Sunday, December 19, 2010

Oh, The Busy Life

It's been a while, Blog World.

Wednesday after school, I was a timekeeper and scorekeeper for our school's first basketball game.  My school and other schools around us have this after school program called ACE.  I think it's "Active Character Education".  Teachers can recommend students in the 4th and 5th grade who are on the borderline when it comes to behavior and character.  Basically, the bad kids who need some self esteem help and teamwork.  So they form this team of these kids and ever Wednesday after school, their coach (our PE teacher) does some activities with them for a few hours.  They have character education lessons, do activities to build self esteem, and then have basketball practice and apply the character traits they talked about into their basketball team.  Well, they actually play other schools occasionally and Wednesday was their first game.  We lost terribly, but the kids were cute.  Most of them were excited to even have a chance to be on a real sports team, and others were nervous because it was their first game ever.  Then, our PE teacher bought them all pizza and we talked and ate pizza until the bus came and got them.  It was really fun.

My first Holiday program at my new school was scheduled for Thursday evening.  The whole first grade was going to perform four different selections, all about stars. Then the orchestra would do some Holiday songs ,then the band would play.  Believe it or not, we have about 65-70 kids in our 5th grade band.  Pretty impressive, huh?  It's their first year playing and they actually sound really good.  Well, when we woke up Thursday morning, we learned that it was also the first Winter Weather Advisory of the year.  It was supposed to snow about ONE inch.  So they canceled the program and we got a 2-hour-early dismissal.  I was confused, so I went to the principal.  I asked why all this was happening for one inch of snow that might even pass over us.  He replied, "Maria, this isn't West Virginia.  We don't treat the roads here.  When it snows, we all go home and wait until it goes away."  (ME): But why can't we just put chains on the bus tires?  (Principal): HAHAHAHA.  Chains!  You're funny.

And sure enough, it snowed one inch and there was one inch of ice and snow on the roads.  It was crazy.  And don't you know, school was closed on Friday, too!  So we watched Home Alone on Thursday night and laughed our heads off.  It truly is the most hilarious movie ever!


So, Friday, I woke up late, drank coffee and watched Regis & Kelly, made cookies, went shopping, went to the gym, and made chicken noodle soup for dinner.  It was delicious!  And it's sooo easy.  Let me share with you:

In the crock pot, put:

A bunch of chicken broth, sliced carrots and celery, pieces of cooked chicken, and some oregano and parsley.  Let it cook on high for about 4 hours.  Put some egg noodles in and let it cook on high for about another 45 minutes.  Voila.  Delicious.

I made sugar cookies on Friday.  I still don't have a rolling pin so I used a PAM spray bottle and pressed really hard.  I tried making royal icing and "flooding" the cookies.  It's pretty much the only way to make the icing on the cookies look smooth, according to Martha Stewart.  So you make two kinds of royal icing--stiff and wet.  Then you outline the cookie with the stiff icing, like so:

(not my cookies, just a photo from the internet)

Then you add water to the stiff icing to make wet, really thin icing and use a pastry bag to fill the inside.  When it dries, it will be nice and smooth.  My only set-back: I don't have pastry bags or tips.  So I resorted to the old "fill-a-sandwich-bag-and-cut-a-hole-in-the-tip" method.  The outlines are terrible, but they turned out okay for my first time:



I finished all of my Christmas shopping on my day off.  While I was at the gym, Josh finished his Christmas shopping as well and wrapped all of my gifts.  Something you should know about Josh: He is an excellent gift-giver.  He is thoughtful and always buys me things I love.  The problem is: He likes it so much that he usually goes overboard and then cannot contain his excitement.  So the second I got home from the gym, I immediately had to open some of the gifts that he had just wrapped before he exploded.  So, I opened two gifts.  One was a rolling pin.  He saw me using the stinking PAM bottle and immediately got dressed, went out, and bought me a nice rolling pin.  See, I told you he is thoughtful!  The other is our first Christmas tree ornament.  We actually got a beautiful "First Christmas" ornament from a friend as a wedding gift.  It is gold and beautiful (it has always been my dream to have an all-gold Christmas tree).  The problem?  The date says 2006!!!  It's definitely 2010.  So Josh bought me another gold "first Christmas" ornament with the correct date and we have both on the tree.  It's even a Willow Tree ornament (my favorite)!!!

