What I did on my Thanksgiving Vacation

Jimmy, my mom, and I went to Dallas to see the Cowboys play against the Miami Dolphins.

Other than it being really cold, we had a GREAT time!

The stadium is beautiful and the Jumbotron screen is ENORMOUS!!

Sadly, the Dolphins lost in the last minute of the game.

The drive to and from Dallas wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be and we even did some Christmas shopping on the way home.

Okay, I lied . . . More about Thanksgiving

Here is a picture of Meagan and Garrett by the Thanksgiving display that my mom put up. I think it turned out really cute Mom!

As for Thanksgiving Day, it was really nice. Nana Mary, Crystal, and Mady came and we all had a really good time. Of course my kids fussed and acted like I was trying to feed them battery acid when given white meat turkey and green beans but oh well.

I was exhausted from crash cleaning the house (thanks Jimmy!) but now the house still looks pretty good, so it was all worth it. (Of course, if I had stuck with my plan to clean/organize one room a day I wouldn't have had to crash clean, but this is me we are talking about!)

It was a lot of fun to see my friend Crystal. She recently moved back to Texas and was able to come down for Thanksgiving. She came over for Thanksgiving dinner and then came back on Friday night just to hang out.

I also got to see my friend Elaine on Thanksgiving evening. I always go to her house to eat pie on Thanksgiving evening. Her mom makes the best Buttermilk pie. Yum!

To finish up Thanksgiving . . .

Here is Grandma Blair (Jimmy's mom - green shirt) and Grandma Silly (my mom - yellow shirt) and Garrett at the Thanksgiving Dinner done by our school. Parents are invited to each lunch with their children when the cafeteria makes Thanksgiving dinner. Thank goodness for grandmas because I do not like turkey, dressing, gravy all mixed up and the day is so crazy there is no way someone could cover my class for me while I ate lunch with Garrett. Grandma Blair and Grandma Silly have been coming to my rescue for many years now, first by eating with Meagan and now with Garrett.
Here's Garrett with his McDonalds - he takes after his mom and doesn't eat turkey/gravy/dressing either. Plain white meat for him, thank you very much.
I wish he would realize that this *IS NOT* a real smile.

A Real Cut Up

Quick! Hide your stacks of paper. My son is on a cutting and gluing (is that a word?) kick and no piece of paper is safe. He is also obsessed with having me draw him Christmas trees so he can color them in and add ornaments. (And then cut them out and glue them to another sheet of paper. Layers are obviously in for him.)

He refuses to color in coloring books most of the time. He would rather use of stacks of paper for the printer. I told Jimmy that I think he would probably be thrilled if we bought him a ream of white paper, a pad of construction paper, a new pair of scissors, and some glue sticks for Christmas!

On a Christmas note, I am DONE! shopping for my kids. Family and friends are up next.

Well, I do have to shop for my kids for my parents. My mom has NEVER been a fan of shopping so most years my parents give Jimmy and I money and we shop for them for Meagan and Garrett. I also wrap the gifts - another holiday chore my mom is not big on. But, she makes AWESOME cookies and pecan tassies - things I DO NOT like to do - so it all works out. Plus, I get to pick what my kids get. No complaining here!

Garrett has also learned how to whistle. I think it's cute but also annoying. I hate stray noises that I can't find the cause of.

He is also singing this really cute Thanksgiving song.

"Gobble, Gobble, Gobble, Mr. Turkey says. Please eat pizza not me."

There's more to the song but I can't remember it all right now.

Meagan is using up boxes of Kleenex with her latest cold/allergy attack/whatever. So, of course the nasal congestion has brought on the cough that will not end. It is a dry, annoying cough (and if it is annoying to me I can only imagine how she feels about it) that probably will not quit until I give in and call the doctor for a round of oral steroids. I treat it with albuterol/Xopenex for a couple of days and it that doesn't work, then I call the nurse line and she talks to me and then to the doctor and then they call in the prescription for me. Thank goodness I don't have to drag them to Corpus every time.

Garrett is also congested and blowing his nose frequently but he is not coughing as much. They both have a check up with the pulmonologist on December 2nd, so hopefully we can take of things here at home until then.

