‘Twas the Night Before Christmas…

…and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care…

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there! (Not to worry, we’ll take care of the fire prior to his arrival!)

First Person Funny

I love reading. I’ve been a “reader” since a very young age. I love it when I get caught up in a book and the main character’s problems become things I simply have to solve. I can’t go to sleep when the bad guy is moments away from hurting the good guy. And nothing makes me happier than when I see one of my students beginning to embrace books the way I do.

I tell you that to tell you this….

A few of my students have gotten REALLY into Accelerated Reader this year. I normally am not a huge fan of the program, but its motivating them to read, so who am I to argue?! We just finished reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume. It’s a wonderful book written about a boy named Peter Hatcher and his little brother Fudge. It’s written in the first person, so the reader is supposed to believe that Peter wrote the book.

Today, as one of my favorite little readers was going to take the AR test on the book, she decided to look it up by author. She tried typing “Judy Blume” first, which didn’t work because it’s in by last name first. So as I’m walking over to help her find the book, she’s typing in “Peter Hatcher” as the author.

And it’s moments like that remind me why I became a teacher.

Lucky.

I missed posting my thankfuls this week, so I just had to take the time tonight to post a great big THANKFUL for my friends tonight.

When Andrew and I moved to Virginia, I was very concerned that I wouldn’t make good friends here. I’ve always lived in NC and have been very dependent on friends I have known for a long time. It worried me that I’d be moving away from them…would I be able to keep in touch and see them and know what was going on in their lives? Would I be able to make new friends to share dinners with and craft with? It sounds silly looking back now, but it was a serious concern three years ago.

I’m lucky to still call people I’ve known since I was 8, and since I was 18 best friends. I’m even more fortunate that I continue to make friends whom I know I will be able to still call friends in 20 years.  

Thank you all for being there for me.

Thank you for sharing your wonderful news with me.

Thank you for your understanding.

Thank you for your friendship.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a WONDERFUL day here at the East Coast Eckert’s house! I even have PROOF!

I got up this morning and started making dinner rolls. They’re the pioneer woman’s recipe. They are seriously yummy. Don’t believe me? See for yourself.

Still don’t believe me? Try them yourself. They do take awhile to make, but they’re super simple. Its just time spent watching dough rise, or grass grow, or paint dry….whichever is your preference really.

Then I got the turkey into the turkey slow-cooker-roaster contraption (BEST $20 spent EVER.) with help from this lady:

And then mom and I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon preparing the rest of the feast. Andrew and Dad watched the Packers and Lions play. Andrew (obviously) pulled for the Packers (or he’d be disowned by his family).  Dad (obviously) pulled for the lions (just to make Andrew mad).

I present (drum roll, please)….the feast!

Now, I should mention at this point that there were only four of us….

There was turkey! (This is only half the turkey…)

Sweet potato casserole (I think of you every year BFF) and greens!

Grape Something! (Yes, something. Don’t question. It’s delicious.)

And dressing. Dear goodness how I love dressing. I wait for Thanksgiving every year for the dressing.

The dressing comes with a bit of a story that I feel is worth telling. You see, its my dad’s mom’s recipe. Well, mostly. When dad grew up and got interested in having the recipe, he asked his mom. To put it simply, there was no recipe. It was one of those “a little of this, a little of that, mix it until it looks right, put it in the oven and cook it” kind of recipes. So my parents spent a LOT of years trying to duplicate it. From what I hear, it was quite the ordeal. And it must have been, considering the top of the recipe I’ve been handed says “1996, This is it!” Yeah, that’s a lot of years of trial and error. And then today I’m making the dressing with supervision. Biscuits cooked from scratch yesterday? Check. Stick of butter? Check. Wait. Why does the recipe just say “celery” and “onions?” How much? In what order am I mixing these ingredients? Have I been tricked?! I’m pretty sure it was dad that tricked me. Look at this tricky guy!

But not so fast. I’ve now written things down. I have measurements. And let me tell you, this batch was a huge success.

We had a great time cooking. And now we better equally enjoy eating leftovers. Some of those dishes still looked EXACTLY like that when we slid them into the refrigerator after our meal.

Nutty’s pleased with the idea of us sharing those leftovers….

