Friday, November 30, 2012

Thankful

There are so many things that we have to be thankful for. Most of all we are thankful for our sweet little girls! Emma and Abigail have been the greatest gifts from God. We our blessed everyday by their presence in our lives.

We are thankful for such a wonderful and loving family that we were able to stay with Nana and Poppa until moving into our own home recently.

I am thankful for the fact that life's events led to us living with Nana and Poppa, allowing our daughters so much more quality time with their grandparents.

Family gatherings have occcured more often, and we are thankful that our little girls have had the abiltiy to get to know and spend time with more of their family.

We have been able to take our girls to museums, parks, movies, etc. and we are thankful for the easy ability to do this with our new location.

Thankful for the youngest addition to our family. Our nephew Tank turned one on the 4th, and he is such a wonderful and happy little boy!

Moving

Moving is never fun and it is always really hard work. I am blessed with a truly amazing husband who took it upon himself to get all of our stuff moved out of two different storage units, his parents' house, and into our new home. Ray's labors took almost an entire day, and now we are enjoying the fruits of those labors! 

Through my husband's relentless efforts and my tenacity for sticking with something and wanting to finish no matter what, it took us from November 9th while working, taking care of our girls, etc. to make progress. But we really started to settle in with the help of our wonderful friends the Freemans!

They were so nice to come over on the first day of our Thanksgiving break to give us a hand with sorting, unpacking, organizing, and moving stuff back to Ray's parents house for a garage sale. Working nonstop for the 9 days of Thanksgiving break (Ray working during the week,) we were able to have everything unpacked, the girls room and bathroom 100% decorated, and started cooking and eating at the table like a family again! Ray rounded off the Thanksgiving break by having a garage sale at his parents house, getting rid of at least 1/3 of the things we had in our attic and garage from our old house. Then we donated to Goodwill, sold books at Half Price Books, and we gave a bunch of our girls clothing to some really special little girls.




Spreading Christmas Cheer

As this special time of year approaches I keep in mind that not all people are as fortunate in their ability to celebrate as my family is. As a teacher, I have gone out of my way to bring Christmas cheer to my students. I let them listen to music, and each class gets to create and decorate their own class Christmas tree. I try my best to create the lesson plans to the topics of the season, and when they finish early they get to work on creating ornaments for their class Christmas tree. I am also blessed to work at a campus where in 6th grade they are still allowed to have a Christmas party. A part of our lesson before going home for Christmas will be to read "A Christmas Carol" and watch the movie. My students are very excited and appreciate the fact that I am going out of my way to help them enjoy this very special time of year.






Aggie Pride

At work we go out of our way to encourage and promote college with our students. Our 6th graders went on a field trip to a local college, and in their social studies classes they focus on a curriculum Kids 2 College. With the last week of November approaching, we also celebrate College Week by decorating our doors and wearing our college shirts etc. to work every day. Well... you know I am a major Aggie addict and I have been taking every opportunity to show off and educate my students about the wonderful university I was blessed to attend. Below are pictures of how I exposed my students to Texas A&M University.







Emma and Abby's Thanksgiving Parties

Both girls are still enjoying their school.   Their teachers and the director go out of their way to celebrate all the holidays in special ways. They lessons are centered around them with the art activities, books they read, music they listen to, and the letters and words they work on as well. They also go out of their way to decorate for each occasion, which really excites the students, and I must admit i am even envious of all their decorations and talent with putting things together so well.






Thanksgiving Baking 2012

Due to the crazy timing of us moving, doctors appointments, taking care of the girls, having a whole week off etc... I did baking all by myself this year. I usually get together with Nana and we do all of our baking together. So below you will see all the stuff that I made for two different Thanksgivings. I also made these using an electric stove for the first time since August 2005.








Thursday, November 22, 2012

Thanksgiving 2012

This year due to relocating back to the Houston area we were able to make it to both the Pheris and Housley Thanksgiving gatherings. It always feels like you never get enough time with family, but we tried our best to give a little to each side this year. We wish all our family and friends a Happy Thanksgiving and may the memories you make today, put a smile on your face for years to come.





Sunday, November 4, 2012

Tank's Birthday








Out nephew Francisco turned one today!  We nicknamed him "Tank" because of his stout nature.  Lulu brought him and the other kids over this afternoon for a little party.  Our girls got to play with their cousins, and everyone got to enjoy some cupcakes.  As you can see, they all get along well!

Momma's Hat





Emma and Abby found Brandie's hat on the bed and thought it was fun to play with!