Chicks & Dreams

A few weeks ago at our counseling session, it might have been mentioned that I subtly (or sometimes bluntly) squash dreams of Shawn's. I'm a realist- he's a dreamer. Sometimes it just doesn't work. While at Orschlen's a few weeks ago, Shawn got the boys talked into buying chicks. I was MAD because this just was not a reality for us. There are so many hurdles to overcome and face it. . . we're not really "pet" people. I mean, sure there is a honeymoon phase but after that the responsibility often overweighs the benefits from our pets and our kids are just now finally at an age to start helping take care of them. So, I squashed the dream of being a chicken farmer that day. I marched out of the store with 4 crying/whining boys. However. . . . we survived.

Well. . . . as you know if you follow me on Facebook, Saturday while Shawn was at class and I had Zachary and Malachi, we bought some baby chicks.  . . . yes REAL, LIVE, baby chicks. Don't ask me what we'll do with them. Our plan is to have egg laying chickens, but when have our plans ever gone as planned? Yes, we do know they get bigger. And, no, its not against city code. Yes, they have names- Supper (Shawn's), Purple (Malachi's), Dennis (the menace- Zach's), Donald (after McDonald's ckn nuggets), and David (Logan's).

Poor Logan's allergies have been awful lately.

All five together: (Malachi never far away either)

Malachi never gets far from them. I think he'd sleep in the pen with them if he could.

So, there you have it. I am trying hard to stop being a dream-squasher. So . . . I am going along with Shawn's desire to return to school to be a teacher. He was accepted into ESU and will enroll on Saturday for fall classes. Please continue to pray that God leads us in the directions we need to go and helps us support our family along the way.

Home Photoshop Take 2

Haha! These are still some pictures (unedited remember) from our photo adventure. It was just Logan and Malachi so that I could get some pictures to crop for their birthday invites. Malachi's getting a bit of curly hair in the back. I love that little bugger.

He got mad at the bear after a few pictures.

But, they made up. :)



Always looking for trouble out of the corner of his eye:




I had a great day! I made it through an entire day teaching. Tonight I am more exhausted than usual, but it was worth it. I LOVE my job and the people I work with and yesterday when the doctor told me that I really shouldn't be working until I got my heart fixed was a bit (pardon my pun) heart-breaking! Its not like me to lie in bed and be bored. I HATE HATE HATE bedrest and I LOVE LOVE LOVE teaching! I certainly could pretend its summertime and that I need to be resting and relaxing and enjoying my days off, but I know better than that and I feel a duty and obligation to my students to be a good teacher for them. I may be overestimating myself, but I take ownership in my students and think that I do the best job possible for them, and am not confident in many subs that could take my place. So, I feel like my students need me to be there for them to help them grow and pick up the pace with their class. I don't want to let them down. Teaching is also my life. I am a mother first, yes, but a teacher is ingrained in me and I can't imagine doing anything else. I certainly do NOT want to jeopardize my job because of being absent too often.

On a very exciting and elated note, I was asked to attend the IRA (International Reading Association) in Chicago at the end of April. This was a complete, unexpected surprise and after the day I was having, I contemplated it thoroughly. But, I'm confident that I'll be feeling much better by then and if not, where there is a will THERE WILL be a way! It is such a priveledge to even be asked to attend, let alone have my way paid for, especially with the cuts to budgets in education. I hate to sound corny, but its like a dream come true! So, I have something to focus on and look forward to as a professional and can see that light at the end of the state testing tunnel! :)

Marathon-ing It and The Issue of Homework

First and foremost, I really want to wish my good friend, Daisie, a VERY VERY happy birthday today! She is a wonderful person, full of amazing potential as a teacher. I worked with her for a short few years, but learned so much from her talent as a professional and I thank her so much for that. She will soon be a mommy (well, I guess you could say she already is) and start a new adventure in her life. So. . . . Happy Birthday Daisie!!!! :)


I've never ran a marathon. Sometimes I wish I could have done it. Back in my running days, I certainly think I could have made it through one. Well, for the past few evenings, about by 5-6pm I'm just utterly exhausted. Normally, I can get that way, eat dinner and feel much better, but it just hasn't helped. I have some dr. appointments that I've been putting off for fear of taking time off work, so they are coming up Friday and I'm just praying harder that I can make it through this work week. It'll be the longest week EVER with parent-teacher conferences until 8:30pm two nights. UGH!!!!


