Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks

As part of our Thanksgiving unit, I read Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks with my student. I had him make his own book of the things he was thankful for. It was a fun activity.

I decided to make a list instead of a book because the book would be too long. So here is one for each day of November.

1. I am thankful for a God who loves me.

2. I am thankful for the Atonement so that I can repent. And Jesus Christ without whom the Atonement would not exist.

3.  I am thankful for my job that is so fun.

4. I am thankful for my siblings who have supported me through the rough times and who I know will always be there for me. I wouldn't be here without them.

5. I am thankful for my friends who laugh with me and make life so great.

6. I am thankful for the Young Single Adult Branch that I attend and all the awesome people who attend there and serve to make it work.

7. I am thankful for my car, Hollie BeeBee. She is just a cutie.

8. I am thankful for my snuggie.

9. My laptop! Yay I finally can be comfy and work at the same time.

10. That I get to visit my family for christmas this year. So excited!

11. Christmas time! I love the spirit in the air at christmas time.

12. My chair and a half. If you sat in it you would be too.

13. Toilet Paper (that's for you Deanna.)

14. My education.

15. The scriptures and the knowledge that is in them.

16. Prophets, especially our modern day prophet. (For more on this click here.)

17. The restoration of the gospel. (more info here.)

18. My knowledge of the plan of Salvaton. (again here.)

19.  Flip flops and that in Houston I can wear them 90% of the year.

20. The internet and how any question can be answered by google. :) And how it makes my job easier at times.

21. Christmas music. Especially my new CD Noel by Josh Wilson. Tis amazing! Especially this song.

22. My adorable nieces and nephews who make me smile.

23. Food because I can't live without it and so much of it is so tasty.

24. Earings. Especially of the dangly blingy variety.

25. The new stake center that only takes only 3 minutes and 42 seconds to get to.

26. A printer and scanner. This makes my life so much easier not having to locate one.

27. Chocolate.

28. Toothpaste.

29. Good books.

30. Photography. Both taking photos and seeing other people's awesome photos.

31. And I am thankful for all the blessings God has given me. He really is amazing.

32. Oh and I am thankful for all the people who care about me enough to read my ramblings on my blog. You, yes you, if you made it this far I am grateful for you.

There was two extra there for you.

What are you thankful for? I challenge each of you to comment with one thing (or more) you are thankful for. I have learned that being gratiful makes you and others areound you happier. So go...

The Thrifts

One thing I am very grateful for is our wonderful Institute Teachers and YSA Advisers Earl and Cheryl Thrift! They do so much for us all the time. Not only do they teach a wonderful institute class every wednesday and feed us a great meal but they also invite us over to their house for FHE (Family Home Evening) once a month and take us out on their boat. The left over food from these activities have given me food to eat when things were tight many times.

They are so generous to us and that never seems to stop. For example, today is Cheryl's birthday (Happy Birthday!) but does that stop them from inviting us over for FHE even though they just had a party for us on Halloween? Nope. We are still having FHE there tonight!

To show you of their awesomeness here are some pictures from the Halloween Party we had there last wednesday. I was fortunate enough to be able to help her plan and make some of the things for the party as well.

This is Cheryl and I in our costumes for the party.

This is the yummy dirt pudding she made!

 I made these eyeballs for the party by covering pumpking donut holes with chocolate and then decorating them.

 

These are the carrot fingers Sister Henson helped my make. (Thanks Sister Henson)

Apple mouths that Sister Haynie helped my make. (Thanks Sister Haynie)

The cheese fingers Fatima made. Aren't they great. Thanks Fatima!

Eyeballs made by Sister Henson and Deanna I believe. (Deanna helped on a lot of them. Thanks!) 

 

Susage mummies Ayesha and I made. These were so yummy! (Thanks for your help Ayesha!)

 Pudding ghosts that Deanna made. (Thanks again!)

 

Banana Ghosts I made. They would have looked better with chocolate faces but I just didn't have the time or energy to do that.

 We also had some games to play which the favorite was pumpking bowling. (That's Ayesha bowling in this picture.)

 

The missionaries: Dead Elder Garcia, Sister Red Riding Hood, and Sister Haynie.

Us with Sisters.

Our little Exchange Family.

 

And while we are talking about Halloween I through this one in though it was taken at the dance. Stacy the Treasure Troll and I. Her hair is actually blue but you can't see it very well.

