Things I Love About Winter

I really, really dislike winter. The lack of sunlight and warmth really gets to me, so I often feel depressed and lazy during the cold months. I thrive throughout the summer with sandals and sunglasses and rolled-down car windows.

That being said, I don't think I could live without winter, either. I mean, there are some things that you simply cannot enjoy in the summer like you do in the winter. And here, my dear friends, is my list about my love affair with winter.

1. Hot Chocolate

Scott and I found these giant mugs (soup bowls, really) at DI. And we fill them with chocolate and then spend the next two hours drinking the warm and chocolatey goodness. My in-laws (bless them) bought us two cans of Morning Moo, which is about how many we go through per winter. I seriously drink almost a cup a day.

2. Holiday Movies

3. Winter Fashion

Sweaters

Pea Coats

Layers

Tights

4. CHRISTMAS!!

                                            

                   The music...the lights...the Christmas spirit...the food...it's all pretty fabulous. Plus, Christmas break. Yessssssssssssss.

Christmas crafts. This is the only major craft I attempted this year, but I'm a first year, and therefore I do not have an abundance of supplies. Next year, I'll do the snow globe and something else crafty. Anyways, these paper plate snow globes were pretty fun. :) We also did Santas, elves, and Christmas trees to hang in the hall. So fun. :)

                                                    



Alas, Christmas break is almost over, unfortunately. I miss my students like crazy, but it's nice to not have to grade papers every night. I still have a few more days. Scott and I are planning on seeing both Les Miserables and The Hobbit, so I'm stoked. Hurray for winter and all things that come with it!

I Love...

1. Flushed Away (if you haven't seen it, watch it!! It's what I'm currently watching as I blog/correct/lesson plan)

2. my students (all 27 of them. Two of them are moving in the next couple of weeks, and I'm having a hard time imagining my life without 'em)

3. DiGiorno pizzas

4. Four things that start with "M": Mom, Miles, McKenzie, Muse (new album out in one week!!)

5. the rice bag my mom made for me

6. honey-roasted peanuts

7. a full gas tank

8. going to the temple

9. PicMonkey

10. My life. Things are pretty perfect right now. I'm finally getting paid for doing what I love most (teaching!). It's incredibly time-consuming and definitely stressful (I have their little lives in my hands! Kind of ;), but there is nothing more rewarding. And finally, finally things are working out for Scott. The Lord had a definite plan in mind for him, and I'm grateful we've found that path. Within a matter of a week Scott found out he could take his pre-reqs at BYU-I, applied, got his ecclesiastical endorsements (both in one night), got accepted, made a special request to get into the one (full class) that he needed to, and got in. Besides all those blessings, he has the most wonderful part-time job. He's working at a cabinet company that's being very flexible with his school hours. He also gets free time to work on homework, which is really nice. We are so incredibly blessed. Also, although I'm surrounded by babies and pregnant friends, we are not baby hungry. Thank goodness for my brother- and sister-in-law who have moved back to the area who are willing to share their adorable children with Scott and I. We get all the pleasure of playing with them and being loved by them without having to do any of the parenting (which I get enough of at school). So...I have nothing to complain about. Everything is simply: wonderful.

I'm just feeling really blessed right now. It's so wonderful to have the knowledge of a loving Heavenly Father who has a plan for each of us. We've been searching for His plan for us for a while, so it's nice to know we're making the right decisions and doing what's best for our little family.

w00t for life!

Classroom

Can you believe I've been in school for a month already??

 

I can't. I feel like we're still working on getting used to everything. I'm sure it doesn't help that I'm just finally getting all my classroom supplies. On Friday, I got the rest of my books. Huzzah! No more changing around my schedule to borrow books from the other 4th grades. Now I can set up my schedule the way I want to instead of working around the other classes (though I will be forever grateful that they shared). All I need now is my bright link. Woohoo!

 

If it looks like I have a room full of desks, that's because I do. 

 



 

The Fortress of Solitude is where my students pull cards and do Re-Focus sheets. Fortunately, I haven't had to pull a single card or do any Re-Focus sheets. Besides being way too chatty and having a hard time following directions, they're great kids.

 The Bat Cave!

 

Isn't he handsome?? Forgive me my Avengers t-shirt, Dark Knight.



 

Scott drew Alfred for me. Isn't he awesome??

 

 

I seriously have some of the sweetest kids. This is only one of the many apples I've gotten from my students.

 

They give me all sorts of treats! I love being spoiled by them. :)  Besides the apples and these pretzals, I've gotten a couple book marks, homemade necklaces, a bag of chocolate covered pretzals, and a cup of jello with fruit. And many, many pictures (a few of which are seen below. The front of my desk is now covered with pictures).

I love Idaho history!

 

 

 

We wrote stories on the first day of school of what we would be like if we were super heroes. They're stories were pretty epic, I'm not going to lie.

 

 

Last Friday, we made Idaho cookies. The other two wonderful 4th grade teachers made sugar cookies with an Idaho-shaped cookie cutter. Then the kids used other candies to symbolize the geographic locations of Idaho.

 

licorice = rivers

blue frosting = lakes

mini chocolate chips = mountain ranges

Rolo = Craters of the Moon

chocolate chip = Mount Borah

 

They turned out so cute.

 

 

And that's how school's going so far.

