Family Photo Day

This is a post just of pictures...this is what I know all of you do anyways. Just look at the pictures and not read what I write...

Christmas Spirit Begins...

I have been so bad this past week at blogging. Apparently my life has been more fun than usual. : ) Tuesday morning I went and presenting my I-folio and am now FINISHED! WHOOP! I am so excited to be done with that! I came home and made Pip a haircut appointment then went to Chic-fil-a to celebrate being done. After eating I took a short two hour nap : ) while Pip went to the groomers. I went and picked him up and watched TV and relaxed for the majority of the day. It was great, yet boring. I picked up Nola for Brenna and off to Kingwood we went. Wednesday was full of getting ready for Thanksgiving. Mom and I went to the grocery store and then got cooking. Roy and Jessica arrived and Jessica got cooking with us. Mom made homemade lasagna for dinner it was amazing- best I've ever had. Paula Dean sure does know her stuff.

Thanksgiving was good. I got up and went with Lissa and Emily up to the high school to walk around the new school and to see lissas boyfriend shoot some hoops (it was much more crowded than we thought, all with old men) so we only stopped by the basketball court for a second before continuing on our adventure around the new school. The year after I graduated they basically tore apart the high school and have been remodeling ever since. It is still not complete. It was so weird looking at everything and being like that was where my locker was...oh it a hallway now...or that was the training room...oh its a dance studio now. Its totally different yet I can still see it as if it was yesterday. I cant believe I'm done with college, i feel like i just walked the halls of kingwood high school now I am going to be a teacher! CRAZY how time flies!! We came home from that and showered and got ready for lunch. We ate lunch around 2ish and were done in time for the boys to watch the Cowboys kick off. Mom and I watched Miracle on 34th Street in the other room : ) Around 4ish I left and went to visit with the Parkers, the whole clan followed me shortly. We sat around and chatted. It was odd not to have thanksgiving with them this year. We always have it together. : ( Justin got here about 10 minutes after we got home from the Parkers. I have gotten so used to seeing him every day now it was odd not to see him for one day! We all sat around for the rest of the night, ate and watched the Aggies get cremated!! (Dad rewound the TV and put it in slow motion so we could point out Kason to him). We all headed to bed as soon as the game was over. It had been a long day and you know how Thanksgiving knocks you out!

Today we got up and had pancakes and bacon! It was yummy, followed by a brisk walk to the lakes and back. We all needed one after yesterday and then this mornings breakfast. After our walk Roy and Justin tried to move the desk out of my bedroom so I could put my desk from school in my room but it was assembled in this room, therefore it doesn't fit through the door and if we took it apart it would be a disaster so I agreed to let it stay in my room. However it does take up twice the amount of room my desk from school takes up but that is okay. This is a "temporary living arrangement" is what I keep getting told. After that Justin, Roy and I went and met Elissa her boyfriend and his cousins at Hins (the best Chinese in Kingwood) for lunch. After lunch Justin and I finally unloaded my car even though it still has no place to go. I don't know how mom has accumulated so much crap and how it all landed in my room and closet. (I guess half of it is mine) We sat around for a little while and watched the Arkansas vs. LSU game while Jess and Dad put together the Christmas tree. It is a family tradition that on Thanksgiving we go see whatever animated movie is out at the time so this year we decided on "BOLT" It was actually a ADORABLE movie. I cried a number of times but I just kept thinking about how I would be crushed if I ever lost Pip (I know lame, but he is my baby). We came home and ate dinner and Dad Justin and I watched The Lord of the Rings while Roy and Jessica watched Elf in the other room (we have a hard time agreeing on TV shows if you couldn't tell). Around 9ish we started decorating the tree. I'll let the pictures explain the rest. It was quite the ordeal to get these boys in Santa hats and we had to take pictures quickly because it wasn't going to last!!

My Santa and his girl : )

Me decorating the tree

Justin and Dad (Justin had to be forced to hang some)

Jessica, Dad and I decorating the tree

The three who choose to watch instead of participate

Justin, me, Jessica & Roy all with our Christmas spirit

Santa and his Reindeer : )Mommy Reindeer and Baby Reindeer (Isnt his costume adorable!? Dollar spot at Target!)

