Save the Dates - CHECK, Self-Serving Black Friday - CHECK

The Save the Dates are OUT! Mama and I mailed them on Monday and boy was that a HUGE sigh of relief. There are a few left that I still need to finish addressing/didn't quite make it in the mail, but for the large part they are FINISHED. I'm really happy with how they turned out. A little more purple than pink, but at least they are centered. :-)

Now we are working on ordering the wedding invitations. I have already chosen them, it's just a matter of font and wording. My Aunt Cammy (God bless her) has graciously offered to purchase them as a wedding gift for us. Her employer produces the invites and she gets a solid discount (crucial with a large guest list). The invites are VERY simple, very traditional and classic.

We had a really great Thanksgiving. This is the first holiday where I have realized that it is not easy being married (and we're not yet!) Splitting holidays is difficult. We decided to spend Thanksgiving with Christopher's family and Christmas with mine in Pennsylvania. We will still go see Chris's family the day after Christmas, but I'm having a hard time giving up Christmas morning in Dauphin. I called my parents to wish them a happy Thanksgiving, only to hear my brother in the background screaming about how he's hooking up the new flat screen TV and they're going to watch Tom Petty in high definition. He really does love me, just in his own way... :-)

After struggling with a rutabaga/turnip/radish/whatever the heck we were supposed to make, we headed out to Christopher's parents' house. His sister Kathy and her husband Matt were there with their two girls, and Chris's twin Jimmy and his fiance Rebecca. We ate a TON of food and then played Catch Phrase for the rest of the night which turned into a really great time.

Then black Friday rolled around. A little anticlimactic in the morning if you ask me. (Well, I was sleeping). There weren't a whole lot of fantastic sales and I just wasn't really "into" it this year. Plus, Christopher went to start the Jeep and... well, it didn't. So I ended up having to take him to work and did my black Friday shopping after 4:00.

Oops. I forgot that you are supposed to buy things for OTHER people on black Friday. Lilly Pulitzer was having a lovely sale though so I spent quite a bit of money there... On myself. Christopher is not a fan of my colorful preppy style so he didn't like too much of what I bought (i.e. ANYTHING that I bought), but I love this dress...

Most of the things I bought were from the summer collection, but this was my one splurge from the fall. I did get it at 50% off, which for Lilly is pretty spectacular. Chris said, "uh...what's up with the buttons?" Such a boy... The back of the sash is bright pink and I have to say I'm in love with it - plus it has pockets. Sweet! I also got two skirts, another dress, and a long-sleeve button-up ruffle blouse. I had a lovely time until checkout. :-)

After that I went to the mall to attempt to shop for OTHER people. I did get my mama something which is a plus. I also got myself a pair of skinny jeans from Gap. A few weeks ago I got these adorable riding boots from Ralph Lauren and have yet to wear them because I needed jeans that would fit inside. My legs are so skinny and my feet are SO large that I've had a really hard time finding boots that fit my legs. These are the closest so far. They're still really big in the legs if I wear them with a skirt (sigh) but they look cute with jeans. Whew. Finally.

Now that I have blown my life's salary on clothing for myself, I suppose it's time to get back to the wedding/work grind. It has been SO nice to have some time off of school to just sit and do nothing. I'm really dreading going back on Monday. (I do miss my kids though). But overall it was a VERY happy Thanksgiving, a somewhat productive black Friday, and a fantastically relaxing long weekend!

(P.S. Christopher's birthday was on Tuesday. I have yet to post about it. Shh... I'll get there.)

Thank God for Accidents

Back in May I posted about one of my bridesmaids, Lindsey, who was undergoing brain surgery. (See My Girl, Revised and Prayers for Lindsey) This morning's Washington Post included an article about being thankful for otherwise terrible events. It tells Lindsey's story; the story about the young girl who got hit in the head with a softball. And had she not, her brain tumor may never have been discovered... As you think about what you are thankful for this year - family, friends, shelter, food - thank God that Linds got a softball to the face. She might not be here otherwise.

You can read the article on the Post's website here. I have also copied it below.

A hit on the head and no error for a thankful softball player

By Preston Williams
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 26, 2009

There are Thanksgivings that evoke general thanks, and there are Thanksgivings that evoke specific thanks. For the Ganey family of College Park, this year it will most certainly be the latter.

And if in the middle of the table there is a softball instead of a Butterball, that will be just fine.

"Softball saved Lindsey's life," Lori Ganey said, talking about her daughter.

Here's what happened on the afternoon of April 23 at Riverdale Field:

Lindsey Ganey, then a freshman first baseman at St. John's College High School, was playing second base because the team was short on middle infielders. An Elizabeth Seton player hit a fly ball behind the bag. Shortstop Mary Liddi and Ganey each headed in that direction. The ball caromed off the tip of Liddi's glove and struck Ganey between the eyes.

