Oh...my...word. It's a fondue restaurant and we ate ourselves silly.


This is Steve's sister, Debbie and her husband Bob.


First we started off with three different kinds of cheeses to dip bread, veggies, and apples in. Then we had our entree...steak, fish, chicken, ravioli, vegetables, etc. Plus we had about 6-7 different kinds of sauces to dip them in. And for dessert, we got three different kinds of chocolate to dip fruit, pound cake, cheesecake, and marshmallows in.


I practically waddled out of there! haha

We actually had a birthday party to go to today for my niece Bailey's 3rd birthday. She was born on Steve's parents' 50th anniversary which is kind of cool! And tonight we were supposed to be going out with some friends for dinner. But we got snow and ice last night, so it turns out we are just staying home and relaxing this weekend. That is FINE with me! I love going out, but I am tired after staying out late and staying so busy and trying to work, too. I must be getting old!

Last night I made some Spicy Chicken Vegetable Soup and we just rented a movie. I think I fell asleep about 10 minutes after it started. I'm not even kidding! When I woke up, 20/20 was on. They were doing a special about John Edwards. Goodness...I am just totally shocked and disappointed in him. His behavior is disgusting to me.

We were hoping we would get lots of pretty snow overnight, but when we woke up we only had about and inch and a half. It is pretty, though.


And the kids up the street are so cute. They are all out on their sleds and their parents have the fire pit out and they are all hanging out together.


Steve keeps looking out the window wishing he had a kid to sled with! He's a big kid himself. :) All my kids got alot more snow where they are. Laura got about a foot up in Boone and Mark and Lindy both got about 4 inches!

I'm not sure what the roads are like today, but my plan is to just stay home and relax all day. I went to the store and got plenty of food so we should be fine for a while! Did you get any snow where you live this weekend??

Busy Weekend and John's Birthday

Well, let me see if I can catch up since last Thursday! That was the day it got so cold all of a sudden. That day on my way home from work I texted Steve (not while I was driving!) and said, "When are we booking our flight to Cancun?? I need some warm breezes and a fruity little umbrella drink asap!" That night we actually DID book our flight! So now we are going to Cancun at the end of February. Yay! I am so looking forward to that.


Friday night was really fun. We went to dinner with three other couples to a fun restaurant called Brio's. They have live music and really good food and we had a great time!

Saturday Mark called us and told us he had gotten his wallet stolen out of his car. I felt so bad for him! His license, money, bank card, gas card, school id, and Social Security card were all gone! :( Plus his bookbag was stolen with his textbooks and iPod in it! We spent alot of the morning helping him cancel cards and thinking about what he needed to do next. He was pretty discouraged over the weekend, but guess what? He found out that his school id and iPod were in a different bag than he thought and he found them! Then today, someone found his wallet and turned it in to his apartment and they called him and it was returned. Thank you God! His bank card and gas card were gone, but everything else was still there. I am so glad because that would have been such a hassle to replace all those things!

Yesterday was church and last night we went over to Steve's parents to watch the Saints play the Vikings. Steve and I both used to live in Louisiana and his brother is probably the BIGGEST Saints fan alive, so, of course, we were pulling for the Saints! But I do like Brett Favre and I felt bad for him last night!



Then, today was a teacher workday and I got so much done. I needed one of those! Tomorrow is John's birthday so we took him and Ashley out to dinner tonight. We went to one of his favorite restaurants, Mama Ricotta's, and it was so good. I got eggplant parmesan. We had alot of fun talking and just hanging out with the four of us.






Usually we go out with the whole big family, so it was nice tonight! :)

Tomorrow is already Tuesday! I love short weeks!

Thursday

I can't believe how different the weather can be within a 24 hour period! Seriously...yesterday it was almost summer-like. The sun was shining, everyone was out having fun and I told all my kids to go home and play outside! It was just gorgeous. Today, on the other hand, it is freeeeeezing and rainy. This is the kind of day where all you want to do is put on some fuzzy slippers and sit by the fire eating comfort food. Look who always has to jump up in my lap when I'm relaxing in my fuzzy slippers!


Today was our planning day at school. We have volunteers come sub for us in our classrooms and our second grade team spends the day planning together. It is such a nice day. And one of our moms brought us homemade chicken pot pie for lunch!