Here is a picture of the beautiful full moon for October:



Here are some pictures of my odd son, sad that KU lost so closely last night (ok, maybe just sad because I stopped pushing him in his wagon):









This was the wild hair after taking the stocking cap off:





So, I have a bit of a parent/teacher problem, and since this is parent/teacher conference week, I thought I'd share it here. Zachary had a homework assignment that he was supposed to fill out some comprehension (don't get me started about TRUE comprehension) worksheet and return it to class. Well, we saw him filling out his homework and just assumed that it got put right back in his bookbag.. . .but . . . things are CRAZY some (okay most) of our evenings and I guess it didn't make it back to school. We got a note home from the sub asking for that assignment. So, I searched all over our piles of papers and no such luck!!!! I'm NOT the type of mom to keep and scrapbook every little medial assignment and worksheet. I know there are those that do, and I wonder what the point is, but that's alright- agree to disagree! :) However, in the midst of throwing away piles of coloring sheets and whatnot in the boys' rooms, I'm wondering if the homework was in that pile! Then I start hyperventilating a bit (ok, maybe that is a bit drastic) but I'm very well aware of the consequences SOME children face when they do not return homework to school and my heart starts breaking for Zach because, in all honesty, I think it's my fault that he lost his homework. Yes, he should have been responsible for putting it back in his bookbag immediately after he was done with it. He knows fully well that his little brother is learning how to help out by putting things in the trash. So, I sent a note to school and I'm crossing my fingers that they have mercy on him.



However, as a teacher, I am in such as sticky situation with homework. And, since I'm saying that as a parent AND a teacher, I know fully well that some that read my blog will get offended with my "teacher" point of view and I possibly may face some reprecussions from it, but I still feel like I need to share it so you can see the dilima that I'm in. (And, yes, I know I misspelled dilima, but right now, I'm too tired to find a dictionary!) As a teacher, I expect students to be responsible. I send things home with them to practice, have signed, or to share with someone. However, I also know that some teachers punish students at the very beginning of the day for NOT bringing homework back to school. How would you feel if you got to work and you were immediately reprimanded by your boss? Brain research shows that emotion over-rides intellect in our brains, so when we're overcome emotionally (which would take more stress for some to reach that point) we can't focus all day, we're academically "checked-out"! Plus, as a teacher, I cannot control one little iota outside my classroom! I can hope, pray, wish, inspire, believe, and pray some more that things will happen and change for the good when students leave my classroom, but I have NO control over what they encounter when they leave my classroom and head home for the day! To punish a child for that seems harsh, rude, and a bit unexplainable! As a very big reading advocate, I tell parents to "read to their children" and I harp on kids to "read, read, read, read some more every single night," yet I know that many struggles go on at home with children need the right atmospheres to concentrate to read, yet hear arguing, fighting, siblings picking on them, dozing off for being tired. I also wonder how many teachers do the homework they're assigning! If you ask your students to read every night for 30 minutes, do you also do that or might you be too busy???? We're NEVER the best readers we can be. There is ALWAYS room for improvement and I think that sometimes teachers act "above it all".



Homework should be sent home as reinforcement. The teacher should have contact with parents to help them know how to help their child. However, to grade homework when you don't know what levels of support each student recieved seems a bit "off" the teacher ethics chart for me. (But, then again, this is only my thinking.) How do you know that Jimmy didn't pay his little brother to do the math because he's definitely more talented in that area? Why would you grade Suzie and give her a failing on the homework because she struggled through it by herself while she was trying to babysit her younger siblings? Homework just doesn't make sense to me unless there is a definite purpose for it and that purpose includes a darn good reason!



I have parent teacher conferences on Wednesday and am excited to hear what Zachary's been up to. I'm hoping to only wear my parent hat that night, but we'll see. I hate being in such an 'informed' dilima, because I feel like if I didn't have the teacher side of the issue, I'd just be a parent that didn't really care if homework was done or not and didn't worry so much about the reprecussions at school.

Almost to Friday!

My cold is getting worse so much that I just count the hours until I can reach bedtime. Of course, having kids makes it much more difficult to just head home from work and crawl into my cozy, comfy bed, but I try to make it there by 7-8pm, so I'm still under curfew tonight. Here are a few RANDOM pictures from my camera that I uploaded this weekend.

