life in brown town

So, this week felt crazy busy. I think it was because I was gone for two days last week. Going out of town always seems like a good idea, but then you return to reality and find out how far behind you are in your regular life!

I had a great week at school, Robert had a surprisingly productive week at work, Addison was excited to go to school every morning. It was a good week overall. Addy loves her new teacher Ms. Kristin. Kristin often braids Addy's hair into the most beautiful french-braid pigtails, and Addy is SO proud of them! Add is resisting using the potty still, so when you speak to her, please encourage her to use the potty like a big girl. She used it twice at home today, but has yet to try at school.

I have been very lazy with picture-taking lately. Don't have any new photos to share, other than what's on the slide show here.

Go Steelers! Whoo hoo! (Like I really care, I just picked a team for the sake of picking!) :-)

Happy Saturday night!

A promo

When you have time, please do me a favor and check out www.healingforheather.com or healingforheather.blogspot.com.

Please and thank you!

Quick Catch-Up

I was in Orlando for two nights at the Florida Educational Technology Conference. I saw tons of amazing technology that my students could really benefit from. Sadly, we have next to no funding, so I will be looking into grant-writing with Joanna (the other teacher who went to FETC with me). I think my favorite was Quizdom. Their devices certainly would've made school more interesting for me when I was a student! The first night we were there, we dined at Vito's Chop House with Heather, who drove up from Sarasota to visit me! I am so glad she & I got to visit again!! As usual, we had a great time. One of the many highlights were the meatballs that came with our spaghetti. Here's a picture of Joanna attempting to enjoy her spaghetti and meatballs...seriously the biggest meatballs I've ever been served. The waiter swore they were 6 oz. each, but they seemed larger than that. It was a great time, I learned a lot, but I missed Addison and Robert terribly. I am very, very glad to be back home!

Proud!!

I am so proud to be American today. It was a great, great day. I am thrilled I had the opportunity to share the Inauguration of Barack Obama with my students. Many of them have very limited scopes of the world, so I was happy that today they were able to get a broader perspective. We watched President Obama's speech together, and while they were slightly board toward the end, they did amazingly well paying attention and discussing the speech later. We also watched Demi Moore & Ashton Kutcher's I Pledge video. I found that pretty inspiring. I really appreciate how President Obama continues to remind us that the road to recovery for our nation will be long, and that it will take all of us to get back to where we want to be. I love the enthusiasm for a sense of community, togetherness, service, helpfulness. This is an America I can be proud of. This is where I want to raise my daughter. This is where I want to be. I can now tell my students that they can do whatever they put their minds to...it is all within their reach. What a great day!

what a day tomorrow shall be

i look forward to tomorrow with great anticipation. i am thrilled to be able to view President Barack Obama's inauguration with my students. i plan to let history that is being made before our eyes teach for me. i cannot imagine doing anything different. i'm sure that there will be writing assignments and discussions to come out of tomorrow's events, but i feel the most significant impact i can have on my kids tomorrow is to expose them to the greatest historical event in modern times.

i am awed and inspired and elated that our society has grown, become open-minded, and returned to a working-together attitude. this is a society that i am happy to raise addison in, one that i can be proud of. i am glad that not only will addison learn from us that all people are one, but that she will be able to see that reflected in her every day life. tomorrow is just the beginning. i can only imagine where we will go from here. and i cannot wait to find out.

love to you all!

speechless

I am absolutely speechless. I love my friend Heather and cannot believe the many, many years of pain and suffering she has endured, always with a smile on her face. I hope most sincerely that she will soon find a resolution to all that ails her. She deserves to live life free from pain and illness.

For Christmas, I sent her Fairy Dust. I hope it works - soon!

I love you, Heather!

Celebrities & the names they choose for their kids

Ok...so I know celebrities name their kids really, really weird names, but this is absolutely ridiculous. I thought name in the headline was bad enough, but then I read what Bear Grylls named his 2 1/2 year old son. Hands down my least favorite name for a kid, EVER. Check this link & let me know your thoughts.

