Good friends, good food, good times

What a wonderful Christmas!
The day before Christmas Eve I went to Emma's for dinner and to catch up with my favorite friends who always know how to make me laugh. Emma and Jill drew letters of the alphabet to determine what we would bring. I had to bring a side dish that started with 'M'. After much debating between Mary's Salad and Meatballs...meatballs won out. It was so nice to see everyone because we are all so busy and live so far apart the time together is great! Of course Jill made me talk about Kim Dushane, my fundamental movements professor, that made me do unthinkable things during class when I was pregnant. We had to do all kinds of movements like skip, hop, shoot lay ups...you know basic stuff that is not at all what eight month pregnant women should be doing. Megan recounted how he would call out to our class, "Watch out for Kacina. She's pregnant." As if the belly didn't give it away. Memories I had forgotten about until we began reminiscing. Then to top it off, I wore Emma's super snuggie. I say super because it was crazy fuzzy and thick. And it looked like a bright red choir robe...or Santa Clause. I'm not sure which one but I know it didn't look cool because Emma made me take a picture in it by the Christmas Tree. You know you don't look cool when someone tells you they want to take your picture while they laugh. I know it was done in love...and I hope that picture never surfaces. It was a wonderful evening. Thanks to Emma for being our awesome hostess!

The holidays are often bitter sweat for us. We love seeing our families and spending time with those that matter most. However, it means several days of rushing here and there and not really spending much quality time with anyone because we are so busy trying to split out time among everyone. Luckily, this year it turned out that we only had one place to be Christmas Eve, two places Christmas Day, and one place the day after Christmas.
Now we are home and enjoying some relaxation before having to head back to work next week. The girls are loving all their new gifts that Santa brought. Last night we finally got everything put away and got our house back together after the tornado that swept through here when we brought all those new gifts home. Thanks a million to my mom that drove all the way to Noblesville to help us bring back all of our stuff(because we couldn't fit all of our gifts in one car!)
I can't wait to just sit around this week and clean my house! If you are in town, feel free to stop by. Have a safe and happy New Year :)

Suggestions wanted

I know there are lots of creative souls out there and I need your help. I really want to reorganize this space in the play room to make it more functional for my girls and easier for me to keep organized from day to day. The girls love books! They love them so much that we are completely out of space for them. The easy answer would be to just buy another book shelf but I really don't like that idea. It's so hard to find their favorite books like this. We have a tub on the table for Kinsey's decodable readers, the Tag reading materials, and Kaitlyn's letter cards...but I really don't like that either. If you have any ideas I would love to hear them, see them, or send me a link to something you've found.

Bananas

Today has been one of the craziest days that I've had in a long time. I don't want to go into much detail...we'll just say that there were too many incidents of crazy happening for me to handle in one day.
As if my own students weren't enough, as I was working very diligently in my classroom during my prep, I get a knock on my door. As I told them to come in, I notice that it was one of the reading tutors and a second grade student. I don't know the second graders very well (I feel like they are in another world upstairs) but I've had ONE encounter with this child before so I knew who he was. The tutor so nicely says, "He said we needed to come to you. That you would help." I look at the little second grader and he says to me, "She made me read the whole story and I peed in my underwear. I need new underwear because I peed." I responded to him, "ME? You want me to give you underwear?"
Now, I know I'm a lot of things...but I do not have a supply of underwear in my classroom. I would like to know where this child got his information.
I quickly found another teacher and sent this child off to the social worker, who might actually have a supply of underwear, to help him.
To finish my crazy day, I went to pick up Kaitlyn from daycare to find her dressed like this:

in 46 degree weather. Not only is she wearing an orange summer dress, heavy blue floral tights, not pictured is the mismatch sweater that she had on over this mess with crazy white sparkle shoes. Clearly, she either A)dressed herself today or B)Jason did not want to make her cry for the second day in a row when he told her it was too cold to wear a dress. She told me on the way home that everyone loved her outfit and that all her friends, all between the ages of two and four, thought she looked beautiful. So I just smiled because she was soo happy that she finally got to wear her tights and a dress...even though she looked crazy (and made mom and dad look crazy too), it made her day!

Did she really just say that?

I work very hard.at.my.job. I'm never really surprised anymore about the things I encounter on a daily basis. Like, I now understand why I was trained the proper (legal) way to restrain students when they have a melt down or try to attack someone. I accept that as a part of my weekly routine with some kids. What I really love though, is the daily discussion I get from some of them.
I have been working very hard with my 5th graders on crafting their writing in our Writer's Workshop. We are studying the writing of Lester Laminack and the techniques he uses in "Saturdays and Teacakes." This week we have really studied audible craft moves (things you can hear). Today we were creating theories about why Lester honors speech in his writing. They began to talk about how since it's a memoir, he uses the exact words that he remembers hearing his grandmother say. They concluded that Lester honors his grandmother speech by having her say things like "I reckon" and "sit down and rest a spell" and "look in the frigidaire" to show that it was a long time ago and those words might help show the time period or the region they lived.
All very good theories. For their writing assignment, I asked them to think of words they have heard from their grandparents, parents, family members that live in other areas, etc. and write them in their notebooks. I gave them a few examples and showed them where I had written that my granny called a cart at a grocery story a buggy. Then I asked them for examples to jump start their creative minds. This is what I got:
Me: What examples can you think of?
Student: My mom always tells my dad to keep his hands off of his sac.
Me (completely stunned): And what was she referring to?
Student: I don't know...I think his book bag.
Me (thinking to myself): I don't think she's talking about a book bag. Did she really just say sac in front of the whole class?

