Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Christmas as usual was great! Christmas Eve, was spent cooking, and getting ready for Christmas day. On Thanksgiving, my Granmoma taught me how to make her homemade Mac and Cheese, so for Christmas I made it all on my own, with a little supervision from the expert! I thought it was quite tasty and apparently so did the rest of my family, because they ate it all up! YUMMY!!

After all of that cooking, we opened packages!!! (This is my FAVORITE tradition!) I got some really cute glasses to go with my cute dishes!

That night, my mom and I drove to my other Grandparents house for Christmas with the Shipley's. Usually we draw names, but this year we decided to do the Chinese gift exchange with nice gifts. I went home with a super cute James Avery necklace that I had on my wish list!

Christmas Day we all went to my Aunt Carole's house. For the first time in a while, all but one of us was able to make it!

Our pretty table and a fun picture of the glasses.

Jenni, Me and Jordan


A cousin picture of a picture from last year.

Jordan, Paul, John, Me, Tim, Jenna, Victoria, Jenni - We are just missing Andrea and Jeff.

My Aunts: Debbie, Carole, Dee and my mom

Christmas tends to be a stressful time of year. I think sometimes we loose focus of the true meaning of Christmas when we busy ourselves with so many Christmas parties, and being the perfect host. We loose sight of what the focus of Christmas should be. Here is one of my favorite passages taken from : http://ministry-to-children.com/christmas/ that I like to read to remind myself of the true meaning of Christmas.

Luke 2:1-20 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. (2) This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. (3) And all went to be registered, each to his own town. (4) And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, (5) to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. (6) And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. (7) And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. (8) And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. (9) And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. (10) And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. (11) For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. (12) And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” (13) And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, (14) “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (15) When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” (16) And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. (17) And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. (18) And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. (19) But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. (20) And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

Here are some other fun pictures from work/ work Christmas Party.

The world is a better place with 2 Laura's!

Jana, Katie and Me

Laura, Laura, and Ashley

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My mom, Grandmother and I went to go see Marley and Me. I went into the movie not knowing much about it except that it had Jennifer Aniston, Owen Wilson, and a cute dog. Well.... let me just tell you. Do some research about this movie before going!!! I was caught WAY off guard and cried buckets. Soemthing I absolutly hate to do in front of people. Overall, I think it was a good movie, I just wished I would have known the ending. (See... this is why you should ALWAYS read the end of the book first, check out movie spoilers etc.) Do your homework, go see it, and let me know what you thought. My mom seems to think that Copper is Marley Jr. Copper and I disagree! :)

Too productive????

So, I am now officially one hour and 20 minutes into my first day of Christmas Break. I have been so, super productive this weekend! So far, I have already:

• Hosted 2 dinners at my house
• Finished Christmas shopping
• Cleaned out my back bedroom
• took 8 bags of clothes and "stuff" to Good Will
• Shredded a huge bag of papers from 6 years ago,
• Laundry
• Grocery Shopping
• Made a pot of Beef and Veggie soup (YUM!!)
• Cleaned out the car
• Made a hair appointment
• Called both Grandmothers, and my mom
• Shopped with friends
• Breakfast with another friend
• Finished lesson plans for the week I get back
• Started lesson plans for the following week
• Began writing a paper that is due on the 7th
• Began reading Katie's Twilight
• Squeezed in a 2 1/2 hour nap this afternoon! (see the funny below!) WHEW!!!!

I plan on NOT being this productive for the rest of the break!

I love naps! Today, I was sleeping really well so when I woke up and looked at the clock and went into panic mode. It was 5:45, and it was dark in my house, and for some reason I thought I had slept through the night and got up and started to get ready for work. It wasn't until I was almost in the shower that I remembered that I didn't have to go to work, and it was still Sunday night!

Welcome Baby Ethan!

Yesterday, my friend Rachel had her sweet, healthy, little boy! He was not due until January 13th. He was super early, but we were all so excited to welcome him to the world!

My friend Julia and I were able to make it to the hospital just in time to see Rachel before she delivered, and then hang out a little after. Here are some cute pictures of her sweet baby.