The rolling pin and ornament.

The ornament on the tree!
I don't typically like to decorate with knick-knack-type things, but I do love Willow Tree things.

That night, we watched one of our other favorite Christmas movies, Elf!!!! And drank gin & tonics.  They are our favorite drinks, especially around Xmas time because they taste like our tree!  The movie was soooo funny.  If you haven't seen it yet, go buy it right now!  It's on sale at Target for $9.




Saturday, we decided to make it our Christmas together.  We are going to be at Josh's parents house on Christmas day, and Josh couldn't wait any longer before I opened the rest of my gifts.  Plus, we had our Christmas last year on the Saturday before the real Christmas, so we may as well make it a tradition.  Here is what our tree looked like in the morning:


How fun!

Josh got me a beautiful sweater I have been wanting from Macy's, lots of chocolate, some beautiful champagne flutes I have been wanting to match our set of wine glasses and the. best. gift. ever.  Are you ready for this?


A set of 25 colorful Sharpies!!!!

You better bet I got my best card stock, went straight to the computer, printed off a bunch of coloring pages and got right to work.  And I did that for about 9 hours that day!  I love Sharpies!

Josh also opened his gifts.  I got his two sweaters from Gap that he had been wanting and what I would call an overpriced ugly tie.  Every time we go to Macy's, he stops and looks at these certain ties.  I think they are terrible.  He loves them.  They are super expensive and probably won't match anything, so I always tell him "NO WAY!"  Well, they went on sale right before Christmas and I had a coupon, so I bought it for him, even though I hate it.  He was pleasantly surprised and very excited.  Now he's probably going to wear it every day.  I also booked us two tickets for a DogFish Head Brewery Tour in January.  It's about 45 minutes away in Delaware, but I am super psyched about going and he is too!  The tickets are usually sold out months in advance, so I  really had to be on the ball to get this one.  I got online right at the time they were posted for this particular date and snagged two.  We are excited to try lots of beers!

After gift giving and eating left-over chicken noodle soup, we went to a church down the road from us to watch one of Josh's students in the Christmas piano recital.  We brought her a bag of cookies, and for some reason I had a feeling that I should bring more than one bag, so I did.  And guess what?  One of my students was in the recital, too!  It was adorable.  Josh's student was 9 and mine was 6. They each played 5 pieces, including a duet with their teacher.  Each song was only about 30 seconds long, but it was so cute.  So we gave them both bags of cookies and their moms were really happy to see us there.

We stopped at the Shoe Dept, which is ALWAYS  a mistake because I always buy something.  Which I promptly did.  I bought a beautiful pair of peep-toe nude colored wedge shoes on clearance for $9.99 and I am SO excited to wear them.  

Josh had promised me a long time ago that for Christmas, we could have Chinese food.  We have lived here for about 5 months and still haven't tried a Chinese restaurant.  So we ordered it and it was so-so.  I liked it better than he did.  But I was mainly just happy to have gotten it in the first place!  Then we watched another favorite movie: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.


Have you ever seen this movie?  If not, you're crazy and you need to go watch it right now.  I laugh non-stop when I see this movie.  It's one of my all-time faves.

While we watched our favorite past-time movie, we enjoyed our favorite past-time drink.  Super cheap champagne mixed with pomegranate juice.  And we enjoyed them in our new champagne glasses!


