2013 - What a Year!

You know you're old when....you say things like, "time flies!" and you really mean it.  I mean, come on!  How is it that we're already wrapping up 2013 and welcoming in 2014?  Also, how is it that I'm still so horrrrrrible about capturing moments by taking pictures?  I don't know if I'll ever master snapping photos, and because of that, this post is pretty lame photo-less...(okay, I lied...I creeped on instagram and got pics off my phone - this post ended up being photo-filled!  It's a Christmas miracle...or something like that)

Here's a look back on a super fast year - 2013, you were pretty uneventful, but that's okay with me!

January:

-Embarked upon my self-appointed "No-Jiggle-January" and was rather successful at losing a few pounds.

-Celebrated having Princeton one full year!

-Bought this dresser off Craigslist and turned it into a t.v. stand for our family room.

-Found out I was going to be an aunt (again!) because my sister (Melissa) was pregnant!

February:

-Convinced my husband to ditch the tube television and get a 40" flat-screen.  That was a hard task! (total first world problem)

-Enjoyed a week off of school thanks to built-in-snow-days.

-Traveled to Johnson City, TN with my 2 sisters and nephew to visit my Aunt Shirley, Uncle Gene and cousins Tressa and Wendell.

-Continued on with No-Flab-February and continued to rock it out.

March:

-Worked hard to get through this month.  Totally ready for Spring but still suffering from winter-like weather in KY.

-Started the seeds for my garden (better late than never, right?)

-Came down with strep throat...uggggggghhhhh

-Longed for a break!

-Fell off the wagon and jumped ship on No-Munchy March (maybe it was because the name was lame?)

April:

-Ventured to Destin with my good friends Julie, Katie, and Jenna for Spring Break.

 

-Officially began rereading the Harry Potter series (yesssssss!!!!)

May:

-Feverishly awaited the arrival of summer...it couldn't come fast enough!

-Transferred my seeds to the garden out back.

-Opened our pool for the second year, but this time we did it ourselves and were very successful at it!

-Made cake balls in the design of a flag...lame to include that in here, but as a teacher that was quite a feat to accomplish during the school year!

-Hung a new light fixture in our foyer.

June:

-Completed my 2nd year teaching in Louisville and my 5th year teaching altogether.

-Weeding the backyard took over my life.

-Continued reading the Harry Potter series...why hello book 3!

-Began taking doors off the hinges and repainted all of them.

-Attempted a return to blogging...decided that good things can't be forced.

-Began running with the help of Couch to 5K.

July:

-Hosted a 4th of July swimming party during the middle of a monsoon in Louisville.

-Stephen passed his CFP courses and tests!

-Ventured to Outerbanks, NC with Stephen's family.

-Continued running with the help of Couch to 5K.

-Began reaping the benefits of a backyard garden!  Tomatoes, peppers and squash, oh my!

-Spent a weekend in Chicago for my dear friend Debbie and Stephen's wedding.

-Kept on trucking through HP - I forgot how much I love you, book 4.

August:

-Began prepping for my 3rd year of teaching at my current school.

- Cut 13 inches off my hair (despite Stephen's pleas not to) and donated (well...am planning on donating) it.

-Ventured to Pittsburgh for Stephen's cousins wedding.

-Continued running - thank you, Couch to 5K.

-School started and I vowed my life would not end just because of this.

-Keepin' it moving with HP...oh book 5, how long and a little painful you proved to be.

September:

-My niece (YAY!  We didn't know if she were a boy or girl until she came!), Emerson Lee joined us :).

- Running became harder, although I was trying really hard to keep up with it.

-Hosted a co-ed Baby Shower for my good friends, Katie and Kyle.

-Reading began to slooow down....school began to take over....noooooooooooooo!!!

October:

-Stephen and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary.

-To celebrate, we hit up the Bourbon Trail.

 -I came down with Hand, Foot, Mouth Disease (you just read that correctly).

-Hand, Foot, Mouth officially ended my love-affair with running.

-Our good friends Mike, Amanda (their daughter Emma), Stephen and Debbie came to visit from Chicago.

