and we're back on in 3-2-1

Okay, so we didn't arrive back to Minnesota last night in exactly a simple 3-2-1, but we did make it back which is the important part. 12 hours and we were walking back in the door. However, when we walked into our house I suggested that we might want to turn around. We walked into the house with a fire alarm going off and then when we went to put Lady's electric fence collar back on it was flashing red.  When Dad got a hold of that fire alarm, I thought it was going to end up like the scene from friends with Phoebe.  If you need a reminder of the scene, you can entertain yourself by clicking here.  He finally got it to be quiet though and it's still sitting on the kitchen table today.  After fixing the fire alarm, he fixed the dog collar.  Then, it was finally time to sit and eat dinner that we picked up from Chipotle on the way home.  If that wasn't enough, mom started to feel sick after dinner.  I guess this all shows that life never really slows down.  


After all this madness, the sun rose again today and with it comes the last day of this year. 

•  The last day before the year I will get married and become a wife.  
• The last day before the year I will graduate
• The last day before the year I will hopefully get my first real grown-up job
• The last day before the year I will officially move out of the house I have grown up in

Clearly I am excited for tomorrow.  It will mark the start of another exciting year.  Another year in which I have no idea what God has planned in store for me.  So, if you ask me on this day "What am I thinking?"  I am thinking that tomorrow is a very big day! Oh and will mark 202 days until the big day :)


Just a few pics inside the Shupert car ride home...

Clearly we now know who the real princess in the house is.

Watching a movie and playing on the ipod at the same time...clearly too much technology one person should be allowed at one time.

Lady would go stand at the door when she wanted out....I don't think she understood that the van was moving.

She had two blankets, mom's coat, and a pillow she was hording.  I don't think she had it too rough on the drive home considering she took the whole back seat to herself.

Hope you enjoyed the pics :)  Have a wonderful last day of 2011 and I hope the start of your new year is fabulous!!  

The blessing of family

The presents have been opened, the food has been cooked and enjoyed, the snow has fallen (in Michigan), and the family love has been shared by all....Christmas time is coming to a close once again.  I think this year has been the perfect ending to my last Christmas as a single lady.  Christmas day our family and Grandma (Spence) opened gifts and then had a very relaxing day spent playing with everyone's new electronics and simply enjoying being together.  I'm pretty sure we spent all day in the living room together.  It was perfect.  Instead of doing a huge Christmas dinner, we did a simple brunch and then little finger foods for dinner.  We had our big Christmas dinner today with our family, Grandma, Denny and Sue (mom's cousin and who is doing our photography for the wedding), and Great Aunt Arlene (Grandma's sister).  Lots of laughs were shared and bellies were filled to the brim.  I am so thankful for family.  When we come to Michigan and are busy trying to see as much family as possible, it reminds me just how much family I have!! I can't wait to add Patrick to my family and begin adding little people of our own :)


Now for what everyone is waiting for...the pictures.  One thing I was BLESSED to receive this year was an amazing camera...you will definitely notice the difference in pictures half way through.  I hope this camera may also bless this blog and share wonderful shots with each of you!

The tree was hidden with so many presents it was almost sick.  Good thing there was 5 of us to open them.

Dad and Matt.  Dad is opening a warm green shirt from Amanda

Amanda opening her present from mom and dad...a CRICUT!!! 

Mom opening her present from Matt and Amanda...a Keurig machine

Amanda's gift to herself.  Did anyone guess right?  It's coffee to use in the Keurig she got mom

Matt opening his present from mom and dad.  An ipod touch...he hasn't let it leave his side yet.  Oh and the Redwings hat on his head that was in his stocking...yeah he sleeps in it.  

The mess!!!

The mess on the new camera!!!  Just a little clearer! This was my first shot with the new one though and I can already tell I'm improving...there is a whole lot of stuff to figure out!!!

And this is where he stayed the rest of the day...at least he showed how thankful he was for the present!

Game time!  I guess we did leave the living room to play this game for a little while.  It's like dominoes only with a wild spinner on the end of some of the dominoes for a twist.

Naptime for mom...

and dad...

and lady!!!

This was Matt yesterday on the way back from Grandma Barb and Jack's house. So much for reading.  You can see the book fell on him when he fell asleep. 

 It's a good thing someone stayed awake to take pictures of all these sleepy people!!!

Macro picture on the new camera...can you guess what it is of?  Answer at the end.

