My Little Reindeer

Here's Madalyn in her reindeer pj's and reindeer antlers. I think she's the cutest reindeer I have seen.

Our Thanksgiving Break

Whew! This have been a super busy past 4 days. We left on Wednesday to come to Greer, and Wednesday was a mad dash for me to prepare to come. Wednesday evening, we cooked, Thursday morning we cooked. Thursday we went to my uncle's house to eat, (like we have always done, but my aunt's presence was missed.) Then we came home and planned what we had to cook for the next day and we discussed where we would go shopping. Friday morning about 9:00 am, we went to a few stores around Greer; Target, Belk, Hobby Lobby, we didn't go more than ten minutes from my parents house.  I had no desire to get into the mall traffic of cars or people.  And the few places we did go, it wasn't crowded at all.  We came home and put Madalyn down for a nap.  I slipped out the door for some "ME" time, meaning a 35 minute break and  I was back with a fresh pedicure.  I so needed those 35 minutes to myself. I haven't had a pedicure since July.  That's the one thing that I have always treated myself to every month normally, but now that I have Madalyn I can't go because she wouldn't sit still for me to take her, but one day I'm sure she will join me.  Then we actually went back to Target, and came home and started cooking again.  We headed to Anderson last night for my aunt and uncle's house, this time it was my dad's side of the family we were having Thanksgiving with.  Today, we started our morning off  with a visit to see Santa (those pictures will come later), lunch at my other aunt's house, then finally a much needed afternoon nap.  Now, my dad has a roaring fire going in the fire place and Kevin's watching football waiting on the big game CLEMSON vs. CAROLINA.  And I'm like, boy where has the time gone, it's time for school again, yuck! It's been busy, but I've gotten a good start on my Christmas shopping and I've had the chance to see a lot of family which has been nice.  Tomorrow, we will head back home after a Sunday lunch..that is if I can possibly eat any more.

 

 

Friday- We don't have leaves around our house that we rake up; we have little leaves, so seeing big piles of leaves was knew to Madalyn.  She had the best time playing in them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to your family from our family! We hope you are able to spend the day or weekend with family and friends.  We have so much to be thankful for and are so blessed.  I am looking forward to spending some time with my family this weekend and not have to worry about school.

Yesterday I was able to get some pictures of Madalyn.  It was the shortest photo shoot yet.

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

Turkey Cupcakes

Sunday, we had a family Thanksgiving with Kevin's side of the family.  I made some turkey cupcakes for my nieces and nephews and some for us big kids too.  I got the idea off of pinterest.

 

Chocolate Cupcakes are cooling!

 

Cupcakes are Iced and ready to decorate.

 

Turkey Cupcakes

 

The tail feathers are candy corn.

The faces are a peanut butter cup that I cut in half with a half of a candy corn for a nose.

 

My Little Helper

 

She was crunching up Goldfish while I was cooking.  Such a cheesy grin! :0)

 

Operation Christmas Child

This past Sunday, Madalyn and I packed our shoebox for Operation Christmas Child.  We are going to try to track our shoe box and see where it goes.  I normally try to make a shoe box or two every year.  I would love to be able to be a volunteer to help pass these out; I know there is so much excited for the children who recieve these.

 

Here's the items for our shoebox.

 

 

Signed, Sealed, and ready to be delievered!

 

Sickness and No Voice

So two Saturdays ago, Nov.3rd, that evening Madalyn started to run a low fever, it was 99. something under her arm.  They say to add a degree when under the arm. I gave her some medicine and Sunday she was fine, so we went on to church like normal. That after noon she started again 99 something.  Then Sunday evening it was 100.3. Monday she seemed okay and she didn't have any other symptoms going on but the fever, and you could tell she didn't feel good.  Tuesday, I was off due to Election Day.  Kevin and I went and voted at lunch, while Pop stayed with Madalyn.  When we got back (and we were only gone 20 minutes at the most) she was once again running a fever.  I gave her some medicine and put her down for a nap.  She didn't sleep long and when she got up for like the next 40 minutes it didn't matter if I was holding her or not, nothing would make her happy and she was just crying and screaming and I was like okay I think we need to see a doctor.  So I made an appointment for her the next morning.  Tuesday evening, her temp was 102.6 and she threw up, so I just knew there was something going on, because Madalyn had not run a fever before. Wednesday morning (I took the morning off from school) went to the doctor....it was..VIRAL ....AKA they don't know what's wrong! Everything was normal, and said it should stop in a few days. She has finally this weekend got back to herself.

While all this was going on with her, last Monday I woke up with my throat hurting.  It continued Tuesday and Wednesday, it was constantly hurting all day. I had the school nurse look at my throat and she said that it was red and my glands were swollen, just to keep a watch on it. ( I had a student that was out due to strep throat the week before, so I was thinking that could be what was going on with me.) Thursday when I woke up my voice was on the verge of going away.  Friday and Saturday I could barely talk, I was mostly whispering.  Now, you try to do your job of teaching 22 students and not being able to talk..yeah...it was difficult to say the least.  Sunday my voice was starting to return, it's Day 6 for me and my voice is about 90% I would say from being back to normal.  I am still horse and still cannot raise my voice to the level that I normally can.  This has been rough. I normally may go horse the first week of school, but I have never lost my voice like this before.  I am so ready to be back to normal.  Kevin really made fun of me this weekend. He thought it was so funny the way I was sounding and he would say things like "What?" I can't hear you, speak up." Ha Ha, Kevin.

Ah Ha Moment

"You don't have to have it all figured out to move forward". 

 I found this quote tonight and it just really hit home to me.  I have been thinking about somethings lately and this just make me realized that God knows what is best and will open doors when He is ready.  It's ok that I don't know what is around the bend and that I don't have everything completely mapped out.  Which is hard to do, because I am a planner and like to know what my next step is before I take it.  I rarely go into something or make a decision without putting a lot of thought and prayer into it.  Even down to the simplest things, like we (Kevin and I prayed hard about the right dog to come into our family after Abby passed, to the car we will buy, even to making a decision about vacation.) Some of you may find that odd that we would pray about simple decisions, but one thing I really admire about Kevin, is he is a praying man and with every decision he will seek God.  This quote was just an "Ah Ha!" moment for me.