the three of us

New Year

2012-01-02T22:05:00.000-06:00

As I is and write this, my FOUR (sigh) month old baby is sleeping and I'm cringing through another night of fireworks. And no, that date stamp isn't wrong. It's January 2nd and some lovely person is STILL shooting off fireworks. Every pop makes me worry my baby will awaken. I'll be the first to admit, I am a party pooper. Always have been. It sucks to live with me (sorry Micaela, the rest of my family, Lindsey, Bridget, Ashley, Reba, and Kiki). I'm the person who is always worried about getting sleep and quiet. You know that annoying person who tells people that are having fun, enjoying life to be quiet? That's this girl (*points both thumbs to chest*). It doesn't surprise me one bit that the old lady would come out it in me when every person in our neighborhood spends a bajillion bucks on fireworks to shoot off on New Years. Granted, I knew it would happen and held the old lady in and thought the 25 year old in me won out until our neighbors came out at 11:45 on the 31st, blasted that new fangled rap music from their automobiles, and then at midnight, set off a box of blackcats. Not a few. A freakin box. In the street. Right outside Easy's window. Thanks, guys. Plus, we have firework trash in our yard. Those hooligans. (Seriously, they are great, quiet neighbors--this was a one time event) It's funny how your feelings change when a baby is in the house.

In other news, Easton is sleeping in his big boy room now (sigh, again) and consistently sleeping through the night. Bless his heart. At this stage in his life, he's LOVING his Bumbo chair because he loves to sit up. He is also starting to grab at things...or at least try to grab at things. He has a play gym that he lays under and he tries to grab the animals above him but they move whenever he touches them. He's precious because he gets his concentration face on and reaches as best he can to the animal (current favorite is the Lion but the giraffe is making a move for his affection), but inevitably his poor coordination causes the choice animal to move out of his little hand. He'll try for a few more seconds and then throw his arms out and straighten his body out as he lets out the sweetest grunt of frustration. But Mama didn't raise no quitter- once he gets the frustration out, he's back to trying. Also, he rolled over 3 times. However, I'm pretty sure he did it on accident. It sure is easy to gain momentum when your head is such a huge portion of your body!

In other family news, Justin has about a month before baseball season starts which will last until May. It's a long time for me to think about, but it may help the year go by faster. He's excited because he gets to play everyday after school .

Also, I had my first Pinterest failure. You've probably seen the One Pot Mac N Cheese floating around and you may have even pinned it. Go right this second and un-pin it. It was nas-d. Neither one of us liked it.

(And lastly, this is seriously not a brag but a praise...trust me, I am still a pathetic waste in comparison to what I should be. Yay for grace) In August, we bought a CR-V for me to drive and paid for it straight up. Nothing makes you feel like an adult more than writing a check for the full value of a car. We sold my junky car for more money than we had expected. In fact, we had planned on donating it but searched several options and had zero promising hits. So, the budgeters in us who name every penny and save my entire salary saw these extra dollar signs and got giddy. Oh the things we could save for! New carpet?? New couches?? Put it towards an eventual new car for Justin? So fun. I was contemplating it one day alone and the Lord brought the couple in Acts who sold their land to my mind. Every time I thought of the money, I thought of this couple. Let me just say this: God can be scary. They freakin dropped dead. Like instantly. Not because they didn't give it all but because they said they gave it all and didn't. I know that the Lord calls us to be good stewards of what He has given us. Sometimes, that means selling a car and putting the money in the budget. This time, however, He told us to give it to Him. So we did. Now I know that seems dumb. You may be thinking "you wanted to donate it anyways, braggy woman." But we are seriously such sticklers about our budget that this meant getting ahead in some categories. To give it all meant a lot. And I am thankful for the step of faith. Now, I don't have one of those stories where I can say "The next day, we received a check that was EXACTLY the amount we had given!" But I can say it is a sweet thing to obey what the Lord calls you to do. Like I said, He's scary...but He loves me. Unconditionally. With a passion. And that love is something worth obeying. If He wants the money, He can have it. Like the lovely Dave Barnes sings, "there ain't a thing we need that Heaven forgot. It was given, babe. It was given."

(Do you know Dave? You should. He's the bomb. Check him out. Plus, he's hilarious. Every time I see him in concert or watch one of his youtube videos, it reaffirms my belief that we should be BFFs. Plus, he ROCKS Christmas and this was his song before country music crapped on in it.)

Motherhood

2011-12-11T18:50:00.001-06:00

I would have never imagined what I have learned in the last three months. Here is a small collection:

1. I love breast feeding. Like, LOVE it. Not so much that I would take the milk makers out in public (never ever ever), but I do love it. I love the cuddle of my baby and how he holds onto my shirt with his little hand as he eats. I love watching his cheeks pudge and knowing that I did that. Selfishly, I love that it's free. I love that it helped me lose most (not all...dang belly pudge) of my baby weight. I love that my baby has been held by TONS of people (including grubby students) and hasn't gotten sick once due to the super powers of breast milk. What I don't love? The fact that my baby STILL takes 40 minutes to eat. Most babies speed up after a few weeks and eat in 10-15 minutes. Not my sweet cheeks. The doctor says it's just because he enjoys it so much--how sweet is that? I guess I'll allow it :). What ELSE don't I love? Pumping at work. I have to cover my windows and lock my doors. Still, I've been walked on be a female student and 2 male co-workers. Luckily I cover up, but still. I have spilled milk on kid's work, my keyboard, the floor. I was so busy I forgot to pump one conference period and had to ask a friend to cover my class the first few minutes. But I know that when I am done pumping, that means I'm done breast feeding. And I'm not ready for that. Not at all. I know it isn't for everyone but I am passionate about it. If you are pregnant, at least try it. For me?

Also, I have come to realize that moms who breastfeed aren't trying to be awkward when they cover up and breast feed in the same room. Their babies just need to eat and the poor moms don't want to isolate themselves. So suck it up...you can't see anything. It is so hard to schedule feedings and outings together!

2. Sleep is elusive but the need for sleep is equally as elusive. I am tired but can easily make it through the day. It hasn't been nearly as hard as I thought it would be. Granted, I will LOVE it when I can sleep though the night regularly again, but that also means my sweet cheeks is growing up. And this stage is so fun.

3. Everything your baby does is amazing. Everything. I can't get over it. Exhibit A:

Can you believe how well my baby can hold up his head? (seriously, you say lame stuff like that and mean it!)

4. Single mothers deserve as much help as we can give. I can't imagine this without my husband. He is endlessly helpful, adores our baby, and cares for me. I can pass off the occasional diaper change, trade off bath nights, and get waited on as I feed our baby. He's incredible.

5. It is incredible how selfless you become when you have a baby. Nothing is about you any more. It's refining. Not perfecting, but refining. Ironically, as I got to this point, Easton woke up and started to cry to eat. I am typing and feeding at the same time (a skill only a mom could have).

6. I can feel a portion of what it would feel like to lose a child or a pregnancy. I am not nearly arrogant enough to say I know how it feels, but my heart feels differently now when I read stories of losing a child or the hope of a pregnancy that is lost. It aches more. It pains me more. I feel a bit of bewilderment and confusion when I think about it. A slight "How can I go on?" feeling. It makes me want to cuddle my child. It makes me stand for 10 minutes and watch him sleep while his chest incredibly rises and falls with each breath. I can't begin to imagine the depth of the feeling of loss that a parent would feel in that situation but I know that my child has made me feel different about those situations. It has made me feel more. It has made me pray more for families who experience this devastating loss.

7. I still regularly want to sock people in the face for ALWAYS talking about the downside. When we were pregnant it was "Oh, get your sleep now! You'll never sleep again. Never." Or "you'll NEVER want to leave the house with a baby. It's too hard." Now I get, "Oh your baby sleeps well and is sweet? Wait until the next one. It will be a terror." I got it, World. Kids are hard. I didn't get into this gig thinking it would be kicks and giggles.

In other news...Easton was dedicated at church today. And they announced him by saying "Easton Nichols and her parents Justin and Laura." Poor kid.

Pinterest and baby Easton

2011-10-11T16:14:00.000-05:00

* I wrote a lot of this post the night before Easton was born. I thought about changing the opening paragraphs but I thought I'd leave it for irony's sake.

{So, there's going to be a baby in my lap in 3 weeks or less. Intense. We've started school again and I come home exhausted everyday. It's hard work to carry a big baby in your belly and take care of 150 other babies during the day. But I do love it! School is taking a lot of that "nesting" instinct away from me. Trying to prep a class for six weeks that I meticulously control and plan for on a day to day basis is intense. I'm trying to prep everything I possibly can so I won't come back to a totally destroyed room at the end of my pregnancy.

Easton could literally come any day. So we've finished his room, bought everything we think we need, and packed his bag for the hospital. We still need to pack ours and install the car seat. I still haven't decided how totally lame it would be to drive around for the next 3 weeks with an empty car seat. Too first time mom of me? We shall see. In this very last stage of pregnancy, my feet have decided they want to swell at the end of the day--granted I'm up on them all day long so they are probably just mad at me. I've also filled our fridge with frozen dinners for when I'm out of commission. I know we're not ready and never will be, but I think all the crazy nesting here and at school is helping with my nerves--at least I know something will go right.}

*(little did I know, my planning wasn't sufficient!)

In other news, I (and the rest of the world) have fallen in love with the genius that is Pinterest. Sadly, I've seen a lot of people say that they pin stuff and then never do them. Maybe I'm crazy, but I have done TONS of stuff from Pinterest. I decided to put together a "greatest hits" list of the stuff I've done with pictures of my projects!

#1: Map bookshelf- we sought out a map with the right dimensions and cut it to size. Justin helped me spray adhesive to our cheap-o target shelf and attach the map. I then went over it with a couple coats of Mod Podge for strength.

Of course, the inspiration bookshelf is WAY cuter than mine. I still like how much character it brought to this $20 bookshelf!

#2: Mobile: I have shown this before, but I copied this mobile. I bought 2 embroidery hoops and several sheets of cardstock from the scrapbooking section of Hobby Lobby. I then cut out TONS of circles and attached them to the hoops using invisible string.

Results? LOVE IT!

#3: You Are My Sunshine canvas: I debated showing you this because it is a copy of something you can buy on Etsy. But alas, I am cheap, and if I can do something myself, I will. No real instructions necessary. Just paint, brushes, and time.

Onto the next one...

#4: Baseball Table: Since our son conveniently has a name of a baseball equipment company, we knew we would have to incorporate some Easton things. My friend Amanda pointed this out to me and Justin went to work making it for us. After a lot of harsh words directed at a level that kept showing us lopsided work, we finally got a functional table.

It holds burp rags beside Easton's rocker and yes, E's loving father has already strapped it to the wall (you can see that in the picture).

#5: Covered Wipe Box: Again, Mod Podge to the rescue. I used the fabric that I had leftover from covering the footstool in Easton's room. I simply cut a strip to size and mod podged away. Actually, I did this project by candle light during a power outage during one of our 2 storms since February. This drought has been NUTS. I have been using this since E was born and it has held up nicely.

#6: Car Trash Can: I HATE trash cans in cars because they either a) are in your way or b) fall over. So logically I just throw it in that cuby on the door. Trashy, no? But I loved this one when I saw it. Here's mine:

And it keeps my fancy, new (to me) car clean! We bought a CR-V in August and I love it!

I have also sewn a nursing cover, decorated a baby shower, and made a faux- capiz mobile for a friend plus man other little projects.

For Christmas, I have sewn our stockings and hung them using a GENIUS idea. I saw a pin where they used only 2 stocking holders and a curtain rod in between them to hang a family's worth of stockings. This way as babies come into our lives, I don't have to hunt matching stocking colors!

I have also used microwave cleaning strategies and organizational tips. In the kitchen I have: learned to cook bacon in the oven, made smores cookies, cinnamon roll cheesecake, chocolate chip cookie pie, cinnamon sugar pumpkin bread, chicken parm meatloaf, lasagna soup, potstickers, and many more.

How fun? So glad I'm finally publishing this post nearly 3 months after starting it! Slacker much?

the THREE of us

2011-09-09T22:07:00.001-05:00

So, want a little story? Cause I got one for you.

Last Wednesday, I went to the doctor for my first weekly visit. Technically, I was 36 weeks. Back up 3 days: we finished Easton's room, bought the last of our baby supplies (including newborn clothes--for some reason, we hadn't been given hardly any), and packed his bag. I cooked 3 more meals to freeze and all I had left to do was cook one more meal and freeze some homemade cookie dough. I figured I would do that Labor Day weekend sometime between Aggie First Yell and the first football game (and yes, I was planning on waddling up the ramps to see it). Okay, back to Wednesday. My doctor examined me and we had an ultrasound. Easton was estimated to be 7.5 lbs (!!!!) and my doctor was sure he would come early (I mean, come on, a 7.5 lb baby does NOT need 4 more weeks of growth. That's just mean). When I asked how early so that I could make sure my sub plans were ready, she said probably 2 weeks. Cue the slight freak out.

On my way home, I called Justin and, of course, he didn't answer. So, I prepared my "I have already told you, you need to ALWAYS have your phone on" speech to give to him yet again. When he called me back, I delivered the speech flawlessly and he said "I know, I know" and then shared in my slight freak out. We talked about all of the stuff that we needed to do in the next two weeks. When I got home, all of that "stuff" seemed like it could wait until the weekend. We planned a date night for Thursday night so we could spend some one-on-one time before the weekend got crazy. I made a to-do list of all of the "stuff" for that weekend. Justin decided we should probably pack our bag, but I wanted to wait because I still needed nursing bras/tops and something comfy to wear while I was at the hospital. I wanted to do that on Saturday when I had some time. I also told Justin I would be home late on Thursday evening so that I could get EVERYTHING ready for a sub to walk in my room and take over.

Before we go on, cue "Isn't it Ironic?" in your head. You got it? Are you singing it in your best Alanis voice? Okay, good.

I woke up at 1 am on Thursday morning and thought I lost bladder control. It felt like I leaked a tiny bit of pee and I was too embarrassed to wake Justin up and tell him. I changed clothes, went back to bed, and tried to sleep. I woke up twice with cramps that didn't feel too bad. Little did I know...

The next morning, I went to school and found my principal and substitute coordinator to let them know it would probably be more like 2 weeks instead of 4, so be ready. I then went to teach 1st period. I didn't feel well, so I taught while sitting on a stool. I got up once to write on the board some of the comments that were being made during a class discussion and felt a HUGE gush of fluid. Freaked out, I QUICKLY sat back down--1st period is a class full of 9th graders and if I just wet my pants, I was NOT going to let them know. After that class, I dashed to the restroom, freaked out that my pants were completely soaked through, and made it to another teacher's room to ask for a jacket. At this point, I knew I wasn't revisiting my bed wetting days--something else was happening. I went back to class and sent the "I need a sub now" email to our coordinator...

...and then proceeded to teach all of 2nd period waiting on a sub. Best. Teacher. Story. Ever. I told this class (my senior AP Bio students) what was happening and they proceeded to join in my freak out. They started to discuss what they needed to do--which, if I needed it, I do have several EMT certified students in that class. They are super sweet and I really wanted to say "over my dead body would one of my students 'help' me in this situation", but all I did was smile. An AP came in at the end of the period and I left everything as it was (read: a mess) and dashed out the door.

I called Justin and luckily my speech worked. He answered in class and then HIS class joined in our freak out. So at this point, the two of us, my co-workers, and approximately 50 students are freaking out. I came home, changed clothes, grabbed NOTHING else, and went to pick up Justin. The whole trip to the hospital I cried and apologized for making him miss school for what I was sure would turn out to be nothing. We went to the doctor where we waited an hour to be seen. During this time, I realized that I was having very regular (every 4 minutes or so) contractions that were pretty strong. I think my adrenaline had prevented me from noticing them before that. Those tears and apologies in the car were now starting to seem silly to me (as if they weren't silly before that). When my doctor checked me, she simply said "you're having a baby today". Cue MAJOR freak out.

I hadn't practiced my breathing. I hadn't bought "What to Expect the First Year". I had nothing but Tums in my purse. I was STARVING (and those crazy people at the hospital don't let you eat in labor). My room at school was a mess and my sub plans didn't start for another TWO weeks. I had nothing prepared for the next day and the long-term sub couldn't start for another 2 weeks. But he was coming anyways. And somehow I felt ready. I knew everything around us was a mess, but we were ready for this little one.

We rode the elevator down to the L&D floor and got settled. Justin went back to school and to our house to pack our bag and pick up what we needed and I settled in to dealing with contractions. After school let out, a co-worker called and I, through the pain, gave her plans for the next day (although I know it was still a MESS--so blessed to have co-workers that are staying super late at school to handle my business AND their own). At about 4:00, I couldn't take it anymore and got an epidural. Best. Thing. Ever. After that, my doctor came in to do an exam and told us Easton would probably arrive at 9:00 or 10:00. At 6:30, I started to feel a CRAZY need to push. The nurse shift change happened at 7:00 and our nurse coming in happened to be a sweet friend of Justin's from high school. So blessed to have her and not a minute too soon! When I told her I needed to push but that we were still really far off from what the doctor said, she did a quick check. Sure enough, Easton decided he needed to come earlier still. We started the pushing process at 7:15 and Easton James came at 7:50.

Crazy. good. day.

He was PERFECT. Head full of strawberry-blond hair. 6 lbs 11 oz (your mama thanks you, sweet kid, for NOT being a giant baby). 20 inches long. Pure gorgeousness.

(sorry, Easy, for posting your junk on the internet--forgive me)

They say that becoming a mom and seeing your baby is like nothing you've ever experienced and I totally agree. I can't believe the love I feel for him or the selflessness he instilled in our hearts IMMEDIATELY. We are incredibly blessed with a beautiful miracle and are continuously amazed at God's goodness to us.

