March 30 (aka April 1st)

A picture walk....

 

Teaching keeps you busy!

It keeps you eating at your desk.

It keeps your heart full!

 

 

The girl loves her cheese dip!

 

JC Penney's had a sale.

A store closing sale.

 

I found this beautiful scarf there!

Just wanted to share it with you. =)

 

My poor hubby! He is extremely allergic to poison ivy.

This is what he looked like after moving tools that had been used to clear ground a MONTH ago!

Believe it or not, this is good...much better than he looked later in the day!*

 

This?

This is what happens when humidity comes!

No joke! That one silly curl would not go away!

 

"I love you, Momma. Even if you do have a random curl!"

 

This is how you survive curve balls on a busy school afternoon.

My fabulous aide took the students to specials whilst I dove in to writing lesson plans!

....and enjoying this treat! Courtesy of PTO!

 

Natchez has an annual Pow Wow. We had some of the dancers visit here!

See the boy in the red polo and khaki shorts on the right side of the picture?

That's my baby!

 

Such a handsome young man!

We had to "chill out" on Friday with a treat ;)

 

Someone was EXTREMELY excited!

 

So yummy!

I got the tart blueberry with cheesecake crumbles!

DEEEEEEEEEElicious!

 

Appropriately named =)

 

So - Friday was a great day with a stressful end to the working part.

We cooled off with some Deliciyoso treats....

and woke up to this.

 

Granted, we knew it had happened. Stephen and I were watching TV when we heard this hit.

However, we didn't realize how bad the damage was until a stream of water starting coming in behind our TV. More water came in through both bathrooms.

 

Thankfully our wonderful landlords removed it, patched the roof and are coming with the adjuster ASAP.

Like I said....WONDERFUL!

 

Notes like this?

They just warm my heart!

 

Both Abby & Kyle are doing great!

Abby has done so well in gymnastics lately that she has earned "the big sticker." What I'm told is that means she has made the most improvement!

 

Kyle has done very well with school! He decided to sit this season of baseball out.

I'm slightly grateful for the 6 month break from the chaos of running for sports four or five times a week!

 

Stephen is mostly healed up from his poison ivy. We would appreciate continued prayers as it is still burning and itching. HOWEVER he can see out of both eyes now, move without it....well, you know what happens with bad poison ivy spots, he can shave his face and sleep comfortably for the most part. That is all a HUGE answer to prayer!

 

Kaden & Frankie are doing great! They are still extremely spoiled!

They went with us to visit our coffee shop multiple times.

Everyone loves them because they are so sweet and well mannered!

 

Me?

I'd love prayers! My stent came out March 14th. March 18th I went for a walk and just didn't feel right afterwards. I swelled back up and was cramping so badly that night I was doubled over. Thankfully I was able to block it out to a point I could get on with life! I am now working on getting in to the doctor and seeing if he can schedule a test the same day. He very graciously got me some medicine so that I didn't have to sit at the hospital for forever in order to get some relief! The funny part in all of this?

 

All the caffeine I drank just to stay awake is now taking effect!

My pain threshold is amazing (thank  you Momma Bear!) Usually I don't know I'm hurting until I am so tired of blocking it out I fall asleep or just start crying without knowing why. That has been my status for the past 11 days. Today I had some medicine and things got done!

Dishes - check

Dusting - check

Dinner - Check

Dogs exercised - check

Homework - check

Laundry - check

Spoke with my Daddy - check (with a huge HEART next to that)

Spoke with my MIL - Check (also with a huge heart next to that)

Spoke to my Favorite TWICE!!!!!!! - DOUBLE CHECK! (hearts to the infinity! cheesy - yes. don't care! I love him!)

 

Now going to bed in hopes of being able to sleep.

The alarm will go off at 5:45am.

Exercising will be put on the back burner in the morning.

I can't wait to tell you about all of the fun things that we have been doing in my classroom!

Hopefully next time!

Love you!

I hope you have an absolutely fabulous week!



March 24

HOLY MOLY! Thank goodness that testing is over! Let me just say, that was not fun!

I am SO thankful to be back to the fun of teaching a normal week!

 

I have been reading a few blogs and pulling ideas. It has been wonderful!

My students have absolutely LOVED all of the fun activities and increased rigor!

