Letter to Ronel

For several months now I've been reading the blog of an amazing family, the Parkers, from Houston. They have 3 children of their own and had been in the process of adopting from Haiti when the earthquake hit. Their adoption was rushed and they were able to bring their son Ronel home. I read the blogs of others in the same situation and love to see how they have adapted their lives to love these little boys and girls who even though look different from them, are absolutely beautiful. I haven't watched The Blind Side yet because I know it will make me want to tell Aaron and Chelsea to bring every lonely teenager at Marshall HS home to spend the night, so you can imagine these little Hatian babies totally steal my heart!

I wanted to share this link to one of the best blog posts I've ever read. If you have a heart for adoption or kids for that matter, you have to read this! Such beautiful words.

Have a great weekend!

East Texas Easter

I was so excited the week of Easter when I realized that the weather would be so nice and that it might actually feel like Easter!

I'm a little old fashioned and think that on Easter Sunday we should wear our Spring dresses and sandals. I know that what you wear to church isn't the important thing but it's a definite sign of the times to look around and see tee shirts and jeans at Easter Sunday morning church.
Dad's clothes looked nice. I can't say the same for his expressions!



When I was young I remember Easter at my grandparents, my mom's parents, on Sunday afternoon. We would eat lunch and hunt eggs with our cousins. With the passing of grandparents and few cousins who live around here things have changed some but we were able to have a great time with my dad's side of our family. I so regret not getting a group picture! When there's a little one around it's hard for them to not be the center of attention. Of course Daisy had to hunt eggs!

I love the sequence of the next few shots


It was the perfect evening to sit outside and visit. While we were out, Dad pulled out his fire department gear. Before long this is what went down. We laughed so hard! Poor baby was not feeling it!

Happy Spring!!

Would you Like Some Wine With that Chili?

Well since this is my journal and chronicle of my life, just because I'm behind on posting doesn't mean that the things I want to post about will be forgotten. I have a few posts planned out in my head and hopefully will get them all done this week and be caught up.

A few weekends ago my friend Lauren (see previous post!) and her boyfriend and dad entered a chili cook off at the winery in Harleton, Enoch's Stomp. I didn't have any plans and it was a beautiful day so Chelsea and I decided to head out there and give their chili our votes.


I had heard of the winery before but had never been. I was so glad we went! It was so nice!


You could see forever, which is uncommon around here. I always feel so surrounded by trees that I think the view was my favorite part.


The band

The winning chili cooks and helpers!

We ate chili, drank wine, and walked around and visited. It was such a great afternoon! If you ever need a little Saturday get away, check out the wineries website here for their lunch menu and event schedule.

10 Quirky Things

I was thinking tonight that I needed to post but there wasn't much this week to make a post out of. My week was really good by the way except for a small cold at the beginning of the week. My kids are working for bribes and I'm digging it. A few extra dollars on pepper mints, stickers, etc. is well worth me keeping what sanity I have left until the end of the year. Our class is over all so much happier too when everybody is working for something. We're all on our A game these days.

Ok back to what I was saying. I was thinking about something to write about and I was reading Beth Moore's blog and thought this was so cute. She listed 10 quirky things about herself. Here's mine

1. I can not stand to hear people eating or drinking near me. If I'm eating too it's not so bad but I can't stand it. Slurping is the worst!
2. Bad home decor makes me quiver
3. I don't like a lot of spicy foods
4. I tend to be so lazy with doing dishes that I throw away those Glad ware plastic dishes instead of washing them
5. On that same note, I've considered paying a house keeper to just fold my laundry
6. My family says I'm too negative. I have to be careful about that
7. I love the E*Trade baby commercials
8. Every time somebody says "sloppy joe" I sing the Adam Sandler Lunch Lady Land song in my head. "Sloppy joe, slop sloppy joe...."
9. I love to brush my teeth in the shower
10. I secretely (guess not very secret anymore) want to be some kind of employee for a TX Country music artist and spend all my time traveling to concerts. I don't know if such a job exists

Happy Weekend!

Mamas Don't Let Your Babies

grow up to be cowboys

Texas Public Schools Week
Chuck wagon picnic

Weekend Wrap-up (On Wednesday)

Friday night I went out with work friends for our 1st grade team member Lauren's birthday. Here's me and the birthday girl.


