Song and verse of the week.

This is the song and the verse that have impacted me most this week:

Acts 11:19-20- ¹¹ God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, ¹² so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them. (How cool is that? Even a HANDKERCHIEF that Paul touched healed people!)


How He Loves- David Crowder

He is jealous for me, loves like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy
When all of a sudden I am unaware of these afflictions
Eclipsed by glory and I realize just how beautiful You are
And how great Your affections are for me

And oh, how He loves us, oh
Oh, how He loves us, how He loves us all

He is jealous for me, loves like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy
When all of a sudden I am unaware of these afflictions
Eclipsed by glory and I realize just how beautiful You are
And how great Your affections are for me

Oh, how He loves, yeah, He loves us
Oh, how He loves us, oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves

And we are His portion and He is our prize
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes
If His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking

And heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don't have time to maintain these regrets
When I think about the way

Oh, how He loves us, oh
Oh, how He loves us, how He loves all
How He loves

Yeah, He loves us, oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves us, oh how He loves
Oh, I love

Yeah, He loves us, yeah, He loves us
How He loves us, oh, how He loves us all

Highlights.

This week was busy...we were home Sunday and Thursday night. Which some would say is enough, but that's really busy for us. We also had a law school scare for a few days, thinking Kley wouldn't graduate as planned, but thankfully that fire is simmering and he is still going to graduate. Needless to say, it was a worrisome couple days. Thank you, Lord, for being the ultimate planner, for providing, and for caring for us. 2014 is going to be a big year for us! Help us to trust You, God, and seek You.

But...I wanted to share the highlights for the week.

Since my job does four 10 hour days, I don't work on Tuesdays. I was able to go out for lunch with my parents and then go Christmas shopping with my mom. It was awesome, and I will treasure that memory. Not only do I not get much time with my parents, or just my mom, alone, but I treasure it even more since we will not always live close together. It was a great afternoon.

Friday night was also really awesome. We had a bunch of friends over from our small group, and we just hung out, ate, talked, fellowshipped, and played games. We felt very full in all senses of the word, physically (yummy food!), literally (our apartment was crammed!), emotionally (great fellowship and laughter!), spiritually (friends are such a blessing!), etc. It was a wonderful night.

Thank you, Lord, for highlights.

Touching Proposal.

I saw this video the other day of someone proposing to his girlfriend, and wow, did he do a good job!

It's a little big long (7-8 minutes), but so good. He put so much thought into it and it's so meaningful!

Watch here.

(Kley, not that you didn't do a good job! You can read our engagement story here.)

Rewards always outweigh.

This last week was rough...literally.

Rough-housing, running, tackling, wrestling, climbing, pushing, grabbing- you name it. Rough.

My class has been wild and crazy recently, and hard to manage. It's not horrible, since they are not actually trying to be mean or hurt anyone, they are just being boys and loving to wrestle. I am not against kids wrestling, although it gets hard and out of control very quickly in a school setting. Let's just save all your wrestling for home, okay?

I feel like I've spent the last few days being in the rodeo or something and trying to lasso everyone in and teach them kindness and gentleness.

Today was a ray of sunshine. As a teacher, there are many demands that you must meet, all along with taking care of the kids and paying attention to them. Kids are smart- they know when they don't have your full attention.

Today was one of those great days where I felt like I still got done everything done that I needed to, yet still had time to just be with the kids. To engage in their play with my full attention. Get down on the floor and really enter their world.

They LOVE it when I do that, and I in return love it too.

Here are few favorite snip-its of the day:

1. One of my kids came up to me, unprovoked, and gave me a hug and said she wanted to be a teacher just like me when she grew up.

2. Another hug from a boy who put his cheek right next to mine and gave me the biggest smile.

3. Laying on the floor and being the "patient" while they examined me with doctor tools. (For some reason, kids think it's so hilarious when teachers lay down on the floor.)

4. Learning about wind and air during our large group time this morning and blowing up a balloon (we are learning about weather this week). I let the balloon go and they watched it zoom all over the room as the air screeched out. They freaked out and loved it so much. It's so much fun to watch kids be completely engaged and love learning.

5. Next week, we are learning about dinosaurs. I change the books in the reading center every Thursday, so today I put out some dinosaur books. I got one from the library about the biggest dinosaurs, and each page had not one, but TWO flip open flaps, so the dinosaur was three pages long. One picture had a T-Rex eating some sort of smaller dinosaur. It was somewhat graphic, but one of my boys loved it so much. He literally looked at the same picture for 20 minutes and showed it to every other child in class (and also one teacher and two parents who came in during that time). We talked about how sometimes bigger animals eat smaller animals and what that meant for the T-Rex to be eating him. He was entranced and it was so neat to be a part of his learning. Watching kids be excited is so awesome!

Today was a great day. The rewards always outweigh whatever negatives happen. :)

Halloween Party 2013!

Tonight was our small group's halloween party. It was super fun! It was a costume party, so here is what everyone dressed as:

Brian and Nicole were Sheldon and Amy from Big Bang Theory. Their son, Brayden, was a prison inmate with tatted sleeves. 

Kley and I were each other- I was pretty proud of that idea! We wanted to come up with something to not spend any money, so we just swapped clothes. It was funny. This was Kley's "girl smile" with my purse. Ha. You can't really see in the picture, but me wearing Kley's pants was the funniest part of my outfit. 

Matt and Kate were pirates- "Black Beard" and "Pirate Wench Esmerelda."

Andy and Jackie were Bert Macklin from Parks and Rec and Robin Sparkles. I loved her Robin Sparkles costume!

Quentin and Ashley were a football player and 80's gone bad. Their son, Braxton, was a cute lion.

Mike and Brittany were Woody and Jessie from Toy Story.

Dave and Lindsay were hipsters.

Chris and Kristen were chicken cordon blue (get it?) and a chef. 

It was a really fun night! Jackie won the award for the girls with Robin Sparkles, and Mike won for the boys with Woody. 

We played two rounds of Mafia, and the first time I was the sheriff and the second I was mafia! It was crazy. I am hardly ever anyone (thankfully) and am a horrible liar, but I was so proud of myself. The first round as the sheriff was crazy and definitely my favorite game I've probably ever played of Mafia. Someone else lied earlier in the game, saying they were the sheriff, and I saved the truth and came out at the perfect time to win the game. :) (If anyone doesn't know what Mafia is, you can read the rules here.)

Happy Halloween!

Rascal Flatts!

Last night, I crossed something off my bucket list- seeing Rascal Flatts in concert! I was so excited, and it was so good! I have loved Rascal Flatts for a long time, and it was so fun to see them live.

The Band Perry was the opener. I knew some of their songs just from the radio, but they did a good job!

Waiting for RF to start!

Kley's anticipation (sort of). I was more pumped than him, but he did say that he had a good time.

Rascal Flatts! They had a really good show and sang almost all of my favorites. :)

They had great backgrounds, lighting, etc. with each different song too. This was was for Love You Out Loud. 

Mayberry (my favorite, probably).

Why Wait?

Bob that Head (with bobble heads of the three of them).

Fast Cars and Freedom. 

Encore at the end was Summer Nights.

It was a great night!

Why do teachers quit?

I read this article last night and thought it was very interesting. If you aren't a teacher, you probably won't be as interested as me, sorry!

Anyways, you should still read it. It's about why teachers quit.

Teaching is rewarding, but it's also hard!

Why Do Teachers Quit?