Let the traditions continue!

This Christmas officially marks the 2nd holiday season away from family...yet that can only mean one thing. Another year of continuing memories with my honey! Last Christmas togther was simply magical. With such high expectations from last year, I approached this season with much anticipation. "Will we still have just as much fun?" "What if all of our 'traditions' from last year seem silly now?" Good thing we kept the good times rollin' as we acted as though we were children. We practically had a slumber party in our living room! What married couple does that?

Starting the night off with sugar cookies! What couldn't be better with filling our mouths with that much sugar at around 7:00?

Dave likes to sneak away and "just take a little" while I am busy cutting the cookies. So sneaky!

I love holiday messes.

Thanks to Becky Evans recipe, we made our "baked French toast" that night. All we had to do Christmas morning was pop it in the oven for 40 minutes! Walaah! Breakfast is served :)

This was the real clencher when acting like kids. After all of our baking and decorating, we put the couches together and watched Christmas movies until our eyelids got heavy. We didn't move till the next morning :)

Merry Christmas Everyone!

New tool for the toolbox...an ice pick

Who knew that the ice, sleet, and snow would make it's way into our house? Apparently our humidifier + the extremely cold outside temperature = the water cycle working against us. The condensation on our windows was on overdrive as it formed a lake of water at the base of the window, and then refroze again. Now our comfy window seat is a block of ice. At least we don't use it in the winter.

Holiday messes

Oh how I love making messes....those that are for a productive end of course. My latest mess is my project on decorations for a team Christmas party coming up this Thursday. Realizing that the location did not give me much to work with (empty gym) on making the room feel warm and cozy, I thought I would do the best with what I did have...tables to dress up.

After a couple weekends of scouring the markets in search of a centerpiece. The prettiest one I found was a simple short bough of garland with some fake snow, pine cones, and berries. Yet the cheapest price for one was 70 kuai....I was determined to do better, since I do have about 8 tables to decorate. I decided to join the Martha Stewart bunch. I went out and bought my own long piece of garland, pine cones, berries, fake snow and hot glue and got to work! A couple hours later, and my house looked like a woodland winter wonderland. Snow covering the floor and garland strewn over every surface. Who needs to go outside now? The scenic view is right in my living room!

Here are some of my documented efforts:

After the garland was cut (thanks to Dave's muscles) all six centerpieces were done! If you can see in the background, I was testing one out with the red tablecloths.

This longer bough is for the food table, so I decided to keep it all in one piece :)

See how my hair is all gross and matted? Thats because I continued my project right when I woke up at 6:00 this morning....determination is a great motivater.

The coolest thing about this whole project is that by doing it this way, I saved SO much money. Normally one centerpiece would have costed 70 kuai, but I made 6 centerpieces and one long bough for less than 100 kuai! I say from now on, putting the work in is worth it...if you have the time.

Delegating = one happy teacher

It's moments like these that I wish I could post pictures of my students. The pure joy of holiday festivities, decorating, singing, making cookies makes me happy...oh the Christmas bliss. Thursday was our 1st grade Christmas party. This was the first time that I ever tried having the parents run the show, so I approached the event with much anticipation. With four different stations (book making, making words, ornaments, and cookie making), the 15 minute attention span of my students continually hit the "refresh" button. Since the parents were leading each station, I just got to take a back seat and enjoy the party. I felt like a parent looking over the festivities of my child, yet I was the one really running the show! This whole planning ahead and then kicking back thing is definitely how I will be doing parties in the future. Much like a bride should just enjoy her wedding day instead of running around with final details....a teacher should just enjoy the merriment of a party at the actual party.

Cookie Making:
"Oooo....it's sticky!" "Rudolph's legs fell off!" "Can I eat this white stuff?" These were all the most adorable comments I heard coming from this station. It was so cute to see their eyes light up in wonder when they made the connection between that squishy dough to the cookie they ate 5 minutes later. Interesting enough, they were not the least bit interested in all of the icing and goodies I brought to decorate. Americans...we love our sugar:)

Christmas Ornaments:

After listening to the story The Legend of the Candy Cane, the students were eager to make their own candy canes to share the story to their families. When they finished that, they had paper plate angels to symbolize the first messengers of the Christmas story.