As such incidents go, there was little drama. The bloodless blow dizzied Ganey, so she left the game to ice the injury. Her tears dried as the innings wore on. Later that day, as a precaution, she went to Doctors Community Hospital in Lanham for testing.

Good news and bad news. The ball to the head did no damage. The CT scan, however, turned up something.

"I got hit in the head," Lindsey Ganey said recently, "and the next thing I knew, I had a brain tumor."

Ganey underwent 10 hours of surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital a few weeks later and this month was cleared to resume playing softball. She earned honors with distinction during the most recent St. John's grading period. She's thriving.

If St. John's pitcher Elizabeth Donatelli had thrown her pitch in a slightly different spot or at a slightly different speed, or if the Seton batter had hit the ball somewhere else on the field, or if Liddi or Ganey had made a clean catch, or if Ganey had been in her usual spot at first base, or if the ball had not glanced just so off Liddi's glove, or if Seton Athletic Director Candy Cage had not strongly urged the Ganeys to go to the hospital for tests, then Lindsey Ganey would still be walking around with a cavernous malformation in her brain, an abnormal growth of blood vessels larger than a golf ball.

"We're lucky that it happened when it happened, where it happened, on that field at that time," Lori Ganey said. "I'm not able to go to every one of her games, and I was at that game. Maybe if I wasn't at that game, she wouldn't have gone" to the hospital. "I don't know."

Lindsey Ganey recounted the story at the family's home with her mom; her dad, Tom; brother Jake, a DeMatha freshman; and her "unbiological brothers," friends Nathan and Matthew Smith, twin DeMatha sophomores who live down the street.

Lindsey had been having unexplained headaches once or twice a week, symptoms that, had the tumor remained undiscovered, probably would have intensified with age, perhaps even to the point of seizures or a hemorrhage, said her neurosurgeon, Edward S. Ahn.

The noncancerous growth was "in a very sensitive area in her brain," Ahn said, and was difficult to remove because it was attached to significant blood vessels and had calcified into almost a bonelike mass.

The first few days after the surgery, Lindsey was not eating or talking or lifting her head, and she would blank out during conversations. Tom and Lori Ganey questioned their decision to have her undergo the procedure. The girl before them was not the determined daughter they knew, the one unfazed by a burst appendix in fifth grade, the one who slept through MRIs, the one who caught a doubleheader the first day she slapped on catcher's gear.

Lindsey requested a visit from buddy Nathan, the neighbor whom Lori Ganey now considers a sort of divine healer. His gentle way and goofy sense of humor perked up Lindsey. He fed her Cheerios one by one as they watched TV in her hospital room. He wheeled her around in a chair. He read to her. He and twin Matthew helped care for her after she returned home.

There were so many acts of kindness. Friends and neighbors brought in meals and mowed the lawn. One neighborhood family, the Doyles, threw a pre-surgery party. Sister Catherine Mindling, Lindsey's homeroom teacher, had Lindsey's school picture as her desktop wallpaper and contacted hundreds by e-mail to pray for her, including a certain Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon.

Because of Lindsey's high marks all school year, St. John's exempted her from final exams. Her travel team, the Takoma Fire, made her an honorary manager. The St. Vincent Pallotti High softball team sent her a signed ball. Jake's baseball teammates at St. Mark the Evangelist School rallied around him.

So when about 25 members of the Ganey family gather in Olney for Thanksgiving dinner at the home of Tom's brother, Chris, they will be grateful for a lot of things, particularly a clean bill of health for their favorite softball player. She received a batting helmet for her birthday in August and is eager to try it out at clinics this winter.

"She's kind of the family superstar this year," Tom Ganey said, smiling at his daughter. "It was a terrible thing, but she's all everybody talked about. We're going to have everybody together, and there's going to be, I imagine, some tears, you know, just thinking about where we were."

Where she was was out of position, pursuing a fateful fly ball that somehow found its way from pitcher's hand to batter's bat to shortstop's glove to second baseman's troubled head.

"That hit," Lori Ganey said, "was meant to be."