-We enjoyed a trip to Hubers Apple Orchard and Pumpkin Patch with our Young Life friends.

-We celebrated with our friends, Katie and Brad as they got married here in Louisville.

-Stephen and I were characters from Shrek for Halloween (I was Donkey {or an @$$ if you ask Stephen} and he was Gingerbread Man) along with our friends, Seth and Julie.

-Stephen and I officially became adults when we got new windows for the front of our house...and were excited about it.

November:

-We drove...yes DROVE to Dallas, Texas for our good friend's (Brian and his now-wife Amber's) wedding and got to hang out with a handful of great friends there!

 

-Despite the pain I endured in book 5, I welcomed HP book 6 into my life.

-We headed north to Chicago for our friend, Emily's wedding.

-My best friend, Katie, had her baby!  As of today, I still have not met this bundle of sweetness...stay tuned...

December:

-We followed along in last year's steps and got another real tree to decorate in our dining room.

-I got 2 snow days....ugh - so early in the year...I'm fearful for January and February!

-Finished book 6 and reluctantly began book 7 - I want to finish HP so badly, and yet I don't want it to end!

-We celebrated Christmas in Kentucky this year, which made my break seem so much longer and more relaxing, although I did miss seeing our Pittsburgh family!

-I turned the big 3-1 and got to spend some quality time with my bestie, Donielle.

-Stephen and I were officially old hags: we stayed home on NYE, watched HP and ate left-overs.  Ugh.  At least my company was good :).

What a year!  I look forward to making this list again a year from now - I wonder what all will be on it then?  What fun did you embark upon in 2013?  Did you begin running and actually stick with it? What about a diet - did you stick with that as well?  Am I the only one who made these resolutions and then fell off the resolution boat?!

Merry Christmas!

Aren't my boys handsome?!  I love so many things about these cards: the pictures my sister took, the fact that they were taken where we got married 4 years ago, Tiny Prints and their awesome Christmas designs, and the fact that I was able to personalize this card with my home state.

I'm off to go and wrap presents (procrastinator) and get ready to spend some time with family.  Praying that you and yours may know and experience the true meaning of this holiday season. Check out a video made by some of my Chicago peeps :)

The Candy Cane Story from rephraze on Vimeo.

Patriotic Treats with a Side of Summer Accountability

It all started when I was pinning (which I do quite a lot now that school is out and when I'm successfully putting off doing something) away on Pinterest and I came across this pin...

Stephen and I were going to enjoy a cook-out at his parents house for Memorial Day Weekend and I decided that I was going to make one of Stephen's most favorite treats: Cake Balls.  Have you ever made cake balls?  Have you ever tried them?  If you've never tried them, you need to get your hands on at least one and taste the goodness for yourself - they are truly amazing.  If you've never made them, let me caution you: they are very time consuming.  Back in February I made the mistake of asking Stephen what he wanted for his birthday.  He insisted that he wanted nothing and I insisted that it was HIS birthday, I would make him ANYTHING he wanted (did you read my post from Monday to see how busy I was during this time?).  He decided that he wanted cake balls.  I'm pretty sure a part of me died a little inside when he said that...of all the things he wanted, he chose the most time consuming dessert possible.  However, I did tell him that I would make anything he wanted (dang it!) and so cake balls it was....

Fast forward to May - school was about to be out and summer was on the verge of happening - I was feeling adventurous!  I was going to make cake balls...not just any cake balls, Patriotic Cake Balls!!!  {cue the dramatic, excited music}

These were my inspiration from this website:

1st step was to make the cake balls.  If you've never made them before, here is the recipe (there are a million if you google "how to make cake balls" or "cake pops" and they're all about the same).  I used a half a tub of frosting to make mine.  I went with white cake (mine and Stephen's fav) and white icing.  After I made the cake balls, I arranged them in my 13x9 metal cake pan to get an idea of how many of my balls {insert inappropriate middle school boy jokes here} needed to be red, white and blue.

