Here it is..............................

Well, I promised you last week that if youtube cooperated then I would present the song that helps get me in the mood for Christmas. I love this song. I got a CD way back when just because this song was on it. My friend, Christi, gave me an ornament that plays this song, back in 1995 (I think.) I still hang it on my tree and my oldest, Reed, loves it.

So, without further ado, I present you with (drumroll, please), The King. The one, the only Elvis Presley singing Blue Christmas.



Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building.

And have a great start to the Christmas season!!

I don't want it to happen.......

I don't want it to happen but my little butterfly is growing up!!




Allie lost her 1st tooth tonight! She was so proud of herself. I think the other ones will come out quicker, now that she knows that it didn't hurt to lose it. She was a little anxious about that. And ta-da, here she is without the tooth!





Not to leave Reed out of the conversation, here she is at Halloween too. She was a "glam girl" this year. I think it is how she secretly wants to dress for school. You can't tell in the photo but she had on rhinestone eyelashes. She came up with the outfit on her own. Can you believe it? :) Hello, my name is Tacky. LOL.







Have a great day!!

Just some random things....

I was going to do a flashback Friday today, but youtube was not cooperating. Plus, I probably would have officially gotten on your nerves with my choice!! I just realized that next Friday is the day AFTER Thanksgiving. That means I can pull out all my Christmas CDs and drive my girls insane with my choice of music for a month. Well, I do that everyday, but you know what I mean. I can NOT believe that it is that time of year again. I have not bought the first thing this year and do not know where to start. I hate Christmas for that very reason. I love the decorations, the festiveness, and the just, generally, good feeling of the time of year. But, I hate the gift shopping, exchanging, and hoping that you have pleased someone. Anywho, my song choice....... I'm not telling. If I can get youtube to do what I want it to do, I may surprise you all with a little cheer next week!

The stomach bug is starting at my school. I had a child, crying with stomach pains, the last twenty minutes of school. I call Mom, had to leave a message, waited 10 minutes, and then called grandma. I told her how he was just complaining right now and wanted her to know for when he got off the bus. He threw up while I was on the phone with her!!! And not a little, my poor book corner is all I'm going to say. :) My advice to you mothers: Lysol and Clorox wipes!!

Yes, I'm all excited about Twilight. Yes, I'm jealous that Lynette is seeing it tonight, and I'm not. Yes, I'm stupid for not going and getting tickets early, but I dont' want to go alone. Yes, I'm afraid I will look creepy going alone to see this movie about a bunch of young, good-looking people. I will try to get one of my nieces to go, hopefully this weekend. So no telling, Lynette!!

And finally, my fiasco of last night. Reed was at dance, it was time to get her, I got Allie ready and decided at the last minute to go tinkle. I used the bathroom, flushed, and rushed out the door. Cue to 30 minutes later. Walk in the door, downstairs, and hear a noise. I first thought, I didn't have the washing machine running. Then, I saw it. Water was leaking from the basement ceiling. All over my husband's laptop, book copies, and receits. I ran up the stairs, and saw the mess in the bathroom. Our toilet had been running over for 30 minutes!!!!!!!
Long story, short. My husband got home, was mad about his stuff, was ugly to me, I cried, didn't talk to him the rest of the night, and went to bed without helping him sort through stuff downstairs. He did apologize this morning, and it saved his life!

So, how was your week?

Flashback Friday....

Thanks Christi for the Flashback picture-thingy. I finally figured out how to do it!!

This song is not my favorite or the best from Bon Jovi, but I was messing around on youtube the other night and found it. I do remember the video though. To a 15 year old girl, I thought this video was risk-ay!!! The scenes in the car put Kate Winslet and Leo DiCaprio from Titanic to shame! I think these two teens were doing more than living in sin. And what the heck is up with the girl getting communion? I've always liked Bon Jovi, but had forgotten about a lot of their stuff. At the time, I didn't quite get the Jon love. I just wanted to brush his hair. I never got into the male hair, I guess. I remember listening to Slippery When Wet for the first time at a friend's house, and yes, it was a big ole vinyl for my baby-like friends out there who don't know what records are!!

It's my turn.....

I've been tagged!

Christi over at Blahblahblog tagged me for this fun meme!

Five Things I Was Doing 10 Years Ago
1. I was pregnant with my 1st child. I was almost 32 weeks in Nov. I remember because I never thought January would get here.
2. Going to school to get my master's degree
3. Teaching 2nd grade
4. Getting a nursery ready and all the fun things that go with that
5. Putting my feet up every chance I got! My feet really swelled with my 1st one--could tie shoes swell.