Mmmm... Tasting

We have FINALLY scheduled the tasting for the wedding menu - woohoo! Our caterer is a local restaurant, Shebeen, which specializes in African cuisine. Their catering portion of the business will make just about anything you want. Picking a wedding menu is hard when you have a large number of guests, an extremely picky bride, a groom who (according to my father) requires quantity over quality, oh and don't forget that pesky little thing called a BUDGET. Michelle, our coordinator at Shebeen, has been absolutely fantastic in working with us and I am SO excited to see how wonderful all our food tastes. Yum yum! We head to the restaurant next Monday. Mama is coming down this weekend to tag along so that will be fun. :)

Because of my crazy work schedule I've decided to stay in Virginia for Thanksgiving. I just need to sleep for five days straight and not sit in a car for 8 hours. I suppose that's the nice thing about having a fiance though. We have a whole other family 30 minutes over the mountain. Christopher's parents live just on the other side of our Monticello mountain and his sister is coming and bringing her family. So although I won't have my Mama and Daddy and Bubby on Thanksgiving, I will still have Christopher's family.

Today at school we had our Thanksgiving lunch. All the parents were invited to attend and eat turkey in the clasroom with us. We had five parents come, which was a pretty nice turnout. Some of the kids were really upset that their families weren't able to come so I told them I would be their family for the day. Well that turned out to be a little too true. One of my buddies was SO tired and was crying and clingy and I ended up eating my Thanksgiving "feast" (PBJ, mashed potatoes, apple crisp and milk - I opted out of the turkey) with him on my lap crying. I looked at one of the mothers and said, "Is this what it's going to be like when I have kids? I'll never have a meal to myself again?" And three of them nodded. HA! Other than that my kids were amazing in the lunchline. They used their super best manners and were as cute as can be. Some days I just love my job.

Next week we make Stone Soup and feast on that Tuesday. Each student is bringing in just a little something and we're going to teach them to cut them with kiddie knives and cook it all in a big pot. It'll be great. I can't wait to see the photos!!

Miss Minsterman - Is That Your Dad??

AHA! Finally! Finally someone thought Christopher looked older than me! Granted, it was a five year old and he has no concept of age, but still. :) Christopher came into school today to hang with the kids for a little bit. It was nice that he was able to put their personalities to all the stories. The kids were really excited. One little girl couldn't understand who he was and so I said, "Es mi novio (It's my boyfriend). She started giggling uncontrollably. Boyfriends are so cool to kids.

I just got home from work and am starving and exhausted. Sometimes I think about how hard I prayed over the summer that I would get a job and some days I wish I had those lazy days of summer back...

Save the Dates - Just a LITTLE Off-Center

The Save the Dates came in the mail late last week. I was soooo excited to see them and get them mailed out (FINALLY!) Well it turns out there was a slip in the cutting machine and they are all cut slightly off-center. That just won't do. So apparently the printer is doing a reprint and we should have them by the end of next week.

In the meantime I have been addressing envelopes. For the longest time I researched envelopes online; I, of course, am a stationary snob. Finally I went into Staples this weekend and found 100 envelopes on sale for $5.00. Yeah...frugal beats out snob any day of the week. Thus far I have addressed 83 envelopes. I ordered a self-inking return address stamp but am not so fond of it; therefore, I am also hand printing my address on the back of all the envelopes. In the end, we should probably have around 100 envelopes going out - 2 internationally.

Weddings are a LOT of work. Maybe I should just stick to the complaints of one of the little girls in my class. "Miss Minsterman, all the boys - they act like I'm the only girl in the whole class. They all want to be my friend. They push to stand next to me. I'm like - geez, there are other girls you know - I'm not the only one." Ah... the wisdom of a five-year-old beauty queen. :)

A photo of the save-the-date coming soon. I don't want to spoil the mail surprise!!

Dinner for Time Outs

You know you've had a rough day in kindergarten when you put YOURSELF in timeout, not once - but TWICE. No, no - not one of my students. Myself. I sent myself to timeout. I think I have hit an all time low.

One of my little guys had a REALLY hard day today and after handling the situation as best as possible, I was exhausted. I could not possibly take one more minute of stimulation; while my assistant read a book to the class, I went over and sat down in the "take five" corner.

In our classroom we call timeout "take five." I encourage students to go there on their own accord when they get frustrated or upset or angry and take five minutes to calm themselves down. We really make a concerted effort to remove the stigma from the timeout corner. I tell the kids that even Miss Minsterman needs to take five sometimes. And today was one of those days.

There was already another student in the chair (although I don't believe he went there on his own accord, I think my assistant sent him there) and I asked if I could sit beside him. "Ok Miss Minsterman, you can sit in take five with me." So there we sat. Z on the chair and me on the floor next to him. Both playing with our fingers and sitting in silence while the rest of the class went on as usual. After a few minutes I looked at him and said, "Feeling better? Ready to head back?" "Yeah, I feel better Miss Minsterman. Let's go back." We walked together back to circle where the kids were listening to the story. It was the best timeout I have ever had.

