Tuesday, November 24, 2009

We Are Thankful

There are so many things in life for which to be Thankful.  A few of the many things we have that make us Thankful this Thanksgiving:
good health
family
Connor and Keaton
fantastic friends
our home
good jobs
food
super support for Keaton's Autism
our children's teachers
We could go on and on and on..... but instead I'll continue the post about the Thanksgiving meal we shared with Robert's mother, nephew, and dear friends.

We have always had the "Creek Family" Thanksgiving a few days before the actual day. Up until last year it was just Rob, me and the boys, Mary, Randall (Rob's brother) and his son, Andre'. That changed last year. To say the very least, Randall made some life changing decisions that affected us all.  In his absence from the gathering last year, (We aren't sure when he'll again be albe to join us for family gatherings.) we invited Andre's other grandparents, David and Kaye, to join us as well as some other friends. We enjoyed our fellowship together and once again invited them to join us this year. In addition to David and Kaye, we made sure to invite our newest family friends, The Johnsons.

We invited the Johnsons over for Thanksgiving and then put them to work helping prepare everything. They didn't have to help get it ready, but they came over early so that the boys could play and were more than willing to jump right in and offer a helping hand. I am so thankful they did. At times, can't say always, but at times, I do enjoying cooking and preparing food for others. What better way to enjoy myself than with a good friend!


Here you can view the 'fruits' of our labor. No really, you can see what all we worked together (Mary and I along with Kevin and Jennifer's assistance) to prepare.
                             
 
Mary, Rob's mother, is a creature of habit. She has to make the same type of food each year. She always makes potato salad and baked beans. Now I don't know about you, but I grew up thinking those were picnic foods, not Thanksgiving food. Oh well, whatever makes her happy. We also make mashed potatoes and macoroni and cheese to make me happy. This Thanksgiving we even made corndogs to make Connor happy.

 I made chocolate pecan pies for dessert and Kaye brought chocolate pudding cake. It's a good thing we all enjoy chocolate. Connor and Keaton both loved Kaye's cake.....

 and just look at what happened to my pie.

I don't mean to brag or anything, but the chocolate pecan pies were wonderfully delicious. Want the recipe? I'd be more than happy to share. Just let me know.

Now on with the rest of Thanksgiving week. Tomorrow we have off from school. Yeah!! What to do, what to do? I know.....I'll try to get caught up on grading my papers before heading to Granny's on Thrusday for another Thanksgiving feast. Until then.....



Monday, November 23, 2009

Joyful Jumping


Saturday afternoon was wonderfully chopped full of outdoor fun. My friend, Jennifer, brought her boys and lots of Legos over to play. My other friend, Brittney, and her children joined us. As you can see the kids had a great time breaking all the rules on the trampoline.

I tried to get a photo of each happy face, but wasn't successful. The best shots I was able to make were of the cutie pie below.





Isn't she a doll!!
I had another that was my favorite. I couldn't wait to post it. She was nothing but adorable in it. Before I could upload the photos from the day, Keaton grabbed my camera and took off with it. You remember how well he likes to take pictures. Well, I grabbed it back from him and before I knew what I had done, I had deleted the best shot of the day. Anything like that ever happen to you?

I'll need to be more careful next time I suppose.



Fantastic Weather for Final Football Game

We were blessed with wonderful weather this past Saturday. We were able to enjoy Connor's last football game of the season without freezing our bums off. We have really enjoyed watching Connor learn the game and I have actually learned a little myself. 


I wish he could continue playing flag football as long as he wants, but I realize that all too soon he'll have to start playing tackle if he wants to continue. We'll see what happens. Right now, we are fast approaching the beginning of basketball season.

Practices begin next week. 

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Girls Night Out ~A Great Success

It all started fall break of 2008. My friend, Cheri, was reading a book about a vampire. She kept saying I should try it out. I had no intention of reading a book about a vampire. I was not interested but decided if she, someone who wasn't an avid recreational reader, was enjoying it, I should at least give it a try. I was hooked very shortly after beginning the book we all know of as Twilight. I finished it in only a couple of days and couldn't wait to get my hands on the next book in the series, New Moon

We went back to school and I continued reading the remaining two books. There were a few nights I stayed up later than I really intended because I just couldn't put it down. Those are the types of books I really enjoy the most, the kind that you can't put down because you want to know what happens so badly and then when you're finished, you're sad that you can't keep reading. 

I absolutely loved all the books by the very talented author. So when the first movie came out I made plans to attend with who else, Cheri. She had been the one who had gotten me hooked on Edward, Bella and Jacob. How could I think of seeing the movie with anyone else? We met up with Montina and had a great time and immediatly decided we'd do it again when the next movie game out.

We waited so very patiently for the release of the second movie, New Moon. We made plans weeks and weeks ago with other friends who had since gotten as hooked as we had. Cheri ordered our tickets online and we started looking for our shirts. If your going to get into something, why not go all out!

We were so excited that some of us got together the weekend before the release to rewatch Twilight. You can read about that gathering here. We dug out our t-shirts from our first outing and had a terrific time.

