NaBloPoMo - November 12

I'm giddy.

I'm packing my bags.

I'm leaving in the morning.

Here's a couple hints about where I'm going.



See ya when I get back!

NaBloPoMo - November 11

This week has been a little nutty, but I'm looking forward to the weekend! I won't give away the details now, for safety's sake, but let's just say I won't be posting Friday night & possibly not Saturday either. (Sorry NaBloPoMo folks....I'll have to break the pattern for about 24-36 hours!) But don't fret, I will fill you in when I return from my exciting time away!

I'm getting more giddy by the minute!

Aside from that, I'm being reminded more & more every day how blessed I am, how excited I am to be living MY LIFE. I've been spending my prayer time every morning saying thank you prayers. That is, a prayer of nothing but "thank you for ..... thank you for ......". Even with situations that I'm praying for, such as a sick friend, I find myself saying "Lord, thank you for the illness you've given this friend. You tell us to praise you in EVERYTHING, so thank you for this illness. We don't understand it, but I know that YOU will get the glory for this somehow, and I thank you for the beauty you are going to bring from this illness." Time in the word every single day & nothing but thank you prayers from my lips has most definately changed my perspective these past couple of weeks.

Yesterday, I got a new CD in the mail that I purchased from musichristian.com with a gift card I received for my birthday. It's Francesca Batastelli's My Paper Heart CD. I love the 1st song on the CD, so I'm leaving you with the video for it.

NaBloPoMo - November 10

Tonight was the kids' elementary school PTO meeting & Veterans' Day program. The PTO meeting part was as exciting as it always is (ha ha). But the sweet Cub Scouts made my night with the Veterans Day program. Samuel was one of the flag carriers for the ceremony. See?


I wish I had gotten a picture of another part of the ceremony, but I didn't. The most precious part of the whole thing was when they played each branch of the military's theme song and the veterans from that branch stood up. The Cub Scouts had lined up down each side of the school cafeteria & solemnly stood, saluting each one of the veterans as they stood up. I teared up & had to fight off full fledged sobs. The innocence, the purity of their patriotism....and knowing that some of those very Cub Scouts will likely grow up to become veterans themselves. What an honor to watch that part of the service tonight.

Thank you, Jesus, for allowing me to live in this great nation.

NaBloPoMo - November 9

I had planned to do a "34 things about me" post for my 34th birthday, but well.... I listed about 10 things & got stumped. I'm thinking that anyone who's read my blog for any length of time probably can name 34 things about me already. ha ha!

And then I was going to go with 34 things I'm thankful for, but I got about 15 items into the list & realized that I was too sleepy to keep it going.

So then I thought of a new 'theme'. 34 pictures from my life!

And then blogger messed up on me & wouldn't let me upload more than 25! So ugh...I'm sleepy & ready to hit the sack, so here ya go....in no particular order..... 25 pics for my birthday! :)


Me & Christian on the last day of school 2008-09





2-3 years old
Kindergarten
9th grade, I think.
me & Kyna, 9th or 10th grade dance class @ WHS
Senior pic
Kristi Coats (Perryman), Heather Rice (Lyles) and me on the day we graduated from WHS.
My wedding day (just about 4 months after the picture above!)
2/15/01, Sarah's birthday. Me & my little stairsteps.

Bethany & I, summer 2008....it's been entirely too long!

2005 Christmas Eve family pic
2006, Christmas Eve family pic
Oct 2008, family pic
Thanksgiving 2008, family pic
Sometimes I want to post this in my classroom!

....but not on this day!
My sweet Savannah
Silly Samuel
Smiley Sarah
The pretty flowers Larry had sent to me today for my birthday!

NaBloPoMo- November 8

I have cookies in the oven. At 11:41pm. I know, I'm nutty.
You see, I'm a preschool teacher. And as all good teachers & parents of young children know, the kids get to bring treats to share with the class on their birthday. Tomorrow is my birthday, so I need some treats to share, therefore the cookies. Of course, they're chocolate chip cookies. I thought about serving them to the kids as our snack in the morning. At 9:45. But then I decided that I'd like to enjoy the rest of the day. There's nothing quite like a sugar-fueled room full of 3 year olds. I think I'll hold off & share them after lunchtime.

On a completely different subject, today was a great day! I am feeling a little selfish & goofy tonight. I'm on Facebook, as many of you know, and it has this fun little feature that alerts you when anyone on your friend list has a birthday. It usually alerts your friends 1-2 days before your actual birthday. Late last night I got a birthday wish or two. But today, wow....the floodgates opened. I am totally WOW'd by the number of birthday wishes I've received! I mean, really, WOW. Did I say WOW? I can only imagine what tomorrow is going to look like. You know how we all like to open a present or get mail? This is like that I guess, only a digital version. Instant gratification every time I get online. I may be a little big-headed & giddy by the time I get in bed tomorrow night! ha ha!

