And so this is Christmas (sorry this post is so late!)

Ok...so I realize that I haven't blogged since before Thanksgiving. Such is the busy life of a kindergarten teacher! All excuses aside, here is the abridged version of Thanksgiving and Christmas. We had an awesome visit with family in Georgia, then headed back to NOLA for 3 weeks, then it was back to Georgia for more family fun for two whole weeks! We visited and caught up with most of our friends and family. We had such a good time relaxing and doing whatever we felt like doing...a true vacation...no stress!!! woo hoo! The next few pictures are out of order, unfortunately, because it has taken me 3 days to do this update (I started updating, then started watching the Falcons game on Saturday night, then I got mad because of the way they were playing and went to bed! This is the first day I've felt like getting back to this! All the others pictures are pretty much in the right order.) We were blessed to have a White Christmas this year. It was truly magical!!

My "sisters" and me in the snow!

(Now the pictures are back in the right order). This is how we kicked off the Christmas season back in NOLA...Here we are on our way home from the dollar store with all our goodies and our penguin to stuff in our Operation Christmas Child shoebox. What a blessing!
Stephen and me in front of the Poinsettia tree at Celebration in the Oaks at City Park in New Orleans. My students got the opportunity to sing at the Christmas celebration to kick off the Christmas season. The next few pictures are decorations and lights we saw at City Park that night.

This is what Santa looks like in the Who Dat Nation...

Rudolph, swamp style...

Dressed up to watch the Falcons/Saints game...we didn't look so happy after the game. It was a good season, but boy was that a disappointment!

This is Porthos, our four legged baby, that is living with his foster grandparents in Georgia (a.k.a. Stephen's parents, a.k.a. Grammy and Poppy, hehe) until Stephen is finished here. We miss him terribly! He is doing his favorite thing in this picture--chewing on a towel. He has loved ever since he was a little bitty puppy. He carries them around kinda like Linus would with a blanket. :) He has gained quite a bit of weight living with Grammy and Poppy (I think they are feeding him people food, hehe! I'm just glad he seems to be happy. He likes getting to run outside and play.

This is Dixie, Porthos special friend who shares the pen in the backyard with him. She is kinda moody sometimes because she is very very old. But at least she keeps him company!!

Backyard pals!

One of the many of fun times we had playing with our nephew, Walker. Here is Angie trying out Walker's big wheel from Santa!

I got to spend a good bit of time with my family over the break. This is my dad and his sister, my Aunt Joyce while we visited at her house.

Wecome Will!!! Will be soon be joining the Roberts clan, making Walker a big brother!

Over the break, Angie hosted a baby shower for Nicole. The cake was way cute! It was lots of fun getting to spend time with family and some of Nicole's close friends to get her ready to bring Will into the world. The countdown to March 14 has begun!!

One of the ways we kept ourselves awake and kept Walker entertained until midnight New Year's Eve. Candyland is awesome...especially with a 3 year old who thinks its always a good thinkg to get the "cupcake" card, even if that means his game piece is supposed to go back 20 spaces, haha!

New Year's Eve entertainment: Stephen's family always shoots off fireworks at midnight go ring in the new year. We spend the time up until midnight grazing on yummy food and playing games. Stephen's mom, Kathy, even got into playing the new Xbox Kinect that Cliff got for Christmas. So fun and quite comical! :)

The beeeeeautiful sunset on I-1o headed back to NOLA after the break. It made getting stuck in bumper to bumper traffic in Mississippi an extra hour worth it! What a nice end to the most wonderful time of the year!!!

One Little...Two Little...Twenty Three Little Indians!

Friday, each class had a Thanksgiving feast. The Redbirds dressed up as Indians, and I borrowed one of the four year old classes' teacher, Marilyn's pilgrim outfit. This is a picture of Gennifer, the other four year year teacher, and me the day of the feast!
The children had a lot of fun feasting on Thanksgiving food and playing Thanksgiving themed games. They played pin the pilgrim hat on the turkey, blend BINGO, and made turkeys out of oreos and candy corn. I wish I had thought to take a picture of the turkeys, but in all the chaos of the day, I forgot! They were really cute! Most of the children went home after we finished games, and the six children that stayed watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving while I decorated the Redbird Chrismas tree. It was nice to get all the Christmas decorations up and ready for when we return after the break! We head out next week to Georgia to spend some time with the fam!

It's MY Birthday and I'll Blog if I Want to!

