Added "security"

Over Christmas break someone broke into our house and stole most of our valuable items. They took our big screen TV, our desktop computer, our Wii and all the games, our DVD/VHS player, our smaller TV, our fancy laser printer, my school issued laptop, my Scrabble game (I know, weird, right?), and almost all of our movies. All of these things can be replaced...it will be expensive, but they can be replaced eventually. What cannot be replaced is the sense of security that was taken away from me and the kids.

Sammy has always had a fear that someone would break into our house and rob us. I always told her that she didn't need to worry and that we were safe because we locked our doors. Now what can I tell her???

When we got home from our trip, Sammy was so terrified to go into our house that she was curled up in a ball under her blanket in the front seat of the car. It took Mike carrying her into the house and walking room to room with her to reassure her that it was okay. Even still, she was so scared that she didn't want to be left in a room alone. So, while I unpacked and tried to deal with what needed to be done, Mike laid on the ground in the living room with Sammy and watched two of her movies with her so that she didn't have to be alone. Then at bedtime when she was still scared, he agreed to sleep on our couch so that she would feel safer. (It helped me to feel more secure as well.)

NOTE: I love this picture of Sammy with Mike. They are so cute together!

Headbanded

While we were in West Virginia, we had to find clever ways to entertain ourselves. We played a lot of games. This one was called "Headbanded" and was pretty funny. Each player had to wear a headband with a card on it. By asking yes/no questions, each person had to try to guess what they were.

Some of the funniest questions came from Uncle Paul. At one point (while he was wearing a picture of a tomato) he asked "Do people keep me as a pet?" It was hard not to laugh at that one!

Personalized T-shirts

For Christmas this year, Uncle Pete created t-shirts for the kids. Jonathan's is a Harry Potter Puppet Pals shirt. He loves it! And Sammy's is a special creation - a shirt for "Sammy's Dog Walking Service". Rainbow colored, of course.
Probably the best compliment Pete could have received was the comment Jonathan made. He told me, "Mom, just so you know, I'm gonna wear this shirt every week!" Such a fun and creative gift!

Christmas with Grandma Miller

We had a great time visiting Grandma before Christmas. She even put up a Christmas tree for the first time in years. We stayed up late talking, went shopping at the mall, and went out to eat at Red Robin. YUM!
It was a fun visit and we hope to get back out there again soon.
NOTE: Again, thank you to Jonathan for his willingness to snap photos with me in the shot. Proof that I was actually a participant in the event for a change.

Messy fun

While we were in Virginia, I had the chance to visit my good friend, Lamar, and his kids. He made ribs on the grill (while standing in the freezing snow) and the best potato salad I have ever had! (I still need to get that recipe...)After dinner, we decorated a bunch of sugar cookies I had brought with me. His kids. Derek and Abbie are such cute kids. We really had a good time. And I don't think we ended up making too much of a mess...

Road Trip Buddies

Whenever we take a road trip, Sammy kind of takes over the front seat. Jonathan says he doesn't mind too much since it gives him the whole back seat to stretch out in. When she begins to get bored (and a little slap happy), Sammy starts pretending her feet have personalities.

She named one Fred and one Bob. They "talk" to each other and play on the dashboard. She's such a silly thing! At least she can entertain herself...

NOTE: Thanks to Jonathan for the fun pictures!

My talented sister...

About a month ago, I found a really cool quote. It was on a sign at the apple orchard we went to in Rockford. It was such a fun quote, but I didn't want to spend the money for the sign (which wasn't all that great anyway) so I wrote the quote down and sent it to April with a special request. That she design a sign using the quote.

She did, and it was AMAZING!!! She is super creative and did such a good job. While I was in Ohio visiting over Thanksgiving break, April painted the sign for me to hang in my living room. It was such a big sign and it took a while, but it turned out really nice.
I now have this sign hanging on my living room wall. Everyone who comes over always comments on it. They love the quote and the sign too! I brag on April all the time. I love having such a talented sister!

Black Friday

I visited April's family for Thanksgiving this year...