The big day finally arrived and we headed off to school with great anticipation. Here are some of us during morning assembly.

Cheri, Jennifer, Montina and I met up at Buckhead Cafe for dinner before heading over to the theatre. We shared good company and enoyed good food.


We already had our tickets but knew they were probably sold out and wanted to make sure we got ourselves some good seats. We got to the theater and found ourselves to be the second group in line for the 10:10pm showing and it was only 7:30pm.


We stood outside and chatted about this and that. We debated about one of us making a run for hot chocolate but no one wanted to miss a minute of the fun and excitement. Some of our party had to get little ones to bed before meeting up with us. Thankfully no one had a fit anytime one of our party joined us in line. We all finally made it by around 9:15 or so. You can see that the line is much longer than the earlier picture.

Imagine how our excitement and anticipation grew as we continued to wait for our turn as others exited the theatre with rave reviews. 10:00pm finally arrived and we made it inside. We quickly grabbed seats directly in the middle of the theatre and our refreshments.




Finally, the moment we had all been waiting for had arrived. The lights dimmed and the film began to roll. (Do they still have it on film? Probably some digital something but I don't know what.) Throughout the movie some of us squirmmed in our seats too afraid to visit the restroom in fear we would miss some extremely vital scene. When all of a sudden the screen went black.  What happened? Did something happen to the film (or whatever it is these days)? Was there a problem with the equipment? NO, the credits began rolling. We had come to the end and I just sat there in disbelief. I've read the books and I know what happens, but man was I ever disappointed for it to end so soon. It hasn't even been 24 hours since I saw the movie and I'm ready to watch it again. Will I be able to wait until next summer for the movie? I suppose I'll have to. Can I go that long without a Twilight fix? Probably not. I guess I'll have to reread the books as soon as I find the time.

I had an absolutely wonderful time last night out with friends. We should do it more often.


Thursday, November 19, 2009

New Signature, New Look

Ok, so last night I messed around and tried using a header that I created. It was cute but too big. In the process I ended up making a mess out of my columns and such. I tried out a new background briefly. I was too tired to fix it correctly last night. Tonight I am about to reach the point of being too tired to finish again. So I am calling it a night. I thought I'd do this post to see how the new signature looks on the new background. I sure am glad I saved Sneaky Momma Blog. That blog has saved me a lot of time more than once. Check it out for yourself. 


Wednesday, November 18, 2009

The Things We Do

The things we do for those we love....... (WARNING: just wanted to let you know before you read any further I am not looking my best in the pictures below. You will see what a 5th grade teacher with 27 students looks like at the end of a very busy day.)

The things we do for those we love may often vary from day to day, season to season or even from one mood to another. Occasionally in our house you will find that I do computer work for my husband for different reasons 1) I am a much quicker at typing than he is and 2) I tend to be neater and edit the "work" a bit better than he does. Tonight he needed to type up some POs and SKUs for inventory. As you can see from the picture below I wasn't really thrilled about the little chore that he promised would only take about 15 minutes. Although it was finished much sooner than if he had done it himself, it took more like 30-45 minutes.


He often makes me wonder if he just acts like he is slower or doesn't know how to do something so that I will do it for him. Doesn't he look like the cat that ate the canary? At least tonight he sat by my side while I typed in his info. So much for grading my papers.  I suppose they will have to wait one more night.


In closing tonight, the husband wanted to give a "Shout Out" to the ladies in the office at his last job. He asked me to be sure and mention you all on my next post. Hope all is going well!
Until next time....

Sunday, November 15, 2009

We're So Excited, We Just Can't Hide It

We're So Excited, We Just Can't Hide It


That's right....we are so very excited about the upcoming release of New Moon, the second movie in the Twilight series.  We headed over to my friend Cheri's for a prerelease party. We rewatched Twilight, played Twilight Scene It, had some good food and enjoyed each others company.

Isn't it great to have good friends!! I am not only blessed to have such good friends but I also work with these ladies. When you enjoy those you work with, you also enjoy your work!

Until next time....

Making Us Proud

I sure am proud of this girl!!

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure proud of these boys with this girl too.


They all give us much to be proud of.
On Saturday, Ceceley's basketball team was in a tournament in BG.  Connor's game wasn't until 12:30 so we were able to make it to her game and they were able to watch Connor play football as well. Although Cec's team may not have advanced in the tourny, she sure played a great game against Webster County. She was very aggressive, assertive and displayed good defense. She displayed great leadership skills and scored a 3 pointer.
 WAY TO GO CECELEY!!

Ceceley and Jonathan checking out the stats.

Ceceley and some of her teammates before the game.


We had a great time watching Ceceley play ball. We plan on making all of her games in BG this year. Can't wait to see her lead her team to victory.


Now I couldn't leave out this guy who also makes us very proud as well, now could I? Absolutely not!! He didn't make it to BG for his sister's game because he went hunting with Papa instead and just look at what he found!! WOW!! WAY TO GO CODIE!!

Until next time....

