Finally posting some pics.

Sorry it's been so long since I've put up any new pictures. I've been taking them everyday. I'm posting the pics from March 20-March 28. I'll post pics from Saturday through tomorrow tomorrow. Much love. Thanks for looking!

Thursday, March 20....Sophie likes to sit like a person. And my dad loves to let her.

Thursday, March 20...I worked on the paper work for Nashville Star auditions Thursday night. It was a lot. But I didn't think to wake up as early as I needed to to make it through the line. When I got down there there was already about 2000 people lined up and it was only 6:30. I wanted to be with my mom for her surgery so I decided to wait until next year to go through the audition. That way I can build up my voice, lose some weight, and plan to get there at about noon the day before auditions so I can be at the front of the line.

Friday, March 21...Keri, Mom, and me before Mom's LAST surgery. Yay! Aren't we gorgeous. I love these two.Friday, March 21....Me holding Ezra, Beth's new son. He is so precious and he loved me. I'm good with kids. That weird color on my hair and forehead is the sun shining through the blinds in the restaurant.
Saturday, March 22...My dad and I went walking around the woods and we wound up going to an old homeplace that belonged to his great uncle. These are some pieces of china that I found down there where the old house used to be. Pretty cool.

Sunday, March 23..Easter. It was a great day. The whole family got together at Granny's for lunch. It was fun. This is the sweet pic I took of my cousin Maggie and Emma trying to get Eve (the calf) to come to them so they could pet them. If you notice the camo hat in the bottom right corner that would be my dad trying to help coax her towards the girls.
Monday, March 24...1st day back to school and wouldn't you know, the one child I have the most difficulty with didn't have his medicine, which meant he was non functional, which meant, I came home with a headache from the annoyance I had because of the ignorance of his mother.


Tuesday, March 25...It was so gorgeous outside. I love the new spring weather. Yay! Finally I can bust out my flip flops. I was trying some new angles and captured this super cute pic of my little baby in front of the barn. I love barns. I want to find some old barns and take pics of them too. I also tried to get some of the little purple flowers that are popping up everywhere .

Wednesday, March 26...I love my Sydnibear and she loves me. We like to play outside in the afternoons when I get home. She's my big girl.
Thursday, March 27...Mom and Keri came and saw me at school. If you come see me you are going to read a book to my class, so my pic of the day was my mom (the best teacher in the whole world) reading to my super cute kids. Believe me you can learn more from that woman in 5 minutes than a whole 2 years of grad school. Love you mom!

Friday, March 28...Since school was cancelled the Friday before we got out for spring we had our Relax and read day. The kids could wear their pjs to school, bring a blanket and pillow and read read read all day. These are my super cute and really warm slippers that I wore as my part of dressing up for pjs. Man I tell you, at the end of the day my "dogs" sure were barking.....hahaha...get it...Man I'm a cheeseball.

What a great weekend! I had a blast in Bristol. I would have posted pics sooner, but, to be honest, I've just been lazy.

My poor sister wound up having strep and got some meds Saturday morning but she felt a little pooey on the drive up to Pigeon Forge. We finally got there and she was feeling better, we went out to dinner and the gang rode some go-carts. We went back to the hotel and hung out while some of the peeps with us had a couple of choice drinks. We were practicing being some rednecks for the race on Sunday, which led to my picture of the day.

Sunday morning we got up at 4 a.m. Eastern time so 3 a.m. our time to get ready for Bristol. I have never tailgated for an event in my life until Sunday. We got to the track about 8 a.m Eastern and hung out at the car until about 12. Some of the peeps again partook in some choice drinks while we just hung out. We played a really fun game which I was actually good at. Stephanie and Shawn dressed up as redneck as they could which became one of the pictures of the day because honestly it takes guts to wear the stuff they wore.

The race experience was amazing. All the trailors set up with merchandise, the hike up the track, just everything. It was a good race. My boys did good. I was excited. After the race we hiked up the tallest hill I've ever walked up in my life. My thighs were cramping and it felt like the more you went forward the more you went backward. The trip back was kind of funny because we were all so tired from getting up early and just the excitement so most of us fell asleep. So we wound up not making our turn and wound up across the Virginia state line. We finally got turned around and go back to Pigeon Forge LATE.

Monday was just driving back home. It was St. Patricks Day so I took a picture of me in my green hat that prevented me from being pinched.
Tuesday, I unloaded boxes of stuff that mom gave me for school and made a trip to Wally World. It was a nice lazy day. When dad got home we did some stuff on the tractor. I put Sophie up there because she loves to ride. That was my pic for the day.
Today, I went and looked at some houses. I found one I really liked so I may look into it a little bit more. I ran by school to do some things and wound up just checking my mail. Then I had to go to the dentist. Fun! Then it was cool enough we built a fire in the fireplace. I love fires, but I'm ready for some warmer weather.
Ok, this is already so long, I'll just post my what I love about mes tomorrow. Peace!