Tomorrow is just another day in the grand scheme of things. No big birthday plans. I'll go to work during the day. Tomorrow evening I have a staff meeting at work to attend. Oh yeah, wild birthday partying going on here. The other night while we were grocery shopping, Savannah spotted a Sara Lee cheesecake in the freezer section, so I got it! I love cheesecake, so it will serve as my birthday cake. And I still have the fun birthday streamers banner hanging on my classroom door, so I'll get to enjoy that for 1 more day. It's funny how, as we get older, it doesn't take as much to make us happy. Me? I'm thrilled with chocolate chip cookies for my class, cheesecake at home, sparkly streamers on my classroom door & time with my family tomorrow. What did you do for your last birthday?

Tomorrow's post will be my birthday post. Look for 34 things about Liz tomorrow night. And if you want to get real crazy you can look up last year's birthday post where I posted 33 things. Wait....don't do that. I may repeat some of last year's things, so I don't want you to see how redundant I may be! ha ha!

NaBloPoMo - November 7

First off, I love being in a birthday club! My birthday is coming up & almost every day I'm getting packages in the mail with fun stuff in them. Today I got a giant hershey bar, a bag of pistachios, a cute little notepad & a Barnes & Noble gift card. I just love getting mail!!!

Aside from birthday mail news, it was a very nice day. Larry & Samuel went on a Sunday School class Father/Son campout last night so the girls & I slept late. (you know...I got to stay in bed til 8:15 and the girls slept all the way to 7:00am)

When the 'boys' got home, Larry pointed out that Samuel's tennis shoes had a hole in the toe, so we needed to make a trip to the shoe store. It was fun to find that Payless was having a BOGO sale! Hooray! I needed a new pair of black flats! While we were out, we bought the last couple items for our Operation Christmas Child box. It's all packed up & ready to go back to church tomorrow.


Obviously the girls are a little bit excited to see the holidays approaching. Anybody want to guess what this paper chain is a countdown to?

Samuel & Sarah spent hours & hours working on sand castles (well, dirt castles, it's not sand!) in our backyard this afternoon. This one is Samuel's.

And this one is Sarah's.

Can you tell who spent more time rolling cannon balls than building the castle? (grin)

Tonight, Larry & I were standing in the bedroom talking when we heard Samuel shouting (err...cheering!) for something on TV. We heard something like "Just a little further Johnson! Go! You can do it!", so we had to come see what was up! Check out what he was watching. ha ha ha ha!!


It's about time for me to hit the shower & study my Sunday School lesson for tomorrow morning one more time before I crash. Goodnight.

NaBloPoMo - November 6

Today I attended a workshop in Longview. Every year our school goes to this workshop for training hours. I usually love it. I was VERY leary about today's workshop because, well... I don't SIT well. I fidget. I wiggle & squirm. I cross & uncross my legs. I dig in my purse. When we found out that this year's conference was to be put on by one lady, I sighed. I love my breakout sessions. I enjoy the classes because I can move from one room to the next & I can choose to move on if one teacher is a bore. So I whined. I posted about it here & on Facebook. Seriously? ONE lady is going to do the entire day? All eight hours? And she's going to hold my attention the whole time? I'm not going to get bored & squirm? Yeah...I doubt it. Add to that the fact that I'd have to get up at 5-something this morning to make the drive over there. Really....if you wake up at a time that starts with a 5, it's just wrong. Oh yeah, I sure wasn't exhibiting the traits of Phillipians 2:14.

When we got there today, we registered, got our little paper notebooks with all the handouts for the day & went to find our seat in the sanctuary of Mobberly Baptist Church. Ironically, we were there for the Methodist Preschool Teachers Workshop. (Sorry, had to mention that....I found it funny.) And I suppose, just as ironic, I am neither Methodist nor do I teach at a Methodist school. It's just where we go each year for training. So anyway....we got seated & I spied the stage, full of tables of things that I suspected an "Ooey Gooey lady" would use to teach. (That's the speaker's nickname!) Bowls, paints, Ooblick, Flubber, Clean Mud....all sort of things that crazy hands-on teachers like me love. But again, really... could fun science experiments hold my attention all day long?

