Christmas Decorations

On Saturday at least a dozen people from our school went over to the gym to decorate. We got a lot done in a short amount of time. One of the things we did was assemble a tree for each grade level. We had the kids make an ornament out of recycled objects. My class made the paper ornaments out of a math worksheet we had done the week before. Mrs. DeNucci's class made the stars out of star shaped aluminum tins, wallpaper remnants, and some gold tinsel type of stuff. We wanted our ornaments to be seen from a distance. From a distance our tree looked surprisingly elegant. I wish I would have taken a picture of each tree, but it's hard to get pictures when you have your entire class with you. I should have brought my camera with me when we were decorating.

It's so hard to get nice pictures in the gym when you really don't have time to monkey with your camera. If you click on the picture and get a larger image you can maybe see the snowflakes hanging in the background. That was one of the projects I worked on. I held a little snowflake making class in my classroom after school a couple weeks ago and we went to work getting enough snowflakes to make a nice hanging from the gym rafters. The only cost involved was the magnets that held the strands of snowflakes to the rafters. It was quite pretty. I meant to take a picture of the sleigh that my neighbor Jeff made. It was so pretty. He's quite talented.

Carly's Birthday Party

My pictures loaded in the opposite order that I wanted them, but I don't feel like trying to fix it so we'll go with it. I tried several times to space things in the post below, but it keeps eliminating the paragraph spacing. It drives me crazy. Anyway, above you will see my balloon chandelier. I was pleased with how it turned out.

Carly had a High School Musical cake. Paul is always in charge of picking out the cakes with the girls. She was torn between this and a Hannah Montana cake.

We decided to let Carly open a couple gifts from us at her party and save a few for her actual birthday on the 19th. We gave her a CD player and a High School Musical 3 cd. She looks pretty happy.

Posing with classmates, Jacie and Madison. Misty had a Girl Scout bowling party, so she had to leave before we had cake and ice cream. All the girls who came were just nice little girls and I can see why Carly enjoys being with them in school.

Carly invited 3 girls from her class - Jacie (Paul's cousin's daughter), Madison (Kayla's cousin), and Misty. These are girls that Carly talks about a lot and we know their parents, so it was pretty easy to decide who to invite to her party. We decided that we'd try having a party the first weekend in December rather than doing it right around her birthday. People have too much stuff going on that close to Christmas. They had an elementary cheerleading camp from 10-12 on Saturday afternoon. I picked up the girls and we went back to our house for a pizza. They enjoyed checking out Carly's room and toy area. Ellen and Kayla helped them play Dance Dance Revolution and did a Guitar Hero demonstration for them. They mainly played. Jacie was the last one to get picked up and I thought it was kind of strange that Carly went into her bedroom and didn't want to say goodbye in the entry. It made sense once Jacie left. Carly came out and cried that she was sad that her party was already over. I told her that we'd have a friend over to play again soon.

Carly got a make up kit from one of her friends. We've been playing "What Not to Wear" today. I got a "fabulous makeover!" So did Ellen. I also got many little glittery touch-ups throughout the day.

Homemade Caramels

Caramel Recipe

2 C white sugar

1 C brown sugar

1 C light corn syrup

1 C evaporated milk (NOT sweetened condensed)

1 pint heavy whipping cream

1 C butter

1 1/2 tsp

• Combine all except vanilla in a large, heavy pan. Stirring constantly, heat to exactly 250 degrees and remove from heat. Stir in vanilla (will bubble up). Pour into greased 10x15 pan and cool. Cut into bite-sized pieces and wrap with wax paper.

• I found this recipe on-line today and thought I would give it a try. It was very easy and they turned out great. If you do try them I suggest that you put the phone next to the stove, turn the radio onto a good station, and start stirring. You will be standing at the stove stirring for a long time. You will not feel like you can leave it for even a minute without it burning on the bottom of the pan. I set the burner at medium and kept it there. I think it took at least 20 minutes to get to 250. I would also suggest that you make sure you have a wrapping assistant. I had Paul to help wrap them and that saved me a lot of time. I meant to put the wrapped caramels in a bowl and take a picture of them, but I didn't remember until about an hour after I put them in the freezer - I also read on-line that you can freeze them.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Again, I'm slow to update around here. It was great to have a three day week - it flew by. This afternoon my students and I did a major cleaning session in the classroom. I also stayed late and put up new bulletin boards and just got some extra jobs done so that when I come back on Monday everything will seem nice and organized.