The three of us? (My two aides and me) We love that the kids are learning, but we are exhausted!

Truth be told, several students were so exhausted that as they waited to be picked up at the end of the day they fell asleep on their desks!

 

As I said, testing was slightly stressful.

My sweet girl gave me this...

 

 

Yes, it is in my lap.

Yes, most people take pictures of rings on their hand.

HOWEVER, I couldn't hold the phone steady enough for a picture.

I am supposed to look at this any time I feel stressed.

It is, "my happy thought on my finger."

*love it*

 

Saturday I had to go pick up something for a donation.

Ooops!

Had to get a drink!

How do I validate drinking so much coffee?
Well, my mother says that drinking coffee & sun tanning are bad.

Do you see how pasty I am?!

 

My father says that drinking coffee will make you dark and make your hair curly!

 

Well, Momma Bear, if sun tanning is bad and coffee will make my skin dark...

ah ha! We have a solution!

So wonderful!

 

Plus they are the best small town coffee shop I've been to for as far as Indiana or Florida.

 

Check out all these little blooms!

I am hoping they survive the frost coming our way tomorrow night!

 

JC PEnney's is closing.

Sad days.

However, that means awesome sales!

Yep! Bought this top!

Ditched the "mom" pants.

Literally...high waist and baggy in all the wrong places.

 

Are there "right" places to be baggy?

Ugh!

I love this top though =)

 

This pretty much shows my Sunday.

 

 

 

Saturday evening we had some wonderful friends over!

Frankie got to spend time with his favorite friend.

No joke.

This dog loves my friend more than he loves me.

His heart goes:

Stephen, S, Kids, Me.

I'm on the list because I bring food, walk with him, and play with him.

 

 

I am sleepy my sweet friends.

I hope you have a wonderful evening!

March 20

It has been an exhausting week.

Testing. Life. Dogs. Kids.

We are loving every moment of being together.

One more day of testing.

I am so ready for it to be done!

I hope you are all enjoying life!

TGIF is tomorrow!

March 17

Wow! Sunday flew by us in a blur! We were able to go pick up the kids, hit the grocery store, go to church, enter the grades of a set of tests, and have dinner as a family! Yowzer! I'm heading to bed. 

We started standardized testing today. YIKES!

PRAY for all student K-8! ♥ ya!

I'm blogging from my phone so we'll see how this works. Only two pics. Kyle and Stephen were camera shy!

Happy Saint Paddy's day to ye me lads & lasses!

March 15

Weird.

 

That is pretty much the only word to describe this feeling.

 

You would call it normal.

 

Friday I woke up. Petrified. I tried very hard to not be.

 

Failure.

 

I went into a food choma too.

 

No food since 11:48pm.

 

We dropped the puppies off at the kennel (the second time this week) at 8am. We have a wonderful vet. They have a good SHORT stay kennel. For longer stays we prefer Blunsche. You should check them out if you are in the area. Anyhoot, they took the pups in with a rush since they knew we had a beautiful three hour drive to NOLA ahead of us. I fell asleep between Woodville (aka 45 minutes in) awoke for a short minute at St Francisville (1hr in) and finally at NOLA. Yep, FOOD CHOMA!

 

My nurses were all FABULOUS. Nurse L got us started and was very sweet and quick with the paper work. I hate paperwork. Nurse K got me set up with IVs and a bathroom break. Bless her hear she reminds me of Mrs. J from Indy that I used to housesit for. The woman has probably never used a cross tone of voice in her life.

 

I have fake nails on and the clicking of them as I type is about to drive me insane.

 

Nurse K actually apologized because she had to give me an IV and just about stopped trying to get my vein because she thought it was that uncomfortable. When you are dehydrated and lacking food, everything is uncomfortable. She finally got it set but it wasn't flushing. In fact, I was reverse flushing which caused the 3 of us to have a short moment of "WHAT??!?!?!" However, she turned up the fluids and we got that fixed.

 

Nurse M - OH Nurse M.

How I loved her humor! Favorite quote? She walks in with all of her 5'3" glory and says,

"Mrs. Lang-en-may-r? .... for Dr. Van-Lang-en-donck?"

Then she just giggled! We couldn't help but love her!

Enunciate the syllables. Add some flair and you have it! So hilarious!

