It's me, Charity

1. My tadpoles had their very last day in lab yesterday. It was bittersweet! I’m so proud of them but I’m going to miss seeing them all the time. 2. I have an addiction to singing “I want it that way” by the Backstreet Boys pretty much everyday. The awesome thing is that Apes duets with me. 3. I got Benjamin the CUTEST shirt as one of his Easter presents! It has a bucket of dirt and a scoop and it says “My Aunt Digs me” hahah I LOVE IT!!! 4. I won a Pedometer in our Health Assesment screening. I was hoping for the laptop or the ipod. Audra emailed me and said “You go girl!!! Look at you and your new pedometer!!” I laughed so hard! 5. After being totally anti royal wedding I got sucked into it this morning when I got online. Ended up watching the kiss on the balcony before I left for work. I can’t help it. I love weddings! 6. I also love Goodwill! I got two dresses, one dress shirt and two pairs of flip flops for Apes and Emboz for under 19 bucks! WOOT!

I've had a busy week, I didn't even take any pictures of myself, but here are some of what I've been up to! We had our Awana closing program Weds night and I was in charge of the Cookie-Palooza afterwards. This is only half of our cookie platters. I didn't get a picture of the finished product. It was super cute though! I had them on two long tables and had 6 flower arrangements (from Bible Study!) inbetween the platters. I had never seen so many cookies in my entire life. I made butterflies with the cupcakes on every single platter. I was having so much fun designing them! The prep area, again not all of the cookies or containers by a long shot! Thursday night I decided I wanted to clean and organize. I've been in the mood to clean all week so I started by attacking my hall closet. Thanks to my mom's coupon skills i have tons of shower and hair products, all in this big tub. It was overflowing and hard to find anything. So I got the brilliant idea to organ...

Friday night after church I headed home to the farm for Easter weekend!! We had a lovely service at my parents church where I got them to sit in the THIRD TO BACK ROW!!! on the total opposite side of where they normally sit!! They are third row from the front middle section people. I am not! ha! I am a back row Baptist and I am proud of it!! Mom snapped this picture of me before our photo shoot. Its totally me. This picture cracked me up! Dad hadn't taken any pictures with my new camera I got for Christmas so he was getting used to it. I said Dad, um, are you sure the camera cord wasn't in that picture? Me and my Momma on my second favorite place to be at the farm. the first being their comfy couch! HA! (but totally serious!!) I love sitting outside in the swing I have a perfect view of part of the backyard and the baseball field. The pool is right beside me on the deck. Its the perfect place to sit outside and relax. I love reading on it but sometimes I"ll just sit there ...

Hey Everybody! Its me! Benjamin! Otherwise known as Auntie's Snugglemuffin! She's pretty busy So I thought I would help her out and tell you what I've been up to! I had my first Easter Sunday yesterday and I thought I looked pretty handsome in my suit if I do say so myself! I've been hanging out in my excersaucer chillin... I also discovered that my hands are mm mm yummy to chew on! My auntie would love to chew on my cheeks. She kisses them alot when she's around me. She thinks i'm a stud. Auntie! Come to Iowa and pick me up! I want to cuddle with you!!! yooo hooo DO YOU HEAR ME!! I need to see my Auntie- STAT!! Is anyone paying attention? Do I need to dirty my diaper to get you to pay attention to me! Because I will! Daddy's been reading to me lately. His tractor books. But Grampy won't let me drive any.yet. hmmm.... thats one nice lookin tractor! I wonder what I could do to get my hands on one? Listen everyone I have to cut this short. I have the...

Faith Baptist- Emboz's church- puts on a Passion Play every year. Emboz was in it this year and needed a date for her oldest Bethy, I hadn't seen it since I was in highschool and was thrilled to be able to go see it! Can you spot Emboz above? She's next to the girl in blue in the center!! It was a really good play. They had Jesus time and then flip flopped between that and telling a story of people putting on a Passion Play and what was going on in their lives and the dialogue was SOOOO relevant for what is going on today.. I really liked the addition of that. I felt like it really made me sit up and pay attention and think more than I normally would. I definately left with a message on my heart. And that was what I was hoping for. But it was also alot of fun!! Here I am, looking rough I know! With Bunny and about 3/4 of Bethy's face. She is a sweetie, she was about to fall asleep on my shoulder. I don't know what it is about me that puts kids to sleep? I would p...

Easter time is a really meaningful and special time for me. I look forward to it each year really more than any Holiday. I do love Christmas, but Easter just has a deeper meaning for me. I grew up in a Christian home and got saved at an early age. I was very active in my church as a teenager and then went to a Christian college for three years. There is a ton that I could say about the college and my experience there but that's not what this post is about. I will say that when I left the college I was in a state of rebellion. What I had seen of Christianity there had really soured me on the whole deal. I still believed in God of course but I just wasn't interested in church or anything. I wanted to go my own way and do my own thing. My rebellion lasted untill New Years Day 2004. From coming home from the restrictive college in May of 2003 and then moving away from my family into my first apartment in Lafayette and being totally on my own and totally free I went nuts. I did th...

So I like to make up songs. I sing songs to anything. At work i sing them ALL.THE.TIME. and I usually do them to the tune of "O Christmas Tree". A few weeks ago I made up a love song to my orange. Yes I'm weird, is this news to you? Well Apes is newly on Weight Watchers and trying to motivate her I made up a song! And I will have you know it was NOT to the tun of O Christmas Tree. Yes this music major branched out!! We were laughing so hard when I was trying to sing this, a faculty member from another school stopped by to see what was going on. We had our backs to eachother because we were making eachother laugh so hard we couldn't look at eachother. Yeah that didn't help. Anywho, without further Ado, APRIL'S SONG!! "A A pril... We're gonna see less of her but not in a ba ad way cuz she's gonna be skiiinaayy and really preetay I'm glad she's not a ninnnnay she's loveable like Winniieee Pooh that is!! She'l be rockin a bikiiinay BUT...

