Candlelight dinner

Christmas is my favorite time of year for many reasons, but one of the predominant reasons is because it's the one time of year where women can wear fancy party dresses and eat as much desserts as they want without the nagging little voice in their head saying, "drop the cookie and look at your fat thighs in the mirror." Desserts are a widely accepted and embraced part of Christmas and instead of looking at a creme brulee thinking, "wow, that's a whole bowl of fat and calories," I can look at it and think, "what a beautiful raspberry and mint leaf adorning the top."

Sam and I had a beautiful and delicious evening at the Franklin Park Conservatory, dining on fabulous dinner and dessert fares while surrounded by lush, tropical plants in the Palm House, romantically lit by candles on the tables and faint Chinese lanterns hung from the ceiling. I knew it was going to be spectacular when I first saw the dramatic tree branches and Christmas lights adorning the walkway to the Palm House. We ate dinner, listened to a live concert going on in the main lobby, and walked around admiring the numerous gingerbread creations on display. Fabulous evening with my fiance :)

A girl, a sewing machine, and a dream

The curtain rod is bending in the middle making the curtains look uneven,

but really they are straight...I used a measuring tape :)

Santa brought me a new toy this year! My very first sewing machine to go in my craft room on my enormously-wonderful craft table :) While at first glance the machine looks complicated, it is actually so much easier to use than the old machines that you have to turn knobs ~ this one has a picture display of all 96 stitches, so all you do is punch in the number of the stitch you want to use and the machine automatically sets the tension, width, and length. I can always adjust them if I want, but for a beginner like me, it is so helpful not to have to worry about all that. I can simply step on the presser foot and away I go creating masterpieces! My first endeavor was a simple curtain for my craft room. It took me about 2-3 hours but there are a lot of things I learned I could simplify for next time I make curtains, but I think they turned out great and I even lined them so it would look nice from the street view. Mom will be so proud!

Next up on my list of projects....quilting!

Where to begin...

I opened this post so many times to write and then was stumped with what to put. The last time I posted was the day we closed on our house, so I guess I'll start there and give you an update as to life since that day.

Well, after we got the keys, Sam moved in a week later and is now living in our beautiful house while I waste away in my tiny apartment! Ha! May 5th will come soon, I know :) We decorated a little for Christmas but decided to wait for all the after-Christmas sales to buy lights and decor and stuff like that so we can really decorate next year for our first Christmas being married. I have always decorated a small tree for my bedroom - about 5 ft. tall - which looks huge in an apartment but now that it's in our family room, we took one look at it and laughed and decided next year we definitely need a bigger tree! Sam and I both had real trees growing up (my family went to artificial the past 15 years or so after my brothers became allergic to real ones) so I always thought when I had a house I would have a real tree, but actually Sam and I decided we like artificial better ~ we can put it up right after Thanksgiving, not worry about watering it and needles dropping, and the branches are stronger for holding ornaments.

I'm excited over Christmas break to do some painting in our house. The colors are already very neutral and lovely, but I want to do something to make it our own, so I think we are going to paint the upstairs hall bathroom and Sam's office. The office has beautiful French doors and a bay window, so a little color in there will make those features really pop. We patched nail holes in most of the rooms so we also need to do some touch up painting. Thankfully the previous owners left all the paint cans in the basement so we can match colors!

In other news, Sam got his wisdom teeth out a couple weeks ago and did great! I on the other hand passed out in the recovery room. Some support person I was! The nurse had to call my mom to come pick both of us up. Ha! I'm praying for no more surgeries for Sam in the future, otherwise I guess he will need someone other than his wife to accompany him :) I did great with the after care portion - fixing him soft foods to eat and giving him pain medication and ice on schedule, but perhaps the sight of bloody gauze hanging from his mouth after surgery was a bit much for me.

The kids at school have been sooooooo excited for Christmas. They were all convinced that as soon as we turned our classroom calendar to December it was Christmas. They didn't understand that even though Christmas is in December, you still have to wait 25 days for it. Halloween, Thanksgiving ~ no problem grasping that concept of a holiday being in the middle of the month, but Christmas was another story. When Santa didn't come December 1st, I think they knew I was telling the truth about waiting 25 days! Since I don't teach at a public school or parochial school (we are private) we are not suppose to talk at all about Christmas - no mention of religious aspects or secular ones ~ but my kids are so little that of course they want to talk about Santa. We had a "winter party" at school and I had the darndest time finding a song for them to sing that they already knew but didn't mention anything about Christmas! We finally settled on Jingle Bells and they did a great job singing. Since today is the last day of school before break, I decided to buck the system and read them the Little Drummer Boy story, which talks about a baby king being born in a manger but doesn't actually say the word Jesus :)

And that is what's been happening the past few weeks! Merry Christmas to everyone and remember to leave "Christ" in "Christmas!"