This is as far as our pumpkin made it this year before the vine got snapped and it died. Then, we sat it on our back porch until it was time to decorate for the fall and Bella and Suzie decided to have a go at it, scratching and biting it all over until it was for sure to rot!

Zach taught Malachi how to drive this summer and I need to get a picture of him actually driving this, but he loves to roam around the yard and chase his brothers like they once did to him.

Fish sticks for supper . . . . or maybe this was for lunch on a PJ day. Hmmm . . . I can't quite remember, but fish sticks are very very very nasty in my book. YUCK!

Zach's "sorta principal" was reassigned last week, so he has been thinking about who might be good to fill those shoes. I got a call yesterday informing me that my name had been entered in the running for the position because of all the 1st graders who thought their moms needed the job, Zach was sure that my being a teacher would trump all! He's just so darn funny. I talked to him later last night and asked him why he said that and did he know that maybe if I was principal I'd be awfully mean. He said, "mommy, you really could learn to be nice if you wanted to!"

And, since my sister has worked at that school her entire career so far and lives for that school AND since she just took her test to become a principal (and passed it I think!), she is wanting to try for the position. I asked Zachary what he'd think of having Aunt Courtney be his principal and he was not liking that idea at all. I said "why not?" and he said, "Well, she did be the principal one day last year and it was one of the only days I made a very bad bad choice and kissed Becca. Then Courtney had to be mean to me and call you. " (Oh, yes, I do remember this day and it surely will live in the history books for Zachary!)

I never know what I'll get when he starts talking about school, but it is quite entertaining since I only half believe most of it.

1st Day of School 2009

Zachary started school today and is now officially a 1st grader (weep, weep). Its cliche, yes, but I seriously cannot believe how fast time has gone and how amazing this little boy is! I sent some books to school with him today for his class- "How do Dinosaurs go to School" and when he saw them in his bookbag, he said, "Mom, you're so thoughtful and loveable!" He just melts my heart! :)

I actually took this picture AFTER I picked Zach up from daycare this afternoon because it was raining quite hard this morning and well, I knew this would make a much better picture!

We caught a quick picture with Aunt Courtney before school because (in case you don't like in KS to experience the torrential downpour this morning) there were slight rain issues this morning (to say the least). Here is the link to the post of Zach's first day last year. Its kinda neat having Courtney teach in the same school, but often a bit more complicated than it needs to be also. So far Zach LOVES his class and it is very small, so we are excited for the amount of attention he will recieve.

Today was the 1st day for students for me also and I helped in the kindergarten classes once again. Its amazing how they are so curious, energetic, and just plain excited on the first day. I would become a millionaire if I could figure out how to bottle that and feed it back to them when they reach, uhm. . . say, middle school age! :)

FINALLY Friday!

Ah! Today could NOT come fast enough, and as long as this week has felt, I was trying to recall something that I did on Monday and it seemed ages ago. Today ended really frustrating as some do not understand the sacrifices I give to ensure that kids have appropriate accommodations for their state tests. While it is very stressful for everyone involved, today really brought it to my attention that some really do not understand what we do and how hard it is EACH DAY! This week, I have worked my tail off, not even having bathroom breaks some days just trying to get kids tested so they can be done, only to hear that I'm not working hard enough! Thank you! So, while I've been a bit discouraged, I'm not letting it change a thing I have done or will do. My students are almost done with their tests and it will be wonderful to be able to TEACH again! I can't wait. I LOVE my job and when I'm teaching, it is so much more rewarding and challenging. So, soon- I can see the light at the end of the tunnel (and I'm very hopeful that it is NOT a train!). :)

To my readers, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for your advice about what to do with Logan. Today, I scheduled an appointment with Dr. Blowey at Children's Mercy. We have seen him a couple times and I really liked him. He was less scapel happy than the first nephrologist we went to. I remember when Logan was 6 months old, we went to the hospital, had the many exams done, met with a multitude of doctors and the nephrolgist we saw then told us we would need to have him in surgery on Monday (when we were there on a Friday)! We were blown away and shocked a bit, so decided to ask for a second opinion, which was Dr. Blowey and he did a great job at diagnosing Logan and reading the exams in ways other doctors missed some information (I'm guessing) and he told us that Logan could be a normal kid without the surgery, but as long as we monitored the kidneys at least once per year to see what their functioning was. At the time, I think he said it was 70%-30%, which is 100% functioning, which is supposed to, but he was a little concerned about the dual collecting systems and the possibility that they would decrease functioning without many symptoms or warning. So, as we've changed doctors and lost records since then, it was nice to finally have another renal (kidney) scan done, which Shawn said was normal (meaning abnormal, but unchanged for Logan). So, in June, we will be headed to consult with Dr. Blowey and hopefully get a peace of mind that things are still going good.