Pregnancy Update (+ a little more baby room)

2011-07-24T22:34:00.002-05:00

Timeline: 31 weeks and 2 days
Countdown: 8 weeks and 5 days (what?!?!)
Cravings: None. Seriously. I just want things I've always loved. The one weird thing that is happening to my eating habits is that Mexican restaurants (not food--just restaurants) don't sound good to me. I still make Mexican at home but for some reason, I haven't had a desire to go get any Tex-Mex lately. Verrry weird.
Weight Gain: The healthy amount :) I'm always a little thrown when someone asks me how much I've gained. Just because I'm pregnant, doesn't mean that this information is appropriate to ask about, right? Let's just say I see numbers on the scale I've never seen before. I'm still well within the suggested gain and the baby is growing GREAT.
Name: Easton Nichols. And yes, I realize that's lacking a middle name. That will come when he does :).
Symptoms: Heartburn. I can put away Tums like no one's business. And not logical heartburn--I can eat tacos and be fine but then chow down some Chex cereal and feel like a fire-breathing dragon. Other than that and the midnight restroom breaks, I feel fantastic. I'm getting a little more tired than I have been, but I guess that's what the 3rd trimester brings.
Baby growth: He's fantastic! As of about a 3 weeks ago, he was 3 pounds. And yes. That's big. He's in the 75th percentile, which scales up to an 8 lb. baby at term. And that's where he better stay. He moves ALL the time. Kicks me in the ribs, sticks his little hiney awkwardly out of the side of my abdomen until I shove him back in, kicks my bladder, hiccups, the whole nine yards. I'm starting to get emotional about it, too. It's such a privilege to hold him and grow him and feel those kicks and movements. A blessing I will never forget. While I can't WAIT to see these little kicks and pat his little hiney, the feeling of growing a child is incredible. I am simply amazed. It's incredible that from one cell 31 weeks ago, I have a child who can kick me so hard it hurts. God is AMAZING.

In other news, the baby sitter I had lined up since February backed out on us last week. And yes...bring on the panic and tears. Not only am I TORN about going back to work (seriously--break down in tears frequently), now we have to throw this whole mess in! I'm kind of scrambling right now and trying to find a back up plan (and be praying that my 1st back up plan decides that it is a good decision for her and her family!) but I know the Lord has it under control. The only reason I am going back to school is the fact that I had the initial babysitter lined up. At this point, it is too late (in my opinion) to put my school in the rough spot of trying to replace me for this year. So I know that this is the Lord's timing--he wouldn't have had the first babysitter say "yes" initially and then say "no" so late in the game if he wanted me to stay home this year so I know He will provide. And if He closes the door on me working, we'll figure out that scenario when we get there!

One more piece of fun that I added to Easy's room:
I am still waiting on our glider (this is an Ikea chair from our bedroom that is playing the role of visual stand-in while I put the room together) but I know that I will need a footstool with the glider. Gliding footstools can cost up to $300 (what?!) and to be honest, this room is too small to have a large foot rest in the middle. I can just picture the midnight feedings that start with me busting my toes on a behemoth footstool. No thanks. So I bought this option at Ikea for $30. It comes padded but not covered, so I stapled some cheap fabric that is SUPER sturdy (it's actually outdoor fabric!) to the frame. The legs were initially black so I grabbed my handy-dandy no-VOC Olympic paint sample (wow, that's much more of a mouth full than "handy dandy notebook") and went to town. So there you have it. Where my tired tootsies will rest while I feed my sweetness. I love that I get to use fun colors and patterns in this room. It's a blast to be so fun!

That's all for now. Please be praying for someone to watch my precious boy while I go back to school for at least one more year. I have ALWAYS wanted to be stay-at-home, but I absolutely adore what I do. I strongly believe that the Lord has at least 150 more sweethearts for me to change and get changed by and I know He will provide for our family in that.

Baby Room Pictures

2011-07-18T18:33:00.004-05:00

I like Pinterest. Are you on it? I've already asked you this. You better be. Thankfully, pinterest came into my life JUST in time to decorate the baby's room. Want a sneak peak?
View from the door. I made the mobile out of card stock, invisible string, and embroidery hoops. My cute husband painted the giraffe.
Isn't that precious? I love it.The you are my sunshine painting is a copy that I did from pinterest. I bought a sample of navy paint and painted a lot of frames that I had left over in the house. Still need to change out the actual pictures (except for the Aggie football helmet of course--this kid needs to know where he's headed, right?? Yes. We do support brainwashing.)
Justin made this table out of an Easton bat. :) If you haven't heard, that's our cutie's name-to-be. We bought a round piece of wood and a rectangle from Lowe's and Hobby lobby and J just screwed them into the bat.
Quite empty bookshelf that we bought for $20 at target and modge podged a map to the back. My geography teacher baby-daddy loved this idea. Again...thank you Pinterest for the inspiration. And yes, we realize a glass vase filled with baseballs perched upon a bookshelf isn't exactly toddler friendly. But we're still a ways away from a walking child. We'll cross that safety bridge before we need to, no worries.I had two Ikea mirrors (from Justin's man cave) that I painted with green paint and recycled the Astrodome picture that J had in this room when it was his man cave. That was a fun project that I just had printed at Kinkos and Modge Podged to a canvas. The dresser is from Ikea and will be his changing table as well when we get our changing pad. It's the perfect height for ALLLLL of those dirty diapers/fireman impressions our baby will do. Get it? Yeah...that's what you get with little pee-pees.

We still have a long way to go, but at least it's a start. I've heard a baby needs stuff like a mattress, diapers, books, clothes, sheets, etc. But whatevs. At least his room is cute. The ONE thing I KNOW I can do is decorate his room--all the "mom" stuff will hopefully come with time.

Want to see something pretty?

2011-06-30T11:42:00.006-05:00

So remember this?
Yeah, that's not the pretty thing. This is our kitchen shortly after moved in. Complete with desserts on the counter and drying dishes on a towel. Well, to make myself happy, I made these additions to the kitchen about 4 months after we moved in.
I added the wall stenciling and the chalkboard. Then that horrible fluorescent, sorry excuse for a light in the upper left hand corner started to drive me crazy. (and honestly, I am not a fan of the light over the table but I can stand it to save a few hundred buckaroos). So we did this:
After Justin crawling around in the attic forEVER, we had great lighting (and a ceiling that needed to be painted) but still the mismatched appliances, bad white laminate counters, and ugly orange cabinets. We knew the kitchen was the main thing in this house that needed updating (bathrooms are standard and in fine shape--and for the size of our house, that's all you need) and we we started saving for that once we moved in. We knew we wanted to do the kitchen this June, so we made that our goal. The second we saved up our money (which, if you know us, was WAYYYYY less than "they" say you should spend on a kitchen re-do--bring on the DIY, baby!), we started tearing things up.
Our kitchen quickly became the above. Laminate being ripped up, tile being torn off the walls, and cabinet doors being removed. We also added trim to the baseboards of the cabinets and to the island. It always felt a little underwhelming without it. I left the house for three days so my cute hubby could paint the cabinets. After doing a lot of research, I knew that our climate (hello, humid!!!! If you've never been to Houston, you don't know real humidity. For realz.) would force us to use oil based primer AND paint. Both of which are definite no-nos for me to be around right now. Justin primed and painted the cabinets while I was gone (what a doll. Have I mentioned he HATES HATES HATES to paint?)
Then they installed the countertops. We went with a quartz that is the color of sand. I know granite is the buzzword right now, but they seemed too traditional with the dark colors that run through them and I am just not a fan. The counters were, by far, the priciest purchase we made. However, we got CRAZY lucky and found counters for almost $20 less a square foot than the rest of the quartz because they were discontinued! We had looked ALL over and I settled on Eco quartz countertops which run you about $56 a square foot. Ouch. But honestly, that was about what everything was. Our countertop sample was sitting away from the others in a random spot at Home Depot with a line drawn through it. It said $33 a square foot and made my heart pitter patter. It looked JUST like the $56 dollar sample. After a few phone calls to the warehouse, we were told they DID have enough of it left to make our counters out of! Hooray! Everyone likes saving $1000, right?!

I also painted the walls after they installed the counters. A big shout out to Olympic zero-VOC paints. This pregnant DIY lovin girl is super pumped about them. My only issue is the color I ended up with reads a little more blue than blue-gray, but such is life.

Next step, tiling. We were surprised at how painless it was. It did, however, take a while to complete. We tiled for about 6 hours one day and grouted/caulked/cleaned for about an hour or two the next. I went with a white, glass subway tile (1''x2''). It looks very pale blue installed and is GORGEOUS.

After that, we installed the appliances. This task, however, was MUCH more painful than we expected. We went to Lowe's/Home Depot at least 5 times in that process. Oh the joy. Once we finished that task, we put the doors/hardware on, cleaned, and restocked the cabinets. NOW we get to the pretty part...

The after. Want to see the before again?Gag. Let's stick with some more afters.

Grand totals:
Prep-time: 5 days (emptying kitchen, cleaning/sanding/removing doors, taping, demoing, tearing out/replacing backerboard for the backsplash)
Actual work time: 8 days (included 3 with Justin painting alone and several days where we had school obligations mixed in--have I mentioned how lucky we are to have 8 days in a row to work? Trust me, we do NOT underestimate the beauty of our schedule)
Trips to the hardware store: 23
Cost: $5500 (TMI? Remember, we saved for a year for that and it's at least $5000 less than comparable projects. Majority of that went to counters and appliances. The rest was minimal. Lucky for us, our house is still worth more than the amount of money we have sunk into it so far!)
How much I love it: SO SO SO SO SO SO MUCH.

We'd like to give a big shout-out to my Dad and brother, Joe and Nicole, Justin's parents, and Pinterest for making this all possible.

Are you on Pinterest? You best be. It's awesome.

Now on to the baby's room. Another scrimp/save project. I love DIY and wouldn't have it any other way.

Bump it...

2011-04-10T21:01:00.005-05:00

Here's the evidence--
It's a coming...I am 4 months along. I'm still mainly wearing my normal clothes but with a rubber band around the button. :) Definitely need to invest in a belly band sometime soon. Other than that, I've head the best pregnancy minus the constant trips to the bathroom (I've never woken up and had to go in my life but now I can wake up 2 or 3 times! nuts) and the lovely acne. Seriously...I look like a greasy 7th grader. Not that I've EVER had good skin but it's getting ridiculous now. But that's a small sacrifice for the ease of this pregnancy! Now if I can only get this weird 9th grade boy to stop attempting to touch my baby bump...seriously, that's inappropriate, friend.

In other news...we had a super crazy insane project a few weeks ago. If I ever say to you "seriously, we could do it. I've looked it up and it seems really simple", run away. Flee like you would temptation. I'm bad. (In fact, I said these words tonight when we bought a new sprinkler system timer because "it will be nothing to replace". Granted, I WASN'T the one to rip off the old one without marking the wires...cough, cough...) I used these infamous words to convince my lovely hubby to take out our fluorescent light box (gaggggg) and replace it with recessive lights. I watched this video and thought "easy, peasy". Ha. Now, I will say it would have been better if our roof didn't slope like crazy over our kitchen. My beautiful hubster was in the attic for HOURS and while I don't have concrete evidence, I know he would have cried if I asked him to go back up there even one more time. The results, however, are LOVELY. And our house hasn't burnt down yet due to the DIY electrical work!

Before--look really hard in the upper left hand corner. I had avoided showing this one and we got so excited about ripping the box down that morning, I didn't get any before pics. I will NEVER be a good blogger :(
After:
Notice the new pendant over the sink. How fun! Now, as for that fixture over the table...I know a lot of people would love it. However, I do not. It is very nice and classy, but not my style. I don't appreciate the swirly parts (for lack of a better word) or the overall traditional style. However, I also don't want to pay right now to replace it. I would LOVE a drum pendant like this but I do not want to pay the price for a large one. So I have to pick up my bottom lip and make like a big girl and get over it. My new pendant is white and has a modern shape and was making my old fixture very jealous. To make them get along, I went and bought new glass shades for the old fixture in the lighting section at Lowe's in a lovely white. Now they are happily living in *somewhat off key* harmony as opposed to total dissidence.

Now we just need to fix this lovely spot...

...by painting the whole ceiling. Not so easy. So we are going to wait until this summer when we redo the kitchen. Our plans? Paint the cabinets white and add hardware (a job for my poor hubby with a pregnant wife--any volunteers for helpers??), re-tile the backsplash (white subway tiles, anyone??), get new counter tops (probably quartz), replace the junky, mismatched appliances, and paint the walls a gray blue (then re-do my stenciling...I love it too much!). No big deal, right?? Haha...can't wait to get started on it! I'm also planning on adding some trim and bead board to the island before we paint. Hopefully it will be lovely. We shall see...

And just for the record, I am definitely not taking advantage of my current state. Other than crawling around in the attic in the insulation (probably a no-no when "they" say pregnant ladies can't even eat lunch meat), I was RIGHT there along with my hubby working hard on the lights and I plan on working just as hard when we re-do the kitchen (minus anything with toxic fumes, of course). I love projects too much to just sit and watch! And for those of you who like the dollar signs--this project cost us $200. An electrician would have charged us upwards of $2,000. Serious DIY score.

Cutest nose I've ever seen...

2011-03-16T22:00:00.003-05:00

Isn't it???! Just the cutest nose I've ever seen. I can't get over it. But I guess that is a Momma's pride....

...We're pregnant! This cute little nose is going to bless us with his/her presence around September 25th. And of course, we couldn't be more excited!

I'm almost 14 weeks along and I hate to say it but I've had a really smooth experience so far. Absolutely no nausea (please, moms, don't beat me up) or any real side effects other than being tired during the first trimester. I definitely can't complain!

To answer other questions--no, this cuteness was not a "surprise". It was either this or a dog and Justin chose this (just kidding!). I am going to work next year to see how it goes--I can always decide I don't like it and take a break for a few years. I have ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and it kind of made me want to gag thinking about working when I had kids. I can't explain my crazy change of heart but I almost feel like the Lord is leading me to working next year--and I know, I know that the "church" would frown on it. I just know where I feel the Lord leading me and it is at least one more year of doing what I love. Now, I am just praying that the Lord convinces a friend of mine (coughstacycough) to wipe that cute little button nose while I am at work. I know if the Lord is leading me into the crazy life of working motherhood, he will immensely provide for all of our needs.

Right now we are just praying for a continued healthy pregnancy and baby. Our prayer from day one has been for health but also that our little one will come to know the Lord early and make an impact for His kingdom. Will you pray that with us? Take a look at that cute nose again...you know you want to pray for that cutie, right??

My little secret

2011-01-08T20:27:00.007-06:00

Do you want to see my secret? It's really an indulgence of mine. One that I have only let a few people see. Mainly because I don't want judgements. But I've decided I don't care (as long as you say only nice things, okay??).

Let me give you some background information before I spill the beans. I like the color green. It's my favorite. I also like blue. If you seen pictures of my house, you can tell that I also like a very fresh and airy color palate that includes light greens, blues, tan, and white (sigh, I love white. I use a can of white spray paint almost every project). But I loooove me some green. Like grass green. It's a weird obsession. Not quite kelly green, but a more yellow green. Like beautiful summer grass. In fact, when I got married, I wanted to do that green and white. Apparently I was ahead of my time because EVERYONE is doing it now. But in 2008, there was not a dress for sale in the color I wanted. I searched EVERYWHERE and cam up with nothing. In fact, I really struggled to find anything that was the right color. So I settled for brown and apple green. And it was fine. But I have always had a soft spot for my grass color.

So, fast forward to now. When we bought our house, I knew I wanted my green somewhere in the house but it's a BOLD color and I knew it was a huge committment. So I decided to put it in the room that is the least fun to bring a little fun to the mundane--my laundry room. Want to see it? I haven't posted pictures of it or shown it to very many people at all.
Complete with clothes in the washer and all. The color? "Putting green". They saw me coming, didn't they?? It's TINY room, so we had to stack our washer and dryer and cover up the cords and plug-ins with that white curtain under the shelf. Not the cutest. But I LOVE my color. Now be nice...my grandmother says "it's interesting." And those letters? From Hobby Lobby and are a cardboard type material that I spray painted white and tacked up with nails. I've gotten funny comments about those, too. One of Justin's friends saw it and said "What, did you need a reminder of what you are supposed to do in that room?" Sigh. He should have just "that's interesting".

So that's my secret. Want to see something else fun? I made this before Christmas as a seasonal decoration. Now that we are well past the holiday season, I still haven't bought a wreath box for it so it is still up. But now I think I want it to stay up. I've never been a fan of wreaths except seasonally but this one has changed my mind.
Isn't she a beat? Made out of a cheap $2 wreath form and coffee filters. Yeah. I said it. Coffee filters. About 600 of em. I folded and glued for about 4 hours.

I am in a constant project itch. We did two simple projects over Christmas that I will share with you soon but I am on the hunt for something new. Crown molding with our new miter saw? Built in shelf stained to match our vanity in the master bath? All of the above? We're in the middle of saving for our kitchen so I have to wait until the summer for that one.

Stay tuned. Maybe I'll actually be good and take in progress pictures.

Laura

P.S.--notice that cleaner on my counter? I actually leave it out at all times. I'm still undecided on the "tacky or not" prospects of leaving it out. But look how cute it is! And it's all natural. It has a delicious lemon scent that I like a lot better than Ms. Meyer's scents.

And...I need to stop.

2010-10-18T19:28:00.005-05:00

So any free minute I have, I feel like I need to do something. Most often, it's something in the house. And my poor husband is so sweet to let me...as long as I don't spend too much.

My first kitchen project involved the lovely invention of chalkboard paint. I've been seeing it all around blog world and wanting to use it for a while now. I couldn't figure out what to do with the empty wall in our kitchen, especially since we are planning on painting the cabinets, replacing the countertops and appliances, and re-tiling the back splash sometime in the next lifetime. So I decided on the chalkboard paint. I also decided to frame it out in molding that I painted blue and distressed to look old. Check it out below.

But of course, I had a three day weekend two weeks ago so I couldn't stop there. Because someone posted the link to this blog and I found this post, I was hand painting my walls for hours over the last week. No need to repost what she said (check her post out--what she did is incredible) but I wanted to show you my results.

My stencil...
The drawing part took about 2 hours. About 20 minutes in I questioned my dumb, dumb decision and continued to do so until I completely finished. Seriously. I had like four more lines to paint and I was still trying to figure out how I could stop there without it looking weird.

