I Can't Stop

eating these babies:

It's that time of year when the Girl Scouts bring little boxes of heaven to my door.

I almost can't stand the deliciousness.

Never mind, I can stand it. In fact, I really need to get control of myself.

I won't tell you how long (or not so long) it took me to make one of the boxes of Samoas disappear.

I have actually rationed out my cookies to make them last longer. Which will probably only last me a week. But at least it is a week of pure heaven.

It's probably a good thing they don't sell these all year long.

I would be in serious trouble.

A Love/Hate Relationship

Can any of you guess what I could possibly have a love/hate relationship with?

I'll give you a hint.

It is what every sane woman has a love/hate relationship with. (At least I think so.)

You guessed it.

Exercise.

Why is it that I love the sense of accomplishment after I have exercised, but HATE actually doing the exercising?

Ok. Maybe hate is too strong of a word.

Dislike. No, dislike isn't strong enough.

Is there a word inbetween dislike and hate?

Anyway. You get the point.

Why am I telling you this, you ask?

Well, despite the fact that exercising is not my favorite thing to do, (Can I tell you how I wish I were one of those people that just loved to go out for a nice run everyday.)

I have made it a goal to exercise every. single. day.

And I am proud to report that I have done just that, since the beginning of December and I actually might be kind of, sort of learning to like it.

But only just a little bit.

A Sigh of Relief

While December is a month that I absolutely love, it also seems to make my stress level a bit higher than normal. I am sure this is the case for most people, but I like to think that I have slightly more of a good excuse.

Dan's B-day.....check
Christmas.....check
My B-day.....check
Our Anniversary.....check

See what I mean?

Now don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy this time of year and I even think I secretly prefer it this way, but let's just say that I am more than okay with the fact that I have 11 more months before the chaos begins again.

The Transition...

from stylish young married person to un-cool mom has officially occurred.

On Saturday I went to do some early Christmas shopping for myself.

(I can't very well go and see my family this week and feel good about my post baby self without doing some shopping, plus I needed a few new articles of clothing anyway.)

but, everywhere I went I was extremely UNSATSIFIED with the styles of clothing.

too klingy.

too ugly.

too furry.

too tight.

not flattering....etc....etc.

What happened to the cute, cool, non-maternity clothing that I used to get before I was pregnant?

They have all been replaced with long, klingy sweatery dress thingys. Sweater dresses? Not my thing. (Granted I have not tried one on to see if they are cuter on than they look.)

Luckily, after some determination and searching, I found some nice, cute, non-furry items.

Thank goodness!

I guess the mom in me is coming out and the cool, stylish person is no more.

And I am totally ok with that.

*FYI. I do not think all moms are not stylish or un-cool. Just me. :)

School

Today is the first day of school, here in St. George, and I have to admit I am feeling a little (ok, a lot) "schoolsick". I know that's not really a word, but we'll just pretend.

I know some of you reading this are thinking I am absolutely crazy!!! Let me clarify that it's not being the student that I miss so much, but the teacher. So nonetheless, I am missing Kindergarten terribly. At the end of this last school year I was wondering if I would ever get to this point again because I thought the tattle-telling would NEVER end and I was beginning to feel like my name was being over used. (Mrs. Stevens he did this... Mrs. Stevens, so and so won't stop bugging me, etc.) I can just hear it now, but I am actually missing those little kidos something fierce.

Although I only taught for one year, I soon found out that I was in the absolute perfect profession for me. I knew I would like teaching, but I didn't know I would LOVE teaching Kindergarten. The more I taught, the more I liked it-which is what everyone wants to say about their career, but not many can. I was fortunate enough to work in the most wonderful school with fabulous co-workers. I truly was spoiled.

So now to end this walk down memory lane I will leave you with one of many of the humorous moments of teaching.

Background: My classroom discipline policy was based on a clip system. The kids each had a nametag that they would turn over each day for attendance purposes. (We also did a lot of work with the letters in their name, vowels, etc.) If a student was misbehaving and broke one of the rules, they would put a clip (a small clothespin) on their nametag as a warning. Two clips-they missed afternoon recess, and three-I called their parents. This was very effective in my classroom.

