A Little Perspective :)

My very dear friend Jeannine sent me this and I thought it was pretty fitting for my blog:
One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live.
They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.
On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, 'How was the trip?'
'It was great, Dad.'
'Did you see how poor people live?' the father asked.
'Oh yeah,' said the son.
'So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?', asked the father
The son answered:
'I saw that we have one dog and they had four.
We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end.
We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.
Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.
We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.
We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.
We buy our food, but they grow theirs.
We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them. '
The boy’s father was speechless.
Then his son added, 'Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are.'
Isn't perspective a wonderful thing?
Makes you wonder what would happen if we all gave thanks for everything we have, instead of worrying about what we don’t have.

A Beary Good Present

So the staff at the elementary school plays a very fun Christmas game. If you participate, you give $2 to the winner of the game from last year. That person wraps every one's $2. Then you wrap a gift of $10. Then for a week we all trade presents, trying to get the one that has the big bucks. You can't go wrong as you will still end up with $10... and this year the winning prize was $70+
So we have been swapping all week, and I've had my eye on this very VERY cute bear. I thought it probably wasn't the winner, but that my chances of getting the big prize were probably less than my chances of ending up with a bear AND $10. So this afternoon (while my kids were at a swim party) I fought for my prize. He got stolen from me like 5 times, but I found him, and when the bell rang... he was mine!! :) My good friend Terry Leija won the grand prize, and it turned out that I never even saw the box that it was in... so I was VERY happy with my bear (and $10!)
Only one more day before a two week break!!!!!!

My Neighbor

This nice gentleman is at my house many afternoons when I get home. However, he never seems to listen to me when I tell him that a certain puppy dog is about to come outside and chase him (the picture was pre-Sherlock).

BRRRR!!!

OH MY GOODNESS it is cold!! It's like 3 degrees right now and my little toes are COLD! If it is going to be this cold, I demand snow! And hot apple cider :) Even the pooper dog doesn't want to go outside.
So I'm in the last stretch before the heavenly two week Christmas break! Thanksgiving was good... drove home to see the family and eat some superbly yummy Mommy-food. Then on the way home I stopped to see my Marci and the Eckles crew. Nathan is now obsessed with hockey which was funny, and Alex was very grumpy but still awfully darn cute. I also got to see "UP" which is now in a tie for favorite cartoon movie (tied with Ratatouille). SQUIRREL!
Today I had to drive down to Denver for a standout math training. It's a program full of chants that are used to expose kids to math vocabulary... and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it yet... but I am excited to give it a shot. The neat thing was getting compliments from other teachers about how smoothly I could pick up the pace of the instruction (it's suppose to be a fast thing) and still modify my questions and such. It means a lot when the praise comes from people that have been doing this a lot longer than I have!
I have to get through Friday (which I am not looking forward to after having a sub yesterday), and then this weekend is our elementary Christmas party which should be a fun time :) After that there is only two weeks left!! On one hand I feel like it is a big time-crunch for all the stuff I want to fit in before then. On the other hand that is 10 days until I have two whole weeks off!! Actually it is more like 9 days, as the 18th will be "Polar Express Day" where kids wear their pajamas to school, bring books, pillows, and blankets to have a reading party, get hot coco from student council, and of course watch the Polar Express!! :)
In the mean time I think it is time to go dig out the electric blanket! Hope your toes are warmer than mine!

Absolute Genius!

So yesterday a student came in and brought me a "pancake on a stick." Now I get offered kid-food almost every single day, and while I almost always take it (I wouldn't want to hurt any feelings!) I do NOT always eat it (I'm sorry, but sometimes it is slightly questionable) However - this was... simply put... GENIUS. It was a sausage on a stick surrounded by a pancake (think corndog for breakfast). I don't know how they did it, but I could have eaten a bunch of them :)

Today the best part of my day was: "Ms. Frostman, you are the best teacher I've had in my whole life."

Yup. It just doesn't get better than that.

Off with the hair!!

Yup - I chopped it off!! (well, I didn't - the stylist did) It was getting tooooo long and was definitely long enough to donate so it was time! 12 inches later and I like it! It ended up a bit shorter than I had planned, but it still (barely) fits into a pony tail, so all is well :) One of the teachers at our school is out for several months to get treatment for breast cancer, so I am going to donate it in her name.
The new "do" is fitting for how things have been going for the past week. I made it through conferences and report cards and am starting to feel just a wee bit more confident that I CAN actually handle juggling the 327 balls in the air at the same time. There are certainly days (like Monday) where I want to just drop them all and go read a book... but most of the time I feel like I have most of them going the right directions! Tuesday I went to yoga (my teacher is back, so that is helping me feel more accountable for going every week) and as I was the only one who showed up, I got a private yoga lesson. It was really good, but on Wednesday I was really sore. Thursday I had a technology training after school, and Friday I chopped off the hair! Tonight I am going to go show off my hair and have dinner with friends :)
I am happy to report that, as insanely non-stop as it still is, I still really love teaching. We have started grouping kids for math and I have the high group which is a lot of fun. We do extra challenge problems, and brain teasers, and it is really fun to help them learn the THINKING skills that go with higher level math. We are studying the human body in science, and I love the random questions that the kids come up with. One of my kiddos is just obsessed with kidneys and it cracks me up since he wants to know how everything else is connected to kidneys. I have found that one of the down-sides of a small community is that other teachers have known these kids for a long time. While this can definitely be a good thing and give you great insight... sometimes the teachers have let a kid get away with something for so long, that it's really an uphill battle to try to hold that kid to higher expectations. But most of the time I feel like my students really enjoy the challenge of learning new things :)
It is also nice that Thanksgiving and Christmas break are not too far down the tunnel :) I'm going to head to the parents' for some Mommy-food and then stop by and see my Marci and the crew on the way back to EP.
Well it was suppose to snow today, but the sun is currently shining, so I'm off with the pooper for some fresh mountain air. Hope the day is bright in your corner of the world too :)

Happy Halloween

So for Halloween Estes Park closes off downtown for a big block party. I met some friends there and we enjoyed watching the kiddos, eating the free carmel apples and some candy, and seeing some very cute costumes. This one was my very favorite :)



Afterwards we went out for some dinner, dancing, and fun! :) The extra hour of sleep was also much appreciated. So Happy November! And a very happy birthday to my Stephnerninny!! Your card is in the mail :)