It was an absolute blast!

One of my favorite things was going shopping on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving). April and I headed to Kohl's at 3am! That's right...that's pretty early. It was amazing how many people were out there at that time of the day.

We spent almost three hours shopping at Kohl's. It was so much fun. And we got some incredible deals.

The line to check out was ridiculously long, but if we agreed to apply for a Kohl's charge card they would let us check out at customer service. The line there was tiny, so of course we agreed. And got an extra 15% off as well. Can't beat that!

Reverse french braids with a flip...

I love doing little girls' hair.
I have come up with a lot of fun ways to do Sammy's hair lately, and while I was at April's I offered to do Kate's hair up in one of my favorite styles. Reverse french braids with a flip.

Kate did such a good job sitting still while I worked. What I loved about this style on a three-year-old (verses a 14-year-old) was that when she ran around the flips would bounce up and down. Super cute!!!

"BOINK"

I had forgotten about three-year-olds.

I had forgotten about their unlimited energy.

I had forgotten that once you get them wound up it is nearly impossible to calm them back down.
Tonight I was playing with Kate. She was being so silly. We kept making faces and silly noises. Every time she popped down from the couch, I would shout "boink" and we would laugh and laugh. (Nothing like a three-year-old to make you feel like a regular comedian.)

Well, in an attempt to help April, I tried to get Kate ready for bed. She was so wiggly. I struggled to get her diapar changed. I know it was completely my fault for trying to be silly and serious at the same time. We cleaned her room, got her pajamas on, and read a book. Still no chance that she was going to settle down. I tried sitting on the floor of her bedroom and just waiting for her to get tired. HA! Not gonna happen. Finally, April came in and took over.

Whew!

Kate is the most adorable ball of energy I have ever seen. But, boy, does she wear me out! The funniest thing was the next morning when April discovered that I had put Kate's diapar on backwards! I guess it's been a long time since I changed one.

Trip to Rockford

Over Fall Break, we drove up to visit Mom and Stan in Rockford. It wasn't too bad of a drive (especially since we took a pit-stop in Bloomington on the way there).
Some of the highlights from our trip?
* hanging out with Grandma's pets, Maggie and Sophie
* visiting with Calvin and Aunt Heidi
* playing games (Scrabble and Sorry)
* going to the apple orchard
* searching for pumpkins in the fields
One of the biggest helps on this trip was the fact that Jonathan was able to do some of the driving. Even though I still ahd to be awake and alert, at least I could shift position and be more comfortable...

Baking Challenges

Sandwich cookies are one of my all-time favorites. I consider them to be "Christmas cookies" because I only bake them at Christmas-time. They also happen to be Tracey's favorite cookies that I make. So, when when we decided to stay at her house for a couple days over fall break, Tracey asked if I would be wiling to teach her to make these yummy cookies.

Of course, I agreed...
They turned out delicious, as always. I made the dough and baked the cookies while Tracey wrote down the recipe and all of my little baking tricks. When it was time to assemble the cookies, Tracey decided to help out. Her first attempts were pretty hilarious! Take a look...

In case you wondered, hers is the broken one loaded with too much chocolate!

Eventually she got the hang of dipping the cookies into the melted chocolate and sprinkles. Now she can recreate these cookies whenever she wants - in theory.

It's Official!

Well, today was the big day! Jonathan got his learner's permit. I'm so excited for him and at the same time pretty nervous for me... I mean, having him behind the wheel of my car has me worried. I know he will be a good driver after having enough practice, but it's the practicing part that scares me.
Getting the permit was the first step in the process, though. We showed up in time to get a number and wait for over an hour. After waiting, Jonathan took his "written" test. He passed on his first try. This did not surprise me at all. He had studied and always does well on tests.

Jonathan hated his picture. He thought he looked like Justin Beeber. (He kinda did.) Welcome to the world of horrible photos on licenses, Jonathan.

He's 15 now...