Again questioning this decision....

Love my new kitchen. It almost makes up for the nasty yellow cabinets. Okay. Not really. But can you picture this lovely kitchen with white cabinets, brushed nickle knobs, a gorgeous porcelain sink, and new countertops? Sigh. Someday.

gorgeous.

2010-09-27T18:14:00.001-05:00

love ALL of this picture. errrrrrverythang.

paint and sawdust

2010-09-09T20:03:00.008-05:00

So, I've decided that I am happiest when I'm covered in paint and sawdust. The promise of a new cheap project makes me want to giggle. So much so, in fact, that I don't take pictures throughout...but fret not, I have before and afters!

We have some lovely *coughnastycough* yellow/orange oak cabinets that I'm sure were the bombdotcom when they were put in, but they are no more. I have been planning on painting them for a while, but our bathroom vanities are an off-white color. As I painted our bathroom, I realized that white on off-white would probably not be the cutest color contrast. It's still my intention of painting our kitchen cabinets when we replace the countertops, but I set out to find some other solution for our bathrooms.

I found a chemical stripper to take the finish off of our cabinets. All the videos/reviews of stripping agents I had seen showed a "sludge" that forms after you apply it and you simply scrape off the mess. If only I had been so lucky...I ended up with more of a stubborn flake than a sludge. No fun. It took pretty much a full day to strip, sand, and pre-treat the wood.

After testing one door, I found that some polys never fully leave the wood, which makes the wood refuse to take stain. I stained one door but it didn't take ANY stain. Pain. So, take two. I got Minwax's Poly and Stain in one. It's more like a translucent paint that a traditional stain, but it worked miracles. However, don't take a magnifying glass to my cabinets--there are streak marks everywhere. The Poly and stain in one is crazy hard to use. It streaked at the littlest change in pressure and pooled constantly. But a mistake ridden beautiful stain is much better than a yellowed oak stain. See for yourself:
This is after some test sanding and test staining. But still--nas-d.
Guest bath before.
ahhh...and after. still love it.

This was definitely a full Labor Day weekend project (I went to school Monday exhausted) but every time I walk in our bathrooms, I can't help but smile.

Speaking of the bathrooms...I painted. After TWO (count em two) awful greens (and we even bought samples) allll over our walls (seriously, one color I trimmed and put fixtures back up before I realized it looked like pistachio ice cream), I figured if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I pulled out our trusty Behr Oat Straw (LOVE this color) and my stripe color. Love it. :)

Also, in other news, school is great. My new roles (team leader and AP Bio...or BAP as my awesome AP kiddos want to put on our t-shirts) keep me busy to say the least--definitely a baptism by immersion! One morning I was having AP tutorials and I had about 10 interruptions by other teachers asking questions. After a while, one of my students laughed and said "man, you must be important. this is like grand central station!" I get to teach some fantastic students. If you want to see something funny, though, come hang out in my 5th period. There are 23 (yes...23) 9th grade boys. I only have 7 girls in that class. Yeah...it's comical. I have to say things like "Quit hitting him with your casita" and "Why do you have glue all over your hands?" and "Put your butt in a chair"...they get confused unless you are that specific. Plus they think it's hilarious when you say butt. But(t) I love it. :)

<3 L

P.S.- If you know me, you'd probably think teacher-me is very funny. I definitely put on a persona. I say things like "baby doll", "bud", and "let me see your pretty little faces". In fact, on day 3, I had a SIMPLE warm-up for them to practice doing my warm-ups that said "Mrs. Nichols thinks safety is important because..." and one of my students raised his hand and said "because she doesn't want us to mess up our pretty little faces." Ha. The things they pick up.

Another project and a plea

2010-08-06T21:09:00.005-05:00

Just a little side note of a project that I did during summer:

If you saw our apartment you were forced to look at this.
Granted, I re-stuffed these cushions and we cleaned the chair and cushions so it looks MUCH better now but there wasn't much I could do for that poor ottoman. That oh so obviously placed blanket stood to cover up a giant rip/snag down the side of our ottomon. I couldn't figure out what else to do with it so I just ignored it! Lame.

When we moved, I decided I would like to use it elsewhere so it found a home in Justin's game room in front of the couch. His chosen color scheme (seriously, he made a mood board for his room and everything--have I mentioned his favorite show is Design Star? He's cute.) is gray, red, black, and white. So I marched off to JoAnn's (which I can't help but say in a crazy obnoxious, nasal-y northern accent--try it, it's fun) to find some fabric. Luckily, their upholstery fabric was 50% off (so I snagged a way cute green trellis type pattern for the living room pillows as well). I found a deep red, linen-looking (but much sturdier than linen) fabric for cheap and sewed a cover.

To make this, I measured my pieces using the ottoman as a guide, cut them (I didn't make a pattern because I cut simple rectangles), and then pinned them around the ottoman to insure a tight fit. Once I fit them together, I began sewing my cute little box and hemming the bottom. I was shockingly easy! Here is my creation (I even had left over fabric to make the cute pillows in the background):
See the girly fabric peaking through?
So fun! And don't be too impressed--I've only been sewing since Christmas. We're not talking anything you might find on, oh say Ashley Carter Designs. And yes, that was a shameless plug for my cute college roommate. But seriously, I only sew straight, easy lines. And I am using the word straight VERY loosely. You could do it, too! And probably better than me!

And know my plea for help:
Sigh...my huge blank wall. I only have TWO walls left in my house and this one is just mocking me. Daily. Like the mean girl in 5th grade who called me Jolly Green Giant and Big Foot (but in her defense, I was 5'5'' wearing a size 8 womens...). Please help! I need something cheap, probably DIY, and I guess I'm modern comfortable--like pottery barn, west elm, and z gallerie combined. I've searched everywhere and the only things I've come up with don't seem to suit a living room.

In other news, my fun friend Amanda just won a competition on facebook for a free furniture painting clinic with a value of $175 per person! She's asked me to join in on the painting extravaganza so I need to find something to paint. I am thinking about finding a console table for our dining room...but now I need to find it!

In other news, I hung the words "AP Biology Reminders" on my board at school today...it's becoming real. I am going to be team leader for Bio 1 and teaching AP Bio by myself. I think there have been very few times in my life that I have felt so intimidated...we'll see how this goes!

King sized space on a twin sized budget

2010-08-01T21:53:00.005-05:00

If you recall, I recently was toying with the idea of a king size bed. With our new move, we needed another bed to join our family of furniture. And in order to join our family of furniture, you gotta be cheap...like rice and beans cheap. Or living off of one teacher salary cheap. Most king beds do not fit that category.

Some time ago my favorite people introduced me to an Alaskan mother who wasn't a crazy moose hunting, lipstick-wearing hockey mom like another Alaskan mother we all know. Ana is a gorgeous woman who knows her way around a saw and a screw gun like you wouldn't believe. She finds beautiful pieces of furniture from places like Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel and turns them into EASY to build step-by-step plans. She has endless experience building and knows how to help you out. She even has the shopping list and cut list for every piece.

I have had her on my Google reader for a long time and about two weeks before our planned bed construction, she came out with this little beauty. We made a few adaptations: we weren't quite pumped about the chunky leg so we bought a stain quality 3 x 3 that we cut to 5 1/2 inches and stained to match the furniture to make our legs (5 in total--one in the middle for support). We also wanted to hide the box spring so we traded out the side rails for a 1x10. Justin went through the plan and re-drew it based on what we want. He made a clear list of our new cut list so we were ready to go and re-calculated how much wood we would need.

We (coughmecough) decided that we (coughmecough) wanted an upholstered bed and the other half of we is very trusting. Because of that, we bought linen at Hobby Lobby 40% off for a total of $60 and foam ALSO using the 40% off coupons for a total of $50. I bought $10 worth of fabric buttons and used scrap fabric to cover them. The wood and supplies cost around $140. We also had to purchase a saw, but I'm not including that in our costs because we've already used it to make two end tables! That brings us to a total of $260! For a king size, SOLID WOOD bed! Incredible!

Here's our step by step. A lot of these photos are taken from an iPhone, so forgive the poor quality!
The first thing we did was make our cuts. We don't have any fancy shop equipment so we used 3 cinder blocks and team work...AKA me standing on the wood to keep it steady. The speed square was our saving grace and the whole "measure twice cut once" thing was our motto. As we cut our wood, we marked on each piece where it belonged and it's length to keep everything easy. We were slightly concerned that our bed wouldn't fit through our door (it does, phew) so we built it in our bedroom. We used a sheet to protect our floor until we got to the point that it was upholstered. We first built the box and attached the center support using wood glue and 2.5 inch wood screws. Be sure to put as much pressure as you can on the drill--stripped screws are a BEAST. We held our breath and checked for square and it was perfect!
My cute husband feeling very manly and victorious at this point.
I forgot to take a picture of us uphosltering the bed but here is a close up of the finished product. I took 1 inch foam (cheaper than what I used on the head board) and cut it exactly to size. I attached it using spray adhesive to one side. We actually stood the bed up on its end and worked on a ladder. After that, I covered it in batting (purchased cheaply at Hobby Lobby) and attached that with a load of staples. Finally, I cut my fabric using 5 inches excess as my rule to size. I bought 6 yards of upholstery fabric (after a lot of thought and calculations--keep in mind interior design fabric is wider than traditional bolts) which was the PERFECT amount in the end. Justin and I worked together to pull on either side and staple moving from the center of the rail outwards. In the end, we realized we hadn't pulled tight enough and had to go back through and restaple. It sounds intense but all we did was pull tighter, fold the excess, and staple it down. If my bed ever needs to go through a metal detector, we're in trouble...
We continued all around the bed in the same manner and left the backside bare. After that, we measured down and attached our cleats, making sure to check for level frequently. Since we are using a boxspring, we decided we could do less slats than she recommended (hers was for a mattress only bed) and only cut six. We screwed these in place to the side cleats. At this point we were feeling pretty darn good about ourselves.

...and then we started the headboard. Initially, I wanted to attach the headboard to the bed. Because of that, it would have to be heafty. We designed our own headboard based on one Ana made for a kid sized bed (mistake #1). As we put it together, we could already tell it was going to be a behemith of a piece, but we pressed on. And then the stripped screws started their attack (mistake #2). There were very unkind words spoken between us, the drill, and the screws that refused to cooperate. There may have even been a few unkind words spoken between just us...maybe. We couldn't even carry the headboard two feet without practically dying. We knew that this would not work and were too tired to figure anything else out at the time. So we took a break for the night.
The next day, we decided to scratch our headboard and just make a plywood version that we would hang on the wall. We detached one of the pieces of plywood from our offensive lineman-sized headboard. I did the exact same thing as the bed to upholster the headboard, except I used 2 inch foam instead of 1 inch foam. Most websites I read recommended 3 inch foam, but that was WAY too expensive and it wasn't sold at Hobby Lobby. I was counting on the 40% off coupon, so I nixed that idea. In the end, I don't miss that extra inch at all. Before I attached the foam, I measured and drilled the holes for my tufts. After the fabric was attached, I tufted the headboard using a tufting needle, aka a middle eastern torture tool. The thing is at least a foot long. Crazy. But it made my life much easier. Justin pushed in on the button to the appropriate depth while I tied the thread (I used the thickest thread I could find) around a brad (headless nail) on the other side of the headboard.
Final step: attach legs. Press down on the drill HARD so the lovely screws don't strip. The key here is to make sure that the legs are NOT resting on the corner braces but are using the corners of the side rails for support.

We found a Sealy Posturepedic mattress we liked at Sam's Club (you can even lay on them in the store!) for cheap (and don't worry, I researched it online and it is very good quality). We topped it off with a down comforter also from Sam's for $70 (what?!) and a West Elm duvet cover for $28 (bought using gift cards and Designing Dollars from West Elm).Put it all together and you get...drumroll...
I seriously love this bed. It's big and grand. I've haven't slept this well since I was sleeping in the middle of a queen bed in college. The bed is so sturdy that you can roll and it doesn't shift at all. Both of us are more rested than we've been in a long time. We don't ever wake each other up and we never have to say "your knee is in my face!" Getting a king size bed was actually the first piece of marriage advice I ever got...and I have already passed it on to tons of couples. We can still cuddle at night...but then we roll over the mile of space between our "sides" and sleep like babies.

And we sleep even more soundly knowing that we saved for this purchase, put our sweat into it, and walked away with a stunning product for a stunning steal!

Come on over...

2010-07-16T12:01:00.017-05:00

So, let me take you back a year:
Last summer, we had a SERIOUS house itch. We were dying to get into something that was our own. We are completely blessed to be able to live off of one salary and save the other one, so we had about 10% down saved by then. We didn't think we could wait until we had 20% to buy--so we took a trip over to www.mortgagecalculator.org. This lovely little website informed us that if we didn't wait, we would be paying significantly more each month and would pay about $100,000 more over the life of our loan. Um, no thanks?! That's nearly 3 years FULL salary. We took our patience pill and waited. And thanks to waiting, we were also able to save up a significant amount more to be able to decorate and buy fun things like lawn equipment (ha) and a fun TV. I am also proud to announce that our mortgage is...drumroll...LESS than our rent was. We escrowed (way to go in my book), so that includes taxes and insurance. It's incredible. We also decided that since we've been paying rent AND saving each month for our house, we can EASILY pay double our mortgage while I am still working AND still save for things like remodeling, babies, retirement, college, etc. How incredible would it be to pay off the mortgage in 10 years and have that much extra each month?

Without further ado, our little casa!

So, before I let you see my house you have to read this disclaimer:

This house is in no way finished. I am working slow...don't judge. :) Any holes, empty walls, mismatched stuff are not intentional.

That said...enjoy! I know we are...Our entryway--this leads into the living room and to the left you see the guest bed and game room. The two frames are actually framed linen that I found at an incredible fabric store in downtown Houston. The mirror was originally black and I found it on the cheap at Ross...just a coat of spray paint primer and a coat of pistachio green and I have a lovely little friend to greet you!
Our fireplace...I found the mercury glass candle sticks at Target on sale after Christmas and the mercury glass vase on sale at Pier 1 with a gift card I've been saving for TWO years. The lovely N is from Anthropologie. We painted all of the rooms except for our bathroom and the guest bedroom. I realize it's tan...but I love the clean base of a light tan. I'm an airy, cottage-y type person and the color we found is a PERFECT tan.
Our new entertainment center from IKEA. It's got a very Pottery Barn-esque feel for less than half of the price.

Our dining room--the stripes inspired by (coughcopiedfromcough) www.younghouselove.com. I made the curtains and the chairs are a craigslist find that we refinished to match our West Elm beauty of a table. The room is in desperate need of some colored accesories and the opposite wall is begging for some of that color as well. It's still a work in progress :).
Our kitchen--we'll eventually replace the appliances and countertops but for now, it's great!This is our game room/Justin's man cave. He FINALLY gets to have his arcade bball game inside that I bought him our first Christmas dating. He also gets to have his own video game room. He doesn't play often but he definitely loves the ability to go back to the game room and not bother me (or be bothered BY me, whatev). The picture of the Astrodome is one Justin's had for a while that I had printed at Kinkos and Modge Podged to a canvas. He chose the soft gray color. I also took a cheap glass vase and filled it with some of his old, dirty baseballs for a manly "bouquet" on the left of the TV. He picked out a simple (and cheap) white couch from IKEA and I sewed the cover on our old ottoman and pillows.See?? That was one of those projects that made me feel very 60s housewife.
Guest bedroom/office. Decorated with a lot of leftovers from college and the apartment.

Guest bath.
Our room! The only complete room in the house. We built this bed (more on that soon) completely. Bought the wood, foam, fabric, and voila! An incredible king size bed...we have literally never slept so well. The comforter was a West Elm purchase made from rewards bucks from our table and a gift card. The lamps are a TJ Maxx find that I found at Z Gallerie for double the price!
Justin painted both of the art pieces in this room.
Our bathroom. I haven't touched this room yet...don't judge. It's just staring at me, all tan and boring, and mocking me. But I'm waiting for our decorating budget to fill up again :).
Annnnd the garage....

I will do a post soon about all of our DIY and the bed.

The house really is better in person...you should come visit!

Well...

2010-07-12T15:03:00.002-05:00

I have been avoiding posting because I am so far behind...and I'm not quite sure how many people care to read this! But never-the-less, we have had an eventful summer that I will catch you up on soon!

But for now...
...our new casa! More pictures of the inside to come soon. I'm so super picky about the decor that I'm moving slow...but I will give you the scoop on what we have done up until now. In the meantime, plan your trip to Houston. We just BUILT (yes, built) a new bed for our room so there is plenty of guest space for you!

Guilt

2010-02-19T16:09:00.002-06:00

I have always had a heavy dose of guilt. My parents say they hardly ever had to discipline me because I would be so upset with myself.

I still do that CONSTANTLY.

Today I was driving home from work remembering a conversation I had TWO YEARS AGO with someone. In it, I represented myself poorly and the Lord even worse. I'm probably extra hard on myself, but that's what I see when I remember this comment I made about someone. As I was remembering this, a HUGE wave of guilt washed over me.

As I was literally drowning (my heart sinks and I always get slightly dizzy when these waves of guilt come on) in this wave, I kept bringing back other conversations, crappy personality traits, etc. I literally can't count the times I've been ridiculously selfish. I can't count the times I've argued with someone about something STUPID because I HAVE to be right. I can't count the times I've been rude. I felt like the only purpose of this guilt is to remind how incredibly sinful and awful I am.

And I am. I am selfish, rude, a know-it-all, and did I mention selfish?

And when I think about the fact that I am still dealing with the same issues as I was in high school, college, even last year, it reminds me of how much more I need to let the Lord do in me. But then my earthly self tries to get me down again--"it's just who you are, you'll never be able to change" or "it's a part of your personality--why does anyone like you?"

Wow. Satan LOVES to beat me up. Like crazy beat me up. If we were judging this beating on the scale used in high school girl fights, there would be weave all over the floor. (this is the criteria for an "awesome" fight according to my students)

And the sad part is that Satan uses ME to beat me up. He uses what I am. Or was...

