Introducing Cleo! -OR- How to hit the snooze button on your biological clock.

This is our new Boxer pup, Cleo. She turned 8 weeks old yesterday.

Cleo!

It snowed today.

From Home Sweet Home

Spring Semester

Two days ago I was slightly dismayed to realize that there was only a week left to my Winter break. Now that I've gotten over the initial shock, I'm getting excited for my classes. It seems that, aside from a lab science, all the courses I need yet are my major requirements, which makes it much more interesting for me.

I'm not crazy about the schedule, as I'll be out of the house Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings until almost 9pm, but I'm excited about the classes:

SPED 318: Special Education for Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers with Developmental Disabilities
Examines the implications of federal mandates for providing educational and supportive services for infants/toddlers/preschoolers with disabilities and their families. Includes identification of, and leadership responsibilities of, personnel involved with infant and early intervention programs and assessing, analyzing and interpreting data from formal and informal sources to be utilized in developing the Individualized Family Service Plans (IFSPs) are discussed.

SPED 328: Formal and Informal Assessment in Special Education
The administration, scoring and interpretation of assessment devices typically used in psychometric evaluations are stressed. Critical evaluation of such devices in terms of reliability, validity and norming groups is also developed. The integration of the interpretive results of psychometric evaluation with behavioral observation, task analysis and other assessments developed in prerequisite courses is demonstrated.

EDUC 433: Gender & Race Issues in Children’s Literature
(No description in the catalog)

I'm FINALLY starting to see the light at the end of this tunnel... and so excited to get out of the office and into a classroom!

Smilebox: Our First Christmas

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Chameleon Christmas Theater

A short video of my brother's chameleon. :o)

Our Christmas So Far

It was a wonderful, tear-free weekend. I don't really have time to write a decent post right now, but I wanted to share a slideshow of our Christmas so far.

Feels like Christmas came early!

It has been a WONDERFUL day!

My husband started his new job this morning. It's part time, but it's work!

We got a new Christmas tree! I haven't put up a tree in about eight years, maybe more. Since it's our first Christmas together, and my first Christmas having a child in the house, we decided we should have a tree. So Larry got my old tree down from the attic yesterday, and last night we were going to assemble it so it would be ready to decorate with Lucas on Saturday. Opened the box - no stand. Missing. Now what? I was completely bummed.

So this evening I happened to stop in Linens 'n Things to see if they had any griddles left, since the store is closing soon. Well... just inside the door they had 7.5' pre-lit trees. They were originally $200, marked down 80% to $40. Had to get it. HAD TO. Never did go look for that griddle...

No tears at bedtime tonight!! Larry and I had a class at church tonight, so his mom babysat Lucas for us. We got home about 9:30 and he was still awake, of course, waiting for Daddy. So Larry went up and gave him a hug and a kiss, turned on his music for him, and got out of there before tears could start. And they never did. Nanny's babysitting again tomorrow night while we're at my office Christmas party. Wouldn't it be nice to have a repeat performance??

Just after 10:00 tonight I received an email from T's younger daughter. T is being moved to a rehabilitation center tomorrow, and T's older daughter may be having her baby by Christmas. What a fabulous couple of Christmas gifts for all of them!

I'd like to leave you with one final thought. With our current financial/job situation, we haven't been able to buy gifts for many people this year. In fact, I think Lucas is the only one we shopped for, and that includes not getting gifts for each other even though this is our first Christmas as a married couple. At first, this really bothered me - I love giving gifts at Christmas. But in a way it's been sort of liberating, and has allowed us to focus more on what the season is really about: Jesus. It's allowed us to take a step back and focus on how blessed we truly are. A friend of mine showed me this video a week or two ago, and I was really moved by it. It just fits so well with how I've been feeling, and so I wanted to share it here too.

In case I don't write again before... Merry Christmas, and may God bless you and your families!