A family of monsters

I got a flip n draw monster book in my stocking. Loads of fun! Each one of us made one...

Baking

One of my favorite things about Christmastime is that it's the perfect excuse to bake! This year I made cinnamon rolls (sooo good!), pumpkin bread, sandtarts, malted milk chocolate chip cookies, Texas ranger cookies, cinnamon hard candy, peanut butter dippers, cinnamon sugar pretzels, and heavenly fudge! Whew! All in one day! Well except the cinnamon rolls. But everything else, all in one big baking spree. Then I packaged it all up and delivered to neighbors. I hope my little sampler was enjoyed! But, regardless, I just loved spending the whole day in the kitchen, dancing along to my Frank Sinatra holiday pandora station.

Have I mentioned my love of Christmas?

Knitting

For whatever reason, I've been dying to learn how to knit. So now that it's Christmas break and I have the time, I learned! I unwisely chose a scarf for my first project and it's taking forever!!! Knitting five feet worth of rows is insane. So I took a break in the middle and made that little coin purse. And I ordered a book on how to make baby beanies! Can't wait to try one out! I want to learn how to make a knit bracelet...
I love Christmas break with all my heart.

More instagram Christmas

Elf on the shelf fun

The first of (hopefully) many Christmas instagram posts

Family Pictures, 2011. Now with words and stuff.

Last night I started to post these pictures and then got slammed with a rather intense wave of sleepiness so I thought I deleted the post to try again today. I was clearly wrong because the pictures were here all day. Anyway, here are family pictures! Crystal and I dressed up both our families in their best garb and headed out on a particularly windy cold day. Despite some technical difficulties on my part and struggling to find the perfect light, we got some great ones!

I love this one. :)

a weekend of instagrams

 Last weekend I went home. Home. Just the sound of that word calms my soul. It was such a wonderful weekend. Relaxing, easy, fun, simple. I have a rather serious addiction to Instagram and thought I'd share the weekend through the camera on my iPhone.

The drive from San Angelo to Marble Falls goes from flat cottonfields and farmland to rolling hills and sparkling lakes. Every time I make this drive I fall a little bit more in love with Texas.

Love the leg sticking out over the edge of his carseat.

We were greeted with hugs and smiles and mom's blue ribbon winning white bread.

Mom also made her cornbread the next night. It was the side for Nona's Sausage soup. My cornbread never tastes as good as mom's. I use the exact same recipe! What's that about?

Playing Chinese Checkers is a must when I go home. Mason's getting really good, but as you can tell from their forlorn expressions, even teaming up against me is futile. I am undefeated.

Mason made an origami Yoda. He's reading a new book about an Origami Yoda.

Amber brought these little pieces of heaven over. Sweet Potatote cupcakes with browned marshmallow frosting. Um, I ate like, nine of them.

Lucy. She poses well.

On Sunday, we went on an "abenture" as Grant called it. We drove to this very dried up portion of the Colorado River. There was a beautiful hill overlooking the river/creek bed that was shaded by towering pecan trees. We walked down to the water and collected rocks, waded in the water, and soaked in the perfect fall day. It was so completely...peaceful there. I know it was just a day splashing in a creekbed, but it was perfect. I am so thankful for that day. It was...everything I've been needing these last few months.

We stopped at Inman's BBQ on our way out of town so we would have a picnic lunch. I cannot adequately express my love for this place.

There's just something about little boys with their jeans rolled up.

We rock collected. I have such a strange fascination with rocks.

Skippin' rocks.

When Grant saw the river bed, he said, "Look mom! It's a desert!" Texas sure needs some rain...

And then eventually...we had to leave. And while they're all smiles here, Grant said it best when, as we were driving down the last corner of Mom and Don's little neighborhood, he says, "I neber like leaving." 

 I love going home. More than I could ever ever express....

Thankful thought 3

I'm so very thankful for these two sweet cuddly boys.
Especially when they're clean and wearing matching robes. :)

Thankful thought 2

I'm thankful for fall. The howling winds that usher in that oh so wonderful chill in the air. The soups and stews, scarves and boots, coffee and cocoa...I'm so thankful for the magic of changing seasons!

Sent from my iPhone

Thankful Thought #1

I sat in front of the huge pile of dirty clothes. It was Sunday. Laundry day. Ugh. And thanks to the cooling temperatures, which I love, the dirty clothes are now bigger and thicker. The pile grows. And I felt it. I felt the grumbling, ugh, I don't wanna feelings rise up in me.
And then I thought about how...
at least I have a working washer and dryer.
a very large laundry room with room for sorting baskets and hanging racks for my clothes.
I have tiny little jeans and giant 3rd grader jeans to wash. I have shirts that say "DUDE!" and have Lightning Mcqueen on them. I have the cutest little underwears in the world in my laundry. Some people would do anything to have those kinds of things to wash.
I have work clothes to wash because I have a job.
I have my husband's work clothes to wash because he has a job.
I have laundry because I am incredibly incredibly blessed.
So, today, I am thankful for the laundry.

