My rockin' New Years Eve!

Josh was working on New Years Eve and Emily had gone to spend the night at a friends house to "work" on her cience Fair Project, leaving Jacob and I to fend for ourselves. Jacob was about to make his regular dinner on the fly, Taco meat, when I thought it would be way more fun to cook up a pizza and watch Wall-E, which we had picked up from the Red Box the night before. Jacob was game, so I let him make the pizza all by himself- with a little direction from me.

Now when I say, "Make a pizza" I don't mean make the dough. My mother used to make the dough from scratch when I was a kid, but once these little pouches came out where all you have to do is add water, she went to that and that is all I have ever done with my family. So here is Jacob puring in the dough.




Stir it up! He loves to stir!


Got to grease the pan. I remember having to Cisco it with my fingers whn I was a kid. It was SO gross. And my mom always made me do it!


Spreading the dough out. He did a very good job. I had to help him in the end, but he almost did it all himself.


Extra seasoning. Got to make it our own!


And the sauce. We don't use anything fancy. What ever we have in the house already. This is some sort of 4 cheese sauce.


Add the cheese, oops! Caught ya! He loves to eat shredded cheese. I think he may have eaten more than he got on the pizza!


But the smile makes it all good!


In the oven! Yummy!

Once it was done, we snuggled up and watched Wall-E, the third viewing for him and the first for me. I enjoyed my rather tame ringing in of the new year. But I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Prayers and Blessings

I have been attending a Sunday school class using the book Revolutionary Parenting as a guide. During the last 5 minutes of class our children’s minister stands up and would issue a challenge for the week. A challenge to get us to be better parents. She usually would give us something along the lines of bringing God into the conversations more or praying around the dinner table.

This class has been so wonderful. It allowed me to have the gumption to ask Jacob to pray at dinner and when he said no, again like he does every time we would ask I tucked that information into the back of my mind and that night when I tucked him in I asked him why he didn’t ever want to pray at dinner. His response was of course to say nothing at all, just like when I ask a difficult question to him. I asked if it was because he didn’t actually know how. If he was intimidated because when our babysitter prays at her table it is always very flowy and showy? His response to this question was a big nod and big scared eyes.

I quickly informed him that he was ok to have very simple prayers and that his prayers would be just as important to God as any big showy prayer he had heard anywhere else. We now, have nightly “prayer time” and he is excited to do it and getting more confident in his prayers every night. They are still very simple and “thank you for the trees” kind of prayers, but he is comfortable doing it and it pleases me more than anything else in this world.

Additionally another challenge given was to write a blessing for your children. This was especially difficult for me. I was very unsure of what to write. But I did it. I am sure it is horrible. But I plan to give these to the kids on Christmas Eve, and make it a tradition. And let me tell you--- it blessed me more than I am sure it will bless them. It is nice to sit down and really think about the wonderful things about your children and how they bless you and how you only hope for the very best for your children.

This class has come to a close and I am really sad about it. I know that the next class we will begin after the new year will be fabulous. It is a more Bible based course and I love to delve into the Bible during Sunday School, but I will miss this class, it is the first “parenting course” that I REALLY enjoyed and will miss going to every week. I am glad that I purchased the book in order to read and re-read it as my children grow. I would recommend it to anybody!!

Happy Birthday little one

Today, my baby girl is 10. Take a moment and let that sink in. She is 10. (Insert HUGE sigh from me.)

It seems that just yesterday we were bringing her home from the hospital when I was just 20 years old. I know I just gave my age away, but, seriously people, we have bigger fish to fry.

In these last 10 years I have watched my child go from an extremely strong willed child. So much so that I had to hold her down some nights to get her to go to sleep. She was a fierce child.

She turned into an even stronger willed child, who has already been picked up from the police station. She sure gave her father and I a run for our money. Never a dull moment with my little one.

She developed a speech “thing” that even the diagnostician had never heard of before. She began going to school 2 years earlier than she should have. She worked her way out of that speech thing, but began to struggle with reading. What a long year 2nd and 3rd grade were.

Then, it was as if a switch went off and she got it. She became my little academic. She is excelling in all of her subjects. She is reading so much that we can’t keep books in the house for her. She is currently reading Marley and Me, and eating it up. And that is not exactly at a 4th grade reading level. I am SO super proud if her.

She has also developed her first real crush. She told me about it just last night. I was so happy and sad at the same time. I was so sad because she is becoming a young lady, but so happy that she felt comfortable enough to tell me about it.

Here she is just last weekend. Beautiful as ever.



I love you Emily, Happy 10th. I hope it is everything that you want it to be.