Once I figured out how many balls needed to be what color, I got to work and did each color separately.  I used the Wilton colored candies from JoAnns (or any craft store - even Wal-Mart carries them) to coat my cake balls.  I had lots of trays of different colored cake balls sitting around my kitchen.  Talk about needing self control to just hang around them without eating them!  If you do make cake balls, be sure you make lots of extras so you can just pop them in your mouth while you're working!

Unfortunately I did not do my math correctly and I didn't have the right amount of white cake balls.  What's scary about this is that I teach 4th grade math....this was a perfect example of math in real life (because everyone makes cake balls, right?) and yet I failed at it.  Stink.

The good news is that even though I was short on the white balls, they still tasted great!  It's a good thing that these desserts take a while to make, otherwise, I'm pretty sure I would make them entirely too often and my thighs would pay the price for this bad addiction!

For this upcoming 4th of July, I'm thinking about making this dessert from Betty Crocker:

I'm also thinking about making these to hang under the pergola by our family room window:

Now onto the side of Summer Accountability.  I know you probably don't care about how I'm spending my summer days and please know that this part of the post is entirely for me.  Last summer I found myself getting overwhelmed by all the different things I wanted to accomplish during the summer time. This overwhelming feeling kept me from accomplishing much of anything.  As a way to try and ward off laziness, I've decided that I'm going to blog about my daily activities during the summer.  Maybe it'll keep me from getting sucked into Bravo's Real House Wives Marathon because I'm ashamed to tell all of blogland that this is how I chose to spend my day!  So here it is, my daily what dos:

Monday: walked Princeton in the morning, changed the sheets on the bed and washed them, put sheets back on the guest bed, did the laundry and put it up, blogged, did my Bible study, worked on a small art project that I had been putting off, touched up trim in the entry way, went to Bible Study.

Tuesday: walked Princeton in the morning, put a first coat of paint on the inside of the front door, put up the last basket of laundry, went to dinner with my parents, took Princeton on an evening walk.

Wednesday: walked Princeton in the morning, put a second coat of paint on the front door, cleaned up in the basement, my friend Julie came over and we hung out most of the afternoon, took Princeton on an evening walk.

Thursday: cleaned up the paint mess, went to the grocery store, worked out in the backyard for 3 hours, vacuumed and tidied up, made dinner and Stephen's parents came for dinner, took Princeton on an evening walk.

Friday: filled the dishwasher, did the rest of the dishes, worked in the vegetable garden, painted the first coat on our bedroom closet, emptied the dishwasher, blogged.....

Do you think I'm crazy yet?  Feel free to skim past these random lists of my uneventful days...I'll be honest - I did get sucked into a few episodes of Real House Wives of the OC...it's like a train wreck and I can't turn away.  These women are SO mean to each other.  It's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that they exist, they're adults and I'm aiding their richness by being sucked into their drama.  Ugh. Do you have any "guilty" tv pleasures?  I'm not gonna lie....I also get sucked into Real House Wives of NJ....okay, enough confessions!

I'm linking up with these parties:

Thirty Handmade Days; Naptime Crafters; Simply Designing; My Romantic Home; Finding Fabulous; The Shabby Nest; Chic on a Shoestring Budget;  The Scrap Shoppe; A Vision to Remember; Tatertots and Jello; I Heart Naptime; DIY Showoff; Homemaker on a Dime; Sumo's Sweet Stuff; Craft-O-Maniac; Uncommon Designs; C.R.A.F.T.; Lines Across; That's What Che Said;  Creatively Living; An Extraordinary Day

What a Year!

As of last Thursday, I wrapped up my fifth year of teaching...and what a year it was!  If you've been hanging around here long enough (despite the fact that it's sounded like a big cave with crickets chirping for the past couple of months) you may recall that last year I had a very challenging year teaching an intermediate split (4th and 5th graders).  This year, I had the blessing of teaching one straight grade (4th) and I had the advanced students for Math and Reading.  Needless to say, this year my job was much more enjoyable than last year, simply because I had the same grade level all day long.  Along with teaching, Stephen and I made sure we kept our candles burning on both ends and we had quite a busy year...

Our weekly schedule during the school year looked like this:
*Monday nights my sisters and I enjoy dinner at my parents house - spouses are welcome but not always available to join.