 

The worst that happened to me this go around is that the little fluid box (for lack of a better term) had not been hooked correctly to my IV tube. So that meant that quite a bit of the saline solution or whatever the pre-op fluids are, leaked out on the bed.

What an odd moment that was! I thought I had wet the bed and didn't realize it! THEN Stephen fixed the box by tightening the tube which created a HUGE air bubble in my line!

I panicked! My momma had taught me what that meant if an air bubble got in your vein! We pinched it off just as anesthesia came in.  They quickly did something with a syringe at my hook up and got the air bubble out. I'm sure you in the nursing field know the technical term but here in the first grade world we call it "sucking out the air bubble." (1st grade vocab for you, C!)

 

I woke up post-op for a split second when they ripped the heart monitor off my ear. Yeah, if you go in with fake nails, that delightful thing that is typically taped to your finger gets taped to your ear lobe instead. I had NO idea my little hairs on my ears were that sensitive! I did the best completely drugged up yell that I could get out.

 

I came to pretty quickly. We got me up and moving as quickly as possible. Stephen navigated our way out of NOLA with fabulous skill. We stopped for a delicious dinner at this restaurant.

 

Can you name it?

 

 

FYI, I wanted that dessert.

Double chocolate fudge cola cake with homemade vanilla ice cream.

 

 

Stephen's dinner was SO delicious looking!

Mine?

It was fried.

 

So...no picture.

 

 

I don't remember the ride home. I basically slept from the time we got back in the truck until we got home. Stephen got me inside (very hazy vague memory of that.) The next thing I knew it was 7:30am. We  had a great morning! We took it slow!

Do you know how weird it is?

Weird!

So weird! There was no sensation of something inside of me.

 

This lovely blog site bleached the colors. =( But this is a gorgeous hot pink blossom in our front yard! The first one!

 

 

Happy faces for stent & pain free!

 

Also! This came in! It is the filler for the next year's planner! It's the little things in life. =) Like cute calendars to help with planning. I love planners! Well, really I love all things organizational!

 

First order of business (worth noting) was picking up our boys!!!!

Kaden was just as excited as me to have us all together!

I love his smile!!!

 

 

In Stephen's defense, he was swallowing when I took this picture. That is why he is blurred out.

Whiny Pants (Frank) refused to stay quiet unless he was sitting up front next to Stephen.

He may act all tough, but he needs his people!

 

Kaden was VERY excited for his first trip to Steampunk Coffee..

If you ever come to Natchez or are in the area Thur - Sun, you HAVE to go by there!

They are amazing!

 

Frankie was so happy to be at Steampunk's he couldn't even hold still for a picture!

 

Thankfully I took my coffee in a to go cup so that I could take it with us on our walk.

 

 

It was a wonderful day! It is so weird! Not having a wonderful day, that isn't weird. That is wonderful. However, not feeling the stent in me and not hurting - that is weird!

 

We ended our day with running by the grocery store. We ran into our fabulous friends, the W's. LOVE them!

 

Pizza with Captain Philips as our movie.

GREAT movie! Very intense. If you are like me, you will most likely need to watch Finding Nemo or Frozen to help you calm down afterwards. Anything comical, really. Very intense.

 

Love ya!

 

 

 

March 12

Great things happen when you go to the eye doctor.

Like...stopping off at the Mall of Louisiana!

I had to go there anyway for a 6 month check on my ring at Zales.

I learned white gold has to be "redipped?"

 

No clue.

 

But apparently it is true.

 

So, I had no breakfast and decided to use a gift card to enjoy this delicious and rare treat!

 

 

 

How on earth?!

Yeah, somehow this yummilicious Venti Carmel Macchiatto half syrup with an extra shot of espresso magically jumped into my hands.

Of course, I had to drink it.

 

 

Today a friend and I had plotted to go to Baton Rouge together.

Her poor princess got sick.

As I was walking through the mall I saw this bed set.

It made me think of my friend and her daughter.

Why?

Because the pattern was called,

"Addyson."

 

My phone didn't pick up the beauty of the colors.

It was a sweet coral pink with yellows in it.

So cute!

 

 

I love being in malls!

Not necessarily buying things.

That is stressful to me.

If I am shopping for me.

SO, if you ever need someone to buy you things and you don't know what to buy, let me go. I will buy things for you with your money!