Well, Hello there

Well, my oh my. It has been nearly 2 months since I last thought about writing anything on this here blog. But I thought I might give it an old college try.

The last 2 months have been hard. If you are still in school, thank your teachers. If you have kids in school, thank their kids. Because this career choice I made, it is hard.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love it. I have not once thought "I do not want to go to work today." Except for that one day when I had a stomach bug, but that was because I didn't want to puke on all of my students. I love going into that classroom everyday and teaching these knuckleheads things that I would like to think our children going into high school should know, but all too often do not.

I have been swimming in it all for the last 8 weeks. But with Thanksgiving right around the corner I actually feel like I might find myself as a person again. Maybe.

Take tonight as an example, even though I spent all day in class I still had time to take Emily to a birthday party, and have some one on one time with Jacob, and finally upload photos from like the last 3 months and a few other fun items. While sorting through the previously mentioned pictures I found one that I had forgotten i had taken. I had wiped the memory of the event from my memory all together. But seeing that picture, it all came back to me.

You see a few months ago my dear Amy and I finally made our much anticipated trip to see NKOTB. She recounted her fabulous memories HERE. She does quite a fantastic job of retelling the account in a fabulous voice with lots of anticipation and well thought out writing. But what she didn't tell you was that she became very violent on our little adventure. She was out right crazy. I became fearful for my safety when she insisted that she purchase a shot gun.

And then, ladies and gentlemen, she shot an animal. And liked it!

I know, I know, we are from Texas, where people shoot animals for sport. But, I really was shocked when we are walking through downtown San Antonio and she opens fire on a poor, defenseless animal.

I even took a photo of our dear friend with the "kill" and as you can see she was quite proud of herself!

I know, I know. I am almost ashamed to call her MY Lucy.

But in all seriousness, I think that weekend helped keep my sanity. With the craziness that is my life now I rarely have time for myself. But me and my girlfriend rocked a fabulous time and I can not imagine doing it with anybody else. Plus the music was pretty rockin' too!

Time with my boy

Tonight Emily had softball practice and since Josh is the coach they headed out the door after dinner together. I decided that Jacob and I needed a little one on one time, since that has been pretty rare here lately. Plus I needed to get my supplies for the craft for my Girl Scout meeting that is Friday night.

Jacob and I got into the car and headed out to Hobby Lobby to pick up scrapbooking supplies. FYI- Scrappers, all paper and albums are 50% off this week. Saved myself, er, well, I saved Girl Scouts A LOT of money. We had such a good time and he helped me pick out paper and albums for the girls. He showed my some beautiful Christmas decorations and very cute Halloween decorations that he thought we ought to buy right then and there. He showed me how he can stand on one foot for several minutes at a time while we were checking out with my 100 pages of scrapbooking paper (5 for $1) and even smiled and held my hand most of the time while we shopped around the store.

He told me about the book they are reading in school about a porcupine who loves salt and how he uses somewhat inappropriate language, which he finds hilarious. And also, the chapter they read today is when the fox dies, and he (Jacob) almost cried. “I had tears in my eyes.”

I loved spending this evening with my son. It reminds me of how important spending just a little bit of good quality time together can really reconnect a parent and a child. Plus, the ice cream from “Basket and Robbins” didn’t hurt either.

Mistakes

Right now things in our part of the world are pretty rough. I won't go into it all right now, because too many things are up in the air, but changes will coming this week for my family, ready or not.

It is really frustrating to be put into a situation that you can do very little about. When decisions are made for you because of a mistake you made several years ago and are ready to fix, have been ready to fix, but nobody wants to listen- it's hard.

Right now, I ask only for prayers, understanding and no judgement. We know the mistakes we have made. We have punished ourselves more than anybody else can. Right now, we need support. We know we messed up.

Now we are pulling ourselves up from rock bottom and we are going to be successful once again. Who knows when, but I know we will. I know deep in my heart we will be ok. Josh and I have put this situation completely in God's hands. I know He will stand by us in our shame. I just hope that everyone else will as well.

First day of school

Around these parts kids have been staring shcool either yesterday or today. I started my new teaching job, with kids in class yesterday. It was a day.

My kids started school today. They were all dolled up and daddy took their pictures before taking them to school. Hard to beleive they are in 2nd and 4th grade. Seems just yesterday we were bringing Emily h ome from the hospital.

Here are obligatory first day of school pictures in front of the door.