This morning, we woke up super late and watched yet another movie.  Yes, we were super lazy bums this weekend.  Deep Impact was on TV and I hadn't seen it in a long time.  It's pretty intense and a good way to spend two hours.  It's about an asteroid that is supposed to hit earth and kill everything on the planet.  It's kind of like Armageddon. 


And that's how we spent our weekend.  Pretty exciting, huh?

My program is rescheduled for tomorrow evening (Monday).  I am kind of concerned that most kids won't show up now.  Many of our students couldn't come in the first place because their parents don't have transportation or just plain aren't involved in their child's life or education.  And now I'm afraid that the people who were going to come already have plans tomorrow.  Oh well.  We will have to wait and see.  I will say that the program is going to be super cute.  My 6-year-olds practically created the whole thing themselves.  They made up the lyrics to the songs and made up their own movements, too!   I will take pictures!  Wish us luck!

Saturday, December 11, 2010

My "In-Your-Dreams" Christmas Wish List


1.  Mini-Cooper S.  It has to be white.  It has to have a black roof.  It cannot have stripes.  I need awesome wheels, as well.

2.  Apple Mac Book Air.  It's awesome.  And I want it.  And I want to take it on planes and to work and to the coffee shop and to the park and in bed and everything.

3.  Pink Susan G. Komen for the Cure KitchenAid Mixer.  I have wanted one of these forever.  I remember staring at my mom's as a child in wonderment as it whipped up my chocolate chip cookies or fluffy mashed potatoes.  We actually put one on our wedding registry, but obviously that didn't happen.  But someday it will happen!  I will make sure of it.


4.  Any pair of shoes from Anthropologie.  I am a lover of all fabulous shoes.  I don't own too many.  But that's basically because when you are a teacher, you cannot justify hundreds of dollars on shoes.  But I love to look!  Here are some of my favorites:


5.  Fine china.  Lots of it.  Lots of different ones to use on each night.  I especially love some new modern patterns.

L by Lenox
Mikasa Pure Red
Kate Spade Gwinnett Lane
Mikasa Daylight
6.  An awesomely expensive and huge chandelier:
Quoizel La Parra Chandelier
7.  Another trip to Costa Rica.  The last time (and only time) I was there was in the summer of 2004.  I fell in love with that place and even thought that someday I could move there.  Now I would just like to visit every once in a while and climb an ACTIVE volcano again!

This is the volcano that my junior Chemistry class and I hiked up in 2004.

There you have it!  My "I will never get it--In your dreams--He!! no--Are you serious--Christmas list".  

Friday, December 10, 2010

A Controversial Topic...

This is a long story.  Are you ready?

8 years ago at Josh's school, their test grades were crap.  In the last 8 years, the principal has kicked it into gear and done some awesome stuff.  First of all: Hire some awesome teachers.  Next: Eliminate things that cause behavior problems.  The most behavior problems were at recess.  So she eliminated some of the recess.  The kids still get recess, just not every single day.  Then she added all of these awesome after school programs that 80% of the kids attend every single day.  Their test scores now are through the roof and they are getting a lot of attention for it.  i.e. being featured on the TODAY SHOW!

Recently, four parents have teamed together and decided that it is an outrage that their 11 year-olds don't get recess every single day.  Their argument is that kids need unstructured play time.  Who disagrees with that?  No one.  Those four parents came to Josh's principal and asked if their child's schedule could be changed midyear so that they would get recess every day.  The principal obviously said no.

So those four parents went to the board of education.  They scheduled a meeting to meet with the executives of the board of ed.  In the meantime, they put up petitions around the city titled "Would You Want YOUR Child to Have Recess?" with no more explanation.  They posted them around in grocery stores, the mall, and other places in the community.  They got a ton of signatures.  80% of the signatures were from people who do not have children in their school and about 10% were from the students of the school!  They took this petition to the board and the board is voting on it soon.