My Thanksgiving cleaning plan (also known as Oh crap! People are coming over and I'd better do something to make the house presentable!) is not going as well as I would like it. Who woulda thunk? I guess for the plan to work a person actually has to detach themselves from the computer and do the cleaning tasks on the list. Even if the list is just in the person's head.

Yesterday I cleaned out most of the shelves in the frig - just the bottom drawer and bottom of the fridge to go - and cleaned out a kitchen cabinet. I sanitized all the shelves and walls and organized my millions of throw away containers that I use for taking my lunch/storing leftovers. If something did not have a mate, it got thrown away. Which guarantees I will find the mate tomorrow. Ah, such is life.

On tap for today: finish the fridge, clean out the oven, do laundry, grade papers, and finish the dining room. The kids did a great job in the dining room yesterday. Garrett cleaned up the aftermath of his latest cutting spree and Meagan took all of the junk that didn't belong in the room to the appropriate room. She also did a great job on her room.

I do have laundry going already this morning but that is about it. I'd better get moving!

I'm also going to take the kids and my niece and nephew to see Madagascar 2.

Thanksgiving Break is here!

We had a crazy week at school. Wait a minute . . . they are all crazy. Let me say that we had a crazier week than usual at school this week.

Here's some of what went on this week:

• Working from 8:00 - 10:00 P.M. on Monday night (and then grading at home until midnight) on grades that were due on Tuesday morning at 8:00 A.M.
• getting to school on Tuesday morning at 7:00 A.M. to finish grades (Mrs. T. is NOT happy when you submit late! :)
• Third grade held a parent meeting about the Reading TAKS test on Tuesday (only 10 parents showed up BOO!)
• I attended a science fair planning meeting on Tuesday
• one of my co-workers was out a couple of days (her poor baby has RSV and TWO types of flu)
• we had almost 300 parents join their children for Thanksgiving lunch on Thursday (thank goodness I didn't have anything to do with it except turn in the money my students brought it)
• Holiday picture day on Friday
• wearing regular clothes on Friday (not me, the students . . . they usually wear uniforms),
• early dismissal on Friday (a first for us for Thanksgiving. We've only gotten out early once before on the day of Thanksgiving break because the high school needed the buses for the the football team)
• a student brought cupcakes on Friday for her birthday, etc.. etc., etc.
• finished up benchmarking (we test at the end of each six weeks on science, social studies, math and reading usual bubble sheets that the teachers have to check by hand before turning in - but I'm NOT complaining - bubble sheets are much better than our own grade/analyze by hand method)
• be depressed about benchmark scores
• take care of field trip details for my DI team
• Staff luncheon on Friday (thank goodness we drew paper goods this time)
• turning in all of the end of the six weeks paperwork that was due
• handing out Book-It pizza coupons to students for November
• trying to download new curriculum for the third six weeks (our internet has been on strike at school lately and these documents have tons of pages so I am NOT going to print them at home!)

I am grateful for the whole week off for Thanksgiving. I plan on working in my room some to get ready for the three weeks that we have in December. Time is flying by and the TAKS test will be here before we know it. There is NO time to waste (not that there ever is).

I also need to clean my entire house because I am hosting Thanksgiving dinner for my parents and some good friends of ours.

Thanksgiving is on it's way!

My mom put this scene together in her front yard. Isn't it cute? Garrett was thrilled to help her with the hay.

He was so proud of himself for moving the bales all by himself.

(Once again Meagan is not in these pictures because she is off at another activity. She is leading a very busy life right now and something tells me it isn't going to get any better any time soon! We - Jimmy, Meagan, and I - were at her kickball game the night Garrett and my mom set all of this up.)

I am excited about Thanksgiving because I am having it at my house. My mom, dad, Nana Mary, Crystal, Mady, and Carlos (maybe) are all coming. It's been a coulple of years since we've had this big of a crowd and I am looking forward to it!

Crystal is my best friend from when I was a kid. Mady is her daugher and Nana Mary is her mom. Carlos is Nana's significant other. (Significant other sounds weird but boyfriend sounds even weirder!)