So as you can see from the pictures we are having a pretty good time. I hope you are having a great holiday season with family and friends as well!!  Enjoy it, because we'll all be back to a regular work week before you know it. :(


Happy Christmas season everyone!!!


Answer: fudge

Well sorry to those of you who have been checking my blog saying "when is that girl going to post again?!" (if there are any of you).  I think the busy holiday rush has pushed aside my blog, but I'm okay with that.


Wednesday this last week Patrick and I celebrated not only our last Christmas not being a married couple, but 7 months till the wedding.  Least I say, it was a big day for us.  I got Patrick eggies and a new watch.  He got me...drum roll please...tickets to go see The Lion King at the Orpheum theatre in Minneapolis.  I have to admit that he has got better at giving gifts each time he does it.  I think this is some good news for me ;)  He surprised me by having me open this first...

Then, he goes oh and we're going to go see it at the Orpheum theatre.  At least I can watch the dvd in preparation to see the musical on February 4th!


Thursday I celebrated Christmas with Patrick's family at his house.  We went out to eat at the Green Mill.  I hope our Christmas dinner goes smoother than that dinner.  If you want to go eat there, I don't suggest bringing me along. Almost 100% of the time disaster takes place.  Usually I'm pretty understanding, but we had to buss our own table to say the least.  We made the most of it though and had many laughs throughout the whole night.


Friday = an entire day in the car.  I think this was one of the best trips we have had as far as fighting in the car.  I'll let you guess the worst passenger. Guess here....Lady!!!!  For being the smallest passenger, she sure did take up the most room in the van.  Apparently the only spot for her to get comfortable for all 12 hours was where one would except I should put my feet.  I guess Lady felt otherwise about the location of my feet.


Today was our first full day in Michigan and it was mostly spent at papa and Donna's (Shupert) house celebrating Christmas there.  We played a game for a long time called Left Right Center. You can find the game on Target HERE! It was a great group game.  I think instead of playing the game with chips you could use all sorts of things.  Some people play it as a gambling game, but obviously we didn't play that way.  We ate so much good food, but I know I have to some how find room for all the food we'll eat tomorrow too!!


I hope this got you caught up.  Matthew is just about coming unglued to open all the presents underneath that tree in the morning.  What is that present labeled To: Amanda From: Amanda? It's making everyone so crazy that I think I just might save it for last.  Feel free to take some guesses until it's revealed!!
Have a great Christmas morning with all your family and/or friends!  I'm thankful for each and every one of you! :)

Reality

Reality is..


When a child is given a popsicle stick and a tub of frosting they will scoop out a bunch of frosting, lick the stick, then put the stick back into the frosting they are sharing with many other children.  Gingerbread house making day one was today. Besides this little joke, which really did happen, the kids did great and their houses are off to a wonderful start.  We'll finish them tomorrow, but we had to let our foundation harden overnight.  Nothing like a  little lot of sugar at 8:30am to help the winter break fig-its. 


Reality is...


When the room is silent, something is wrong, someone is in major trouble, or students are making glittery snowmen from Ms. Shupert.  I found these adorable foam snowmen for my students to make from Target.  Students got to build a snowman using all the little pieces and letters in their bag.  They were all so focused on creating that they were completely silent!!  Ahh music to a teacher's ears.


Reality is...


St Cloud student teachers are experiencing something very different than us Urban Blockers.  While I've heard of many St Cloud area student teachers receiving Christmas gifts from their students as our semester is ending, I have students coming up to me in the morning apologizing that his or her mom had no more money so she couldn't get anything to help with the gingerbread houses. I can't help but worry about how much these students are getting to eat this month.  I know for a fact I'm experiencing things here in this school that have changed me forever.  As teachers in the building tell me that if I can teach here I can teach anywhere, I'm slowly understanding why more and more each day.


Reality is...


As I drive back home after school tomorrow, I will have a slightly broken heart (until Jan 9).  Although I want need this winter break, I will miss my students tremendously.  My prayer is that each of them may have a special holiday season filled with laughter and love.  I wish they could each understand how special they are to God and how much He loves them. 


Hope you're having a great warm week...I AM!!

Caution: Cute pictures inside

As I had posted before, Thursday was Matthew's birthday. So, Friday we got the whole bunch together, plus our friends Jon and Shelley, and celebrated.  We also had the most adorable girl Lakin at our house because her parents had some special plans.  So what did all this celebration call for? A camera in hand...and a little cake.  I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

Lakin finding the greatest fun from a small bucket that she put things in and then took them back out.

