Tis' the season of grades, good times, and googoo-gagas

It has been an insanely busy couple of weeks. It's report card season and of course that means pulling really long days at work. After finally completing the nitty gritty of filling out all of the grading forms, my next task will be getting prepared for parent conferences this coming week. Needless to say, Thanksgiving break is welcomed in more ways than one!

With all of the work-related stress going on in my life right now, the unfortunate side effect has been neglecting things at home. I try my best, but sometimes things just get missed. My family is usually pretty understanding during this time of year, but I know it takes its toll at times. I've been trying to do better, but there just only so many hours in the day to make everyone happy and keep some semblence of my sanity. One example of this craziness still to come is an hour after I finish my final parent conference, I have to book over to my kids' school to attend my daughter's winter concert. She is super excited and has been practicing really hard. It will be the best way to release all of the stress, relax, and finally enjoy the season. My son's will be later in December (don't know why they separate the grade levels, but they do).

This is my favorite time of year, starting with Thanksgiving and running until New Year's Eve. We have to rotate among all of the families, so we are somewhere different every year. My MIL is hosting it this year, so that will be fun. Then I get up bright and blurry the next morning with one or both of the kids to brave the shopping of Black Friday. I started this tradition just three years ago with my son. This will be my daughter's first time, so it should be an experience having both of them with me. I prefer to go alone or take just one child, but hubby has to work this year, so it's either stay home and miss the sales or take a chance that they'll last at least a few hours. Will cross my fingers.

After that, we have my birthday...something I no longer get overly excited for. I guess with age we stop looking forward to that annual reminder that youth is a thing of the past. I am facing #36 this year (did I say that out loud?). Yes, I am not to the point where I am embarrassed to keep it a secret. Hubby usually treats me to a nice dinner date with or without the kids (depending on the year and our mood) to a place of my choice. Just on the heels of my birthday, we have Christmas and New Year's. This is my absolute favorite part of the whole year. I will save my gushing for that in another blog as it could easily take up several pages.

Instead, I will share the wonderful day I had yesterday. I woke up exhausted both physically and mentally, having just finished report cards at 8:30 the night before. I literally felt the brain cells dying. Hubby tried to motivate me to get out of the house to go to a sporting goods store. As you can probably guess, I didn't budge. So he took our son with him to have some quality father-son time. After vegging for another hour or so, I called a dear friend of mine who gave birth this past week and whom I hadn't seen in far too long. I asked her if she was up for some company and she said yes.

K and I got up and though we were moving slowly, we finally got going. We stopped for some Dutch Bros. hot chocolate and drove out to my friend, Rosalee's house. K was excited as she hadn't seen her kids forever. She is best friends with Rosalee's middle daughter, so they had a blast catching up and playing dolls together. R had her 5th child, a girl, on Monday via C-Section. Little Emmalie Margaret was too cute and cuddly for words. She was so tiny and delicate. Can you tell I love babies?

People ask me sometimes if I want more kids and I always say yes, but the life of travel that we are striving to provide for our family is not conducive to having a whole brood. We just couldn't afford it. My family traveled all over this country (via car) as a child and I have so many lasting memories that I want to share with my two monkeys. I think that's partly why I love teaching elementary, it gives me a chance to be with a bunch of kids all day, yet leave some of that stress behind. My two keep me happy and busy enough. In the meantime, I get my fill of babies by having a lot of friends and relatives that have plenty of kids to love. Enjoy some pics of baby Emmalie below:

R feeding 5 day old baby girl

Meet little Emmalie Margaret

Hang loose!

A bundle of joy!