Week Long Bathroom Job

We bought our beautiful orange home with some major plans for renovation. It's been two years, and we're just getting around to it. It helps that now we both have jobs, though. :)

 

I haven't' blogged about the family room because it's not quite finished yet. Neither is our bathroom, but we worked on it long and hard and so I need to brag. A little. Even though it's not perfect. It's better than it was before.

 

 

Check it. The linoleum was all ripped. It was only...pretty ghetto.

Mom and Dad had some left over linoleum that they graciously donated to us to help our bathroom cause.

 

We decided to try and get our bathroom done on Labor Day--our day off (and before Scottie starts school again). We thought--oh, it's a small bathroom...it should only take a day, right?

 

WRONG.

 

Have you ever ripped up linoleum before?? Because it was the biggest pain in the REAR. We started with the white linoleum thinking that'd be it, right? Hah. Guess again! Turns out there was some seriously old linoleum underneath the white stuff. From like, the 60's. 70's. Ish. So we had to pull all that up too. And the glue. I googled "how to remove linoluem" because I thought I was going to die trying to rip it all up with a razor scraper thing.  I  got some pretty good ideas, but then I saw that several people warned people in old homes about how they used to use asbestos in the glue to put in linoleum.

 

Greaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.

 

I made us stop and go get those masks, just in case. But if I start suffering from lung problems in 15-20 years, I know to blame this bathroom.

 

Anyways, Scott worked everyday after work getting this bathroom finished. I helped a little here and there (I painted the ceiling...and that's pretty much it), but I always come home exhausted from school, so Scottie had to handle it mostly by himself. And look at how wonderful it turned out!!

 

So much better, right? It's still not perfect, and we already have things that we'll fix again in the next few months (turns out we totally had no clue what we were doing), but man it's so much better than it was before. I love it. Scottie is pretty wonderful for taking it on. 

Family Pictures

Well, a few family pictures, anyways. I've been wanting to do pictures all summer but we just haven't gotten around to it. So I made Scott put on his suit and we took pictures in our back yard, lol. They're not great by any means, but I got a few. I still want more though because I have every intention of doing Christmas cards this year.

Summer Projects and Flowery Feminine Fabrics

My friend Sara and I made a goal together to sew something on our new sewing machines (we both got one for Christmas). The beginning process was pretty slow going (actually going out to buy patterns, fabric, etc.), but once we got everything, it only took a couple of days. And it was so much fun!

Cutting it out

We were pretty excited we finally got the fabric cut out.

And then...

To lace, or not to lace? I pinned it on to see if I liked it. And I did!!

Check out these sunglasses. My new FAVES!! And on sale for $3. Happiest day of my life? Almost.

It's honestly one of my new favorite skirts. I want to find more pretty fabric! It turned out pretty well, despite several frustrating moments and a zipper that I wanted to throw out the window. Just don't look at it too close...it looks more professional at a distance. (And don't mind the wrinkles. I loathe ironing.)

I think I'm going to love this pattern forever.

The Story of Why Our Basement Smells

Everytime guests come over I get embarrassed about taking them downstairs. It smells. My mom always reassures me that it's an unfinished basement in a really old house so that's just how it is, but I always buy several air fresheners each time I go to Walmart to put down there anyways. It's not that bad with something smelly good canceling out the weird musty smell.

Well, Scott and I decided we're going to re-floor by putting down some pretty wood-looking laminate over the scraped up/nasty/orange wood on the floor upstairs and finish the downstairs (and cover all the cement). Upstairs? We haven't done it yet, but we're not anticipating any huge problems. Downstairs? That's a whole different ball game.

You see, we have an old drain down there in the middle of the hallway on the floor. It's all rusted over and nasty looking.

So I thought, let's clean up this old nasty drain. Drain-O, right? That cleans drains! Let's pour some Drain-O down there and maybe that'll help. And then I had this nightmare about what came back out of the drain after we poured the Drain-O in. It was very Mummy-esque. Remember the flesh-eating bugs that came out of those little hill things? Yeah, that's what I dreamed about. Spiders and all other sorts of nasty bugs coming out of the drain.

 Fortunately, it was just a dream. However, it did dampen my desire to pour any thing down there.

I thought that we could just cover the drain up when we re-floor it downstairs. Scott thought that might be a bad idea though (which is totally valid). Call a plumber? No, waaaaaaaaaaaay too expensive. So when my parents came up, I asked my dad. He pretty much knows everything. He said that there should be a trap or something that before the sewer. We should be able to cover it up if we sealed it properly. This is what it would look like ideally (from what I understand):

When Scott and Dad went down to look at it though, this is what they found:

Ummmmmmmmmmmmm, no wonder it smells down there a little. Not that it ever really smelled like sewer. It just smelled funny.

Gross.

So apparently that was a problem. And we had the hot water pipe leaking which added to the smelling problem. So Dad opened the valve all the way and voila! It quit leaking.

The Mad Haderlies, fixing one problem at a time.

But we've defintiely decided we're covering up the drain or something. I know it's for emergencies, but the drain isn't even near the washer, dryer, or hot water tank or anything. It's really oddly placed.

Hurray for fixing up old houses!

By the way things are looking currently, we'll be here longer than originally planned. According to our dream plan when we got married, we would be moving out next May. However, with my new job and Scott planning on going to Pocotello to get his masters, looks like we'll be here another few years. Sigh.