Making Words:
"at, cat, chat, chart, charts"...just a few of the many words that could be made here with the letters s h r s t m a i c. The students had to cut up the letters (that together made the mystery word: Christmas) and make lots of little words. They loved it! Trick them into learning...a teacher's most convincing scheme ;)

Christmas Books:
The simple nature of this station reminded me of a baby who gets a new toy and only plays with the box. Basically, they are content with something not so elaborate or fancy...just simple. Put first grade students with something they can color (or a book they can re-read again later) and some crayons, and you have them occupied for quite some time!

This whole delegating thing has really had me thinking these past couple of days. Only if I had known the efficiency of this concept earlier, my life would have been much less stressful! This can only bring hope for future activities :)

New Gadgets

It is interesting how gadgets work. Usually the status quo is the same when purchasing them "It is nifty, but not a necessity nor top priority." Either we have changed the status quo or we don't know how to purchase anything "fun" anymore, because our latest purchases have been TOTAL top priority necessities.

There are two things that make the winters here feel unbearable aside from the sheer chilling temperature. #1 - numb extremities. I can't tell you how many times I have to start gripping things with my forearms from the inability to feel my fingertips. My poor toes feel like they are asleep for about half of the winter. One of my students actually said "my toes practically hibernate all winter" in class the other day. I think I would have to agree. #2 - dry air. Static hair sticking to my face, dry throat and chapped lips when we wake up in the morning, goodness gracious. What oh what will we do? Well, we go out and buy gadgets that we can actually use!

#1 SOLUTION:

This handy little thing has stolen my heart. It is simply a hot water bottle that you can plug in, yet in only 5 minutes it is boiling! Set it in your lap, on your back, on your feet, or in your hands. There is rarely a time you see me without this. I think we are going to have to buy two...I keep hiding it from Dave ;)

#2 SOLUTION:

One thing I love about marriage is the fact that there is always someone else enlightening you of things you are unaware of. For instance, while all I was noticing was that my throat was sore in the morning, Dave measured the humidity in the room, made a plan of action, and went out and bought a humidifier. I felt like I was watching a science project! Each day he would document what helped the humidity rise...at first it was at about 15% (for those of you who are interested), but now it is at around 45%! Yay - keeping it going all day long with the door closed was the most effective!

Wondering what China will have next for the needy consumer wanting to make it through the winter?

Mom, you'd be proud :)

The other day I was on the search for some interesting breakfast foods to make. As I glanced through the cookbook, I came across such a nostalgic recipe......monkey bread. Oh how my mind quickly reverted back to the mornings all huddled around the dining room table, still in our pajamas, picking from the bunt cake pan of monkey bread....licking our fingers...and then going back for more :) Oh the germs of love....

You'd be proud mom. I made the whole thing from scratch. No help from Pillsbury biscuits! And I was even on such a baking roll that I whipped up some baked oatmeal to go with it. I thought I would document my efforts. The bummer was that I was over spontaneous and made the entire creation at night. When I woke up in the morning, my delicious mouth watering expectation was quickly shot down by hardened stale bread.....sad day. At least I now know how to make it for next time!

From the eyes of a 1st grader...

I am intrigued by the way kids think...especially six year old ones. Their brains work in a way that is so literal, innocent, and heartfelt....yet often without tact. I find myself so many times in the day just holding my hand against my heart making an "oh my goodness you are so adorable" face (Now I feel like they do things just for my reaction). I feel so blessed to have students who connect their learning, think outside of the box, and take risks in challenging themselves...and yes, they are only in 1st grade!

Here are some precious moments that I was able to capture with the camera.

After a mini-lesson on making Text to Self connections, this student wrote a post-it connection with him and the T-rex in his story..."I do not like to share my food."

When we thought that one of our students had pneumonia, one student drew T-cells and people attacking "namonya" for his get well card. Pretty intense.

Writing Christmas cards for nursing home residents, one of my students writes "...I hope you don't die before Christmas..." There is that tact (or lack there of) that I was talking about.

During Thanksgiving time, a wonderful brainstorming web was created of why this student was thankful for his Heavenly Father:

1. 1. He is always with us
2. He sent me to earth
3. He created me

When I asked this student "why do you have so many post-its in your book?" He proudly responds "Mrs. Evans, can't you see? Those are all of my mental images! When I was reading the words, I had different pictures than what the illustrator made." Woah....how incredibly awesome to witness his brain working :)


Good thing this was in the beginning of the year, but I just had to put it. The last word was supposed to say "researcher's notebook". It looks like he started, then started, then started again...haha.

Looking forward to more capturable moments as the year progresses!