the day after . . .

As I am sitting with my small group of 1^st grade students during our “intervention time,” of course the subject of the Packers comes up.  “It’s so sad the Packers lost.” “I wish the Packers did not lose.” “Yeah, I don’t like those monsters”  Wait . . . what?!  “The monsters?” I asked.  “Yeah!” responds the young girl.  “I don’t like those monsters because they beat the Packers last night!!”  Another student chimes in, “No, the Giants beat the Packers last night.”  “Oh yes, that’s right, I don’t like the giants!”  Well . . . monsters . . . Giants . . . I guess they are both big and usually scary creatures.  We are making connections in first grade!

Last night the Packers were defeated and tragedy has fallen over the cheeseheads.  Lucky for Matt and me, our lives do not revolve around football, although Matthew does love watching his Packers.  Thank you God that we have a great HOPE and JOY in Jesus that can pull us away from our lives ‘coming to an end’ after a bad game. 

I read Acts 5 today as our church and small group continues our study through Acts along with the book Act Normal by Scott Wilson.  The Sanhedrin was upset with the apostles for preaching of Jesus in the temple courts after they had ordered them to stop.  Again, the Sanhedrin ordered them to stop.  In 5:29 “Peter and the other apostles replied: We must obey God rather than men!  The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead – whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.  God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”  A wise man name Gamaliel addressed the Sanhedrin in Acts 5:34 saying that many people have claimed to be somebody but all had failed to spread their ideas and eventually were killed.  His advice is this in 5:38 “Therefore, in the present case I advice you: Leave these men alone!  Let them go!  For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”  The apostles obviously did not know what Gamaliel had said, since they had been taken from the room, but suddenly things take a turn. 5:40 “They [the Sanhedrin] called the apostles in and had them flogged.  Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.”  Well . . . if that wouldn’t cause someone to feel defeated I’m not sure what would.  But did the apostles leave with their tail between their legs and say, “Yes, of course.  We would never disobey you?”  Of course not! As Peter had told the leaders in Acts 5:29 “We must obey God rather than men!”  They were going to go on preaching this message in light of persecution or even death.  5:41 “The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name [of Jesus Christ]. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.”  So, what then is stopping us from sharing the Gospel as Jesus’s early followers?

to everything there is a season . . .

My mom buys us a Hallmark ornament each year.  I always
pick out a book since I have a love for Children's literature. 
This year was Guess How Much I Love You.

Matthew started a new collection this year, Star Wars.

We went to 3 Hallmark stores in the cities to find Yoda this year.

Well . . . I guess it's finally time to say good-bye to the holiday season.  It’s always a little gloomy when it's time to pack up the Christmas tree and decorations.  It's never as exciting as it is when the anticipation of the season is in the air.  Also, it’s far more work as we search for the coordinating boxes to ornaments and then attempt to remember the strategic way of packing them into plastic tubs to maximize the limited space.  However, it will be nice to have more space in our living room.  Here are photos from just a few of our 7 "Christmases" this year:



Observing a game of Blokus with Matt's cousins who
now live out of town.  We had a small Christmas with
just the two families since they couldn't be in town
for the traditional New Year's Eve/Christmas
celebration with Matt's mom's side.





My Dad's family Christmas, minus one brother.



Aprons we got from Matt's sister at his mom's family Christmas



I had a pretty productive Christmas break considering I came down with a cold.  I made many cards for Matt's mom's gift.  She's always trying to buy cards in bulk to have them on hand so I thought I'd stock up her supply for the year.  Here are a few:

We also made some very delicious cookies for our co-workers.  Here is the recipe I found in the 2010 Better Homes and Gardens Magazine 100 Best Cookies: Love on a Sheetpan

Peanut Butter Munchies

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ cup butter, softened

¼ cup peanut butter

½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup packed brown sugar

1 egg

1 tablespoon milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

¾ cup powdered sugar

½ cup peanut butter

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1.       Preheat oven to 350 F. In a medium bowl stir together flour, cocoa powder and baking soda; set aside.