The big deal with turning 15 in Tennessee is that you are old enough to get your driver's permit. We had planned it all out. I would leave work a little early and rush home so that we could go to the license branch to get Jon's permit. BUT when I checked online to be sure I had all the necessary paperwork, I discovered that it was closed on Mondays. Of course! So Jonathan has to wait another day before the "big day".

Despite this sad news, we had fun celebrating Jonathan's birthday. I made him a car shaped birthday cake. Since I didn't have 15 candles, I stuck several candles in the "tailpipes" and coming out of the "hood" so that it looked like a car that was on fire.

Sammy and I got kind of silly when wrapping presents for Jonathan last night. We ended up wrapping "empty presents" as well as real ones with funny messages on them. It was nice to celebrate in a low-key, family way.

Boots

Today I was laying on my bed trying to rest when Sammy opened the door to my room and said that the neighbor was at our house and wanted to talk to me. I admit that I was half asleep, but when I opened my eyes, I realized that Sammy was standing in my doorway holding a puppy! Well, that woke me up pretty quickly!

It turns out that Sammy had walked over to the neighbor's house and asked if she could walk their dogs. Our neighbors are so nice and agreed that Sammy could bring this little puppy home for about 30 minutes to visit while they had lunch.

I have to admit that the guy was pretty cute - especially the way he crawled right into Sammy's lap and stayed there the whole time he was at our house. I'm sure he was unsure of where he was and probably a little scared too. Sammy loved having him visit and did her best to convince me to keep him.
Sammy LOVES animals - especially dogs - but since we are renting, we can't have any pets. Although the neighbors are trying to find homes for their adorable puppies, we will not be adopting one at this time...

M-m-m-marshmallows

A few weeks ago, we were shopping in Wal-Mart and we came across these enormous marshmallows. I swear, they are so big that you have to eat them by taking bites of them. They're called "roasting marshmallows" - I assume because they would be excellent to use for just that! We saved them for a while hoping to visit Costa and Andrew in Indiana and have a bonfire where we could roast them in style. When our plans fell through over Labor Day weekend, we ended up opening the marshmallows anyway.
Jonathan posed for a silly picture that he could post on Facebook. Sammy wanted in on the fun as well. I posed for a couple too, but you won't see those here!

First visitors...

Today we had our first visitors to our new home in Clarksville (other than the family that helped us move in in June). The Ostlunds were on their way home from Georgia and took a detour to visit us for a couple hours. It was so great to see them.
On a side note: On the way home, Tracey ended up missing the exit that would take them up to Bloomington. They ended up going about four hours out of their way. Not such a great way to end their trip, but we are still grateful they came by!

It's finally coming together!!!

I have wanted to post pictures of my classroom ever since school started, but it has really taken me until tonight - Open House Night - to get the classroom all put together.

When I first got to my classroom this summer, I found that the teacher before me had left all of her things in my room. So, my first three days were spent cleaning and sorting through her things and unloading a lot of boxes from my car. Take a look at the before shot below:It doesn't really look too bad, because I forgot to take pictures of the other side of the room where all of Mrs. Santos's things were piled. But it does look pretty bare.

I spent countless hours in my room before school even started trying to get things organized and decorated so that when my students came the first day of school, they would be welcomed into a room that was "ready" for students. Over the next month, I continued to refine how I had organized things and now I am pretty pleased with the results.

Here are my teacher's center and calendar of events:Below you will see my desk, small group station, and standards board:Next, my technology center - complete with student profile pages hanging on the wall: My word wall and student writing wall:And finally, my content area bulletin boards in the front of my room:I really had a good time coming up with fun ways to display work and information around the room. I love bright rainbow colors and that has become a theme around my classroom. I think I managed to create an inviting place for students to learn. I know that I am happy here and enjoy going to work each day.

You're kidding me!

Okay, so last night I was in the basement working on the computer. I was up pretty late trying to get things ready for my classroom. Anyway, when I started to go up stairs to go to bed, I noticed something next to the wall by the staircase. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was a snake - did you get that? A SNAKE! In my basement! Are you kidding me?

