christmas in chicago

As you all know, my sister has a kid now which makes traveling more interesting. Because they had just come down for Thanksgiving, and had an amazing time, we thought we would spare them from traveling back to Texas, so we went to them. I was so excited about snow on Christmas just like last year, but sadly the weather was just cold with no snow. It was a great trip! Lots of food, and family time. It couldn't have been better!

Let's start with the sleeping arrangements. Before Miles, his room was the guest room, and their office could be turned into another guest room if needed. That's what we did last Christmas. Well, Miles is here and things have changed. There is one less guest room, so I got the air mattress in the closet. That first night was awful because it was freezing, uncomfortable, and kind of scary. It didn't help that Rebecca and Michael were telling me Santa was going to chop my head off and centipedes were going to crawl all over my body. After that first night I got a total of 4 blankets, and a heating pad. It was much nicer in the closet after that.

Yes, that is my picture on his toy. It's my school picture from this year, and apparently one of Miles' favorite new toys. I think when I first got there he was a little confused because he hit my face a few times like he does to the picture.

Lions fan already!

We started our usual photo shoot. He wasn't having it and I realized why during this picture. I heard a huge fart, and then a blowout happened.

Bath time because of the blowout. I think Miles needs a haircut.

Party hair.

9 to 5 hair.

Miles' first Christmas! I know he doesn't get it, but we were all super excited for him!

Miles trying pickled okra like his mom. He hated it, but started laughing because we were laughing at his faces.

Amazing dinner once again made by Rebecca.

The best present I got for Miles (In my opinion at least. His favorite were the caterpillar drumsticks above. But come one, a coonskin cap? Amazing.)

I had built an awesome tower using almost all of the blocks earlier in the day, so we had a competition to see who could use the most before it fell over. Dad did a respectable job.

However, I am a master builder. They shouldn't have messed with me. Rebecca was mad I was able to use all the blocks though because that meant that the game was over. Sorry. I'm just too awesome.

Photo shoot #2.

He was going through my bag while I got my charger and found this hat. Of course I put it on him. He looks so guilty in this picture!

While we were there he even took his first steps! Living so far away I never thought I'd actually get to see one of his firsts. But I did, yay!


Here are a few other fun videos I took while I was there. Enjoy!




I hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas!

tacky christmas sweater party

Katie and her boyfriend Derrick had a tacky Christmas sweater party at their place last night. I was on a search for an awesome sweater the past few weeks. I tried several Goodwills, other thrift stores, and finally found something at Walmart. I even got these fabulous jingle bell earrings. The earrings helped make the outfit, but the jingling drove me a little crazy. 

The party was a lot of fun! Lots of cool school peeps were there, and so much amazing food! I didn't get to eat it, but it looked awesome. I would have pigged out if I could have! I did try to make some champagne jello shots, classy I know, but one kind I made didn't taste good and the other kind didn't make enough to even bother bringing them. They weren't that great anyway. Oh well. I tried. 

some of the girls

twins!

the awesome hostess, Katie

the awesome host, Derrick

Merry Tacky Christmas!

merry christmas...suckers

I don't think I have ever posted a video I saw on my blog, and I think this is the best way to start. Let me just say, I can't wait until I have kids old enough to do this to them! Or, I can't wait until my friends kids, and nephew, are old enough to do this! I didn't know how to embed it, so go to this link for an awesome video.

I love the kid who got a hot dog, and the sandwich girl. Ok, I need to go watch it again. Enjoy!

lights of love

2 Friday nights ago I ran in the Lights of Love 5k with two friends from school, Katie and Chloe. It had been raining all day and it had luckily stopped an hour or two before the run. I was super excited because we were going to be running around a neighborhood with all of their Christmas lights out. I love running in the dark, and looking at Christmas lights while I run is even better! I even put a Christmas playlist on my iPod to get me into the mood. 

Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas" was the first song on my playlist which totally pumped me up! It was a great run, but I was bummed at the people living in the neighborhood. There weren't many lights out, so the run was a little more boring that I had expected. But it was still a great run for 2 reasons. The first is that I ran my fastest 5k to date! Not only did I run it in 30:24, but I ran my first mile in 8:46. 8:46! I have never run that fast in my life! The second reason why the race was great was there was a Jingle Beer stand and several very jolly men were passing out beer on their lawn. Of course I couldn't say no to these jolly men, so I stopped to grab a drink before finishing the race. This is probably the last race I will run until my half  marathon at the end of January, and it was a great one to end on.

Katie is in front in purple, and Chloe next to me in black.

Woo hoo! (The time is slower than mine because I didn't get out right at 0)

i'm a good teacher, i swear

I started reading centers this week, and in one of the centers they have a book they read together. Before they start reading I have them explore the book, and ask questions they may have. These questions are usually something like, "Who is the main character? Where does the story take place?" Well...I got 2 questions that made me laugh out loud, and then wonder if I needed to throw their sheet away or send it home and hope their parents don't question the book choice. Before you see their questions, let me say they are reading different books, and they are both great kid books.

Question 5

 Question 4

I'm just helping my students to become more well rounded and learn about life. 

oh christmas tree

I have a tree skirt that does its purpose. It's red, felt, and ugly. Of course that meant I needed to look on Pinterest to find a craft I could do that would make this ugly tree skirt amazing. I found it and immediately got to work. Jo-Ann's had an amazing sale going on over Thanksgiving weekend so I got this cute red and white snowflake fabric for only $10 for 4 yards. (I used almost all of those 4 yards for those of you that will be copying....I mean for those of you that will be inspired by me.)

I cut the fabric into long strips, about 3 inches wide, until I had a big pile. It only took me about an hour, and that was with me stopping periodically to watch tv. After that I spread out my skirt and got all of my supplies ready to glue and ruffle the fabric.

Stupid hot glue gun glue dries quickly so for the first few strips I had to put only a little glue, ruffle, more glue, ruffle, you get the idea. I was video chatting with Rebecca and Miles during most of the gluing and she was very supportive. "So how long did the first circle take? Man this is going to take a long time. It's looking fluffy."

In the end it took me about 3 hours to do the entire skirt. The first few rows I was starting to get nervous that I would hate it. But it is AWESOME!! My fingers were covered in hot glue gun glue, a little burnt, and the floor was a mess with stringy glue stuff. When I picked it up to put around my Christmas tree it was glued to the ground! Luckily I was able to pull it off and nothing got messed up.

On a side note, as I was decorating my tree I pulled out a cat ornament my mom gave me in 2007. She even wrote Luna's name on the side so no one would forget who that cat was supposed to be. She even has wings and a halo. I think my mom is psychic and knew she would ran away/get lost/get killed by some wild Greenbelt animal. RIP Luna.

Merry Christmas y'all!