...and then the Lord reminds me I am redeemed.

...there is no condemnation for those who are in Him.

...and the good work He started He will finish to completion.

And praise Him he is God! Because that's how big you have to be to change me. What my sinful nature wants to be sucks. Hardcore. I mean, He needs like bulldozers and cranes and one of those giant magnet things to pick up the trash that is in me.

But what the Lord has in store for me is a heart like His!?! And I say that with a question mark because it still is AMAZING to me that He wants to take me and make me that incredible.

...I just have to let Him. Wow.

Lovely thoughts to end a long week.

And on a much less serious and shallow note--I recently purchased Nike+ shoes and adapter for my iPod. I love it! It knows how far I have run and encourages me as I run. It keeps track of calories, distance, speed, etc. I have never been able to run so much all at once in my life. I'm up to 2 miles without walking. Hello?! Up until now, the best I've ever done in a row is a mile and a half. My thighs are like "hello, muscles. Nice to see you after such a long hiatus. This toned look really suits us." And it's all thanks to Nike. And determination. Now if my rear would get on board with my thighs, we'd all be happy. :) TMI? Yes, probably.

Laura

Is it May yet?

2010-01-24T15:39:00.003-06:00

No? Dang.

This time of year is hard for us at school. But really, who wants to hear about that?

I know I don't want to talk about it.

So, here's what's up.

We've had one of those months where we spent a lot of extra, necessary money on things like weddings, tuxes, etc. So, it has been my personal goal to save as much money for our family as possible in my grocery bill. I'll have you know, we are eating EVERY meal from stuff in our pantry (which is slim) and $14 worth of groceries. Um, go me. But seriously, I love to cook so this week will not be fun.

I've read a lot about coupons and saving money lately. I've seen people say they save $70 on their bills at Krogers by using coupons. I'll be the first to admit--I'm extremely wary of that. I shop at Walmart...not happily, but I shop there. I also supplement Walmart's lack of edible veggies with HEB. Again, I don't do this by choice but by necessity. HEB is a much more enjoyable experience and I am a fan of the business overall (actually, LLYC, the summer camp I worked for, was an HEB foundation camp). I also LOVE HEB brand natural peanut butter as well as their selection of foreign foods and meats. Ugh, the more I talk about it, the more I despise the wonderful world of Walmart. The one thing that Walmart does offer me, however, is affordability. I EASILY save $20 a week at Walmart compared to HEB and WAY more compared to Krogers. So here's my issue: whenever I see people's "savings" at Krogers, they are basing this off of what their receipt says. "You saved $45!" But did they save $45 of the mark-up that Krogers places on their items compared to Wally World? Not sure. Also, I found that coupons pale in comparison to the savings I can get by buying store brands. And I have yet to find coupons for things I actually buy consistently. We don't buy a ton of snack foods (actually, we RARELY if ever buy snack foods--I generally just make all of our snacks), so most coupons don't help us.

Yes, a rant about nothing, but I was thinking about this while fighting the crazies at Walmart last night. Speaking of which, www.peopleofwalmart.com. Go there. Enjoy yourself.

Also, I'm curious what size beds people enjoy. We will be buying a house in April-May, and I plan on putting our bed in the guest room and finding something new to match the rest of our bedroom set. I have a few options--Ikea sells a bed that is upholstered for a fair price in a light tan. My second option it to get a frame and make a headboard myself. We stayed at a hotel for a wedding recently that had a headboard attached to the wall. It was grand and really made a statement. My other set of options involves size. One of the first pieces of wedding advice I got was to buy a king size bed. A sweet friend said after 10 years of marriage, they have never slept better. If you know me or ever had the unfortunate displeasure of being my roommate, you know I am a sucky sleeper. Like crazy-mad sucky. I don't cuddle. I love to cuddle while awake but leave me the heck alone if I'm trying to sleep. I don't like noises. I don't like light. I don't even like it if I hear you breathing. It's not rational or sane or kind. I know. Don't lecture. But the king size bed discussion came back up at the wedding and was actually a suggestion from my poor, saint of a husband. My two drawbacks are that they take up huge amounts of space and EVERYTHING for a king is so much more expensive! Sheets, comforter, mattress...everything.

And please...don't judge me. I love my husband. I wish I could cuddle and be kind while I try to sleep. I just can't.

Speaking of loving my husband, check this out: http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/resource_files/audio/200307060000HWC21ASAAA_MattChandler_TheDivineMysteryPt2.mp3
This totally rocked our world. In the best possible way.

You are darling. Sorry it's been so long. :)

Flower wreath

2009-12-07T19:25:00.007-06:00

Here's my fun project this past week:

I went to the Nutcracker Market a few weekends ago which is a giant vendor sale to fund raise for the Houston Ballet. It's a BIG deal in Houston. In fact, our district said the Friday that it opened, they had record requests for subs and they traced it back to the Nutcracker Market. Crazy. I've never seen so many people or so many cute things in one room. I saw this GORGEOUS red flower wreath that was calling my name. The prices there varied from "aweome!!!" to "who would pay that?!" so I didn't know what to expect when I looked at the price. To my dismay it was $60. Sad day.

But then my wheels started turning. I'm super into crafts right now thanks to...drumroll...Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts. For my sister's birthday, I beaded a floral headband thanks to our Martha. So, fresh off of hours and hours of making a 30 petal flower out of seed beads, I thought "how could this be harder?"

So I set out to Hobby Lobby. I took a 40% off coupon and bought a styrofoam ring (not the floral foam type, just plain old white styrofoam). I ended up having to take a knife and shave off the sharp angles. I also bought about $18 worth of cheap red hydrangea stems (18 at $2 a piece, half off) and a roll of half price deep green ribbon. Here are the results:
I ended up roughly painting the ring with red acrylic paint. I also had to pull out the hot glue gun as I stuck the flowers in to make sure they stay in place.
Here's my lovely addition to my Christmas decor. I'm trying to figure out a way that I can make a friend for it that is more versitile year round.
So fun! Right now I am working on one in white with a deep red ribbon. For about $24 dollars (still a little high), I made a $60 wreath! And I think Martha was smiling down on me this week...I even saw an identical one at Crate and Barrell for OVER $60! Booyah!

A Nichols Update

2009-12-06T17:19:00.007-06:00

Wow...has it really been two months since I last posted?? Yes...yes, it has.

Here's what we've been up to:

We blinked and October was over and blinked again and it was almost Thanksgiving! During November, we babysat one evening for our friends Amos and Rachel. They have quite possibly the cutest kid ever named Levi. Levi maybe the first baby to turn my husband towards having kiddos of our own. Check out this precious pic...
Now if we can only teach him how to properly hold a baby and change a diaper, we'd be in good shape. As for the "when are you planning on babies?" interrogation, we are hoping to start that process near this time next year. And wow...putting that in real words is frightening and exciting. Of course, that's God willing we are able/ready at that time...and God willing one doesn't come sooner! I really want to work for a few more years before I take my time off for baby makin'.

We went to a Switchfoot concert in November that was incredible. It makes me sad that they are a cliche Christian "youth group" type band...because they really are pretty incredible. Their heart and their lyrics are amazing. Plus they put on an amazing show. Check out their new album, Hello, Hurricane. It's reminiscent of the earliest Switchfoot albums and makes me smile.

We gladly took a few days off at Thanksgiving and relaxed like crazy. We went to Justin's house on Wednesday to spend time with his family and after we ate with them on Thursday, we drove to College Station for tailgating Thanksgiving. It was incredible! We had 5 fried turkeys...yes, fried. They get a bad rep (and probably deservedly so), but they are, by far, the tastiest type of turkey I have ever eaten. Ever. Most people hear fried and think Kentucky Fried, but there is no batter. Just greatness. We loved spending time with our LJ family. We watched the game on Peter's ridiculously huge high def TV and were pleased that we weren't completely embarrassed. That's (sadly) all you can ask as an Aggie...please, footbal team, don't embarrass the school! On Friday, we drove to the Art and Ola Smith's house, the parents of our family friends, the Pickerings. They live on a great farm and we just enjoyed drinking hot chocolate and sitting by a fire. It really was a fantastic break.

During our travels that weekend, my little Focus hit a milestone. We never thought the day would come when this mess on wheels would hit 100,000 miles, but it has stuck around long enough to drive us BANANAS. It's a constant headache. Since I've had it (it's only an '03), the transmission has been replaced, the alternator replaced, severe alignment problems caused us to replace year old tires on the whole dang thing, an important tube thing (yeah, I know what I'm talking about) busted and the whole car convulsed like it was going to its grave, the engine mounts busted and made the car, again, convulse like crazy, the windshield is currently cracked in two huge places, a hubcap went missing, and now the trunk can't be opened. Well, it can, but if you open it, you can't close it. Sorry for the run-on...but I feel a run-on sentence was appropriate to express our exaspiration with this vehicle. We are definitely ready to get a new one, but she needs to last us at least another year. If nothing else, at least it still starts and moves!Since then, we've gotten out our Christmas decorations and went and picked out a tree. We knew it was time for Christmas when our students started going nuts...you know you are getting close to a break when they act like looney tunes. While I love decorating for Christmas, this year it just made me anxious for buying our house this spring. But that will come in time, I suppose! Justin was so precious when we went to get out the decorations from the garage...he had bought the Christmas plates I have been DROOLING over for the past two years, wrapped them, and hid them on top of our decorations in the garage. How smooth is that?? Here's our cute little tree.
I have always LOVED when people have a color coordinated tree. Ornaments that match ribbons and garland used. Those are beautiful! We don't have the funds to do that (the majority of our ornaments are from my Meemaw over the years/hand-me-downs from our parents!) and a perfect tree doesn't feel like it suits us. Regardless, I love the smell of our tree (I am a real tree person...sue me) and coziness it provides.

Stay tuned for a fun holiday decor piece that is easy and cheap!

My back hurts...

2009-10-11T21:46:00.002-05:00

..because I have been steam cleaning all day. Something about days off makes me have this desire to fill that time. With Monday off, my eager beaver attitude kicked in. The couches we have in our living room are fantastic hand-me-downs from my Aunt Melinda and Uncle Mark, but they have definitely seen their better days. They are a lovely cream color...in most places. Other places are dingy cream...or worse. But for traveling all the way from Arkansas last year, they are in pretty darn good shape. The back cushions are essentially just over-sized pillows and they have lost most of their "oomph". On Saturday I got the idea to cut the inner pillow open and re-stuff them. I tore the old padding out and fluffed it and put that back in to the pillows with some extra stuffing we got at a fabric store. I am proud to say that they are now as supportive as they were in their days of youth.

After hand sewing the pillows back together, I decided that my beautiful dingy cream colored spots needed to see their days of youth, as well. I went out and rented a carpet cleaner with an upholstery attachment. I'm a little frustrated with the lady at Lowe's, though...she didn't tell me how bad it sucks to use a carpet cleaner. What seemed like 1,000 hours later, my couches were finally all cleaned and now my living room is a maze of damp, but clean, cushions that are trying their hardest to dry. Tomorrow I will be so excited that my couches are clean...especially when I remember the disgusting water that I emptied after I finished cleaning...but tonight I'm exhausted.

In other news, school is great for both of us. Most days/periods we love what we do...which is all you can ask of any job that doesn't involve setting your own hours or working on the beach. Church is fantastic as is our small group. We have been really challenged lately spiritually and are grateful for every minute of it!

A couple weeks ago, we went to a wedding of one of Justin's high school friends and sat at a table with several of his friends, as well. We had a BLAST. Lisa (the bride) was randomly friends with one of my friends from junior high/freshman year in Texas and she was at the wedding, as well. I LOVED getting to talk to her, but the whole night got me thinking about my life. I spent junior high and my freshman year here in Texas and then moved to WV my sophomore year. My parents then moved back to Texas after my freshman year at A&M...which has left me in a very weird position. I haven't seen (much less talked to outside of facebook) high school friends in five years. Five years. I don't see them when I visit my parents or come home from Christmas. They all live on the other side of the country. For some reason, the wedding we went to reminded me how lonely my situation is. I don't really have old friends here in Texas...I missed so much of their lives when I lived in WV. Granted, I have a few very good, old friends here in Texas that are such a blessing. But I only have a few. And my high school friends in WV live different lives than I do way on the other side of the country. When I think about my time in WV, I wonder how many people even really remember me. I was barely a blip on their radar--most of them had lived their for their entire lives and I essentially spent only 3 years there.

I am not saying any of this to be pitied...I have a fantastic husband, great family, and perfect friends. But I feel like I'm missing this huge part of life that everyone else has. I'm not sure if I will ever even have the opportunity to go back to Charleston...and if I did, who would I see? I'm not sure if I will ever go to a reunion...how would I fit in with these people I haven't seen since high school?

All of this has led to my insecurity. In church on Saturday the focus was on the passage where Paul says to "immitate me as I immitate Christ." They had members of the staff film and talk about their most difficult issues that they are still working through and explained what they were doing to overcome them. There were stories about dealing with spousal infidelity, wild children, poor life decisions before Christ, and many others. It was VERY encouraging. Their were a few that resonated with me, but one in particular was insecurity. I feel like having these odd relationships alllllll over my past has made me very insecure about relationships in general. Am I good enough? Will people want to hang out with me? I have let my past dictate to me that the answers to those questions are a resounding "no". During the service, I just prayed for the Lord to wash his grace and mercy all over my insecurities. I know he had a plan for my life in taking me to WV and away again and it was NOT for me to feel as if I am not good enough for friendships because I don't have many long-term ones. PRAISE THE LORD that He has given me sweet college friends, sweet family friends, growing friendships here in Cypress, and a fantastic best friend in my husband. I still ache for my memories...but I know he has plans for my life beyond this moment regarding those memories and experiences.

Wow...I didn't intend on going into so much detail on that...but I think I needed to work through it myself.

Thanks for listening...:)

Go clean a couch...you'd be AMAZED at the filth you are sitting on!

Ramblings

2009-09-11T22:40:00.002-05:00

I know I haven't updated you on the life of the Nichols in a minute...(stealing that phrase from one of my students)

Here's what we are doing:

School

i.e.-grading poor work where students misspell water ("warter"...really?) or give me answers like "my hypothesis is the more fertilizer, the better" (what the heck was an honors student thinking when they actually put that on a test...gag me, please...that got marked incorrect for sooo many reasons), telling kids to pull up pants, packing our lunch, arriving at work long before the sun comes up, and loving every minute of it.

It's been a fantastic year so far. Little to report because we are loving life. There has only been one day (today...we had a pep rally and that makes the kids squirrley) that I wanted to tell my kids "go away, I'm going home."

And for the first three weeks of school, that's pretty darn good.

I have awesome kids, an awesome administration, and an awesome room.

Other than that, we have been enjoying any rest we can get (even though I am having to stay at school MUCH later than I did last year due to changes in our scope and sequence and totally stinkin fantastic awesome new way our team is teaching) and enjoying our (sadly) more limited time together.

Last weekend we went to one of the most enjoyable Aggie season openers that I can remember. It was overcast all day (read: we only sweated a little...and for Texas in September, that's INCREDIBLE) and we actually played real football. I have felt that for the past few years that I have been watching a glorified high school team try to play in the NCAA...I feel like this year maybe, just maybe we may actually deserve all of the hooplah that Aggie fans give football. Seriously...we won 4 national championships last year but I bet any given graduate couldn't list the sports they were in. And beyond that, our women's athletics (basketball, swimming, track, soccer, etc.) are consistently top in the Big 12 and top 10 in the nation. But does anyone care? Nope...but hey, that's Texas! :)

We got to see my brother and see his awesome college boy's house (or disgusting...whichever way you want to look at it). They have actually done a fantastic job to make the junk house really comfortable. I liked two things about it: the fact 4 Aggies and Texans all have snowboards and they are all mounted in their living room and their fancy motorized Easy Shopper (the wheelchair shopping cart things) that they ride up and down their hall on.

I have also been thinking about several very random things:

It makes me really happy to show know-it-alls the things they didn't know...probably because I have an inate desire to be the ultimate know-it-all. That is one of my MANY personality flaws (that I love to point out to myself...praise God for endess grace! If only I could get myself on board with that whole system...).

Why do people with doctorates insist on being called Dr.?? Seriously...sometimes it drives me nuts...especially when you introduce yourself to peers (i.e. other teachers) as Dr. SuchandSuch. Really? I don't say "I'm Mrs. Nichols" to my peers...maybe it's because my dad NEVER EVER EVER went by Dr. Erskine. But I guess if I went to school for half of my life, I'd be proud, too.

I think my maternal clock is blowing up....like crazy blowing up.

How can I seriously be 23 and have skin that is wayyyy worse than my 15 year old students?? And the sad thing...I think I will ALWAYS be that way. YAAAAAY genetics.

We have a seriously hilarious Community Group. It's probably got to be the best mix of people...like ever.

I really like it when AP's and principals actually discipline. And stand in the hallways and yell at kids. Mine are fan-freakin-tastic.

Why is it that when you wear a new deoderant you don't smell "like yourself" for days?

I can't wake up on time...like never. And I especially can't wake up feeling rested no matter what time I went to bed if you make me get up before 5:15. Like for real, people...that's not right. Who starts high school at 7:25??? Lame.

I am going to get a class pet (a frog or a fish) and name it T-Pain. This has been my desire for a long time. I think it would be hilarious...my kids don't get it. Probably because I think T-Pain is absolutely ridiculous and he's their hero. Oh well...they don't get my jelly fish names, either. "Grizz and DotCom?? Anyone???" *crickets* "30 rock?" *crickets* I'm just wayyy cooler than my students and they don't realize it quite yet.

Again...a complete post of ramblings. There are so many times throughout the day that I think "man, I'm going to blog about that" and I even go so far as to think through how I would write it. But for some reason, it's my follow-through that gets me.

Why I Love My Husband (and money tips)

2009-07-27T19:07:00.005-05:00

I don't have to do dishes unless I am being sweet. He does them for me...always.
He likes almost everything I cook and lies when he doesn't.
He cleans out closets.
I am never at a loss for laughs.
I know our money is being used wisely, with the Lord and our future in mind.