Not sure what exactly Patrick said, but she looked at him and gave him this funny look I just barely caught on camera.  BTW!! Notice the ADORABLE pink converse!!!! Yeah, her mom pretty much rocks!!!

Matthew opening the present from Patrick and I.  It was the Smurfs movie.  Guess he liked it from his expression.

Lakin playing with Matthew's tissue paper and wrapping paper.  She was so focused on tearing it into little pieces.

Matthew seeing his cake for the first time. It had been in secret hiding.

The cake...of course it would have the Redwings hockey logo on it.

Lakin in her pj's sharing a special moment with Patrick.  Playing with the fridge magnets.

So I know it's kinda sad when there are more pictures of the cute 1 year old than of the birthday boy...but come on she's so stinkin cute!!  Needless to say, we had quite a fun night and were all sad when everyone went home.  There is nothing better than family and friends though.

Saturday was spent trying to finish up the Christmas shopping with mom, baking a few more cookies, and then helping Patrick Christmas shop.  A nice relaxing day, but a cold one!!  I will never get used to winter in MN and I will really never get used to the cold!

Today it's back up to the Urban life for 4 more days!!!  I can't wait till winter break!  I think us teachers need it as much as the kids if not more!!  I'll for sure be sharing later this week all the fun things I'm doing with my kids.  Sadly though I cannot take pictures to share.

Have a great week and attempt to stay warm!!

Are you sure it wasn't a full moon?

Wow...these past two days I have used every calming down strategy in the book.  I don't know what has happened to my sweet little 6 and 7 year olds (some say winter break coming up) but they have completely forgotten how to act like a human being.  On Tuesday my CT was testing kids in the hall all day, so I thought it may have been me, but since he was in the room all day today, and it was just as bad, I know it wasn't just me!!! Examples may include a circumstance where I'm explaining why it is important to work without talking at this current time and a boy is talking to his friend whilst I'm explaining...UGH!!!  


List of things we relearned in first grade the past two days:
1. Saying Ms. Shupert over and over and over will not get you help any sooner....raising your hand will
2. We walk safely all the time
3. We don't hit
4. We don't punch
5. What good body position is
6. There are consequences for poor behavior
7. How to get to class on time...by not staying at breakfast until it is lunch time
8. We raise our hand instead of blurting shouting screaming out the answer


I really could go on, but I'll spare you.  I keep telling myself that one must have bad days to make the good days that much sweeter, but when you have two bad days in a row you can't help but doubt there is an end in sight.  Despite all this bad though, my CT told me I'm the best student teacher he has had (I'm #5) so that was pretty exciting.  Tomorrow I will have my final observation (by my CT) of the semester.  It will feel so wonderful to have all of them done until I start observations back up in March.  I just have to get through this week and through Thursday next week.  We have a lot of fun things planned for the kids next week...I just hope they survive till then.  


Shout out to Matthew...It's his birthday tomorrow.  The BIG 14!! I can hardly believe it.


Just 2 1/2 weeks till Christmas...hope you've been good :)

A little of this and a little of that

Equals a house full of wonderful smelling Christmas cookies!!  


Mom, Matthew, and I headed out the door earlier this morning with our plan of attack.  First stop...flu shots.  Second stop...Kohls to get some dress pants for Matthew.  Third stop...GROCERY STORE!!  We picked up all the things we would need to make our list of Christmas cookies.  Before we knew it, we were on our way home ready for an afternoon filled with baking as the snow began to fall outside. Too perfect?  Well just maybe.


Obviously this is not Mom and I's first time baking Christmas cookies; however, this year was definitely different than any other year.  See we have this new monster in our house.  He eats everything, yes EVERYTHING, and goes by the name of Matthew.  The entire time mom and I were baking, he was breathing down our necks and into the cookies.  He kept asking how much longer till each new cookie would be ready to eat and then tried to convince us he wouldn't eat ALL the cookies...just most of them.  So, although I would love to share some of our cookies made with lots of love....there will be none for me to share with you.  I guess there will be none to share with Santa either...hmm we'll see just how many presents he gets from Santa this year!


Below are a few pictures I snapped to share our fun.

