Small Successes-Third Week of Advent

Celebrating the little things in life that add up.

Ok, I think this week some of my "small successes" aren't exactly small, but since I tend to sweat the small stuff I'm going to assume that maybe they really are small simply because of the amount of stressing out I have done over the past week.

1. I finally got around to making gingerbread houses (from a kit, of course) with the girls. My house looks pathetic, but the girls' houses came out great. I little success within a success is that I did not freak out about the mess made from this activity. I managed to keep the neat freak in me calm throughout the entire process.

2. I baked. (I'll wait a moment for all of you to pick yourselves off the floor after reading that earth shattering statement.) It's true. I made chocolate chip cookies from scratch and peanut butter cookies from one of those pouch mixes. Bryan and the kids are happy with the cookies. The chocolate chips are almost gone. So much for my hope that they'd last until Christmas. Clearly, the cookies never had a chance.

3. I managed to write what I hope is a decent lesson plan for the 7th grade religious ed class that I am now teaching. Last Thursday I substituted for this class and made the decision to teach it. The original teacher backed out after two weeks and the kids had 5 classes in a row of substitutes. I felt bad for them and decided to step up and teach them. I'm pretty overwhelmed right now at the prospect of teaching this class given that I just jumped right into it, but I'm sure I'll get my bearings soon enough. I had a good time with the kids last week, and I'm hoping each week will get better and better. It's certainly a switch from the kindergarten class that I teach. I'm hoping that I can learn the names of the 16 kids in the class. I remember the names and faces of two kids. That's a start, right?

4. The Holiday Brunch for Madeline's class is all planned and ready to go. I managed to get everything planned in under a week. I'm one busy mom!