Five Things On My To Do List
1. Christmas shopping
2. Get lesson plan ready for my evaluation observation next week
3. Have report cards ready to go home tomorrow
4. Make sure clothes are picked out and laid out for the girls tomorrow
5. Eat supper

Five Things I Like To Snack On
1. popcorn
2. chips
3. trail mix-WalMart has a really good tropical one I like
4. fruit
5. Milk Duds

Five Things I Would Do If I Was A Millionaire
1. Pay off everything
2. Make sure I invested well
3. Quit work
4. Become a lady who lunches (and shops and gets mani/pedis, and .....)LOL
5. Set up a scholarship for my beloved, Emory and Henry

Five Places I Have Lived
1. Damascus, VA
2. Mountain City, TN
3. Emory, VA
4. Abingdon, VA
5. Kingsport, TN

Five Jobs I Have Had
1. waitress at Shoney's, oh yeah, the stories from there I could tell :)
2. clerk at K-Mart, another good one
3. rec center camp supervisor
4. HeadStart teacher
5. elementary teacher

Five Events that Have Made Me a Better Person (I added this one)
1. Working at a muscular dystrophy camp, made me open my eyes
2. Becoming a mother
3. Teaching at HeadStart
4. Holding a 5 year old child who loves you for being "Mrs. Disk-un"
5. Realizing that the sad and bad things can, in the end, make you love life a little bit more than you did

Five People I Am Tagging
Oh, come on and do it everybody!!! I hate tagging because sometimes I forget when I have been tagged and then I feel bad for not doing it. Sooooo.......... just go ahead and have a bit of fun!!

The field trip......

I normally don't post about my classroom and students. I just don't feel like I should. However, a couple of folks commented about kindergartners at a pumpkin patch, "how cute" and "won't that be fun." I have to share the story.........

To begin, let me start with the planning stages. We had seen the billboards for this pumpkin patch/corn maze. In six years of teaching kindergarten, I had never taken that field trip. I thought it sounded like fun, convinced everybody that it would be great, the weather would be fine, and that the kids would L-O-V-E it!! The website made the place sound fantastic. So I placed the phone call.

I tried to get this place on the phone and couldn't. I tried emailing and he didn't respond very fast. Finally, the other teacher (there are only 2 of us for kindergarten-small school) talked to them. They booked us and we got the kids pumped up. Well, they called on Tuesday at the school to see if we were still coming, and I said that we were scheduled for the next day. He said, oh yeah, but I thought it was maybe a different group or something.

My radar was buzzing then that this trip might not be all that we thought it was going to be. By the way, it was snowing when I talked to him on Tuesday. Snowing - in October!!!!!! I can't remember it ever doing that in east Tennessee before. Wait. It gets better.

So, next morning, we are at school getting ready to go. We are making sure the kids are bundled and ready to go. Forecast of 50 and sunny with blustery winds. Grrreeeeaaatttt!!!!!! Off we go, 45 minutes away to have fun outside!! By this time, Mrs. H and myself and decided that maybe, just maybe, it would be smarter to bring our bag lunches back to the warm school and eat instead of doing the "oh won't it be fun to eat at the corn maze" idea of when we thought the weather would be in the 60s.

We get to the place and find out that it is beside the sewage treatment plant!!!!!!! I wish I were kidding but I'm not. To quote a co-worker, "It smells like straight-up you-know-what!" Yes, the plant was on one side of the road and the farm was on the other.

The bus parks and the kids unload to get on the hay wagon. Before we know it, our coolers and lunches are also loaded. Guess we are eating here anyway!! Remember the smell?

They take us to the play area and let the kids run and play for close to an hour. They build a fire and roast marshmallows. (The nicest part of the trip.) Then, they tell us that we can walk them through the corn maze. We had to walk our classes through ourselves!! No pumpkin patch in sight, even though the website said that you could pick a pumpkin!! Our poor kids kept asking us if we were getting a pumpkin, and I felt so bad telling them that I didn't think so. So, we walk the kids through the maze for almost 30 minutes to come back out to take a hayride.

The man rides us around a separate field and we get even closer to the sewage treatment plant! The kids even notice the smell. He stops the wagon and asks if anyone wants to be an Indian. Next thing we know, he has shown them how to take these berries and smear the juice on their faces. I can only imagine the phone calls that would be coming from seeing Little Sally all decked out with war paint on her face! Then, he tells them that porcupines come and lay eggs there and throws those little sticky-things at them. Not the burrs, but the little things that stick to coats and stuff. Magical, I tell ya.

We go back to get ready for lunch, and guess what? We are eating outside at picnic tables, under walnut trees that keep dropping nuts, and the farm's DOGS won't get off the tables!! By this time, I don't think I can roll my eyes anymore. The kids are frozen, the temp is only about 48, and the wind keeps blowing papers and knocking drinks off the tables. And, remember the smell?

Finally, we load these little kiddies back onto the bus and head back to school. Luckily, this was our first field trip so the kids were so excited about just leaving the school. They did have fun being outside, playing, going through the maze, and the hay ride. Thank goodness.

You want to know the kicker? I could have taken my 5 year old daughter and she would have gotten in for free, but because we were a school group, it was $6 a child.

Needless to say, we won't be going back. The Griswalds will be going somewhere else next fall to get a pumpkin.