BIG NEWS

Only have a minute...will update later tonight...

1. I AM FINISHED WITH MY PLACEMENT! I cried of happiness on the way home!

2. I AM A GREENTREE GATOR! I got my student teaching placement. I am in 3rd grade with Ms. Parker! so excited! Brenna is at the same school and she is in 4th grade!!


I will update more later!

Bittersweet

This morning was an early morning...Sabrina ended up spending the night last night and we worked on our I-Folios until the wee morning hours. We finally went to sleep only to wake up at 9 (after waking up at 5am and 8am- once for Pip to pee, the other for him to throw up). Sabrina left to go get us all donuts and shortly after Morgan & Brenna arrived. We got to work and by 2 we needed a break. Apparently we weren't the only ones worn out...

Once we all piled into the car we headed to Schloztkys (yeah I know, I cant spell) for lunch where we took a short break and enjoyed a good meal. Once we got on campus around 3 we stayed there until the lab closed...6:30!! As you can see, neither me nor Sabrina were very happy about this. We both had worked so hard all day and were so excited because we were just going to upload everything and be done. However, when we got into the lab and started going over everything with the guy who worked there- turns out we had done it wrong. All 4 hours of my work this morning and 3 hours last night- WRONG--- I was soo annoyed. Thankfully it wasn't impossible to fix and I was able to fix it in only 2.5 hours...not too bad right!?
Once we finished, I came home to find my prince charming falling behind us. : ) We came inside and I put chicken in the oven, put the potatoes on the stove and the corn in the pot. Last week Justin and I ate out every meal!! I was gonna gain 15 pounds like that and Justin was going to go broke- so since I am moving soon I decided we needed to start cleaning out my freezer and cabinets. So, Saturday night we made tacos and chocolate covered strawberries and pretzels! They were sooo good. However, the tacos didn't seem as fun to take a picture of : ) Justin was even in on the cooking...I made the strawberries and pretzels while he did the meat for the tacos! We make such a good team! Tonight however no dessert and after dinner we did the dishes and Justin left to shower and go to bed. He has to be at work at 3:45am again tomorrow so I don't mind him leaving...I know he has got to get some sleep and get his job done!After Justin left, I got in the shower and of course to no surprise Pip got into mischief while I was in the shower. My boa was on the floor and Pip decided he wanted to play or as I like to call it "make a giant mess" all over the room!! After I picked every piece of feather off the ground, I put it on the black chair, thinking stupidly he wouldn't go get it. HMPH- not 2 minutes after I put the boa in the chair he had it in his mouth and was toting it around triumphaly, proceeding to rip feathers and place them all over the room! Gotta love the little rat...Tomorrow is my 2nd to last day at school. Wednesday is my last day! It seems like just yesterday I had my first day and came home crying! How time flies...at the end of this week I will be done with my placement, my I-Folio, and my 2 final exams (Thursday)! I will be done with College in just one short week. SCARY!! I have to present my I-Folio next Tuesday and then we have to come to class December 2nd just because it is a "University Day" but we aren't doing anything.....CRAZY!!

I cant believe it has really come to an end...it is so bittersweet...

Busy Bee

Today I have been super busy. I have packed and finshed my resume! I am super excited to have begun packing and to be done with my resume. I have been worried about starting this yet Sabrina and I knocked it out in a few hours.

This is what my room looks like. I decided to start packing so I could take some stuff home over Thanksgiving that way I will have less to move in December. However, I packed for at least two hours and have barely made a dent in anything. I packed up my t-shirts, tank tops and jeans and only kept enough for me to wear. I also packed up a bunch of random stuff and have a giant trash pile but the trash can is full and doesnt come till Wednesday!!

Pip however is still in his cone. Only one more day of pain medicine and 4 more days in the cone. : ) Cant you just tell how much he loves it? However, now he goes outside, does his business and is ready to come back in! I love it! No more marking everything!!