(Truthfully in this picture, he appears to be saying “what in the world are you doing mom”…but we’ll ignore that…)

We are truly thankful for all of the wonderful people in our lives. We’ve said it a thousand times this year, and we’ll keep saying it…we don’t know how we would have made it through this year still smiling without the love and support of our friends and family.  So we now present to you our cheesiest Thanksgiving grins. You only have yourselves to blame.

Happy Thanksgiving :-)

Happy

Thankful on Thursday

Its been a rough week. Today, after a particularly trying couple of days of pretty constant bad behaviors from my students, I finally lost it. Another teacher (we'll come back to her in a moment) took over for me while I ran across the hall to a room without students to cry and then pull myself back together. Report cards go out tomorrow and Andrew and I have been working really hard all week to get mine ready. Did I say Andrew and I? Yes, we'll come back to that too. We've got a few other things going on in our lives right now too that just make us a little less than stellar. So I'm hoping that after I take the time to write out all the things I'm thankful for, I'll find it easier to go to sleep. Let's hope that's the case because right now I'm exhausted but can't seem to turn off my worries and problems to be able to sleep....here goes nothing:

-Hubby. Seriously, he has graded papers, input grades into my grade book, listened to me complain, watched me worry, and generally just been the most supportive person EVER to me this week. I. am. lucky.

-The SPED teacher I work with. Remember the teacher that took over so I could take myself to time out? That's the one. She's amazing. And so darn positive about everything that it makes you WANT to dislike her. But I'll just bet you can't. She's too awesome.

-Thankful also for the poor para who was sitting in my time out room. She didn't get too scared when the third grade teacher barged in, shut the door and proceeded to cry for a few minutes. She was quite supportive and understanding.

-Are you wondering why I didn't go to the bathroom to cry? Because we share the girls bathroom on our hall. I'm thankful I didn't go there. Can you imagine those kids going home to mom and dad...."Mom today there was a teacher crying in the bathroom." That just exudes confidence, right? Yep, good choice on the relatively empty room.

-Thankful that Shannon had a wonderful ultrasound. Also quite happy it's a baby girl. I do, after all, like pink. Shannon, please note, I would have been equally as happy with buying Carolina Blue. :-)

-Thankful for my mom and dad. As usual, they're just fabulous. I could list reasons, but since most of you that read this know them, I'm pretty sure you get just how fabulous they are.

-Thankful that we got to go camping with the Yuditsky family last weekend. Super fun.

-Thankful that I got to see my Springwoods friends last weekend as well.

-Thankful for Brianne. I don't know how I'd survive the school year without her. We plan together, complain together and generally attempt to take care of each other in what can be a....trying....environment.

-Nutty! He's all snuggled up with me right now. And just wait until I post (this weekend, I promise) all about the camping trip. That dog, he's just wonderful. He keeps me smiling, laughing and feeling loved.

-The weekend is on its way. I'm looking forward to a relaxing one. Or at least more relaxing than the week has been.

Happy Friday!

Happy 236th Birthday Marine Corps!

Well, this week marks the 236th birthday of the Marine Corps. And this weekend, Andrew and I got to drive to Richmond to partake in drinks and food to honor the organization that both protects this great nation and provides my household with paychecks. Two thumbs up on both fronts there. Though I had severe blogger fail in that I didn’t manage to get someone to take a picture of us that showed more than just our faces (don’t worry, we got pictures taken, I just don’t have them yet…you’ll see them eventually) for now, you get this recap of the event.

Good planning: Plenty of places to buy drink tickets and plenty of places to get drinks.

Bad planning: One very long line to get pictures taken.

Good planning: A seating chart to make sure everyone knows where to go…all 2,500 of us.

Bad planning: No name tags to tell us where to sit when we got there…

Good planning: A decently good speaker and video birthday message from the Commandant.

Bad planning: Long pause prior to the speaker that caused all of the newbies to the ball to believe it would be okay for them to get up and go to the bathroom. Believe me when I tell you, it’s not okay to get out of your seat just before a Lieutenant General takes the podium to speak.

And now…a few pictures.

As I’m trying to get the right one….

Look up high! (this will prevent double chins….good plan!)

