'Tis the Season...To Have Lots Going On!

*Aaron and I started off the month by going to the annual Pastor/Spouse Christmas Dinner in Indy. We went up with Don and Carla (Senior pastor and his wife). We came home that night so it was a quick trip.

*On the 13th we had our annual Christmas Open House at the pastors' homes. We spent all of Saturday making food and cleaning the house. We had lots of people and the house was pretty full at one point. Sorry no pictures...I was busy hosting!

*The last week of youth group we did a service night. Instead of regular youth group, we rang bells for Salvation Army. We were at 3 different stores. We only ended up being there for less than a half hour because they came around early to pick up the kettles.



*That was also the last week of school. I really didn't teach very much because there were so many things going on! Thursday night was our Christmas concert. My class was angels.

Friday was full of partying. After mass each class took some canned goods down the Christmas tree and got to meet Santa.

That afternoon we had our classroom party. We ate snacks, opened gifts, and played Christmas pictionary.


*This past Sunday was our annual Youth Group Progressive Dinner. We go to houses of people in the church for each part of the meal. When we get to the last house we have a White Elephant gift exchange. Every year I look forward to getting rid of something in my house that I don't want anymore...and every year when I open whatever ridiculous gift one the teens brought, I realize it would be better to just keep my own gift!

Christmas is Near

I just thought you might want to see some Christmas decorations...


If it wasn't for Aaron, I would have decorated a long time ago. He "encouraged" me to wait until after Thanksgiving. :) I got the bug early this year. However, we did put up the outside lights early because of the nice weather.

Thanksgiving

Continuing in the tradition, for Thanksgiving this year we went to see Aaron's family. We left right after I got out of school on Wednesday. Thursday we spent time with the Zehr side. Always a relaxing time. Friday we got to spend some time with Samantha, Jacob, and the Rocke grandparents. They had us over for brunch and games.

Saturday morning I was able to go with Sam to her wedding dress fitting. She is getting married this January. Sorry, I'm not allowed to show pictures for obvious reasons! :)That afternoon we were with the Rocke side for Thanksmas. Lots of food and games! It was so good to be with family! Every year we have the traditional "fluff". Grandma Rocke makes this pudding-style dessert and puts 2 or 3 almonds in it. Everyone scoops out a bowl full. If you end up with the almond you win $5. Here are the three fluff winners:Aaron, Jacob(Aaron's sister's fiance), and cousin Jonica

We took Lexi with us on our Thanksgiving trip. She did really well in the car. On the way there we let her out of the carrier and she slept on the backseat. On the way home she was a little more restless. Many times she sat on top of her carrier to see where we were going.

Pumpkin Biographies

For a fall project my students did a pumpkin biography. They read a book about someone of their choice and wrote a poem about them using information from their book. The final activity was to decorate a pumpkin that looked like their person. These are a few of my favorites.

Ameila Earhart
Elvis
Abigail Adams
George Washington- Dad did most of it but how great is that paint job?!

Flaget Halloween Madness

On Friday we had an all-school Halloween party. By that time I was already partied out. Thursday we had a party for the students who met their reading goal. Friday for lunch we had pizza because our class won the Box Tops contest. That afternoon all the students in the school put on their costumes and paraded around the school. After that they got all sugared up and played games. It was madness and the day seemed to take forever. However, it was fun to dress up and see the kids in their costumes. Here is a class picture and then one of me and the other 4th grade teacher.

RAM Camp

Two weekends ago Aaron and I took 6 youth with us to a leadership retreat at Indiana Wesleyan. Friday night we had pizza and an evening session. Our speaker was a youth pastor from Fishers, Indiana. Saturday we went to the high ropes course followed by some paintballing. That night we had another session and then we went to watch IWU's FNL(it's a comedy show). We traveled home after a church service and lunch in Baldwin that Sunday morning. The weekend was very enjoyable. Aaron and I both enjoyed not having to be in charge of anything but to just be a part of it with our students. Here are a few pictures from our weekend:
It was absolutely freezing at the ropes course!
After all the students went, Aaron decided to try it. He did the higher course which is 30 ft. high.

Paintballing

Let the record show...

Since Megan's plate is plenty full with teaching and taking care of me, I'm filling in to officially inform everyone of our night of bowling Saturday night. My parents were in town and we thought we'd head over to the V.U. lanes and bowl a couple games. Megan would like everyone to know that she not only beat me in the first game 164-156, but set a new personal best in doing so.

The record has now shown.