Bear Grylls Welcomes Son Huckleberry

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Thankful kind of day.

I am happy to report that Addison has been sleeping better since her night terror episode. She's gone to bed more willingly and has not awoken as often or as early in the morning. The night after her episode she slept in her bed all night (well, if 6:30 AM counts as all night!)...and last night she slept in her bed until 1:30. Not great, but better than 11, which is what we had been dealing with.

I have had three awesome days at work. I haven't been cursed at or called any disgusting names at all! Believe it or not, that's a very good week for me. And for my kids...they've actually all been present & in class. That makes it all that much more amazing that I haven't been subjected to verbal lashings! Whoo hoo for good days at Pace! I just hope I haven't jinxed myself by writing this today...crossing my fingers that tomorrow is a good day, too. :-)

We got our mini-notebook computer yesterday. It's tiny. It's an Asus Eee PC. We got the plain black one. I didn't know they came in green and pink, too, otherwise we'd have one of those colors. It's awesome now that we have two computers...we can do all our computer stuff at the same time & have more time to have actual, real conversations with one another! What an idea!

In really, really big news for our family today: Addison got invited to her first friend "birfee" party! It's for her bestest friend at school, Madelyn, who is almost exactly one month younger than Adds. It's next Saturday & we are very excited. I'm going to the Florida Educational Technology Conference in Orlando on Wednesday. I'm supposed to stay until Saturday and drive back with my co-worker, Joanna, and my boss, Robin...but I'm thinking of driving down by myself so I can leave on Friday afternoon. That way I won't miss Madelyn's birthday party. I HAVE to be there for Addison's first friend birthday party!

Thank heaven the weekend is nearly upon us...

a quick note

Just a quick note to say that Addison slept a little better last night. No night terrors to report. She did wake up at 11:30 and would not go back to sleep until she was snuggled nicely between Robert & me on our bed. Thankfully, we all slept until I knocked the clock off the nightstand at 6AM. Why did I knock the clock off the nightstand, you ask? Because Addison requires more than 1/2 the space in our queen bed...this mean many, many nights that she's in bed with us that I end up with my head on the nightstand. Yea for fun times.

Mom & Dad brought over yummy Sonny's for dinner tonight. It was awesome to have dinner cooked for us. I love nights like this!

Dad bought our tickets for our California trip in July. We selected our seats so that I sit next to Hoyt and Robert sits next to Addison. This is because I'll be a scaredy-cat on all the planes and will be virtually no help in dealing with Addison. God bless my loving, understanding husband who doesn't make fun of me for my irrational fear of airplanes!

night terrors are not nightmares

Just in case you were wondering, when kids turn two, they start developing fears. These fears manifest at night time - most of us probably remember how scary it was to go to sleep at night all alone. I still remember.

Anyway, Addison has had trouble sleeping for a few weeks now, mostly just waking up at 2 or 3 AM and coming into our room where she promptly falls back asleep. In the last few nights, she's started waking up, sobbing uncontrollably. Last night was the worst. She'd been asleep for two hours when she abruptly woke up. She was coughing, choking, screaming, fighting us to put her down. She ran to the front door insisting that we go home - "Addy want to go home!!!", like she had no idea that we were home. She didn't want to be held, talked to, given water, left alone, stand up, sit down, nothing was right. She went on like that for almost 30 minutes. It was horribly scary for Robert & me. She calmed down only after we put on her Tinkerbell DVD. She stayed up for about an hour after that, & didn't wake up again until 5 AM, when she did the typical come into our bed routine.

