Whatever comes...

This week, I had the stomach bug on Monday. I am so thankful for the teachers who helped me out so I could do a whole lot of sitting during the day. A wonderful room parent basically ran my afternoon party...such a blessing! That afternoon, I went to bed at 3:45 pm, watched a few episodes of the Office, and didn't really get out of bed till 6am the next morning. I couldn't get a sub for Tuesday, but thankfully my fever broke and the day went relatively well. Just a scuffle between two of my kids at the Nutcracker and complaints that my homework passes I gave out weren't unlimited, but we had so many candy canes, it didn't make a difference.

Tuesday afternoon brought with it the realization that both of our cars needed hundreds of dollars worth of repairs, and Wednesday brought a busted dryer.

But today brought the peace of the Lord that whatever comes, we shall endure.

This year, I have learned that His purposes for me are so very good. Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. Nothing. The peace that brings is immeasurable, and this Christmas, I'm so thankful.

Contentment

This week has been a whirlwind of change. We had a dance teacher use my room for three days out of the week, so my class was nomadic (shoulda taught them that word) on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Tuesday and Thursday, we would spend time clearing a space for the dance teacher and then putting our desks back together.

I am not a person who is crazy about routine. I like a bit of change. But I also know, as a person who cannot focus on anything, that changes in routine make my head a jumbled mess of to-do list items that I can't quite seem to remember. Little things just did not get accomplished this week, and I am going to have to be ok with that.

All in all, I'm very proud of my kids. They never complained about moving around this week. The change in routine for them, however, made them...rambunctious, to say the least. I felt like I spent a lot of the week herding cattle. Do any other teachers feel that way?

But I'm thankful for this class. They are a bunch of very funny, very friendly kids. I had this moment this evening with Joel. We decided to watch Psych in the bedroom and make a dinner of salt and vinegar chips and ginger molasses cookies, and I realized that things are okay. We live in an extremely comfortable house, especially now that we have heat for the first time in 2 years :). We really like each other. We're sending out a super cute Christmas card. I have some extra money to replace my Target jeans that have a hole in them. I get to sleep in tomorrow. Seriously, can it get any better? I am blessed.

A first time for everything

I am normally not a greeting card kind of person, but when I found out that Shutterfly is doing this promo of 50 free Christmas cards, I couldn't pass it up! I think this is a pretty sweet deal, and I wanted to pass this promotion to y'all.

This evening (on the anniversary of our engagement:) we got all dressed up AFTER the gym. The hubs was so helpful in posing for cheesy pictures, and I loved it. We even wore matchy outfits. We are not so photogenic but we came out with some cute pictures, and Shutterfly has some templates that will hopefully make our pictures better! I'm really excited to send out Christmas cards that show us in all our coordinated outfit flory. I am so hoping these cards end up sticking to a fridge near you. When you go to sneak some leftover pumpkin pie this holiday season, our smiling faces will be greeting you warmly.

Here are some of my favorite choices:







How cute are these?

If I were you, I'd head on over to Shutterfly and take advantage of these cute cards.
You can browse photo card templates here, regular Christmas cards here, or New Year's invitations here.
There are hundreds of choices, so make sure you set aside some time for browsing.