Joy to the World, The Lord Has Come, and Finals are Done! Woohooo!!!

Okay so I am excited that our Christmas tree is up, Christmas lights are up,Christmas cards are close to being mailed out, Christmas parties are at hand, and the countdown to Christmas on the Advent Calendar is well underway, but so far, the highlight of the season for me, is that finals are complete! I don't know why (since I only had a total of 19 students between two classes), but this semester was particularly hellacious (spelling? spell check doesn't recognize this word. so is it not a word or have I butchered the spelling that bad? hhmmmm. might be explaining some of my struggles as an english teacher this semester). I think a lot of it was the marathon Saturday classes and that that class was a new prep and I had to spend hours and hours and HOURS preparing for the class. I felt in over my head on that one for sure. Regardless the reason for my stress this semester, I am ready for a little peace on earth, a slow down, a time to focus on the" reason for the season".

Maybe not the most amazing tree pic in the world but I'm kind of proud of it because I took it on the Manual setting with my camera which means I had to choose exposure, shutter speed, and aperture settings. And I used my tripod for the first time.

Making a gingerbread house. Maddy got this as a gift from friends at DBU.

I love the "dog house". Maddy has watched too much Snoopy so decided that this house was definitely a dog house.

For my freshman final this year, I had them read two articles with differing viewpoints about commercialism and Christmas (one for, one against). There responses were very interesting. I thought at a Christian school I would get more tirades about the sinfulness of advertising and how it is destroying the true meaning of Christmas. Not so. Most either thought commercialism was a good thing and Christmas wouldn't be the same without it, or that if Jesus is what Christmas is all about, commercialism is a mute point and it is really up to us as individuals as to how we choose to view and celebrate the holiday. I always enjoy reading through the finals because I get to pick a topic like this that I'm interested to hear the viewpoint of the students. Even though grading freshman finals is a pain because of the grading panel system, it is still kind of fun to see what is going on in their heads.
 Despite the crazy busy-ness of the past couple of weeks, we've managed to squeeze in some fun. We went and got a tree as soon as we got home from Thanksgiving. Maddy had a blast decorating it this year. The ornaments she cared about the most were the colored balls. Later she got interested in some little gingerbread men on the tree. She calls them "humpty dumptys". :) No presents under the tree yet. Maybe we can do that soon now that things have calmed down a bit.
We also attended the tree lighting at DBU, or, as we like to call it, the bush lighting. The "tree" is a very large and busy juniper in the middle of the quad on campus. Maddy enjoyed that experience as well. They had cookies and cocoa for everyone, but all Maddy was interested in was the marshmallows they had to go with the cocoa. Taking joy in the simple things I guess.
The White Rock has been chronicled in another post, but that was a fun time with family. Lots of hot drinks, especially after the race, and Janet brought some delicious cookies and muffins for everyone.
On Tammy's birthday we had white chili for supper and then got hot drinks and went to look at Christmas lights. We'll have to go see lights again because Maddy fell asleep in the car and missed all of them.
On Friday night, I went to a cookie exchange with the ladies at my church. Great cookies and hot drinks (again!). Best of all though, was just hanging out with everyone and talking and playing games. I am really blessed to have a great group of fun, Christian girls to spend time with. They are always such an encouragement to be around.

Maddy at Rachel's right before the ear infection breakdown. And yes, she is wearing a swimsuit over her clothes because she was sure that we were going to go swimming at Rachel's house.

Saturday I gave my 1302 final and did the group grading and then we went to Rachel's for supper. Rachel made some very delicious soup and cornbread, but the evening was not as relaxing as anticipated because Maddy started having a major breakdown. It didn't take me long to figure out from the way she was acting that she had an ear infection. Unfortunately, urgent cares had all closed around this time. Aaron called a friend who is a doctor to ask if there was anything we could get Maddy to get her some pain relief until they opened the next day. Well, long story short, we ended up going over to the friends house and were able to get a prescription for some ear drops and antibiotics for Maddy. We were very very blessed to be able to do that because Maddy was really miserable. She was throwing up (not sure if from the pain of the ear or just dizziness or something, but once we got the ear drops and some tylenol down her she never threw up again so I think it was definitely connected to the ear infection. A weird symptom she's never had with ear infection before.) She was also starting to get a fever. So it really save us and Maddy a lot of pain and a sleepless night.
Maddy and I made Christmas cookies today. That was fun and Maddy is getting to a pro at cutting out the cookies and putting them on the cookie trays. I think Christmas shopping is on the agenda this week as well.
I am just very, very thankful for a day of rest today and time to spend with Maddy without feeling like I have a thousand pound load of paper ready to fall on my head.

Another picture I took on the manual setting of my camera. The camera told me that the"subject was too dark" but I knew that it didn't know what it was talking about and the picture turned out pretty good. It is always nice when you finally feel like you've gotten to the point of being smarter than a gadget instead of the other way around.