Celebrating, part 2

Oops, it's taken me a little bit of time to get back here, but I wanna put down all the rest of the fun that was had for our one year anniversary celebration, so here goes!

Friday, October 12, 2012

D and I decided to celebrate our anniversary by going back to the place where we stayed as a married couple for the first time: Opryland Hotel.  We had been blessed by a wonderful couple from our church who paid for our room last year and made that night so special for us.  When we planned on going back this year, we called a few months ahead and tried to request the same room.  "We can't do that," they said.  What?! That is lame.  I mean, it's not like somebody else has already requseted the same room for the same night.  "We can put it on a request list, and there is a good chance that you can get it when you check in," they said.  Okay.  I guess that will do.

WELL WE GOT IT PEOPLE!

Aww... there he is.... Mr. Handsome, himself.

So, we go to stay in the Cascades at the hotel, and it is my favorite because it has this beautiful waterfall that we could see from our room!  We kept the balcony doors open, and just pulled the curtains so we could hear the relaxing sound all night.  So peaceful!

We took time to walk around and enjoy the beautiful hotel.



How many times have I been to Opryland Hotel and not realized they have pools??  I mean, it makes sense...  but I've never seen them before...





I just like that plant there in the middle.  Like a firework, no?



We ate a CHEAP, but delicious, dinner at STAX.  (And that is hard to do at Opry!)







Those burgers were HUGE.  We should have shared.

P.S. I should share that we got a huge deal on this room.  If we had stayed there a week earlier, it would have been an additional $100.  PLUS, we got about a $100 discount because I'm a teacher.  God so worked this stay out in our favor!



We watched the waterfall show.  I had no idea when it started.  But when we sat down, the music came on.  Guess they were just waiting for us!





We ordered a waytooexpensive dessert from room service that completely undid the money we saved from dinner.



We slept in, woke up and played card games on the balcony, and soaked every paid-for minute of our stay!



Totally worth it.

Celebrating, part 1

Well, yesterday was the last day of a wonderful and fun-filled anniversary celebration.  Now, I can put all of the pieces together to share the story!

Monday, October 8, 2012

Leading up to the day, I tried to be blatant subtle and let D know that I wanted our first anniversary to be very special.  I told him so many times that it's not about what he gets me so much as what he does for me.  I wanted our day to truly be celebrated, ya know?  Well, maybe I have too many romantic bones in my body (or maybe I just watch WAY too many chick flicks) that I kept filling my mind with my own creation of things he could do on that day.  To be honest, I pretty much set him up for failure because there's no way he was going to live up to all of the romantic things I had already imagined him doing.  Well, I truly did just that.  I had already given up on him, and it was only 6:30am.  You see, if you recall, I have a post from a while back where I discussed my disdain for waking up every morning while he continues to sleep on and on... And I noted how I have suggested that he get up with me every once-in-awhile.  Well today was that day, I decided!  It was our anniversary after all!  But alas... there was his sleeping body as I was about to walk out the door.  So, I obnoxiously flipped on a light so that he would see that I was about to leave.  He got up and gave me a hug and an, "I love you," and a, "Happy Anniversary!"  Hmph.  I was upset, so I gave a half-hearted response and left for school.

Surely he'll come bring me lunch today, I thought.  Surely he'll bring me flowers!  Lunchtime passed.  Nada.  My little heart was just about checked out.  And then... about an hour before school was out...

TADA!

Delivery!  And when I texted him a giant Thank You, he told me he was hoping they would look like our wedding colors... awwwwwwwww!  Jerk of a wife over here has not even given my husband any chances to be amazing.  And guess what... he is.

But he wasn't done, folks.  Nope.  Because he's not just amazing... he is AMAZING.  I walk out of the school to head home and see this on my car:

Peek through to the front... Do you see?  Because I didn't yet...  But when I walked around the car and opened the door, I saw this:

Attached is a note that says something like, "A rose for every month I've been the happiest husband." (*insert awwwwwwwww*)  And do you see the little puppy?  That's my newest cuddle buddy for when my hubbs has to go out of town.