Monday, November 9, 2009

Scrapblog

Ok... so I have posted below one of the pages I made at scrapblog. It is NOT the one I did correctly and finished. It is the practice one. For someone reason I can only get the practice one on here. If you want to the see the neat one, visit the link below.

http://www.scrapblog.com/viewer/viewer.aspx?sbid=2325519




I may have gotten the correct one to post. Don't really know how I did it.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

So Foolishly Addicted to Blogging

I'll be the first to admit that I don't always use my time wisely. Instead of grading the papers I brought home with me from school for the last couple of hours, I spent my time trying to figure out how to make my own personalized header.

I found a great tutorial over at Sneaky Momma Blog Design. She directed me to Scrapblog which turned out to be a pretty neat site I hope to revisit and use to do some digital scrapbooking. Anyway, I couldn't decide what I really wanted my header to look like or what pictures to include. So, I played around with an idea for someone else's blog. It turned out really cute but too BIG. I still haven't figured out how to correct that problem but figured I had spent enough time on the cause for one night. If you have skills or knowledge about such things, please feel free to leave advice in the comments. I would greatly appreciate it. 

I also ran into another problem. I found a really neat picture to use but it may have been copyrighted and didn't work so well. I don't want to pay $$$$ for pictures to use on my blog. Anyone out there know of a good site for FREE pictures? 

As if that isn't example enough to explain that I am So Foolishly Addicted to Blogging, I'll tell you about my afternoon....

Today after church and lunch with friends, the boys and I headed on over to Lowe's. I wanted (and we needed) a leaf blower. So we found one. Got an extension cord and came on home. I spent the afternoon blowing the leaves into a great big pile and collecting them. (Thanks to our neighbor, Chris, for mentioning that we needed to get the kind with the mulcher attachment.) While I worked and the boys played, I was thinking about the post I would write tonight. Well, this one never popped into my mind but here it is all the same. 

Until next time,


Saturday, November 7, 2009

Friendly Fall Fun


What a beautiful fall day! The weather was awesome today (with the exception of the wind this morning). We headed out to Connor's football game. Although the wind was chilly during the game, the team pulled off a win. Connor scored a touchdown or two....I'm still learning the game. I'm not sure if he scored the touchdown and then got the extra points or if he scored two seperate touchdowns. Either way it was a good game and he had a good time.


After a lunch at Zaxby's (one of our very favorite places to eat), Connor headed out to play with our neighbor Landon and his brother, Luke. Well, Keaton is no fool....pretty weather, boys playing outside, he was on it. Sooooo.... we spent most of the afternoon outside between our backyard and the neighbors. Having wonderful fun with friends during the fall. What a way to spend the day!!


Here the boys are...playing Nerf battle.

Keaton joins in by chasing everyone with Luke's leaf blower. It's a hoot to watch them run from him. He loves it.

Wonder how the weather will be tomorrow and what fun we'll have.
Until next time.....

Who Couldn't Use a Little Help with Christmas?

Christmas Give Away!! Who wouldn't want to enter to WIN!?!?
Check out the link below for details.
I'm crossing my fingers and hoping to win.
Remember, it's like the Loto....You can't win if you don't play!





This site is also hosting Under the Tree 2009.
If you know a family who will not be able to provide presents for their children this Christmas, click over and read more about Under the Tree and how you can nominate a family in need.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Blog After Blog

I have always been an avid reader. I remember sneaking a flashlight to bed with me many times when I was younger so that I could read after my parents went to bed without getting caught. There were many days I went to school with very few hours of sleep because I had stayed up late reading that last chapter. At one time it was especially bad. I would let my chores go until the very last minute because I had my nose stuck in a book.

Well as I have gotten older I have had to prioritize life. Throughout college I read less for enjoyment and entertainment and read more for class. I knew that if I picked up a book for enjoyment, the assignments wouldn't be completed on time, if at all.

Since college there have been many days, nights and/or weekends that the laundry or the dishes just sat there waiting for my attention while I was in another world with a book that I just couldn't put down. I would finally get to the end, return to the real world and do a few chores before picking up another.

Lately I haven't done much reading (of books that is). Instead, I have become an avid reader of blogs. I love posting to my own blog and reading my friends blogs but I have also started checking out other peoples' blogs as well. When I come across a blog with an author who captures my attention with their writing, I'm hooked. Often times these blogs come with awesome photography as a bonus. The writing is interesting and the photos are amazing. These talented bloggers invite us in and welcome us into their lives.

I never imagined myself as a writer much less a writing teacher. But that is exactly what I am... a writing teacher and a writer. Hopefully as I continue to teach students about writing and all that in encompasses, I'll improve as well. I don't have ambitions to become a published author by any means. I just want to continue blogging for enjoyment. If someone becomes inspired or enlighted by anything I post or write, then that in itself will be my reward.

(I started this post simply to explain why I had so many blogs listed under my "Blogs I Like to Read". I guess I just got carried away and started freewriting, but at least now you know why there are so many. I just can't stop reading them.)

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Bengals Football

Connor is playing Upward Football again this fall and is loving it. Saturday he earned a star for "Best Defense" for pulling lots of flags. He was on his game Saturday. Way to go Connor!