I am Thankful for Bear....

Today was Katelyn's last day at school before Thanksgiving break. They had a small Thanksgiving party and did crafts related to the pilgrims etc. They made these adorable Indian Headbands (little did they know her true heritage). Anyway they made these "My Thanksgiving Books." Here are the answers on the pages of her book.

I am Thankful for..... Bear
My family.... Mommy and Daddy
We will eat.... Apples, Green beans, and Chicken

Boy does she love chicken! Just thought this was cute...

The last one to go...

Well...I know some of you are wondering if I finished my capstone presentation tonight or not. I went all night not knowing if I was going to have to wait another day to finish the final presentation but he picked me to go last tonight so I am now officially done with everything for graduation! I think that the project and the presentation went over well so I am excited to see my final grade whenever that becomes available. I just had to share my excitement! 26 days till graduation!

Turning three-four...

Yesterday we had Katelyn's birthday party. She doesn't get that she is three now. She did tell Justin that she was three-four and she told me that she was turning old. But that's okay...we had a fun time with just some of our family. She got a lot of really cute gifts and has had a blast the rest of the weekend playing with them. Marlaina did a great job on the cake and may have future business from our family if she so wishes.

I couldn't sleep last night so I got up and finished my project. I am still waiting on Marivel's corrections to my reflection paper so I will have to make a few last minute changes tomorrow and then print everything off and put it on a disk and then I will be done my senior project. It is really hard to believe that it is almost over. I mailed out my graduation announcements on Friday so let me know if you didn't get one and you would like to have one. I don't really trust the postal system that much and I have the nagging feeling that I forgot someone since I can't seem to remember anything lately.

Thank you for saving my life daddy!

I was a busy lady this weekend. I've been cleaning since Justin left for the deer woods Friday afternoon. I washed and ironed the curtains in our bedroom, washed all the bed linens for our bed and Katelyn's bed. Katelyn and I cleaned her unbelievably dirty room (seriously, I wish I had pictures to send to the KNWA uggliest room contest. It was that bad!) You can actually see the floor in there now and all of her clothes are hanging in her closet. I also did all of our laundry that was hopelessly behind thanks to our busy lives. I cleaned our living room and kitchen in preparation for the Thanksgiving company. Anyway, needless to say we were very busy. We did take a moment out of our cleaning frenzy to visit storytime at the Fayetteville library on Saturday morning and Katelyn liked it. She liked playing with the puzzles more than the storytime but she always enjoys our trips there. We checked out several horse books that she has enjoyed flipping through several times since Saturday.

We also made a short trip to Rudy, AR yesterday to Crockrum's Meat Processing. Don't get too excited...Justin did not kill another deer. His friend Denver did. It was an 8 point. I was supposed to be studying but it was such short notice that we all just jumped in the car and took off. Regretfully, I did not spend enough time on my senior project to get rid of the nagging and stressful feeling in the pit of my stomach. I did find a great clip on YouTube for my presentation today however. This helps a little bit.

Anyway, you may be wondering what the title of this post has to do with cleaning and deer processing. Well, this is how it ties in even though I am really embarassed by the beginning of the story. Truthfully, our kitchen table is the first thing inside the door from our garage. Our washer and dryer are in the garage so when you get the clothes out of the dryer they tend to end up on our kitchen table until someone has a chance to fold them or unti they get worn again. Many clothing pieces have been lost in the humungous mound of clothes. Anyway, on my cleaning spree this weekend I was able to tackle the mound and rid our kitchen of it. We ate dinner at our kitchen table for the first time in months. (Isn't that awful?) I made breakfast for dinner including hash browns, sausage links, and french toast with chocolate milk. We were enjoying our meal when I saw a lightening bug fall off the ceiling and crawl across the table towards Katelyn. Justin jumped up and starting swatting the bug every chance he got. By this time Katelyn was hanging on to my arm for dear life. She is terrified of bugs. Justin killed the bug in her chair and swept it up before she could see it. When she discovered that daddy killed the bug she said as seriously as possible, "Thank you for saving my life daddy!" The rest just speaks for itself....

Pictures

Every year I get more and more lax about family pictures. The first year we had Katelyn family pictures was a big deal to me. The second Christmas was about the same but last year I let Justin wear jeans to avoid that moans and groans associated with this yearly ritual. This year, he has been in the woods so much lately that I just decided to forego the family picture shoot and just get some pictures made of Katelyn since it has been since Easter. Those of you that know me well, will be amazed that I have actually stayed away from a photographer for that long! But it is true. I actually let our JCPenney portrait membership expire so I decided to use a coupon for a free sitting fee at Sears last night. The pictures were okay but it took forever! I don't know how anyone with a screaming kid could stand it! Katelyn was very calm and played with their busy beads the whole time so it wasn't too bad. But two hours! Anyway we got a few Christmas shots and a few birthday ones. I had never had her picture made with the big numbers they have so we decided to do that this year. She is such a ham!

Late Nights and Ponies

I have been working some long hours this week because I won't be in the bank tomorrow. I am going to take a CPR and First Aid course at the local Red Cross chapter. This is the last credit hour that I needed to graduate outside of the JBU Advance Program and of course I put it off until the very last minute. Our last night of class was Tuesday and it was such a blessing! The chaplain came and spoke about making time to write a list of the things that we are greatful for this Thanksgiving and I wondered if everyone who reads this blog would post a comment about the things that they are thankful for. Katelyn and I are going to make leaves and write all the things that our family and friends are thankful for and paste them on the trunk of a tree for Thanksgiving. I think that this will be a great tradition for our family to begin this year.

During these late nights Justin has been very good to pick Katelyn up and keep her occupied until I come home. Tonight they watched Madagascar, Fu Fu Panda (a.k.a. Kung Fu Panda) and a Bug's Life. They also played Spiderman on the XBOX 360. I don't know what it is about Spiderman but it seems that all kids love this game! I remember when my brother was moving to Florida from Oregon his kids loved this game as well!

I finally gave out the invitations for Katelyn's third birthday part tooday! This is so unusual for me since the last two years I have had her birthday party planned months ahead of time. This year I have been so bogged down with school and work and not feeling well myself that I haven't had time to even think about her birthday party. I was so late that another little girl who has the same birthday already planned a party at Chuck E Cheese for the same time. That is okay because it will be easier to deal with mostly adults instead of children. But Katelyn still wanted to have a My Little Pony party so that is what we are doing. Marlaina (a girl that I work with at the bank) is a great cake maker and she has agreed to make the cake for me. The ideas that she is coming up with are really cute and I can't wait to see the final product! I will be sure to post pictures for everyone to see who can't make the party!

When things don't count....

Obviously from my last post I have prided myself in getting good grades while at John Brown. I recently discovered that I received a 7 out of 10 on a progress report that was due last week on my senior project. The instructor stated that there was no evidence of my reflection paper turned in. I have responded to him and questioned his grade because the reflection paper was turned in and it was over half complete. This was more than many other students in my class. Please pray that he is willing to change my grade since I sent proof in my email that I did turn in the paper. I would hate to miss those points simply because he overlooked something in the dropbox or because the technology we are forced to use did not work properly.

On another note....I thought that tonight would be a great time to do a little early Christmas shopping since there are many Veteran's Day sales and Justin is the deer woods. Katelyn and I set out for Old Navy and Kohls. She always begs for a ball or toy from the little machines at Old Navy so that was the first thing we did when we got there. I really thought that this would occupy for awhile but she just was not in the mood to shop tonight. So if anyone sees any good deals please post a response to this posting and I will try to convince her to go again tomorrow. Many of my gifts this year will be homemade but I still need to pick up a few things since my mom and Hardy will be here this year.

The other thing that has been on my mind has been the election. I am by no means qualified to host a conversation about the recent election. This was the first time in probably more than half my life that I did not keep track of the daily news and really know the platforms of the candidates. I am even embarassed to say I voted to re-elect Mayor Coody simply because I didn't know who any of the other candidates were. But somehow I still came away from this election feeling as if my vote and the vote of many of the people in the nation did not count. I somewhat understand why the electoral college was created when the foundation of our nation was laid but I do not understand the purpose that it plays today. It is hard for me to feel as if my vote matters when the electoral college votes and the popular vote were so totally different.

It just hurts sometimes when it seems that things don't count....

Distinctions

Just a quick note before heading off to class tonight. I was informed to today that I have been cleared for graduation and that I will be graduating with distinctions. This is so exciting! I had no idea that I would be eligible for graduation with distinctions. JBU does not allow you to graduate with latin honors unless you have at least 60 hours of credit from their university. Therefore, it is almost impossible for an advance student to reach latin honors. Graduating with disctinctions is the Advance program equivalent of latin honors. I was just really excited and decided to share this everyone.

Monday already...

This weekend went by so fast and I couldn't hardly believe that it was Monday already when I woke up this morning. Justin and I did something that neither one of us had ever done before yesterday. We showed up at church before anyone else yesterday forgetting that it was daylight savings time. We thought we were doing good since Katelyn had spent the night with Mimi and Poppi on Saturday. We got ready and went to Taco Place for breakfast and didn't realize what we had done until we pulled in the parking lot and no one was there. I mean NO ONE! It really was an eerie feeling until we realized that it was November and daylight savings time had taken place. We decided to go home and eat and rejoined society a little bit later.

Katelyn has discovered the beautiful fall leaves. I'm sure that she had noticed them in the past but was always too sick for us to spend much time outdoors when the leaves were changing. This year she is excited to pick them up and thinks they are as pretty as flowers. She likes to show them off and carried one all through church and then to lunch afterwards.

Tomorrow is the class before the last class! I am so excited. I can finally see the end in site. My cap and gown arrived last week in the mail and I have actually not tried it on. I had imagined I would rush home to find it on the doorstep, I would put it on, and I would wear it around the house. After all the cap and gown alone cost me almost $40. This is however a small price to pay when compared to the cost of the piece of paper I'm about to recieve but I wanted to get some wear out of the ridiculous outfit one must wear in order to walk at graduation. I hope to try it on and get a few pictures taken to include with my invitations. Hopefully these will go out in the mail at the end of the month.

I'm a Dress Mommy!

Yesterday I volunteered at Katelyn's school for their Halloween Carnival. All of the kids brought their costumes and we dressed them up and had a small carnival outside. When all the kids were showing me their costumes and telling me what they were Katelyn kept saying, "I'm a Dress Mommy! Look at me..." I think she was just a little jealous at all the attention I was getting from the other kids. She didn't like the fact that they were also calling me Mommy. But we were paired up with two other little girls from her class, Alex the witch and Emma the pumpkin in order to go around and play games. They had face painting, a duck pond, a sand dig, a bean bag toss, go fish, basketball, pin the broom on the witch, and a cake walk. The girls seemed to have a lot of fun until it started raining. Emma and Katelyn got cold so we went inside while Alex stayed with her mom and read stories. They laid down for nap and Katelyn didn't really seem to mind that I left her there the rest of the day.

Last night we went to a few houses trick-or-treating and she got more candy than we know what to do with. But we all had fun and we enjoyed a delicious dinner with Dale and Cathy of a chicken tamale bake from Cooking Light that was really good. Cathy also loaned me a beautiful oil painting to hang in my office. I am so excited about decorating!

Here are some pics for you to enjoy....