Rachel, Julia and I BEFORE the baby!

Jules and I waiting patiently by the pretty tree for little Ethan.
Proud Parents loving on their new baby!

Look how tiny he is!!!

He was only about 30 minutes old for this picture!

This is just funny, because I have been told that is my "teacher look", so I am already teaching him to be so smart, and look, how he is listening!

Sometimes, Things Don't Go As Planned.....

Every December is usually jam packed with event after event. This December, has proved to be no exception! I had everything all planned out...I was going to be able to make all but one event.

Friday, I came home from work and was so exhausted that I couldn't even let myself sit down for fear of falling sound asleep and missing my Sunday School classes Christmas Party /4th annual scarf exchange. I love, this party, and wasn't going to miss it! Half way there, I was thinking I should have stayed home to sleep, but once I was there, I enjoyed every second! Here are some fun pictures from the night:

Michelle, Audra, Melanie and I @ the Scarf Exchange


Ahh! Matching scarves!

Saturday, I was supposed to meet some friends at the mall at 10 to do a little shopping for a special event that will be coming this week. I woke up at 9:30, and reached for my phone to text the friends that I was going to be a little late. The problem was, that I was so out of it, I started the text, and fell back to sleep before I could finish it! So, when my phone rang at 10, I had to tell them to count me out. SO SAD!!!! I should have gotten up at that time, but for whatever reason, I fell back asleep and didn't wake up until 11:30. Typically, this would have been ok. However, I was supposed to be on the other side of town at 11:45. Not going to happen.
I was SUPPOSED to get a pedicure at the spa with my friends Julia and Rachel. (Rachel could have her baby any week now, so we, I mean ... she NEEDED cute toes! I was still able to quickly get ready, and make a mad dash to that mall by 1:00 for a quick lunch with them!
Next on the agenda was Jenna's (my cousin Jordan's, fiancee) graduation party at my Aunt Carole's house. She graduated with her RN Nursing degree and already has 2 jobs lined up. CONGRATS JENNA!!!! It was fun meeting her family and celebrating!

Celebrating!

Jenna and Jordan

Jenna and my funny Uncle David having fun!
On the way home from the graduation party, we went looking for the Extreme Home Makeover house that is being built not too far from me! Although, you couldn't drive up too close because of all the police action, you could see the house! SO COOL! It was HUGE and lit up like a football stadium. My goal was to meet Ty Pennington, but apparently he was detained at another "Move that Bus" in another state (I have learned from Vanessa that they are building 2 houses at once with 2 different design teams.) She lives really close to the house, and was able to walk up and meet several designers which is SO COOL! I am jealous! I took pictures of what I could see, but they didn't turn out...
Sunday, I slept in.... this time purposefully. Did some last minute shopping, and went to my church's Imagine Christmas Program. It was incredible! I am still a little creeped out by the flying, stuffed Dove on a stick. But, the music was great as always!

This is a portion of the choir.

Me, Michelle and Audra. Michelle sang beautifully!

Here is a picture of one of my favorite sweaters that I posted about a couple of days ago. If anyone knows of anyone with a random growth on their left shoulder let me know and I can pass along my beautiful sweater. If not it will be going to sweater heaven.

Tonight, I am cleaning house, to get ready for Keno on Monday. WHEW!
Although my weekend didn't go as planned, it was still lots of fun and a much needed break from the week!

Grateful

So, this isn't a typical "Laura" blog.... but, this is on my mind tonight, and I want to share. F.Y.I. Lot's of grammatical mistakes. But that is O.K. because that isn't the objective of this post. :)
I take many things for granted. I don't tell my friends and family how much they mean to me often enough. I am super blessed to have an incredible church family, friends from my childhood that I still talk to all the time, and some of the most amazing co-workers that give so much to our sweet kiddos, and who are some of my very best friends. I also have this incredible family, and the strongest, smartest, and most amazing mom EVER!
My friend Brian died this summer. It was hard to process that someone so young and who was a great person, could die after such a long battle.
Our little group of 4, spent the majority of our college days together. It took awhile, but I finally thought that I had "got over it" and moved on.