Attitude

Recently we have had abit of an attitude problem with my nine-year old daughter Emily. This evening, after returning home from the pool and heading up the street to see her friend for a minute, she returned home to change out of her bathing suit. However, it was already 8pm, which is late for us, especially since we are trying to get the kids acclimated to earlier hours because of school starting next week. Her father told her that she actually needed to call it a night and was going to need to get a bath and get ready for bed. I followed Josh by saying, "But first, please run up and tell Jacob to come on home."

You would have thought I poured hot acid in her ear.

"I thought I was supposed to get a bath!!! I was going to get in the bath!!" Never mind the fact that she still had one foot out the front door.

I politely told her to get her butt in the bath and I would get her brother, and deal with her in a minute. When I went outside, her friend Danielle, told me should would be more than happy to send Jacob home.

I returned inside to discuss with Emily how her attitude needed adjusting. When she gets upset becasue she is in trouble she begins to almost scream "I am sorry! I didn't know!!" over and over. I told her that I accepted her apology, and she needed to stop, calm down and listen. And then I had nice little talk to her about the need to listen and had she been listening rather than throwing me attitude she would have heard me say that she would actually been given a few more minutes with her frined this evening, while walking back to her house to pick up Jacob. We had a nice chat and it almost seemed to have made an impression. I didn't drone on and on like I normally do and left her to get her shower.

About a half hour later Josh called me into the hallway to point out this:



Here is the note:


After talking to Josh, we decided this might be a little drastic, but we agreed to have no electronics, including her phone, radio, computer, and TV. But only for one week. But she was informed that if we encounter attitude again, the punishment would be extended.

I don't know why, but I think we really got through to her this time.

The sweet is so sweet.

So as many of you may or may not have noticed, I apperantly took a little bogging break for the last week and a half. I have been so super busy with new hire training, and in-services and my on-line courses that time has become very precious. Gone are the days of sitting in front of a computer for hours a day with nothing to do.

But I love it.

I am SO tired and my feet already hurt. I can hardly sleep for all the thoughts and ideas racing through my mind as I try to fall asleep.

I have not loved a job like this in years.

Now I may not feel that way in a week, when the students actually show up, but I am toughing my exterior, preparing my first weeks lessons and gritting my teeth.

I know it will be sweet, because I made it through the bitter.

My classroom

I have been spending my time this week attending the first of my three weeks of training that I am required to have prior to the beginning of the school year. I was released early today around lunch time and I headed out to my school so that I could take a look at the class room I might be placed into, hopefully get my schedule and find out exactly what I will be teaching and finally take some of the materials home with me in order to start completing some of my lesson plans prior to the school year starting.

I was shown the room that everybody thinks I will be occupying.


The room is in the middle of being painted and cleaned out prior to the beginning of the year. I am excited to have such a huge room and I am really glad they got rid of the blue paint on the wall and painted it "Navajo" as I was told by the nice painter, Joe, that was in the room working. This is not for sure my room, but the councilor and my teaching partner seemed to think this is where I will be placed.

I also was given my tentative schedule. I will teaching 5 sections of the same class: Personal and Family Development and 1 section of Housing/Interior Design. There are 8 periods and I will have 2 conference periods, 1 each day as we are on a block schedule.

And I brought home tons of books. I brought home as many as I could carry in one trip.



I know it will be hard and over whelming and I know I will cry, but I am SO excited!

Changes are coming

I recently was looking back at my blog posts from when I left my previous job and took the job I currently have (for 6 more hours). I was looking to see if I had written a grand farewell to this job kind of piece, I mentioned that I had found a new job and that I was excited about the new opportunity and such but nothing like the post I had written in my head over the past couple a weeks about this job I have now.

But then, as I was looking at the posts I came across this picture:



And I immediately thought of the picture I had just posted earlier this week:



And I got mad at myself.

Really, really, really mad.

Because that sweet little boy has grown three years in my time with the Evil Company (EC) and I missed a lot of it because I spent my time angry about my job. I missed first days of school and Kindergarten recitals and parent/teacher conferences because of EC. I have been mad for the last three years, and you know what? That makes me mad! I missed so much of my babies childhood because of my situation.

And that day I vowed that I was done being mad. I know that this next year will be hard. I will be angry, I will be frustrated, I will feel unappreciated, I will cry. But I will not let it allow me to miss anymore of my children’s lives. No job I could ever hold will be more important that the one’s I already have, Christian, Wife and Mother.

With that said, I am SO stinking excited at the gigantic change that I am making right now. It is scary and nerve-wracking, but I know it is the correct choice, because I have no regrets of leaving EC. None, zero, zilch. I feel like I had to work at this place, I had to have these experiences, I needed them to grow as a person. But I also know that my time here is done. I have no reason to think this is a mistake. And I am ready to wake up again and start living my life, as a happy, joyful person.

