He knows when you're awake

Thanksgiving was still enjoyable, despite my parents and Emily being unable to come up to Utah. We went to my Aunt Barbara's house and enjoyed spending the day with our relatives.

Heather double-dog-dared Dustin to make a snow angel:

Crazy kid. Check out the snow in his ears.

On Black Friday, Jacob stayed up until 7:30 in the morning shopping. I? I am not a shopper. I went to Walmart with him at midnight and was grumpy the whole time. Thus, he did not require me to go to the other stores with him. He pretty much took care of all of his Christmas presents -- makes shopping easy for me!

Among his purchases, he bought our very first Christmas tree:

No, I kid! This is what it really looks like:



Please note the plethora of presents wrapped in the same plaid wrapping paper. Remember that time I was banished to the computer room for THREE hours? Jacob did some of his shopping for me at DI and bought over half of those presents for a grand total of $16. What can I say? The man knows how to stretch a dollar. Although why he chose to use only one kind of wrapping paper when I clearly bought two varieties to add some diversity to our tree, I do not know.

Also, while we were at DI, I found the cutest Halloween decoration I just couldn't pass up:

Really, have you ever seen a cuter Frankenstein?

And while we're on the topic of decorations, here's the crowning jewel. It just isn't Christmas until Santa adorns the toilet seat.

Why yes, I did just post a picture of our toilet. When Jacob saw this lovely little addition, he asked, "Will it stay clean?" I told him, "If you pee on it I will CUT you."

And for good measure, here are some pictures of us (old pictures -- as in from before the move -- but pictures nonetheless), just in case you've forgotten what we look like.



Few things bring me greater joy than seeing him wear an apron. I had to cajole him into wearing it at first, but these days he'll put it on of his own accord to do the dishes. Precious.



We always crush our graham crackers on the floor. It's tradition.





The goose is getting fat

Jacob just asked where the packing tape is.

He's wrapping Christmas presents.

Should I be concerned?

EDIT: He just asked if we have "a lot of rubber bands." What is this man trying to do?

Bah humbag.

Dear Blizzard of 2010:

You were heralded as the winter storm that "will far surpass anything that we've seen, probably for the last several years." We were prepared for gushing winds and torrents of snow. Teachers were crossing their fingers for a snow day at our school, and BYU campus even shut down just in case.

When you finally rolled around our town, you dusted the ground with three to four inches of lightly falling snow -- less snow than Mother Nature dumped on us Saturday night.

The Great Blizzard of 2010 was underwhelming, to say the least.

But apparently you were still fierce enough in other parts of the country to make driving conditions hazardous enough to cause my family to cancel their trip up to Utah for Thanksgiving.

And for that, I shake my fist at you. You stink.

Love Strongly Dislike,
Jennifer

See how they run

Horror of horrors! The pink eye is spreading! By which I mean Jacob, of course, is still uninfected (his immune system must be stronger than mine -- maybe because he actually takes his vitamins), but my other eye has fallen prey to the itchiness, pinkness, and, erm, other unpleasant aspects of pink eye. (Think: crusties)

Every cloud has its silver lining, though. Four day weekend, anyone?

I couldn't resist adding a photo. Because I'm gross like that. Please note the swollen eyelid. And this is why I'm staying home from school -- otherwise, I might scare the small children.

You put the lime in the coconut

I'm trying to like first grade. I really am. But it's hard when I've been infested with millions of first grade germs.

Two weeks ago from tomorrow, I came home from school with a bit of a sore throat. Mere hours later, I was racked with chills and barely had enough energy to crawl from the couch to the bedroom. (Yes, there was crawling involved. Ask Jacob.) The next day, I spent approximately 18 hours asleep or in bed, and consumed nothing but orange juice, a small bowl of soup, a roll, and a Frosty.

The flu struck, and it struck hard.

I managed to recover well enough to go back to school on Monday, and that week I was fine.

About two days ago, I started coming down with a cold. And yesterday, I was hit with the mother of all first grade illnesses -- pink eye. I didn't realize it until after school what it probably was, and when I showed up to school this morning I was sent home with explicit orders to see a doctor.

Mama called the doctor and the doctor said, "No more monkeys jumping on the bed!" And by that I mean he said I do indeed have conjunctivitis and that I'll be highly contagious for the next 24 hours.

Rock on.

I need more thunderbolts!

Today I may or may not have very nearly said "Yes it is, girl," to one of my male first grade students. Thankfully, I caught myself before it slipped out. Because somehow I don't think he would've taken it quite as well as the other men in my life (read: Jacob and occasionally my brother-in-law Dustin) do.

"I have a craving for Halloween candy. Why, oh why did we finish it all off yesterday?"

For those of you who may not be aware, I'm in the midst of student teaching. I spent the first half of the semester in a fourth grade class. Fourth grade was good to me. I could joke around with the students, the students still looked up to me (two of them cried when I left), and the students were able to do a wide range of things independently.

Now, I'm in a first grade class.

I don't want to sound like a whiner-pants, but man, I miss fourth grade.

Sure, the first graders are adorable. That's one of the things they have going for them. I have nieces in first grade that I adore, so it's not necessarily the kids that are the problem.

The problem lies in these factors:

-Half of the students don't know how to tie their own shoes.

-The runny noses.

-The student artwork that ends up dripping great gobs of glue.

-We sing the same five songs Every. Single. Day. While repetition is a good thing, and I'm sure it's great for the kids, I have a harder time appreciating the songs when they're stuck in my head at night so I can't fall asleep.

-The students are not allowed to sharpen their own pencils. As such, the teacher and I spend about 345,602 minutes a day sharpening pencils for the students. I'm becoming quite the professional pencil sharpener.


Oh, the pencil sharpening! This gives me the most grief of all.

Now, in an attempt to be more positive about this experience, here are the things I've enjoyed about first grade:

-The read alouds. I won't lie, I pretty much captivate those kids when I read to them. I like to think it's because of my great use of expression.

-The students, for the most part, are eager to please. And most of them have a positive attitude about schoolwork still.

-The hugs.

-The students rockin' out, singing and dancing along to a song that was playing before an assembly today.

So I suppose first grade isn't so bad. But you better believe I'm visiting my fourth graders during their Christmas party in December.