untitled october.

• i am so glad the cowboys won today. i can't believe it was as hard as it was. but to lose to the chiefs would have been tragic.
• my kids are so pretty when they're freshly bathed. too bad they are not that way more often. bad mama.
• ellie says ri-dic-u-lous stuff these days. like, "i don't have the words" when she wants to sing a song but doesn't know all the words and "you're so proud of me" whenever she does something she believes i ought to be proud about.
• ellie has "miss spider's new car" practically memorized. it's pretty impressive.
• ellie is minimally potty training. the process is sort of exhausting.
• grayson stands and claps at himself and will walk all over with two fingers in his hands. try to take away even one of those fingers and down he goes. he was 14 months last week.
• this week landon and i will have been married for 4 years. last week we celebrated SEVEN YEARS together. woah. he was out of town and arranged to have a big, orange potted mum on the porch when i got home from work. so sweet. i was really wanting a mum.
• a few weeks ago landon and i went to marriage encounter. IF YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN, YOU MUST GO. i am personally going to call some of you who are reading this to urge you to go. it is outstanding. i can't tell you everything that happens, but it is incredibly intimate, romantic and you and your spouse will write love letters that you didn't think were possible. GO!
• teaching is hard.
• 6th graders are dirty and sick. a lot.
• i love my 6th graders. a lot.
• i am liking my yearbook class too, but i'm beyond terrified about selling the stinkin book. like...my anxiety is rising as i think about it now.
• my washing machine is broken. not good. not good at all.
• my landlord is going to pull up the nasty, old linoleum and lay down pretty ceramic tile in my kitchen in the next couple of weeks. he's also gonna take out the carpet in our master bath (always thought that was stupid) and tile in there too. i'm super pumped.
• i love that it's cool outside.
• i was gonna go to dallas one weekend this month to see an smu game (3-2, baby!), but it turns out i can't go until nov. 14. boo. i want to go. i miss my mommy and daddy and brothers and sisters.
• i wanna see scott and kelly's new house in oak cliff.
• i wanna go to ntlc, but i can't 'cause i gotta teach.
• having a second paycheck is good, but insurance (health, vision, dental AND life) is expensive. so is iteach texas. so is childcare. what's left for actual spending (read: debt pay-off) is so, so much smaller than the initial amount. sigh.
• also need to get used to the once-a-month payment thing.
• if ellie's lip gloss obsession increases anymore, we will have to buy stock in lip smackers.
• grayson loves to sing "bye, baby bunting" and wants you to sing it all...the...time.
• grayson officially stopped nursing about a month ago. i'm proud of 13 months. in the two months that he's been drinking milk, however, he has had constant poopy problems. we decided last week to try him on soy milk. the problems have ceased. do i have a lactose-intolerant baby?
• i'm so thankful for bible study, but "captivating" is tough, man.
• i'm looking very forward to the retreat next month.
• i'm nervous for the TAKS test.
• i love football. from tlca 6-man with 143 people in the stands to prime time nfl games. l-o-v-e.
• i'm not a fan of wearing uniforms to work.
• i'm trying very hard not to buy my kids tons of clothes for fall. (i heeded jo's warning to NOT go to babygap.com.) this is especially difficult when my washer is busted.
• i could have probably written an entire blog post about each of these points. that's a lot of missed blogging, folks.