My college sends out a magazine ever so often. Today, I was just flipping through it, and then there it was: Friends we'll miss.... Brian Black.
I guess I was just caught off guard, but it sure brought back all the great memories our group had shared together. I am thankful for the short time that I got to hang out with him, and for all the funny, funny memories!
Just ask.... I will be happy to share a hilarious story!
I guess the point I am making, is that when he was here, I didn't really appreciate all of the great times, and now that I can't talk to him, I feel inclined to call, and talk, but can't.

Christmas tree

I finally have some time to upload some pictures!
Several weekends ago, we celebrated my friend Rachel's b-day! These are the precious friends I have had for over 18 years! One day, I should post our funny pictures from when we were little! Maybe that can be added to the Spring Break to-do list!

I am all ready for Christmas, and "Punkin"and Copper are loving playing in the tree! Copper is proudly showing off his new outfit, which says elf sized on the back! He loves prancing down the street to show it off!

Punkin likes to play with the ribbon, and "hide" behind the branches. For whatever reason, he has trouble hiding all 20 pounds. :) This is his skinny side!

I have so many more cute pictures to post from Thanksgiving. My goal is to have it up before Christmas!

Hmmm...

Today was one crazy day. It started by one of our wonderful I.T.'S. came to read to my class and set up a webcam, so that other classes could listen to our story. SO COOL! All teachers need to try it! My kids loved listening to the story, but enjoyed re-watching it on the computer even more.
I felt like it was this crazy busy day, and it just flew by.
After recess, we began a lesson on Diwali. (A holiday celebrated in India.) My kids love to laugh this year, and of course, the name of that holiday made them giggle and giggle. We watched a 2 minute video on it, and they just laughed the entire way through. I tried the serious "our job is to learn" and it worked,..... until one of my kids spotted this HUGE roach crawling out from behind my bulletin board, down the board and onto the counter. THen I had 19 eww's and screams. After about 10 minutes, of them sneaking peaks at the area where the roach hid, I refocused them on the Diwali activity. When they were done, we were discussing what we had learned, when all of my books on display came toppeling down like dominoes hitting me on the head. At this point, I wanted to say, "I give up!!!! Let's just sit and laugh!" I mean.... can you really blame them? There were some really funny events, and Diwali is a funny word!
At the end of the day, we went to the lab, for our distance learning project. This is where they set up a webcam at the North Pole, and in our lab. Santa then speaks to the kiddos, and they can talk to him. It was by far the neatest thing I have done with the kids this year! The kids were precious! When Santa would call their name, they would get so embarrassed, and try and hide! Too cute!

Sweater Sadness

I am not a huge fan of the winter season. I prefer to have hot, sunny days filled with snow cones and swimming pools. One great thing about the winter, is the clothes. I LOVE winter clothes! From sweatshirts, to sweaters, to cute boots, I love it all!
Last season, I was super smart and bought a beautiful cream colored sweater for next to nothing. I have worn it twice. The last time I wore it was to a district meeting, and I wore my magnetic name badge. Well, I forgot to take it off before washing, and still didn't see it when I put my beloved sweater into the dryer. When I went to take out the clothes, I saw my beautiful sweater twisted into a big knot and hung on the back of the dryer. The stupid magnetic name tag attached itself to the back of the dryer, and stretched out the shoulder, and made a teeny, tiny tear. I think my fabulous sweater will have to go to sweater heaven, unless I suddenly have a weird 4 inch growth on my left shoulder to fill in the new stretched out part.

In other sweater news.... I ended up getting a huge green ink stain on my other new sweater. This is not turning out to be a very good sweater year. :(

Laughing

THere are some things in life that you can watch, or look at when you are having a rough day that just make you have a better day just becase you saw it. For me, I have 2 funny pictures of random people that make me crack up every time I look at them. In fact, I could see them 10 times each day and still never stop laughing each time that I see them.
Tonight, I was introduced to a new video. This was SOOOOO funny, that I just had to post it and share the goodness. I can't wait to do this when I am old!