Frustrating day!

What a day! I woke up and my phone was not working.. couldn't make any calls, although I could receive calls (weird).

Then I got to school and the kids were just horrible! I have no idea what got into them. It's like they had forgotten everything that I had taught them. I had to really crack down. It was just frustrating!

And then, I got observed by my principal teaching a Math lesson, which is fine. BUT - not only were the kids terribly behaved - but the lesson was a very hard one for 3rd graders. It was determining range, median, and mode. They are already behind in math, but they did not seem to understand it at all! It was so frustrating! I explained it like four different ways, but they kept whining and throwing fits that they did not understand it... all in front of my principal. UGHHH! In the end after MUCH explanation, they seemed to kind of get it.

Then I had the 4th graders in after school from 3:15 - 4:15.
After that, I have to run home and make dinner.
Then I have to run to a school board mtg (requirement for my grad. class)

That will put me home around 9:30pm!

Oh well, I guess I asked for this busy schedule. Some days seem harder than others though.

Tim did remind me that I have a lot to be thankful for - and I know it's true. It's just hard to remember sometimes!

One thing to be thankful for I guess, is that I finished my research paper this weekend (instead of having to stay up until all hours finishing it tonight)

Even amidst this crazy time, I will choose to rest in the Lord, for He is almighty!

My Favorite Spot: Sweet Dreams Organic Bakery and Cafe.

About 5 minutes down the road from our house, there is this adorable little, family owned, coffee shop and bakery that I love so much. This is the table I usually like to work at.  There is free internet access, friendly service, and comfy atmosphere.

Here is my steaming cup of hot tea.  It was a blend of fruits and spices.  The small bowl on the side is a teaspoon of organic honey.  All very yummy!  All of their dishes and furniture are from Crate & Barrel
I love this little bar you can sit at too and look out the window as you work :o)
Here is where the baristas and bakers hide. They are amazing!  I will  have to post some pics of the gorgeous pastries that they make!
If you ever come to Chicago to visit, I would love to take you to my little "hole in the wall" favorite spot!

A Wonderful Birthday

Well, yesterday was my birthday and Tim made sure that it was a very special day!

As soon as we woke up, he brought my present into me.  For any one who knows me, I just love presents... I had begged to open them all before the day, but he made me wait. And I am glad that I did!  

After that, we went to Panera to have breakfast together (I had gotten a giftcard :o)

We spent time reading our Bibles and praying together. It was such a blessing!

Then we went home and for about 4 hours I worked on school work for HFLS (exams are monday) And then... the REAL fun began :o)

Over the Christmas holiday, we had received two large gift certificates to use in Chicago. One was a GC to Lawry's Prime Rib, from Jon and Rach.  The other was a set of tickets to go see the "Blue Man Group" from my brother Tim and his wife Shannon.

Well, enough talking, here are some pictures of the lovely night we had!

The chef carved our prime rib right in front of us!

The brought out a mini- trifle for my birthday!

Creme Brule

They didn't allow us to take pictures inside the theatre, but here are a few outside. 

They show was hilarious and exciting. So many unexpected things happened!d

Going Deeper

Well, I officially started graduate school at Trinity International University. Last night was my first class, "Foundations of Education". If you have you have been following my blog for sometime, you will remember that I have almost started grad. school several times. But for various reasons (money, time etc) I have not been able to follow through with that dream of mine. Well, it has worked out for me to get about 50% off my tuition because Tim is a full time student! Plus I have a scholarship through CLEF
(A Lutheran Educational foundation).
Because I work at a Lutheran school, I am able to get one class paid for a sememster. So all in all it's a pretty good deal. Praise the Lord for that!

I have to admit, I was a little nervous about my first class. I had stayed up late the night before finishing assignments, so I was very tired. The class is from 6pm - 10pm. So I was terribly afraid that I would be bored out of my mind and fall asleep! But I was pleasantly surpised when at 8pm we hit our first break and I didn't even notice that 2 hours had gone by already! The professor, Dr. Carol Kennet is an amazing teacher! She is a scholar and an orator and she wants us to leave the class being the same. I left last night ready to come into my classroom today. Boy did I need that breath of fresh inspirtation!

