Christmas Survey

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? both, I like opening wrapped presents but using gift bags is way easier!
2. Tree: Real or artificial? real (mom, the pine scented candle never had the same effect)
3. When do you put up the tree? This was our first year with our own tree...it went up the first weekend in December.
4. When do you take the tree down? again, it's our first year...I'll get back to you on that :)
5. Do you like eggnog? in moderation
6. Favorite gift received as a child? a lot come to mind
7. Do you have a nativity scene? yes, the starter Willow Tree collection
8. Hardest person to buy for? my brother
9. Easiest person to buy for? Matt
10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? none are coming to mind
11. Mail or email Christmas cards? I love opening snail mail cards :)
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Elf
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? When the calendar says December and I realize it's time to get going.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Yes
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? My mom's Christmas morning egg casserole (I'm gonna miss it this year)
16. Lights: white or colored on the tree? we decided on colored this year
17. Favorite Christmas song? Winter Wonderland and Brad Paisley's Politically Correct Christmas
18. Travel for Christmas or stay at home? A little of both.
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers? Yes
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? We always had a beautiful angel that mom got at a craft fair...I wanted one but knew we'd never find one like it again. We have a tin star now.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Well...Matt and I will do our presents on the 22nd, then presents at his parents on Christmas Eve morning. Then presents down in Pennsylvania on Christmas day. Then Christmas with my family a week later.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? all the stupid drivers out shopping
23. What I love most about Christmas...Being together with family and remembering the reason for this glorious season.

That was fun :) This year I'm also enjoying having a classroom full of students that help get me in the Christmas spirit. We've been listening to Charlie Brown Christmas music on a daily basis and are looking forward to our classes upcoming Pancake Breakfast.

decorating for the season...

A few pictures from today...

Thanks to John and Amy for suggesting Home Depot for a tree that wouldn't cost our life savings.

My favorite Christmas decoration :)

I love when decorations I bought at totally different times fit together so perfectly :)

i have no life...

My husband just informed me that I have not updated my blog "in a coon's age" (what does that even mean?). When I told him I was just about to update he questioned what I even had to blog about...hence the title!

Well...despite what my wonderful husband thinks...I do have a life. It just most recently revolved around parent teacher conferences. Yesterday, after a full day of teaching I had a full evening of conferences. I left school at 7:30pm and had to be back at 7:30 this morning. I walked into school this morning feeling like I'd been run over by a Mac Truck, and I still had an entire day of conferencing ahead of me. Despite the fact that conferences drained every ounce of life out of me, it was very encouraging to have a few parents sing my praises after the start the year I've had.

Okay, okay, that isn't much of a life :) So I'll go back a few weekends to the wonderful girls weekend we had in Cortland. Back in August the RWC girls decided we needed an all girls weekend get-together. We started planning and were finally able to get together the first weekend in November. It was a true girls weekend...complete with late night talks, junk food and Salvation-Army shopping!
It was a much-needed weekend with amazing "faith-filled" friends :) We mentioned how amazing it was to be able to catch up on life and share all that God has been doing in our lives since we've left Roberts.
We attended Beth's church on Sunday and all left feeling encouraged and uplifted after a chance to worship together. What an amazing experience!

time for an update...

First off, I appreciate my faithful readers who have checked in on me for any updates. The wait is finally over!

The start of the school year has been harder than I expected...hence the lack of blogging. I'll try to do my best to catch you all up...

Being married is GREAT! I am reminded daily how blessed I am to call Matt my husband. Matt and I have been married 12 weeks and I just realized I never even posted pictures from our honeymoon.
MINI-GOLF! And the winner was....ME!

Matt thought he had this game in the bag...little did he know I had skills I didn't even know about!



We spent a day hiking in the Poconos, overlooking the Delaware River.

Another day was spent enjoying the roller coasters and water rides at Dorney Park.













This picture doesn't do justice to the crazy thunderstorm that came through the area one night during our stay. We lost electricity and heard the constant sound of fire engines in the local community. The lightning seemed to linger over our house for hours, with only a little bit of rain. It was insane!

This was the beautiful view from our back porch! Of course, just to say we did we took the ghetto row boat out on the water...










HA HA...classic!

There it is...a 3 month old update :) Thanks for staying faithful and checking in. I figure if I update one event at a time I'll do better at catching up now.

School Update

Many of you may have noticed that I haven't posted about school at all...why? Up until now I feel like I wouldn't have had much of anything good to say. The year was immediately off to a stressful start with one particular situation. Without going into much detail I can say that I have one student who has been inappropriately placed in my classroom and has therefore demanded a lot of attention and time. Unfortunately, when that happens it takes that attention and time away from my other 17 students.

Thursday was a long, uncomfortable day as I faced a parent meeting followed by Open House. After being verbally abused by the parent I was feeling pretty down about my ability to teach and be effective in the classroom. I think God knew I was in desperate need of a pick-me-up after that. Later that night at Open House I was able to spend some time talking to a very supportive parent. He made it a point to let me know that he respects my opinion about his son and will support me in any way that he can. He spent a few minutes reminiscing about the days when teachers were respected by everyone, both students and parents. It's nice to know I have at least one set of parents supporting what I do!

I was also able to have an "awwww" moment while grading some spelling papers a few weeks back that I thought was worthy of sharing...
I had asked my students to write sentences using their weekly spelling words. Some of the words were "believe" and "kneel." A few students wrote sentences like "Everyone should believe in God," "I kneel each night to say my prayers." Even just those few sentences provided me with some insight into the lives of my children.

Despite the craziness and stress of the first month of school I have felt very blessed by the group of students I have in my class. They are caring, respectful and eager to learn.

I know this wasn't the most exciting blog...just wanted to share some of what's going on in my life. Thanks for reading!

Laura Kimberly

Baby Laura has arrived! Andrea went into the hospital about 2pm on Wednesday afternoon for "observation" but was told that the baby would most likely not show until late Thursday/early Friday. Laura had a different idea. I got the call at 12:45am that Andrea was in active labor. Laura arrived shortly after at 3:22am.


I was blessed with the chance to spend time with Andrea, Richie and baby Laura Thursday evening and Friday afternoon. Mom and I of course used this time to start spoiling Laura and found this perfect shirt for the day after she was born:

I am amazed by the miracle of this beautiful little baby girl. I never thought it was possible to love something so small so much. She is precious!

Congratulations Andrea and Richie! Laura is so blessed to have you as parents. You are in our thoughts and prayers!

Laura, you are so loved! Remember, God made you special and you are his precious child!

our grown-up furniture

Okay okay...I'm sorry it's taken me so long to post pictures of our new furniture. In my defense...we got the furniture the night before school started for a new year. It's true what they say...a first year teacher's year is INSANE (but that's for another blog).

And...since some people (ahem...Becca...) have been checking my blog every day for these pictures I guess I owe it to them to finally post.



I feel so grown-up lately...some may think it's because I just got married...but I think a lot has to do with the new furniture. There's something about this investment that makes me realize that I'm now an adult. Maybe it's the fact that I finally had to part with the hand-me-down couch and the $10 garage sale chair that had been with me for years.

The furniture will look slightly different when we can finally add the wooden legs. We decided it best to not fight with the hand screw driver and foot long screws when we didn't get the furniture till 8:00 on the night it arrived. Those will be added in time...

Thanks for looking!