thanksgiving

I thought the breakfast potatoes I made last weekend were very colorful, so I had to take a picture. They're in our cast iron skillet, which for the most part, has been used to make breakfast potatoes.


Fall foods! Mmm, acorn squash and sweet potatoes.


My grandma while finishing cutting up the turkey or getting the stuffing ready. Something food related.


I was at a party last weekend and spent at least 30 minutes listening to other people talk about their dogs. And what classes they were going to put their dogs in for socializing. It was so boring! Am I really at the point in my life where I go to parties and people spend all their time talking about their dogs? I would never be one of those people.

... And then I went to Thanksgiving and spent the whole time taking pictures and videos of my brother's dog.



Oscar is so cute though! I like hearing about Oscar because I know him and his cuteness. Other dogs are weird, though.

Andrew and I set up our Christmas decorations! It took a time consuming 30 minutes, including rearranging the furniture.


Our tree is very red.

The end! Time to go to the gym. I am running and Andrew is swimming. I wish I had a swimsuit for lane swimming as opposed to going to the beach, but a new one is in the plan for some of my Christmas money.

food and a dog

Dinner from the other night - kind of a "what do we have?" type meal. What was supposed to be tomato sauce ended up being tomato chunks, but that's ok. It's got fresh basil, chicken, broccoli, garlic, and onions (I know! Onions? I hate onions! But they're ok cooked in tomato sauce. Big pieces where I know I'm eating them).


Proof I am incapable of cooking a grilled cheese without burning it. Andrew will have to be the grilled cheese maker for the rest of our lives. Douse it in Franks!

My berry/OJ/banana smoothie to make myself feel better for burning the grilled cheese. We got a new blender/food processor (the Ninja Master Prep) from some of Andrew's relatives and have been making a lot of smoothies, you know, to test it out and make sure it's working. A good percentage of my food intake is smoothie-fied, if you must know. If you like fruit smoothies, put some OJ in it. It's delicious.


Oscar, Erich and KT's dog! He's cute and fun.


The sunset on the way home from a surprise party for my mom's 50th birthday (she's old!).

payment plans

My morning:

A girl play acted talking on her phone. Not super unusual, but at one point she "got a call" from her husband. She looked at me and said, "Ugh, my husband is on the other line. Can you hold on for a second?" The girl then walked to a different part of the empty room and stood over there, having a pretend argument (with a lot of attitude) with her pretend husband. Sometimes the way children play astounds me. This is learned behavior and I'm saddened that a 4 year old thinks playing includes fighting with yoru husband on the phone. She also said something about someone being on the line for a payment plan. Kids don't make up these phrases by themselves; they learn them somewhere.

Some of my kids learned "holy shit." As in "Holy shit, I found a card!" I think it's pretty funny but obviously can't show them that. I just ignore it because making a big deal out of it will make it ... well, a big deal. But inwardly I giggle.

My boy who chooses not to speak at school mouthed the word "fall" while we were walking down the steps. I put rhyming words on the stairs so they can step on the rhyme and say it at the same time, which is good reinforcement. Then as we were walking down the hall, he said a few things (which, sadly, I couldn't quite make out) but I knew they were words. It figures he chooses to speak during times when it's loud and you can't quite hear him. He also mouthed "good night" to me as I was covering him up for nap. I'm so close to getting this kid to talk... just a little bit more. I think the biggest deterrant is the other teachers. They make a big deal out of it and send the kid back into his nonverbal shell. He's not going to start talking because he was harassed into it.

I've been doing round 2 of the official benchmarking for kindergarten. Over all the kids have made some great progress - 4 kids weren't getting rhyming enough to even be able to score on the rhyming test in the fall; now all of them have moved beyond that and one girl even scored on target for kindergarten (she moved from none to 12). Letter naming has generally gone up as well; one girl scored 20 in the fall and 10 in the winter, but I think it's not that she stopped learning, just that the test is boring her. We'll see how the rest of them go. I'd like to recommend some changes for the classroom I work in for the next few months, mostly in terms of letter knowledge.

I'm going to be busy for the next few weekends: Erich and Katie come to visit this weeked; I go to Green Bay next weekend; Mom and Harry visit the weekend after that for my birthday. There will probably be some pictures at some point in the future... or not. It'll just be pictures of food.

a brief apology

To The Person Who I Thought Hadn't Read The Last Report On The Miracles At Little No Horse But Actually Did Read It,

Sorry re: above. I just finished The Plague of Doves and I think you would like that also. This time I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that it really was you that read the book and not your woman. Although I think she would like it too.

Also, I think you would like this: Palin's Resignation - The Edited Version.

Sincerely,

Lindsay

PS Those kabobs were delicious. Come visit.
PPS Man, we really had a fun time this weekend without that one girl from our family!