On the Fourth Day of Christmas Break

my true love and I
celebrated Christmas with the entire Thomason family.
Merry Christmas!

The Third Day, continued

(the first run was a little rough. I had actually untangled my legs and skis quite a bit by this point. Darn powder!)

On the Third Day of Christmas Break

my true love and I (and a brother-in-law)
went to Grand Targhee to do some skiing.

On the Second Day of Christmas Break...

my true love and I
caused a little trouble on the four-wheeler!

On the First Day of Christmas Break...

my true love and I
visited the Rexburg temple and the campus of BYUI.

pardon the rant

I'm just not a big fan of these huge stars being on the bus on Extreme Home Makeover. I think the whole show should be about the families and the community and NOT about getting a "I'm so philanthropic, look at me, look how cute I am hammering in some nails" few extra minutes of fame.

Okay, rant over.

More Crafting :)

I've been crafting quite a bit lately...last night I decided to organize all of my scrap paper by color. It took me longer than I thought it would, I have a lot of scraps, and that's not counting the mat stacks and I have as well as the 12X12 paper. I have a paper addiction!

I saw on a blog that you can use Mod Podge and Epson salts to create a snowy effect, so I tried it on some cards...they came out really cute. I have noticed the epson sheds a little bit, but it has stayed on a really well. Sorry, a few of you (card group, cough cough) may see these soon :) They are much cuter in person, my camera doesn't do indoor super well.

I also saw this idea somewhere (sorry, I read so many craft blogs I can't keep track of where I got it, I will find it someday!) for these lollipop ornaments made out of paper. I tried a few out and I really liked how they turned out!

Our apartment is quite small, and there's not quite enough room when I need to spread out. Plus, we had an outlet die (that I keep forgetting to call about) and so I have to spread out for enough plugs. I had to move my glue gun to the dining room table....

...when my craft table got full...

...and even then I still had to put things on the floor.

Todd is so busy studying he doesn't notice the mess :) Here's to having law school finals over with!

Need Your Help!

Sorry about the last post guys. I couldn't resist :)

I know I have lots of smart, spiritual friends out there, so I am enlisting your help. I am in a bit of scripture-reading slump...I won't tell you how much I am exaggerating. I am trying to think of a way to get excited about reading my scriptures...I just haven't found anything to motivate myself to do it. Now that I don't have to read for seminary, or class, etc. etc., basically now that I'm not being forces, my scripture reading has been much more infrequent.

I used to always read at night before I went to bed...just a chapter or even just a verse. Now I go to bed pretty quickly usually, and if I do read, I want to read something fun and relaxing. When I read my scriptures, my mind often wanders...especially at night. And please please please...I will never wake up early to read my scriptures, it just won't happen! Maybe if I ate breakfast at home, that would be a good time, but I usually wait until I get to work to eat, and that doesn't really work. I have tried reading them online, skipping around based on opening to a random page, starting the Bible (I stopped around Kings...it gets pretty boring around then!) I've tried reading with a supplement to let me know what is going on, but I hate flipping between multiple sources. The last time I started reading, I started reading the New Testament in order by book, but I got tired of "rereading" (I know, I'm a bad person for not wanting to reread, but hey, that's the truth).

So, what do you guys do to stay motivated to read? How do you get excited? How do you build it into your routine (or lack of routine?) I need help!

Announcing a New Addition to our Family....

• If you were wondering why I've been grumpy and tired lately (hopefully with NONE of you!)....

• If you were wondering why I haven't been blogging as much...

• If you were wondering what kind of sickness I've been having...

• Well, it has nothing to do with being pregnant.

The Thomasons have recently welcomed their 28 inch brand-new baby....

Meet Baby Imac Thomason :)

We have cried tears of joy, for our lives have just become easier and our slideshows will improve by a mile, thanks to Apple!

Crafting

I have been doing just a bit of crafting here and there as I've had time. I found this tutorial here, and I have been making a lot of these out of fabric and paper for cards and pins...it's been a lot of fun and they really do take only a few minutes! I hit a few sales on Black Friday (I said I wasn't going to, but I did...I just can't help it!) and bought some fat quarters from Jo-Ann's, since I don't really have fabric lying around, as well as some new paper from Michaels...continuing to feed my addiction to paper (and STILL have nowhere really to put it!)

Post-Thanksgiving Dinner

We went over for a big dinner at a ward member's home for Thanksgiving, which was totally yummy and delicious, and great because we were surrounded by lots of great people from our ward and from law school. After Thanksgiving, we ended up buying two turkeys for way cheap, and I ended up cooking a turkey POST-Thanksgiving! Needless to say, it really isn't that hard, and I'm not as scared to do it when I have to do it for a crowd someday!

Wicked!!!

We went to see Wicked in KC last Tuesday.

It. Was. Amazing. I was so excited to be there. It had been a while since I had seen a play, especially one of that caliber. I told Todd during the first intermission that I got a little choked up watching it...it's awesome to see the talent out there, to see a show I had been DYING to see forever. I told him it even made me wish just a teensy weensy bit that I had stayed more involved in the stage management thing. However, as I saw the spot operators climb the scaffolding to the top and saw two of the stage managers scurry around the back....well, I remembered too how stressful it was and how SO NOT GLAMOROUS the other side of it is. So, it was nice to sit and watch the glamorous part and get caught up in the story. My favorite characters was Glinda, she was hilarious, but the whole show was funny and well done. I have caught the bug again and I told Todd that we needed to see another one (although preferably less expensive!).

ARGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

I will not tell you the source of my frustration, only that it has to do with a bit of housecleaning that turned into a bigger project than necessary and is leaving me quite at a loss as to what to do about it---not necessarily the cleaning aspect of it, but how to prevent it next time. GRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!! I AM SO ANNOYED! I HATE HOUSECLEANING AND THIS DOES NOT HELP!

If I haven't posted in over a week...

...then you KNOW I have been too tired. We started practicing for the Kansas Assessments last week, and it was a hot mess. We have switched to computerized assessments, which is an entirely new variable, which angers many teachers because we are expected to have a higher number of our students pass. That tends to be pretty tricky when you introduce a variable as touchy as computers. Blech.

Anyway, for some reason, testing combined with whatever else (hormones? the general stress of teaching?) made me totally exhausted.

However, I wasn't TOO exhausted because I did these things this week:

• went to see New Moon! It was fun...especially because we were surrounded by hilarious teenage girls who swooned. One girl made gagging sounds every time Jacob appeared onscreen. Apparently, she is on the OTHER team.
  

• Bought tickets to Wicked!!! YESSS!!! I have been dying to go since California. Normally, I have a distaste for musicals, but I borrowed the soundtrack from a co-worker when we lived in Sacramento, and I loved it! Since then, it's always been sold out everywhere we've been. And now, its in KC, and I laid down WAY too much money to go see it, but Tuesday night, Todd and I have a date with the wicked witch!

• Replenished my arsenal of books. I just finished reading The Time Traveler's Wife. By finished, I mean skimmed through the end, skipped through parts. It was an interesting idea, but put together quite crassly. I HATE when authors use crude language. You would think that the art of writing would lend itself to be above bad language, but that's just not true. I find that irritating, especially when those books are supposed New York Times bestsellers. I also finished reading Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" which was exciting in parts, boring in others. Dan Brown does his research!

I checked out a James Patterson book (I know, they have language too, I'm a hypocrite, but they are fast, fun reads) as well as a book in the Percy Jackson and Gregor series. Both series have been recommended. I'm excited to have books to gobble up over Thanksgiving (haha, gobble?? GET IT!!??) I love reading. I would go crazy without reading.

• We used our free Kodak gift to get a jump on our Guatemala pictures...we haven't printed out hard copies yet, and it seemed like a good way to spend the money. We received 200 pictures this week...and that's only half of them! I went and bought some photo albums and am in the process of putting them inside...next up, writing captions in the books!

• Still drooling over the imac. I think this week or the next will be IT! I am waiting to see if anything spectacular comes out for Black Friday or Cyber Monday, but the Thomasons may be Mac owners by Christmas. I am excited. I want to shoot my computer sometimes (although it sure has been good to me for 5-6 years!)

Anyway, I guess that sounds like kind of a lot...but most of this was accomplished on Friday and Saturday...I never knew how blissful weekends were until I started teaching...now I milk it as long as I can into Sunday evening!

Disgusting

A
cockroach
crawled out of a student's planner today.

Yes, I was mildly grossed out and it was promptly swished to the ground and stomped upon.

Sad

One of my little boys (one of the bigger troublemakers) came up to me the other day with what looked like news. He doesn't normally share things with me, which I feel bad about because with him, I am usually doing one of two things: 1, congratulating him for knowing an answer because he is pretty smart in math, or two, reprimanding him for doing something stupid.

So when he came up to me looking pretty happy about something, I made sure I listened.

F: Guess what Mrs. Thomason?

Me: What?

F: My mom is taking me to see my dad this weekend.

Me: Really? Where is your dad?

F: He's in prison.

Me: Ohhhh, well, I'm glad you get to see him!

Conversations like this break my heart. Little boys should have daddies around. Little boys should have daddies who make decisions that keep them out of jail! Little boys should NOT have the most exciting thing in their life be visiting a dad in prison that they haven't seen in weeks!

Maybe this is weird...

...but will the person reading this in Olney let me know who they are? I'm guessing it COULD be Lindzie??? Maybe???

More crafting :)

Sorry the top pictures are sideways...I swear that Blogger will turn some of my pictures, and NOT others...weird!

Half what?

I was almost certain today was going to be one of those days that I dumped in the trash and thought, "I hope I never have to relive THIS day again!"

I came out with one gem.

Me: So who is picking you up?

Student: My half stepfather.

Me: Confused look, trying to figure that out.

Me: Oh, your mom's boyfriend?

Student: Yep.

So, just in case you were wondering, mom's boyfriend will from this point on, be called a

"half stepfather."

Trunk or Treat

I decided to actually be festive and decorate the trunk of our car for our ward's trunk or treat. I looked through the ideas online and settled on a theme, downloaded some animal sounds from a website, turned on the Cricut and got to work! I also made some luminaries (which I love because we used to do them with my Granny all the time) but I was sad because it wasn't quite dark enough to get a good effect with those. We gave out a ton of candy and I thought it came out well!

Cricut Projects

I recently got a Cricut, a machine that cuts shapes and words and letters for you, and I've been doing some projects that use it...Let me tell you, I have been cutting up a storm and creating a huge mess at home! After the VT's came over the other night, Todd said, "The house was like this when they came over?"

He is so proud of my homemaking skills ;)