Today I did some research and found out that there are these things called "night terrors" as well as nightmares. The easiest way (according to the article I read) to tell the difference between the two is if the kid is more upset in the morning it was a nightmare; if the parents are more upset, it was a night terror. Addison had no recollection of watching Tinkerbell or her 30 minute outburst, but we sure did. Night terrors happen when the child is still technically asleep, but they are having a lucid dream, often walking, talking, crying, screaming, whatever, but not perceiving a parent's presence correctly, so us talking to her & picking her up likely made the situation worse. We know now, but hopefully it doesn't happen again. It was quite frightening to be unable to calm her for such a long time. Wish us luck tonight!

you should shop at Target & here's why

Not only do they have awesome merchandise, but they also have the best customer services policies & representatives that you could ask for in a corporate run company.

Exhibit A: When a crazy woman named Nicole Brown walked up to Customer Service Rep Amie this evening & explained a far-fetched & unlikely, albeit true story about how one of the four $100 dollar gift cards she purchased for her daughter's teachers ended up with no money on it, and that the blank gift card number did not match any of the gift card numbers on our receipt, Customer Service Rep Amie didn't even bat an eye. She plainly stated her procedure for resolving the issue in a polite, respectful, understanding tone. And, while it took more than an hour for Amie & the powers that be in Target-land to review the video from the date on our receipt (to verify that we hadn't pocketed any gift cards) and then to verify all four gift card numbers with their corporate office, Amie ended up getting me my money back. Well, on my way to getting my money back. I have to fax a copy of the receipt and send some information for their corporate office, but within 7-10 business days I should have a new gift card in hand to deliver to poor Miss Julie, who got gypped (sp?) on her Christmas gift from the nursery's parents.

So, today I say, please, shop at Target. And be happy - tomorrow is already Wednesday!

A song for you from Addison

Addison woke up in a singing kind of mood, so we took a quick video for you all to enjoy.

Happy Saturday!

Christmas Break Recap

I can't believe I go back to work on Monday! I guess time really does fly when you're having fun!

Christmas was amazing. We made delicious sugar cookies with my family. Andrew and Hoyt were more interested in eating them than decorating, so in the end mainly just my mom and I decorated. They turned out really pretty & were quite tasty, even though some people were worried because I used whole wheat flour instead of all purpose bleached flour. You couldn't taste a bit of difference and the cookies were almost classifiable as healthy! My mom made our traditional manicotti for dinner, which Addison really enjoyed this year. After dinner we opened presents. Highlights were Evelyn's cow salt & pepper shakers, Mom & Dad's new digital camera, my new purse and new laptop pad, Robert's leaf blower, Hoyt's cowboy boots, Papa's photo calendar, and Addison's Tinkerbell purse. I don't remember anything that Andrew got. We then gorged ourselves on dessert, and called it a night.

Addison slept relatively late on Christmas morning - awoke around 7:45, only at my insistence. I was too excited to sleep any longer, so I woke her & Robert up. We did stockings which Addison quite enjoyed and the did presents. Addison loved her new painting supplies, books, puzzle, but mostly her kitty keyboard. Robert was quite thrilled with new reusable shopping bags, dish cloths, and his new cordless electric edger/trimmer. As usual, Robert put me to shame with gifting. He swears that he will always go above & beyond whatever I do. I guess I have no choice. This year it was obvious. He got me all the new music I wanted, some much desired kitchen supplies, a new pillow (which is making me sleep much, much better!), and the highlight was a new necklace. We took our time, but were ready to go by 9 AM, and decided to head back to Nonnie & Doodah's house for breakfast pizza.

When we got there, we did our second set of stockings for the day. These are probably my most favorite part of Christmas. My mom does stockings like no one else. She finds the neatest, most unique but useful items for stockings. I love this part of Christmas. We traded off names this year to do "secret santa stockings". I got Hoyt and Robert got Andrew. It's tough to shop for the two of them because there are many things that we wanted for both of them. So, I'm sure in the end there was some overlap, but I think we did a pretty good job. Papa had my name, so my mom ended up doing most (READ: all) of mine. Andrew (or Evelyn?) had Robert's name. We both ended up with lots of neat items.