 

 

Thanks to the Thrift for throwing the party and to all of you who helped with it and came to make it fun. I love you guys, all of you!

Cane's Arcade

With it being November I thought I would post things that I am grateful for. But rather than just a list of them I thought I would post a story or project associated with each one.

The first one (and these aren't in any particular order just as they come to me) is my job. I am so grateful for my job as a Homeschool teacher. For as long as I can remember I have wanted to be a teacher because I love to teach and watch people's eyes light up when they understand something. After becoming disillusioned with teaching in public school with my experience there I thought maybe I am not meant to be a teacher. But after trying out some other career choices and then coming back to tutoring I discovered that I did indeed love education I just needed to go down a different avenue then what I had original thought. That lead me to be a home school teacher.

I never would have imagined that this would be the course that I would be on. When I was younger I actually was not fond of homeschooling at all and thought it was horrible. (I have repented of those thoughts and actually have made a complete 180 now.) But what God knew and I didn't all along was that this is where I need to be and what I need to be doing. And I love it. It is so totally me! I adore being a homeschool teacher because all the reasons why I got into education like seeing the spark of understanding and making a difference I can accomplish without all the other stuff that teachers have to deal with. (Sorry I did not intend this to be a soap box on teaching.) Anyway, I love it and feel extremely grateful that God was so good to lead me through some rather confusing waters to get me to this point! Thanks God! I knew there was a job out there for me even though all my friends thought I was crazy for quiting my job without a plan of what to do. You had a plan and I knew that. Thanks for giving me just enough of that plan at a time to get me to this point. (Isn't God amazing like that? I certainly think so.)

Anyway, all that is to say I am grateful for my job, very grateful! And I thought I would share one of the fun things that we did at school one day. The student I teach (for the sack of the blog we shall call him Rex as in T- Rex) loves arcade games. So I decided to do a little project with Rex to motivate him to behave well.

Have you seen Cane's Arcade? Well, if not then you are really missing out and need to watch it now. Go ahead, I'll wait for you.

Tissue? No? Me neither. (sniffs and clears throat) Pretty cool isn't it. I decided to make this more than just the video and encourage Rex to learn from Cane so I decided to have him make his own arcade game out of cardboard. Rex is only 5 so he isn't quite as advanced as Cane but I really liked the idea he came up with.

He loves space so his idea was to make an astronaut that you have to weave through the solar system. As we were working on it he changed his ideas around a little bit. This is what we ended up with.

 

Such a pretty arcade game!

 

Here's a close up. You can see the sun in the middle with the other planets orbiting around it. (And no they are not in order if you are trying to figure out which one is which (And yes we did include Pluto even though it was kicked out of the planet club because we are Friends of Pluto.)) That is Jupiter at the bottom right and you can almost see it's big red (really orange cause we had no red) spot. You can also see the awesome astroid belt through the center there.

 

 The game was that you take the astronaut (isn't he so cute!)

 

 that is attached to the string and have to manover him through space

 

to the hole in the bottom.

 

 

Then you drop it down and whatever prize the astronaut touches first is the one you win.

 

 

While this game was very cute we quickly discovered that it was just way too easy. Everyone got a prize everytime they played and the game lasted about 5 seconds so we decided we needed to make it more challenging and fun to play. We decided to put the prizes inside the box and then use the astronaut to knock the prize down the hole.

 

The only problem with that was that our astronaut being made out of cardboard was too light to knock the prizes down the hole. Our solution was to add a hook made out of a paper clip and marbles to add weight.

 

It worked wonderfully well. We then had a new game to play all day for the next week! Hooray.

 

It was a very fun project that we both enjoyed working on.

 

See? Don't you think I have the best job ever? Well, you don't have to think so but I do and that's what counts.

Hair

About two weeks ago, I got the itching to cut my hair. I was feeling that it was a little too long to manage and thought I would cut off a couple inches. The last 5 or so years I have wanted to grow my hair out so I could donate it to make wigs for people with hair loss.  My hair never seemed to get past the point where I could cut off enough to donate but still have longish hair. I have had my hair short previously and it is always a fight to get it to do anything. I did not want to have to fight with it and I like my hair long. When tyring to decide what I wanted to do with my hair  when I cut it I realized that if I cut it just a few inches shorter than the length I had in mind I would have the required 10+ inches to donate. So I decided to go ahead and do it because who know's when I would have close to the required length again to donate.