Thursday, March 13th

I went to dinner with my friends Heidi and Laura. Heidi is pregnant and super cute as a mommy to be. Her little belly is starting to grow. I can't wait to know what they are naming her! It's a girl! There is one month until my birthday! eek! Not talking about that.

Friday, March 14, 2008

I went to visit my friend Jackie today. We became friends after I was her student teacher. It was great to get to see her. It made me realize that I'm the spitting image of her in the classroom when it comes to my no nonsense way of teaching the kids. I like that we don't baby our kids. Yay us!

What I love about me #23

I love my friends. They are the best friends a girl could ever have. I don't know how I've been so lucky in my life to have the amazing friendships that I have. They all complement me in some way and are like my family. I always look forward to seeing or talking with or just hanging out with my friends. It's crazy to me that all of my friends are so different yet, so much the same. They all seem to represent a different quality or attribute that I have too. I just love my friends!!!

What I love about me #24

I love my hair! Now, years ago I used to hate it because it would be fuzzy and crazy, but when I finally learned to just embrace that my hair has a mind of it's own, I've grown to love it. I even love it when it is curly. I got my curly hair at my 3rd birthday party when I went outside to play and got sweaty and when I came in the house it was curly. It's so much more manageable now that I've figured out the perfect method to scrunching it on raining days. I also love the color of my hair. I love being a brunette. My hair, having it's own mind, decides it likes to have red highlights in it. I get those from my dad's side. I've felt like my hair has had more of a reddish tint to it lately in my pictures. But I love my natural highlights in the hair too. I just love my hair. Yay!

March 11, 2008---Playing around with my hair
March 12, 2008----Me and Laura at Michael Buble
My future husband
My future husband and Blake Shelton (surprise guest at the concert)
Finale---My future husband with the opening act singing the gospel

I'm enjoying my spring break. Hanging out with my mom and sis and friends. It's great. Yesterday, I had a dentist appointment about a tooth that is going to have to be pulled. Yuck! My adventure to get there was crazy because I went the wrong way on West End and then when I was trying to get turned around and in the direction I needed to be going I wound up having to take backroads to get there because they shut down West End for the President to come through to get to the airport. So,

What I love about me #21

I have a great sense of direction. I always have. I can always pick out which way is North, South, East, West. If I'm with people and we get lost, I can get us going towards the direction we need to be or back track to get us back on track. Like yesterday, I knew if I kept going those residential roads in the general direction I needed to be, I would eventually wind up on the road I needed. If I were to get lost in the woods, I'm confident that I would find my way out. I just have that extra sense about me.

Today was a great day too! I went to visit my sis at her school and read some books to her kids. They are so cute! The highlight of my night was going to the Michael Buble concert! I LOVE HIM!!! He is amazing. I thought it was just going to be us sitting there listening to him sing while he stood in one place but NOOOOOO. He was all over the stage, and really hilarious. He has a very quit wit about him and I love it! Just another reason we should get married, other than the obvious fact that he can sing like no other man and it just makes me melt. I'm sure the people around me probably got tired of me fake fainting but he just melts me. And it was so awesome when Blake Shelton came out and sang his latest hit song with Michael because apparently Michael helped write it. So in love. It was a great night! Thank you so much Laura for taking me!!!

What I love about me #22

I love my love of music. I have always loved music. I've always felt that there is a song for every day of my life and every event. I swear I can hear excerpts from songs that would be perfect for things that happen in my life. I just love it. I love a good concert with good songs that just touch the soul. That is one reason I love Michael Buble so much because of the beauty of his songs and the meaning of them. I love slow songs, upbeat songs, and in between songs. It doesn't matter. I love songs that let me sing my heart out and songs that let me shake my booty. My love of music and what it can mean to so many people is a reason why I want to audition for Nashville Star. I'm going to be a realist and not expect to even make it past the first day, but I love the possibility of one day singing a song that means something to so many people. That people can relate to their life and say, that song was talking about me. I just LOVE music.

What I love about me #19:

I love that I get into cleaning moods that wind up taking the whole day. I mean, I can get in the mood to just straighten up and make things look nice, or I can get in the mood to give the house a good cleaning, or I can get in the mood where I do both and wind up pulling things out of the nooks and crannies to organize and clean EVERYTHING. Luckily, I only got in the mood to just give the house a good cleaning yesterday, but I wound up throwing all of my stuff that was laying around the house into my room to be put up later. There is just something about giving a house a good cleaning or even my car to make me feel accomplished. Plus it's usually what I do when I have a lot to think about or I am really mad, so if you see my house clean its probably because one of those two things.