(That's perfect comfort food, right??) So nice!!

I am excited because I signed up today to take a photography class. I have been wanting to do that for a while and it was on my list of things I wanted to accomplish this year. One of my friends from high school, Whitney Gray, is an amazing photographer and she is offering classes, so I can't wait! I love my camera, but I never use all the features on it, so hopefully now I will figure out what they are all for!

Another thing that I am doing really soon is getting my archived blog posts made into a book! I am really excited about doing this and I found this site to help me. Do any of you have your blog made into a book? I used to love to scrapbook, but this is lots quicker and easier.

Did I tell you that Steve and I bought tickets to see James Taylor and Carole King? They are coming to Charlotte in June. I love both of them. Hearing their music just takes me back to my high school years. I have always thought they were both so talented and I think my blood pressure drops several notches when I listen to them! I am looking forward to that!


And I have to tell you one crazy story from school today. I told you it was planning day? Well, the teacher next door to me, Sarah, had a child take a pair of scissors while she was gone and cut a huge bald spot on the top of his head! They had to call his mom to come pick him up. I told Sarah that he would probably come to school tomorrow with a buzz cut. Sarah said, "No, he will probably come to school tomorrow BALD because he cut his hair all the way to his scalp!"


Kids do the craziest things!!! :)

Felt Like A Monday

Today was a Tuesday, but it felt like a Monday.


Oh my goodness...my class was super talkative today! We had several interruptions like an H1N1 clinic and a few other things and it all added up to a crazy day.

This is the kind of day it was....

First of all, I tell my class that their pencils should always be long enough for them to hold in their fist and stick into the pencil sharpener. If it is any shorter, it needs to be thrown away. Besides getting stuck in the sharpener, you can't write with a tiny pencil! Well, as I'm cleaning up the room at the end of the day, this is what I found on the floor.


Can you believe that?? I had to laugh though. Somebody worked hard to get it that tiny.

In my class we also have "Unfinished Work" folders. If a child has work they haven't gotten done, they are supposed to put it in this folder. Any time we have free time they are supposed to get it out and work on it.

Anyway...today I reminded the class several times to make sure they got everything in their "Unfinished Work" folder done. One little boy was over in the reading center so I asked him if he was done with everything. He assured me that he was! I even asked to see his folder and sure enough, it was empty. So I assumed he didn't have any work to do.

After school was over, I just so happened to look in his desk and oh.my.word. THIS is what I pulled out....


No wonder he didn't have anything in his folder!! It was all just stuffed in his desk! I think you get the idea of the kind of day it was! haha

Tomorrow is Picture Day. They will all come to school dressed really cute and I will want to hug them all.

On another note, here are a few other things I was thinking about today...

1-These are my new favorite things...


I love them! Have you ever tried them? You can just keep them in your purse and brush your teeth anywhere!

2-Laura is taking snowboarding this semester! She is going to school up there in the mountains where there are lots of ski resorts, so she thought she should learn how to join in the fun. Tonight is her first class. Ya'll please pray that she doesn't hurt or kill herself! She's never even skiied before (except one time!) Snowboarding is HARD!



3-At church on Sunday, one of my friends had on a really cute hand-stamped silver necklace with her kids' names on it. Everyone was admiring it and wondering where she got it. She said she got it at a Stella and Dot party. But then today I saw these really cute necklaces on Little Birdie Secrets.


They came from The Vintage Pearl. In fact, The Vintage Pearl is doing a give-away for them! Check it out if you're interested! :)

4-I got Steve P90X for Christmas. He has been doing it everyday and is doing so good. He is dedicated! Me...I'm just trying to go walking or get on the treadmill several times a week!



How are your New Year's Resolutions coming along??

MLK Day

Life's most persistent and urgent question is, "What are you doing for others?" -Martin Luther King, Jr.


I've been teaching my class about Martin Luther King this past week at school. I am thankful for a man who made the world a better place! I loved this quote by him when I saw it today.

I am thankful, too, that we got his birthday off! The day turned out so pretty.
The sun was shining and it was warm. It didn't even feel like winter any more. I have a feeling this won't last long, so I wanted to make the most of the day.