No people...  He still was not done.  Because I came home to this:

And then I got to open these:

That would be a pair of tennis shoes that I have been talking and talking about for like ever.  AND he created a scrapbook online to tell our story.  Bless.  Okay, hubbs, I'm sorry.  I shouldn't doubt you so. You are far more wonderful than I give you credit for.  Forgive?

Yeah, okay, so all of you right now are thinking... alright selfish... and did you even do anything for HIM?!  After all, it's an anniversary, which is for two people.  YES PEOPLE!  Are you kidding?!

So, all day long, starting at 10:08 (Get it?), he got to open a present every hour.  Each present was attached to a memory of a significant moment in our journey.  For example, this was the first gift....

On our first date, we went bowling (a "game"), so I got him a new game to play, where I would dominate, just like the bowling.  (hehe)  Well, we love to play Farkel (Funny name, GREAT GAME), so when I saw this game, I knew we had to have it. 

The rest of the day followed suit where he opened presents relating to those memorable events.  He bought his own wrapping paper... don't judge me.

Sorry, it's turned around.  I thought I fixed it.  Oh well. 

The last gift was meant to represent our future together. 

I got a map of the world so that we could pin the places we've been and the places we want to go.  I want to continue using this as we add kiddos to the family that might want to add pins of their own! 

All in all, I learned a huge lesson: "Don't underestimate your husband!"  He might show you that he actually does have a romantic mind, and then you'll feel like an idiot.



Loving on the man that keeps me on my toes!



365 Days Later

(Or 366 as D will correct me... Last year was a leap year, he says...)

As of October 8, 2012, I officially became an experienced wife with a wealth of knowledge about how to have a perfect marriage.  What?  Stop laughing.  I'm totally serious.


All pictures thanks to Caroline Herron!  LOVE YOU girl!



Okay, so maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but I DID officially become married for a whole year.  I can hardly believe that time has moved so quickly.  It's crazy to think that a year has already passed since my most favorite day of my life thus far.  I feel like it was just yesterday, but at the same time, I find it hard to picture myself as not married to this wonderful husband of mine! 

I thought I would take the time to list a few things that I have learned in this first year.  I can't wait to look back at this list a year (2 years, 10 years, 50 years) from now.  I'll probably laugh at myself, but that's the fun part of marriage, right?  You are both growing.  The culture around is changing.  Our household dynamic will be transformed.  The learning process will never stop! 

Here's a slice of our first year.  I'll probably think of more later and want to add to the list...

1. Being married is thebestever.

2. Being married is thehardestever.

3. D and I make cookies after almost every meal.  (He is grabbing some out of the oven as.I.type.) The 50-years-from-now me is going to read this and say, "SEE!  You did this to yourselves!!!!"

4. It is no longer scary to have a boy in the bed next to me every night.

5. I still wake up every morning to get ready by myself.  I've been doing that since middle school.  Why do I always have to be somewhere first?!  The 10-years-from-now me is going to read this and say, "He has his time coming, young one.  Just wait for the little Gibbys to be waking him up every morning!"

6. We are NOT planning on any little Gibbys any.time.soon. 

7. TV is our vice.  At any given time, we have at least 5-6 shows DVR'd every week.

8. Making time for Bible study together doesn't just come automatically.  Devotions do not just "happen" because we got married.  Devotions do not just "happen" because my husband is a pastor.  We have to be intentional.

9. We have tons of friends.  And non-tons of time to see them.

10. D is still a gentleman who opens the door for me every day.

11. D will watch all types of movies with me.  Most of you know that he has a weak spot for chick flicks.  BUT (*recent discovery*) I now know that he will also... WILLINGLY... watch Lifetime movies.  Yep.  Truestory.

12. It is the most wonderful feeling to have a permanent companion for any occasion.  I don't have to wonder... who will go with me?  I don't have to think... well, now I go home by myself.  NO!  He is there!  For all of those things!  YAY!

13. I do NOT like it when D goes out of town.  My house is creepy.  And things fall by themselves.  And my backdoor opens and slams.  And it's terrible.  So I sleep on the couch with the TV on ALL NIGHT.  Everything magically is okay again the moment he comes back.

