Some of my favorite things :)

This has been the best Christmas I've ever had, HANDS DOWN. Normally for Christmas I will buy a bunch of clothes, which is always great for a girl who loves to shop but here lately I have been ALL about cooking. I have grown to really love it and am always looking to try new and different things. One of the things I look forward most to getting married is getting the opportunity to be in the kitchen so much! I try and cook as much as I can on my own, but it's not that easy cooking for just myself.

This year for Christmas I wanted to make an attempt to buy a good amount of kitchen supplies. My latest obsessions have been bakeware and dishes. My favorites have been CorningWare and Paula Deen brands mostly because I love that Southern ridged pattern.
I got this on CorningWare dish I ADORE. One of the special education teachers at school always brought her stews for lunch in this thing and I always found myself eyeballing it wanting one for myself. It's such a fun little toy to have in the kitchen and great to carry with you to work. On the Paula Deen brand, I got some bakeware sets and a measuring cup that is QUITE cute. I like to look in my cabinets and see some color and sass to my bakeware. Although I love cooking entirely, I find my favorite recipes stuff that I bake like casseroles, chicken, lasagna, etc.



Another cooking item I got that I am SO excited about using is this 5 piece mixing bowl set. You can get them at Wal-Mart and Target. If I'm not mistaken I am sure they are under 25 bucks (since I got them as a Dirty Santa present and that is our family spending limit) My friend Chrystal got this set when she got married several years ago and I would always cook with her in her newlywed kitchen. We absolutely loved them, the colors and the nice stoneware sturdiness of them (if that's even a word, if not forgive my lack of vocabulary)




Something else I have grown to be a fan of are glasses. I have no idea why but I absolutely loooove small cups/glasses. I drink out of them so much more than the regular size glasses. I got myself a nice set of scotch glasses (in which my mother calls "juice glasses" because she's not a drinker). I use them to drink water, juice and on occasions blush wines :)


Another obsession I have recently developed is fitness: or in my case yoga, pilates and P90X. I have grown to LOVE working out and actually lost 7 pounds from the P90X program. The holidays have caused me to gain back 2 of those pounds so starting tomorrow it's back to the mat for me. My stepdad, Mike, who is also a fitness fanatic found me this BowFlex heart rate monitor with your calorie count to give me for Christmas. I was SO happy when I opened it up because I know I will use the crap out of this sucker!


Finally, last but NEVER least Matt's parents bought me the 5th season of one of my all time favorite shows... The Golden Girls! I know every man has it in his blood from birth to hate this show and I can not help it, but I just love it. I love all their crazy calamities they get into and the fact that they are old and can still raise the roof just puts a huge smile on my face. Sweet Matt has already bought me two seasons of them and I'm only two away from owning the whole series! They will be in my DVD player for months at a time! LOVE IT!

And that boys and girls...is a few of my favorite things from this years Christmas. ♥

Merry Christmas!

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas everyone! The Lord's blessed me tremendously this year with gifts and love from my family. This was the first year Matt and I got to actually spend Christmas together, so that was wonderful in itself. :) We got really creative with our gifts for one another: I bought him a pair of Heelys (which his face lit up like a little kid when he opened them--so funny!) and he got me an ASSORTMENT of gift cards from: Victoria's Secret, iTunes, Marshalls, Rue21, Subway, Starbucks and Panera Bread! My favorite places! How fantastic :)

I had many more family get togethers due to both of our families extending. I think I had 6 total this year. Whew! My new niece Haley spent her first Christmas with us this year. She's teething right now so it's so comical watching her open up her gifts and stuff the paper in her mouth and chew on it, hahaha!


Fantastic Christmas, great year of family, friends, pies and SNOOOOW on the ground!
Merry Christmas from Haley herself :)

How it feels to be a teenager..

Believe it or not, I thought about my blog a few weeks ago. I was laying down in bed, under my down comforter that I love to get under during cold winters, my cup of Cinnamon Twirl coffee on my nightstand and a book in my lap and I kept thinking was how I was wanting to write something. The holidays are up, Christmas is my all time favorite holiday. And for so many reasons. However, all I could think about was how it feels to be a teenager.

As I've told you once before, I took on the challenge of being FCA Sponsor of the school I teach at. I felt like it was something that was laid on my heart as soon as I got hired to teach at Perry County. It all went smoothly at the beginning of the year. I gave out applications for leaders, "interviewed them", got references among other teachers and chose 6 great students to be the officers for the school year. Everything was peachy....

One officer (not saying names for the sake of the student) I know extremely well. She was in my very first class as a full time teacher here. I guess you could say we're pretty close as far as our teacher-student relationship. I think very highly of this girl- except her attitude. I always see to hear bad language slip out of her mouth, and I hear that she will gossip heavily whenever she's in class. All I think of is "She's supposed to be an example..."

I've called her out a few times on these things. Just reminding her that she is being watched and that she needs to be aware of her actions. She's really a great student. Sweet, creative, smart, fun, outgoing, respectful to teachers. That's why it makes my skin crawl when I see such foul actions come from a nice person.

And then all hell breaks loose.......

The other day, she bumped into a girl she was having issues with. Instead of walking away from snide remarks she turns around and shouts at the top of her lungs, right in the middle of the hallway at school...

"__________ IS A SKANKY WHORE!!!!"

When I got the notice that she was being put in detention for that behavior, I had no idea how to handle it. Finally, I walked over to the detention room and pulled her out for a chat. As nicely as I could, I told her that when she is a leader I expect a certain behavior from leaders. Since this was her numerous time acting out of line, and though will always be welcome to be active in FCA, she could no longer be a leader.

She looks down at the ground and bursts into tears.

And then it comes back to me. Just how it feels to be a teenager, like everything on Earth is falling down on your shoulders and there is not a single soul in the world who knows how you feel or what you're going through. How you try so hard every single day to be the best human being you could be and yet there is always someone there to tear you down as you are just being built up. How it feels like the world will just end if you do not get this group of people to hang out with you or get the guy of your dreams to ask you to prom. All of those feelings came back to me in that moment.

I had a good long heart to heart talk with her, letting her know that she doesn't need to beat herself up and that everybody screws up. But in the end, you are still going to have consequences for her actions and these were some she was just going to have to experience. It broke my heart to no end that I "demoted" her from her leadership position and even now I still feel terrible. Nevertheless, I know it's the right thing to do in the end.

God, thank you for that student and for showing me again what it was like to be a teenager. Now I feel like I can relate to them and reach out that much more.