A Christmas Poem

T’was the week before Christmas

And for this vacation

The Haws Kids were spread out

Across this great nation.

Warren, Spencer, Mindy, New Jenny, Mikey, Greggie, Jenny

The oldest, Dear Jenny

In Utah did stay

Surrounded by snow

Awaiting Christmas Day.

Jenny's kidlets decorate cookies for Santa while plotting ways to committ Santa-cide.

Her kids frosted cookies,

Sweet fingers they licked

While gleefully plotting

Ways to “off” poor St. Nick.

Santa-cide wasn’t a topic

Where the parents reside

For Mindy had come

From jury duty to hide.

Mindy reads to Kenna and Kylie on Christmas Eve.

Mindy was helpful

She shoveled, cooked, and wrapped

She thought about grading papers

But then took a nap.

Mindy  left Burley

Just as Warren arrived

For the Gerretts’ Christmas Party

Where the dairy cows thrive.

Warren and Kylie perform in the Gerratt Nativity play.

They had a good time

Hearts and hearths glowing warm

But had to leave early,

To outrun the storm.

But storms weren’t a problem

For the youngest Haws boys

Their Christmas travels

We are sure they enjoyed.

While Brianna  saved lives

In the Buffalo chill

Spencer went to Miami

To cheer on his Bills.

The view from Spencer's seat at the Miami Heat game.

The Bills didn’t win

But  Spence had fun just the same

With temps in the 90’s

And seats near LeBron James.

Mike was in Mesa

With his in-laws so new

We would have been jealous

But then he got the flu.

Mikey and New Jenny at the Mesa Temple.

So he couldn’t fully enjoy

The weather so warm

But at least he avoided

All the winter snow storms.

 

And speaking of storms

Greggie flew through a fray

While traveling to visit

His girlfriend in Monterey.

Kristina and Greggie

The weather was warm

The beach, it was sunny

And Greg was sure happy

To be with his honey.

 

And even though our cute family

Was, oh, so spread out

We didn’t forget

What the season is about.

We’re all grateful for blessings

Received the year through

So from our family to yours...

Merry Christmas to You!

 

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

 

White Elephant Poetry

Our FHE Christmas dinner was last week and, like all FHE dinners, is was magically delicious. The food was great, the conversation was entertaining, the lesson was uplifting, and the white elephant gift exchange was hilarious.

This white elephant exchange is extra awesome because each random "gift" must be accompanied by a poem written by the giver. I didn't take any photos during this year's exchange, so I don't have any photographic evidence of everyone else's gifts. It's a shame too, because there were some pretty creative presents and poems. Should you happen to see my Stake President around town, be sure to ask him about the freakin' gift he got from Sue. Perhaps Kristi could post about it?

  Due to my dereliction of my blogging duties, I only have two poems to share with you tonight: the one I received from Paul and Joleen and the one I wrote that ended up with Joleen.

The gift that landed in my lap had the fanciest wrapping...These three angels adorned the outside of the package and they even made a cameo appearance in the poem:

 

The Poem:

High above the Earth in the celestial realms above,

Angels will be singing and praising your life with love!

Hopefully you won't get nervous

As they include your missionary service

So to help you prepare for your future missionary call

We've included this missionary prep course we found at the mall!

Don't worry... it also includes part of your missionary clothes

So you can fend off all the Latter-day foes!

The Gift:

An LDS game from 1981and a classy vintage tie!

The Poem:

In this bag is a critter quite funny

With a very talented tummy

He’s a gift from the heart

Who’s been known to fart

Please enjoy your flatulent bunny

The Gift:
A stuffed bunny, surgically enhanced with a self-filling whoopee cushion.

Someday I shall learn to use my limited sewing skills for good instead of evil. But until that day comes, viva la farting bunnies!

Santa Bats

I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but shortly after I moved into my current classroom way back in 2008 (or was it 2009....), the room became known as The Bat Cave.

