Picture a Christmas

Once upon a time, I flew home for Christmas. Just like I do err year. I was greeted at the airport by my cute (suddenly giant) family.

And then, I gained 30 pounds.

And Jacob grew 30 inches.

And we all froze to death.

And so did Sarah's American Girl doll magazines. We found them in the freezer.

Then, I made some really fantastic potato soup. It was so fantastic, I cried a little about it.  (Although that could have also been the onions that I cut....)

"Julie. I am so happy to share with you, because you shared with me. ......Nicole lied." - Nicole

"What do I know? I'm just a fat old man with jowels." - a very self-pitying Dad

*everyone listening to "I want you to rock me" by One Direction, when Dad comes and turns it off*
Jo: Dad! We were listening to that!
Dad: I've been rocked enough!

"He has nose hairs?? How does the man survive!" - Dad

This year is looking like it's going to be pretty good already :) We miss you, Delly!

Blogworthy, Nonetheless

I haven't blogged a whole lot this month. But here are some things that have happened that have been blogworthy even if they haven't gotten their own entry:

- I got power nails! I got them for my parent-teacher conferences, and I got a free appetizer and a discount at Chili's on girls' night, and then I didn't have any bad parent teacher conferences, so I guess they did their job.

- And speaking of that free food at Chili's and parent teacher conferences, I would also just like to announce that my PTA fed us dinner both nights of conferences. And you know that made it all worth it to me. 

- McKen Doll and I went to our ward's FHE for the sole purpose of feeding ourselves, because we heard there would be pizza there. There was, and for some reason, it was the best pizza I have ever inhaled. (Because that's absolutely what I did with it.) At first I got two slices, because I was thinking I would eat one and save the other one for my lunch the next day. But then I accidentally ate both of them.


- And then Kenna and I accidentally each took two more slices on our way out the door.

- There was also that one time when I was so exhausted when I got home, so I was taking a nap, and then my roommate woke me up to tell me that there was free Zupa's at the clubhouse (?!?!?!) so I zombied my way over to the clubhouse and helped myself.

- I got some presents for the ladies I teach with. As a true daughter of my mother, I gave them all nail polish and toe separators with a tag that said "You have "nailed" teaching! It's great to work with you. Thanks for helping me "polish" my teaching!"


- One of the nail polishes was a really great color. So I accidentally painted my nails with it.


- And then the next day at school, I accidentally improved on my manicure by putting glitter on some of my nails. While I was at school. And while my kids were also at school with me.

- Then this boy saw my nails and, remembering when I had power nails the time before, said "That's so much power in your nails!"


- There was that one day (yesterday) when my desk looked like this:

And that was justttt fine.

- We had our Christmas party in class, and the room moms who put it all together threw away all the leftover frosting. I'm talking like, 5 containers that were still halfway full. So I pulled them out of the trashcan and then this conversation happened:


Student: Miss Connor, what are you doing?
Me: Hmmm? Oh I'm.....there are box tops of these.
S: Oh! We need to cut those off!
Me: Yeah! Can I borrow your scissors?


After I had cut them all off....


Student: Now you're going to throw them back away?
Me: What? These don't go in the trash.
S: Oh....I thought they were thrown away.
Me: Oh, no! Look how much is left. There's still a ton.


And you better believe I am keeping those.

- Also can I just say that the room moms in charge brought in sugar cookies and root beer floats for the snack after we were done making the gingerbread houses. I was so nervous, you guys. I just thought, "There is no way that my children are going to listen to a word I say for the rest of the day." But I was wrong! They did. I just love my kids so much. They are the nicest little class and I never want them to go to 3rd grade.

- I got an email from my principal. She informed me (and the rest of the teachers) that there are some mice in our school. In the first grade hallway, to be exact. I was pretty on edge after I heard that....and this poster in the front office only made me feel a little bit better:

- I went to my ward's talent show. It was.....something else. I mean wow.

- My school does something called "Battle of the Books" every year," where you read about 5 books and then you have the chance to sit on stage and do sort of a game show thing with buzzers and questions about the books. Anyway, to kick it off, they had 5 teachers participate and show how it's done. The announcer lady said: "Okay! So whoever wins is going to be crowned the queen of the book challenge! And she will receive a crown and a cake!"

My head snapped up. "What??" I whispered to my intern friend. "The winner gets a cake? I didn't know that! I might have participated if I had known I could get a cake!" She kind of just gave me a weird smile and we went back to watching the battle.


In the end, I watched with envy as they placed the crown on Melissa's head....then with confusion as they draped the cape around her shoulders. No one came forward with a cake. At this point it occurred to me that maybe, the winner gets a crown and a CAPE, and maybe I might have to work on my listening skills.