After breakfast and stockings #2, we ran over to Robert's parents' house for lunch. We did our 3rd set of stockings there, followed by more presents. Addison got a cute little crib for her baby dolls that Pepaw made for her. She's really enjoyed it so far. We got some cook books from Janie & Craig and another angel figurine for my collection. This one is holding a star. Craig ended up getting really sick and going home, so the day was cut kind of short by that. We all stayed for lunch (turkey), but the group disbanded pretty quickly after that. We wanted to get out before we caught the germs Craig had spread around all morning. Thankfully, none of us ended up with it!

After lunch, we came home so Adds could nap. She didn't end up sleeping, so we went back to my parents' house for dinner (ham).

Christmas is absolutely our busiest day of the year. We are on the move from the time we get up until about 9pm that night. It's an awesome day because we get to visit with so many people that we love, but it really is exhausting.

The next day we started packing for our beach trip. Addy was prepping to spend her first 2 nights away from us. (My parents kept her for the first two nights of our beach trip.) We ended up loading the car down. Thankfully, Addison wasn't in the car on the way to St. George, because we could not have fit everything that we needed in! Amaly drove down with me, and Marcus, Jason and Robert drove in Jason's car. The beach trip was outstandingly awesome. I never wanted to leave. I wish with all my heart that the group could be together more often. We've decided to make this an annual occurrence. Hopefully next year everyone will be able to stay longer...we're hoping to plan for a week, perhaps to include the new year holiday. I cannot wait! While we were there, Robert took some really, really stunning photos. I think his colorblindness gives him a different perspective on color and light/dark than the rest of us have. This is my favorite picture that he took. He took a few others that are quite wonderful, so please check out my pics online.

On a related but unrelated note, Matt & Helen, who joined us at the beach this weekend, got engaged last night! We are all very excited or them & will be celebrating our traditional way - with a game night at Trevor & Jen's house.

Regarding my beloved friend Heather - if you're going to be in Jacksonville on January 9th, PLEASE check out her benefit show at the Endo Exo starting at 8pm.

Happy 2009! If the wondrous events that happened in my life during December are any indication of the year ahead, 2009 should be a great year for me & my family! Best wishes to all of you!

a message for my dear friends

I'll be honest. I cried a lot when the group disbanded on Tuesday afternoon. I couldn't help myself. I had more fun than I can remember having in a long, long time. Life is good to me, and I know how blessed I am to have such wonderful, supportive, extraordinarily funny friends. I am always astounded at how quickly and efficiently the group clicks back in sync, as if we hadn't been separated from one another for almost a year. It's so easy, so effortless. I wanted this weekend to last forever. It allowed me to forget about life, work, schedules, bills - and reminded me the importance of just relaxing and having some fun. It was something I really needed and I will be forever grateful to the people who allowed me to have this time.

Sincere thanks from me to:
My mom & dad, for keeping Addison those first two nights,
Robert, for going along with my wild idea of getting everyone together at the beach over Christmas break,
Jason, for jumping right on board with the plan, and for making me laugh endlessly,
Matt, for the oh-so-delicious food and merriment that you bring,
Helen, for overseeing all the game play and for letting us play by our own rules sometimes,
Amaly, for reminding me how to relax & have fun,
Marcus, for the order and control that you brought to our weekend,
Patrick, for persisting and getting time off work, and for the beautiful parting essay you wrote in the guest book,
Trevor, for bringing a new sense of competition to our game play,
Jennifer, who although she could not join us, allowed Trevor to stay longer than we expected,
and Addison, for the smiles that you bring to my face every day and for being a big girl and staying away from mommy & daddy for two nights!

I love you all like my second family. I look forward with eager anticipation to the next time we can all be together again.

On an unrelated note, I promise I will post about Christmas soon. I didn't forget, I've just been having too much fun to recap yet.