I am excited about tomorrow morning. Mondays are something I look forward to because I always get alot done- well tomorrow should be great. Brenna, Sabrina, Morgan and I are meeting at my house at 10am to work on our I-Folio (website for last major presentation). Sabrina is bringing donuts and I am super excited. We all know how long I LOVE donuts!

There is a Reason

I found this randomly on a womens blog who lost her baby 364 days after he was born. This is an amazing video and an even better song. Enjoy!

Service Project

Today was the day. For Methods we have to do a service project for our school which we are placed. Most people had 4 or 5 people at each school. Most of their projects consisted of stuffing packets, going to open house, etc. (I do that on a regular basis). At my school there is just one other girl who is in Kindergarten. We talked it over with Ms. Paney and decided we would beautify the school in some way. We had originally tried to re-do the "Discovery Hub." I went and bought a tree yesterday to plant in it. My plan was to plant the tree, clean out the fossil garden, till up the grass and get it ready to plant a garden then present the school with a basket of seeds and kid tools. However, this morning when we went to check out what we needed to go and buy we discovered that the area was much to large and hadn't been kept up in quite some time. The fossil garden was more like a weed garden and the area was going to take much more than a tree, and 3 girls working to make it look better, more like 1000's of dollars we don't have. So we walked around the front and saw the CROCKETT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL sign and it has a planter with no flowers in it. So we decided that is what we would do instead. The following is how our day went...

This is what the Discovery Hub looks like.This is what the fossil garden consisited of....(not to mention the rusty edges arent very safe)This is what we found instead. This is a before picture. As you can see it has a flower bed yet nothing was in it. So off to Walmart we went. We decided we would get flowers that could last during the winter but still would add color. Below is Kristen and Colleen. (Colleen was nice enough to come and help us even though she isnt in our class or anything. She is such a good friend. I am lucky to have her)

Then we came back to the school and got busy. The following are pictures of us hard at work. And finally our finished product. We think it turned out very nice. After we were done we started playing with our cameras (Kristen just got a new one so we played with our setting on flowers) I got some good ones of the flowers and an amazing few of Colleens wedding rings in the flowers...so pretty. We started early and were done by noon. It feels so great to be able to say we are finished with that. One more thing to knock off my list of things I need to get done.

Today when I got home, I finished up my laundry. Since I got up so early and actually got busy I am now in the mood to start packing. I am actually excited to be moving home. I cant wait to move. I love moving! I know Im crazy. But I love packing everything up and then unpacking it all and getting it all organized and ready for me to live in. I am also excited about having a big closet again and a dresser and a HUGE bathroom. Not to mention the whole upstairs (2 more bedrooms and another bathroom) all to myself. It isnt an apartment but I am still excited.

"The Black House"

Life according to my fourth grade boys- the following conversation took place during lunch today-

"the president doesnt live in the white house anymore."

"really? where does he live now?"

"the black house"

I tried to exaplain to them that the house is painted white and that is a WHITE HOUSE. That it doesnt matter what color the president is but the color of the house is the reason why it is called that. My response is as follows:

"No, no no Miss Hardddyy...Obama is our President he is black. it is a black house now miss hardy, a black house!!!"

And that is life according to the 4th grade class in Bryan ISD.

Election...

So I realize this is Howard Stern but listen...WOW is all I have to say. My father has instilled in me his passion for politics when our cage is rattled. My stomach is sick to my stomach. Not because he is black but because of everything he stands for, everything he has done that is shady...everything. I am just worried and praying hard for our country. But watch this video:

Halloween

This was my last Halloween as a college student so I actually wanted to do something since I never have. We decided we would go to North Gate. Here are some pictures to re-cap the night.

Lets try that again Justin....much better

Slice and Me (Cat & GI Jane)

Me doing the classic "lauren dance"

We had a MEETING (Martha, Elanie, Elizabeth, Trice)Jordan, Me, and Megan (Devil, GIJane, & a Pirate)Overall, it was a really fun night. A good time was had by all.