What I love about me # 20:

I love that I love to reminisce about old times. This one is a shout out to Laura. For example, last year, for our April birthdays, we went to the Fangtastic Finale. Laura was driving and we were going down 2nd Avenue just minding our own business. Laura was driving, Chris was in the passenger seat and I was in the back seat on the passenger side. Well, this car was beside us and decided to get over in our lane without looking. If you know me, you know that I am a nervous rider anyways, well I start screaming, Chris and Laura starts screaming. I don't know how it worked out the way it did but as this car was coming over into our lane, there was a side road that came about on the left that Laura turned on on 2 wheels into a gravel parking lot with one hand on the wheel and one hand on the horn. You had to be there to realize the hilarity of the whole situation. As scary as it was, we laughed and still laugh about it to this day. We've decided if she ever quits her day job that she is going to become a stunt driver for Hollywood.

Anyways, my point is that I love to reminisce about things that have happened to me in my life. It's fun to talk about it with friends and just have good laughs, even about the stuff that at the time may have been scary or sad or whatever. It all works out in the end and winds up being pretty funny.

Annie's mom's dog. So cute!

We were out of school yesterday for snow. Well, it didn't actually snow during the day but they went ahead and took precautionary measures for the bad weather that was supposed to be coming in. I was such a nerd and still went to school for a little while. The picture of the day for yesterday was last night when it finally did start snowing. So pretty.

Today, I woke up earlier than I do when I have to go to work because it was so bright in my room. We got up and played out in the snow. The dogs loved it. Sophie kept getting ice balls on her legs from the 4 inches of snow she was jumping around in. They had fun though.

What I love about me #17

I love my creativity. I have some amazing ideas for things. Like Keri's wedding scrapbook. I think the pages I have for her are really awesome. She's gonna be so surprised when I give it to her. It looks awesome. Same for cards and other stuff. I've really gotten into Stampin' Up and the products that have to help you make cards and scrapbook pages and picture frames and stuff. Love! I think the reason I do well with my crafts is because I just go with the flow. I don't worry about it looking perfect or being exactly centered or anything like that.

What I love about me #18

I love my love of NASCAR. I know you may think it is stupid to watch 43 cars drive around in a circle for about 4 hours. I was in the same boat about 7 years ago, but then my sister started dating the man she is married to and he is a stockcar driver who loves all things racing and he got me hooked on racing. It started by watching him drive (he's really good). Then it went to watching some NASCAR races on tv when he would come visit. To now, where I am obsessed with the guys of NASCAR. I know more than I ever thought I would about racing and I love it! I wish I knew more. My obsession has become so much that I go to every race of Daniel's that I can and I've been dying to go to Bristol to watch the race. How excited am I? I love NASCAR!!!

"A person's a person, no matter how small."

We had silly sock day today to go with our week of Dr. Seuss. I love Dr. Seuss. He's the best.

My kids are loving this week of reading and having guest readers. They love the men readers the best. They hang on every word. It's sad that some of my kids don't have male role models in their life.

What I love about me #16:

I love my sense of humor. I am a pretty funny girl. I have some good one liners and quick comebacks. I mean, I crack myself up all the time. I like to think that I keep my friends and family entertained with my quick wit and humor. I love to laugh so I usually find a lot of things funny that may not be so funny. Just ask my sister, she knows we get tickled at a lot of things that may not be funny, but to us it is. hahahahahahaha. You'll just have to hang out with me to get it. I'm a funny kid!

I was super busy last night when I got home finishing up some work I had to turn in to my boss, so I didn't even get on here to post anything, but I did take a picture of what my night looked like between me working on the paperwork and Sophie wanting to be near me.

What I love about me #14:

I love my smile. I think it's pretty. I like my teeth and how white and straight they are. It's funny, one time I went to a new dentist and they thought I had veneers on because they were straight and white. Yay, me! Thanks to my mom and dad for the braces. I love that I can smile no matter what. I think I have a warm, inviting smile. No matter how bad I may feel, how upset, or sad I am, I can always put on a smile. Smiling makes me happy. It can completely change my mood and the mood of those around me. It's great. Smile more, and smile always, it's contagious.

Today was a good day. Busy but good. I like this week a lot because we aren't learning anything new, just reviewingand practicing skills we already have covered. We've been reading a whole lot too and have had a lot of guest readers. The kids love it! and I love to see how they respond to the different people who come read. This afternoon was fun. I had a mini photo shoot outside because I loved the light coming through the trees as the sun was setting. I loved playing with my dogs too. Sophie is so cute chasing the frisbee and then retrieving it. I mean, the thing is bigger than she is. So cute!

What I love about me #15:

I love that I procrastinate. Procrastination drives me to do better. It seems my best ideas come when I feel the pressure to finish something. I've always been that way. If I know I have all the time in the world to finish something, I will usually think about it and then wait to actually do it until the day before it's due. I kill myself to get it done, but it always turns out good. The same goes for the way I teach. A lot of the lessons I do I make up on the spot as I see how the kids are feeling for the day and what they are wanting and willing to do during a lesson. You have to fly by the seat of your pants a lot in this profession, so I think my procrastination really helps me a lot. It doesn't freak me out to wait to get things done. I'm pretty laid back about it because I know it will always work out. Ahhhh, procrastination!