Friday was my monthly Ladies who Lunch with Emboz and Madi. Madi was havin a just chillin' type of day. Emboz had to set her up over 10 times. I said she looked like she belonged in a rap video. hahaha but she was totally comfy just chillin! We ate at Buck Creek Pizza and it was soooo good! Their Dayton station is less than 7 mins away from work! Madi had some prunes. Despite the expression on her face here she enjoyed them. I was grossed out myself. Too cute for words! Finally Madi and I have a picture together where i'm not looking like a hot mess! So what if she's not looking at the camera??!! There we go!! I just love her she's soooo sweet!! And she loved chewing on my hand. That girl has a chomper on her!! Me and Emboz famous self portraits now have another member! I must say Its so much easier to get Madi in them now that she is bigger and I can stand her up. It was struggling when she was so tiny!! Sweet Sweet Smile!! I say this every month but I have so ...

Thursday night was our monthly Open Table night at church! I love going and hanging out with my Bible Study Babes! Especially now that we have finished our study for spring :( Here is my Bryna and her friend (who I can't remember her name because I am in the throes of Advanced Elderly age memory loss) with their FABULOUS glue Guns! I love them! And I totally want one like that!! Here is the project the Valster was working on. Easter Cards! After I left, (of course) I had the brilliant idea that next month instead of torturnig people taking their picture, I'm going to take pictures at the end of what they worked on! That way people can come in their yoga pants and pony tails with no fear:) And some of the crafts they do are super amazing! I am in awe of what you can do with a Cricut! So stay tuned for next month's post!! You will be blown away! Bryna and I are trying to branch out and not have every single picture we have together being taken in the Ministry Center! ha! S...

1. 1. My Mom is getting her Mother’s Day Surprise early on Tuesday, which isn’t a surprise because I told her. But it totally wasn’t my fault I gave it away early! 2. 2. Thanks to Bryna I have started saying “oh nay nay nay” when something goes wrong or when I’m trying to “let no corrupting talk”. 3. 3. Monday night I had a bit of a fall. I was walking up to my third floor apt with my purse, my piano teaching bag and a reusable bag filled with powerade all on my left side. Dropped my keys, Leaned down to the right to pick them up, entire body fell to the right down about 5 steps. Ouch. 4. 4. Tuesday I was super proud Miss Charity. My second years finished their exams and they all rocked them! It was so cool to see all the smiles and the sheer relief and happiness on their faces!! I almost had a little tear. Almost. 5. 5.I’ve only been home two nights this week. Next week is looking to be the same or less. 6. 6. One of my friends has exciting ne...

Thursday I was minding my business at work when I noticed we had a tour heading down our hall. They usually stop outside our door and point and wave at me since my desk is right by the door and the hallway. Well I won’t be mean to the poor lady who was leading the tour. I think she was new or had never led a tour before because she was really struggling. She called our SIM people Cadavers, walked into an empty and dark classroom and then tried to lead the 50+ 8-9 year old children on the tour into a class having a test. Needless to say it was not going that smoothly and I stopped what I was doing and just sat there and listened to the entire thing unfold. She tried to draw them in with a talk about the Dental Assisting program and the importance of Oral Health but it quickly became obvious they were not with her.. nooot exactly. She finished her Teeth Spiel and asked if there were any questions. Suddenly I hear a little tiny little boy voice, so very politely...

So I was innocently sitting in my truck at lunchtime eating and reading my book- "Mini Shopaholic" by Sophie Kinsella if you're wondering! And I saw out of the corner of my eye, someone pull into the parking space next to me. I noticed they were looking at me but I didn't pay much attention. There are lots of weirdo's in the parking lot so I figured that was the case. Seconds later I hear a 'Are you going to ignore me??!!' And look over to see my Grams with her face pressed up on my half open window! hahahahahah She had been in town for an apt and swung by the parking lot to see if I was out there eating lunch. I an nothing but predictable apparently! She made me clean out my front seat and she hopped in and we got to visit for awhile! It was fun! And I think this is one of the cutest pictures we've ever taken! YAYS!

So last Friday I mentioned I was on a hunt for new black flats. Walmart had basically 3 pairs of shoes in the entire store so I didn't get any there obviously. Monday over lunch I ran to Payless Shoe Source and hit the JACKPOT!! I found these super comfy shoes, with memory foam in them!!! for 19.99 on sale, I just so happened to have a COUPON BABY!! I scored majorly. I wore them to work on Tuesday and out to dinner with the girls and they didn't bother me at all! I have super sensitive skin on my feet so breaking in shoes always takes awhile, which is why I try to go for all fabric or very soft material so it lessens the pain. I am happy to say these did not hurt me AT ALL!! And even cooler, Payless is now following me on twitter!! I felt so special! Yes I am a nerd!

My Mom had some pictures of my snugglemuffin nephew Benjamin printed and gave me a package of them so OF COURSE I had to update my desk area with new pics! Apes said it was my Shrine to Benjamin. Not gonna lie, it kinda is!! Using one of my swords as a pointer to show his cuteness! And can we just take a second and talk abuot how cute my outfit was??!! I'm wearing my FAVE, well and only but whatever, jean jacket my sil got me, and a dress I got from Goodwill! YAYS!! Other than my pathetically pale white legs, Casper the friendly ghost anyone?? I thought I looked rather festive!!