I have been a bad blogger again!  The end of school finished well, the concert was a success and I floated into Christmas vacation on a sugary cloud of happiness. 
This December was one of the more busy ones that I can remember.  I made a point of getting us out and doing things all month long.  We jumped on a bus for caroling, a community event called Music   that Moves you.  I went to hear the community choirs sing christmas songs and I also managed to squeeze in a performance of the Nutcracker!  That was as well as movies, visiting and skating.  Very busy.  We had a very busy first week of holidays with invitations to dinner, a gift exchange and other chances to visit.  Chris was fighting a cold for the entire week, and I finally took pity on him and postponed a dinner I had planned with another couple. 
Christmas Eve we spent alone with yummy food and a couple of movies.  We had a lovely Christmas dinner with Bryce and Michelle and their family and managed to get out to shop on Boxing Day.  We both found a pair of snow pants for skiing, so counted ourselves lucky and went home after that one stop.  Boxing Day shopping is not my favourite time to shop, unless it's online.  The weather finally warmed from -30 something to -10 or so which is nice.  We have been able to get out skiing a couple of times.  We are lucky and the Nordic Ski club maintains trails at a local golf course.  Yesterday there was a Mama moose and her calf hanging around.  We avoided their little area and just turned around instead.  The sun has made an appearance as well, which makes the temperatures a little easier to handle.  It's been beautiful skiing weather for sure. 
As we are wrapping up our last bit of vacation time I am finishing up a couple of December projects that I started as well as thinking about taking down the decorations.  I've tried to bargain to keep the tree up, but no dice.  Ah well, I guess I just have to figure out another way to get miniature lights into the livingroom decor!

We're almost there

The last week of school before a holiday is always hard, but this is Christmas!  It's even worse.  Especially with Christmas being only a week away.  The kids are high strung and excited, the teachers are exhausted and counting down the days.  Christmas Concert is tonight, and then we can take a little breath.  I know that most parents love the concert idea, but I don't think many know how much time and energy goes into putting on a "little show".
Anyway, I will be more than ready to hit the pub on Friday night, putting it all behind me.

Let it snow!

I was all ready to start December with enthusiasm.  On the first, we went for dinner with friends and on Sunday morning I woke myself up with the chills and it didn't get better.  The Flu had hit it's mark.  3 days later, I was able to make myself appear human again and make it into work.  Our class was supposed to start a few different projects, and we have made a lot of progress with them. 
At home, the decorating is mostly done, but not totally finished.  My cards have yet to go out, although I have collected a bunch of addresses, so those are on the list for tomorrow night. 
We have feet of snow, and I have to say, I can't wait for more!  It is supposed to warm up, which will be too bad because all the great snow we have will get yucky.  I haven't gotten out to ski yet as the temperatures have been so extreme.  We've been sitting at -30 something with windchill for most of last week.  I don't own all the fancy gear to be able to get outside in weather like that.  Good news is, we did see the sun for a few long periods today.  That's always nice.  I am really hoping to get out skiing this week, but it looks like it might have to wait until the weekend. 

Happy December!

Today is the day that the self-imposed ban on everything Christmas is lifted!  I have been waiting all week for this day, and with the snow falling outside and all my decorations inside and warmed up, I'm ready to get started.  I even bought a new Christmas album this year.  Along with all the decorating I have two projects that I am going to try to do side by side this year.  One is December Daily and the other is Journal Your Christmas.  Of course I have things happening over in the classroom too, but today is not about work, it's about enjoying the weekend.  Besides decorating, I am hoping to get my Christmas cards into envelopes and ready to mail out on Monday and there's a few emails that I have neglected to return.  Christmas shopping almost done, I really don't want to be out in the shops today with the roads so bad.  It turns people cranky and they harsh my Christmas buzz.
Well off to decorate!

Early start?