We ate at Posados and it's probably the only Mexican restaurant around that I don't have a staple, go to dish. Although I think I discovered it Friday night. Chicken fajita enchiladas are to die for! 2 cheese enchiladas with sour cream sauce and grilled chicken. Yum! I could eat sour cream sauce like soup though so that might have something to do with the fact they were so good as well as the fact I wear Spanx with my dresses. After we ate and visited, the couples got together for board games. I passed. I said it was because I was ready to change and lay down but truth be told, I was ready to put out the easter decorations I picked up at Hobby Lobby before the party. I'll show them to you in a seperate post.

Saturday was both lazy and busy at the same time. Mom and I had to go to a funeral at Crossroads that morning and picked up Lydia afterwards and went into town. We had lunch and went to Wal-Mart and the car wash. We got back to Mom and Dad's just in time to unload and load back up to go to Carthage for a family thing. We ate and played Last Word. Lydia and Daisy were the entertainment.


This week at school has flown by! We had a little change in our lunch schedule last week that we will keep through the end of the year. We are now going to lunch 15 minutes earlier so when we come back from our enrichment time, we only have about 15 before lunch which isn't enough time to really start anything. It's making the afternoons fly by because I have to do what I usually did in 30 minutes before lunch plus our regular afternoon activities. We stay busy! I've been able to open the windows and we've had a good time getting our work done and a little afternoon recess time too.

Spring Break is in 2 days! I hope it doesn't go too fast. I can't wait!

A Day in the Life

Kelly's (I know I mention her in just about every post! Sorry she's my fav!) show us your life this week is what does your typical day look like. Here is a day in the life of a first year 1st grade teacher!

6:00- Alarm goes off for the first time. I hit snooze
6:10- 2nd alarm. Snooze againut
6:20- 3rd alarm. Snooze again
6:30- 4th alarm. Get up and get dressed and ready. Pack breakfast and lunch.
7:00- Leave home. I've gotten into a (bad) habit of stopping in at the corner store by my house in the mornings for a Diet Coke. Yikes! I need to stop that! My sweet friend Janie Jones is usually there too and I love seeing her in the mornings. She's so cheerful and always makes me smile. It gets my day off to a good start.
7:10ish- Get to school, sign in and go to my room. I don't have any morning duties right now so before I get my kids I pretty much just get things out and ready for the day and visit with whoever is around
7:45- Kids come in and start morning work. I stand at the door and meet them while I eat my orange and Special K bar (breakfast 98% of the time!)
8:00- Bell rings and we get started on calendar stuff and reading. We power through reading until 9:50 when the kids go to PE.
9:50-10:55- My conference period. I'm usually pretty productive but there are times when I waste this time and regret it later.
11:00- We get back to the classroom. We usually either watch a storybook video or I read something to them about a current event or our science or social studies topic.
11:15- Lunch
11:45- Recess!! My favorite thing!
12:10ish- Back to work. We do whatever science or social studies lesson or activity we have for that day
12:45- Math and math centers.
1:30- Tier 2 reading intervention. My kids have to work very quietly while I work with struggling readers. We have the kids grouped where we switch amongst the 4 of us 1st grade teachers. I love this time but hate how when one of us is out or we have some kind of afternoon activity (art, etc.) that it gets pushed aside. I wish it could be more consistant but I guess there's only so many hours in a day.
2:00- Second recess! My second favorite part of the day!
2:15- Writing. I love writing! We have great writing lesson plans and it's so fun to hear the ideas my kids come up with.
2:40- Pack up. This is the craziest time of the day. I'm trying to get folders stuffed with notes and papers and the kids behavior chart filled out and they're loud and usually bugging me and the ones who didn't have a good day are bombarding my table asking what color I'm putting on their chart. It's nuts!
2:50- I try to have everyone in their seat, the floor picked up of any trash and it quiet before I start calling everyone to leave. This is always my goal but happens about 80% of the time. Oh well. I have some sweet kids who don't leave until later who stay behind and clean up and help get things in order
4:00- I leave school!
4:15ish- Get home, get a snack, change clothes, and get on the computer to check blogs and facebook. I run any errands I have too.
6:00ish- Either fix something for dinner or go get something. Chelsea has had softball practice and Aaron has had soccer so our normal dinner routine is thrown off right now.
After dinner I usually lounge on the couch with my computer and watch tv until I get ready to shower and go to bed which is usually around 10:00.
I'm usually tired but not exhausted so I have to be careful and not stay up too late because I might not feel tired at night but will have a hard time in the morning.

This might have been totally boring but look at these sweet faces! Who couldn't have a great day with them?!