2.       In a large bowl combine butter and the ¼ cup peanut butter.  Beat with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds.  Add the ½ cup granulated sugar and brown sugar.  Beat until combined, scraping side of bowl occasionally.  Beat in egg, milk, and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour mixture as you can with the mixer.  Using a wooden spoon, stir in any remaining flour mixture.  Shape dough into 32 balls, each about 1 ¼ inches in diameter.  Set aside.

3.       In a small bowl combine powdered sugar and the ½ cup peanut butter.  Beat until smooth, kneading by hand if necessary.  Shape mixture into 32 balls.

4.       For each cookies, flatten a chocolate dough ball; top with a peanut butter ball. Shape dough around peanut butter ball to enclose. Place balls 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Flatten with the bottom of a glass dipped in the 2 tablespoons granulated sugar. (I skipped the extra sugar and they turned out fine)

5.       Bake in preheated oven about 8 minutes or just until set and surfaces are slightly cracked.  Cool on cookie sheet for 1 minute. Transfer cookies to a wire rack, cool. Makes 32 cookies

I kept the leftovers in the fridge in a Ziploc bag. They kept well and were still soft after a couple weeks.

Matthew and I attended our last holiday party for Christmas last night.  The annual game of white elephant gifts at his parent's business Christmas Party is bound to get everyone laughing.  Matthew got plastic cups which we put in our garage sale pile last year.  They will be headed that way again today.  I stole for a more practical gift – a pack of toilet paper, pretzels and double cheesy munchies mix.  At times, I’m pretty sure Matthew thinks I’m crazy when it comes to ways of saving money.  But really, who loves to spend money on toilet paper?!  With only one woman in the house four rolls lasts a long time!  Matt’s parents also buy “generic” gifts that everyone would enjoy and we play a game of " ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas."  It is enjoyable to see how well adults can listen to a story.  Each time "the" is read, you pass the gifts to one side; when "and" is read you pass it to the other side.  There are certain parts of the poem when a bottle neck of gifts is created and one person sits with a lapful of gifts and a very confused look on his/her face.  I was excited to receive a box of 18 creamy Dove chocolate bars.  Matthew got a large bag of almonds but traded his sister for Kettlecorn.  We are now well stocked up for Netflix and late night snacks.



Halitosis: a term used to describe noticably unplesant odors exhaled in breathing

My students came back from "intervention time" all hyped up today.  They had listened to the story Dog Breath!: The Horrible Trouble with Hally Tosis  By: Dav Pilkey  The story is about a nice dog named Hally Tosis with a big problem.  She has terrible breath (halitosis)! My students were asked to write about the ways they would try to get rid of their dog's halitosis.  Needless to say they came up with some very interesting, funny and sometimes colorful responses.  Of course this was the day I was getting observed by the school principal.  Our principal came into the room with my 6 students quietly sitting at a kidney shaped table sorting word families like -ack, -an, -at and -ap.  The clock struck 1 'o clock and it was time to return to homerooms.  My class comes bursting through the door in a boisterous manner.  One boy in my class gets extremely goofy when it comes to some subjects and he is exceptionally animated in his story-telling.  "Mrs. F!" He yells, holding a paper to my face, pointing to each word as he reads.  "I will lake (take) my dog to my room I will giv Him a Spacin (spanking)" Well, we were off to a great start with the principle watching!  Maybe I will get bonus points for settling my students down for math in front of the SmartBoard in what seemed to be record time. (My co-worker and I laughed later when I told her the story. She said, “After I sent them back today I thought, ‘That’s right, today she’s getting observed . . . ’ ”) 
Some other responses:
“I can get rid of my dog’s halitosis. I can poot sampoo in her moth. I can mack her eat a bar of sope. I can tack her to the vet. I can sel her to someone els. I can tack her to doktr scool. I can brush her teeth with a brush I can ues to brush my hare.”
“I can get rid of my dog’s halitosis. I can make it eat smelly stickers. I can make him rich. I would put hot soss in his mouth. I would make him ride a bike so he would go brethles. I would take him to a scary move so he would barck his breth away. I would put Axe deordant in his mouth. (This child has older brothers) I would make him go biy a dragane when it’s breathing out fire. I would make him eat 100 ice cream cones.” (This one went on for 2 pages!)
“I can get rid of my dog’s halitosis. Make wind go in his mouth. Put cinder, air, shaving creem, hot sos, huny and muny. 4000 galins of milk in, too! 1000000 ice creem conse, fire, 100 kangroo’s, 100 book, 50 panguins, 10 gas stashis, 100 desk’s, 100 zebra’s, all snowflake’s, 3 <student’s name>, <student’s name>, and 300 <student’s name>, too!  5000 dinoserse, and 10000 shell’s, too.”  (As you can tell, we’re still working on how to use apostrophes properly)
Hope the writings made you laugh, or at least smile.  Can you see why I LOVE teaching 1st grade?!