*Tuesday nights Stephen and I both attended Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) - he was in the Men's class and I was in the Women's night class.  Tuesday is also the day for faculty and committee meetings at my school so I would stay at school until BSF (6:45) and then come home after BSF.  We suffered through enjoyed 9pm dinners on Tuesday night.

*Wednesday nights were devoted to driving down to the University of Louisville's campus to help lead Young Life's College Fellowship group.  We hung out with college students, led Bible studies and helped try and train new leaders to volunteer in high schools around the city.  Wednesdays were also the day when I would have Quick Recall Practice (that's right: be jealous - I am the Quick Recall Coach at my school) after school.  We met every Wednesday from 4-5:30 so I would stick around school and drive to UofL after practice.  Stephen and I wouldn't return home until 10pm on Wednesday nights.

*Thursday nights were the "catch all" nights.  We didn't have a standing event and we welcomed what normally was an uneventful evening during our week.

*Friday nights we attended the weekly leadership meetings for Young Life.  Both Stephen and I would come straight from work to leadership - the good news is that dinner was served at Leadership so we'd actually get to eat at a normal time!

*Saturday is the day where we would sleep...and then run around the house like a chicken with it's head cut off to do all the things that got put off during the week.

*Sundays are always church days and then we enjoy lunch at Stephen's mom and dad's house with whatever family members can come that day.  Then, the dreaded grading and school work would begin, as I'd put it off all weekend long.

On top of all those things, here are some other fun things that happened throughout the year:

In September I ventured to Ohio to the outlets with my besties and enjoyed Chipotle for the first time in over a year (Louisville hadn't gotten one yet - dumb).  I am not at all embarrassed by my love for Chipotle and their amazing guac.

In September my good friend, Jenna got married so off to Lexington we went.  Here I am with some of my closest, oldest friends. 

In October, we visited Brown County for the weekend with Stephen's family.

In October, one of my best friends, Laura got married.  Here I am getting down and dirty on the dance floor with the groom.

 

In November Stephen and I headed back north to Chicago to celebrate the wedding of our sweet friends Zack and Marcia.  We were also blessed to be able to spend time with other friends.  Here we are with Debbie and Stephen - they're tying the knot this July!!!

In December I turned the dirty-thirty and got to celebrate with 3 of my best friends (Stephen, Donielle and Katie) as well as with a small group of super close friends.  What a blessing it was to be with them!

In January my best friend, Donielle joined me in the dirty-thirties.  Another trip to Lexington was in order!

In March, my Quick Recall team took home 1st place at the annual Mayor's Cup competition.  This was my 4th year coaching a Quick Recall team and it was my first win.  I couldn't have been more proud of them.  On top of taking home first place, the other students in the competition voted them for the Best Sportsmanship award!  My school went home that day with 4 trophies: Quick Recall 1st place, Future Problemsolvers 2nd place, Best Sportsmanship and then Overall 1st place.  What a great way to spend a Saturday!

In April I headed down south with good friends (Jenna, Katie and Julie) to spend Spring Break in Panama City Beach, FL.  The beach picture was taken at beautiful Seaside, which Katie and Julie introduced us to.  

In May I completed my 3rd year of BSF.  I'm looking forward to studying the book on Matthew in the Fall!

Throughout all of this, Stephen has been taking classes at night, after work to become a CFP (Certified Financial Planner).  He's currently in his last {review} class that is every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 5:30-8:30pm.  Needless to say, we're both ready for him to be DONE and are praying that he passes his test when the time comes for him to take it.  

After reading this, maybe you understand why my blog has been so neglected this school year.  Now that it's summer, I'm hoping that I can catch up on ALL the things I've been putting on the back burner all year long.  I have lots of small projects I've worked on (or started and never completed...) that I'm hoping to share with you and I'm hoping to keep up with this blog as a form of accountability to not fall into the temptation to be a slug all summer long.  Expect to see {almost} daily posts up around these parts as I try to have one of the most productive summers possible...lost of furniture restoring, painting, creating, reading, studying, and preparation for another upcoming school year will be going on around here.  I hope you'll stick around and join me for it!