It might have been because the room  is hidden away in a secret location. Or it might have been because it is sort of dark with a lower ceiling. Or it might just have been that I was being a bit goofy  (I know, it's hard to imagine, but I do get a bit goofy on occasion)on the way back from the computer lab and hollered out, "Kidlets... To The Bat Cave!".

But WHY the room is called The Bat Cave isn't really important right now.

Right now, all you need to know is that the room is in fact know, in certain circles, as The Bat Cave. Got it? Good. Then let's move on...

About two years ago, a teachers who doesn't feel the need to hang on to every piece of paper that crosses her path, was going to toss out some old Halloween decorations. These doomed decorations happened to include a bunch of construction paper and clothes pin bats and, having heard my room referred to by its nickname a time or two, decided to pass them along to me.

I instantly fell in love the dorky little things (kind of a pattern in my life) and had them nest in my ceiling during Halloween week.

Last year I took them down as soon as November arrived, but this year has been a little bit busier. By the time I got around to thinking about taking them down, I just couldn't do it. The little guys had grown on me. So I left them up, which was cool with the kidlets...until they returned from Thanksgiving.

Having Halloweenish decorations up during the Christmas season apparently offended their sense of propriety (Yes, the children whose main source of humor is bodily functions and who sometimes accidentally put their t-shirts on backwards, have a very strong sense of propriety). For almost two weeks, I listened to them voice their dismay at having Halloween decorations up in December.

So, because I am the sort of teacher who cares deeply about her student's opinions, I came back to school last Saturday and fixed the problem.

 The kidlets were pleased with the bats' new holiday wardrobe, until they noticed that not all of the bats were wearing Santa hats.

I thought about telling them the truth... that I have, like, 20 bats hanging from the ceiling and neither I nor my student aides wanted to take the time to make that many tiny hats. But then they would have felt bad for the bats that didn't have hats, which would have led about half the class to volunteer make more hats instead of working on their study guides. Then, if I were to tell them "no", three or four of them would wait until the lights were turned off during a Smart Board activity and would have tried to make the hats anyway, utilizing the same under-the-desk-dexterity that allows them to text messages longer and more complex than the Magna Carta during class on their cell phones when they are supposed to be taking notes. That would have led to me catching them, which would have led to an awkward conversation about bat hats with our assistant principal, so I decided to go another route.

Instead, I explained to them that the bats without hats choose not to celebrate Christmas. I told the kidlets that the hat-less bats celebrate Kwanzaa instead, which ended up bringing the subject to a successful close for everyone involved...

...Except for the librarians who had to deal with kids standing in line at lunch to use a computer so they could Google "Kwanzaa".

A Post About Yearbook T-shirts

This is my fifth year as a yearbook advisor and, in five years, I have learned a few things about cameras, kidlets, and online publishing programs.

 

I have also learned a few things about t-shirts.

 

You see, in the junior high universe, personalized t-shirts are right up there with in-class pizza parties, free candy, and snow days. Kidlets have been known to join clubs, run for office, and try out for sport teams just to get a t-shirt with their name and/or nickname on the back.

 

On the yearbook staff, we start planing our t-shirts during the first week of school. The shirts serve the dual purpose of advertising the book and unifying the staff. Every year I have a goal to get the shirts designed, ordered, and picked up before the first parent-teacher conference in October. And every year I end up handing out the shirts the week after Thanksgiving. The kids are always really sweet and understanding about it, never once suggesting that the back of my shirt should read "Slacker".

 

This year's staff is very unique because it is made up entirely of girls. It has been interesting to see the differences in the yearbook creation process without a male presence. Somehow, between the giggling and hair braiding, those girls have managed to get more done on this book in one quarter than some previous staffs have done in three.

 

And because this is a very unique staff, they needed to have a very unique staffer designation. After advising groups of Yearbook Jedi, Yearbook Ninja, and Yearbook Minions, I thought it would be fun to emphasise the femininity of this year's staff by calling them Yearbook Princesses.

