The Beautiful Day I see December 4th 2014: A trip to see Santa

Thursday December 4th was a beautiful day.

Most Decembers at preschool we try to take the kids on a field trip to the mall to see Santa. This is always a fun trip. We started at the Dollar Tree. One of the things we try to teach to the little guys is the joy of giving. When we go to the dollar store we tell the kids that they are not here to buy things for them but instead to buy things for their family. It is hard for them at first but they usually get it pretty quickly and have fun picking out things for their family members. While the little guys were shopping (all of the kids had a parent or other adult with them) I did some shopping of my own. Michael and I wanted to get a gift for the kids in our Sunday school class so I used this opportunity to shop for things for that. I might have went a little overboard but I hope the kids will love it! I also picked up another box of peanut brittle for Michael. He loves it and I love him so I got him some more even though it is the most annoying food in the world to listen to him eat. (I will say my husband is awesome and ate it while I was at work so I wouldn't have to hear him crunch).

After everyone had finished shopping we had some time to kill before the mall opened so we drove over to Chick-Fil-A and let the kids play on the play equipment there until it was time to head over to the mall. The kids had such a good time seeing Santa. They were so excited and it was fun hearing what they were going to ask him for. I just want to take a moment here to say how blessed I am to get to be a preschool teacher. I treasure that for a short time I get to be a part of these precious little ones' life.

After seeing Santa we headed up to the mall food court so everyone could get something to eat. Then it was time for the kids to ride the carousel. The carousel at the mall is pretty cool and has a few non horse animals to ride.

There is a cat, an ostrich, a tiger, and a bunny. They are very beautiful but they really need to have more. Three of our kids wanted to ride the one tiger and there were some tears. The kids had a lot of fun on the ride though and I enjoyed watching them and taking pictures of them riding.

After our field trip ended mom and I went shopping. Right now I don't get to spend too much time with mom outside of preschool because we are both pretty busy. It was really nice to have some fun mother/daughter time. And when we were leaving Toys-R-US my mom decided to channel her inner preschooler.

I love that my mom is so silly sometimes. I know this is going to be a picture I cherish forever.

I went home for some much needed rest before my retail job. I am an introvert and that means that social interaction drains me after awhile and I just need some alone time. After a week full of busy social interaction yesterday night I had just reached my limit and was starting to get a little crabby. Mostly just in my head though. I'm pretty good at keeping it to myself and I doubt anyone picked up on it but I still don't like feeling that way. I was pretty glad when they were pushing for us to leave work early last night. I got to clean with Yolanda too so that made things better!

After work we had supper and then relaxed before bed time. All in all it was a pretty good day but I am glad that today is a day off.

It was a fun day full of Santa and silliness! What made your day beautiful?

The Beautiful Day I See December 3rd 2014: Christmas Crazies

Wednesday December 3rd was a beautiful day!

Today was another Christmas day at preschool. Along with the 800 craft projects we had to do (ok not really but it seems like it sometimes.) I had to take the kids Christmas pictures and we had to go through our Christmas program for the first time. On top of this it was chapel and library day as well. As I was walking back and forth with the kids to take there pictures with the nativity in front of the church I just had to get a few more pictures of the church decorations.

We had chapel in the church sanctuary so that the kids could see the Advent wreath lit and look at the decorations.

Then it was time for program practice which went about as well as you would expect the first program practice with 3-5 year-olds to go.  We managed to get pretty much everything done at preschool that we were trying to do. I took lots of great pictures of the kids that we will use in some of our projects.

I went home for a little down time between jobs and then headed to my retail job. We didn't sell as many trees yesterday as we have the last few days but it was a warmer night in the garden center and I enjoyed getting to spend some time out of my little hut. After work I went home ate supper and then fell asleep pretty soon after.

Yesterday was a busy day full of preschool and pictures: What made your day beautiful?

The Beautiful Day I See December 2nd 2015: Paint Everywhere

Tuesday December 2nd was a beautiful day.

Preschool was back in today after having a couple of days off last week for Thanksgiving. I love working at preschool and i was very Glad to see the kids again. It is now officially Christmas time at preschool. Christmas time means that Miss Denise and I are both running around like crazy people trying to get 1,000,000 things done all at once. There are crafts that need made and books that need read and programs that need practiced. It is a hectic, slightly stressful but still fun time of year. Our big project for the day (we did 3 crafts) was getting the kids sweatshirts made. This years design was penguins made from the kids footprint. It was a lot of fun making them and they turned out super cute. By the end of the Preschool day my hands looked like this:

After preschool I had a little bit of time to rest before I had to head to my other job. My retail job was pretty normal. During the slow bits out in the Garden Center I had fun singing Christmas Carols. After work I came home and relaxed.

It was a busy day full of paint and projects. What made your day beautiful?

The Beautiful Day I See December 1st 2014: A Big Step

First I am going to tell you that I didn't take any pictures yesterday. Several exciting things happened but non of them were the sort of things you could take pictures of. So here is a photo collage of Michael at every Christmas since we've been married.

December 1st was a beautiful day!

I woke up early for me on a Monday (meaning I got up before Michael went to work) I knew that today was going to be a high anxiety day. I have an anxiety disorder that is triggered by change and new things and I wasn't surprised that that part of my brain was freaking out today. I knew I had something big to do when I went into work that night. So I knew that the day was going to mostly be spent keeping that under control. I will say that I was able to do that very well. It still amazes me how far I have come with coping with my anxiety disorder. There was a time when I would have been panicking, crying, and  throwing up all day until work. But I was able to manage things and just have a slight anxious feeling all day. 

