Merry Christmas!

The past month has been hectic, but at least the time moved quickly! I have another semester of teaching completed, and I finished two more grad classes (only four more to go!!!). I have to say that the last few months were far from thrilling, but I made it through it! My awesome fam and super husband have been most helpful and have been patient with all of my mood swings! I haven't had much time for friends, but I have enjoyed their emails nonetheless: )

The week before finals we had some more snow - but we only had enough for Callie to play in and not enough to cancel school (even the temperatures were in far below zero with the wind chill!).


Winter break has been full so far! I have done SO MUCH shopping - for others and myself! I was in need of some new clothes, and I found some great additions that were on sale! It was also fun to have some shopping buddies in my mom and sisters! On Monday, Claire, Lisa, and I went to the Legends. It was a fun sister day: )


I also made some treats and wrapped presents. Callie helped...sort of: )




A GIANT snow storm changed all of our holiday plans! On Christmas Eve I hit the gym and finished up a few errands. We braved the snow and picked up Grandpa for soup at Mom and Dad's. We were not able to make it to church: ( - but it was not safe to head downtown. Nick was an AMAZING driver and safely helped Grandpa and I reach our homes!

Our first married Christmas Eve


Nick cleaning the snow off of the car...HA!


Callie preparing to check out the snow drifts!


On Christmas day, we were VERY lucky that Butch and Timmy both have four-wheel drive, so we had transportation that was safe and could actually make it through the snow (sort of!). Butch picked us up at 8 AM! Ryan opened a few presents - including his sock monkey jack-in-the-box from us!) when we arrived, but some of his presents were with Tim.


Because of the storm, Tim and the girls had to stay in Norman, OK, the night before with all of Santa's gifts! They woke up early and made the rest of the trip. They joined us about 1 PM. My family came over about 2 PM, and we had a DELICIOUS meal-ham, turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, noodles, green beans, stuffing, raspberry jello, rolls, corn pudding, and SO MUCH DESSERT! SO good! I left with my family about 4:30 and went to visit Grandma at Brandon Woods. She looked pretty in her pink polo and green cardigan! Butch and Nick picked me up, we went home to change and pick up Callie, and then we made our way back to Nick's parents' house for the rest of the evening. We opened presents, watched The Hangover, and played hearts until 1 AM! We had a busy and happy Christmas!

new book!

I have failed to keep with my daily updates, but I hope to make it a habit soon. I do have a post almost ready to go - I just always want to wait until I have time to post the pics that go with the posts: (

I am supposed to grading papers at school, but I needed a break! I thought I'd share a little about the new book that I am reading! I read all 488 pages of Jane Eyre with my Advanced English class over the last few weeks, so the day after I finished I went to pick up the book for the book club that I just joined. Wal-Mart did not have the book, so I impulsively bought the book with the lab on the cover that says it is a best seller...Lost and Found. I quickly read 50 pages at the gym, and I am looking forward to reading some more this afternooon. I will let you all (if you are still reading this - ha!) know how it is. So far, so good!