On Monday morning I woke up with the intense desire to cut my hair right then! I would have found a salon and gone in immediately if I didn't have to work. I couldn't shake the desire so after work I found a salon and went in. But not before I taking this picture.

It took me a while to get a picture where you could actually see all my hair because I realized as I was trying to take this picture my hair was so long that my arm could not hold the camera far enough away to get all my hair in the frame of the picture. I finally had to recruite Fatima to take one for me.

I was a little nervous to get my hair cut because I have come to realize that my hair will not curl. No matter what I do or how I try to persuade it. It does straight really well but that's it. I have given up fighting with it and have started to work with it by doing updos and letting it be straight. I was nervous that cutting it short would look horrible because I wouldn't be able to style it to make it look cute and it would just look like nasty limp hair that I could no longer do anything to. But I took the leap and went in anyway.

First the stylist, Sarah, measured it to see how much we needed to cut off. I had researched hair styles that look good on fine hair and had learned that shoulder length hair to the collar bone is a good length. I was shocked to find out that when she measured it I had 14 inches that I could donate and still have my hair to my collar bone. I said alright cut it. So she braided it and started cutting.

And then in a few moments it was done. My hair was 14 inches shorter.

It is a weird moment to hold your hair in your hand that is no longer attached to you head like this.

Then the real work of styling it began. And it ended up like this. (This is after I went on a boat ride and my hair got a bit wind blown so it is not quite as cute as when she styled. So don't mind the wind blown look. )

And now after all is said and done ... I love it. And so does everyone else that has seen it. (At least if they didn't they pretended too or didn't say anything.) I am pleased to find that my hair naturally has a nice flip at this length so I don't have to spend hours trying to convince it to look okay just to fail miserably.

There you have it, my new hair cut.

 



Marisela and Matt Chilcote's Wedding

Did I ever tell you that I have always wanted to be a wedding photography? For a long time that was my dream job up until my photography teacher told us that wedding photographers are one of the most sued professions. Now I just do it as a hobby so no one can sue me.

Well today one of my friends, Marisela, got married and I took the pictures. Here is a sneak peak of the highlights from today. Please bear in mind these are raw shots with no editing and that I am not a professional (at least not yet). Enjoy!





 Mr. and Mrs. Chilcote just out of the Temple





 Everybody who was at the temple and stuck around for the picture. I even made it into the picture. And what you can't see is that a giant just stomped to the right of the temple and that is why everything is tilting that direction. He really wasn't very considerate of my picture. Gosh!

I think this is my personal favorite of all the pictures.  





 I love this angle with the temple in the background. It's a little dark though.





 Here I am practising my paparazzi skills in the bushes.





 Did I mention it was hot? Well it was REALLY hot. And humid.





 I love that yellow flower there. So pretty.



 I LOVE hand holding pictures! Don't they look so cute? Now if only those cars weren't there it would be so perfect!





And in case you were wondering which temple that was here is your answer.

The ring ceremony and reception pictures will have to come at a later time cause I'm exhausted. Stay tuned for more.

Modern Day Governess

I am a big fan of all things Austen, well all things truely Austen not others trying to be Austen like Becoming Jane and Lost in Austen (Not to say I completely hate them but they just aren't Austen.) I love the time period, the world, the clothes, and the values. I have pondered which character I would be if I was in a Jane Austen novel: the quickwitted Lizzy, the very generous Jane, the kind hearted Anne, the sometimes silly Emma, or the bookworm Mary. And while I would want to be the most charming and endearing of characters in her books I have come to see the last little while that my life more closely parallels Jane Eyre. Not even a Jane Austen character. Austen just didn't tell my story so I'll have to be Jane Eyre instead. (Though I just want to add that I pass on the failing in love with a married man part.)

Jane taught school for two years at Lowood after she had finished her education there and then she became a governess. After I finished my education, I taught high school (though only for one year) and then became a home school teacher. Which is the modern day equivalent of a governess. There are some differences obviously like I do not live with the family I work for, and thankfully I am not looked down on for being "the help." But pretty much the rest of it is similar to what I do. And I LOVE it.

Tomorrow is my first official day starting a new "Governess" position teaching a 5 year old. I have shadowed the previous teacher for two days to learn the schedule but tomorrow it's all me. I teach him full time while his parents work from home. It's like a normal school day with only one student and in a home instead of a school. So we have lots of time to do activites, learn, and play. We have a lots of fun.

