Santa and I like cookies....as said by Luke at 4 yrs of age...

Ho-ho-ho, Merry Christmas! And imagine an excited 4 year old running around the house yelling this every few minutes. It was time to make Santa cookies to feed Santa on Christmas Eve night.

This is one of our favorite activities to do each Christmas. Luke is really now getting into the customs of our yearly rituals. He loved decorating Santa cookies this year. First he had to help roll out the dough with the girls. Then all of his cookies he cut out for Santa were "donut" cookies as he called them....he used a donut cutter instead of cookie cutters! The girls kept telling him to use the cookie cutters but that was the only one he wanted to use.


Once they were baked it was time to decorate! And decorate, and decorate! By the time we were done we had a huge mess at the table. Luke loved the green icing and sprinkles. I think all of his cookies were decorated with green icing.




Afterwards Luke kept running around the house yelling "SANTA AND "I" LIKE COOKIES" over and OVER again! He also said "I must eat cookies." It was fun.

This will be one Christmas we will NEVER forget....

An early graduation

I think I have blogged about my student that is ill already before. Her name is Shiann. She is dying of cancer of the spine. She entered my life this year after school started.

In the short time that I had her in class, she changed my life. She was only able to come to school for a couple of weeks. She has such a sweet spirit but is also very stubborn and hard headed at the same time! She was strongly independent as well. In the first week she was with me she lost full use of her left hand/arm. By the end of the second week she was loosing use of her right arm/hand. This broke my heart to watch. Her body weight as doubled as well, guess from the medicines they have her on.

Shiann's last wish was to come back to school. The school board honored her at their monthly board meeting. When the superintendent asked her what she wanted for Christmas she said she wanted a high school diploma.

The Saturday after we let out for break, the homebound teacher put together a surprise graduation party for her. She didn't know about it. She was so surprised! I'm not sure what they told her to get her there but she didn't know about it. Her face just lit up! One of the school board members told her what we were there for and the homebound teacher put a cap and gown on her...well around her wheel chair. She is completely paralyzed now. She can talk and eat but not much else.

I'm so honored to be a part of this. This student has touched my life in a way that I can't explain. I guess she has made me realize just how special life is and to cherish as much of it as I can. I came home and hugged my children and thanked God this special reminder.

Give the 4 year old the camera and this is what you get.....

We were leaving the Edward's house on Christmas day and Luke grabbed my camera for me. He said "I'll carry it for you mommy." Famous last words. I heard clicking in the backseat and told him to close up my camera. Mike said "all come on, he may be a famous photographer in the making." I will let you be the judge.










And there were many more!!! (these are in reverse order of how they were taken.

Awww Christmas break!!!!!! Hallelujah!!!!!

Woo-hoo!!! Christmas break!!! One of the perks of being in education is having 2 weeks off during the Christmas holidays. I read someones status update on facebook and she posted to all her teacher friends...not fair on how we get to have two weeks off. My answer to that is, I will trade places with you for a semester and then you tell me what is fair! I get two weeks to just love on my own children for a change, I get two weeks to just unwind (somewhat), I get two weeks to not have to stress over how a student is acting in my classroom, two weeks to not have to put up with smarta_ _ students, two weeks to not have to get up at the crack of dawn after staying up all night and trying to decide how I can make a difference in my classroom the next day....and on and on.

Awww, Christmas break! This years break started off with having an intense pain on my right kidney area. I thought maybe it was a kidney infection or maybe a stone. But after trying all the home remedies for kidney stuff I realized it was deeper than that. It was muscle or something else. This all started the Friday we were suppose to get out of school. I just woke up in great pain. I thought I was going to be sick from the pain. Constant, nonstop throbbing intense pain. I had to go to school, you can't call in sick on the last day of the semester no matter how much you want to!

By Monday morning I couldn't stand the pain any longer. Mike called and made me a Dr appt with the chiropractor. I haven't been to one since I was 18 years old! Fear set in, oh no this is really going to hurt. Turns out it was okay. He said my right hip is 1 1/2 inches lower than my left hip. Left hip was slightly rotated forward and my right leg was 2 inches shorter than my left leg. Turns out it has been this way for awhile. Falling from stairs 4 different times over the past year and half have taken its toll on my back. And apparently my sitting on a hard concrete surface the Thursday afternoon before all this started caused some type of muscle spasm that set this all off. So once I heard the verdict I thought for sure it was going to hurt to reset it.

I had to lay flat on the table and he started the process of resetting my hip. He said it will take 6 visits to get it all straightened out. Just had my 3rd visit this morning and I am starting to feel better. I hurt really bad the next day after the first visit and then less pain the next but still reminded me it was there.

Now 10 days later, I am feeling a whole lot better. The kids told me they are soooo ready for me to bend over again. It turns out they are tired of picking stuff up off the floor for their momma. Imagine that! I'm pretty tired of picking their stuff up off the floor myself. The Dr said he could give me a life long pass to never bend over to pick stuff up again! I really like that idea!