Chicago at Christmas

When we came home from PA, my brother and sister in law came with  us and stayed for a few days in chicago.  We went to a nice lunch at the Grand Lux Cafe on Michigan Ave. and then went to the 96th floor of the Hancock building for dessert.  It was amazing!

A Bit Overboard!

This is a house nearby where we live...

Christmas Day with the Baylors

Here is the opening of presents with all of the kids running around... it was crazy, but fun too .

A Family HUG 

Preparing for our Christmas meal

Andy playing with Will and his new toys

The guys playing video games

I LOVE this photo of Tim holding our new niece: Sadie Baylor

Jordan Family Christmas 2007

Tim and I went home to PA this Christmas. We spent the first half of Christmas day with my family and the second half with his family. We had a wonderful time with both the Jordan and the Baylor families. Here are some pictures of Christmas with my family.  The Baylor family Christmas will follow in an upcoming post.

"Christmas Past" - 2006 Christmas party

Here you all are a year later!

"Christmas Past" - 2005 Christmas party

Tim and I were talking the other day about how we had such a fun time with all of our friends in VA Beach at our annual Christmas party.  Just wanted to take a minute and say Merry Christmas to all of our friends in VA.  We miss you and love you so much!  Hey maybe next year you can all come out to Chicago... there is sure it be SNOW :O

Remember the Persecuted Church

A few Sundays ago, I attended a "Christmas Card Writing Party" for the Persecuted church. I went thinking that I was just going to go, eat some cookies, write some cards and leave, but that was not exactly the case. As I read Prisoner Profile after Prisoner Profile, my heart became broken for these believers in all parts of the world who are persecuted for their faith.

Here is one such profile:

Prisoner Name: Y Wo Nie
Location: Vietnam
Arrested: August 2004

Pastor YWo Nie was arrested August 18, 2004 for leading a demonstration demanding more religious freedom and the release of property confiscated by the Vietnamese government. He received a nine - year sentence. His family has not been able to visit him.

My heart could not shake the fact that I complain because we cannot go out to dinner more often or buy more things around the holidays, when these believers are in a cold, dark, lonely prison cell because of their faith in Jesus Christ!

Let's pray, write, and support the persecuted church - not only this holiday season, but throughout the year!

To find more information about these prisoners and their situations, go to PrisonerAlert.com

Update on Katie

For the latest update on Katie, click here to go to her blog and read her latest post. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. You are a blessing!

Need Some Jewelry for Christmas?

I wanted to get the word out there that I am making jewelry right now. If you are looking for a good Christmas gift for a friend, co-worker, sister or mother; jewelry just might be the best idea. I have included some pictures of what I have ready to go already. But I can always complete an order if you have a different idea. I should have no problem getting it to you before Christmas. Just contact me via e-mail. My e-mail address is juliebaylor@gmail.com. Feel free to e-mail and ask me any questions that you might have. I can even wrap it for you or send it in a gift bag.

Pray for Katie Barker

Tim and Katie came to visit this past weekend. We had a wonderful time with them. But Friday night Katie's eye started to really hurt and water alot. The pain got so extreme through the night that she went to go visit a doctor here in Chicago. They gave her drops for her eye and told her that it was an "Ulcer of the eye" The pain got better, but her eye began to swell. Tim drove them home and they immediately went to the emergency room and then to a specialist. I don't know all of the details, but I know that they are concerned about her vision. PLEASE PRAY that she will be ok and that her vision will not be affected. She then went downtown to John's Hopkins. They said there was an infection. They created an eyedrop especially for her. They are very strong adn she takes them every hour- even through the night. She has to go back for a daily follow up. Right now she can't really see anything out of that eye. She won't know anything for sure about her vision for a few weeks. There is a concern of permanant scaring.

Again please pray for strength and wisdom for Tim and Katie.
I will try to update you when I hear anything more from Tim.

Thank you for your prayers and support. I know it means a lot to them right now.

Thanksgiving at HFLS

We had a big Thanksgiving feast at school and we celebrated with Thanksgiving Bingo, A turkey craft, and "Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" It was a lot of fun!