A change

My mother, who has been a teacher for a “few” years decided to send me a “back to school” box. I received it in the mail this afternoon and opened with the excitement of a young child. You see, my parents oftentimes send my children boxes filled with prizes and fun toys. Only this time, it was all for me.

I slowly opened the box and found this:



It was almost as good as it gets for me. I love school supplies. They bring me happiness that is really quite unnatural. The post-its and highlighters. They bring me joy that many people do not understand.

When I left a job about 4 years ago, because I was being promoted, my boss had left for the afternnon in order to go to Sam’s Club. He returned later that evening to the office with his hands full of stuff. In one hand was a beautiful framed print, in the other was a box with a 2 pound bag of m & m’s and a stack of yellow post-it’s. I asked him what he had been up to and he told me he had been out to purchase my going away present. I immediately was giddy with the prospect of my going away present being the box with the m & m’s and post-it’s. It wasn’t, and I left that place with a beautiful framed picture which I have kept at my desk for the last four years and it has reminded me daily of my time at that hotel. It will make it’s way into my classroom as well. And now, I have these wonderful office supplies, which will carry me through my teaching career.

I can’t wait.

He is the marrying kind.

I went home from work yesterday because I was feeling pretty lousy. When I arrived home the whole family was home and I crawled into the bed and attempted to die. Emily came and joined me first, being sweet and gentle with me and just plain snuggling. Something that is rarely happens with her in this house anymore. After awhile Jacob realized I was home and joined us in the bed and I had my two babies, one on each side loving me. Emily left the bed after a while leaving Jacob and I alone in our gigantic king sized bed. He was really being sweet, kissing me and gently stroking my hair. I looked up at him and told him that some day he would meet some girl and fall in love. He was going to make some girl very happy. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, “I am not going to marry a girl mommy, I am going to marry a woman.”

At that moment I could not even keep a straight face. I fell into a fit of giggles unlike any I had seen in ages.

Jacob

Rock Star Shopper

I was out running errands this morning and decided to head to the mall on a whim. Just to see what I might find, really looking for a replacement for the stinky shoes I have. While I did not find the replacement shoes (stinky feet live on!) I did find some rockin' deals on kids clothes. I bought 3 shirts and a set of 2 "pj's" for Jacob and 4 shirts, 1 dress, 1 pair of pants, 1 hat and a watch/bracelet set for Emily. Look below for the visual aid:




Please do not mind the Fruit Pebbles scattered on the ground next to the table, I will sweep after I tell you the exciting news of my fabulous finds.

How much would you pay for these clothes? I added the price together with the full prices: $261.93. Do you think I would pay nearly that? NEVER! I paid....




are you ready....



$39.12.


That is a savings of $222.81. Can you believe it? I totally got the best deal! I love walking up the cash register and watching as they scan and the price is way less that you expected. Like the pants for Emily: $2.49! My gracious. I nearly fell over right there in the store.

It was so fabulous! I even bought Josh a handful of shirts for work, a pair of shorts and a pair of pants for next to nothing. Not as great a deal as the kids, but pretty darn close!

Baby Blankets

Last night I pulled out some fabric that I had purchased during a shopping trip earlier in the week. I proceeded to make 2 baby blankets. With each one, I really learned about silly things, like cutting in a straight line and sewing straight. Those minor things really help with the quality of sewing that takes place. But here are two more blankets I made as gifts for two of my colleagues at work who are pregnant.




I hope that they like them and that they will help keep their babies warm during the cold winter nights.

My builder

Last night after Jacob ate his “dinner” he went into his room and began building. He received a set of Lincoln Logs for his birthday from Mamagrand and has been building with them almost every day since he received them. He had created a house and had added the small logs all the way across the room that were supposed to be the “electricity” for the house. He was so very proud and wanted me to take a picture of him with his creation.

Yesterday

Yesterday was a hard day. It was the first day at work after I gave my two weeks notice. It is really hard to stay focused on a job that you are ready to leave, ready to move on from and start something new. I am doing it, but man, it is hard.

I went home and ate some fabulous stuffed bell peppers that my husband had made and left in the fridge for me to cook. The kids ran to their friends house and I didn’t see them again until they were hungry. And then they still left again after that. Since I was by myself I began the nearly impossible task of cleaning. Just cleaning. I think the stress of leaving this current job and the fear of the unknown allowed me to kind of check out of the cleaning, regular household duties persona. Plus Josh, who usually picks up the slack when I have a week moment has been working such crazy hours he is lucky he is even standing upright most days.

