School and other things

One day during the three weeks up at my folks' place, I went to school with my mom. She teaches second grade and has taught for many years at this school! This her last year, though, because she's planning to retire in May. I know that she'll miss some aspects of teaching, but I know that she'll really enjoy retirement, too. (I'm actually kind of envious of her! Do you know how many years I have left before I can retire? At least 30...ugh.)

Anyway, I'm amazed that she has lasted this long as a teacher. Why is that? Well, let me just say that all of my mother's grey hairs have NOT come just from raising my brother and I!!! *laugh* But, it was a fun day to be with her that day and it was the last day of school before Christmas break, so the kids were excited. I had to chuckle, though, because at one point during the day I told one of the kids not to do something and he turned to his friend and said, "You know...having two teachers here is a real pain in the behind!" He was mad because he just couldn't get away with anything that day! :) Later on, I was telling this same student to hurry up and put his jacket on because it was time to catch the bus and go home. He looked at me and said, "It's Christmas, you know, and you shouldn't be yelling at me." I laughed at that one, too! Yelling? I wanted to tell him, "I'm not yelling at you...I'm just excited that the day is over and YOU can go home and I can have some peace and quiet!!" :) So, yes, I am impressed that my mom enjoys teaching and has worked at it so many years. I am impressed with anyone who chooses a career as a teacher. It is NO easy task, let me tell you!!

Anyway, here are some moments from the day with my Mom. :) This first picture is of Mom standing by her classroom door. She had just dug her keys out of her purse and noticed I was taking a picture so she posed. Either that or I caught her unaware. I'm not sure. :)

Here are her cute decorations outside her door. An elf and an imitation poinsetta plant in a bucket. Mom said, "I just love the saying on that bucket!" and then she laughed her head off. The bucket says, "All Flakes Welcome". :o)

Here's the hallway right outside mom's classroom. All of the kids' art projects get hung up here, so it's quite a display! The christmas trees are made out of hand-prints. The kids put their hands on a piece of paper, trace them, cut them out and then paint them or put glitter on them, etc. Then the teacher arranges all of the hands into the shape of a pine tree! Pretty cute!

Here is a view of mom's classroom from the doorway. She doesn't care for the lights in the classroom, so she has all kind of white christmas lights that she hangs up for decoration as well as small lamps around the room, so when the kids aren't present, that's all she has turned on. Once the kiddos are in the room, the main lights get turned on. When the main lights are off, though, the room has quite the cozy feel to it!! :) Anyway, you can see that more art projects are making themselves known around the room...because they're hanging from the ceiling!! I'm quite a bit taller than mom, so she has NO problem with these decorations. I, however, was running into them ALL DAY. In fact, one of those "cute" stars embedded itself into my hair and if I wouldn't have stopped moving, I think the thing would have ripped out of the ceiling. Yeah. Cute decorations. :)

This is a view from mom's desk to the other side of the room. See the tree with the white lights on it? :) Oh, and notice how dark it is outside of the window? That's because my mom likes to be at school early. Too early for my liking, actually. But I survived. :)

And one final picture of her room...this is the view from the window (the window in the picture above, that is) looking toward mom's desk. I never remember these rooms being so small when I went to school here. They always seemed gigantic, but they are NOT. It doesn't help to have small desks and chairs in the room, either...now I feel like the giant. :)
We had a good day together and I always have enjoyed going with my mom. Yes, I usually end those days with a headache and feeling WAY too tired, but I enjoy spending the time with mom and I'm glad I go. :)

Moving on to other things, I want to introduce you to Brylee. She is the daughter of my cousin and she is C.U.T.E.!!!! She was born last fall, but I just met her for the first time at Christmas. She is just precious and I'm so glad that I got to hold her a lot that day and just get to know her. When she spit up on me, I knew that she was glad I was around. :)

Don't mind the look on her face in this picture...I think she knew that someone was picking on me and she was giving them the what for and informing them to leave me alone. Yeah...I'm sure that's what was going on... :)

I wanted to get a couple pictures of her just hanging out and this was one of my favorite ones! This is our little "bright eyes"!! :o) (Don't you just love her shirt?! I laughed when I saw that! The true story, though, is that she sleeps almost through the entire night!! My cousin is quite spoiled. :)

It was the end of the day in this next picture and my cousin was getting Brylee ready to go home. Brylee was sleepy and kind of crabby at this point, so she wasn't impressed by all of the layers that were being put on her. It had to be done, though, because it was COLD outside! VERY cold!! I was catching a picture here and there of her and I just laughed my head off at this next picture. She just reminded me of a little Eskimo and she was TOO CUTE!!! :) Oh, and on a side note...the little pink hooded sweater that Brylee is wearing in this picture is a sweater that her mommy wore when she was a little baby. It made me happy when I learned that! I love that kind of stuff! :)

Yes, I had a great time at Christmas and even though I didn't take a ton of pictures, I still took a lot that turned out great and are just what I wanted to remember the time by. I hope you've enjoyed browsing through them, too!!