Christmas 2008

It has been wonderful spending time with family and friends! I've been back and forth between Hartford and Greenville three times in the past week! But that's okay. We did Christmas with my dad Sunday night and Christmas Eve with Troy's family at Carmin & Tracy's house. Then Christmas day, it was back to Hartford for the Gardner Christmas at Grandmama's. Then back to Greenville for Christmas with Troy's dad. WHEWW!!!

Christmas was wonderful. We enjoyed having Tristen over to spend time with and Ms. Janice, Troy's mom, has been staying there every weekend since her house almost burned! They will rebuild it after the New Year. It's pretty safe to say that both Troy & I spoiled Tristen for Christmas! It's fun having a youngster to buy for. He got a bow and an iPod shuffle along with a ton of clothes & shoes.

Of course, Coco and Buck got to come in for all the events! Buck acted like a big baby. Poor ole' Ann had to stay outside in the barn with her pups, who are growing! I'll get new pictures this week. They still haven't opened their eyes.

Gingerbread Cookies!

I actually made some cute Gingerbread cookies Sunday night for my students. They were SO easy. I just bought the Betty Crocker Gingerbread mix so all I had to do was add butter and a tablespoon of water and mix! My kind of baking! Now, the one thing they don't really tell you is that you need a lot of flour on the workspace or else the cookies will stick to your surface (it says to use sparingly, but that didn't work). I used a glass as a rolling pin and a gingerbread boy cookie cutter. Then I popped them in the oven for about 10 minutes!

Next I put a little icing outline on them. If I had of thought about it earlier, they would have been cuter, but I just didn't have time. Here's a little tip: if you just buy the vanilla icing in a can, you can scoop some out into a Ziploc, squish it all to one bottom corner, seal and snip off a little corner. Then you can squeeze out the icing in any shape, lines, etc. You can also add food coloring if you need other colors instead of buying all different flavors. (I also do this when making Deviled Eggs--put all of the yolks and good stuff into a big Ziploc, smash it up with my fingers, then cut off the bottom corner and squeeze it back into the whites). There's Martha for ya...

I made them because we made a Gingerbread Graph showing what part we ate first (math). It was fun and turned out cute! I enjoyed my Christmas cookie baking and plan on getting Tristen over here to make some more with me (if he wants) next week!

And here are my students on board to listen to The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg. I had to stamp their boarding ticket before they could "ride." We also learned cool facts about the North Pole (Arctic region) and documented them here in our podcast:

http://parmer.bce.schoolinsites.com/?PageName=TeacherPage&Page='DocumentsCategory'&CategoryID=16262&iSection=Teachers&CorrespondingID=36967

I finally got my tree finished last week. My camera doesn't have a flash, though, so you can't really see it!

Ann Stinson's Puppies

Troy's sweet lab, Ann, had her puppies either late Friday night or in the wee Saturday morning hours (which was Troy's birthday--I prefer to think they share their birthdays). Poor ole' Ann is getting on up there in age. Troy thought he had gotten her to his Dad's to be fenced up when she was hot-to-trot, but apparently he wasn't quick enough!

There had been a beautiful Huskie hanging around the house and I thought for sure that he was the father. But these puppies are all chocolate labs like their mother! Troy thinks there is another chocolate lab down the road that could be the daddy. They are so precious! She had 10, but one passed this afternoon and I was so sad. I thought it was coming because he was cold and wouldn't get in there and suck on her teets. Sorry, had to throw that in there. I really was sad and teared up and hugged Annie. So if anyone wants a sweet lil' puppy, let me know!

CoCo with St. Nick!

Sunday afternoon the Butler County Humane Society had Santa downtown at Confederate Park to take pictures with pets. It was really cute! I got Cokers a cute little red and white dress that said "Santa Baby" and Buck (Troy's pup) wore an elf hat. Tristen jumped in the picture too! (I'm not sure Santa was ready for Tristen to plop down on his knee). It was hard to get both dogs to cooperate. The real photographer got a better shot. Check out Santa's shoes! Coco thought she was something! She kept doing her 'pee-pee dance' where she kicks her feet really fast. She was showing off in her dress. Maybe if I ever have children, I won't obsess about the dog so much! But for now, she's my baby! You have to admit that she's cute!

Greenville's Christmas Parade

Greenville held it's Christmas Parade last night. Troy and I have been busy all week making a float for my little Pep Squad girlies to ride in. I had a vision in my head and for the first time in my life, it actually turned out like what I pictured! It was so cute. The theme was "Spirit of Christmas" so I decided to make a sleigh full of little elves who had the 'Christmas Spirit' (cheerleading spirit, of course!).

Troy was so sweet to help me get plywood and I attempted to draw a sleigh on it. He cut it out and we painted it red and I painted the back saying, "We've got Spirit, how 'bout u?" A few parents came out Wednesday night to put a few finishing touches on it.

The only bad part was that my camera doesn't have a flash and I never got a good shot of it all put together with the elves in it. However, we had a lot of fun riding on it (sitting on hay bales) and singing "Jingle Bells." We won 3rd place in the float contest! I can't believe I actually didn't tacky something up!

I am in the very top left corner helping to hold up little girls...I was dressed in full Elf attire...