Chill Family Weekend

I have officially taught my last session of Comp 1 this semester! No, the semester is not over yet. But this week and next Monday before the break, I'm just meeting with students individually for their final papers and presentations, and then the week in between the break and finals week, the students will be doing their presentations. That's a little bit of pressure off, but I still have the dark cloud of final grading looming over my head!! One more month until it's all over, and then another month until my due date!

After last weekend's hustle and bustle, it was so nice to take it easy this weekend. Friday night, Jay worked until dark and then came home to our first ever Family Movie Night! Even though Jay fell asleep within 20 minutes of Monsters Versus Aliens, it was still a great night. Claire and I fixed chili and cornbread, and then hot cocoa and popcorn. We made a pallet in the floor and watched it "all togever," as Claire said with delight. I considered taking Claire to see that movie in the theater, and I'm glad we didn't end up doing that--it was neat in parts, but definitely slow in others. I was glad we could pause it for bathroom breaks and talk and read during the Presidential conferences.

Saturday, Claire and I hit the library and a couple stores in downtown Durant before lunch. Claire and I both scored big--both shop owners just loved Claire, and gave her free candy, and I actually got two people marked off my Christmas list!

I savor these casual shopping trips--Claire is such a good shopper, even in a gift shop like The Hollow Tree with quite a few breakables and racks of jewelry and such. She loves to pick things up and say, "Oh, that's cool" or "That's cute." Anyway, I know these days are numbered, as when Baby Sister comes, shopping will be a bit more trouble, although I'm sure still doable while she's still content in her carseat/stroller.

Jay came home to "work on some floor plans" after a morning of work in Calera and golf with a college buddy, which meant he ate lunch, watched football, and then headed to the office and made phone calls until Claire and I got home from an afternoon of more shopping! This time, we were on a mission for winter clothes for Claire, which we found along with Mom and Ty. Mom and Grant celebrated their SECOND ANNIVERSARY on Saturday--I cannot believe it's been two years already!!--so Grant met us in Sherman to take Mom on a date, and we took Ty back home with us. That night, we went to our church Harvest Dinner. While Claire napped yesterday, I made a strawberry pretzel salad and a caramel pecan pie for the dinner--both were great! I will try to post them on the sadly neglected cooking blog.

Here's a video of Claire "reading" her toddler Bible--she'd only heard these three stories once a few minutes before when I read them to her, and then I came back in the living room to find her re-reading them. I was really pleased to hear her say, "Look at the birds people! God doesn't feed them!" from Jesus' awesome "Consider the lilies" passage. She loves to "read" her books and is getting to where she loves for Jay and I to tell her stories about her and her friends. These are usually adaptations of her favorite books and movies--usually either Goldie (a spin on "Goldilocks and the Three Bears), The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, or The Three Little Pigs, with her and her friends' names substituted for the character names.

I've got to write this down before I forget it. A couple nights ago, Claire woke up a little while after I'd put her to bed saying she needed to go pee-pee. This is almost always either a stalling tactic or a signal that she's just woken up for some reason and wants me to put her back in bed. So after a fairly unproductive sit on the potty, we went back to her room, and Claire said, "I saw something in my room just now." This is a new thing; I can't remember her telling me she was scared of something or even telling me a story about something happening like that. So I looked around and said, "There's not anything in your room right now. Did it scare you?" She said, "Yeah. Sometimes, in my room, I see something over there," and pointed to her dresser. So I did my best to explain to her that she doesn't need to be afraid and that sometimes things look different in the dark and that can feel a little scary. I just thought that was so sad and sweet that her imagination is starting to sort of backfire on her, and that this has apparently happened before, but she is just now telling me about it.