Just as a sample of what we were greeted with, check out this link. It's the OoeyGooey Lady's youtube channel. Watch the one called the playdough story. Then watch the Heather story. And the trashman story. And the spiraling brain one is hilarious. From the moment she started speaking (and honestly, bouncing all over the stage....can you say "bumblebee on crack"?), she had my attention. I laughed so hard that I nearly cried several times. I saw better physical comedy today than I've seen on Comedy Central in a long time. But just as strong as those moments of great humor were the moments of sweet, raw emotion that also made me tear up. She talked about "crystalizing moments"....those moments when a child has an emotional connection to something YOU (as a teacher) do that makes them forever remember you & what they learned from you.

Lisa talked about her own 'crystalizing moment". She went to a preschool in Miss Mary's home when she was 3 years old. A couple weeks before school started, Miss Mary made a phone call to Lisa's mom to find out what Lisa's favorite snack was in hopes to make her first day at school smooth. When Lisa arrived on her first day & was greeted by the sweet woman who had her very favorite snack ready for her, it struck a special place in her heart -- knowing that this lady was going out of her way to make Lisa comfortable & feel safe is the reason Lisa gives for why she teaches. It stuck in her mind and forever made her feel like she wanted to do the same for other children.

She talked about a teacher friend of hers who had a young man call her to tell her "I do what I do because of YOU." (The boy became an archaeologist because he remembered digging in the sandbox filled with chicken bones & toys, intentionally buried there during dinosaur week.) I can only imagine how amazing that would feel to get a phone call like that one day. I hope to be so blessed one day. It made my heart flutter to even think of that.

She talked about a million other things, but one other especially cool thing she shared about early childhood teaching is music. I am not the music teacher at our school & I don't sing well, but I do try to incorporate music & songs into my classroom. (Thank God I can shut my classroom door.) She talked about going to nursing homes & visiting alzheimer's patients and watching them sing along to Christmas carols & old hymns when they don't remember their spouse or children. Somehow, the songs we learn early in life stick in our brains, even if we don't know they're there. She told a story of an adult woman who met her birth mom and shared a song with her that she'd learned to play on the guitar. The birthmother asked where she learned the song & the daughter told her that she'd heard a street musician playing it & was so moved by it that she learned it herself. The birthmom began to cry & told her "That's the song I was learning to play when I was pregnant with you! I played it over & over." Wow. To realize the impact of music on the minds of the kids I work with. Convicting.

I'll close with this thought that Lisa Murphy (the ooey gooey lady) shared today that struck deeply. Her keynote address was titled "What if this was their only day with you?". Her point was not to focus on morbidity, but to realize that things happen....and you never know. What if today was the only day you got to be a part of their lives? Are you making an impact that you can live with if something were to happen? Will you regret fussing at Johnny for flying his action figure across the room & knocking over Suzy's blocks? Will you regret growling at the kids for not getting into a straight line quickly? Will you regret the way you interacted with Johnathan because he wasn't being nice to Stacy?

Ultimately, as a teacher (and as a parent), my prayer is & has always been that God would give me at least ONE special moment with each child every day. It may only last for 2 minutes, but I want to build memories with each of the kids. Maybe they learned what a scarecrow is & why we put them in the garden....or maybe they know that Mrs. Liz loves them because they sat in my lap while I read a story....or maybe they learned how to calmly talk through a conflict because Mrs. Liz sat down beside them & gave them appropriate words to say. Maybe they didn't learn anything social or academic that day, but they were hugged 50 times and they left school feeling encouraged. One of my sweetest desires in teaching is that the kids feel loved & special.

Sure, I want them to learn and grow and mature and develop skills in my classroom. I want them to leave my room knowing their shapes & colors and beginning to recognize letters and knowing how to hop on one foot and having developed enough fine motor skills that they can progress onto pencil grips in Pre-K. I want them to learn about all the fun things we study in our class all year long. But more than all that, I want them to feel secure & safe & loved when they're with me. I want to be a part of their life for that 1 year I have them in my room. I want to hear sweet stories from moms telling me later on that they included me in their bedtime prayers. I want to be on the list of people who get called when they're having their tonsils removed--and I want to be able to go over & drop off balloons & icecream afterward. I want to go to soccer games & recitals & get a phone call when they're trying to explain something we learned at school to mom in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner. Today's workshop affirmed my love of teaching and my love of teaching THIS particular age group. I keep toying with whether or not to go back to school & finish my degree & go into "big school" teaching, but I have a thousand reasons why that doesn't seem the least bit fun to me. There is something immensely special about teaching preschoolers. I loveeee what I do and going to a workshop like the one I attended today reminds me of all the things I love about it.

Thank you, Lisa Murphy. Can we be best friends forever?