Josh's principal basically told them that because of those FOUR parents, they would most likely have to add in more recess time to their schedule.  And the only time that they could schedule it was... during specials.  So starting soon (probably January), instead of teaching music to certain classes, he will be taking them outside for recess duty.  He is trying to see what he can do to convince the board that although recess and play time IS important for a child's development, so are the arts.  Not to mention that he did not go to college to be a babysitter!

Meanwhile, those parents haven't thanked the principal or arts teachers for the amazing things they are doing with their children or the great accomplishments the school is making.  When the principal asked those parents why their kids can't play at home, they didn't have much of an answer.

What is your opinion?  Should the board change the schedule midyear and force the arts teachers to do recess duty?  Or keep the schedule the way it is?

WINTER

Here is a list of my favorite winter-time things:
  1. Soup.  I love my crockpot and I love the comfy, warm feeling of a hot, hearty soup.  Recently I have made white cheddar corn soup and white chicken chili!
  2. Sweaters.  They are the best.  I bought this beauty at NY&Co. recently:
  3. Snow.  I can't wait until the first snow.  I love snow days where I can sit at home, snuggle in a blanket, and watch a movie while the snow piles up outside.
  4. Blankets, especially my heated blanket.  The heated blanket is the BEST invention ever.  Using it in the winter to snuggle up makes me soooo happy.
  5. Christmas.  Christmas trees and Christmas music.  That's a given.
  6. Baking.  I will be the first to admit that I am not the greatest baker, but I do love cookies and apple pies!  So I bake.
If you asked me what my favorite season was, I would say summer.  The beach, weddings, my birthday, being outside, the weather, etc.  But winter definitely comes in at a very close second :-)

Thursday, December 2, 2010

The Night Before His First Program

Josh's first school program is tonight.  He is super excited and nervous and I am too!  His whole fourth grade is performing.  Students are reading The Night Before Christmas as narrators and every few stanzas a different class will perform a song.  Most of them were written or adapted by Josh, me, and his students to fit the story. 

One of the classes is even performing a longways set dance as the "reindeer" on the sleigh.  They will be wearing reindeer antlers with bells!  All of the other kids are going to be wearing "Christmas Eve" attire.  A.K.A. Pajamas.  It should be super cute. 

Programs are scary and nerve-wracking.  We, as teachers, get all worked up and try to make everything perfect for a bunch of 6 year olds!  They end up performing a stellar program full of great musicianship (especially for little kids). Meanwhile, all the parents remember is the cute kid in the front who just stood there and waved to his mom.  I will have to remind myself of that in two weeks for my program!

Wish us luck!

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Christmas!

It's December!  Yay!  I have never been so excited about Christmas in my life.  Not even as a kid.  I am excited to see my family and spend time.  I am excited to spend time with a new family.  And I am excited to make some memories for our first Christmas :-)

When Josh and I got back from my mom's on Saturday, we got home, brought the stuff inside, and got right back in the car and went shopping.  We got all the decorations for our first tree and a tree stand.  We also picked up a few gifts for some family.

On Sunday, we bought our first tree (it's real!) and set it up.  I also set up my little, tiny, fake tree that my grandma and pap gave to us/made for us last year when we didn't have any room in our apartment for a real tree.  It sits in a window upstairs and looks beautiful!  Then I baked some chocolate chip cookies with Hershey's Special Dark chocolate chips (Thought you would like that, Kathi).  We did all of this while listening to Christmas music, of course!

On Monday I wrapped some of the gifts and put them under the tree and we strung the lights.  We were still kind of waiting for the branches to fall a bit before we put the decorations on.  We also put a wreath on the door, put the stockings up, and added a few of my grandma's ceramic decorations that she made.  And I bought my first Christmas cards to send out... I got good ones, too :-)

And Tuesday we actually put the decorations on our tree!  It looks a little silly without a tree topper or skirt, but it's our first one, so take it easy on us! 




And we are excited for this weekend when my mom, sister, and grandma are coming to visit us!  I will probably bake more cookies and use my crockpot!

It's hump day!  Only two more days to go :-)