After a very long day, I realized I would have to stay at work until the building closed in order to get things planned for the rest of the week. I was bummed about one of my little guys and that I'm unable to go to a conference next week that I was really looking forward to attending. Overall, I was in a grouchy mood. I called Christopher and told him I was eating popcorn for dinner. He said he would bring me pasta.

THAT BOY SHOWED UP WITH A PICNIC BASKET. It was the most adorable thing I had ever seen. It had pasta, extra sauce, cheese, bread (one piece was half eaten; he said he got hungry while he was packing), butter, two bottles of water, plates, napkins, veggies... And we sat in my classroom on a rainy Tuesday night eating pasta and listening to Miles Davis while he listened to me ramble about my day.

I love him. I love him. I love him. I love him. :) I knew timeout was good for something.

It's a BOY!!

Congratulations and a happy belated birthday to my good friend Suzie Q. Suzie's birthday was on Friday and she got the best birthday news a girl could ever receive - she is having a BOY! Little baby boy Imbriaco is expected to arrive on Saint Patrick's Day 2010 so he'll get to experience a LITTLE of Aunt Kristi as a Minsterman. :)

I am so excited for Suzie and her husband Joe. Happy belated birthday, Suz, and CONGRATULATIONS!!

Bridal Shower

Me and my Maid of Honor

So I finally found a little bit of time to post some photos from the bridal shower (which was TWO weeks ago!) It was such an amazing party filled with all the women I love (minus a few who were ill) and I cannot thank everyone enough!

After picking Morgan up at the airport Friday. Yes, we are eating burritos in the Volvo. I completely forgot how much I miss her...

Putting together party favors Friday night.

Julie got these ADORABLE lime-vanilla votive candles for everyone. Morgan and I stamped our wedding monogram on cardstock and cut out using little kiddie scissors. They were beautiful and everyone loved them. Good thing we had a few leftover because we used them to make a girly campfire later!

Morgan says that nothing screams bridal shower like a stuffed pheasant in the background. I have to agree.

Our matching Halloween slipper socks. SUPER SWEET. We wore them all weekend.

My gorgeous flower girl on party day.

The gift opening area. Not too shabby. ;-) Morgan and Julie were up at 7:30 in the morning blowing up balloons.

With my cousins Katie and Julie. We're the three girls out of the "older" cousins and I'm the last to get married. They both have two kids already. :-)

My good friend LA from high school (who drove the ENTIRE way from DE - love her!) and one of my bridesmaids Joey grubbing on some DELICIOUS food.

Morgan helping Sadie take the little decorations off the cookies because she didn't "yike" them.

Self-portraits are hard with a DSLR...

With my bridesmaids: Morgan (MOH), Joey and Robin. :-) (Missing Linds, her mama was ill)

Now my almost-full bridal party. We were missing out on the flower girl.

Morgan celebrating her fake engagement by blinging out a huge diamond paperweight. I tried to tag her boyfriend on Facebook but he didn't get it.

All the little girls had matching Halloween jammies. Addison and Sadie are sporting theirs here. We didn't get Avery's on until later.

The Graft girls can overtake any party. (Yes, my cousin Joel showed up. Yes, he was very disturbed...)

The after-party fun begins...

ME AND MY GODMAMA! LOVE HER!! She got me a surprise pair of pink panties that read "Mrs. Hartwell" on the tush. SO CUTE.

Just prior to our danceoff in the kitchen over some M&Ms.

Dod and Jules on the deck.

Jean dancing --- for some reason. I wish I could remember why.

Amy informed us of her great "camera face." She really can be ready for a picture at a moment's notice. It's incredible.

So many aunts... So little time. Boy did they love Morgan though. As soon as they found out she was Seth's sister she was IN.

We definitely caught some funny expressions. Again - holding out a DSLR is not an easy trick.

Somehow I feel we all look better if it's in black and white!

The Volvo was PACKED to the brim the next morning. Julie, Steve and Morgan had to actually clean out my car (ugh, I've been with Christopher too long - I'm a slob now) in order to fit it all in. And yes, that is my pink Pottery Barn Kids lunchbox on the left. Matches the wedding colors. :)

We miss Steph and Rosie DESPERATELY but their bedroom is currently overrun with gifts!

All in all, the shower was everything I could have ever wanted. A few friends (Suzie, Hillary, Lori, Lindsey, LXR, LU, Steph, etc.) couldn't make it due to illness or travel restrictions and I really missed them, but thought about them often throughout the party. So many people traveled to attend the shower and I am so appreciative. Christopher's sister Terri came up from North Carolina!

Thank you so so so so so much to everyone that attended and helped plan/prepare, and sent generous gifts... It was amazing. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

More pictures to possibly come once I get them from everyone else. It was a constant flashbulb at the party. :)