Here you see tea balls, pretzels with peppermint kisses and rolos topped with m&m's, and this popcorn mix recipe my mom got from someone at work.  There is also sugar cookie dough hidden in the fridge when I took this.

What does one need when making Christmas cookies?  Butter by the bucket loads!!!!

All this fun helped keep my mind off my cold.  Being a teacher = a whole bunch of germs.  "Good morning Miss Shupert." SNEEZE  snot flies everywhere.  "Good morning to you too sweetheart!" Oh well it is what it is.  I just really hope it's better by Monday, because I have my last observation by my supervisor!! 


Hope you're having a great, snowy weekend!!!
Amanda 

Let it rain....tears

I know, I know, the title doesn't sound good.  Well it's not good.  It was just one of those days.  If you walked into our room any time during the morning, you would have thought Miss Shupert is the meanest teacher in the entire world! 


Incident 1: Miss Shupert is helping a girl with her math worksheet.  This girl happens to have a long history of hitting.  Girl gets mad and frustrated at Miss Shupert during the process of helping her.  Girl hits Miss Shupert.  So naturally I had to speak with this girl about why we don't hit, about how some day someone will hit her back when she hits them, and what we can do instead of hit.  As if on a cue, she begins to cry because she feels bad.  She promised me she wouldn't hit anymore (remember this promise).


Incident 2: Only about 5 minutes later.  All of math work time Miss Shupert explained to a girl over and over that  she already knew how to do the math worksheet and therefore would not do it for the girl, but would be more than happy to help.  Girl chose to be angry and stubborn and not complete the sheet because it was too hard (this girl is smart enough to do this sheet without any help btw). So naturally once again I had to have a talk.  I asked the girl what she would like me to tell her parents when they see that her work is not completed.  She answered, "I have an attitude."  I gave her credit for a perfect answer.  We talked about how she would fix the rest of her day and I thought it was fine.  Not more than two seconds after I stood up the tears began.  She felt very bad for wasting all of math with a bad attitude, but I reassured her that she now had a clean slate and could change her day.  Sure enough she turned her day around.  We did a wonderful calendar time and went to specialist.


Incident 3: I'm enjoying my wonderful prep hour correcting homework and filling folders with the new homework when my CT and I hear very loud cries coming down the hall.  I got that woman's intuition that this cry was headed for our room.  I couldn't have been more right.  Sure enough in walks hitting girl from incident 1 with the teacher who deals with many behavior problems.  She hit a boy in the eye at specialist.  UGH!!!  I said, "Girl's name you promised me you wouldn't hit anymore!!"  Less than an hour after her promise, she broke it.  She's crying hysterically and my CT and I are once again explaining how bad this behavior is and next time she will be suspended for a day, which they almost never do with 1st graders.  A call was made home and mom ended up coming in at the end of the day and talking with my CT.  The problem is until she is hit back by a student, no one thinks this behavior will change.


All of this happened between 9:30 and 10:30.  Seriously, enough tears for our whole class within an hour time period.  Yes indeed, you never know what will happen next.  So even though these tears were because of bad behavior, I still am too soft to not feel horrible.  After school I was reminded that maybe I'm not so horrible after all.


Incident 4:  Sure I get all the pictures and letters that students give their teachers just like everyone else.  During the after school program I especially get a lot since they have a lot of free time.  But, none of this is what made my heart melt.  A little boy in my after school class always gets picked up early.  I was playing chess with him when his adult walked in the door to pick him up.  After moaning, he gets up to get his coat and backpack.  He then runs over to me and asks, "Miss Shupert, can I give you a hug?"  I answered him with an, "ALWAYS." He then proceeds to give me the world's biggest hug from the world's smallest 2nd grader and thank me for playing chess with him.  


I hope quite often that God will bless me with children some day.  I have heard that their is no greater love (other than God's love for us) than what a parent feels for their child.  I can't even imagine how this will feel if I already feel so much love towards my students.  My students mean the world to me.  I love walking down the hall just so I can hear students calling my name. If they see me, they insist on stopping whatever they are doing to give me a hug and say hi even though they will see me in a matter of hours, sometimes minutes.  To them, it is worth any reprimanding they will receive for getting out of line in the hall.  I hope you understand now why my heart melts.


I know this one was kind of long, but I hope you got a few laughs and a few smiles.  May your holiday season heart feel the same joy as mine!!! Now off to lesson plan so I can enjoy my weekend of baking!