 

 They thought that was 50% of a good idea.

We ordered the shirts in two colors, lime and candy pink. We also requested that the nicknames on the back be printed towards the bottom of the shirt to better accommodate the 90% of our staffers with long hair. And because the Ninja Princesses are, in fact, princesses, we are delaying our staff photos until they can finish their matching tulle tutu's.

 

I have to admit, the kids aren't the only ones who are fond of the t-shirts. I always put some serious thought into the nickname that will grace the back of my staff shirt for the year. This time I decided to go with a moniker that makes me smile, even though the majority of the kids don't get it.

 Now, if you will excuse me, I have to Google "How to make a tulle tutu."

 

Previous yearbook shirt posts...

Here (2012)  and Here (2008)

 

Decorations

This is the time of year when decorations reign supreme, and all the world is better for it.

Exhibit A: The handouts for the Young Women New Night of Beginnings of Excellence Thingy (can you tell I have spent the last eight years in Relief Society?). I recently had the opportunity to speak to some young women in That Other Stake about how the YW values can lead them to the temple and the handouts were beautiful. The YW leaders make each girl (and one very lucky guest speaker) an awesome temple block, while Valerie and I made the prism quote cards to go with my talk.

 All of the girls in Valerie's ward were current or former students, so it was fun to get to see them in a more spiritual setting (meaning I didn't whack anything with swimming noodles, warn them about an imaginary ceiling-dwelling mutant badger,  or reference Doctor Who or Iron Man). Two cute sisters told me they wanted to use their prisms to make earrings to decorate themselves (and hopefully to remember the theme of the talk?), and the next day Lil' Sis modeled the wearable handouts for the rest of the yearbook staff.

 

Exhibit B: The table decorations for an area scouting training (and dinner) that featured the General Young Men's President of the LDS Church. Since the dinner was for scouters, it was suggested that we use plates of butter as centerpieces, but Joleen, Sue, and Diane had a much better idea. The law of the harvest decoration motif was simple enough to please the brethren, but elegantly symbolic enough to make the sisters in attendance smile.

Exhibit C: My Christmas-fied dwelling, as decorated by my visiting niblets. Kenna and Kylie built and decorated the tree, then arranged my small collection of nativity scenes. My home looks much more festive thanks to their hard work. Even Bubba helped, rearranging all the nativity scenes he could reach so they fit more of a "If Godzilla attacked Bethlehem" theme.

When the kids had finished decorating my home, they made ornaments to decorate their own. And then they used my play jewelry and drama costume stuff to decorate themselves.

The highlight of the niblet decorating experience had to be when the girls asked me why the tree needed a tree skirt. When I explained that the tree skirt helped keep the tree's feet warm, Bubba promptly took off one of his socks and put it at the base of the tree to help ensure the tree's toes stayed warm and toasty. How cute is that?

I am also really looking forward to redecorating my classroom with a Christmas/End of Course Assessment Theme. After that, it will be time to decorate handouts for ward conferences lessons, and then comes our stake Relief Society meeting with invitations, posters, tables, and rooms to decorate.

Of course, all of these things are really just preparation for the greatest decorating job of all... A much sought after calling to The Celestial Decorations Committee! It is one of my eternal goals. You just know there has to be more than a few sisters helping out with all of those rainbows, sunrises, and sunsets because, if the scout leaders were in charge, there would be an awful lot of plates of butter in the sky.

Since All of the Recent REAL News From the REAL World is Annoying...

...Here are some updates on the things going on in MY world.

In local news, the heater above my classroom is installed! And hooked up! And it heats... but a little too well. Apparently the new heater is a little too powerful for the old vent/duct system, but as soon as they replace the vent/duct system my classroom will have heat! Probably!

But untill such a time as the heater can be used, I can always watch this video made by and staring past occupants of my classroom. The flames of their burning school spirit can probably keep me warm until spring...