(NOTE: Even typing this story is giving me the chills...)

I knew I had to get rid of it before the kids got up in the morning. Besides, I certainly didn't want it to slither away and scare me at another time. So I went to the garage to get a shovel. I fully intended to release it into the backyard. But the dumb thing wouldn't cooperate. It kept flipping all over the place, so I finally had to smash it to death with the shovel.

You may think that I handled this whole incident rather well. The truth is that I was shaking uncontrollably, dripping with sweat, and screaming pretty loud during the entire experience. Even once I got into my bed I couldn't really shake that creepy feeling for a while.

(NOTE: I actually tried to search for a picture of a snake on Google to include with this post, but it creeped me out too much. So you will have to just use your imaginations.

Righteous Cookies

Tonight we decorated sugar cookies. It is a favorite activity of the kids.
The kids frosted sun shaped cookies, and I frosted these...

We took them to the church youth activity to share. We joked that they were "righteous cookies" since they were in the shape of the Choose The Right shield.

Summer Sewing Project

A silly picture...
But it shows this cute little dress that I made for Sammy the other day.
I have been so frustrated with the styles out there in Sammy's size lately. They are either totally ugly, or too "revealing" for a young girl. So I decided to take the time to make her a dress that I liked the look of more than the ones available in stores.

Happy Birthday to ME!

Today makes 34 years. Wow!
In an effort to celebrate getting closer to the end of my life, I made this strawberry whip cream cake. Doesn't it look delicious?
As my birthday treat, Jonathan made French toast for breakfast and made me a really cute card. For dinner, we ended up going out to eat at The Olive Garden where we stuffed ourselves silly.

Say "SQUEEZE"

Several years ago - five to be exact - I snapped this quick picture of myself with the kids and it has become one of my favorite pictures of all time.

In an effort to recreate and update this shot, I talked the kids into posing in our front yard despite the heat. Here is what we ended up with:

Unfortunately, I was not really happy with either of those, so at the last minute I snapped this one:

It's not exactly the same as the original picture from 2005, but I do love it!

Fingerpainting?!?

I remember fingerpainting when I was little. It was a messy but fun activity. Today the kids wanted to do some fingerpainting. Here are Jonathan's creations:

Pretty fancy for fingerpainting, huh?

Directionally challenged

I have never had a great sense of direction. I lived in Bloomington for 23 years, and it wasn't until recently that I was able to claim to know my way around. So when I took a job in Tennessee and knew for sure we would be relocating, I decided to purchase a Garmin GPS device to help me until I could learn my way around. It's been a lifesaver! It has now been almost two weeks since I moved to Clarksville, and I feel like I have made some progress toward getting my bearings. I know how to get to the church, my school, the kids' schools, the mall, the library, the YMCA, and the grocery store.

The trouble I have run into, though, is that it appears that in this town the roads have several names. It shouldn't be that big of a deal. There were a couple roads like that in Bloomington. But here it seems like every road has at least three names depending on where you are. In fact, I was looking at a map the other day and discovered that one of the main roads in Clarksville actually has SEVEN names: Paul Buff Parkway, Purple Heart Parkway, Highway 374, 101st Airborne Division Parkway, Warfield Boulevard, Richview Road and the Bypass. It made me laugh to realize that within a ten mile stretch of road, it was called seven different things. No wonder when someone gives me directions I have trouble following them!

Getting Settled In

Well, it's a long story... but I am finally settled in Clarksville, Tennessee.

Saturday was moving day. It began with loading the truck with all of our belongings. Six wonderfully strong men from our ward in Bloomington showed up to help us load the heavy items. It took a total of 40 minutes to pack the truck - seriously! I cannot begin to say how thankful I was to have the help. They made it look almost easy - almost.

Next we drove the 230 miles to Clarksville. We were lucky. The forecast called for thunder storms, but we had sunny, blue skies the whole way. When we arrived, we checked to see that the electricity and water had indeed been turned on in the house. We turned on the air conditioning (as it was 92 degrees inside) and went to get some dinner.