I leave there everyday with a smile on my face. I love teaching and watching kids learn. And getting to play all day. It is the best job in the world! So while I am glad I wasn't a governess in Jane Austen times because they didn't have the best situation I am so glad to be a modern day governess.

Confession

Last night, I went to see Brave with some friends. And to be honest I was disappointed. From the previews it looked like it would be a good movie but left the story line a mystery. I hate spoilers. In fact, I almost never read the full back cover of a book because it gives too much away. I will read a sentence or two to see if the world sounds interesting. I am a person that loves the journey of the characters and the story. I rarely make predictions about what's going to happen next unless the writer is wanting me to. So the previews not giving a lot away about the plot but still being able to capture my interest is a plus for me. Then I get to go watch the movie and be taken on the journey.




I went to the theatre really excited to see Brave and see what great story was going to come out of it. But it turned out to be a fairly typical story line. There was one thing that was not what usually happens but the rest was verypredictable and typical of its genre. (I am being purposely fague so I don't ruin it for anyone. Cause I HATE spoilers. Did I mention that?) So I left disappointed and unsatisfied. That's not to say that the whole thing was terrible and I hated it. It made me laugh and there were some good parts but I am not going to put it on my list of movies I would like to own.

Anyway, all that was to say that Brave helped me come to a realization. I have never been one to have a favorite movie because how can I pick just one? I have a list of favorites. (As an ironic side note my sister actually just put a post on her blog about the same thing. I promise I was planning this post before I ever saw hers. But you can check it out here. She is hilarious and her kids adorable so you should check out her other posts too. You won't regret it. Wait...then my blog will look even lamer. On second thought stick to my blog.) My favorite Disney movie is Emperor's New Groove. But I also really love Tarzan. And to adopt my sister's method my favorite romantic comedy is While You Were Sleeping. (These mash potatoes are so creamy. Mary mashed 'em.) And the list can go on and on.




Well, last night while watching Brave I realized that I was comparing all movies to one movie which I love! During the previews I thought "Hm looks interesting but I don't know if it will be as good as..." Upon reflection I think it comes down to the fact that I now have A FAVORITE MOVIE. This is interesting and ultimately very life changing for me to have a favorite. And who knows how long it will last but for now it is definitely my favorite movie. A movie which I could watch over and over and over again if only I owned a copy of it. (So maybe it's best that I don't.) A movie that makes me laugh everytime and cry... from laughing so hard. A movie that has so many wonderful quotable lines which makes me want to watch it over and over and over so that I can memorize the whole movie. A movie that is unique and is not the same story that had been told so many times. A movie that is not full of terrible acting but full of actors who are terribly witty. (see what I did there) A movie that makes me smile just thinking about it.

So what is this movie that is so amazing that has broken my tradition of not picking favorites to climb to the very top of my list, you ask? Well let me tell you. Drum roll please....... MEGAMIND. Yes, indeed my favorite movie is MEGAMIND. It feels so freeing to admit it. I love Megamind! I do. Him and his ginormous blue head. And Minion. And Roxane. And Metro Man. And Bernard. And even Hal. They are all so wonderfully hilarious! And I am not ashamed to admitt it.

Since this post is now long and you are probably sick of reading it, I'll make it longer by ending with some photos and favorite quotes from Megamind.



You were right. And I was .... less right.

Ah, you don't know what's good for bad.

Girls, girls. You're both pretty. Can I go home now?

 

Megamind: Over here, old friend. In case you haven't noticed you've fallen right into my trap.

Metro Man: Can't trap justice. It's an idea. A belief.

M: But even the most heart felt belief can be corroded over time.

MM: Justice is a non corrosive metal.

M: But metals can be melted by the heat of revonge.

MM: It's revenge and it's best served cold.

M: But it can be easily reheated in the microwave of evil!

MM: Well, I think your warranty is about to expire.

M: Maybe I got an extended warranty.

MM: Warranties are invalid if you don't use the product for it's intended purpose.

R: Can someone stamp my frequent kidnapping card?

M: You of all people should know we discontinued that promotion.

R: And you left us with him? No offense.
M: No, I'm with you.



R: What's the plan?
M: It most involves not dying.
R: I like that plan.

I am  forcing myself to stop now because really the whole movie is quotable and fantastic as I mentioned. If you have not seen this movie go watch it right NOW! Do it! Do it now!