Ladies and Gentleman, the winner is……
Annie! Yay, Annie!

Yes, the bags contained a scrumptious mixture of Nesquik, powdered sugar, and dry milk. Yummmm. My kids are so lucky to be in my class. Imagine, other teachers gave books. Ha! (By the way, a side note, I bought all the ingredients at our favorite store- Walmart! A SUPERwalmart. Which means I got even more lost trying to find all these random ingredients I have never bought before. (such as dry milk). And when I asked for help finding powdered sugar, the lady asked if that was a brand of sugar that perhaps Walmart doesn’t carry. Which somehow made me feel incompetent because I couldn’t describe the difference. Once again, Walmart leaves me at a loss.

And as a New Year’s Gift to everyone, I am also including some………..
Josh Talking in His Sleep Stories!

(And just so you know how dedicated I’ve become to report these, I have not only begun questioning the sleeping Josh to get more information out of him, but I also keep a notepad and pen next to the bed.)
Yes, I do that for you and here we go-

Josh fell asleep on the couch the other night. I called to him several times and asked if he was comfortable. He finally came stumbling into the room where he said, “Now, just so you know….. just so you’re not, like, shocked….” and then he stopped talking, put his head down on the pillow, and was out.

He was moving around in his sleep and completely took over my pillow. I told him he was on my side of the bed and he said, “Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie. That’s what I do when I’m really comfortable.”

About a week ago he picked his head up off the pillow and held it there for awhile. I finally asked him what was wrong. In a voice about three octaves higher than normal- we actually think he was quoting Sydney, our three year old niece- “Who-who-who-who- Who is crying?”
“What?”
(still Sydney) “I hear someone crying- who is it?”

And finally—
Josh held the covers up over his head, paused, seemed to make a decision, and dived underneath. He laid there holding the covers over his head.
“What are you doing?”
“I was told to do this.” (He sounded very firm and resolved about this.)
“Josh, you don’t have to hide.”
Unsure- “I don’t?”
“No, you don’t. “
“Oh, okay.”
At this point, I was chuckling and he got a little offended.
“Punk.”
Which only made me laugh harder. He rolled over to face away.
“Who told you to do that?”
“My brother! Okay?!?”

(Unfortunately, he ignored me after that, so we’ll never know exactly which brother.)

I always joked with my friends before I got married that once I moved back to the suburbs that I’d start attending a local school’s PTA meetings because thats just what seemed like the logical, suburb-living person should do. It would seem funny, you see, because I would neither be a parent or a teacher upon first moving to the area. Well, then I married an elementary school teacher. And as of last night, I can proudly say that I did attend my first PTA meeting.

I went to visit Lauren at her school before the parents started showing up for what I thought was Open House night. I scurried my way through the insanely packed parking lot, fighting off minivan after minivan and eventually had to park on the bus route. Bus routes! Yes :) !!

I walked through the double doors at the entry (ahhh . . . there’s that smell) and looked to my left into the lunchroom to see a host of people sitting in chairs, with rather important-looking people up on stage, and all the faculty and staff standing up along the walls. I walked in thinking “Hey, this is the beginning of Open House, sweet I’m here.” Only to realize that I had walked in on my first PTA meeting. It was like I infiltrated a secret society — thats the way i felt. I always heard about this growing up, but never imagined what it must be like.

Thankfully I spotted Lauren on the opposite wall where I was and made my way over to see her. After the presentations were all over, we walked back to her classroom so she could meet the family that had come for the actual open house event.

I decided to leave so she could get alone time with the visiting parents, thus forcing me to the end of the hallway where a few nervous looking teachers standing outside their doors thought I was a parent of one of their students.

A nervous head-down “He-hello” quick eye glance and I’m gone!

Phew!