Ashley and I went to lunch at Panera Bread.


We were talking about how we never get to eat lunch out. We both eat in the cafeteria or the teacher's lounge every day and I think I truly only have about 15 minutes to eat. I am not a fast eater, so I am always rushing. It was nice to relax and have a leisurely lunch.

Lindy stopped back through on her way back to ECU. She visited Laura this weekend and she and her friends made a pit stop in Charlotte. I made her some homemade soup to take back with her. Then I gave her a big hug and waved goodbye to her driving off in her little blue car with her friends. :(

This afternoon Steve came home to see her for a few minutes and since he was home, we decided to go on a walk. It seems like it has been so long since I have gotten to walk outside. It was so nice.

I had been meaning to get some school work done over the weekend, but there was so much going on here that I never got around to it so I am trying to catch up a little bit tonight.

Happy Monday!

A Few New Things...

Wow...so many things to talk about today!

I am not used to having so much time to call my own like I did this weekend. Ever since my kids have gone back to school, I have had a little mental checklist of things I wanted to do or try, so I got to do a few of those this weekend. But let me start with Friday...

Friday night Steve and I went downtown for dinner then went to a Bobcats basketball game. The friends we went with last weekend had tickets they let us use, so yay for that!! We played the Spurs. Our seats were only about 13 rows back, so I texted Ashley and told her I was getting to see Tony Parker up close.


She is a huge Desperate Housewives fan, but Eva Longoria wasn't there. I'm sure Charlotte is way too small town for her!! haha

When I got home, I finished Julie and Julia. I LOVED it!! Some of the reasons I like it so much were that:

#1-It's about blogging and cooking!
#2-It takes place in New York and also in Paris...two of my favorite places in the whole world!
#3-Nora Ephron is the producer and I really like her movies. This one was just sweet and happy. That's what I like in a movie!
#4-Amy Adams is just cute.

Lindy and some of her friends came through Charlotte Friday night on their way to see Laura up in Boone. They were going for the long weekend. Lindy and her friend, Alyssa spent the night at our house. I got up early and made them some chocolate chip muffins and fruit before they left Saturday morning. Lindy's friend, Sean, was going to ski and the girls wanted to just shop and hang out this weekend.


So...once they left, Saturday was just a lazy day. But Saturday night (for an appetizer) I tried yet another of Pioneer Woman's recipes! This time it was her Pico de Gallo and guacamole. Mmmmm...you know this Mexican-food-loving girl was in heaven! It really was good. I totally recommend it.


For dinner I also roasted asparagus for the first time. All I did was just toss fresh asparagus with olive oil and roast it in the oven. When it came out, I salted and peppered it and sprinkled it with parmesan cheese. It was very yummy!

I had a few movies from Netflix that had just been sitting around waiting to be watched. One of them was The Changeling with Angelina Jolie, so we watched that after dinner. Wow...that was good but INTENSE! It was about a kidnapped child, so it was kind of "dark".


Today was church. After church we went to Big Daddy's Burgers with my mom and dad and my niece Bailey. She is such a cutie pie!






This afternoon Ashley wanted me to go see the movie The Lovely Bones with her. Yesterday she got the book and read the entire thing in one day! (Can you believe that??? She can read so fast!)


That was another movie about child abduction and murder. She said the book was way better than the movie and anyway, I don't really like dark movies. Goodness...I need something light and funny now!!

So...I got to try some new recipes and several new movies this weekend that I haven't seen.

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King's birthday so I get the day off. I wish I could have a three day weekend EVERY weekend! Thank you MLK!!

Pride and Humility

I have been thinking about Haiti all day today.


I know I'm not alone. I have to say that one of the things I love about the blogging world is the way people come together to help those in need through prayer and giving. Today there have been so many great tweets and blogs listing sites where we can give back a little of what we are so blessed with to help others. And I am so proud that I live in a country that is founded on Christian beliefs. We rush to the aid of our world neighbors if there is ever a need. I am proud and humbled all at the same time.

I just can't get over the devastation that has taken place! It has reminded me so much of Hurricane Katrina...only worse!

Here are a few of the sites I that I thought were great ways to help out...