Home #4

It's a little hard to believe that we are officially living in home #4 of our marriage. We haven't even been married three years yet! You do the math. :) Aaron says the next time we move it will be because we are buying the house. Unless of course we get a new head pastor and we get kicked out of the parsonage. We're hoping that doesn't happen! :) We moved in on September 19. I was pleasently surprised how fast we unpacked. My parents came down this past weekend. My mom helped me decorate the whole house. It was wonderful to get it all done! We even put out my fall decorations. I wanted to wait until the house was finished before I posted pictures. Thanks to mom and dad it is officially ready...

The front
We have a nice porch and swing...however the view is a little different from the last house!
Side view
We have a two car garage which has been really nice!
Backyard
We've downsized in that area but Lexi doesn't seem to mind it too much. She has done really well since we've moved here.
Coming in the back door you enter into the laundry room.
Kitchen
Dining Room
Living Room Let's continue upstairs...
Bedroom There are two rooms that are connected so we decided to remove the door and make both our bedroom. Here's part two of the bedroom.
Bathroom-The bathroom on the first floor is being remodeled. I will post a picture when that is complete.
Guest Bedroom
We have a fourth bedroom but that is currently being used for storage. It's not pretty enough to take pictures. Neither is the basement! :) When I first saw the house after the last renters moved out, I was pretty nervous about moving in here. It was so dirty and really didn't look nice at all. Not to brag, but it is now a beautiful home and we are loving it. Plus, we now have a dishwasher! :)

Never A Dull Moment

The craziness of life continues...

School: Teaching is going very well. I really do enjoy it. I'm starting to feel that I have control over my life again. I'm finally getting the lesson planning/preparing down. However, I'm starting to have problems with some students. Apparently the "honeymoon stage" is over. Overall it's not bad. There has only been one day so far that I wanted to quit! :) One girl told me today after getting a 100% on her math test that she used to get C's last year in math. She said that I explain it a lot better and she actually understands it. She's getting an A+ in my class. That made me feel good. Times like that make it all worth it, to see a student proud of themself and excited.

Moving: Over Labor Day weekend, Aaron and I spent countless hours painting at the parsonage to get it ready to move in. This past Saturday we had a church work day. We got a lot accomplished. All the painting and cleaning was finished. I sure appreciated having the women there to help clean because I could not have done it all alone! We have a couple little projects left and two big ones. When they pulled up the nasty, dirty carpet they found fairly nice wood flooring. The church decided to fix up the floors rather than recarpet. That is hopefully going to be done this week so we can move in on Saturday. The other big project is the downstairs bathroom. The original plan was to just replace the shower. Well, on Saturday it turned into gutting the whole thing and making a brand new bathroom. Needless to say, that will not be completed by Saturday. Since they are putting in all new things Aaron and I thought we might as well take down the wallpaper and put on a fresh coat of paint. So, that bathroom will look fabulous when it's all done!

The cat: This past Saturday was also a big day for Lexi. We got her fixed. I dropped her off at the Humane Society that morning and about started crying as I left. I felt so bad leaving her all alone among the howling dog and meowing cats. She didn't even know what was about to hit her. As I was trying to keep from crying and looking like an idiot, the only thing that ran through my mind was, "Man, what am I going to do when I have kids? I'm struggling right now and she's just a cat!" When I went to pick her up she was still kind of out of it and she was acting really weird. I felt so bad for putting her through that. The lady there told me I did the right thing. I'm such a softy when it comes to animals! They told me she had to stay indoors for 24 hours. She didn't mind that! She was living the life!

It's Finally Finished!

After months of working, we finally got the children's area ready for the new year! I enjoyed working on it but I'm glad it's finished! Here are some before and after pictures:

Before: After:

Before:
After:

Before: After:

Mrs. Zehr

This past Friday was my first day of school. Thursday night we had a "Meet your teacher" night and I was able to meet most of my students and their parents. Friday was really relaxed with "get to know you" activities as well as covering rules and procedures. I've got a pretty good group of kids. They seem excited to start school and about be in my class. :) While I was going over some procedures and talking about the year one boy said aloud to himself, "This class is so cool!" I'm hoping he still thinks that this week when we actually have to start doing work! :) During recess I went to the office to check my mailbox and there were flowers waiting for me from Aaron. He has been such a good support during this few weeks as I've scrambled around getting things ready.

Here is the final product:
This is my bulletin board in the hallway

The reading corner

The front of the room





Also, for those of you who might be wondering..we did end up finding a place to move to. We are going to be moving into our church parsonage. We will be moving sometime in early October.