Taige is here tonight and playing with Zachary and Logan. They are such tough boys, and definitely ALL BOY! Tractors, trains, dirt, balls, sand, tackling, etc. Just a bit of my evening. We have them cleaned up, fed and now watching a movie so the house can quiet down and we can rest for a little bit.

Tomorrow, I am planning on going to Emporia to visit my friend Nicole and her twin baby boys! Shawn will take Zachary and Logan to the pet store also, and kinda visit our old stompin grounds. Oh, how I miss 'ol E-Town sometimes! :)

No State Testing Today!

Well, someone's prayers were answered, be it the children's or possibly mine- but there was no state testing today for us! :) Of course, while it was so nice to be able to maintain my regular schedule and have one more normal day with my groups, I also know that by not starting today, it's possibly going to put us in a time crunch with the amount of students that we have to test with small groups or individually (which is what I do). So, I'm hoping that tomorrow things can be kicked off and we can get to the testing. The kids are as ready as they can get and we just have to get on with it. Please pray for the sanity of all involved! :)

Last night, we finished part 2 of our movie night. We watched Madagascar 2, and it was a great movie. Malachi wasn't too interested though as he very much enjoyed bothering his brothers! :)



No movies tonight. I'm off to bed early! :)

Zachary's Ring

This week Zachary came home from school sporting some new "bling":

He's been having "girl-issues" again which I really can't do much about without more communication from his teachers, which doesn't seem to be happening, so I'm guessing either 1) they aren't aware of it or 2) they really could care less about communicating with me to let us help get it solved by WORKING TOGETHER! (Sorry, a bit frustrated right now with some of the mis-communications going on.) So, he's been chasing several girls and they've been chasing him as well and trying to "win" his loyalty with cute little "gifts". I had no idea where these things were coming from. The first day it was a little cheap silver ring that broke as you tried to adjust it. So, I didn't think much of it. The next day, he came home with a little sticky man that clings to whatever you put it on. I thought maybe he earned it from the treasure chest or something. Then last night, he came home wearing this! So, I took it away from him until he told me EVERYTHING that was going on (somehow I get the feeling this will be harder as he gets older). As he started to explain, this girl gave him the first ring, but it made this girl mad, so she gave him a sticky man that she earned, but then the first girl decided to give him an even bigger ring, but he didn't like her anyway and just wanted to marry the other girl! UGH! Really!? In kindergarten!!!???? So, thanking him for his honestly (however much so) and openess, I decided that if he could write me a reason why he needed this ring back, I would give it back to him. And he assured me that his focus would become more on his academics than on the girls!


He wrote: "The Ring"- "It's special because Desiree gave me it. I got it from school." Nice! I am not sure who "Desiree" is but I'm wondering if she's soon to get her heart broken when Zachary decides to focus more on his academics. If this is kindergarten, I am frightened for what lies ahead!

Marathon

Today I ran my marathon- no not literally- but metaphorically. In cross country, the last little bit of the race, you sprint and give it your all before you collapse at the finish line and just about die! Well, Thursdays are my LONG days at school that start with an early (before school) meeting and teaching all day long as well as after school until 4:30pm. So, Thursdays are exhausting for me, not to mention on a day that I woke up at 4am wide awake and didn't feel really sleepy again until 5:30am when I wished for anything that I could just crawl back in bed for some slumber.

But, I made it through today and my was it busy! It seems like I'm constantly on the run and getting things done. I do set at my computer a LOT during my "non-student" times as I try to catch up on emails and also I do almost all my work on the computer to save paperwork and thinking (if it's done in Excel). I'll be so thankful for tomorrow to get here and over with and hopefully get some rest this weekend. It's been a great week back so far although the state testing stress is perhaps starting to set in, which I was hoping would hold off just a bit longer. So, I'm off to bed tonight. We had a busy and eventful night of reading (my how Zach's taken off this year) and making delicious sugar cookies. Yummy! :)

Here is a picture of Logan last weekend at my grandpa's house as he was winding down and playing alone rather than running throughout the house.