14. We can be thrifty when we need to be, but otherwise, we are not very good at that.

15. If I don't put the new toilet paper roll on the holder.... it will never go on.

16. We are both lazy when it comes to keeping the house clean, so no one is ever allowed to come over unexpected! (Seriously.  Don't do it.  I won't let you in.)

17. D and I generally have the same taste in home decor, so that makes it very easy when we buy things for the home.  Unfortunately, we don't have much "home" to put all of the things we buy in...




We will always remember our first home!

 18. God does not let me go to bed with an angry heart.  If I am upset or frustrated or hurt or whatever, I cannot go to sleep until I tell D what I am feeling.

19. D is a great listener.  Sometimes he reacts quickly, but he never lets an argument be left unfinished.  And he doesn't let me shut down.  He works so hard to make sure we are okay.

20. D handles the finances because he is good at it.  Praise the Lord he actually understands all that stuff!!!

21. Marrying the man that I did also meant marrying into a family name.  That means that all the little boys we have one day are supposed to have "Wayne" in their name somehow.  Idunlikeit.  BUT I think we are finally starting to come to terms with working around it.  (Fingers crossed, people!)

22. We are good at making meals together.  D cooks the meat.  I make the sides.  And it is always yummy.  (Except sometimes when I try a Pampered Chef recipe and it's not as tasty as the recipe would lead you to believe...)

23. D will never stop trading cars.  He says he will one day when he finally gets "that one great car".  Yeah right.  I'll believe it when it happens.

24. Sex is not like the movies.  There.  I said it.

25. I am married to my absolute best of the best friend.  He has my back every day and I know it.  I have his back and he knows it.  I trust in him as the head (lowercase "h") of the household as he follows the lead of Christ, the Head (capital "H") of the household.  Even if that means moving to Florida.  (AHH! I typed it!  The words are on the world wide web!) Yes, that means moving to Florida.  For those of you who are seeing those words for the first time... I will post more about it later.  It's been in the works for awhile, but I've kept it close and personal until it was time for everyone to know.  All I know is that I couldn't do this, and I believe that I wouldn't be doing this, if I wasn't with this man.  How blessed am I to be able to follow the path designed by our Creator with such a wonderful and loving husband.




We will begin a tradition of taking a photo with a picture from the year before.


Happy 1st Anniversary, love!
I love you Fluffykins.
Boop!

Blenders are the funnest.

This week my kiddos are learning to read beginning blends (i.e. st, sp, br, fl, gl, etc...).  I do not claim the following lesson idea as my own, but I can just tell you how much I LOVE it.  (AND how much my kids are in awe of my magic skills!)  Let me set up the background before I tell you a funny story about my childrenssss. 

So, you take a blender, not plugged in of course.  You throw in a little card that says "s".... and then you throw in a card that says "n".  You hold up the blender and make the appropriate blender noise (brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr) while swirling the blender around.  (It's not plugged in, remember??  You gotta make the magic happen!)  And then "DING"!  It's done!  You reach in the blender and tah-dah!!!!!  There's a card that says "sn"! 

Magic.

Here's how the magic happens (because I'm not a real magician, and I do reveal my secrets to special parties such as yourself):  You line the inside of the blender with construction paper so they can't see inside.  You put the whole cards in there before the lesson so the kids don't see it, and you have the individual letter cards stacked in the order of the cards already in the blender!  Magic, people.

Okay, so yesterday I introduced the first set of blends... the "s" blends... and I totally forgot how in awe my students were last year when we did this, so it was extremely exciting to see my kids react this year.  Once I pulled out the first blend put together on a card and showed them the card... there was silence.

*Insert cricket chirping*

Seriously.  It kinda threw me for a loop because I'm looking for a response.  Wait for it.... wait for it.... wait for it... About 10 seconds later there was a giant woaahhhhhhhhhhh across the classroom.  Then I heard a couple of "HOW did that happen?!?!?!" statements.  I'm magic, people.  What did I tell you??  Entranced they were!  What a spectacular teacher am I! 

And then there's that kid.  You know... the one who ALWAYS figures out the magic and proceeds to feel obligated to inform the rest of the class of how unmagical  the act really was.  Funny thing is that I CALLED IT the day before the lesson.  I knew it would happen.  I knew who it would be.  And she didn't leave me hanging.  "IT'S JUST ANOTHER CARD!" she said.  "She just has another card!" she said again.  Like 1,289,578,389 times.  Literally.