I began in my bedroom. Probably the worse of the entire house. Because I can’t let the kitchen get too terrible and the living room is a hot spot, so I tend to at least “police the area” as my mother used to say more often that anywhere else in the house. But the bedroom, it was the dumping ground. I only actually threw away one garbage bag full of stuff yesterday, however, I didn’t finish the room. I have this stack. It is a stack of things from the kids that I want to keep. I am not a pack rat mother, keeping every drawing that my children make, but if something is especially nice, or took a long time to complete I like to keep it. Only I have NO way of organizing these items so they end up in the stack. There are crafts from when Emily was in Kindergarten, to the TAKS test results and nearly every report card for both children. That area and the dreaded bathroom closet are my charge tonight. I don’t even want to tell you about the bathroom closet, it is just literally a place where we throw things. Maybe, just maybe I will document my progress. If I am feeling generous.

After the cleaning of the bedroom I began watching my new guilty pleasure The Two Corey’s. It is like a train wreck. I have to watch, because it is so horrible. It is almost painful to watch. That is why I love it. And then, for my weekly weep fest, I watch Army Wives. I start the show, pull out the tissues and cry for an hour. It is very therapeutic.

I put the kids to bed and they gave me all sorts of grief. When I finally checked on them before I went off to bed, Jacob was asleep on the floor in Emily’s room. I guess Emily wasn’t willing to share her new mattress with him. I loaded him back into his bed, only to be woken up by him twice in the night. It was a long day, yesterday, but today will be better.

I can't promise this won't become a craft blog

So I went to the WalMart today and bought some fabric. I made some aprons. I am absolutely no expert, but I am having a lot of fun learning and can't wait to try something else. I don't know what that will be, but the work week is starting, so there will be little time for sewing. The only problem I am really having is it hurts my back more than sitting at the computer for 8 hours a day. Oh, well, muscles will be built.

Here are the aprons I made today. Emily was going to model both of them, but she went next door and got sopping wet so she went straight to the shower and I wanted my picture then. Jacob reluctantly modeled it for me.

Here is my first attempt. I like it, but I need longer ribbon. I really think this would make a better child's apron, simply because the ribbons around the neck are so small. And look, that's Bessie in the back ground. Just plain dead.



Next is my second attempt. With no pattern, I was just winging it with my extra fabric. I really, really like this one.



Over all I am very pleased with my efforts. Too bad the bathrooms didn't clean themselves while I sewed. Hmmmmm....

Look Ma! I can sew!

After trying and failing at threading the sewing machine which belongs to my MIL (who is currenlty in California, therefore little help with the whole threading thing) I finally begged Josh to pick up the instruction manuel. He did and I have had success!

Since I will be teaching this to students in approximately 5 weeks, I figured I needed to figure the whole sewing thing out. It has been quite a while and I have never been much of an expert.

Once I got started I thought, "I should blog my experience, because that's what I do."

Look, here is the machine, threaded properly with my material waiting to be sewed. I will be making two baby blankets. One which is humongous, perfect for the modest breast feeder and a smaller one, which was made from my left over material.


Here I show you my fabulous stitching.


This one shows you how focused I am. I am really getting after it.


Final product:




I am impressed with myself because I actually did it. They are not perfect, but will help keep somebodies baby warm this winter. And I gave myself the confidence that I can in fact to the job I have been hired to do: High School Family and Consumer Science teacher.

Old Bessie

Well, it appears that “Old Bessie” may be down for good.

On Sunday, as I was driving to drop Emily off at camp, Josh was driving to work. Only he didn’t make it. About halfway the car started over heating and he had just enough time to get her off the highway before she just plain stopped. After towing her back into town, and getting an estimate for a new engine ($4000!) we have decided it is time to let her go. But she has been good to us, for 7 long years. We bought her right after Jacob was born, because we thought we needed a bigger car.
I thought I would show her off in the best way that I can.


Hanging out in the car wash.

Running to the car with our friends.

Reading the Bible in the car.

Just being silly.

Sleeping.

Riding our big boy bike next to her.

Wearing ridiculous hats while driving her.

Carwash again. See, we took car of her.

Working on her.

Taking the dogs for a ride in her.

Going to Six Flags in her.

She even went to Kentucky!

Being dramatic while riding in her.

Celebrating the holidays with her.

Just being Jacob while in her.

Sleeping after seeing the Cheetah Girls.

Lounging in her.

She even made it through the huge ice storm 18 months ago.

What is really odd about the whole situation is- it is really like almost loosing a family member. We have owned her for so long and she has been with us through think and thin.

I am sad to see her go, and even sadder to think about what we are going to do about it.

Goodbye Old Bessie, its been fun.