He decided to make a general version of his hardcore budget spreadsheet to give out to people. It's pretty incredible. In this spreadsheet, there is a blank budget for every month and a sheet that explains how the budget works. It's set up to do all of the calculations for you--subtracting, adding, figuring how much you have to save each month to reach your goals by your deadlines. It's pretty incredible and has been a year in the making!

Just click on the link below and use as you would like!

Sample Budget

I am sure you have an awesome system yourself, but if you don't or don't have it all written out, we would love for you to use this! It really is set up and ready to go. Play around with it, change it to fit you and your savings goals, pass it on, whatever!

He's pretty awesome...:)

Jellyfish and wedding showers

2009-07-25T23:27:00.007-05:00

*Warning- Nicole Packman- don't read until AFTER your shower! *

Tons of people have asked us if we're bored this summer.

Seriously? Would YOU be bored if you got paid to go on a 2 month vacation?

That's what I thought.

We have had a blast filling our time with vacations, family, and projects. I have recently filled mine and Justin's time with crafting. My first project is for my brand, spankin' new classroom. I am a biology teacher and I wanted something fun and cute. When we were in Florida, we went to some precious boutiques in Apalachicola. In one, I saw a jellyfish that hung from the ceiling (and gasped at the $70 price tag...I love my kids, but not THAT much) and I was inspired. I decided I could do it myself.

So I did. I took two big plastic bowls and covered them in plastic wrap. I then spent 3 days paper mache-ing (a word??) them...and almost gave up. It stinks to have glue all over you! I ended up doing about 5 layers of paper mache. And they ended up looking like goofy, pathetic army hats.
And yet I kept going. I painted them a light blue with just the cheap acrylic paint from Hobby Lobby (speaking of which, what random, instrumental Christian songs have you heard in there? I've got Our God is an Awesome God and today, Love Song for a Savior. I love that song...but instrumental???).I bought some iridescent cellophane and spray adhesive to cover them. All I did was start at the top and glue to the bottom. I wrapped the extra underneath. The effect is pretty cool in person.Then, I cut long wavy strips into a very thin, blue/purple, iridescent fabric and hot glued them inside my Cnidarian (that's nerd for jellyfish) friend. They turned out so fun! The tentacles blow with the slightest breeze which will be good in the highly air-conditioned rooms at school. I'll just have to take them down when the Fire Marshall comes. :) Breakin' rules all over!Like em? When I get over my nightmares of having my fingers covered in glue and bits of newspaper, I may make some mini versions so these two can have some friends.

My NEXT project is way way fun and also and inspiration from precious stores in Apalachicola, Florida. It's going to be my new wedding shower staple. I don't have in-progress pictures on this one, though.
So cute, right? You know when you are having a party or having people over and you are making that signature dish? Everyone wants to know the recipe. If you WANT to give up your secrets, this is a fun way! Here's a close up:We bought a simple piece of very thin birch plywood at Lowe's. It cost about $3 and I can probably get 5 or so more of these recipe holders out of it. So basically, a steal. Justin used his muscles to cut out a 7"x10" (approximately) rectangle and sanded it down for me. I used, again, cheap acrylic paint and painted the whole thing a teal blue. We then drilled a hole about an inch from the bottom that was 1/4" and used a 1/4" x 4" carriage bolt and nut. I covered the head of the bolt with a bit of the scrapbooking paper I used on the bottom.Because the hole was drilled an inch up from the bottom, the whole thing leans back slightly like a picture frame. I then used simple scrapbooking paper, ribbon, rubber cement, and hot glue to beautify it. I have the junkiest hand-writing on the face of the planet. It's true. So I got some yellow cardstock and downloaded my friend's handwriting as a font (check it out...it's so much fun and there are tons to choose from. Thanks Beth!). I printed "From the Carrillo Kitchen" and glued that on there, too. I finished it by attaching a painted clothespin at the top to hold the recipe. Fun? Yes. Get married...I'll make you one. But you have to invite me to the wedding. You'll get two if I'm in the wedding...:) Just kidding.This is for my cousin-in-love, Nicole Packman (soon to be Carrillo). For her shower gift, I got her spring form pans and a pretty pie server. So, using Beth's precious hand-writing font again, I typed up my favorite cheesecake recipe and put it in the clothespin. I love it because the possibilities are endless...cookie sheets and your favorite oatmeal raisin recipe, a trifle bowl and your favorite banana pudding recipe, muffin tins and your best blueberry muffin recipe. And the recipient can use it to display their best recipes, too! Such a fun gift. But I guess I'm biased. What do you think?

And you would think my husband wouldn't like all this girly crafting...but he does. He helped me on both projects (and commented me on the recipe thing...he apparently thought it would be slightly ghetto and was amazed that it wasn't. Uh, thanks??) and spent the time that I paper mached by painting me some more beautiful pictures for our apartment! Love him.

In the time I'm not covered in glue and paint, I'm completely sucked into Twilight. A bit late (in all senses...they've been out forever...and I'm 23...so what??), but I'm loving them. I've read the first two in 4 days.

You will find me in the world of vampires and werewolves. Peace.

mmm...summer

2009-07-20T22:42:00.003-05:00

So I thought I would just update and update with all my free time this summer...

...but then I realized "hey, I'm going to go play a lot this summer" and blogger took a back seat.

Here's what we've been up to:

A week after school got out, we flew to NYC for 4 days. We figured, if we can't use our awesomely large tax return on ourselves now, when can we?? We had an absolute blast. Justin had never been and I had never stayed in the city. Our hotel was 3 blocks from time square on a little cozy side street.

The day we arrived, we went to Time Square, walked the Brooklyn Bridge, and ate at the most AMAZING pizza restaurant in Brooklyn. It was complete with an Italian man that seemed like he was straight out of the movie Remember Me. We waited in line for two hours and ate with a couple from the UK, one couple from NYC, and another from an Asian nation...they couldn't speak much English.

Day two consisted of a Yankees/Mets game complete with classic New York guys behind us and super trashy New York girls in front of us. You know, the kind that have nails that are too long with designs on them and rhinestones. They cussed too much and drank to much and even the New York guys were making funny comments about how nasty they were. It was great. It was also the highlight of Justin's trip. After the game, we went to Carmine's, an awesome Italian restaurant near Times Square.

Day three was New York Tourism day. We went to the UN, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Wall Street, China Town, and Serendipity 3. Our feet died that night. It was sooo worth it.

Day four was our fun day. We went to breakfast on the upper east side at this amazing local place. We then walked through Central Park and made our way to 5th Avenue and the shopping around it. We sho' enough hit up some H&M and I cried because we don't have one. Come on, H&M, H-town is cool enough for you. Okay, maybe not, but plllllease?! After shopping, we went to an amazing outdoor restaurant in a park near the Flatiron building. (did I fail to mention we left Texas in record breaking, triple-digit temperatures for NYC that was in 60s and 70s? Jealous???) We sat at a table amongst locals getting off work and had quite possibly the best burgers ever.

Then we went back to the hotel to get ready for our broadway show...The Little Mermaid! Okay, so maybe that's a bit of a let down, but we got cheap tickets. We would have loved to see something else, but it was way more affordable to see that (and my 5 year old self jumped for joy). PLUS, the guy who played Eric was the lead guy in Another Cinderella Story, or so the millions of teenage girls around us said. And at intermission there was crazy excitement because Selena Gomez was there watching him perform. The teenage girls and their crazy moms were going berzerk. Literally. They even proceeded to tell Justin all about her as if he would care. It was extremely entertaining.

We had a fantastic, tiring time. And we rode the Subway in the wrong way a few times. But who hasn't? Oh...and we lost count of the number of weave stores we saw in Harlem on the bus to and from the Airport. It was phenomenal.

After that, I went to Arkansas with my family while Justin (wisely) opted out and went camping with friends. We went to my grandparents in Bentonville, Lake Ouachita with my aunt and uncle, and then Fancy Town (AKA Pine Bluff). It was, as it always is, interesting. Love those grandparents!

Last week, we got to go to my FAVORITE place in the world, Saint George Island. It's been three years since we have gone, so it was incredible. We celebrated our 1st anniversary before AND during the trip. I can't believe we've gotten there already! And I can't believe that the next step is buying a house and having babies...woohoo! Our friends, the Pickerings, came with us as well. It was simply incredible.

Now we are doing nothing. Not literally...we are playing scrabble, cooking fun things, and going to open houses for fun. School starts in a month and we have a lot of In-Service stuff starting next week so our summer is coming to a close. It's a bit bitter sweet, but I think we are both excited to do what we love. The first time we have a discipline problem, we might regret saying that, but we love teaching and our kiddos.

This summer has shown me how incredibly blessed I am. I have a husband who is HILARIOUS and precious. He takes care of me and worries when I jay-walk in New York. He takes care of our budget and is always looking towards the future. I am more attracted to him and he is so much more a part of me than the day I married him. I love that. I have a fantastic job that gives me a fantastic schedule. I have an incredible family (born into and in-law). I can't wait to take each step in life with my cute husband and our families.

aaannnnnddddd....

2009-06-04T18:00:00.002-05:00

...done.

ahhhhhh, saying that just makes me crave a giant glass of lemonade, a swim suit, and a book.

:)

New York in a weeeeeeeeek!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yipee!

Photo Update

2009-05-28T21:35:00.007-05:00

It's the end of the year...we're tired...but so excited for summer! On our horizon we have a trip to NYC in June and a trip to my beloved Saint George Island in July. We are SO excited for summer and vacation, but we are going to miss our kiddos!!

Here's what we've been up to lately.

Justin got his cap, gown, and hood...and we had NO idea how they worked!! In fact, the day of his graduation, we stood in the parking lot arguing about the dang hood. He was telling me to fix it like the picture...and I had NO idea what the "right" way was based on the picture they gave him! This was his best guess.
Proud of my little Masters husband. Isn't he cute? And he's pretty smart.
It IS a hood, right?! He's throwing up the big Cy-Woods sign for his kiddos.
We got to go to an Astros game Memorial Day weekend...and we lost...of course. But I still love baseball. There's something about watching it that is comforting. I love love love the relaxed atmosphere and the conversation that the sport allows!And this is why my decision to leave Cy-Fair was SOOO hard. My 5th period planned a party for me complete with these balloons, a "We'll Miss You" cookie cake, brownies, and the sweetest card ever. They are ridiculously awesome. They have DEFINITELY boosted my self-esteem. You have no idea how it feels to have kids say that they will move to my new school just so that they can come see me. Seriously...when I told my kids, they said exactly what I would have wanted them to say. Things like "no, you're too awesome!!" and "you can't leave, Mrs. Nichols, you're the best teacher I've ever had." Seriously kids...A+ for those comments! I am going to miss them more than I could ever express. If I type any more...I may start to cry...so I'll stop.

More updates once summer hits...4 days and counting!

Straight from the Nichols Kitchen

2009-05-03T20:52:00.003-05:00

We had the best Asian dinner tonight! I thought I would share the recipe with you. I marinated the steak in teriyaki ginger marinade, only used 2 cloves of garlic instead of 4, and used half an onion instead of a whole one. It was delicious!!!

I'm changing the way I grocery shop by making a monthly menu. I sat down on Saturday and collected fun new recipes and used some of our staples to fill up this month. I never cook on Fridays because that is date night (or at least "go out to eat" night) and we have that in our budget, so I skipped that on our monthly menu. Saturday night is always a light meal because we go to church that evening, so I have built in during the week times when I'll brown extra ground turkey or cook up extra chicken breasts to make a new creation quickly on those nights. It revolutionized my trip to Walmart today and I'm super excited to see what it does for us budget wise! If you do that and have good tips, let me know. I love some good frugal tips for the kitchen!

Anyways, here's the recipe. Let me know if you use it and change it! It's definitely going to be a regular on our monthly menu here at the Nichols house!

INGREDIENTS
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon chili paste with garlic
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
4 cups cooked egg noodles or whole wheat spaghetti (about 8 ounces uncooked)
2 teaspoons dark sesame oil
2 tablespoons peanut oil
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, peeled and minced
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 cups frozen broccoli florets
1 medium onion, cut in half and thinly sliced
1 flank steak (1 pound), trimmed and cut across the grain into long, thin strips
Thinly sliced green onions, to garnish
Toasted sesame seeds, to garnish

INSTRUCTIONS

In a small bowl combine the soy sauce, brown sugar, oyster sauce, chili paste and crushed red pepper flakes. Set aside.
Cook pasta according to package directions; drain. Combine pasta and sesame oil, tossing well to coat.
While pasta cooks, heat peanut oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the ginger, garlic, broccoli and onion and sauté for 5 minutes. Add the steak and sauté for 5 minutes or until done. Add pasta mixture and soy sauce mixture and cook 1 minute or until thoroughly heated, stirring constantly.
Serve garnished with thinly sliced green onions and sesame seeds, if desired.

And yes...I know that there were grammar mistakes in this...I just refuse to say the Nicholses or the Nichols's...it looks dumb! :)

-L

Big news!

2009-04-30T20:48:00.003-05:00

...and no, I'm not pregnant. Once you get that second ring on your finger, that's all anybody cares about any more. Seriously, I really hate when your husband's grandma asks if you are "trying". Gross...

My big news is that I am changing schools next year!! I know that my last post was extremely cryptic but I have had enough of pettiness and child-like, unprofessional behavior from people who are older than my parents. So, I'm done! (I could go on and on and on about the situation...it mainly had to do with the fact that our pedagogical theories didn't match up..at all.)

I put in a transfer request in March after a couple rough weeks. I prayed that the Lord would show me where to walk and he brought to my attention the passage where Peter walks on water to the Lord and wavers. I couldn't figure out whether or not He wanted me to take a step out on the water by accepting the interview at my new school OR He wanted me to continue to trust Him on the water and quit drowning. I decided that I would put all of my faith in Him and say yes to the interview. I simply trusted that what happened would be God's plan.

...then I got the job. I panicked for a day wondering if I should accept or not. Justin really got to lead me that day because he felt strongly that the Lord was leading me to Cy-Ranch HS. I followed my amazing husband's lead and took the job!

And I haven't even told you the best part yet...I GET A ROOM!!!!!!!!!!!! Cy-Ranch is brand new and next year they will only have Freshmen - Juniors. My room will be new and all-stinkin-mine! You have no idea how much strain floating has put on me this year...and I am done!! The principal, DC, and team leader seem awesome and I couldn't be more excited to be there. The school is actually composed of lots people from Cy-Fair, so my department chair was able to really brag on me, which was definitely a blessing.

So I am now a Mustang. That news may not be that big of a deal to you, but for me, it means that stress and pressure are off of me and I don't have to come home in tears any more. There were weeks that I would come home every night either furious because of ridiculous things said or in tears because of hurtful things said. That's just not an acceptable work environment and I am so thankful that the Lord has taken me out of this trial. Blessings.

So yeah, things are good :)

In the meantime, I turned 23. Shh..don't tell my kids...the have no idea how old I am and would FREAK if they knew I was that young.

Right now we are in the middle of TAKS testing. For those of you who aren't from public Texas schools, it's a week designed to torture all students (especially the low ones) and the teachers. We put a RIDICULOUS amount of pressure on the teachers, students, and schools based on these stupid, stupid tests. My kids take it and I am held responsible for everything they have learned last year and this year. So for the past couple weeks I have been re-teaching Physics and Chemistry to my kids and seeing how they have drastically been diserviced by high-stakes testing. It super sucks. Hard core. Like, this one test determines whether or not they graduate. Most kids are okay, but I teach two classes of students who struggle severely in school and it KILLS them. Kids who have worked and struggled to pass classes can be told that you can't graduate because you can't take tests.

Awesome. Great idea, politicians. Why don't you make MORE decisions for our education system which you have never been a part of and have absolutely no credentials to know what the heck you are talking about. That would be fan-freakin-tastic. Thank you, W and No Child Left Behind. It sounds all peachy on the surface, but down in the ditches, it doesn't really work.

But yeah, I'm bored out of my mind because when you give the test, you have to walk around the entire 3-4 hours (as in no sitting...ever). You can't read, can't have a computer on in the room, or do anything else to keep you sane. So my solution is counting...how many tennis shoes, desks, words on the posters in the room, etc. I also characterize the kids like "he's definitely a guitar player" or "she totally loves high school musical". I'll never know if I pin them right, but I just assume that I do...;)

Enough educational ranting--I'm going to sleep!

Thank you thank you thank you for your prayers. Hopefully next post will be something fun...summer is coming!

-L

insert cute title here

2009-04-06T17:37:00.003-05:00

I have been blog-slacking of late...

Sorry.

But not really THAT sorry.

I've tried...I promise. Every time I get on here, the ONLY thing I can think to write about are work problems. I want to be professional so I am not going to put them on cyber space for God-knows-who to read....pray for me. If you care for specifics, call me. My kids and I have (most days...) settled into an acceptable routine and they really are the best part of my job. Like I said, I don't want to get specific, but pray for joy in dealing with co-workers and energy to make it through the rest of the year.

It has literally been the worst two work weeks of my life. And I'm a first year teacher...so for the worst weeks to be coming in March/April, it's definitely NOT my kiddo's fault.

So yeah, I'm at a block right now blog-wise. All I can seem to want to write about is my work issues. As I just typed that, I realize that I've let it steal focus from my sweet Lord, as well. That's pathetic...

On a lighter/less cryptic note, my husband is PRECIOUS. When I got home today, he was sitting on the couch in his Astros jersey ready for baseball opening day. LOVE him. And I love the Astros...yay for baseball season!! There's something soothing about it for me...I'm not sure what it is, but I love hearing baseball announcers and watching the game. If you have been around me for any length of time, you know that I love my Astros!!!

Please be praying for me at work...I want to glorify the Lord in all I do...pray that I do that in this situation.

I love that when there are people that will be praying for me immediately when they read this...such a blessing. Love you so much for that!

-L

We're here!

2009-03-21T15:52:00.003-05:00

Well, I know your life hasn't been complete without a blog update from me in a few weeks. So, to the 5 people that read this, I AM here!