SOLD!

We are homeowners!! Unbelievable! Sam and I closed on our gorgeous house yesterday at 4pm, and promptly celebrated with a pizza party in our new kitchen :) It's so surreal to go from growing up in my parents' beautiful homes, then living in a college dorm/apartment, then my first solo apartment, then back to my parents' home, then to a basement with bugs in DC, then to an apartment with bars on the window, then to a nice but small apartment back here, and now to a big, beautiful home where I can unpack for a very long time. God has blessed me beyond anything I could have imagined.

Gobble Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! It was a delicious meal on Thursday with my family, a scrumptious brunch on Friday with Sam's mom, a fun time at BINGO on Friday night, and now off to another yummy meal at Sam's dad's house. Wow! Just call me a turkey cause I'm feeling stuffed! I thought about making this post into a list of things I am thankful for, but then I realized it would extend waaaaay too long because I have so many blessings in my life. So, to keep it short, I'm thankful for my incredible family and this year, I am especially thankful for my fiance ~ the thought of spending the rest of my life with Sam by my side gives a whole new level of thankfulness to Thanksgiving.

Hope everyone had a wonderful day on Thursday and that we remember to give thanks to God every day of the year for our blessings, not just on turkey day :)

Just another day

It's amazing what a 6 year old can do to a classroom all because I asked him to write the number "3" in math class. He said he was finished working for the day; I said not quite; he threw his pencil on the floor; I said pick it up; he overturned 6 desks, 6 chairs, threw a bin of Legos, snapped a pencil in half then threw it at me, erased my dry erase board with work on it, broke the metal window blinds, dumped out the bins of crayons and markers, shoved a desk into the hallway, peeled drywall off the wall, and threw a large toy airplane at my head. This was with 30 minutes until the end of the school day. I stood in the doorway of the room ignoring his fit until it subsided, then told him he could not go home until everything was returned to its place and his math work was complete. 1 hour later, he picked everything up, sat down and wrote the number 3, and I let him go home to his dad patiently waiting in the school parking lot. The beautiful thing about autistic kids is that he gave me a hug before leaving, told me I was the best teacher, and I told him I was looking forward to seeing him tomorrow...and I meant it :)

Kids say the darndest things!

It's days like today that 1) I LOVE my job, and 2) I wish I had a continual tape recorder in my classroom. The first subject of the day is reading and today one of our new words was "name." I demonstrated how to use the word name in a sentence ("My name is _") and then had each of the kids say their name in a complete sentence. After we did this little exercise, one of the kids asked what my last name is. So, I told them and then reminded the class that my last name would be changing when I get married. These are the questions that resulted from me saying that:

Student A - "Are you marrying your daddy?"
Student B - "She can't marry her daddy. Who would pack her lunch?"
Student A - "But daddies are nice."
Me - "No I'm not marrying my daddy. I'm marrying Mr. Sam."
Student C - "You should marry your daddy."

All the students - "Can we come?"
Me - "Well, you would have to be really good and sit quiet and not talk."
Student D - "Don't worry, I will just talk a little."
Me - "There's no talking at weddings. You have to listen."
Student D - "Well that's okay. You can just let me talk."

Student B - "Can I bake your cake?"
Me - "Sorry I already told someone else he could bake my cake."
Student A - "Did you tell me I can bake your cake?"
Me - "Nope, it was someone else."
Student E - "I will bake you cookies. My mommy and me are really good."
Student A - "No, I will bake you chocolate cookies."
Student E - "I will bake you a billion cookies."
Student C - "I can eat cookies."
Student D - "Okay, you can just let me come and I will only talk a little and I will eat cookies. You don't need to worry. I am a good helper."
Me - "Thank you. I will think about it."

Student A - "Are you getting married in a garden?"
Me - "No."
Student A - "What's the address for the garden?"
Me - "I'm not getting married in a garden."
Student A - "But that's okay, just give me the address."
Me - "But I won't be at a garden."
Student A - " Well, I will pick you up and take you to the garden. My mommy has 2 car seats. You can use one. Just leave my brother at home."
Me - "Okay class, it's time for reading again."

I love teaching and I love autistic kids :)