I guess there are still things that surprise me.

Hopefully things go better this time around

Tomorrow's the big day...Parent Teacher Conferences. I can only hope that this year goes better than last year (some of you may remember this little gem that happened to me).
I have checked all the chairs and all seem to be in good condition so that they don't fall apart this time. I know things will be crazy enough, having to meet with 45 parents of 5th and 6th graders in one day, I certainly don't need to fall off of any chairs this year.
In addition to having conferences for my students, this is the first time I will attend a conference as a parent. So all the way around, I'm hoping for good things tomorrow! Wish me luck...and sturdy chairs!

I'm pretty sure that guy's never coming back

So I fulfilled the item on my list that said, "Carve pumpkins with Kinsey and Katilyn." Of course it couldn't go as easy as 'just carving pumpkins.' The girls both picked out their own pumpkins. We got them home and I had the girls change into over sized T-shirts so they wouldn't get pumpkin on their good clothes. Then...we began.
As I begin to cut them and take the top off of Kinseys, I see that it is completely rotted. Of course I don't dare tell her that because I really don't want to go back out in the pouring rain to get another pumpkin that may or may not be rotted too. I admit, I also wanted to avoid a melt down because Kaitlyn's pumpkin was better than Kinsey's (you know, not rotted). So I did my best to scoop everything out and scrape off all of the disgusting parts as I'm trying to hold in dry heaving. But I did, in the name of motherhood, I did. I had to keep saying, "You're almost finished Kacina. Just finish it."
I thought it would be fun to let the girls pick out a picture to carve onto their pumpkins. I for sure wasn't thinking that I would be the one carving them on the pumpkins...until I remembered that the girls are only 5 and 3 and probably shouldn't be carving with sharp knives. After I let them pick their pictures and tape them on the pumpkins, I realize that they picked the pictures that had the most intricate detail I've ever seen. I think I somehow picked up the kit for professional pumpkin carvers (I'm sure that's a real job somewhere). After looking at the pictures, I tried to talk them into the original triangle eyes, smile with a few teeth, maybe a circle nose. They had no interest in that after they got their hopes up with these crazy pictures.
I start carving and my smallest knife, the one they gave me for fine detail (because I had tons of it to do) BROKE. So I did the best I could with a larger knife that was still small enough to fit on my key chain.
Since the girls weren't carving, I asked them to go into their rooms and change back into their regular clothes.
The door bell rang.
I answered the door and met Scott. He immediately handed me a set of cutlery and asked if he could show me something. Being the kind of person who can't say no, I said yes. He disappeared for a moment and came back with a whole slew of things. I soon realized that he was selling Kirby vacuums. #1 I own a Kirby vacuum #2 My husband used to sell Kirby vacuums #3 They are $1500.00 #4 I will probably only buy one in my life time #5 I'm in the middle of carving a delicate pumpkin. All of that considered, I let him come in because I figured there had to be a small knife in that cutlery set I could use for my pumpkin.
As he is getting into his sales pitch, Kaitlyn walked out of the room, naked nonetheless (not so funny at that moment), and said, "You told me to go in my room and take my clothes off. I'm waiting for you." He looked at me with grave concern. I found myself trying to explain that my three year old doesn't always say all the facts. Like she should have said, "You asked me to change my clothes and I'm waiting on you to help me because my shirt is inside out and I can't do it myself." But she's three. And she doesn't say all the facts that you need her to say when a sales person is in the middle of the living room sweeping my carpet.
Needless to say, he wrapped up quickly. I asked for his card, just to be nice, so he didn't think it was a total waste of his time. He told me he was out of business cards. I'm pretty sure I won't ever be bothered by Kirby salesmen again. Hopefully cops don't show up...I'll have a lot of explaining to do.

Family traditions

As I was sitting in the living room, with my camera in my hand (I do that sometimes...hoping to capture a moment with my kids), I found Katilyn playing with her babies and she had this blanket in her hands. Her blanket that she has become very territorial of. She has never really been a blanket kind of girl...she usually prefers to cuddle with her super soft Ellie the Elephant. This blanket though, no one is allowed to have but her. She has had this blanket since she was born. Aunt Kim (you know...the one who looks like my media assistant) hand made it for her when she was born. Hard to believe that it has been around for almost four years. I think it would make Aunt Kim cry if she knew how much this blanket meant to Kate...or how it's the only blanket she will cuddle with or cares anything about.


So as I'm trying to take pictures of Kate covering her baby with her blanket, she realizes that I taking pictures of her. Then Kinsey realized that I was taking pictures too. So she immediately ran and got her blanket that Aunt Kim made for her. Even more amazing, is that Kinsey has had her blanket for about five and a half years. I still have the picture of Aunt Kim holding Kinsey in the hospital when she was born with this blanket. So it's amazing to see it now with Kinsey so big. She uses this blanket as extra warmth on her bed. The only time it's off of her bed is when it is being washed.


You just never know how gifts that you give will touch people. It is so fun to talk to Kinsey and Katilyn about where these blankets came from. They think it is so amazing that Aunt Kim really made them. They always want to know how she did it but it's something that they never forget. They always know exactly where they came from.


That's what's so neat about family traditions...they bring us close together even though we live very far apart and keep us connected in a way that nothing else can.