Multi-tasking

Ah! My boys and I are craving some warmer, fresh air! Zachary and Logan were LITERALLY bouncing all over today. I felt like a broken record, "feet stay on the floor!" Well, eventually, Zachary jumped off his antique school desk in his bedroom and missed his landing spot- his bed, and hit the side and the hard basement floor! I had to chuckle a tad of course after knowing that he wasn't seriously hurt. I told him that is why the doctor tells the monkeys not to jump on beds and things. And, they do have a mini-trampoline as well as a large jumping ball to use for things like that, but as my sister reminded me, I was a bed-jumper too, so I've got to bite my tongue sometimes! :) Kids will be kids after all.

It didn't help that I woke up with a migraine headache this morning. Still, I lasted for awhile and got some things done today, but didn't dare start any new projects that required any thinking. Tomorrow, I have a HUGE to-do list in town and pictures for Malachi that have been rescheduled yea many times now. I should just combine them and say they are his 9-10 month pictures, but I still have a terrible guilt trip for completely missing the 6 month pictures.

My boys found some outfits yesterday with ties that went with them and they just HAD to wear them! Since my brothers been living with us, Logan especially wants to be just like Uncle Brady! Ah! He has so much to aspire to be :) . So, they were very excited to wear ties (fake ones of course) to church yesterday. They looked a little out of place, but that's normal for my kids! :)

I got some WONDERFUL news today when I checked my grad student status and registration- I aced my final paper!!!! I was reading through all the comments that were made and wondered how I did, and at the end, I realized that I got ALL the 100+ points required. It was a HUGE weight for the entire course grade, so I'm very relieved to know that I did alright, considering how pressed I was to get it done on time. I'm wondering how much longer I can do grad school and also and wondering if I have the time and energy. We'll see what next semester brings.

With the rush of the season and the quadrillion things to get done, I've neglected quite a bit around the house and it's catching up with me. Today, Shawn and I finally had it out with our frustrations and while we hardly ever really fight, we do have our differences at times and it's what keeps us from being so ho-hum with our lives! Well, today I was a bit frustrated at Shawn's inability to multi-task, but I'm finding out that that's obviously NOT a guy thing. Hmmmm . . . . I've been with Shawn for about 8 years now and it's never really bugged me as much as it has the last couple days, so I'm not really sure what's going on besides the fact that we're just tired and overwhelmed a bit somedays.

(Malachi has a new onery look where he wrinkles up his nose and one eye!)

I multi-task CONSTANTLY! I have a task at the top of my mind what I need to accomplish and on the "road" to getting it accomplished, I get so much more done as well. So, when Shawn would come home after I'd been home with the boys all day and ask what I'd done, if I told him laundry, it used to make him wonder what I'd done. Well, in doing a simple chore of laundry, I would carry the clean clothes downstairs, put the clothes away, sorting through ones that needed to be pitched or passed on. I would also make sure while I was in the boys' bedrooms to tidy up and clean their floors, which would sometimes mean getting the vaccuum cleaner out and going. So, while I go to get the vaccuum cleaner, I would grab all the trashes from downstairs so as to not waste a trip upstairs empty handed. And, I'd take it out to the trash barrell, while grabbing some things in the garage on my way back in the house. Then, back to the vaccuum (if I hadn't been distracted at this point) and back down to the bedrooms to clean.

Asking Shawn to do the laundry would maybe require him to carry it downstairs, hang a few items up. Put it into piles and maybe it would get sorted and folded later. His trip upstairs would be empty handed as he'd go back for the trash later, if he thought of it or was asked.

While both approaches work well for us individually, I've been trying to show Shawn how much can be done if you can multi-task, but I'm about giving up! Something tells me it won't happen and that's alright. When I go start the car in the morning, I consolidate my trips to include carrying my teacher bag, diaper bag and kids stuff out, starting the van and running back into the house to finish getting ready. Shawn likes to make multiple trips! :) So, I've just learned to bite my tongue and let him do it his way because it's obviously been working and is the way he's comfortable doing it and he doesn't complain about how I do it, of course.

It's just the difference between us I guess, which is why I love him so very much! :) And interestingly enough, I can see Zachary's ability to do multiple things at once and Logan is more one-tracked minded. I wonder what Malachi will be like! :)

It's DONE!!!!

Today was a much needed break to really focus on finishing up my paper and guess what!!!? Yep- it's DONE!!! It's such a huge weight off my shoulders, although now I'm a tad nervouse about how well I did.