In life-imitating-an-episode-of-NCIS-news, the bank my brother runs was robbed. Nobody was hurt, but the folks inside, including Warren, ended up in the vault... JUST LIKE ON TV. Not fun for Wo, but I sure am proud of how cool he was under pressure. If this whole teaching thing doesn't work out for me, maybe I could write a pilot for a new TV drama about a crime-fighting credit union manager.

You can read more about Wo's adventures here... Local News 8: Robber Puts Credit Union Employees in Safe

In entertainment news, I recently spent a weekend with my Utah niblets wherein we threw ourselves one heck of a Doctor Who party. We made my cell phone talk like a dalek, visited the Halloween House with our sonic screwdrivers, and poured over the Time Traveler's Almanac. The highlight of the weekend was our Doctor Who Dinner. The menu included foods the Doctor eats and/or uses to save the universe, including jammy dodgers, chips, satsumas, jelly babies, and fish fingers dipped in custard.

 

 

Why fish fingers dipped in custard? So that they could pretend they were the newly regenerated Doctor breaking in a new mouth...

The only thing that could have made the weekend better would have been if our fez-quest had been successful. Apparently Utah is going through a serious fez shortage, which is a shame because...

And finally, in family news, this spring I will have a new niblet to nick-name and feed fish sticks and custard. Maybe I could combine the two and nickname the kid Fish Sticks, or Custard. It's a good thing I have a few months before Jenny and John's new arrival arrives. It is going to take me a while to figure out a good nickname... and find an infant-sized fez.

They've Got My Back

I have a lot of good friends here in my cute little cow town.

The kind of friends who can be counted on to don false facial hair for Red Ribbon Week's Mustache Day (I mustache you not to do drugs... Get it? "mustache you"... Junior high humor at it's best!). I would have been somewhat reluctant to sport the stick-on lip-fuz had if I thought I would be the only teacher to participate. But I knew Valerie would be game to play along. And she was!

Then last night, as I was finishing up sub plans in preparation for today's district meeting, I confessed to Valerie that I was a little nervous about attending the meeting.

During the last district meeting I attended, a principal from another school had started talking smack about my school. That time, my assistant principal was there for me to commiserate with. This time I would be on my own.

But then Val let me know that her husband, a very nice, smackless-talking principal from another school would also be at the meeting. That piece of information led to this exchange:

Val: I told Bill to watch out for the mean girls trash-talking about the junior high and to protect our good name, if necessary.

Me:Excellent. He can be my "second" if I have to challenge anyone to a duel.

Val: Does he need to bring weapons?

Me: I am more of an Iron Chef kind of dueler. Perhaps if he keeps a spatula handy?

And guess what Dear Sweet Bill had waiting on the table when  I got to the meeting the next morning?

The biggest, meanest looking spatula in the whole wide world! My fears of the smack-talking principal lady vanished instantly. Truth be told, I kind of wanted somebody to say something, so I could have an excuse to brandish such an imposing weapon.

Giant camp spatula: $18.95
Thirty stapled, collated copies of the district improvement plan: $35
Substitute teacher to cover classes for an all-day meeting: $60
Confused looks of the assembled district leaders when they saw the giant camp spatula sitting on the table for the duration of the all-day meeting: Priceless

The Never Ending Saga of the New Heater Continues... Wherein the students get rained-on and inhale pieces of dead insects

So the very nice heater-fixing men have been hard at work trying to get the new heater running. Besides trying to make sure that I don't lose any fingers or toes to frostbite this winter, the very nice heater-fixing men have also been helpful in other ways.

For example, my English kidlets are currently working on prepositional phrases and the heater guys have provided some wonderful examples. The heater guys walk through the classroom. They climb up the ladder. They crawl inside the ceiling. They walk on the roof. And they occasionally shout interjections at the heater... which is fine because some impromptu reviews of interjections never hurt anybody.