(oh wait, I look drunk…bad plan….)

Take 2: Look straight ahead.

Not bad, not bad.

Take 3: At this point, there had to be a “down low” picture!

Right, I knew I couldn’t get him to smile for three in a row.

 

Wait! Look at the table! Dessert is already there. So we won’t eat dinner until 9…but we could steal everyone’s dessert….

Okay let’s be honest about the kind of party people we are. We want to drink, eat, be merry and then head on back to our hotel room to watch Big Bang Theory. Is the merriment done yet?!

 

Hope you had a great weekend :-)

How about a recap?

So I've been a terrible blogger lately. There's been too much to do and not enough time to do it. So you're going to get all the pictures from my camera since....well, school started. Don't judge.

 

We have to go WAY back to begin. My BFF, KP, came to visit to go see the Brad Paisley concert. We had a fabulous time. Here’s a few pictures to prove it:

Let it be known that KP and I have known each other since we were in third grade and since that time she has made fun of my typically photogenic nature. Let it also be known that these were the only two pictures I could find from the night where I liked how I looked. Let it also be known that KP looks GREAT in ALL of the pictures we took.

 

Ace loves Brad Paisley, so he was quite the content guy. I considered editing out the drink in my hand before posting, but instead I’ve decided to trust that you won’t judge. Besides, it could be a can of apple juice. You don’t KNOW. I’m not showing the label.

 

Fast forward slightly. Ace ran a triathlon. I posted a little about it, but never got the pictures up. Well here they are:

Part 1: The swim.

And then the transition. (Have you SEEN the man I get to be married to?!)

Part 2: The bike ride

Then a transition again:

Part 3: Run Andrew, Run!

Big Finish!

 

Okay. So. Fast foward a little. Last weekend was the Marine Corps Marathon and 10k. Andrew ran the marathon because he ROCKS! Sara and I ran the 10k because we rock. (Note the difference in emphasis there. You get extra capitals and exclamation points for a marathon!) I took exactly one picture. (Bad bad blogger.)

It. Was. Cold. We were literally telling ourselves that the faster we ran the faster we got to get back in our sweat pants and sweat shirts. And oh. my. goodness. What good friends we have. Ben, TJ and Melissa came out to support us runners. It was cold, it was an early day, and they were TROOPERS. Thank you thank you to them!

(Thank you also to the people who took these photos…it almost makes up for my lack of pictures….)

 

And then it was Halloween.

Ben won. By far.

But our pirate family was way cute.

(Notice the, “Excuse me. What are you doing to me?” face.)

Happy Weekend!

Thankful on Thursday

Yes, I know its Friday morning. Most of the world (okay, maybe not the world...) isn't up yet, so I still get to pretend I got this up on Thursday.

This week I'm thankful for:
*I get to see lots of friends on Friday (See how I played it like it's not already Friday? You're impressed with my stealth, aren't you?)
*My mom and dad for all of their help with the dinner for Ace and the other staff members last weekend. My goodness. Two pans of lasagna completely consumed by 20(ish) guys, plus two entire cakes and a giant bowl of salad. I was impressed. And those parents of mine. I tell you. There aren't better people anywhere. (I may be biased.)
*My hubs. Thank goodness we can have fun doing just about anything. Because sorting student's test papers and grocery shopping COULD be SO not fun. But somehow it was a good way to spend Thursday night.
*School friends for taking really good care of me after my mini-melt down on Tuesday. You know you've reached your stress limit when you're practically running back to your classroom away from your AP because you're crying and you know you look ridiculous but you just can't stop....but like most tear-involved situations, it really seems to bring out the "kind" in people. So I'm thankful for it anyway.
*Yesterday I got to watch one of my low students succeed on a test. Nothing makes me feel better about the bad days than watching one of my kids who starts out knowing nothing about a subject, all of a sudden take off and soar. It's why teachers STAY teachers. It's quite the addictive feeling.
*I'm thankful for Friday. (See? Stealthy.)

And really. I'm going to catch up on blogging this weekend. I owe you all pictures. Happy day!

Too Funny. And True.

Hope everyone has a great start to their week! I've got plenty of blogging to catch up on this week and I'm determined to make it happen!