The Birthday Celebration began last night on my birthday eve. Stephen brought me a pumpkin latte from Starbuck's and a decorated cake to share with my teacher friends at school on my birthday. We watched the Falcons VS Ravens game on t.v., happy to see a Falcons game ACTUALLY air on Who Dat t.v! Then today my co-workers sang to me during prayer circle before school started. This picture shows my lovely assistant Connie holding my cake as I blow out my candles! I, of course, am wearing my birthday tiara that my mom had brought me to school last year on my birthday!

My kids were very excited that it was my birthday. The whole school sang to me at chapel in the morning. My roommom brought cake and ice cream for the class, and we had a party in the afternoon so I could open my presents and cards from them. It was really sweet of them to bring me things. I got some really cute winter socks, a pretty pink sweater, some gift cards, some cute bracelets, some flowers and decorated cards. Lots of fun!

I came home to find some yummy smelling bath and body works stuff and Beauty and the Beast on DVD from Stephen. For dinner, we dressed up and went to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse...delicious! We got a complimentary dessert from the waiter. It turned out the be really funny because when we first me the waiter, he wished me a happy birthday, but the rest of the dinner he kept talking about us celebrating our anniversary. We didn't correct him because we figured he was serving a lot of tables and probably just got confused. However, when he brought out our dessert, it read, "Happy Anniversary." Go figure! Oh well! It was cute either way! I was just happy to eat a great dinner and wear my "little brown dress." The dress was a real find over the summer. Nicole and I were out shopping, and I picked it up on a whim and tried it on. Of course I loved it as soon as it was on, but was terribly disappointed when I saw the $80 price tag. It was on the clearance rack, so I was hopeful that maybe it was mismarked...it WAS! I got it for $20! I was glad to finally get to wear it for my birthday! 26 has been a win so far!

Making Groceries...

We spent our Saturday today "Making Groceries," which is what the New Orleans locals call grocery shopping. Just another one of the interesting ways that people talk around here. It's never a dull moment in New Orleans, and this includes shopping for groceries. Stephen and I had a very entertaining experience, as always! The free sample ladies were giving out free alcohol samples again haha! Last time we went, is was rum and coke; this time there were two ladies--one was giving out wine, and the other was giving out vodka martinis. There's nothing classier than alcoholic beverage samples in a mini dixie cup. Oh the life in New Orleans! I tried to take a picture of them, but I couldn't figure out a way to do that discretely and not get kicked out of the grocery store!

We continued our trek through the store in search of shrimp for Stephen to make shrimp etoufee this week (yum)! We headed toward the seafood section, and boy was that a find! Because we are so close to the gulf, all the local grocery stores offer a wide variety of fresh seafood. However, I did not expect to see some of the things we saw today. I'm going to attach some pictures that I took of those interesting food choices. The seafood butchers were way in the back, so I was able to snap a few quick shots before they could yell at me. It was comical. There was a whole tuna fish with a jumbo shrimp in its mouth on display. It was very disturbing! Then right next to that, there was a whole octopus for sale. If only Stephen would have bought it for me--we could have had a fantastic dinner--NOT! Ewww! I've gotten to where nothing suprises me here anymore!

Round, Orange, and Rhymes with Bumpkins...

Can you guess what this week has been all about? That's right folks...PUMPKINS! And in "Bubba Gump" style, here's what our week looked like: PUMPKIN books, PUMPKIN crafts, PUMPKIN experiments, PUMPKIN pulp, PUMPKIN "snot," PUMPKIN muffins, PUMPKIN seeds, PUMPKIN patch, PUMPKIN Mickey, and PUMPKIN carving!

Whew! Busy week!! On Thursday, my Redbirds and their parents did lots of experiments measuring and observing pumpkins. They weighed and measured their pumpkins then counted the seeds. The kids surprised me at how grossed out they were by the pulp, or as one child described it, the "pumpkin snot" Ewww. Kindergarteners. Go figure. Then the kids got to sample pumpkin muffins and pumpkin seeds I had prepared earlier. Lots of fun. We also made some paper bag pumpkins by stuffing a lunch bag with newsprint, tying a the top with a swirly green pipe cleaner, and painting it orange. VERY messy, but very cute. Friday, we took a field trip to the pumpkin patch, and each child got to pick out a small pumpkin to take home. It was a really neat pumpkin patch. They had a wide variety of pumpkins. There were kinds of pumpkins I had never seen before. There were short wide green pumpkins and lumpy pumpkins that looked like they had worts. Today, Stephen and I carved one of the leftover pumpkins from my class. (and by Stephen and I, I really mean me, and Stephen watched, haha) I made it into a C for Craver. Or it could be a C for Crystal because I was the one who carved it, hehe! You might think this is the end of all my pumpkin adventures this week, but fear not! Today at K-Mart, I found the perfect pumpkin for me. It is one of those plastic pumpkins with a light bulb--completely free of "pumpkin snot" and already carved--right up my ally! And to top it off, can you guess whose face is carved in the front?? Mickey, of course! :) And so the Disney obsession continues! Stephen's been working more this week because NOBTS is on fall break this week. I'm jealous of the time off! But it will be Thanksgiving break before long!