After dinner, the moving help from our church in Clarksville showed up and we began to unload the truck. Unfortunately, we soon discovered that the air conditioning was not working in the house. While I called my landlord's son to decide what should be done, everyone else continued to unload boxes and furniture into a steamy, humid house. Poor guys! By the time we were through, it was even hotter in the house and we were all literally soaked to the bone with sweat.

Paul (the landlord's son) showed up and tried to fix the air conditioning. No luck. He called someone to come service it, but they would not be able to come out until the morning, so we headed to a hotel so we could sleep in cooler weather.

The next morning, we headed back to the house and it was refreshingly cooler inside. About 81 degrees. Nice. So we worked in the basement to unpack and set up furniture. After several hours, Stan mentioned that he didn't think the house was getting any cooler and that perhaps the air conditioning still wasn't working. When I checked, the temperature in the house had actually gone up! So I called poor Paul again. Then we headed out to dinner for some relief from the heat. While we were shopping at Walmart, Paul called with the bad news - the problem was major and would not be fixed until the next day. So we went to another hotel.

Monday morning, we had a great breakfast at the hotel and headed back to the house to continue to unpack and set up house. The air conditioning repairman still hadn't come, so we worked in the heat and took frequent breaks. Finally at about 1:30 pm he showed up and worked for two hours until he had fixed the problem. By 8:00 pm the house had cooled down to 77 degrees. Relief!

Mom and Stan had to leave Tuesday morning, but not until they had helped me set up the computer, put together the TV stand, hook up the big screen TV, unpack the kids' rooms, the kitchen, and countless other boxes of stuff. Without their help, it would have been so much more overwhelming.

Since they left, I have spent time each day unpacking, arranging belongings, doing yard work, exploring the town, and cleaning. While my room is still a bit of a mess, the rest of the house is pretty close to being done. I still have to hang some pictures on the wall and buy a piece of furniture to hold all the movies that we own, but I feel like I am mostly settled.

Here are some pictures of the outside and the inside of the house. My personal favorites are the red chairs at the kitchen table and the pink polka-dotted bathroom.

I hope that our family will feel at home in this new town in this new house. The kids come back from a trip to Colorado in about a week and I can't wait for them to see our new place.

Our new home in Tennessee

This week I spent a few days in Clarksville, Tennessee looking for a place to live. And this is it!
It's a cute little house, really. The operative word being "little". It is about 1200 square feet total, and it is what we will call home beginning on June 12. The house has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a tiny kitchen, a small living room, a one car garage, a big deck, and an unfinished basement room. When we get settled, I will send out our new contact information.

Triple Twist Flippy Buns

I found a really neat blog one day. It is called Adopt A 'Do and has tons of fun hairstyles for girls. I have been experimenting with different hairstyles for Sammy and today I tried a new one. Take a look...
If you're interested in checking out the website, it is one of the sites listed on the right side of my blog. The lady who keeps the blog includes both written directions with pictures as well as video tutorials. I don't love everything she posts there, but every once in a while I come across a really fun idea.

Sammy's Orange Belt Test

Today Sammy tested for her orange belt in tae-kwon-do. She has been spending Friday afternoons training with Mina Haddad ever since we returned from England.She has been so excited about her upcoming test. She did such a great job today. Take a look at some of the pictures of her in action... As part of her test, Sammy had to do two forms. These are combinations of hand techniques, stances, punches and kicks done in a specific order. Watch the video below to see her do the orange belt form.

I love this picture of Mina helping Sammy tie on her new orange belt. These two have really had a special relationship through the years. We are going to miss Mina so much!The newest orange belt (Sammy) with her friend and assistant (Mina) and her instructor (Mr. Scott). I cannot put into words how proud I am of Sammy. At one point during her test, Sammy made a mistake. When Mr. Scott corrected her, I could tell she was upset and that it kind of threw her off. I was worried that she was going to fall apart and not be able to complete her test. But even though she was nervous and a little flustered, she got refocused and did an excellent job.