We're rounding out Spring Break right now and are SO rested and relaxed. I'm pretty sure in the tough weeks leading up to SB, we said (multiple times) "I am NOT going back tomorrow!" The kids get CRAZY without a break which, in turn, makes our lives crazy. But we made it and it's still unreal that we are almost done with our first year of teaching!!

We started this week with a trip to Conroe to visit a very crowded Nichols household and to attend Justin's cousin Sarah's baby shower. She's having baby girl in April and I'm crossing my fingers that she comes a few days early on my birthday! We had a great time visiting with his grandparents and cousins and playing with babies...and now I want one. Sigh...and no...since I answered this question 15 times at the shower I'll answer it again...we are NOT trying. But if it happened, we wouldn't cry!!

We then went to the big San Antonio (and you know what? It drives me NUTS when people call it San Antone...) to visit the River Walk and Shamu. We had a BLAST. It was such an enjoyable getaway.
Since then, we have been hanging out at home and enjoying our time off. We did run back up to Conroe to get Justin's truck fixed (it's nice to have family that work for car places!) and pick up the treadmill that Justin's mom didn't want anymore. I'm totally excited about that!!! We've got it set up in the garage and even though we don't need it right now because we have a work out center at our apartments, we sure are excited about it when we move out!! We love saving money in any way, shape, or form.

Speaking of money, we feel sooo grown up because we went and set up our Roth IRAs for investment and separate investment fund for our down-payment money that we have been saving up. I'm so blessed with a husband who is diligent with our money and careful with our budget. He may be tight, but I'm so thankful he is! We are saving a ridiculous portion of our salary which will allow me to be a stay-at-home mom while we are raising young children. You should see the budget spread sheet he has perfected. I am all for saving money, but actually looking at what I am spending and budgeting totally overwhelms me. And don't even get me started on the investment side of things! I love the little matches in personality that have come out in our marriage.

It's also March Madness here in our house! It's no secret that I am a huge sports fan. I just love watching almost anything (minus hockey and soccer...I can't handle the fact that when they make passes, it's very common to lose the ball to the other team...). In fact, my love for sports has often been an alienating factor of my personality. While I am not that obnoxious girl who gets in your face about all of the sports facts she knows, I do like sports more than most girls. It's definitely NOT a secret that my college roommates don't like sports...at all. So sometimes I felt like the outcast as I sat watching the Astros or going to Aggie sporting events (but they still love me and vis-versa). But nonetheless, I LOVE sports and I LOVE March Madness. It's so enjoyable to me to watch all of these teams from all over the country play each other. I fill out a bracket (mainly for Justin's sake), but I LOVE it when the underdog wins. I don't care if messes up my bracket...I just love for that team that no one expected to win to come out and show their stuff. I'm sitting here watching MY underdogs (the Aggies) not pull out the upset over UConn...oh well. There's always next year...or the women's team that starts their end of the tournament tomorrow!

I should probably end this marathon of a post to go fold clothes and head to church. We've been going to church on Saturday nights and are really enjoying sleeping in on Sundays.

Love to you-
L

Lucky I'm in love with my best friend...

2009-02-14T15:05:00.017-06:00

Happy Birthday, big kid!

If you know Justin, then you know that he is the most caring and helpful man you will ever meet. He is so selfless and loves me unconditionally. He has taught me so much about how the Lord loves through the way that he loves and treats me. I am so blessed to have such a best friend and such a husband. He matches me perfectly in a good cuddle and in personality. We have been together for almost 4 years now and married for 7 months, and I have never laughed more or felt more safe than when I am with him. I am so thankful that I get him forever!!!

To celebrate his 23 birthday, I planned a pretty big weekend! On Friday night, Justin's family and mine came over to celebrate and eat fajitas. We were decked out with fajitas, queso, and homemade salsa.
To finish dinner off, I made the ULTIMATE kid cake...which if you know Justin, you know he is the ULTIMATE kid. Here's a photo of the cake (oh, and after all that planning, I forgot candles...so yes, that IS a votive candle in the middle)Looks normal, right? BUT WAIT!! Look what fun lies inside!!:) Here is the unbaked layers, if you want to see how to make the cool effect!

After we inhaled cake (oh, and the cake is magic...Jeff, Justin's little brother, made his career best time in his two mile event at his track meet today!), Justin opened all of his big boy presents. This is his new man-tool- a sander! He spent this morning playing with it and making pretend sander noises as he "sanded" everything in the house. I even got a video...but he won't let me post it!! What a let down, right?

He also got one of those things that holds two pieces of wood together for you (I can hold my own in household projects, but I don't know my way around most fancy tools!), a Wii baseball game, TOMS, and new glasses. It was a great day!

This morning (the 14th), I went and picked up shipley's for breakfast and when I got home, this is what was waiting for me!! Who cares if it is a corporate holiday? I like flowers and candy!! It's just a fun little bit of Justin's birthday that I get to enjoy.

I let Justin open the rest of his birthday present from me, which was some candy, the Brandon Heath cd, and this fun little book:

It's just a fun little way for me to remind him of all of the things that I love about my hot little husband! I have one thing for every letter of the alphabet that I love about him.

Isn't he just the cutest?? To finish off his birthday, we are going to go eat at Pappadeaux's (if you aren't from Texas, you are REALLY missing out on Pappa's restaurants. He does Mexican, seafood, bar-b-que, pizza, etc. better than almost anyone!!) and enjoy our Saturday together.

:) Enjoy those you love today...what a blessing they all are to us. They are a testament of how much our Lord loves us!!

-l

Dear ugly drawer pulls-

2009-02-07T21:47:00.006-06:00

It's been 7 1/2 years that you and I have been together and 7 months for you and Justin. I have always loved my bedroom furniture. I picked it out to go into my new room (the first that I had to myself) when my family moved to West Virginia and I just adored it. But to be honest, I've never loved you. Granted, when you first came into my life, I didn't really have an opinion about you and just accepted your presence because of my love for my lovely furniture. But as the years have passed and you joined me and my new husband in our home, I have grown cold towards you. Justin says you look medieval and I can't help but agree. Your constant noise and ugliness made me grow cold towards my furniture, as well. You almost ruined a long relationship. It was only yesterday I realized you must go. I found new drawer pulls. They are shiny and sleek and have changed the whole face of the furniture. It is no longer drab and dull, but modern and beautiful. We're done.

Love,
Laura

:) Check out our little handy project. We changed out our drawer pulls tonight and replaced them with new shiny ones! It made a HUGE difference in our room. The pictures just don't do it justice.

Old and ugly:

Old and ugly and EVERYWHERE:Sleek and modern:
Total makeover:

It was the best $50 we've ever spent for our little home! Every time I walk into our room, I can't believe the change!!

Love to you all-
Laura and Justin

Just a friendly reminder...

2009-02-05T16:09:00.002-06:00

EVERYONE knows that a "friendly reminder" is never really "friendly". It's the way to say something annoying so that the person who you are speaking to can't get mad. I got a "friendly reminder" from one of our attendance secretaries today telling me that I marked a girl who came in "WELL past the first 10 minutes of first period" (emphasis added is the same that my "friendly reminder" came with) tardy and the policy is to mark those kids absent. Seriously? I wanted to say I have a MILLION other things to think about during the period to remember when that one girl came in. They are lucky I even TAKE attendance.

Phew...I feel better. That's been boiling up in me since lunch. Glad I could get it out.

Last night I tackled my first roast. It cooked all day long and all I had to do when I got home was take it out of the pot!! I am now a HUGE supporter of the crock pot. Now I just need one that has a timer on it so that I can get it started after I leave for work. Not many recipes are okay with the 10+ hour days we put in as a teacher, so it would rock to have one that could start itself during the day. For now, I will just dream about the perfect crock pot while searching for recipes that can cook for 10 hours and over!!

In other news, it's almost Friday! Being a big kid REALLY makes you appreciate weekends. I get two days away from "Miss, I don't get it!" and me saying "Give me your attention!!" I also have a lot of work to do this weekend because my cute little husband is turning 23 on the 14th! I have some stuff I still need to make and get together for his fun "homemade" surprise. That Friday, we're having his family and mine over for a yummy dinner complete with cake and a lot of marbles playing!! We're pumped. Not only is it Justin's day, it's also Valentine's day, so I get candy. Woohoo!

We love you and hope you are well!

-J&L

check this out.

2009-01-28T20:11:00.001-06:00

There's something moving about the human experience...

check out iamsecond.com to be humbled and challenged by neighbors, musicians, athletes, and people like you.

Random thoughts

2009-01-27T19:11:00.002-06:00

Hey friends!

We're in (apparently) the dreaded stretch between Christmas and spring break. We had our last day off last Monday (thanks to Ike) for the next month and a half!! Good thing we (most periods) like what we do!!

We got a new camera for a Christmas present that we love! We got it in January because we wanted to do research and get one that would be a "long haul" camera. Since our life is rather boring and routine right now (and maybe yours is, too?), I thought I'd leave you with this...it was one of the first pictures taken with our fancy smancy new camera. I'm just glad that all my kiddos that work at Target weren't working this night...
Much spandex love,
Laura and Justin

Battle Fatigue

2009-01-27T12:35:00.002-06:00

So, a fellow teacher told me about this and I think it totally defines my day today:

(this is true, btw)

Occasionally, teachers go to the hospital/doctor with just an overwhelming lousy feeling. Tiredness, aches, stomach upset, etc. Not any one thing that the doctors could diagnose. In order to admit the patient to the hospital for more care, doctors literally call it "Battle Fatigue" and write that on their admission paperwork.

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I'm at lunch right now enjoying my silence that was just interrupted by a kid coming to beg for his cell phone...which I took up this morning and told him he could get back at the end of class...which he then took out my drawer on my cart-room (clever, huh?! cart-room instead of classroom)...which I then promptly said "No way, I'm turning this in, fool." Can you get it back?!

Hecks no!

Battle fatigue...

Um, can I have a house and a lot of time?

2009-01-08T17:27:00.002-06:00

Please??

So...I guess it's human nature to always look forward to the next stage in your life. I have been married 6 months and I want a baby...too soon? In our case, yes. We have been getting big boy and big girl paychecks for four months and now we want a house. Again, toooo soon! But I can't wait!! We've had the blessing of having some financial counseling and know how to make a plan of action with regards to a home...which involves the word WAIT. For a little while at least.

Thanks to Beth, now I am addicted to home blogs. Especially This Young House. They do such fun and simple things to their house and all I can think is "I want one!" We are too blessed to live in the apartment we do, but there are always shortfalls to apartment living (our lovely dog neighbor/howler, Toby...but he's getting over his separation anxiety a little. yay!).

It's always fun to look forward, but I do love where we are. And right now I'm stretched out on the couch while my husband sleeps curled up on the love seat. He's so cute!

-l

It's over? Seriously?

2009-01-04T14:29:00.002-06:00

(so, I meant to post this Sunday night...but I accidentally clicked save now instead)

I'm sitting here dreading tomorrow. Yes, I said it. I like my students (well...for the most part:)), I like my co-workers, I like biology...but I do not want to go back. Being brutally honest...I love what I do, but it hasn't grabbed my passion quite yet. My passion still lies in being at home, with family, husband, and getting things done. I love being a teacher and I'm proud of the work I do...but I also LOVE LOVE LOVE being at home with Justin. I hate weekday nights because we are always EXHAUSTED when we come home and there's always so much to be done that just gets shoved to the weekend. School starts awfully early which requires an awfully early bed time (which our tired souls gladly accept by the time it rolls around). These past two weeks were refreshing and Switchfoot said it best in "Gone" with regards to this break. I knew it wouldn't last forever (and to all of you people who AREN'T teachers, I realize we have the best schedule ever blah, blah, blah), but I am wishing I could go back and do it all over again. It was so incredibly enjoyable! Maybe that's the source of my dread...that means that my relaxed state and normal schedule is over, as well as the time I get to spend with my hubby.

Anyways, enough of my whining. I AM glad to see my kiddos again...the BY FAR majority of them are incredibly awesome and I am so lucky to get to spend the day with some of them. We do start school bright and early tomorrow morning...and I am giving a test on Wednesday...so we are hitting the ground running!

We had a fantastic vacation all over the place. We spent the week before Christmas with Justin's family and then drove to Lake Jackson on Christmas Eve to spend Christmas and after with my family. We got some amazing gifts...namely a GPS system and a Wii complete with gift cards to buy games for our Wii (which we did!!). So we have been busy playing all sorts of crazy games. We then packed up on the 26th and drove with my family to Arkansas for whirlwind trip. We finally came home on Wednesday the 31st and go the opportunity to see the lovely Carters!! Since then we have been tearing down the tree/decorations and getting prepped for our vacation to end.

I hope your return to normal life (it's coming...even if it hasn't yet!) is relaxing. We are so blessed and are continually reminded of it!! Even when we have to earn a living...;).

Laura and Justin

Yay for a lot!

2008-12-23T14:48:00.002-06:00

How blessed we are to be fulfilling our purpose in the Lord as teachers during this stage of our life!

Did we mention our two week vacation right now?? Praise the Lord!!! SO needed.

We are taking full advantage of it by seeing all of our family (through the grandparent level) between now and next Tuesday!!!

If only there was a way to see everyone we love this Christmas...everyone in Michigan, Arkansas, West Virginia, etc, etc, etc! We hope all is well with you. Praise the Lord for the birth of his Son...how selfless of someone to send their only son simply to die for our sorry rear-ends? And praise Him that BECAUSE of Him we are no longer sorry rear-ends in His eyes!!

Much to be thankful for. And you are included in that list. :)

--Justin and Laura

Chocolate fountains make people happy at funerals...

2008-12-15T17:18:00.002-06:00

What an enjoyable weekend!!

Friday, we went to Russo's Coal Fired Pizza for dinner...um, AMAZING. If you live in Houston, you have to try it! It's a New York style pizza/everything else Italian restraunt and it was fantastic. There's not much I enjoy more than a date night after a tiring week. Saturday, we woke up and ate a yummy breakfast then went and (almost) finished up Christmas shopping. I then spent Saturday night wrapping and wrapping presents, which was enjoyable. Sunday was productive day with a fantastic morning at our new spectacular church, cleaning the house, grocery shopping, and baking. I tried to make Cake Balls (cake and icing covered in chocolate). I had planned on taking a picture journey through my Cake Ball experiment, but I got lazy. My bad. (when's the last time you said that??) They turned out okay. I mean, they were delicious. But I only had a cookie dough scoop and a melon baller would have been a more appropriate size for these treats...therefore, one is by far enough.

I took these treats to my sweet friend Amanda's Christmas party where we played AMAZING rounds of Nelson's. Suchhhh a fun game. One of the topics that night was the great chocolate fountain and how they make people happy, even at funerals. Hence the blog title...it made for a very funny round. If you've never played Nelsons, please ask me for the rules because it might be one of the best group games EVER. It was so fun to end the weekend with so much laughter.

Four more days until two weeeeeks of glorious freedom!

Laura (and Justin)

p.s.- I should have guessed that our blog would turn out like this...all "couple" blogs end up being the wife writing about life.

I love Christmas music

2008-12-06T22:06:00.008-06:00

I just love this time of year. And my love has been ever magnified being a grown up and being married.

Justin and I finished school last week on Tuesday and went to Body Worlds at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. A-freakin-mazing. I highly recommend it to anyone. I just walked through amazed at every tiny detail of our bodies...what an amazing Lord and creator we have. On Wednesday, we woke up and I cooked my contribution to Thanksgiving dinner and then drove to Conroe for the Nichols/Packman Thanksgiving. On Thursday, we ate and then drove to Lake Jackson to see my family. It was odd to be on the grown-up side of Thanksgiving, but it was such a needed break. We were so rested and relaxed by the time the week was over...then Monday hit. :)

We now have two weeks until Christmas and the kids are getting crazier and crazier by the day. By the 19th, I'm pretty sure we will be teaching the high school equivalent of chimpanzees. We don't get to end our semester before Christmas thanks to our hurrication from Ike, so we have to actually teach these crazy kids that last week before we get out. It's going to be extremely tough. But the reward will be sweet:

2 week vacation.

This Friday, we went to finish off the Christmas decoration necessities (stockings and tree lights) and picked out our tree, which we love. We made a homemade pizza, decorated the tree, and watched A Beni Hana Christmas (the best Office episode...um...ever maybe). We think we will make that a tradition. We may have to take a break when kids arrive until they are old enough/mature enough to watch the Office and understand it, but we sure do laugh at it. We were lucky to get a lot of ornaments from our mom's and also from my Meemaw. She's been giving us ornaments every year since we were born as a part of our Christmas gifts. They are all so special to me...it was a great idea on her part!! Here is our final product. I turned off the flash on some of the pictures to get the "pretty lights" effect.

Exciting? Nope. Good?? YES!

2008-11-16T16:54:00.003-06:00

Over ten days since the last post.

Why, you ask???

Because I'm struggling to find blog worthy material. We haven't gone anywhere cool...we haven't gotten a new puppy or cool new gadget...I haven't cooked anything out of the ordinary (though, I am tackling tofu tomorrow night...). We haven't been yelled at by a student or stopped a fight in the past couple weeks. We HAVE been very tired (yay for Thanksgiving coming soon and Christmas soon after that!!!) and busy at school.

In our super(not)exciting life, we did enjoy a very great weekend. Friday, we debated whether or not to go to Body Worlds. We decided to put it off until next week when we have time off (again, YAY! no kids for almost a week...I never realized that teachers are more excited than students for days off of school) and went to the Galleria to go to the Cheesecake factory instead. The best thing about being married is being with your best friend all the time. We just have plain old fun...laughing at each other and the ridiculous things going on around us.

Saturday, I slept in while Justin went to College Station for his graduate class's seminar and then his high school's football play-off game. I stayed home alone all day...which got very boring very fast. Justin's brother Jeff ran in the state cross-country race in Austin (we were sad that we weren't going to make it...but that tuition payment we made is going to good use!!) and he did really well! I have a feeling next year will be his year. That evening, we met my parents and Micaela in Sugarland for her birthday dinner. The big 17! We shared some awesome PF Chang's food and had a lot of fun!