The Pancake Pen

At our house I do the majority of the cooking.  I really don't mind because Matthew always loves whatever I prepare.  Ironically we both came from families where our father's love to cook.  I have picked up tricks from both of my Dads and a few on my own.  I guess I would say I can throw a meal together without much difficulty.  However, it is nice once in a while to have my food prepared for me.  In our recent months of marriage we generally have not had to work on Saturday mornings so we enjoy eating something other than our usual apples and cinnamon with oatmeal.  Matthew has discovered blueberry pancakes at Aldi (if you have never been to Aldi I would recommend it . . . it saves us money and it is quicker) He was all excited to make pancakes one Saturday morning when all of a sudden I could hear a very frustrated and defeated voice coming from the kitchen.  Well . . . the pan wasn't exactly cooperating with Matthew.  In fact, when he attempted to flip the pancake approximately half of it was stuck to the bottom of the pan. He was about to give up on the pancake adventure when he remembered we have an electric skillet. When we got married we were blessed with many small kitchen appliances and many times I forget about all the things we have.  Honestly, in two years of marriage, we had not touched our electric skillet.  Now, it has become Matthew's best cooking companion.  He can prepare eggs and pancakes with ease.  Currently Matthew is practicing up on his skills in pancake creation for when we have children.  He has made several different types of creatures.  I was telling my mom about how excited Matt was about creating with pancakes and she found him the perfect stocking stuffer. 

He now has 'The Pancake Pen' which makes it much easier to regulate the flow of pancake batter through its silicone nozzle.  The Pancake Pen made its debut in our kitchen last Saturday and here are some of the results:

bear, sun, and leftover batter

for a boy . . . for a girl

octopus with almost 8 legs :0)

Pancakes before The Pancake Pen:

monkey

rabbit

Still Catching On

Well . . . I have to admit it will be hard for me to keep up with this blog.  I find it hard to quickly write my thoughts and move on with life.  In fact, tonight I thought to myself:  'I'll just write a quick post since I'll be going to bed in an hour, post a picture and be done.' Then I got to thinking . . . I'm so much like one of my students when it comes to writing.  She spends at least twice as much time as other students with each sentence that she carefully painstakingly writes on her paper. Then, if she doesn't feel confident in it, out comes the eraser.  Not to mention her perfectionism.  She does not quickly swipe across the paper to remove the bulk of stray marks as other first graders, but holds tightly to her Pink Pearl eraser as she removes absolutely every mark to create an almost 'perfect' surface, to the brink of holes.  Today as we continued our tradition of writing birthday letters to the birthday person, she spent almost 10 minutes writing "Dear <friend>, I hop you have a gud birthday pardy."  Next thing I know she has erased the entire sentence and started over.  I've been encouraging her to write as much as she can, as quickly as she can, before she forgets her ideas during writing time.  "We can always fix mistakes and letters later" I told her.  Oh well . . . maybe she will be like her teacher someday . . . reading her emails 10 times over before daring to reach for the send button.  So . . . long story short . . . I need at least 30 minutes . . . maybe 45 . . . to write one of these blogs.

So, for the real reason I was going to make a post today.  Below you will find the contents of an Amazon package that arrived in my mailbox today!  It's the long awaited Nikkor 70-300mm VR zoom lens for my D3000.  Isn't it beautiful!