American Red Cross
Compassion International


Samaritan's Purse

And Kelly has said she and Scott will donate a dollar for everyone who donates somehow to Haiti relief. Go to Kelly's Korner to participate.
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On another topic...I think I told you I was going to be trying different recipes in my Pioneer Woman Cookbook?? Well, I thought it would be fitting to try Penne a la Betsy first. haha It was de-licious! I loved it and I would definitely recommend it.


I didn't get to watch Julie and Julia last night after all. I got so many phone calls that I had to stop it. But I AM watching it tonight!! No matter what. :) I know it's about cooking and blogging, so I should relate.

Want some good news?? Tomorrow is FRIDAY!!

Never A Dull Moment

Really the little events in my life seem so trivial after hearing about the massive devastation in Haiti. I am just so sad for all those living there. Goodness...what a terrible tragedy. I think all of us need to be in constant prayer for them and hopefully finding ways to help in any way we can!


Today was a CRAZY day!! We had a lockdown (just practice) AND a fire drill both in one day. We also had a Native American storyteller come tell stories for an entire hour. He was very sweet, but listening to stories for an hour makes seven year olds very restless. My smartboard went out and so did my clock! I almost missed lunch because I had no idea it was lunchtime! haha My kids only had about five minutes to eat by the time we got to the cafeteria.

And I didn't get to tell you my other crazy story yet, but Monday night one of our pipes burst! I guess because it was so cold. But Steve came home to find pretty much a geyser coming out of one of the pipes to our sprinkler system! (Not this big, but you get the idea!!)


Water was going sky high and flooding our next door neighbor's yard.

Bless Steve's heart...he put on a raincoat and tried to get to the pipe to see if there was somewhere to turn off the water and he was SOAKED head to toe when I got home!

He knew where to turn off the water to our house, but once we did that, there was no way I could cook dinner. (I ended up going out and getting us Thai food.) Then Steve had to crawl under the house (in the dark with a flashlight) to try to find where to turn off the water to our sprinkler system since that is where the pipe burst. Meanwhile, he put on a pair of work gloves and got bitten by a spider two times on his hand! We were worried for a while that it might have been poisonous, like a brown recluse or something. How do you know??? But....he ended up being okay and he got everything turned off and fixed so I could take a hot shower so he was totally my HERO!

Tonight he is having his men's Bible study over here, so Rocky and I are watching Julie and Julia and I am grading papers. I will let you know how I like it!!

Another Busy Weekend

It was another busy weekend here at our house. Friday night was Steve's dad's birthday. He is now 72 years young! We all celebrated by going out to dinner and then over to their house to play games. I didn't take any pictures, but we had a good time!

Saturday was all about getting all my college kids packed up and ready to head back to school.


We washed clothes and packed cars and hugged everyone goodbye. I was sad to see them go. We have had such a good Christmas and I will really miss them. I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing their car drive off. I always get a lump in my throat. But they were ready to get back. I will be praying for them everyday that they will have a good semester! I love all my sweeties.

Saturday afternoon Ashley and I took dinner to a friend of ours who just had her second little girl. The baby got here about three weeks early and she is just a tiny little thing. I brought her chicken and bacon with rice and Ashley did the green beans and blueberry crisp.


I had to drop dinner off quickly because Steve and I met two of our college friends, David and April, for dinner and a Charlotte Bobcats game last night. We have known David since high school. He and I sat were in lots of classes together. Then he was Steve's roommate in college, too. And he was also in our wedding. We just love them, but we don't get to see them much. David is a doctor with a very successful practice and a houseful of three teenagers and that keeps them very busy. We had so much fun catching up with them last night, though!


Okay...now on to some totally trivial things, but I just had to get your opinion on this. Yesterday I was standing in line at the grocery store and this magazine caught my eye.


I couldn't see any of the words on it, so I had no idea who it was. I stood there for the longest time thinking this girl looked familiar but I couldn't place who it was! What do you think of Kate Gosselin's hair??

Also, I haven't seen Julie and Julia yet.


Since I am home with no kids now (that is just so weird!) I was thinking I might have time to watch it this week sometime. But I have heard mixed reviews. If you saw it, what did you think??