P.S. In the picture of Stephen and me, ignore that ugly piece of hair in my face. I had to set the timer, and it took us like 300 times to get an ok shot. This was the best we could get! :)

Free Food and New Shoes

We haven't really done anything terribly interesting here lately, but I realized today that it has been quite a while since I posted, so super interesting post or not, here goes! School has been pretty busy. We had Open House Parent Night at school Tuesday night. It was fun showing parents everything they're child's been up to since the beginning of school. Connie, my fabulous assistant, has been out since Thursday and won't be back until Tuesday. She and her husband are on a short vacation. It has not been the same at school without her! My room-mom is subbing for her, and she's been a big help. However, knowing that Connie is out has thrown off the kids' routines, which is never a good thing! I'll be happy to see Tuesday come!

Friday night, Stephen and I were given tickets to attend a silent auction seafood dinner fundraiser at our church. The benefits went to Mrs. Priscilla's (one of Stephen's bosses) husband's minstry, Global Maritime Ministries, which ministers to men of the shipyards and ports of New Orleans. We ate a very yummy seafood dinner and bid on a couple of items. We were hoping to win the bid for tickets to the New Orleans Aquarium, Zoo, and Insectarium (didn't really want that one, but it was included. Bugs. Ew. Gross.) But as things go with silent auctions, the bids got really high, and we opted out. Oh well. Dinner was good, anyway. I'd like to go see the aquarium and the zoo at some point. According to the locals, they are both good.

The majority of the day today was devoted to going on a scavenger hunt for new shoes. Both Stephen and I had shoes with holes in them at this point. Very sad! So we headed to one of the malls here in search of shoes. We had already looked for shoes two weekends ago at Lakeside Mall in Metairie, where I work, but it's a very upscale mall and had mostly department stores. No Rack Room Shoes or Famous Footwear. Both of those stores have never done me wrong when it comes to shoes. So today we headed to Kenner, one city over from Metairie, to Esplanade Mall, and were very successful. It's amazing how gross and worn out shoes get over the years. Stephen and I both were very overdue. I needed some more "fake sperrys," those tan "boat" shoes that I love to wear with jeans or khakis at work. Super comfortable! Stephen needed some more tennis shoes. His were beginning to look like a Jim Henson puppet on Sesame Street because they looked like that had a mouth where the sole of the shoe had come loose! Needless to say, we were both very glad to have a new pair of shoes when the day was finished. We closed out the day by eating dinner at Copeland's next to the mall. They have very delicious "authentic" New Orleans cuisine. Very flavorful. Not spicy, just zesty! Anywho, this post is not the most interesting, clever, or funny, but it does give you a picture of some of the things we've been up to. :)

Falcons Voodoo No Help for Who Dat?

I've never been one to watch football, at least on T.V. I like watching high school football games in person, but mainly because of the social opportunities and listening to the band. T.V. football usually bores me. The crowd noise and announcers make me sleepy and want to take a nap, especially on Sunday afternoon games. However, today was a very different story. The Saints were playing the Falcons here, so of course, since I talked so much "smack" on Friday and my car was attacked by "evil" Saints fans at school, my students included, I had to watch the game today! Wow! What a game! The Falcons won by a field goal in overtime! You could ask Stephen, I was making comments and yelling at the T.V. just like a real fan. So funny! It was a really really good game. Both teams really put up a good fight, and the game went back and forth all afternoon. My favorite commerical right now is for NFL Sunday Ticket from Directv. It shows an old man making a voodoo doll with a red Falcons jersey of his next door neighbor, a Falcons fan living in New Orleans who has the audacity to watch Falcons games on NFL Sunday Ticket. Today's game just just shows that it doesn't matter how much "voodoo" the Saints fans have to offer, the Falcons will put up a fight. It wasn't easy, but it sure is nice to have a "W" for the Dirty Birds since it's not always easy being a Falcons fan in the Who Dat? Nation. :)