But the best part is... as she is proclaiming this across the room (and I proceed to acknowledge completely ignore her)... one of my GENIUS children shouts out quite obnoxiously, "WOAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOWWWWWW DID SHE DOOOOOOOO THAT?!?!!?!??!!??!?!?!?!?"

Miss Knowitall turns to Mr. Icantcontrolthevolumeofmyvoice and says (again), "She just has another card in there already!"

He looks at her and thinks for a moment.... then says the statement that should show you exactly why I'm going to be put into an institution by the end of this year,
"Man!  I just don't know HOW she did that!  Mrs. Gibbs, you are the magickest!!!"

Welcome to my class.

Finding Franklin

I'm just gonna go ahead and put this out there.... I'm not good at keeping up with a blog, okay?  I'm just not.  So, these are just gonna come when they come.  And here one is!

I just had the most wonderful day with my amazing husband!  We are coming up on our first wedding anniversary, and that just blows my mind.  I've been a wife for almost a whole year already!!!  What?!  Well, in this past year, we've learned that time is not always on our side.  Both of our jobs involve more than just the typical "work hours".  We don't have such a thing.  We don't clock out.  Our jobs follow us everywhere we go.  That being said, I have had to learn that time with my husband is very valuable, and we have got to be intentional in reserving time to just be us. 

Today was one of those times.  We both had massages booked at Massage Envy in Franklin this morning, and then we both got haircuts. (Tony at Salon P'NASH is the best!  He's been doing my hair since my Freshman year of high school!)  Since we were already in Franklin, we decided to make a day out of it.  Separately, both of our hairdressers asked us what we were going to do for the rest of the day, and we actually were able to say, "I don't know!"  We had no other plans today!  That RARELY happens!  So, we decided to head downtown and just see where the day led us. 

I have seriously missed this place.  It's quite unfortunate, but even while I was living in Franklin, I never fully took advantage of this beautiful town.  We mostly came to the square for Festivals and such.  This section of town is filled with wonderful restaurants, unique shops, and plenty of history.

We ate at Mellow Mushroom and ordered a pizza half and half.  Half Hawaiian (my fave) and half Red Skin Potato (a newbie).  For those of you who would like my opinion... The potato pizza was good... like a loaded baked potato... but it has this ranch dressing on it with a kick... and I probably could have done without that.

Then, we walked around the shops and found some unique treasures!  Too bad we are not rich and couldn't afford to take home any of those wonderful things...

One of my favorite shops is Philanthropy.  If you've never been, they have trendy clothing and other items that they sell and help provide money to different organizations in need.  Here's something funny I saw in the shop:

True story.  I need this... Check out the current state of our bathroom:

Seriously.  I just took that.

So anyway... My most favorite part of the store was this PRAYER WALL!  This store is amazing!  They have a wall with nails tapped in, and you can write a prayer request on a tag and hang it on the wall.  Then, you can take someone else's prayer request with you and pray for them!  LOVE IT.

This is the prayer request we took.  Precious child wanting to pray for his/her mom!  Whoever you are, we are praying for her!

We went into some antique shops and a SWEET vintage candy/sweets shop.  SO FUN.  D got ice cream and and orange cream soda.  I got some special goodies that I'll be using for the upcoming baby shower of my sweet sweet Caroline!!! (No pictures.  You must wait til after the shower for that!)

We did find a cutsie cute shop with precious little kids toys and things, and OHMYGOODNESS, I just want to spoil little Jude (Caroline's future baby).  D had to keep telling me no.  Or at least giving me the *stoplookingatthebabystuff* look.  But I just loved it all, so I will have to remember for future times to go back and get something every once in awhile!  I did almost get this letter train, but as you can see, the D looks more like and R, so we nixed that idea.  Sorry Caroline!

No Jure's for the Herron family!