There were a couple of interesting events added to the new-heater-time-line this week.

On Tuesday, my third hour creative writing kidlets were working on their poetry quest when one rather chatty little girl raised her hand. The following is a transcript of our brief, yet damp, exchange. The kidlet's name has been changed in that it has been rendered slightly less weird.

Chatty Kidlet: Umm, Miss Haws? Is it raining?

Me: Yes, Taniquianna. Now please focus on your quest.

Chatty Kidlet: But, Miss, it's raining.

Me: I know that Taniquianna. You will probably have inside lunch today, but that isn't your problem right now. Right now your problem is your poetry quest.

Chatty Kidlet: But Miss Haws... It's raining INSIDE!

And sure enough, it was! Poor Taniquianna, her poetry quest, and the three empty desks around her were, in fact, being rained on. Apparently, when the crane removed the old heater, it also removed part of weather-proofing.

The part of the weather-proofing directly above Taniquianna's desk.

 But don't worry about her. Taniquiana got a free hall pass to collect paper towels from the bathroom, and then she got to move to a dry seat that was next to the people she most enjoys chatting with. No harm done.

The second heater-related event happened at the beginning of fifth hour on Thursday. Just as the kids were sitting down, a cloud of dirt, dust, and insect remains fell from the ceiling vent and filled the room.

It might have been because they had a fire drill the day before. Or it could have been the earth quake drill we also had that week. Or it might have been the story on Channel One News that morning about the foiled NYC terror plot. But no matter what the reason, the kidlet's reaction to the cloud that filled the classroom was complete and total panic. It was hilarious.

I figured that the very nice heater-fixing men must have given the blowers a test run, so I wasn't worried. I let the kids take a walk to the drinking fountains to clear their pipes while the dust settled. They had started to settled down, when another teacher came walking through the hallway and noticed that my room and the lunch room were both engulfed in a smoke-like haze. That teacher, knowing that the previous junior high had actually burnt down during a school day, ran to alert the principal. Seeing the teacher panic reignited the kidlet's panic which made for a rather unproductive class period.

The very nice heater-fixing men were very apologetic, but I told them not to worry about it. The look on the kidlet's faces as the mushroom cloud descended upon them was hilarious. The memory of it brings a smile to my face and warms the corners of my heart.

And that should be enough to keep me going until the heater is up and running and able to warm the rest of me.

On The Bright Side...

So... remember how the heater in charge of heating my classroom hasn't worked for, like, the last five years?

Well, five years minus the week it was working last year. But I don't really count that week because, while it was giving off heat, the heater was also giving off semi-noxious fumes.

Please don't confuse those semi-noxious fumes with the obnoxious fumes that waft off of the 8th grade boys. Those fumes are a subject for a completely different post.

This post is about the ongoing saga of my heat-less classroom. Or at least, it was when I started it...

Anyway, when the school year began I had already resigned myself to the idea of spending yet another winter teaching while wearing multiple layers of clothing, gloves, a scarf, and wrapped in a blanket while a chorus of buzzing space heaters drowned out the sound of 30 sets of almost-completely-permanent-grown-up teeth chattering uncontrollably.

Then, one magical morning in September, my principal appeared in my room bearing glad tidings of great joy... my classroom (and the other areas in my immediate vicinity) would be getting a brand-spanking-new heater! That would actually heat things! Without poisoning me or the kidlets! It was like Christmas morning! With heat! And no semi-noxious fumes!

Of course, the ginormous non-poisonous heating heater needed to replace the old one... on the roof of the school right above my classroom. That meant that a crane would be involved. And THAT meant that I was going to have to vacate my classroom for a day so as to ensure that none of the kidlets were in danger of being squished in any giant crane/old roof related accidents.

 

And so, for one day in September, I hauled all of my teaching stuff to a room on the other side of the building where I taught the very confused kidlets.

