Another Year Wiser

Since today is my birthday, I thought I'd come up with a list of 33 things to do before I turn 33, next year.

1. Make Nate’s scrapbook
2. Organize the filing cabinet
3. Sleep until 8
4. Unpack my bedroom
5. Plan Nate’s b’day
6. Finish reading the unabridged Les Miserables
7. Go to TPAC
8. Loose 10 lbs.
9. Make bags
10. Serve dinner to my Grannie
11. Dinner & a movie with Justin
12. Teach Gabby letters
13. Kids photo albums
14. Take a picnic
15. A Sunday drive
16. Visit friends out of town
17. Come up with 5 ‘field trips’
18. Make Resurrection cookies
19. Buy a cute dress
20. Play Scrabble
21. Consign/give away/store baby stuff
22. Write Yafrelis 5 times
23. Leave baked goods for a neighbor
24. Take the kids to a ballgame
25. Visit the zoo
26. Take a nap
27. Teach Kate to add and subtract
28. Watch Kate read a book to herself
29. Teach Gabby her numbers
30. Make baby doll clothes
31. Have a pizza night with the kiddos, complete with a movie
32. Christmas Carol
33. Put all the charms on my charm bracelet

Checking it Off

I've been busy trying to get things checked off my to-do list.

I went and bought some boy clothes at Carter's yesterday--I caught some good sales and got all this for about $35.

Don't get too attached though because it may all be returned for pink in a few weeks!

I also was able to finish up baby P's quilt. The girls and I mailed it off today.

I loved the colors for something different for a little girl. With two older sisters I figured they were probably swimming in pink, so I did something a little different for this little girl.

Checking off Items on my To-do List

Today I got this in the mail:


And this was inside:


I get to check off one of the things on my list. I'm now certified to teach in Kansas. Please excuse my erasures of my name and number!

25 Random Things about Me

I’ve seen this floating around several places and I thought it looked fun. It actually took me awhile. I’m not a very random person.

1. I don’t have a favorite color.
2. I am way behind on my photo albums.
3. I enjoy sewing, especially quilting.
4. I’ve lived in 7 homes since Justin and I got married.
5. We lived in our house in Cincinnati for the longest—nearly five years.
6. I taught high school special education for five years.
7. Both of my children were delivered by midwives.
8. I went to the Wesley Foundation in college to find a husband because some great couples from my church met there.
9. Guess where Justin and I met.
10. I can quote quite a bit of scripture, but I can never remember the verses.
11. I named my oldest daughter after one of my students.
12. My first real job was working in the stacks of the library at the university.
13. I do about ten loads of laundry a week.
14. I sang in the school choir and in three high school musicals.
15. We had an exchange student from Denmark, named Sie, when I was a senior in high school.
16. I’ve never left the country and had never even crossed the Mississippi until we came to buy our house.
17. I am the bill payer in our family.
18. Justin and I got married between my sophomore and junior years of college.
19. I never finished the last act of Macbeth that I was supposed to read and present to my English class because my grandfather died.
20. On grocery day I bribe my children with McDonald’s.
21. It started last year when I had sciatica so bad I couldn’t make it through the grocery and make lunch too, but now I’m better and it’s our routine.
22. I love coffee with a touch of milk and some sugar.
23. Our yard is shaped like a piece of pie—it narrows to a point in the back. Weird.
24. My “foreign” language in college was American Sign Language.
25. I never learned how to ride a bike.

Random Pics of me:

Non-resolutions list...

Here’s the first update. I’ve received all the paperwork back from the registrar’s office with my official, sealed, transcript, my sealed documentation that I got a real degree from a school that says they taught me basic stuff (like I took English), and my sealed proof that I actually taught in Kentucky. Actually I guess I don’t know what I got, since they’re all in sealed envelopes, but they look like they came from the right places at least.

Today I took my girls to the police station to have myself fingerprinted. I’ve done this before for teaching positions, no big deal—roll my fingers in some ink. Nope. They’ve digitized it. I’m sure this makes crime fighting faster and easier, but it took so long. The computer didn’t like my right ring finger at all. It was 12 tries. No joke. With my three year old and one year old sitting there. Thankfully they were as good as gold, and the officer was quite nice.

Now my packet is off to the state department of education, so hopefully the nice lady that I talked to was right and they will give me a certificate with my valid, but out of date license from Kentucky. She said that it wouldn’t be a problem.


My first year teaching...I shared that messy desk with two instructional assistants and our sign language interpreter (two of them pictured to my left).



As for the rest of the list…Kate now knows “k” and “t”. I’ve slacked this week—yesterday was grocery day and today was MOPS and errands. We worked on scissor skills today though, so that should be worth about three letters right there. Right? No? Okay, we’ll get back to work tomorrow. Justin and I have had one game night and one movie night.

New Year's Day

Today being the first day of the New Year I was thinking of things I would like to accomplish this year… I’m not a resolutions type of gal, but I do have some things I would like to get done, okay, so it sounds like a list of resolutions, huh?

1. Obtain my local teaching license. If I do it now it’s good for five years and I don’t have to take any classes to get it.

2. Teach Kate to recognize all the letters of the alphabet. 3 down 23 to go! (The letter of the week is ‘K,’ by the way.)

3. Play more games. Justin and I have a stack (and by stack I mean shelves full) of games that we never find the time to play. Now that the girls are fairly consistently sleeping at night I want us to start playing some of them in the evenings.

Happy New Year!!!