"detox" tea

Made up a batch of tea with lots of ingredients that are supposed to boost immunity and detox the body. I'm not sure how much it will actually do those things but after indulgent holiday eating and being around lots of sick people, I'm willing to try. I steeped 2 bags of Yogi Berry Detox Tea and a finger of chopped ginger (which I strained out when I removed the tea bags) in about 4 cups of water. I added 2 T of honey, 3 T of lemon juice, and 3 cups of cranberry juice. If nothing else, it's really yummy!

Home Again

After only a week of traveling, we're back home.  It feels strange (and awesome!) to be home and still have a week of break left. I have a mile long to-do list and plans with friends every day of the week. 

Video Games with Uncle Brian

Christmas Morning

Korra got a guitar.  My aunt, uncle and cousin visited from Wisconsin. We ate a lot of bacon.  Listening to Santaland Diaries. 

Baby and VR

Today we arrived in Asheville. I got to cuddle a brand new baby, eat delicious food, take a nap, and watch my mom try out a VR headset.

Tee KO

We had pizza and played games (Jackbox) with some friends. Their kids (5 and 8) and Korra played along. The gist of one game, called Tee KO is that everyone draws random pictures on their electronic devices, then they all type a bunch of random phrases. Then You get a selection of pictures and phrases from everyone in the game and you match them up to make tshirts. Korra drew the picture. Nate wrote the phrase. I put them together. It was amazing. Did I mention you can order the shirts online?  So tempting...

Skating

I taught a fellow teacher how to skate and came in 3rd place in a skating race. 

Legos

Korra followed the instructions and built this Lego kit all by herself!

It's finally here!

I'm more excited about the last day of school that I am about Christmas (maybe that's because we already opened all our presents?) Potluck breakfast and Secret Santa reveal with my coworkers before school, field trip to the skating rink for kids with good behavior in the morning, hot cocoa with Korra's class in the afternoon, White Elephant exchange with my class and then we're done for 2 weeks!

Unstructured Work Time

Today we worked on Christmas writing prompts, played with tangrams and story cards, and created 2018 mobiles to hang from the ceiling. It was actually a pretty good day considering how exhausted we all are. 

Dawali

Korra's class did a Dawali presentation for Curriculum Night. 

Long day

Curriculum Night/PTA meeting after school. Then going straight to a friend's house to watch the Survivor finale. Saturday needs to hurry up and get here. 

I need my break

I know it's time for Christmas break because I'm crying about my students. Emotion overload. 

Reading Buddies

Today was a tough day (why are we still in school?!) A bright spot was our first attempt at reading buddies. We read books to a first grade class. The first graders then put on a puppet show for us. I'm looking forward to doing reading buddies again soon. 

End of Quarter Test

It's painful to watch my students take the end of quarter exam.  2 of them finished writing their argumentative essay in less than 10 minutes.  God help me.  

Early Christmas

Nate and I were feeling stressed out so we decided to have open all the Christmas presents tonight- hot cocoa, Christmas music and all. It turned out to be a wonderful idea!  

Holliday Store

Today was the Holiday Store for Korra's dance class. She's been earning points all semester for good behavior during dance class and today she gets to spend the points to buy gifts. She came out with 3 huge bags- gifts for some of her cousins, all her grandparents, me, Nate, both of her teachers, plus 7 for herself. 

Pageant

During carols on the steps, Korra fell hard and smacked her chin on the concrete steps. Thankfully not hard enough to need stitches or to knock out a tooth, but enough to leave a gash and a decent bruise. It didn't stop her from being an adorable sheep or from soaking up the attention of her uncle Todd who made a last minute trip to join us for church. 

And yes, that is Nate dressed as an angel playing the trumpet. 

5am alarm

The cat wakes me up every morning before my alarm by meowing and pawing at our bedroom door. I've had all I can take. I need more sleep. I've decided to try giving her a whole days worth of food at night (rather than getting her twice a day) in the hopes that we can break her of the habit of expecting to be fed first thing in the morning.  Day 1 of the experiment: the cat still woke me up early. She's pissed I am up but not feeding her. I can't wait to go to church so she'll stip harassing me. 

More weird dreams

On Friday night I dreamed there were a whole bunch of snakes loose in our house. Last night I dreamed Hillary Clinton came to my classroom and I cried as I told her how disappointed I was with American politics.

Holiday preparation

Last night we made a big batch of chocolate covered pretzels (Korra enjoyed adding sprinkles). This morning I'm baking cookies (white and dark chocolate chip with pecans). While they are in the oven in writing cards to each of my students. Then we're going to church for carols on the steps and the Christmas pageant. Definitely feeling a lot like Christmas. 

Cocoa and Carols

Nate's preschool had their winter fundraiser this afternoon. What's better than hot cocoa and toddlers?  So sticky and loud!  I'm currently hiding out in the sanctuary after spending most of the event hiding in the kitchen. 

Breakfast

Met a friend (former coworker from Chatt Hills) for breakfast and had a wonderful time catching up. His Facebook post totally captures his personality and our friendship. 

My classroom

Here's what my classroom like like. I share it with my partner teacher. We each teach 6-7 kids at the same time, in the same room, with only a bookshelf divider. It's way less noisy/distracting than you'd think. I love having another teacher in the room. I especially love my partner teacher. She's amazing and we make a great team. 

Super Weird Dream

I dreamed Nate and I were chosen to be "teachers in space."  So we both went to space where it turns out the astronauts were particularly interested to study how a normal married couple cope with the stresses on space travel. We stopped at space center that was a famous spot for male astronauts to go after their vasectomies. Then they discovered I had a cold so they dropped me off at a mall to get a Cold Remedy Smoothie and a bunch of vitamin C gummies. Then I had to climb this really tall building to get picked back up.