Today we joined our new church, Community of Faith and are COMPLETELY excited. The Lord combined the type of church we love with a sincere world focus that the church was built on. We are REALLY excited. And if we HAVEN'T surrounded ourselves with high schoolers enough yet, we are going to volunteer in the youth. I really couldn't be more excited about the church...the only sad thing is that their Community Groups go in stages and they are about to take a break until after the holidays. So that kind of stinks that we can't get involved in one right away...but we'll be excited when we can!

Someone who works full time AND finds the energy to work-out, please give me tips. I have the energy to do it on a day that I do not have to chase kids around a classroom (yes, even high school kids still haven't mastered the concept of SIT), but during the week I come home DEAD. So yes...this is a call for work-out tips from someone who has mastered the art of...well..GOING to work out!

Love you!!

-Laura (and Justin)

Our Country

2008-11-05T16:15:00.004-06:00

I am tired of hearing that our country has come so far. Because it hasn't...and I say that because I work with the future day in and day out.

The genius kids at my school sent out text messages last night that said "If you hate Barack Obama, protest by wearing all black to school today to mourn the death of our country." Half of my classes were in all black.

Every African American student was wearing a Barack Obama t-shirt...and then proceeded to argue with every student around them.

I took a kid (my camo cut-off t-shirt sweetheart) to the office for the second time today. The first time, a teacher turned him in for racist comments and a confederate flag t-shirt worn to spite Obama fans. In MY class, he had drawn on his knuckle swaztikas. SERIOUSLY? HECK NO!

We may have an African-American president (by the way...so exciting!), but our society hasn't changed at all. All my kids see is color. And that's how they argued allllll day. Black vs. white.

It breaks my heart that our youth STILL thinks this way.

We have a long way to go.

Election Day

2008-11-04T14:14:00.003-06:00

Fun halloween...
As we were carving that little doozy, our very drunk/friendly neighbors came over to introduce themselves and tell/yell stories to us about their famous tennis player friends and their weddings. Very interesting.

We are off work today (election day) because a lot of our schools are polling places. It's technically a teacher inservice day, but almost all of the teachers earned hours to miss work today. So we get to sit and watch the day unfold...which is interesting.

I keep laughing at how people (coughaggiescough) are so afraid of Obama. Afraid??? Seriously, the president does not have THAT much power that we should fear him. God is in control regardless of who runs our country...and He commands us to pray on behalf of our leaders. I know a lot of people who disagree with what I believe and would vote very differently than I did. But you know what? We'll be okay...our government was designed that way. And I have listened to both of them talk...they both *say* they love the Lord (and I am NOT the person to judge otherwise). And even if they don't....he's still the Lord over them!

I had an entire paragraph standing up for my vote and justifying it...but you know what??? I'm tired of people doing that to me. I have no basis or background to do it to you! I will tell you that I have had sweet clarity and comfort in my decision, as has Justin.

Politics isn't the answer...Jesus is. McCain or Obama, I hope we can agree on that. Pray for our leader even if you think he will ruin our country. That is what we are commanded.

Now seriously...let's get this over with so that my students will stop begging me to tell them who I voted for (which is illegal...I was informed that I am state property from 7:15-3:15 which means I can't lobby for or show favoritism for any candidate). I bet Bush is excited...there's someone else we can put blame on starting in January!!! (Except if I have learned anything from the Aggies hating on Fran...everything will still be his fault!)

-L&J

So many thoughts in our heads...

2008-10-30T16:49:00.009-05:00

...so I'll start with the one that least impacts me personally. Today, my 5th period class (as they were working on a review) began discussing the election. One dear boy in wranglers and a cut-off camo t-shirt decides that he is now a political commentator. He says "Obama is an idiot. His policies will ruin our country. I hope he dies." First, no, son, you are failing 10th grade biology...can you call him an idiot? Second...it's not as if Obama can do ANY worse than what we currently have (and yes, I voted for Bush...I'm just soooo over him). Third...SERIOUSLY?!??!?!?! I told him that his comment was possibly the worst thing I have ever heard in my life and that I am disappointed in him. The whole class then begins to discuss their idea that Obama will definitely be assasinated if he is elected. Which gave me pause first because I would hate for my vote to cost a life. But then I began to think of the SEVERE mess that our country would be in if, in fact, their horrible idea would come true. Can you IMAGINE the racial divides, hatred, and violence that will be incited if that does, indeed, come true?? I can't even put into words how much my students' comments made me think today.

Regardless of your political views...pray for the safety of the winner. And for the safety of our nation...because we need it. Especially if the ridiculously hateful people that are in every corner of our nation follow through with what they say they want to do. Praise the Lord that we don't have to fear! He is in control.

Now, to the part that I WANT to talk about and brings me joy:

All week, I have been wrestling with what to say about Sunday. What a BEAUTIFUL God-send Sunday was! It began with Justin and I driving to Lake Jackson for church at Brazos Pointe with my family. The Daraja Children's Choir of Kenya had been in LJ since Thursday, with three little girls staying at my parent's house. Sunday morning, they performed a couple songs and I was BLOWN AWAY. They praise like nothing I have ever seen. It began by watching a video of these children telling us how/why they are orphans or living at the children's home that my brother and sister worked at in Kenya last summer. My heart wanted to burst for them...sweet Josephine telling us how her father died of AIDS two years ago. This beautiful, gleaming, child of God...and all she can talk about is how He has saved her and she can't help but sing for Him.

The message was beautiful. Just beautiful. The theme was injustice which was defined as people not getting what they don't deserve. Think about...drink that in... We live in a just society, which means we get what we don't deserve. Our God is a God of justice...which means He is compassionate (Psalm 116:5), a God of wrath (Psalm 12:5...I love this one so I will write it all out: "Because of the oppression of the weak and the groaning of the needy, I will now arise," says the Lord. "I will protect them from those who malign them."), and a God of rescue (Psalm 35:10). How amazing is that!!!? And what does He command of us??

Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed, defend the cause of the orphan, plead the case of widow. Isaiah 17:7

Wow. What a command. First, seek justice. Seek out people who aren't getting what they don't deserve. Then he gives us three people groups to demand justice for. The second caught our hearts this weekend.

The orphan.
Carol. Sweet Carol. She is in the first grade at the age of 13. She and her two sisters have been at the Havila orphanage for two months. They were rescued from a coffee farm...and Carol is the oldest. Three girls on their own at their age. I sit here with tears on my face for Carol. She stayed with my family and ALL she could talk about is how the LORD has blessed her and loves her as a daughter. She barely knows a fathers love, but she knows her Father's love. (and she wants to be a teacher...kindred spirits!)

Carol, Josephine, and Varel. They breezed through our lives and I know we will never be the same.

Now, the call. The Lord has called Justin and I to action. First, small actions: we have another child support payment to make every month. We decided to sponsor an orphan (Susan) through the 410 Bridge in addition to Chris who I have had for a few years. The beautiful thing about Susan is that we can meet her! Our next step is likely to travel to Kenya this summer with the 410 Bridge!!!! I am giddy just thinking about it. We are still in prayer about the logistics and money, but we would both like nothing more than to spend two weeks singing with the sweet kids we met last week.

Lastly, adoption. We are passionate about adoption. I have no idea what color, what nationality, or when...but I know when my heart stirs. And my heart was churning for the children we saw. I have an inkling we will end up with an African child because the Lord put Africa on Justin's heart three years ago and on mind since then as well. We are SO open to that door whenever the Lord calls!

Injustice is everywhere. It's the child in my classroom who goes home afraid of her parents. The widow who sits at home alone. The child orphaned in Africa, Asia, America...

Please. Join with the Lord. Answer his call.

Please check out 410 Bridge, Daraja Choir, and consider giving this Christmas to the beautiful faces you will see on this website. There are plenty of places to give on that website and many others.

That was long...but so necessary.

With pouring love,
Laura and Justin

Lazy Saturday

2008-10-25T17:05:00.004-05:00

I love days like this. Where it's hard to think of things to do...things you HAVE to do. The only real task we've had all day is cleaning up the electric griddle after breakfast. And Justin did it, not me. We've had such a beautiful day. Except for the fact that I can't find a pair of jeans that fit me to save my life. They're either too low, too tight, to stretchy...etc. Sigh. And it doesn't help that my clothing budget has drastically shrunk. Not that I spent a lot before marriage and teaching, but I had the option of spending more than I do now. Oh well, ugly jeans are a small price to pay for marriage!

On Friday, we had the Cy-Fair vs. Cy-Woods football game. We (meaning Cy-Fair) lost (of course). Poor boys...as an adult, you get to not care about the result but you can't help but feel for the group of boys out there. They deserve a win more than anyone and can't get it. We took Kate and Brian Cruickshanks (Mr. and Mrs. C...it's easier for all of us that way ;) ) with us to the game because we each get a guest pass and Mrs. C teaches at a brand new school without varsity sports (or more important to her, without a marching band). It was a good evening preceded by a long dinner at an okay Mexican restaurant. It was one of those places that you have to wait hours to get in and all we have heard about is how amazing it is...and it was okay, but not worth circling the parking lot and yelling at people coming out to find out where they parked (happened to us by 3 people when we came out).

We slept in (till 8:30...it's hard to sleep much later when you are used to 5 am) and ate a fun breakfast of pancakes and turkey breakfast sausage (if you want pork/beef, do not come to our house...we eat turkey burgers, tacos, bacon, peperoni, sausage of any kind, etc. But don't get us wrong...we still LOVE LOVE beef and pork...we just don't cook it much for ourselves anymore. It's an "eat out" treat).

Tomorrow, we are going to Lake Jackson to see the Daraja Children's Choir of Kenya. It's the sponsored by the organization that Peter and Micaela went to Kenya with and it is composed of children from the orphanage they worked at. Brazos Pointe is so excited because they are housing these kids. My parents have four and are taking them to the Brazoswood HS football game tonight. I'm pretty sure there is nothing more ridiculous/American than a high school football game...especially a Texas football game. That should be a fun experience. I'm so excited to see them and my family!

In other (great) news, we found a church!!! We are so very excited and so very blessed to have found a body that we can belong to again.

-The Two of Us

You know you were raised in church when...

2008-10-12T09:59:00.003-05:00

...you feel guilty for not going when you feel sick. I hate that! We went to church without fail until I was in the ninth grade Sunday morning, night, and Wednesday plus any other time the church doors were open (after that we got involved in churches that were Sunday mornings and small groups during the week...beautiful invention). Which was good in every way except for this way...for now I lay on my couch, unable to swallow due to my sore throat, feeling guilty for watching TV on Sunday morning. My good Christian husband went on to church without his ball and chain. And the guilt multiplies. :)

This weekend we watched more football in a two day period than was humanly possible. And I imagine we'll continue that trend today. Friday night, we went to Justin's school game, which they lost. Saturday we woke up and went to College Station where we sat in the Henderson's living room and watched a bit of the OU/Texas game. We then proceeded to drive to campus armed with an amazing parking pass from a season ticket holder, walked the few feet to the stadium, and sat in the shade on the fifty yard line where we watched the (bad)Aggies lose...again. But it was the best game ever due to the fact that we didn't sweat at all. Not once. And we had cushioned seats. After this defeat, we drove back to Houston and straight to MY school's football game. The Cy-Fair Bobcats decided not to mess up the trend we had collected during the weekend and lost, as well. However, they played AWESOME and just barely lost to one of the better teams in the district (we're on a rebuilding year...so that's a big deal!).

I love my husband...and that is why I went along with that ridiculous weekend schedule. I also love spending time with him...I would do anything to spend a Friday/Saturday night with my cutie.

We have a new next door neighbor...who has this beagle named Toby. Toby doesn't do so well in the apartment on his own. And he expresses his feelings towards his loneliness by howling...and howling, and howling. For hooouuurrrrssss. And then when he hears her garage door open, he howls even louder. And then howls as she lets him out. And howls as he is outside. Yay! Haha...

Right now I am reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (please don't take points off...I can't figure out how to underline on here). It's fantastic and I totally recommend it. I love stories!

Wisdom wins out.

2008-10-05T14:23:00.004-05:00

Well, the Nicholses have made the "grown-up" choice for us. While we would LOVE LOVE a dog, it would be smarter for us if we wait at least until this summer. We went to the several places and just couldn't find "our" dog. Oh well! We took all of our frustration over this as a sign that it is not meant to be. But watch out...if you have a dog, we will probably live vicariously through you!

My favorite thing about being a high school teacher is that if you EVER tell anyone what you do, they respond as if you are some superhero. In reality, I'm a glorified babysitter. Haha, just kidding, but a LOT of days that's how it feels. It's a constant battle versus lazy teenagers. At least they make you laugh! On Friday, my 7th period had so many good excuses for why they just could NOT work during class. Oh silly kids...you don't fool me!

Justin and I are still struggling to find a church...which is EXTREMELY frustrating. Being apart of Houston doesn't make it easy to search for churches because you may come up with one that is an hour away. It's so hard to draw the line between being picky about what you want and deciphering what the Lord wants for you. He gives us desires for a reason, but they can often be clouded. I guess I just get to spend more time in prayer :)

-L

2008-09-29T18:44:00.001-05:00

So, 7th period wants to kill me. I'm convinced. One kid comes in daily and says "Miss, you look real nice today." Everyday. Innappropriate? Yes. Very. He also asked me to homecoming. I didn't answer him...awkward. They also totally test my patience. I have called more parents in that class than all my others combined. Whoop. But they will NOT bring me down...I am stronger. I just feel so bad for all of my sweet kids in there because there are so many ridiculous ones in there! I love how classes can be so lopsided.

In other news...we caved. We own a leash, a collar, 2 dog bowls, and a cute dog pillow. Stay tuned for more news on the puppy front...we're close. We have zero self control. Oh, well.

Oh, and insurance, why do you make yourself so difficult?? Seriously, I have a college education and it takes all of me to understand it. And I STILL have to call my mom for help. Sigh...but I used my insurance/prescription plan today! I felt so adult. But then I realized that it's me paying for that co-pay AND the plan. Boo.

Living with a boy/best friend is awesome. I came home from the doctor and he was washing clothes. Love it!

-Laura

We are strong...

2008-09-22T20:54:00.003-05:00

...heartache to heartache we stand. Just kidding. But we are strong...we resisted the urge to get a puppy. Even though one was FREE and so so so cute (you can tell that I am not the one who was strong). We are still a household of 2. Which is probably for the best because we also worked on our budget this weekend...teaching is not the field if you want the moolah...OR if you want to feel comfortable. The amount we want to save each month is almost as much as we make. Oh the joys of living on your own and figuring out life. :)

Pray for me...there are some things at work that are taking my patience and energy (not students...I love my kiddos...) and I really need some blessing from the Lord! It's my desire to bring Him with me to the people I work with...and I can't do that without Him! Enough said.

Gotta go pack my lunch...eh...maybe I'll go to bed instead...and yes, it is 9:00. I'm tiiiired!

-laura

I need to go back to work...

2008-09-19T17:04:00.004-05:00

...because all I can think about is buying a house and getting a puppy. The first is not even close to possible because we just got our first big boy/girl paychecks last week. The second...well...i want a puppy! We had talked about getting one next summer while we were out of school...but with my parents coming to our apartment to escape Sir Ike and smuggling my dog in our apartment, it has my heart aching. The shelters in Houston are overwhelmed with dogs from the lovely weather system that has granted us an un-needed week and a half off and I think that it is just the time for us to welcome a furry little friend. But don't worry...we WILL NOT be one of those couples that acts like their dog is a child. That makes me gag. But I do want one. So stay tuned...we may impulsively get a puppy this weekend...we'll see how strong we are.

Speaking of Ike...we're fine. The area is still recovering, though. There are huge areas of town that have no power and stores with no milk/eggs/meat/gas/etc. It's been a very interesting experience, that's for sure. Work starts again on Monday with kids coming back on Tuesday...hopefully.

Oh, and our car failed inspection today...we grounded it for a week because this family is a family of success. Just kidding...but seriously I feel really lame. Now we have to pay to get the computer (which is the problem) fixed so they can make sure my car doesn't pollute. Very frustrating...because there is nothing else wrong with the car. It stinks to be on your own...

-j&l

Kids are funny...

2008-08-29T15:08:00.003-05:00

My loudest, craziest student in 7th period (last class of the day) walked in today and looked at me with a big smile and said "You're lucky I came! I thought about skipping!" I wanted to say back "Now, how in the world does that make me lucky?!"

Haha...but seriously...

teaching=great

These kids are AMAZING! I only have discipline problems in 7th period because, for some reason, they thought that it would be fun to put the craziest kids in school who ALL know each other in the LAST CLASS of the day. We'll work it out...they just may not like me for a while ;) This week has been really slow and, quite frankly, boring because there is no way around lab safety. There is no way to make it fun or entertaining...

But boy do I love high school kids...they are ridiculous, think the world revolves around them, break your heart, and make you want to scream....but they also give you such a purpose. I had a kid come up to me today [tardy] and say "Miss, I'm sorry I'm late, but before we start guess what?! I got a part in the play!!" And I wanted to hug her...my sweet, late little girl. And then my precious co-teach (special ed) kiddos make me want to laughcrysmile. They are hard, but boy are they sweeeeet. Then we had a pep rally this afternoon...actually we had two. One half of the school went to the first and my half of the school went to the second. 2 minutes before they rang the bell for us to go, I have a kid stroll into class. He had gone to the first pep rally then SLOWLY walked to class...oh, high school kids.

oh, high school teachers...they might be funnier than the students. one of them today said "you know why we're crazy, right? it's the only way we make it! if we were sane, the kids would just drive us crazy!"
...fact.

Anyways, thank you for the prayers. Both of us are loving it right now. Granted, we get home at 5 and just die of exhaustion (try controlling 30 kids, being on your feet, lecturing, taking attendance, monitoring for cheating, taking up papers, answering questions, monitoring halls...you get my drift...it is BY FAR the most tiring thing i have ever ever done. ever.). School starts at 7:30 every morning...meaning we're here by 6:30...before the sun even gets here. joy.

