Forever

Forever is a loooooong time. 

For my 1st graders, forever is about....ohhhh.....3 minutes. When they're doing their fluoride wash, it's one minute that is FOREVER! But when they're doing an experiment with water and sounds and vibrations, forever isn't even in their minds.

I haven't posted in forever. I apologize. I've been trying to figure out a routine for myself. Yet again, this is a week which will not produce a routine. I've had a spur-of-the-moment FHE, a 2 hour Relief Society Activity, another spur-of-the-moment activity, tonight is a last minute notice of a birthday party, and tomorrow is pants shopping. I'm not complaining, but I need a night for figuring things out, soon! 

I started Student teaching on January 6th in 1st grade at Lake Ridge Elementary in Nampa. I LOVE it!!! They are such cuties! There are the funny ones, the smart ones, the ones that drive you crazy, and the just plain hilarious ones! Most of the time, all of them are funny. There's one boy who has the most expressive eyebrows I have ever seen. I get a kick out of them every day! There's one girl who hugs me whenever she goes anywhere-bathroom, backpack, recess, her desk...you name it! There's a boy who is so bright and knows every answer there is! There's a girl who plays the "Mrs. Curtis, where's my backpack" game every day after school (and hides it in the same spot every day.) There's a boy who beat my SOUNDLY at tether ball the first time I played against him. I looked like the pathetic girl. I should practice and give the kid a fight next time! ;)

Oh, I could go on and on. They are my loves right now!

I love my cooperating teacher. She is a lot of fun and really easy to ask questions, give opinions to, and to run ideas by. My principal is really nice and really friendly. I like the girls I eat lunch with every day. One reminds me of home. She just moved from Oklahoma. :) 

J and I are pretty much moved in. Sometimes, I forget where I've put things, but I usually remember where eventually. There aren't many places to put things. It's a small, but very cute house that we're renting. I love it! J had to kill a huge spider last night. gives me chills just thinking about it.... ew. (quarter size=gross=J has to kill it)

My ward here is really wonderful. They are extremely nice and welcoming, very friendly, and quite talented! Our RS activity this week was a great time! we did a get to know you game where you put 5 things in a bag that represent you and everyone has to guess who it is. My items were my Harry Potter wand, a deck of cards to represent my love of games, a Beauty and the Beast pin to represent my love of disney, a picture of my students from last year to represent being a teacher, and a package of Arkansas stickers. That one was the dead giveaway. :)

This is a really long post, but it has been a really long time! :)

Love you all!

1st Grade!

So last night, I went to a meeting about Student Teaching that starts in January and I'm teaching 1st Grade!!!

Ahhhhh! I'm super excited! I was in 5th grade this semester, so it'll be quite the difference, but it's gonna be awesome!

"Our Lord, Jesus Christ.... Amen!"

I love little kids! Today, we had our primary program. Our primary is only 18 months to 3 years old, though. We don't have any kids older than three in our ward.

So 6 parents got up with their kids and the kids mumbled their things like "Jesus loves me," and "Jesus died for me." and then the parents gave mini-talks and bore testimony. It was very sweet.

Some kids freaked out with the microphone, but most of them wanted to talk all day especially when they got the reaction from the congregation.

A lot of the kids wanted to say more, so the parents whispered in their ears what they should say and the kids sometimes whispered the same thing. One little boy said something where the sentence ended with "our Lord, Jesus Christ" and he added "AMEN" like a proud little boy who knew what came after saying Jesus Christ. It was adorable.

It made me so happy. Even these little children know who Jesus is. They know how prayers are said. They know that Heavenly Father and Jesus love them and that their parents love them. And they know that that is what matters.

I am thankful for little children who show us what really matters in life.

Fall!

So these are some pictures from the time of fall. I love fall. It's gorgeous and a nice relief to heat.

This is the Pickle's Place. It's got a famous "atomic burger." It was good. Not much else, though.

So I have these skeleton lights that I had hanging up by my window. When I came home one day, I saw this shadow on the wall. I thought it was very fitting for Halloween.

This is Jason and me at our ward Halloween party

This is Pumpkin Soup. It's a family tradition that I just love! Every Halloween, my mom makes it and half of the family loves it and half really could care less. I had to try it out and make it on my own and see if Jason liked it. It was a hit!! We even had a couple over because we knew it made a lot. They loved it too!

See?

Then, on the actual day of Halloween, (we had a halloween weekend) we made treats for a party at a friend's place. it was fun!

We made eyeballs, used q-tips, deviled eggs with olive spiders, and mad scientist drinks!

This is the tree in our front lawn. It is gorgeous! In the spring, it has a zillion berries and all of the birds in Rexburg flock there! This fall, it gradually turned colors. I loved it, so here's a picture!

Fall is fun! Doesn't it make you want a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils? ;)

Fablehaven

I love to read good books. I have learned that my sister recommends the best books. I still have yet to learn the art of finding my own books and then recommending them to others, but I will master it someday! Anyway, Fablehaven is at the very top of my list of favorite books. It's written for just about any audience. I love it!!! If you haven't read it, read it!! it's great! It has all of the fairy tales, goblins, and witches you will ever need in any book.

I went to a Fall Into Books Literature Conference a couple weeks ago. It was AWESOME!!! I went because the author of Fablehaven would be there. Brandon Mull is a hilarious guy. He's pretty much a geek who really knows how to move words around. This is him.

When he was doing his keynote speech, he told us that he was crazy because he sits in his basement and imagines he's a 12 year old girl talking to centaurs, he's a geek because he imagines different worlds in his head, and he's a killer because people accuse him of killing characters. He then said that we had the great opportunity of listening to a geeky, crazy, killer. :) His laugh was also hilarious. He had that...well...geeky laugh. It made you laugh harder just hearing it.

His keynote was all answers to questions he would get from people about writing. To the question, "How do you want people to feel when reading your book?" he said this answered the question beautifully:

Mull has done other books, but the only other one I've read is this one. It's a children's story about a boy who decides his imaginary friend isn't cool anymore, so his imaginary friend becomes his "imaginary enemy." It's a really cute book and I recommend it to any book-collector!

The illustrator of Mull's books was there as well, Brandon Dorman. He was really funny as well. He is spectacular! He had his work up on a slide show, talked about how he became an illustrator (went to BYU-I, by the way!!!!!), and just had fun showing us pictures and telling us stories. He illustrated all of the Fablehaven books, The Candy Shop War (Brandon Mull), and Pingo.
This book, Halloween Night, was on sale at the convention. I read it and fell in love. It's the story "T'was the night before christmas" in Halloween form. It's the cleverest thing! I love Halloween, so this book just thrilled me. Then, the pictures were stunning (done by Brandon Dorman). I love it!!
The conference was awesome. I even got my mom's copy of the fifth Fablehaven signed. I got my own copy of the first three books recently, so I got my first one signed and it even says "Hi, Grace" from Brandon Mull. pretty cool. They're both really nice guys and very easy to talk to and they do a great job at what they love to do!!!