Mistle Toad

I know you have all heard of Mistle Toe.... But has anyone heard of a mistle toad? Well if you haven't, let me introduce you to my new friend. This lovely toad is our newest addition to our household. (at least during the Christmas holiday season) My grandmother has had this Mistle Toad ever since I was a tiny little girl. I loved that thing. And as usual, my grandmother had the very same Mistle Toad up while we were there visiting. Daniel and I made it a little joke to stop every single time we walked under it and wait for the other to come give that said person a kiss. And when I said every time, I meant it. Whenever we would walk under the doorway we would stop and wait... without flack or fail. So it was "our thing" and so when we left my grandmother insisted that we take it. I was so excited. Now when you people come over to our house next year you will have the privilege of getting to see our Toad!

North Carolina

As I mentioned in my previous blog (see below) Daniel and I went up to North Carolina with my family to visit my grandparents. (my Dad's mom and step dad) Unfortunately, it didn't snow this year... so that was a bummer. But we did have fun regardless for the no snow issue. My siblings had the wonderful idea of riding in a separate vehicle. (this ended up saving our sanity) So me, Daniel, Wesley, and Amanda rode in Amanda's Jeep while following my parents and Dustin.

It was a long, but fun 9 hour drive. Even though its a little hard to see, we did pass the Girls Gone Wild bus as we drove into the state of North Carolina... and it was because of moments like those that we were able to make it through a 9 hour drive.



The following pictures are a few shots I took during the trip. There was really nothing else to do in NC besides wander around the farm (yes, i said farm) and take pictures, so there are a ton of them. The first one is a picture of Amanda and my grandmothers key board. I thought it was adorable.






This is a random piece of farm equipment we found. It was extremely rusty and decrepit... so Amanda decided to risk her life climbing on it.







We all became extremely obsessed with these Magnetics toys. Daniel and Wesley made some pretty cool pyramids...









The following pictures are some pictures that Wesley and Amanda took on the farm, on the front porch, in the yard... or wherever the heck they could find places to take pictures. Ignore their expertise... it makes my pictures look bad. :)

We found a Teeter Totter! :)

Post Christmas

Whew! I finally have had time to breath. These past couple weeks have been so busy! Let me give you a sneak preview of what has been going on:



We of course had the whole Christmas to-do. We went to Daniels Grandparents, my Grandparents, my parents, Daniels parents, and so on and so forth. We also went to North Carolina where we visited my other set of grandparents. (pictures will be posted soon) We had a good time at each of the places we visited and got some wonderful gifts ranging from movies to yard equipment. (I have been wanting to complete my Disney Princess collection- I still need "Snow White" and "Beauty and the Beast" if anyone feels so inclined) Among wonderful spread of gifts came a few decorations for our house. We are wanting to start a Penguin collection- seeing as we are totally obsessed with them... so my mom gave us quite a few adorable Penguin's to start our collection off wonderfully. We also got a few things to add onto our kitchen decorating project that has been going on for about 5 months now. If you haven't seen our kitchen, its done in different browns and whites with coffee accents. My mom gave us some cute coffee plates to display





and my Aunt Diane gave us nifty some art work that she bought from Ireland.




Along with the Christmas giving and receiving, we decided to do a few home projects. We painted and mounted shelves for our plates to be displayed, hung up our artwork, put up a much needed clock in the living room, started to organize our closet in the living room, painted and put up our outlet covers, and I am currently on the never ending Take-down-Xmas- stuff project. (Am I allowed to have that many commas in one sentence?)


Last thing... then I will stop boring you, I promise. As part of a joint Christmas gift Daniel and I FINALLY purchased our very own, new and improved, Digital Camera. Not the exact thing I wanted, but for the price we paid, it is stinkin awesome. We didn't end up getting the printer that was an extra whatever dollars. so ignore that part of the picture. So yeah, I am excited. Now I just need to take lessons from Tammi so I can learn to take a decent picture.

Freak Show

Wow... 2 blogs in one day. I will never cease to amaze myself. Anyway, my grandparents are celebrating their 45th anniversary tomorrow... So my family took a group shot as part of their gift. This is my family and my mom's sisters family.

We saw some graffiti that described our family to a tee. So we decided to partake in being halfway funny.

After the previous picture was taken, I thought it would be a good idea for everyone to be Emo... since we were dressed in black and white and in front of graffiti, it seemed appropriate. Obviously we all need to work on our emo/depressed expressions, but its a good first try. A lot of family memebers wouldnt have a clue what emo is. So I give them 4 Kudos for knowing exactly what to do.

Kudo

Kudo

Kudo

Kudo

Turtle Park

Today I spent the day with the coolest little girl ever. She was in my class last year, and she is utterly adorable. We went to turtle park, the mall, ate at chick-fil-a, played at my house, watched a movie, took a nap, and ate cookies! So we had a very busy day. Anyway, I just wanted to share a few of the pictures that Daniel took of our Turtle Park adventure. Enjoy!

short and sweet

I am so tired of looking at that wedding picture. I really need to remember how to update my profile picture. I just cant seem to figure it out! Apparently I am just having a brain fart or something.

Vent

I am cranky. And pouty. I hate paying bills. It makes me realize how much money we dont have and how much I cant spend because we dont have it. And the worst part comes when I think about how much other people dont have. Some people dont have a house, some people dont have a car. Some people dont have food to eat or cloths to keep them warm. And here I am complaining that we have to move money over from savings so that we can pay our bills. I should be thankful we have a savings account. Not complaining about having to use the money in it. Thats what the dadgum account is for isnt it?

I guess when it all boils down, I am cranky cause I know I shouldnt be having a bad attitude about this stuff. Things could be a lot worse. I need to see the glass as half full... not all the way empty.

Classroom Doors

As you all already know, I teach K3. Its not an extremely easy job, but I LOVE it. One thing I do not love is the fact that I have to change my door every month. We have to change it to either the holiday, or unit we are studying... basically just change whats on the outside of it so it looks cute and interesting every month. So last year me and one of my fellow coworkers decide to start painting things and putting them up on our doors. we had the cutest doors ever. This year another K3er gets in on the painting idea... so we all get in competition mode. Both of my competitors painted. One painted carolers singing with the saying "sing praises unto the lor", the other painted a snow scene with a Christmas tree and baby Jesus laying in a trough underneath the tree with the saying, "Don't Forget the True Gift of Christmas". I had three main beefs with this particular door. 1) Since people are brown nosers, they try to be all spiritual with their doors. Putting Jesus under a Christmas Tree as a baby was dumb. Jesus wasnt born on December 25th. The Bible never says that date. Someone picked December 25th to celebrate His birth. 2) On this door, He is put under a tree in the winter time with snow coming down. He could freeze. 3) the saying is a ball of cheese. just gag me. Ok, i am done. On with my story.

What was I going to paint? Nothing. This month I decided to rise above painting. I went 3D.

I don't want to brag or anything... but:

I traced and cut out a bazillion hand prints from the kids in my classroom. I single handedly curled every finger on those hands and pieced each of those hands together to make over 15 rows of hands. I cut out 60 tiny lights from construction paper. I copied and cut out 25 ornament patterns and had the kids color and glitter them. I copied and cut out 8 items that would go under a Christmas tree (presents, rocking hoarse, teddy bear) and had each kid color one of those. I put "Merry Christmas" over my door, instead of a cheese ball saying. All in all, I spent over a week and a half on this door. And what do I have to show for it?

A freakin awesome door, thats what.

So I dont have a "spiritual" door. I have a sinking cute one.