Zachary of course was feeling fine today. That's just how it goes, but thankfully he's not throwing up still. My stomach's gotten a bit weak to handle that anymore, even if I am a mom. Malachi is teething and cranky, so Motrin is kicking in which is making him his bouncy, cheery little self again. Shawn can't keep surprises from me for anything and gave me my Christmas present early- a new camera with more than twice as many megapixals than my current one AND it's compact so I can take it more places with me! As you can tell, I'm definitely NOT a great photographer, but that doesn't mean that I can't enjoy taking pictures of my kids.

Malachi got some toys from my cousins that we didn't get to see at Thanksgiving time. We couldn't be everywhere at once and had already decided we'd make the trip to western Kansas. So, I took a few pictures of him enjoying his new toys and wearing his KU attire since of course, KU did beat Mizzou that weekend! :)

Currently my older 2 boys and I are practicing our Christmas baking. We're making Chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips, sugar cookies to cut out and decorate, AND peanut butter cinnamon gingerbread cookies (hopefully not as terrible sounding as the combination sounds!). Zachary got out my cookbooks while he was home today and marked all the pages of the ones he really wanted to make. So, I made 2 recipes tonight that I'd made before (but needed to freshen up on) and then let my boys pick out 1 new recipe to try. Currently, they're rolled out and cooling in the fridge, so I'll post pictures tomorrow or sometime this weekend! :)





Malachi got a Raggedy Ann doll from his grandmother that she makes for all the grandkids. Nothing wrong with a boy having a doll, especially one made with such time and love!

Ah! A picture before church last Sunday. Don't let it fool you, they really were itching to tackle each other!

Bundled up like an eskimo (no offense Michaele) because it was SOOOOO cold last weekend in western KS.

Snow!

It was the first snow of the season!!! There's nothing quite like snow to get us in the mood for the Christmas season and sure enough, as we were loading the van on Friday morning, we started to see flurries. Much to the boy's excitement, the further west we drove the higher the snow on the ground was. When we got out in Hays, there was probably 1-2 inches on the ground and Logan was estatic about getting to actually use his Thomas boots, which he did indeed wear on our trip. And, since we were heading to western Kansas to celebrate Christmas with our family, even though it was Thanksgiving, it seemed very appropriate to have a little snow on the ground. Of course, it did dry out by the time we got going further west and was non-existent by the time we arrived at the grandparents. But, nevertheless, there was snow! We did see it and I did get a few pictures as we drove along the interstate (Shawn was driving).

We drove past a large wind farm (not the one my brother works at).

It was so hazy and foggy that we couldn't see the tops of them!
Today, it was snowing a bit as well, here in Riley as the boys headed off to Sunday School and church without me. I hated to miss yet another Sunday, but I have a HUGE paper to get done with finals this week and a full week of school ahead of me, so I was overwhelmed with things-to-do, not to mention getting my house in some sort of organized manner with more company. So, Shawn so sweetly offered to take the older boys to church while Malachi took his nap and I got some research done for my paper. Tonight, I'm 3 pages out of 10 done and still wondering what to write!!! I love writing and talking, but when it comes to research and citing sources in APA format, then I get a little stressed and unmotivated.

So, my blog tonight is short as I need to get onto my laptop that does NOT have internet connection here at home for the pure sake that I need to disconnect sometimes and really focus on work! I've got my MS Word documents transferred over and all the information I need is stored in files on my laptop, just waiting for me to decipher them and pick out the information that I'll use to fill the rest of my 7 pages or so! Those days of finals and cramming for tests are coming back to my memory and I'm not liking it a bit. We headed home from the holidays early yesterday in hopes that the 4+ hour drive in the van would be eventful in helping me get some work done. Well, after changing the boys into their pajamas, feeding one a bottle every now and then, and changing the DVD a few times, my thought process was just NOT quite where I needed it to be to get some good work done. So, I have spent most of today writing, researching, and getting a bit tired of some of the same information over and over again! :)

(Zachary quickly fell asleep on the way home, but Logan lasted all night long!)

I hope you all had a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving and the break that followed it and are enjoying this festive and wonderful holiday season that we're in as Christmas approaches.

One thing we did get done before our trip was to switch out our seasonal books- Thanksgiving books were replaced with winter and Christmas selections.
Thanksgiving books & November (election):

Winter/Snow:

Christian Christmas story:

Christmas Books: