Belated Mother's Day

Recently, I went over to my parents' house for a belated Mother's Day celebration. My aunt and uncle--recently back from their winter in Arizona--joined us for a lovely lunch and a bit of triplet/L-Pie wrangling. A good time was had by all!

I enjoyed getting to catch up with my aunt and uncle. Then there was puppetry with the boys (they love to stick their hands in the bear's mouth...) and reading a Little Critter book with L-Pie. She found the mouse on every page!

I love watching my little family at their parenting and grand-parenting best. And I swear, my parents have the best toys at their house (to say nothing for the cookies). My old Fisher Price dollhouse? Always a big hit... and my mom can play with Hot Wheels for hours.

Here is Renae's beautiful present for Mom. I regret to report that I showed up sans gift!

Tigger-dorable

Eleise, this one is for you!

For those of you who haven't heard the band Hey Marseilles before, the song is from their album To Travels & Trunks. It's the first track, titled "Marseilles."

Cross Your Fingers

The Gauntlet

National Boards. Good heavens.

The expression "biting of more than I can chew" comes instantly to mind.

I've been whining about this for awhile now, but I haven't fully explained it. So, for those of you not in the teaching biz, National Boards is a process akin to "super certification," a sign that the teacher in question's at the top of her game. To become an NBCT, teachers must meet rigorous standards--mostly through intensive study of their own classrooms. It involves videoing oneself (and one's students), analyzing those videos through a series of essays, and then submitting it all for peer review. That's right. Total strangers get to watch me teach.

(Commence emotional vomiting here.)

It's great professional development, but it's also incredibly nerve-wracking. There's only so much navel-gazing I can handle before I turn into an epic freak show. I'm so worried that my evaluators will confirm my worst fear: that I'm actually a horrible teacher. (Bonus worry: they'll be so distracted by my terrible taste in clothes that they won't even be able to evaluate my teaching.)

What's been really fun is having my teaching insecurities bump up against my writing insecurities. I've put off writing my essays because I fear showing them to anybody--much like the latest draft of my novel. This has made for some extreme stress!

Most candidates put in 200 to 400 hours of work in the course of their candidacy year... on top of full-time teaching responsibilities. Which is somewhat insane, considering that I grade 121 essays every two weeks.

Well, in theory. I've told my students they're not getting any work back until April.

It's true! The end is in sight. No matter where I'm at in the revision (don't lie: writing) process, my National Boards portfolio must be postmarked by midnight on March 31st.

Yeah, if you see a crazy lady at Kinko's/Fed Ex that night, it's probably me.

I'll be working down to the wire on this one. It's definitely time to assume crash positions and wait for the frantic e-mail. Any words of encouragement would be appreciated!

At this point, I'm trying to remind myself that projects are never done. They're just due.

Superbowl Sunday

I just wanted to assure all of you that yes, in fact, we are still alive. We're doing quite well, but we're busy... and not with the kinds of activities that generate fun photo opportunities. (Oh, National Boards, how I loathe thee!)

That's right. I've been heavily involved in career-oriented navel gazing. But I did take a break to do Superbowl Sunday with the family. Mike and I joined my parents at their house. My brother's family was there, too.

It's a good thing I'm not a die-hard football fan... because I barely got to watch the game! Instead, I was chasing after nephews and nieces. Everyone was playing with blocks, puzzles, and potato heads. And the fact that they're tall enough to climb in the toy box and reach Grandma's spatula drawer? Good, good times.

(Click on the collages to make them bigger!)


Of course, the adults had a lovely time as well. My brother was thrilled to have a chance to watch the game. He may have been a little less thrilled about our birthday present for L :) It was a brand new Fancy Nancy book ("Way to go, Katie. It's got pink glitter on the cover." That's right, bro. I do what I can.)

The food, as always, was fabulous. And Mom made too much potato salad (shocker, I know).

All in all, it was lovely to spend a day with family!

Belated Christmas Clean-Up

I'm ashamed. We just took the tree down this morning and de-holidayed the house. That took much longer than anticipated! In my defense, I didn't want to take down decorations while I was on break. That would be tantamount to acknowledging my return to work. And then, said return to work was so stressful that I fell asleep within two hours of coming home every day this week. So there you have it.

In addition to putting the decorations away, I've also finally downloaded all of the Christmas music to my I-Tunes. Next year, we won't have to bust out the CD player! It's a very exciting thought.

But as I was redecorating the halls and taking down the boughs of holly, it occurred to me that I never put up pictures of Christmas with Mike's side of the family. Without further ado, here you go!

Denise and one of her daughters

Mike and his brothers

other family pics

I must say, I'm so grateful that our two families get along. My parents have been coming to Christmas Eve almost since Mike and I started dating (and Denise and James have been bringing their family to Thanksgiving at my parents' house).

We gave our nephew E some DS games. He's right at that age where he can't quite read the directions for himself, but he's very impatient to start playing. So Mike showed him how to play the game...

... and then the brothers got intrigued by the game and took it away from young E. Ah, well. Boys will be boys, right?


I think the most popular gifts this year had to be the musical instruments, though. As you can see, everyone wanted to play!


Once the kids had unwrapped their presents they disappeared to enjoy the loot. That meant the adults had time to play games. This year, it was all about Hand and Foot... but I was too busy losing to take any pictures!

As always, we enjoyed the holiday. I am so grateful for our family--the one I was born into, and the one I was blessed with through marriage!

Christmas with Katie's Side

I hope that everyone had a lovely Christmas!

I am in process of going through many holiday pictures. It was easier to edit down the photos from Christmas at my parents' house, so that's what you get to see first. (The kids are so active that it's hard to get them to sit still. The adults are so busy chasing kiddos that they can't exactly pose for pictures, either.)

If you click on the collage, a bigger image will pop up!


We had a lovely visit. The kids are finally old enough to rip into their presents. Of course, they were just as excited about the wrapping paper as they were about their gifts! While little R ran around swinging a gift bag like a lasso, I managed to entertain his brothers for quite some time with a bear puppet.

It was good times!