When I got home Carly was standing at the top of the steps wearing her paper pilgrim bonnet that they made in school today. It is so cute and I will get a picture posted of her wearing it this weekend. School is going well for her. She and her little girlfriends have been exchanging those little classroom photos. She brought hers in today and was quite excited about it. I thought it was cute that girls this little were doing this. I asked her teacher if this was common and she said that kindergartners don't usually do this but one little girl brought hers in and they all jumped on it.

School is going well for Ellen too. I was listening to her practice her saxophone last night and was surprised at how much she has learned in such a short amount of time. I have no doubt that being able to play the piano made it much easier to pick up on another instrument.

Paul and I got several things ready for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. We'll be on our own. I made a pumpkin pie and a jello salad (sea foam). Paul got the dressing ready. Tomorrow morning we'll get the turkey going, put together a relish tray and a couple of side dishes. We're cooking the turkey in the oven rather than frying it this year - this means we'll have real gravy and not a packet mix.

Friday I plan to go shopping after the initial Black Friday rush passes by. Saturday we'll head down to Duluth again for another hockey game. UMD beat North Dakota 3-1 this past Saturday. That hasn't happened since the 92-93 season. It was a great game. It's always a full house when UND is at the Decc. It's much more fun when there are no empty seats. The student section is just a couple away from where we sit and they are a lot more lively this year. They must drink more before the games. After Super Fan graduated, the student section was a little dead. Now they seem to have another student who has stepped up to get them going. You often see him at the front leading things. All of the same season ticket holders held onto their seats for another year. They're all friendly, nice people. All the kids get older. One young family a couple rows in front of us used to just be three people and now there are five of them. Last week they came all dressed up. They must have been at a wedding. The mom and two little boys came at the beginning of the game. The dad and daughter came during the second period. The dad was wearing a suit with a boutonniere (love spellcheck). Usually the five of them are decked out in UMD clothes. When the new arena is built I'll be sad if their seats aren't close to ours. It's nice that I can watch the games without a kid on my lap. I used to miss so many goals because I was taking care of something with one of the girls.

It's our 14th wedding anniversary today. I pulled a statue off my shelf today that is going to pass as an anniversary gift for Paul. I did that last year too. I doubt he'll remember.

I'll post some pictures of our thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.

Since no one commented on my last two posts

I bring to you a sexy monkey.

Election 2008

We were pretty happy with the outcome of the presidential election. Paul and I both stood up and cheered after they announced that Ohio was going for Obama. We cheered again after it was officially announced at 10 pm that Obama had won the election. There was also some crying. It was very moving watching the crowd reaction in Chicago and we have been so caught up in this campaign. Ellen wanted to stay up and watch Obama's speech so we let her under the condition that she could not be crabby the next day. John McCain gave a very nice concession speech. I think his campaign had a lot of problems, but I've always thought he was a nice man. We enjoyed Obama's speech and I always love seeing his family. His girls are so stinking cute and I love that they are getting a puppy. They do deserve it.

Our school levy vote failed, so it will be interesting to see how everything shakes up. Our new superintendent had a short meeting after school and said that we were not to worry about it. He wants us to focus on our classrooms and that it's his job to deal with the finances.

And the Franken/Coleman face off continues.

If you don't watch "30 Rock" I recommend that you go to NBC's website and watch last night's episode with Oprah. This show is so funny anyway, but last night's episode was the funniest one yet. I think this was the best guest appearance I have ever seen on a show. Tina Fey rocks!

Halloween

It was nice enough that night that the girls put out chairs and waited outside for trick-or-treaters. We thought we would have a lot since Halloween was on a Friday and the weather was so nice. I don't think we even had 40 kids come to the house - our lowest turnout ever. We have a lot of Tootsie Pops leftover. Kayla is the one under the sheet. I think her costume is funny. We kept bugging her to smile for pictures.

Carly is wearing the costume I sewed for Ellen a few years ago. She looked very cute that night, but was she ever tired and crabby. Seh wanted Paul to go trick-or-treating for her while she stayed back at the house. It just doesn't work that way.

We were still in full campaign mode on Halloween night. Ellen did not put together a costume until after school that day. We bought a prom dress at a garage sale a few years ago and she worked with that.