Not Recommended

A few days ago, I dropped a costco sized bottle of shampoo on my toe in the shower. I do no recommend this! I screamed loud enough for Matt to come running in from down the hall. But aside from the initial pain, it didn't hurt that bad. And I've broken/sprained enough toes in my lifetime to know it's just a bad bruise... but still not the most comfortable.
This is what it looks like now:
In other news, Matt and I have both been sick this week. I am getting very frustrated with being sick all the time this winter and not being able to get as much done as I need to. I have only been really healthy for about a week in the last couple months. This week has been especially bad. Even with going to bed early and getting tons of sleep, I still can't shake it.

My hours have gotten cut a bit at work this week and the last couple of weeks. We have had a lot of kids sick or on vacation. Less kids equals less teachers needed and less hours... which is kind of disappointing.

Grace is coming for a visit this weekend! Hopefully I'll be feeling better to actually be some fun for her. But I don't think I've seen her since I visited her in like November, so I am very excited!

On Monday, Matt and I both are going to an out of state teacher job fair at Grand Valley. So lots of prayers for that would be great :). As well as continued prayers in the next few months with our job searching. I also have an interview at Calvin with a Christian school in California, on March 12 (this is just one I signed up for, not one that I was called in for, however).

Hurray for Beautiful Furniture!

Matt rented a Uhaul to pick up our furniture Thursday, and last night we put it all together :). I absolutely love it! The dresser is bigger than I remember, or at least feels rather large in our bedroom, but oh well. We also realized that moving it is going to be a lot of work because it's all very heavy (but that means high quality)!

Anyways, here it is:

Just for Matt... no foot board sticking up to squish his toes :)

Are We Related?

My niece, Evangeline, and I, both around 8-9 months...

She's much cuter, of course. She definitely must have gotten the DeKoekkoek chin from her daddy. I'd compare myself to Lucca as well, but we all know that she is the spitting image of her beautiful Mama :).

Yes, that is my dad with a fro... or a perm, as he calls it.

A Bed!

Our most exciting news at the moment is that we ordered a bedroom set this weekend :). We have been living thus far with our bed on a simple hollywood frame with no headboard or anything, and and a $30 second hand dresser. I have been wanting a real bed so badly for the last couple years, and we finally found one. Matt doesn't want a footboard since he's so tall and his feet hang off the end (although he likes them to do that)... and it isn't the easiest to find a nice bed without one. We are getting a "5 piece Bedroom Set," which includes: the bed (3 "pieces" in itself) and a dresser with mirror. Here is a link. We pick it up Thursday, I'm so excited!

We had small group at our house last week - I really enjoy having people over :). We made this yummy tiramisu-like dessert that I found on the kraft foods website. I love that site, they have so many easy and delicious recipes!

Matt is still really enjoying his student teaching, he's starting to get into more teaching and work now too.

Here is a picture from before the big melt, when Matt and I went on a walk on the Plaster Creek trail by our house:

Warm Weather!

We had a freakishly, amazingly warm weekend for mid-February. Saturday hit 50 degrees and was sunny too! It was so amazing, you can't not be in a good mood with that kind of weather. Although it was very wet and slushy out with a couple feet of snow melting all over the place. I was sitting inside for the first part of the day, and then felt too compelled to be outside on such a beautiful day... so I went for a walk/jog (meaning walking on the snowy/icey parts and jogging on the clear pavement). All I had on was a thin sweatshirt and I was plenty warm, it was glorious.

Let's see, Friday night Matt and I went to our friends Nathan and Marcia's house for pizza. Yum, and good times hanging out and talking and catching up with them again. We tried this new pizza place that I keep hearing about at work, called Jet's Pizza, and we were big fans.

Matt got his results back from his Michigan teacher certification tests and he passed with flying colors! I am so very proud of him and all the work that he put in. We're one step closer to getting teaching jobs now :).

Now that it's official, I can put it on here... Jordan, Allyson, and Evangeline are coming here for a visit at the end of May! They are taking a trip to Rhode Island to visit Allyson's family and go to a wedding, and are going to stop through here on the way. They are coming the week before Matt's graduation, so they'll get to celebrate that with us too. I am overwhelmingly excited and thankful for this opportunity to see them and for them to see where we live. Now if only winter would end and May would come sooner.

The week's happenings

After much sickness last week, I am finally almost healthy! Let's hope I'm back to 100% in the next couple days.

The weekend was a busy one, full of fun and productiveness. Saturday I babysat and got to take Lacey to her ice skating lessons... it's too cute watching a 3-year-old inch across the ice! For the rest of the afternoon I worked on job searching and resume and cover letter updating (ugh!). I was getting real bored by evening, but then Andrea from our small group ended up coming over to watch a movie. I miss girl time and chick flicks, it was so nice :).

Sunday I had some grocery shopping to do, which was about the worst plan ever at 3pm on Super Bowl Sunday apparently... what other day of the year is a grocery store out of half of their items that just went on sale that day by mid afternoon? Not to mention there was a traffic jam waiting at every aisle. Oh well, I made it out of there, and then went to Zach and Sarah's for their Super Bowl party. Lots of yummy food and fun people, just like it should be!

This morning I went to Calvin and got my resume and cover letter critiqued along with some general job searching advice. Now I need to fix those up so that I can send them out! We're getting to the point where we really need to get going on all this applying for jobs stuff and it's becoming very real and a little scary and overwhelming. But I just have to remind myself that it's all up to God... it's in His hands if and where we get jobs and no matter what He will provide for us just like He is now, so I have nothing to worry about. That's the only way to get through this, when your future is entirely up in the air, I suppose. It is exciting though to wait and find out what God has in store for us! All of your prayers would also help us out a lot.

Matt started his student teaching today. I am dying to hear how his day went, and madly jealous that he gets to be in a school every day, when I would kill for that right now, even if it meant doing my student teaching over again. But I am also very proud of him and excited for him and pray that this will be an amazing educational experience for him!

Anyways, I have lots more to get done on my day off... that is, before I have to go into work for CPR training at 6 pm... so off I go to be productive!

Progressive Dinner

Our small group had a progressive dinner on Saturday night and it was so much fun! We started around 5:30 at one house for appetizers. Then went to another house for soup and salad. Then round 3 was lasagna. Round 4 was dessert at our house. Then finally games and drinks at the last house. We didn't get home until around 12:30... at late night for us old folks ;). It was so much fun to be at everyone's houses, and eat a little bit at each. It was so perfect, we were never too full or too hungry. Yah for people to do things with!