- The North Pole wrote a letter to my class.

I told my kids that if they were super-duper good, we could probably help Santa out. Sorry if you think this was a little manipulative of me....but it worked pretty well :)

- I lost my voice. Teaching is greattt when you have no voice. This conversation happened:

Student: Miss Connor! One time, I lost my voice.
Me: Oh yeah? Where did it go?
S: I think my stomach? Actually no. It went on vacation.
Me: Well how long was it on vacation for?
S: Like, a week.
Me: A week!? I can't wait a week for my voice to come back!
S: Maybe it will come back sooner. Like, maybe your voice can't afford as nice as of a vacation as my voice did.


- After I lost my voice, I went to this Christmas singalong thing that Larry H. Miller does every year up in Salt Lake. It was sooo cool! I just felt a little depressed that I couldn't sing along.

- That depression was alleviated because someone handed me a donut right when I walked in.

- I got lost on my way home from Walmart.

- Then, the next day, I got lost on my way home from the payroll office. Where I happened to be because apparently I never got paid in September! So I had to go and pick up my check. You know that's a merry Christmas. 


- The Jew came to town for a day! She helped out in my classroom all day. My class loves Miss Julie, and thankfully, she doesn't try to distract them....unlike SOME people who visit! You know who you are. (Not you, Aunt Carol. It's not you either, Mom.)



I think we're all caught up now....now that I'm already back in Maryland. Maryland, my merry land. It's good to be home :)

Teacher's Pet

A blonde walks into Walmart and straight back to the pet section. She examines the bettas, plucks a little red one off the shelf, and takes it up to the cashier.

"How much for this betta?" she asks, and then swipes her card without listening to the price, since the school will be reimbursing her for the fish anyway. The blonde leaves the store, fish in hand, and gets back in her car.


Does this sound like the start of a dumb blonde joke? It's not. It's the start of a very serious life-and-death drama, and it is a true story.


Here's a shocking confession: I am the blonde in this story. The red betta is my class pet, the honorable Brad Rudolph. The cashier will remain anonymous.

Wednesday: I took Brad Rudolph - BR, for short - from Walmart. I placed him securely in Cassidy Jane Carbaby. I brought him to my apartment.

Thursday morning: I brought him to school and slid him into his new home: a beautiful glass fishbowl perched on the windowsill, where he could watch all the kids play at recess. When my kids came in and noticed him, they loved him immediately.

Thursday afternoon: We named him. Aka, they named him.

Friday morning: We wrote letters to Brad Rudolph.

Friday afternoon: I thought to myself: won't BR need to eat over the weekend? I put Brad Rudolph in the little container I had bought him in and got him settled back in Cassidy Jane Carbaby. We got back to my apartment. I poured him into a bigger tupperware container, so he could have some wiggle room.


Saturday: uneventful.


Sunday: uneventful.


Monday morning: Disaster struck. I couldn't find BR's traveling case. I poked holes in a water bottle lid and pretended like that would be okay. I went over to the sink and tried pouring BR into the water bottle. Before I knew it, I had lost 96% of the water down the drain, and BR was still swimming frantically around in the inch of water left in the tupperware container.

I panicked. I tried to facilitate a gentle transfer by setting the water bottle in the container so BR could just swim right in, but that just made all these weird air bubbles rush out of the water bottle and into the water in the tupperware container, and that just made BR thrash around like a sad little piece of red seaweed.


Which was just as terrifying as it sounds! I'm not sure what happened next, but somehow I ended up trying to pick up BR with my bare hands from off of a dirty plate in the sink, and there was no water in the tupperware container, and there was barely a centimeter of water in the water bottle, and when I eventually managed to grab him and drop him in the water bottle, I remembered that he needed water, so I turned on the faucet for about half a second before I remembered that betta fish need special water that has water conditioner drops in it, and tap water will kill them....


So then I snapped off the tap water, appalled at myself, ran over to the shelves where Shannon has her betta fishes, and brought one of them over to the sink. That fish kindly shared some of his water with BR's water bottle. Then the other fish shared some of his water with BR, too.


I felt so bad the entire ride to school. I just kept checking my water bottle to see how poor little BR was holding up.

He seemed a little shaken, but he wasn't dead.  Just to be extra-careful, though, I didn't even turn on the radio the whole way there. I don't want my fish to be deaf any more than I want him to be dead!



At last we got to school and I was able to pour him back into his bowl.

Home, sweet home.

I tell my kids a lot; some might even say that I tell them too much. But you better believe that this is one story I did not share with them.