 

The Hubby and I are working on eating healthy more frequently.

A friend recommended chicken enchiladas wrapped in boiled cabbage instead of tortillas.

I'd be lying if I said that I was not skeptical.

However, we (and by we I mean I) found a recipe for homemade enchilada sauce. After some doctoring, it was wonderful. Stephen boiled the chicken thighs so we could shred them. The cabbage was boiled and out came this fabulous concoction!

 

I ate 2 without a problem.

If I could have fit more in, I would have!

Stephen enjoyed them so much we put it on the "must repeat" list that doesn't really exist.

SO good!

 

Hopefully you are all staying warm as this lovely cold front sweeps across our beloved America.

My parents said it was going to be a balmy 9 degrees back home.

You know me. You know I love the cold. You know I do not necessarily enjoy the south (no offense.) However, I am truly grateful that I am not up there!

 

Time for winter to go buh-bye and spring to come! After spring, let us just skip to fall.

 

Ok?

 Also, in other news, PLEASE pray for a dear sweet friend of mine. Her nephew passed away in a tragic accident this past weekend. I won't reveal her name because I do not have that permission. Simply pray as this is not the first death she has had to deal with. This is the second loved one who was "taken before their time." I know God has his timing, but still - these were young ones.

 

I know you are all curious about my Mom too. I had a good talk with both of my moms today, and my brother! And my sister. It was an all around good family day! Back to my Mom. She sounded very upbeat and positive today. That has not happened since before all of this Mayo clinic business.

 PS. not at all impressed with Mayo.

 

I think a big part of that has something to do with Mom & Dad have finally been able to have one person coming to help with Mom. It would be very difficult to feel comfortable and at ease in your own home if you keep having different people help. Everyone has been very sweet. However,  there is something to be said when you find kindred spirit. A very sweet one has been found and has been promised to help for a month straight. This lovely lady has fit so well with my Mom that often times she forgets to clock in before they get to talking! I am SO relieved! The lady who used to help with Mom had a nasty spill on the ice. Miss T hit her head so hard she had a concussion. Her symptoms have not fully cleared though. She still feels very dizzy and not quite right. They are looking into that and she could always use prayers.

 

I'm praying for you. I may not know you, but I am. There is so much going on these days it is difficult to stay upbeat. But God has you right where you need to be. That being said, keep following Him! If you aren't following Him, get to it! Love you!

March 11

Spring Break

Love it!

 

I haven't been writing because writer's block set in. However, recently, I have fallen in love with a certain blog. On that blog, I found a post about writing a blog...go figure! Which point of the post hit home the most? Oh the one about how you just have to write, or post a picture, or whatever!

Without investment the blog will shrivel and die.

Like all the plants I've been given in my life.

I'm told I over invested in those though. My thumb is not a green one.

It's a pasty white....like snow. I love snow.

 

 

MOrning after the wedding breakfast...brunch.

By the way, brunch does not start at 8am.

My stomach disagreed and my good natured, sweet, loving, ever patient husband dealt with me very sweetly. I woke him up at 6:15am with stomach cramps. Not the bad kind, unless you call no-food-in-the-room-and-no-room-key-in-sight-needing-food-so-bad-you-awaken-with-cramps bad.

The pictures are hodge podge but you will see just how beautiful it was!

 

 

Beautiful building in NOLA.

 

Living statue! SO COOL!

 

Of course we had to go here!

 

 

 

BEAUTIFUL!

Clowns walk randomly around NOLA.

It's true.

 

On the way home we had to stop by Cabela's!

I insisted!

...

He didn't argue ;)

 

Beautiful sky!

Cumulus and Cirrus clouds!

First grade has infiltrated me so completely I can't even look at the sky and just enjoy the beauty! I must name the types of the clouds!

 

Guess what we've been studying in Science...

 

I love the detail work on here!

 

Signs that spring is coming!

 

Why does he only want to talk when my voice is gone?!

 

The BEAUTIFUL bride!

 

Absolutely gorgeous wedding!

The happy couple!

 



 

Candles are just gorgeous!

 

 

 

So beautiful and fancy and delish!

 

heavenly

 

simple elegance

 

Always must have the up close selfie

 

 

 

Love ya!

Praying for ya!

Enjoy your Spring Break!