I'm also incredibly thankful for the fact that Mason can put away his own laundry. At least his clothes actually get put away every week. 
Now, I must go get dressed for work.
In the laundry room.

teaching.

Here lately I keep asking myself why I chose teaching. 
In fact, today,  while sitting in a workshop, I remembered the precise moment I bent over a table at my highschool's college days and remarked to a professor visiting from a little school named Angelo State University, "I think I'd like to be a teacher."

And I thought about what sparked that decision.
I loved learning. I loved all subjects. History, writing, reading, even math and science. I liked kids, too. I loved art projects too. And elementary kids do art projects. I liked the idea of it all. A little bit of everything all smushed into one great job. And it would be a good Mom job.

And now I am in the first semester of my 6th year as a teacher in the great state of Texas.

The truth is I do really love my job. I do.
I love the beauty of the school day.
The rhythm and flow of it.
The bell ringing, the routines, the predictabilities.
I love those children that smile up at me. And all their quirky little personalities. Teaching them how fun writing really is.
I love how, while our schedules and routines are so predictable, the kids always bring something new to every day. Every day, every moment is different.


What makes me sad is that this year I feel very overwhelmed by it all. And I can't shake it.
Of course, every year I feel overwhelmed. In truth, if you're a teacher and you don't feel overwhelmed then I don't think you care enough. Because it's very important what we do. It should wear you out. It should make you cry every once in a while. It should be hard. Because that's how important it is.


But what's different this year is I feel overwhelmed by a feeling that nothing I'm doing is good enough. I feel completely lost as a teacher. It's bizarre really. I doubt myself more this year than I think I did my very first year. And I can assure you, I doubted every move I made that year.


Our district is expecting so much right now. More rigor. More assessments. More depth. More higher level thinking. But do it with less. Less support. Less money. Less time. 

I don't know.

I'm just lost. I don't know what's good enough anymore. I used to think I knew. Now, I have no idea. I feel like I'm just working harder but it's not any more effective.
I feel like I don't really know my kids because I'm scared to just take a moment and enjoy them.
I'm exhausted and it's just October.
I don't like how I feel when I'm at work these days.
I feel completely...insufficient.
And, what bothers me about that, is that I am not insufficient.
I am a good teacher. I am a great teacher even.
I get the job done.And well.
I shouldn't feel this way.

Something has to change. It just has to.
Because working this hard and still feeling this insufficient is a terrible way to live.

I'm not going to hate my job. I'm just not. I refuse.
Life is too short not to passionately love what you do.
I refuse to fall out of love with teaching.
I refuse.

Tomorrow, it changes.
Tomorrow, I am good enough.
Tomorrow, I will remember why I became a teacher.
Them. The kids.
They are the reason.

And everything else just doesn't matter.

Perfect Saturday

It's raining.
I'm eating taco soup.
We're watching movies.
Life just doesn't get much better, my friends.

Mr. Four Years Old

I love him like crazy, this four year old boy.

Tonight he was sad because his older brother went to spend the night with a friend. With a whimper in his voice, and tears welling in his eyes, he said to me, "I don't want Bubba to go. I don't have any people." I then asked him, even though I was pretty sure I knew, what he meant. "I don't have any people for to play with." Broke this momma's heart! See, at age 4 Mason didn't have friends over either. But he didn't know any better. Grant, for two years now, has watched his Bubba play with his friends and he knows! He knows friends are the coolest things ever. He wants friends to come over too! But tonight I was his friend and he wanted to "go take pitchers at a cool place." And that's what we did.

I adore his expressions. They melt me.

Be still my heart.

Oh, my stars. His little naked shoulders slay me. I adore those little naked shoulders more than I thought a person could love a thing. I love them second only to his very cute tushy in Lightning McQueen undies. I'm just being honest.  If it were up to me, he'd run around in underwear all day so I could just soak up his cuteness. He's four. And I'm not a big fan of that, folks. I just...oh, my stars. I adore this 4 year old little boy of mine.

***One should note that I adore with equal passion my eldest who is not shown in this post. That is because he still hates cameras and finds it impossible to pause for one moment to allow me to capture his beautiful face and his perfect blue eyes. Mason's shoulders still slay me but in a completely different way now. His shoulders are far less babyish and far too boyish. They have little muscles. They're 3rd grade boy shoulders. 3rd grade... He's huge now. I will just have to drag him to a random field and force him to remove his shirt as well. Their shoulders are just too precious. Oh, how I love them...those boys and their shoulders.