Christmas Greetings

Adam isn't much of a Christmas card guy and I can't quite justify the expense this year, so I made a little end-of-the-year newsletter. I don't know a good way to change it from word to a format that would work on here, so the quality isn't perfect, but neither are we. :-)
Merry Christmas!

Unintentional Sarcasm

So, this happened a while ago, but I just thought of it again and it made me laugh. On Fridays we have movie day for the extended care children during the last hour of day care. On this particular day, the teachers were running around trying to get into ratio before other teachers had to leave for the weekend. In the scramble, I take my kids to join the kids in another classroom that stores the TV. They had just finished coloring and cutting projects and left paper all over the floor. To my frustration, however, I didn't know who had been in the art area and having already started the movie, I asked the one little three year old girl who was still over there to be a big helping and clean up her friends' mess along with her own. 


This little girl agreed, but I felt bad because the mess was large so I offered to help her out. She tried to use the small "floor sweeper" to sweep up the paper clippings from off the carpet which to no surprise of mine was not working. I told her she needed to pick those pieces up with her hands. Knowing she really wanted to use the floor sweeper, I suggested she sweep up the pieces on the wood flooring and then help me with the carpet mess. When I was nearly done picking up the pieces on the carpet, I got a little frustrated again because the mess on the wood flooring was much less and I expected her to be able to sweep those pieces and help me with the larger mess on the carpet. As if to suggest she was taking too long and she should hurry up instead of dallying, I turned to her and gently said, "Look at all the pieces I picked up already; I'm almost done."


Though it sounded perfectly sarcastic to me, she replied with love and sincerity, "Good job, Ms. Ashleigh," as she smiled and nodded with approval.


It took everything to fight the explosion of laughter within me and to just simply say, "Thank you."


My frustration was instantly gone and when she was done cleaning her part, I just gave her a hug and reminded her that I love her.

Anniversary of Getting Burned

Day 1

One year ago yesterday, my body went into shock when I suffered 2nd degree burns on my hands. I am pleased to report that though I can still where my skin color differs, nobody else notices unless I point it out. The cold weather is coming soon, so it'll be interesting to see if that part of my hand still turns purple when I get really cold. 

Day 3

1 Week

1 1/2 Weeks

1 Year Later

In other news, Adam is 1/12 of the way done with his MBA and his team won stake basketball this season! 
In even better news, Rachael had her baby and I CAN   NOT   WAIT to meet baby Annika in December!
Finally, I realized in September that I could finish reading the Book of Mormon by the end of the year if I read 1.75 chapters per day, so I'm doing it! BTW - Ammon is pretty awesome. This will be the 2nd time that I have read the whole way through from start to finish. A few weeks ago, actually, someone at church mentioned a site called ReadTheScriptures.com and it is awesome. It emails me my "reading assignments" every day as I have assigned myself to read by the end of the year. There is a phone app for it too which would make it even MORE convenient, but I'm not ready to pay for internet on my phone just yet. Not while "the process" still continues...or even probably for a while after "the process" has ended.

Busily Back at School

"Back to School" night seems like it should be "Still at School" night. I like my job, that's not it...I just never left, so I'm not returning. The thing that has returned though is the busy, busy schedule. Last week I had something going on every single night of the week. And the weekend. I always like having a busy schedule in high school. The difference now is that I don't get done with school at 3:30 and have the rest of the night to have fun playing sports and doing theater. I really do miss those things. Soccer is still happening on Friday nights, but it seems like I'm too busy to even fit that in. My responsibilities are not burdensome and I am not complaining, I'm just making note of the fact that there is a HUGE difference between the summer months and the school year as far as commitments go.

Tonight we celebrated Erin's birthday...I love that girl. I think it's so special to have had a friend since birth that is still around and the friendship is still maintained. We've seen each other grow and know each other a little differently than anyone else could know either one of us. She is very special to me and so here is a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY, I LOVE YOU to Erin...