Love always-
j&l

All grown up

2008-08-13T20:11:00.003-05:00

Justin and I are now real grown-ups. We have started our adult jobs! Justin is working as a geography teacher at a great school and is super excited. I, on the other hand, I'm slightly less excited. As a first year teacher, I am homeless! I have a job at a great school teaching biology (yay!) and environmental science (:\), but I have NO classroom (boooooooo). I get to float between three different classrooms (boo again) teaching two different classes, one of which is a tough discipline issue class. So first year for me is going to be extremely interesting! My sweet sweet husband spent this afternoon while I was at work looking up strategies for floating teachers. One of the ones I saw that I hadn't thought about was to decorate my "cart" (or what my traveling desk/classroom/storage system). This is ABSOLUTELY not what I would've wanted or ever imagined (I'm a science teacher for crying out loud...HOW DO I FLOAT??), but the Lord has given me this for a reason (as my wonderful husband reminded me). My attitude and grace in this situation is going to say a lot about my Savior. Basically, I HAVE to make it work. Pray for me! I'm definitely freaked out...it's enough to be a first year teacher! And the cherry on this sundae is that I was told I was floating and teaching two preps the day before inservice started. Praise the Lord that He is on our side! Without Him, this year will likely end me! But with Him, I have faith that it will be joyous. I'll post pictures of my "classroom" soon...my cart will be the rocking-est cart on the block.

In other news, we are in Olympic mode hard-core! Everything from beach volleyball to water polo to gymnastics. We are loving it. It's amazing to me what some of those people can do. The male gymnists do things that I could not even begin to imagine being possible! It's also been so interesting/strange to watch China try and "pretty" up their image with all of these surface level "changes". It's so strange to see a country think that the world will forget their closed-minded traditions because of bells and whistles. It is a beautiful country and the Olympic games are simply amazing. It's been such a fun week!

Keep praying for us! We get our kiddos on the 25th and we'll need all the prayer you can give us!

Laura

Married life = good life

2008-07-30T20:49:00.010-05:00

So, I'm sitting here with my headache-ing husband flipping between Jon and Kate and the (losing) Astros. I figured it was as good a time as any to update our blog about our trip to glorious Mexico and our (almost) new life.

So, yes, we went to Mexico! We had such an amazing time at a resort outside of Playa del Carmen. It was called El Dorado Seaside Suites and it is the same resort that our sweet friends, the JonesES (I have recently learned how to properly pluralize my own new name and the names of other people that end in an S...thank you fellow grammar policewoman, Beth! I'm so ashamed...you should take my badge away). It was beautiful, filled with British people (which was SO fun), and had the best food we have ever eaten. We just relaxed on the beach all day, ate, ate, and ate. We did go to Chichen-Itza one day which was amazing. The Mayan ruins just astounded us. All of their buildings were so purposeful and designed to keep the people believing that their gods really had power, which in turn helped the government keep them under control. We were also told that every building (and there were HUNDREDS...and even more than that they haven't restored) would have been painted in bright reds, blues, greens, and yellows. It was definitely the history buff in the family's favorite day.

We also had he opportunity to go visit some fantastic friends. A little background here: The Pauls are some of my parents oldest and best friends (as in high school and college) and our families have always been very close. John Paul, who is close to my age, married his new wife on the same day as Justin and I. We couldn't have picked anyone better to share an anniversary with! So when we realized that we were going to the same area of Mexico, we knew we had to meet up. So we both took Mexican taxis (an experience!) to Playa to spend the afternoon together. The new Pauls are going to move to Boston in the next few days and we can't wait to come and visit! Fenway here we come!!! We just loved seeing them and just LOVE them.

When we cam back from Mexico, we immediately went to San Antonio to my sweet Ashley's wedding. Ashley and I have been friends since the VERY beginning of freshman year and have been roommates for two years. She married Ben Carter who is AMAZING and their wedding was beautiful. The Lord was so glorified in the whole day and I know will continue to be glorified throughout their lives together. It was a great way to end the honeymoon because it reunited the Hawktree girls one last time before we spread out all over the country.

Right now, Mr. and Mrs. Nichols are in their apartment in Houston. We officially start working August 14th, and right now we are simply soaking up this time together and with nothing to do. We have our apartment all set up and organized and can't wait to have some visitors. So please...come visit...

Love always-

Justin and Laura

The MARRIED Nichols

2008-07-24T21:10:00.009-05:00

We're married! We're the Nichols now! What a day it was. We had so much help from SOOO many people and we could never thank them enough. The whole thing was beautiful. The tuxes, the dresses, everything was amazing. My sweet Mary helped as the coordinator and her little girl was our "flower girl". She's only 1 1/2, so petal throwing is a little bit beyond her. Our ring bearer was a friend from WV and he was a professional. He pulled Sarah in a wagon and did AMAZING.
It took tons of work, but the stage ended up beautiful. It was very simple (like I like it), but still very pretty. All of the flowers were PERFECT. The cute little English Florist (yes...that's her nationality AND her business name) did an amazing job. If you live in LJ, get her to do your wedding. Plus, her awesome accent is a bonus. She kept saying "it's going to be gorgeous" and her English accent was so reassuring.The day was perfect...minus Justin's ruined groom's cake. It would have looked awesome...but the day was just as perfect without it! I can't WAIT to see all the pictures...these are from amazing friends who took a LOT of the day. They are so beautiful that I can't even begin to anticipate what my photographer's will look like. We had lots of dancing, Aggie War Hymning, and eating. And the cake was AWESOME.
Oh, and FLiC was there...Flove, baby.

Married...:) Come visit us. We'll try and put pictures up of the honeymoon in Mexico (pre-Dolly) soon.
Lots of love-
The Nichols

Honeymoon is almost here...

2008-07-08T01:09:00.002-05:00

Sooo tired...I just want Saturday to get here with everything done. Yay for only doing this once.

And YAY for going to Mexico NEXT WEEK with my bff! I totally know why people go on honeymoons...

--The "I hope I make it to becoming a" Nichols

Scared of aliens

2008-07-07T23:38:00.003-05:00

Should I be worried about these aliens you are talking about? You know, I do not see how someone could be a scientist and not see a Creator behind it all. I do not know much about science, but when you hear about how intricate and interconnected this whole world is, it's just too great for something random. Anyways, that's not really my area. If you have any questions about Africa or something, let me know.

I feel kind of guilty about all of the work Laura is doing for the wedding. She seems to be going 90 mph trying to get everything together, and I'm going golfing tomorrow. Today all I did was wash my clubs and go for a walk with my mom. I just hope that she is able to relax enough on Saturday to actually enjoy everything she has done.

It's awkward when certain topics pertaining to marriage come up with family members (including your Grandpa). No elaboration needed. Just weird.

-The current Nichols

mmm bethany dillon...or mrs. shane?

2008-07-06T00:46:00.002-05:00

I'm listening to the beautiful, smooth voice of b. dillon right now and pondering the fact that she is now married to a Shane from Shane and Shane. I can't remember which one, though. My roommate, Rebekah, the resident Bethany stalker would know. ;) Love you, reba. One of her songs, You Are On Our Side, could quite possibly be one of the most beautiful songs that paints one of the most beautiful pictures of our Beautiful God that I have ever heard. I love that the Lord could just stay silent, but still he sent His Son for us. He is on our side!!! I am so thankful and in debt (that is paid) to Him. He is endlessly good to us. Why the Creater of all life would love us, I have no idea!

Speaking of that, I was reading about microorganisms on the internet (nerd) and someone had commented on this article about Archea (which prefer to live in boiling water and/or in super concentrated sulfurous places...how cool?). It caught my attention because the person had said something to the effect of "I can't wait until they find life on other planets. It will be hilarious to see how crazy bible thumpers handle it." And I got mad at first...then I agreed. I was first mad because the bible doesn't discount this idea. Granted, it doesn't say that the Lord created life on other planets. I believe He has created lifeless planets that only serve to bring Him pure glory. Even though we can't see them, they shout to Him in praise. But, the bible also doesn't say that he DIDN'T create life on other planets. After all that I have seen Him create here and the creativity He has expressed through them, I couldn't possibly say that I would be surprised if there were life on some other planet. Our God is BIG and can do whatever the heck He wants. Hence the name God. So, when I first read that comment, I wanted to find that person and tell them all of that plus my stance on evolution and Christianity. But then, I got sad, because I saw what he was saying. How many Christians would argue until their face is blue about something so trivial as life on other planets (likely knowing little to nothing about this topic)? While science time and time again points to God (and I could go on and on), we can't PROVE to a dead set scientist that everything was created by Him. And that's how the Lord designed this whole creation. You can't, in the end, deny He did it...but you can certainly overlook that fact because it requires a touch of faith. And faith isn't proven by a formula or by fossil records. And faith can't be forced. That's what Christians (generally ones who know little about science) try to argue onto the world (and into textbooks).

Am I saying that Creationism isn't true? Hecks no. What I AM saying, though, is that the Christian community has taken things like creation vs. evolution, anti-dancing (STILL ridiculous), anti-gay, and many more and just run wild with them! Now we are to the point that people laugh about how we will handle life on other planets. We should just rejoice for our God is so much bigger than we know! We are flawed...and this is another example. I can't wait for the day when the church is like Jesus! But until then, let's let the world see us as love and not fight, k? (speaking to myself, as always...flawed to the bone)

We had a Tool Party for Justin last week. He got all sorts of manly gifts like hammers and screw drivers. It was fantastic fun. It was great to see my little man so excited about things like shop towels and super puddy. He's perfect...;)

We are all "moved in" to our new apartment. And that is in quotes because our stuff is thrown in there. So technically it is in, but I wish you could see a picture. It's hard to even walk around the rooms because of all of the junk we have in boxes/piles! It's a brand new apartment complex and the drains are doing this weird thing that whenever you turn on the water, they start to smell like nasty sulfur drainage. It was unbearable at first. Then we were told that because it was new, you needed to flush the drains out. To do that, we have to run water down every sink for 20 or so minutes, run the dishwasher several times, run the washer several times, and flush the toilet...over and over. What a waste!!! It kills me to do that! And it makes me kind of grossed out that it is doing this to us. Oh well.

One week :)

--The ALMOST Nichols (L)

Our turn

2008-06-22T10:52:00.004-05:00

Well, we just got home from the LAST wedding we are attending before our own! Praise the Lord!!!! It was (of course) beautiful. We drove all the way to Brownwood to see my dear friend Lindsey marry Brett. She looked gorgeous and he looked excited. I love looking at the groom as the bride walks in...his face says it all. And Brett was so so happy. After we went to the wedding, we went and had dinner in the thriving metropolis of Brownwood (hehe) with some other dear friends. Bridget and Jonathan got married last summer and are getting ready to move to east Texas. That dinner was one of the most enjoyable conversations we've had in a long time! Those two are so sweet and we pray the Lord keeps them in our life!

Today we went to sign our lease at our apartment. I dropped off a car load of stuff...and I feel like I'm coming undone at my seams right now!!! I'm trying to pack up the house I've lived in for two years and collected massive amounts of "stuff" in. In addition to the horrors of packing, I'm also trying to figure out what is going to Houston with us, Lake Jackson with me for the next two weeks, Mexico with us for honeymooning, and Lake Jackson permanently. I'm not a very good packer. Seriously...I will start to pack a closet, move on to another closet, then the bathroom, back to the first closet...etc. There are odds and ends everywhere and I have NO idea where this will all go in our apartment. I love moving into new places and this move is pretty much the highlight of my life (love you roomies, but it's true), however, it is downsizing. I'll have more space in the kitchen but much less space in the bedroom and way less "working" space. It's a sacrifice that is well worth it, though. ;)

I'm sitting staring at blank white walls right now wondering how I am possibly 2.5 weeks away from marriage. Just yesterday I was a girl who had never kissed a boy (with seemingly no prospects, either!) and today I'm almost my first kiss's new wife! :) God is good.

I had to choose an energy provider today (scary and intimidating)...and figure out how we are going to live without money until our first pay check...SEPTEMBER 15TH! It would be so nice to go to school forever...but that's not possible. The Lord is definitely using everything He can right now to teach me not to worrry but bring it to Him in prayer and petition. It's amazing how He comes through time and time again. The endlessly faithful God for an extremely faithless me. He is so good! (that just doesn't express it...it's so much more than that).

You should come help me move...if you can put up with a bewildered me!

--The (almost) Nichols

Rants and Raves of a Teacher

2008-06-19T01:15:00.000-05:00

While I may not be an adept speller (bless you, spell check), there are things about people's grammar that drive me NUTS:

1. When people ask a question but don't put a question mark at the end of the sentence. Example: Are you going be there!! Or Are you so excited!!!!!
That's not right, people. If you want to express excitement, use a question mark and an exclamation point. But please be sure to include the question mark. It's vital.

2. When people misuse your and you're. It's not that hard. I know you can do it if you put your mind to it. You're is a conjunction of you and are. Your is possessive. You're getting basic English wrong when your sentences contain those words incorrectly!

3. When people misuse their, there, and they're. Now, we all slip up and our brain types/writes without thinking...but let's make a pact to check that more often. There is a place, their is possessive, and they're is a conjunction of they are. Not hard.

4. Alot is not a word! If you want to express a large quantity of something you should say "I have a lot of beavers" or "there are a lot of hippies here".

5. It's and its are not the same thing. While most often we tack on an apostrophe s to show possession, in this case, it's is a conjunction of it is.

I'm totally taking off for this stuff next year. My students will whine and complain because their papers that use texting language (and it's not a joke...they turn in junk like that) will be marked to shreds. Cry all you want, dear, you WILL write at least somewhat correctly. And yes, I am a biology teacher. And no, this isn't English class. But just because it isn't English doesn't mean you can write like a 2nd grader.

They're going to hate me...but they'll never ever forget again.

--The meanest soon-to-be Nichols (Laura)

Slow down life, we can't keep up!

2008-06-18T12:30:00.000-05:00

We are now 24 days out. Crazy? Yes. I have a list as long as my arm of things yet to be done, decisions that need to be made, etc. Praise the Lord that wedding planning is only a tiny, tiny part of this whole thing. It doesn't help, either, that Justin still has a couple weeks of graduate classes left.

Two days ago, I created the slideshow for our wedding and it was so fun to see little baby Justin! He's way too cute (and still is...) for his own good. I had a lot of visions of my own little ones as I looked through the pictures. Hey, I'm a girl, I can't help it. Granted it may not be soon that we have some of our own, but it COULD happen. Scary thought... This picture could be my favorite of them all...the classy white diaper, ice cream up in his face (which adult Justin doesn't really like), and that cute, cute hair.This weekend, we went to what felt like our 100th wedding this summer. It is so fun to see everyone's take on a wedding. Every one that you go to is a little different, a little more custom fit to the couple. It's fun to see personalities come out in the wedding. This all got me thinking about how our wedding fits us--so much of it I LOVE, but I've had a breakdown about the location. It's at my church in Lake Jackson which is extremely special to me and my family but...it's in a shopping center. I just realized how odd that is...and began to wish that someone had told me that before a month out!! I've kind of resigned to the fact that I'm getting married in an old Weiner's (yes, an old Weiner's store...), but I still wish I had gone the more traditional route. The inside will be beautiful and we are going to work hard to down play the ugly paint color on some of the walls, but people are still going to drive up thinking "what the heck? this is ridiculous!!" And add to that the fact that the church decided to tear up the facade the week before the wedding (thanks for that). At the end of all of this, we will still be married, which is great. I still have that little insecure girl inside me that is freaking out about what other people are thinking about it.

We have been so blessed by the showers and pre-wedding gifts we have been given. While we are still panicking because we are lacking in some necessities (sheets, towels, and pots anyone???), we have been given some fantastic gifts. What's not so fantastic is that they are all sitting in my room taking up loads and loads of space. I've arranged and rearranged all of the stuff, but there is no way around it...my room is a mess. What's even LESS fantastic is that all of these gifts are still in their boxes. I love household items and Justin and I love to cook (you know how they say sex begins in the kitchen?? yeah...we'll be okay!), so it makes me sad that we can't use them just yet. But trust me, I look at them all every night before I go to bed. They're all so beautiful and they're all OURS. :)

Okay, I (Justin) can take it from here. Being in grad school has definitely been hard, mainly because I do not really have time to hang out with Laura that much. She is in Lake Jackson doing wedding stuff as you can see. I am excited about the wedding, (so, yes, to all the people who ask if I am excited about getting married) but even more than that, I am ready to move and get started on the next phase of our life together.

As you may know, Laura and I have teaching jobs in northwest Houston for next year. Sometimes it is a scary thought to know that students who are on summer break right now will soon be sitting in desks wondering how anyone could be that excited to talk about geography. I was sitting in one of my classes the other day, and it hit me that I have so many advantages over my fellow future teachers. First, I know that my success as a teacher has nothing to do with my own skills, and everything to do with God's. And second, I have the best support system anyone could wish for greeting me when I come home from work everyday. Not only is Laura smart and tells me how to do things, but she is so encouraging when it comes to me teaching and working with kids.

About the church being in an old Weiner's, I am not really that concerned. I think it is going to look great. No one will notice the building anyways. The only thing I remember about the past three churches I have been in for weddings is the hymn numbers posted on the walls and creepy floating baby angel heads.

--The (soon-to-be) Nichols

2.5 Months Out

2008-04-21T16:38:00.000-05:00

Technically we're not "The Nichols" yet, but we're close! 2.5 months away...82 days. We are so excited! It feels like our whole life has been leading up to this point and we just want to get there! Three years has never felt so short and sooooooo long at the same time.

In anticipation of this whole "moving in with a boy" thing that I am about to do, I decided it would be good to rid myself of all of that stuff I already know I will have no use for. 5 trash bags full of old throw pillows, clothes, shoes, picture frames, and purses. I'm sure it sounds as if I have a "stuff" addiction, but it's quite the opposite. I hate to throw something away that I may use again. Now, why in the world I thought I would use a teal feathered picture frame again, I'm not sure. But I hate to be wasteful...so in a way, all of that extra stuff is really me trying to be frugal.

Speaking of moving in with a boy, it's so foreign to me that this will be allowed in 2 months! All of these years thinking that it would just be easier if we lived together and we're about to! But now part of me thinks that maybe it won't be easier, just better. And better is good.