Me: Tom, if you do not stop throwing things, I am going to have to call your parents. You already have two clips on your nametag and if you do not make a better choice, you will get another clip.

Tom: I'm gonna call YOUR parents.

Me: Tom, I don't think they'd care. (As I am trying not to laugh, while I am envisioning my Dad answering that phone call.)

Kids. You gotta love 'em.

* I am trying to document all of my funny classroom stories (I know I should have been doing this as they happened) so that I can post some of them for a good laugh. Be looking forward to some more later on.

Here I am on the first day of school. In case you are wondering, the black thing around my neck is a microphone. Our school had some hearing impaired students. Although not every class needed a microphone, we all used them. I think every school should have them in their classrooms. They are awesome!

Home Sweet Home

At last! The apartment tour! This post is mainly for family who have been itching to see where we live, but don’t have the time to make the 10 hour trek here- yet. But if you care to see our humble abode…read on. I will write the captions above each picture.

Here is the view you see straight ahead when walking in the front door. To my left is a coat closet, which is mainly used for storage now, since there is no need for a coat (or jacket for that matter) in St. George right now.

This is our living room. It is what you see to the right when walking in the door.

Another view of the living room. To the left is a sliding door that leads to the balcony.
This is the balcony. The door on the right is a storage closet where I have tried to fit as much as possible and still be somewhat organized.



Here is one of the views we see when standing on the balcony. It's beautiful, but we have not spent much time enjoying it since it is at least 25 degrees cooler inside.
And here is the view of the pool from the balcony. We LOVE having access to a pool!
Now a view of the dining room. Notice the 4th of July placemats! (Mom, I know you will appreciate this!) To the right of where I am standing is the kitchen.

A view of the kitchen. It is definitely an upgrade from what we had before. There is more cabinet space and it still has the open feel that I love. The door straight ahead is our laundry/storage room.
Another view of the kitchen.
Here is a view of our storage part of the laundry room. Even though it doesn't look like it, I have organized and know where everything is. :) There is one more shelf that is not pictured and underneath that is the majority of my kindergarten stuff. I never realized how much teaching stuff I really did have until I tried to find a place to store it.
Here is the laundry side of the laundry room. By the way, I LOVE having an actual laundry room versus a laundry closet!

When you leave the kitchen and turn left, this is the view of the hallway. Straight ahead is the master bedroom. The door on the left (which you can see just hinges) is the bathroom. There are the two doors on the right. The first is a linen closet and the second (which you can see only hinges), is the soon-to-be baby Stevens' room.
Here we have the "soon-to-be baby"/"I don't know where else to put it" room. All of the stuff piled on the left is baby stuff that has been given to us that we have not had a chance to assemble.

*Yes, I am aware of the gray dot that keeps appearing in the pictures. I apologize for this. Our camera needs to be fixed.
A tour of our apartment wouldn't be complete without seeing all of Dan's hunting souvenirs. Now, if I could just find a good place to put them. I know, he has already suggested hanging them up on the wall. He thinks the baby will like them.
Here is a view of the closet and the shelf that my wonderful husband made for my classroom. Now it will store all of the baby's things.
Here we see that the closet is not really meant for the baby, just the clothes that need to be hung. The rest of the closet is devoted to scrapbooking and crafts. Oh yeah, and Dan's golf clubs.
And here is a view of the bathroom. I think it is actually smaller than one in our other apartment, but we have a sink and cabinets in our master bedroom to make up for it.

And now we walk into the master bedroom.
A view to the right of the bed. (sorry about the lighting.)

A view to the left of the bed where you can see our office part of the room as well as the sink and cabinets that I mentioned earlier. The door to the left that is closest to the sink leads to the bathroom and the door on the right with the mirror on it, is our walk-in closet.
A view into our closet. It is not as big as the one we had before, but I am not complaining because it IS a walk-in closet and I am sure some of the shoppers at DI appreciated the down-sizing since that is where a lot of our clothes went. AND it helped me get rid of those clothes that you think you will someday wear, but someday never comes.
I just couldn't end the tour with our closet, so I decided to show you a closer look of the fabulous pool that we get to enjoy when the weather isn't TOO blazing hot.