 

Well, before the teaching could start I had to wait for the kidlets to find the room, and then explain to them why I wasn't in my room. Then  it took a little longer to assure them that I would eventually be returning to my real room, before showing them where the pencil sharpener was and explaining why I couldn't bring my smart board with me. But then some teaching happened.

 

 When school ended, I started wheeling my stuff back to my original room, only to be told that the new heater didn't fit the connections into the building from the old heater. The very nice maintenance guys then explained that eventually, when they figured out how to connect the new heater to the old hook-ups, I would have to vacate my room yet again.

 

And a week or so later, I did vacate the room, but only when the giant crane with kidlet-crushing potential was actually in use, which happened to coincide perfectly with my kidless prep time. It was quick and painless.

 

I didn't see or hear from the maintenance guys for almost a month afterwords. Then, just as I started redecorating my room with a nice Octoberish-theme, I found out the crane and a small army of maintenance guys, electricians, and heating guys would be invading my classroom yet again.

 

So Monday morning, I once again moved five classes (four subjects) worth of stuff out of my room, through the lunch room, out of the commons, down the hall, and into room 148.

Where I found a cheerful note from my very kind, new-heater-facilitating principal.

But then Monday in room 148 turned into Monday and Tuesday in room 148.

When I found out that Monday and Tuesday in 148 was in danger of turning into Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in 148, I politely explained to the maintenance guys that Wednesday in 148 was not an option because a sub was taking my classes that day. "You see," I explained, "the kidlet wig out when they have class in a different room. The kidlets also freak out when they have a sub. Therefore, having a sub in a different would cause a wig-out-freak-out of massive proportions precluding any learning of any kind from happening that day."

Then the maintenance guys repeated that my room was probably going to be off limits again on Wednesday.

Then I told them that I would cry, which resulted in them telling me that they could probably work around the kids on Wednesday after all.

So the kidlets will only have to have half of a freak out tomorrow with the sub, and they can do that freaking out in the comfort of our usual classroom.

On the bright side, there is a good chance that, sometime in the next two weeks, the new heating, poison-less-heater will be ready to do some heating. My little sojourn in the 140's hallway also provided me with a renewed appreciation for my classroom... and some great material for example poems for our rhyme scheme lesson.

Also, with all of the constrution work going on in the room, it gave Iron Man a chance to try out a new, safety-oriented look. The maintence guys thought Iron Man's hard hat was pretty entertaining...

... Although they thought Anita, our sentence dissection nurse, was just disturbing.

 

But, thanks to those disturbed maintenance guys, my room will eventually have heating capabilities this winter. Which means that the temperature in the classroom will be high enough to allow me to open the back door a crack every now and then to let out some of the obnoxious fumes emanating from the 8th grade boys.

Bright side indeed!

2012 General Relief Society Meeting

The day of the General Relief Society meeting is, without fail, one of my favorite days of the year. I get spend the day hanging out with some of the most amazing ladies on the planet.

This year, we focused on the 170th anniversary of the organization of the Relief Society. Our fearless President gathered up tons of historical Relief Society awesomeness. And the one and only Sister Woodhouse provided some amazing decor and delicious refreshments. Oh, and Sue and I were more than happy to help arrange the historical awesomeness, set up the amazing decor, and sample the delicious refreshments. Sue and I are helpful like that.

Each of the wards and branches in the stake created beautiful, educational, and uplifting displays that featured different aspects of their own Relief Society's histories.

And even though we always enjoy the spiritual feast that is the actual meeting broadcast, there an extra special feeling of sisterhood that night thanks to the astounding turn out from the sisters in the Stake. 130 sisters joined us in the stake center, even though we didn't serve dinner... and there was a Boise State game going on at the same time.

So to sum up: We set up, we were spiritually lifted up, and then we cleaned up.

Conference is awesome.

If you missed some of the talks, or just want to review them over and over to savor every beautiful truth, go here!