Blessed

The last few days I have felt so blessed. My life is far from perfect. I am occasionally an impatient mother, a preoccupied wife, and a demanding teacher. I think we all have days where we feel stretched thin. While our human nature tends to brings out the worst in us, knowing that, as a Christian, the Holy Spirit dwells within me, I am able to see with my heavenly eyes just how many blessing I have. I am blessed to have a career during this "Great Recession", blessed to have a husband who views me as a teammate in this adventure called parenting, and blessed to have a child who is physically healthy and innocently happy.

While our problems are never too small for God, and He longs to hear from us about all matters, be sure to approach His alter with a heart full of Thanksgiving. We all have so much to be grateful for!

Harbor is still playing and entertaining himself with the puzzles from the library. I'm so glad to have the library as a resource. I really prefer the wooden puzzles- they are nice and sturdy, but brands like "Melissa & Doug" can be really pricey. The library is a fun place to "test" them all out before we decide to make a permanent purchase.

This morning and tonight, currently, we are experiencing a bout of winter weather. While many schools cancelled today, we attended, but ran snow routes. I had smaller classes and was able to use my time wisely in working to intervene with some of our more difficult SLE's(student learning expectations.) David drove me to work and picked me up, which was a nice change. Today really ended up being a nice day, but I too daydreamed out the window a bit, trying to glimpse the pretty white stuff.

Before dinner tonight with my parents, Harbor expressed interest in the laptop. We occasionally let him watch educational clips and his favorite is to watch videos of himself. He will point at his chest and say, "Har, Har!" Tonight, he listened to the Itsby Bitsy Spider among other things. Oh, technology! When I was a kid, I had to wait weeks to even see pictures that my mom had taken of me. It was called film. It makes me feel a little old, but even my wedding pictures were taken with film. I got married before digital cameras were popular. Gosh. I'll be married a decade in just a few months. Harbor's experience of technology is going to be so different than mine.

Have a great week!

Beads, Books, and Babies

My cousin, Rachel, plays in the Arkansas Razorback Marching Band, and was selected to travel and play in New Orleans for our Sugar Bowl. Even though we lost, she made friends with members of the other band's team, had a great time on Bourbon Street with her friends, and even managed to bring Harbor William a neat collector's set of Razorback Mardi Gras beads. Thanks, Rach!

Harbor has a big Ziploc bag full of colored cars and lately he has been really into lining them up by color. He knows red, blue, green, and yellow and can name lots of items in the house by color. When we are driving, he even knows that green means, "Go, daddy!" We love to laugh at our silly little boy.

The last few days have passed so quickly, but I have managed to take my daily picture... or as you can see, daily pictures. I haven't felt great which hasn't helped, but I spent the day in bed resting yesterday and feel a bit better today. When you teach, you come in contact with so many sweet kiddos and their not so sweet germies. I had my hair appointment today and since I felt a bit more rested, we ended up going to the library to grab some books for Harbor.

We have snow in the forecast for Sunday and Monday and I know he will enjoy having new books around to entertain him. I also made a few much needed cards during his nap. So many of my friends are having babies! Baby cards are the best!

Here is a closer picture of my hair from my appointment. I considered cutting it all off- I am a huge fan of short hair and David prefers it shorter, but I have been growing it for so long that I didn't have the heart to cut it just yet. I rarely wear it down and straight, but you can see how long it is and the pretty golden highlights Lyndsey added. I'm SUCH a ponytail girl, but I am working on that. Ha, ha!

And, last but not least, here are the baby cards I hope to mail soon

Looking forward to the pretty white stuff (hopefully) starting to fall tomorrow!

Lists

Things I want to accomplish this weekend:

1. Use my manicure gift certificate and be in control of the massage chair for a good hour
2. Close my eyes under the hair dryer on Saturday at my hair appointment and not talk to anyone until drying time is complete
3. Use movie gift certificate Sunday for a date night and possibly see True Grit... or Narnia

Things I am dreading next week:

1. Speaking in front of my entire k-12 school district at a workshop over the writing interventions I have been using with struggling writers
2. Standing out on bus duty in below freezing weather for 30 minutes
3. Sticking to my "low carb" diet which includes a deck of cards sized serving of gorgeous pasta

Things I am looking forward to this weekend:

1. Playing "puzzles" with Harbor William
2. Visiting the local public library with Harbor and picking out books for the week
3. Lying in bed with David and watching House Hunters and each guessing which house they are going to buy  : )

I hope your lists for this weekend and upcoming week are shaping up nicely, too!

Stay warm!

Gigi, we tried!

I know this is a bit dark, but I wanted to show our family how fast Harbor is getting at putting real jigsaw puzzles together. Unfortunately, he had other plans. Ha! Please ignore my twang- I hate hearing myself on video.

Home Sweet Home

Puzzles and Lesson Plans

I head back to work tomorrow after a glorious two week vacation at home with my family. While I may too busy to blog for a few days, I certainly look forward to reading yours!

My 365 Project

I'm actually a little nervous to commit to this, but I am going to try my best to make and stick to a New Year's resolution. I'm not going to lose weight or clean more. I think this may be a bit easier. Maybe. Some folks have tried and love Becky Higgins's Project Life. I would love to order the entire kit, but I'm just not sure I have the time to commit to a project of that magnitude. Instead, I'm going to try to put a spin on the idea and do something that works for me.

I hope, starting today, to take a daily picture of a moment that I want to remember and journal one simple sentence to go with it. No kits, no cards, no books- at least not yet. I know I will have days that I get sick, Harbor gets sick, I am out of town, or just too busy to commit to a daily picture, but I'm going to do my best. I wish I would have done this our first year of marriage or the first year of Harbor's life, but alas, I didn't. At least I have this blog to look back upon. I'm sure someday soon I'll be glad I attempted to create a photo journal of this new year.

I'm sure I won't blog the pictures every day. Maybe I'll blog the week's worth at the end of each week. Or maybe I will just blog the highlights of the month. To be honest, I don't really have a hard, fast plan. Let's face it- I work a full time job, am married, and have a toddler on my heels. Life is busy.

Harbor will turn three this year.

David and I will be married a decade (10 years has passed fast!)

There are definitely moments I'd like to preserve.

Wish me luck!