Lovely surprises

I JUST GOT A BIRTHDAY CARD ALL THE WAY FROM NORWAY!

That pretty much made my afternoon :) Thanks Rach!

Birthday Date

I've known this for a few years now, but my husband has excellent date planning skills. Now, topping last year's birthday date was, for all intents and purposes, impossible, because he got me a ring and got down on one knee, but this year's date was SUPER wonderful. 

Here's the events of our lovely progressive dinner and date:

1) Mini pretzels and queso appetizer at BWWs.

2) Grilled chicken caesar salad at Panera.

3) Small florentine pizza at Monical's.

4) Strawberry and lemon twist cone at Krekel's.

5) Freaks and Geeks.

6) StrengthsFinder retake {for those of you Greenville-ites who care, here's my new list:
                                      Empathy
                                      Intellection
                                      Achiever
                                      Learner
                                      Developer}            
                                                               
7) Reading, relaxing, loving hanging out with my husband. Simply WONDERFUL evening.

Exhaustion

Welp. Today was super incredibly exhausting. Jordan and I were asleep for a nap within 10 minutes of getting home. It was my first day on my own now that the classroom is finally ready. (Pictures of my room coming soon). It truly was a great day. My kids were SO well behaved; I'm so proud of them. I think it was all the newness, they didn't even really have time to think about misbehaving, but they are great kids in general too. We're going to have a lot of fun this year. 

Today, to make sure all my kids were on the same page with their primary colors, we did a little science experiment which I stole from my preschool teacher aunt on Pinterest. It turned out surprisingly well. That meaning that I held their attention for a whole 10 or 15 minutes.

This past weekend was busy, but great. Sunday we watched the Bears win at the Giffords, while eating delicious lunch and desserts. As Jordan floated in and out of consciousness, he commented that it felt a little like Christmas, having so many people around chatting and being so full of tasty food. I loved it. Then my family helped out setting up my room and we got a late breakfast for dinner.
Saturday we had sweet seats to an Illini football game, thanks to Bob and Lindy. We went with Michael and one of his friends. They got a little bit whooped, but it was still a good time, getting Jimmy John's before the game, seeing a couple fights nearly break out in our section, and watching their sweet marching band.

We're getting so much closer to having the house clean, so pictures of that will be coming soon too!

Tuesdays and Thursdays

I love Tuesdays and Thursdays. Eventually, if I don't find other part-time work, our bank account might not like it too much...but I love having those days to chill, read, get work done, and just relax. 

It's nice when you need to clean out the fridge, but still get a delicious lunch. I had the last piece of bread with the leftover mozz and tomato we ate last night, veggie straws to finish up the hummus and a grapefruit which needed to be eaten. Yum. Put on some Gilmore Girls while I scrapbooked a bit and went through a couple more boxes. And sipped on my iced coffee all afternoon. Goooood day :)

And then, it got even better because Jordan got home and we had some pretty tasty lemony shrimp pasta. http://pinterest.com/pin/247064729528578520/

I'm pretty excited for this weekend. We're going to Indiana to stay with my new older brother and go to a friend's wedding on Saturday. I love going to weddings and it has been a while since I've seen one from the seats, so I'm really excited for that.

Hopefully my preschoolers won't wear me out too much tomorrow so I can have energy to stay awake to keep Jordan awake in the car tomorrow!

A couple recipes and a story

So, Jordan and I still have a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot to learn when it comes to cooking, but I wanted to share a couple delicious meals we have had so far. At least they tasted delicious to a couple of poor newlyweds. 

Easy Baked Tilapia

http://pinterest.com/pin/247064729528718466/

We pretty much followed this, but I didn't have Old Bay so we used Italian seasoning instead. Delish.

These we kinda made up. Mixed some sauteed spinach and mozzarella cubes into the turkey meat for our burgers, then put more spinach and sauteed mushrooms on top. 

........

So, today I had a careless moment, and as I was adjusting some things in the cabinet in our new house, [pictures coming soon] I knocked one of our coffee mugs out, broke it, and proceeded to cry. Distraught, I called Jordan and of course he told me it was just fine and all those reassuring things you tell your crying wife. So that was nice, but I was still mad that we hadn't even had a chance to use them yet, and I had ruined our perfect matching set of 8. So, I dried my tears and moved to the study where I hoped to be less destructive. Throughout the evening I tried to stop thinking about all the scenarios where 8 would be the perfect number of matching mugs to have in our house. 