P.S. We also the new Franklin Theater!!!  I remember when they were talking about tearing it down and how devastated so many people from the community were.  There are some good memories tucked away for me from that theater.  It was so different from every other one I'd ever been to.  You could see a movie for like $3, and they had tables and couch-like seats for the movie.  They were never the newest releases, but that made it even more fun to go see an older film with your friends!  Well, they didn't end up tearing it down (Hooray!), and this nice man brought D and me inside and told us all about the changes.  Movies are still cheap ($5), and they still have the tables in the theater!  But they have jazzed it up, and even added a stage for musicals, concerts, etc.  It looks like fun!  Maybe I can bring some of ya down there with me sometime to check it out!

We were going to go bowling, but by the time we finally got back to our cars, we realized that it's TIRING going out for a day on the town like regular people!  So we decided to head back home to see a movie instead.  We decided to go see Looper because it looked enticing.  Here's my thing people: Please go online and check out movie ratings and the reasons they received that rating before deciding to go see a movie.  Hello.  I don't need naked ladies all over this giganto screen people!  So disappointing.  It's a great movie.  There is no need for all of that.  None.  Don't you remember days when they made awesome movies and they didn't even need to have ta-ta's hanging out all over the place?  Because I do.  And I miss those days.  D and I have made a pact.  We are going to research all movies before we see them.  If there is necked people (necked... what a terrible pronunciation), we aren't going.  End of story.  It's not worth it. 

Other than the unnecessary exposure, today was one of the most perfect days of our marriage thus far!  I love being a normal couple with limited plans and freedom to enjoy ourselves for a change! 

8 Days until I'm a woman with an anniversary under my belt!
Tick, tick, tick!

Live, Love, CREATE

Though I am a crafty crazed lady, I rarely find extra time to create all the wonderfulness I crave.  (That was a lot of 'cr' words.)  When I do get a moment to make something fun, or pretty, or...... whatever, I take a picture because the moments are rare!  Here are some things I've created recently:

(Let me preface... these don't necessarily fall under the "craft" category... but they are things that have enabled me to have a creative outlet...)

Lemon Poppy seed Cake with Lemon frosting!  Last year I had a bridal shower thrown for me by a few wonderful ladies back in Franklin.  Mariellen Sasseen made this DELICIOUS masterpiece and I begged for the recipe.  Fortunately for me, part of the shower was to bring recipe cards, and she already had this one ready for me!  It has two layers, so that was a first for me to experiment with, and I decided to decorate it with some fresh lemon slices!  I was super excited that the halves fit around the cake perfectly.  I was anxiously praying that they would all line up, and they did!  Unfortunately, this is not a cake that I got to eat.  I donated it for a cake walk at our church!  My lovely friend, Jordan, won the first cake walk, and she chose mine!  It was a proud moment in my life.

Using cleaned out baby food containers that were donated to me, I was able to create a class set of dice manipulators.  We can use these for ALL KINDS of math activities!  (addition, subtraction, place value, comparing numbers, etc)  The kiddos can shake the dice inside the container, so no crazy chasing of rolling cubes all over the classroom!

LOVED THIS ACTIVITY!!!  My bestest Caroline is gonna be poppin out a precious tot here in a couple of months.  Her sisters/moms helped to throw her first shower, and her sister Amy had such wonderful ideas for the event!  Everyone created a onesie.  I've seen this before, but it's normally with markers, and they don't turn out the best.  Amy provided a basket of various fabrics, scissors, and fabric glue.  They turned out SO cute.  I think little Jude might actually wear some of them!!!  This is the one I made.  It's a tree.  I hope you didn't need me to tell you that.  This type of crafting is totally up my alley.

For my classroom...  This is a Pinterest idea...  Last year, I used socks as erasers.  (WHAT?!?!)  Yes, socks.  Clean ones.  Tissues are wasteful, and they take time to pass out.  With socks, the kids can wipe easily, then stick the marker inside the sock for safe keeping.  Once they get passed the initial weirdness, they love it.  This year, I tried something even more fun... pom poms.  I hot glued them to the cap.  They are super cute and the students thought it was the best thing since Justin Bieber.  Well, here's my thought, "We'll see how long this lasts"...  Immediate problems I've noticed: once you use the poms to wipe, they start turning black (duh) which means they aren't as pretty as this picture.  Also, if the poms aren't glued super tight, they start pulling off of the caps.  So... cute idea... might be going back to the socks soon.