The Christmas season seems to be starting earlier and earlier every year.  I have already been to two Christmas events, and today I heard carols in stores.  Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas, but I almost feel tired of it when December actually gets here.  I have to admit though that I do love the shopping and wrapping of presents.  I am going to be doing 2 December projects this year and am trying to get the foundations done before next week.  I will be doing December Daily as well as Journal Your Christmas.  Both are a daily activity, but come from different angles.  We'll see how it goes.  I finished JYC 2011 two weeks ago, you could say I was a little behind.  Oh well.

Report cards go home this week and then we have parent interviews Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  Why is it the parents you see all the time and come into the school all the time, are always the ones that want to talk and the other parents hide?  More than half of my parents did not respond to the interview request, so I'll be doing a lot of phone calls this year.  Such fun!

Good news, my classroom finally has heat in the 20's.  For two years, I have frozen all Winter, but parental concerns were noted and someone finally looked into the problem.  Apparently, my room was a little cooler than normal!  You don't say!  This week was lovely and warm, and I didn't have to wear 2 sweaters during the day.  We have been at -20 (-30 with windchill) for most of the week and not much snow, but it is definitely Winter out there.  We have been talking about time and Seasons at school and as I was reading a little book about the topic, we got to Fall.  The kids looked curiously at the pictures that showed green grass and lovely coloured leaves.  They pointedly looked outside and hands shot up "that book is wrong!  That's not Fall!" I assured them that not everywhere has a foot of snow for Halloween.  It mollified them slightly, but they didn't seem completely convinced.  Oh well, that's life in the North.

Is it worth it?

We keep our snow tires at the dealership where we bought the Forrester. This is a great idea most of the time. It's the two times a year when we have to change them that it proves to be extremely inconvenient. We have to make an appointment, drive for two hours and then hang around waiting for them to be put on. On days like today I have to ask if it's worth it. We had to get up at 7 on a Saturday and of course the weather has changed and it is freezing rain. The highway was a skate rink for a long portion of our trip. We were warned coming into the slippery section by two truckers standing on the side of the road. We pulled over to assess the situation. Lots of trucks were on the side of the highway putting on their chains and two vehicles in the ditch. If we didn't have the appointment and if winter hadn't come so early for us, we would have turned around, but we needed our tires changed. We might have to make some space in the shed.

Halloween is over... almost

Halloween.  That wonderful time of year when kids think of nothing except how much free candy they are going to get and the costume they are going to wear to get it.  That day is over for us, thankfully but now comes the really hard part.  Dealing with kids that have too much sugar running through their veins for the next 2 days. 

Ms Frizzle and the Magic School Bus

My class is really wonderful.  They are a very easy bunch to get along with, but I know for some the next couple of days is going to be hard.  Some will have candy pouring out of their lunch kits and won't really understand why they can't eat it all.  By Friday they will have eaten most of thier stash (hopefully) and then I won't have to deal with it for too much longer after that. 
This year, I convinced my wonderful husband to dress up.  He doesn't much care for Halloween.  I don't know if it's because of the face paint, scary costumes or what, but usually he takes a pass.  This year, he got in on the action. I haven't had a real costume in a long time and it was fun.  Being sick for the last 2 weeks dampened my enthusiasm slightly, but we finished our costumes at 11pm last night and had them ready for today.  It was a fun and busy day, and when we finally turned off the light at 8:30 we were both exhausted.
Last year, we spent about $70 for pumpkins for our two classes.  This year we asked for donated pumpkins, and I was pleasantly surprised.  We had 8 big pumpkins and 4 small ones come in for carving.  It was fabulous!  And the parent support I got was really great too.  I had 6 moms and an uncle come in to help carve.  It was great because I wasn't running around trying to get everything done myself and my classroom was pretty clean by the end of the day.  Whew! 

The big bummer about Halloween this year was the fact it was -15 at 5:30pm and got colder and there was 2 feet of snow.  We got 89 kids this year which was still pretty good, but last year we had over 100.  Still it wasn't windy, so our beautiful pumpkins stayed lit for the night.