Thanksgiving in Chicago

Well, this year we were not able to make it home to PA for Thanksgiving. So instead we did a BIG Turkey dinner with the Logans. 

It all started 2 days before the actual day, when I started the brine for the Turkey (Martha Stewart recipe).  It was a great recipe, but some of the spices were tricky to find.  I ended up finding everything (at various stores) but the juniper berries.  Any ideas where to find them? Oh well, the turkey seemed to turn out well anyways. It was very moist and tasty too.

We had a wonderful time of fellowship with Scott and Lindsay.  We are so thankful to the Lord for their friendship!

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving too! What did everyone do this year?

Pumpkin Cranberry Bread

I decided to make small loaves of pumpkin cranberry bread for my fellow employees at HFLS this year for Thanksgiving.  It was quite the challenge, as I had to make 16 mini loaves to make.  But it really was fun. I turned on some Christmas music and started baking! About three or four hours later I was  finished.  Here is the final product!

A free date night!

Friday night there was a benefit dinner for Holy Family Lutheran School, where I work. It was a very posh event to raise money for the school. The night would have cost us $65 a person - had we been required to pay. Yup that's right! Teacher's got to go for free! There was an open and free bar for the cocktail hour from 6-7:30pm and then dinner started with this delectable salad below:


This is just a picture of the gorgeous butter flower :o)
Below is a the main course: Herb-Crusted chicken, with roasted asparagus, and garlic mashed potatoes. Absolutely amazing!
I didn't get a picture of the dessert, because I was helping with the live auction. The dessert was a fried bread pudding with brandy icecream. It usually don't like bread pudding, but it was good!

Below are some pics of the baskets that people put together for the silent auction. There was also a live auction that auctioned things off like vacation homes for a week, dinners for 8, and boat cruises.

This is the banquet hall that everything took place in. Very nice! The kids from Holy Family gave a presentation -singing, speaking, etc. They did a great job!
The benefit raised over 100,000 dollars for the school. What a blessing: especially since we are building new school that will be finished this May!

Overall, it was a fabulous night... and how can you beat FREE, right?

Pros and Cons of Living in an Apartment

Ok, so I have lived in an apartment and have also lived in a townhouse. So I have a pretty good take on each. I have decided to compile a list of pros and cons to living in each.

Pros to living in an Apartment:

1. You don't have to mow the lawn
2. You don't have to remember what day is trash day (not to mention that in our apartment we just found out that we have a garbage chute on our floor!) How awesome is that?
3. It takes about half the time to clean your place
4. No gutters to clean
5. No snow removal ( a BIG deal here in Chicago)
6. You know where EVERYTHING is
7. It's easier to speak to your significant other from room to room (only 2 of them!)

Cons to Living in an Apartment:

1. You can't always paint the walls
2. You are a little more crowded - harder to have guests
3. It's not your home- you can't do whatever you want to the space you live in.
4. You can hear your neighbors... whatever they are doing!
5. It's hard to get to know your neighbors well.
6. You can look out your window into someone else's window.
7. Smelly and dirty hallways


Do you have any to add to either of my lists?

A Fun Week in the 3rd Grade Classroom

This week was a fun week at school. As you know Wednesday was Halloween, so we decorated bags for the kids to take out trick or treating. Then I handed out candy to them in little individual pumpkin bags. They were so grateful! I also gave them each a Fall pencil. You would have thought that I had given them a sack of gold! The were so excited! It was very sweet!

Then today we had a little "Reward celebration" I promised that I would bake them brownies if they showed 10 acts of kindness. They have really been struggling with kindness and so we were trying to work towards that goal as we reviewed Ephesians 4:32 "Be Kind and Compassionate one to another. Forgiving one another, even as God forgave you in Christ." So they reached their goal yesterday. So last night I baked them brownies. Again, they thought I was the BEST for baking something (even though it came from a box)

We also took a little trip to a local park. We have no playground of our own. So this was something special! They earned this treat by getting at least a C or above as a class on 10 tests. It was hard and took a while, but they finally got there. It was so fun to reward them with those special treats today. Some may call this bribing, but i like to call it creating incentive!