Part of what helped take my mind off what I was going to do was that it was matching day!!!! Michael and I have been taking part in Reddit Gifts exchanges all year long and we had finally gotten to the big one: The annual secret Santa Exchange!!! In case you are not familiar with Reddit Gifts it is a website that basically runs secret Santa type exchanges all year long. During the year they are themed. My first one was a Harry Potter themed one.  I love buying presents for people and it turns out that it is really fun to get presents from a stranger too. Matching day is always an exciting day in our house. I got a great person to gift to this year and I had a lot of fun picking out her present. When Michael called to talk to me at lunch we also picked out his match's present as well! So now we just have the hard part of waiting for them to get the presents. 

Around 4:00 it was time for me to go into work. Aunt Deb, Mom, and Mary picked me up (we have one car right now so when I go into work before Michael gets done with his I need a ride). It was very helpful having them to take me because I could talk to someone about how nervous I was. When I got to work it was time. Guys, yesterday I put in my notice (normally two weeks but I gave them a little more) at my retail job!!!!!! Guys, after nearly 4 years of retail I am getting out!!! I am so excited !! There were times where I thought this day would never come but it did! Also I need to tell you that Sunday Michael put in his notice at his retail job too!!!! Guys, we are both getting out of retail! We have finally reached a point where we can live off of one job each!!! Can you believe it? Because honestly right now I barely can. I am going to miss the people I worked with a lot but this was the right step. We have been praying about it and last week I finally got that peace in my heart about it and knew that God was telling me this was in fact the right step to take. (We try very hard in our family to pray about things before deciding. I truly believe that God has a plan for Michael and me and you too and that even though I don't always understand the plan and even though it is not always what I would pick for it to be it Always turns out better then I could have ever imagined.) I still kind of can't believe it happened though. 

The rest of work was pretty normal. It was fun getting to watch people pick out their Christmas trees. I cleaned everything by myself but got help pushing the trash back at the end of the night so that was nice. Then I went home and had a nice relaxing evening with Michael until bed time. 

December 1st was a day full of presents and big steps! What made your day beautiful? 

The Beautiful day I see November 30th 2014: It's beginning to look A LOT like Christmas

November 30th 2014 was a beautiful day!

The day started with me waking up bright and early. After failing to get sleepy Michael interested in getting up and going to early service I decided to take a shower and then do a little bit of Christmas decorating.

I really like how this turned out and it brought a little Christmas into our kitchen! Then of course we had to test the Mistletoe and make sure it worked. Luckily I had installed it properly. 

After that Michael got ready and we finally headed off to church. We took the (slightly) longer way so we could enjoy the Christmas decorations that were up in The Downtown area. We of course listened to Christmas music as we drove. 

I knew that the Christmas decorations had also been put up at church so I of course I had to take a few pictures of everything before we went up to our Sunday School Class. 

Our Sunday School class went really well today. The lesson we were teaching was about Jacob's dream (you know with the ladder and the Angels). The kids were really good today and the highlight of the lesson was when we were talking about how the Church was an awesome place. I mentioned that they had put the Christmas decorations up in the Sanctuary and how the kids would get to see them during church.  They said they wanted to see them now and I decided to just take them in there even if it meant we wouldn't have time for all of our lesson. I am so glad that I did. So we walked to the balcony of the church (It is on the same level as the Sunday School classrooms)  and the lights were off in the Sanctuary so the trees were just glowing so beautifully. And I looked at the kids faces and could tell they got it. They could see for themselves that the Church was an awesome place to be. I know this is a memory I will carry with me for the rest of my life and I can only hope and pray that the kids will remember it too. (In case you are wondering we did finish all of the Sunday school lesson except for some of the craft) 

Then it was time for Church. I was very excited for church today because it was the start of Advent. (In case you haven't figured it out yet I Love love love Christmas and Advent) I took a few pictures. 

Then settled down to enjoy the service (ok that last picture was taken during the Children's Sermon. I usually don't take pictures during the service but I wanted to get one of the first candle lit) The sermon was about what Advent and Palm Sunday have in common and was very good. After the service was done we had someone from the Gideons (The people who put all the Bibles in the hotel rooms. They do a lot more then that of course but that would probably be what you are most familiar with) talk to us. He was a very good speaker and he used example stories that I hadn't heard before so I actually enjoyed his short speech a lot.  

After church we did some shopping and then came home and ate lunch. Michael had to go to work and I had a productive afternoon/evening. When Michael came home from work (He got off an hour early!) we had supper and then it was time to Decorate the tree! Also to drink wine! The wine was called Sugarplum and I had gotten it after I went to a wine tasting last week with my aunt and uncle and sister. Of course before we could put the lights on the tree we had to do our tradition that I call the running of the rats! Basically we put the rats in the Christmas tree and let them run around and climb a little while I attempt to get at least one good picture. 

Those are a few of the pictures. Then it was time for Michael to put the lights on. Michael is always in charge of our Christmas lights. He loves them. I think we take the next picture almost every single year. 

While Michael was putting the lights on the tree I was adding every single Christmas station Pandora had so I could make (what I call) the ultimate Christmas shuffle. I'm actually listening to it right now while I type this too. Then it was time to put on our ornaments. Our very first Christmas together we started our ornament tradition. I think I started it for two reasons. One was to keep us (me) from going crazy trying to fill our tree up with fun ornaments that first year (aka to keep us from going broke) but the other was because I wanted us to have a Christmas tradition that was our very own. So what is the tradition? Every year each of us gets to pick out 1 Christmas ornament and then we get a family ornament that hopefully represents our year. When we have kids each of them will get to pick there own ornament too. I am so glad we are doing this. We had so much fun looking at our special ornaments and remembering the stories behind them while we decorated the tree. Our tree turned out beautifully. And we went to bed knowing we were ready for December to begin and counting down the days until Christmas. 

It was an awesome day filled with Christmas and love. What made your day beautiful?