Then, a while later my husband came home and asked what was up. I told him I was still upset about the mug and he proceeds to pull out from behind his back a beautiful 8th matching mug. I grinned from ear to ear and he told me about his adventure at Kohl's. I thought we would be stuck with 7 forever because my grandma got them for us on sale and of course you can only buy them in the whole dishware set. But, after explaining the situation to a kind lady at Kohl's, the manager decided to just give him the display mug. Way to be Kohl's. And thank you my activator husband for saving the day, yet again. 

Saturdays at School

"Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars."
I just love Barbara Brown Taylor.

I want to live like I believe that today.

I hope that Joshua and Rachel are cracking their shins (only metaphorically though please) on lots of altars way over there in Norway. And Caleb and Caits in Minnesota. And Mikey in Rwanda. And Erica in St. Louis. And errybody in Greenville. My friends are all spread out, and although there are parts of me that wish we could be at NSO right now and do college again, I know this year will be great. In many many ways.

 

 

Also, its been a while since I've blogged in depth so you'll have to forgive me in advance for the jumble that will follow.

Wonderful things about today so far:

• We got to watch Michael tear it up on the soccer field this morning.
• We also got Culvers for lunch and the flavor of the day was strawberry shortcake. Yum.
• Got to catch up with Corrie on the phone just now. I just love her. And whenever I talk to her, I just smile throughout our entire conversation because she is so excited about life, and it's contagious.
• Also, my husband is the most entertaining. Especially when he stands up, textbook still in hand, to dance to Whitney Houston Greatest Hits, as we spend all of the hours of all of the days in his classroom. [He is being super productive and doing work on lesson plans. I am occasionally productive but mostly blogging, taking a multiple intelligence test, and writing letters.]

Speaking of that test, because I really enjoy those kind of things, my top three are Verbal-Linguistic, Intrapersonal, and Spatial. Jordan's top three are Interpersonal, Bodily-Kinesthetic, and Logical-Mathmatical. Totally predictable, but still really fascinating to me.

Also, I miss my sibs. I'm so glad they came up last weekend and we got to hang out. And I'll get to see my sis again and mis padres next weekend!

Also, I don't think I've updated this blog about preschool yet.
1. This is also just in general discovery #1 since we've moved here. Real life is the most exhausting. I'm sure that people have been trying to tell me this for a long time now, but I never knew how serious they were about it. Friday after school Jordan and I went straight home to take a nap. Could have slept til this morning I'm pretty sure.
2. I'm way out of my league in the education field and overwhelmed and nervous that I won't get my 7 kids ready for kindergarten in time.
3. Despite all that, I have a lot of help, here and back home, so I'll make it through, it's just crazy overwhelming at the beginning.
4. It's fun having so many Hohms in one place. Besides Michael going here, we have a whole row of mailboxes:
                                     Hohm, Mr.       Hohm, Mrs.      Hohm, Pastor
5. My kids are adorable, so I already know the exhaustion will be worthwhile to spend time with these kids. One of my girls is super petite and talks a little bit like my cousin Ellie. Precious. I also have a tiny little Indian boy in one of my classes. Oh, my goodness. So cute. He doesn't speak much if any English, at least so far, but I've had so much fun getting to know him as I've observed so far this week. He is understandably super shy and overwhelmed, but he has already started warming up to me a little bit and I discovered at the end of the day Friday that I can have little conversations here and there with him if I ask yes or no questions for him to shake his head or nod in response. I hope I can learn at least a little bit about his language and culture this year to try to make that barrier smaller.

It's going to be a good year.

 

 

I like mornings.

I've always heard that mornings are nice. And I've believed people who have informed me of this, but the times when I've actually been disciplined enough to be conscious early enough to experience them are few and far between. But they are very nice. Jordan cooked up some delicious spinach and tomato omelettes for us while I got ready this morning. Rachel and Megs, I know it is hard to believe, but I was actually awake early enough this morning that we could sit down and enjoy breakfast before we had to be anywhere. It was crazy.

I'm looking forward to married life with a teacher and finally, at 22 going on 23, learning how to be awake to experience the beauty and peace of mornings.