Fruit pizza!!!! I made this last night/today for our Fellowship Meal at church.  We were raising money for the youth, and so I helped by making a dessert.  A friend from our young married couples small group makes this all the time, and I cannot stop dreaming about the deliciousness.  So, I decided to go for it myself.  Incredible easy to make.  And look how pretty?!  Awww.... I mean, it's deceptive... Is it healthy or not?  I think the fruit balances out the cookie and cream cheese icing...  Right?

Yay for making things!  I've been stalking Pinterest.  I have boards full of things I want to make.  Let's all come together to ask God for a couple of extra hours in the day.

Amen.

Let me backpedal a bit...

Okay, so blogs are so much easier to maintain during lazy summer days.  Seriously, I have been so busy I have not even read anyone else's blogs either!  ***GASP***  However, it does help that my husband is out of town for a week, so I am going to have some extra downtime to go blogtastic on you!

Well, I'm certainly not going to sit here and share every last detail of my life since my last post, even though I know you would skip all the way through the post and only look at pictures read every last word.  So, I will simply break apart a few pieces of the past couple of weeks in a couple of different posts to update!

First of all... I have a job, and that is GREAT.  Our school board was in a financial battle with the county commission, and it's been such a bumpy ride.  We finally started school a week and a half after the original start date.  Unfortunately, the budget was not accepted, and so we have had to face massive cutbacks across the county.  It's very disheartening to see our commissioners ignore the pleas of our community (you know... the ones who voted them into that position in the first place) to help support the financial needs of our schools.  We are extremely underfunded, especially compared to comparable school systems across the state.  I am so grateful to see have seen our Director of Schools stand up for what is most important: our students.  After all of the madness, we are still waiting to see what jobs will be cut over the next month or so, but we believe that our school is secure as it is a smaller elementary school and those will be the last to have to make cuts. 

One positive out of the delay was that teachers had extra time to prepare our classrooms.  (Which is what makes me laugh because there are some people that think we shouldn't have been paid for those days we were out.... How many teachers worked anyway!?)  Though my room is never finished, this is what my classroom ended up becoming before the kiddos have come and exploded all over it!

This is the door into my classroom.  I have a movie theme, so my first grade stars got to take a walk on the red carpet as they entered!

Here's the classroom as a whole...  Scary crowded... So many things in a small space!!!  Make it work, people!

Computers:  One that's up and running.  Two that are only monitors.  Thanks to budget cuts, it makes it so difficult for us to get technology in the classroom!  There is also my puzzle/game station, shelf full of books that looks like madness, and the backside of my classroom library.  I want to get some fabric to cover some of that up!  Take notice of the behavior chart with numbered clips for my Red Carpet Ready friends!

Big Book station on the left, Book Nook in the background.  It's for reading under the stars with the "stars" of children's stories (Clifford, Arthur, Curious George, etc).

A better look at Book Nook. 

Close up of the book organization.  On the right are my tubs organized by author, character, topic, and theme.  On the bottom are the leveled books that the students can choose from during station time. 

This is the cubby area/listening station ("Hearing Clearing").  I don't have storage in my room so you get to see all my junk on top of the shelves!  Don't look at it.  Seriously.  Stop.

Cabinet with as much little crafty-junk crammed in as humanly possible and Word Wall/Word Work station.

Carpet time... Hardly any room for my white board, but I make it work.  This is where I keep my Popcorn Words (Spelling words), sight words, weekly poem, etc.

Calendar time and shelves with materials I use throughout the day

On the left is my Math shelf (that I'm trying to hide) with manipulatives on the bottom.  Then you have my station board with Art Mart station underneath and the Write Site table on the right.

This year I decided to get rid of my desk and use my Reading Group table instead in order to save space.  I am FREAKING OUT with how on earth I am going to keep it clean enough to also have students sitting around totally organized and able to keep all things straight and orderly so that the Reading Group table is an inviting environment for my precious little ones.  Don't let the mess in the back trick you into thinking that's plenty of space for my junk.  Do you know how many piles of papers and randomness end up on my desk by the end of the day?!

Well... that's my room!  Some of it has been tweaked already, but I'm not gonna retake all of those pictures to show you.  So... deal.  

Let the chaos begin!