Behind on Many Things . . .

including posting to my blog. This has been a busy few weeks with finishing up the semester, working on a grant proposal, trying to get ready for Christmas, etc. Last week we were also out in schools surveying students all 5 days! In addition, I was really sick with a chest cold last week; unfortunately I'm still experiencing a lingering cough that annoys the heck out of me. I'm so behind on so many things.

I'm looking forward to some down time, but unfortunately will have to work on the grant proposal next week. It is due soon - WWWAAAYYYY TOOOOO SOOOON in fact! I do plan to relax some though.

On a good note, however, my XO project team surveyed over 800 4th and 5th graders this semester! We have another 8 schools lined up to survey the first couple of weeks in January. It has been a huge amount of work, but hopefully the data that we're collecting on these students BEFORE they receive their XOs and then afterwards will yield important information about the impacts of the XOs. I hope so anyway!

In case there are no blog postings before the holidays (I hope there will be though!), I hope you all have happy and safe holidays!

Post Holiday Post

We've just returned from spending Christmas in FL with my husband's family. We drove the 10+ hours, which with a 2 year old is no small feat! Callen actually did great for most of the time. We divided the drive over 2 days on the way to FL but made the long trek back in one day - which was harder on Callen and us! But, it was good to be home and in our own beds again. It is always nice to visit with family and friends, but also nice to come home again.

We took Callen to see Santa for the first time while we were in FL. We stood in line 30 minutes until it was our turn. When it was Callen's turn to sit on Santa's lap, she would have no part of it! She screamed and held onto me for dear life! Guess you've figured out - we didn't buy those Santa pix! Maybe next year she'll be more willing to sit with Santa and tell him what she'd like for Christmas.

I've really been amazed in the past couple of weeks how Callen's vocabulary and her sentence structures have developed. It also seems that she's beginning to look more and more like a little girl and less like a toddler! I'm not sure I'm ready for her to grow up so fast...

I hope you all had great holidays; I look forward to hearing about them soon! Oh, and the Christmas cards still haven't been written on this end, but hopefully soon : ).