Rockstar and SillyBoy

Here are a couple of pages I worked on today. Thank goodness for the long weekend!

Pics from Tuesday night...

Tuesday night the Whites were sweet enough to meet us for dinner and listen to Luke yell for over an hour while Kate slept sweetly in her carseat :)

Here are a few pics from the evening:

Decaf

Luke has become quite skilled at helping us carry our things into the house...

Raspberries

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Luke loves raspberries. And now that he's learned to do them himself (on purpose) he loves them even more. In this video you'll also get to hear the strange old man grunt that he's begun doing. We think it's a pre-laugh, as sometimes it will turn into a full on giggle, but we're not sure.

Chunk

As you can probably tell from the photos below, Luke is officially a chunk. Gone are the days of his diaper leg holes being too big and instead we are now concerned with making sure that his socks aren't cutting off the circulation to his calves. :)

Annoying his sister since 1986...

My brother, Mark, has been annoying me since 1986 (see photo below).

And despite all of his annoying, pestering, bothering, irking, etc. he has turned out to be a pretty okay brother. :)
Mark is sweet, kind, caring, smart and loyal and an amazing soccer player and Dave, Luke and I just wanted to give a big shout out and congratulations since Mark just made the Texas Tech soccer team.
Mark, I know that you’re probably reading this and rolling your eyes, but we’re really proud of you! And, not just for making the team, but also for your accomplishments in the architecture program, at your internship and in your personal life.
You’re a fantastic brother, brother-in-law and uncle and we can’t wait to watch you play this season!
If you’re not already embarrassed enough, I’ve decided to post a few more cute pictures of us as children… enjoy!

"What do you think?!?!?!"

Last week I found myself saying "What do you think???" about a million and a half times to my beloved Junior High students. Granted, I really do love them, but over the 4 months I was apart from them I forgot how codependent their parents have made some of them. :)
When I arrived at school last Wednesday (I think it was Wednesday), this is what was waiting for me...

Having an outdoor campus is fabulous for most of the year, but on last Wednesday it was not. The drains in our courtyard couldn't keep up with the pace of the rain and we ended up with several inches of water covering pretty much the entire campus. Thankfully the water didn't make it's way into my classroom (the picture on the top right is the water almost to my door), but several classrooms fell victim to flood. Not only did the flood bring about some seriously wet carpets and soggy shoes, but it also brought about insanely inane questions from my Junior High students: "Mrs. McAnally, do you think it would be alright if I took off my shoes and waded through the water?", "Mrs. McAnally, do you think I'm going to be in trouble if I left my saxaphone in the bottom cubby last night and now it's floating in the middle of the courtyard", "Mrs. McAnally, I know that Mr. Bollinger said we're not allowed to go past the tech lab because of the water, but do you think it would be okay if I took off my shoes and then went past?" I think I used the canned response "What do you think?" about 30 times before 7:45 am! By mid-day I found myself completley worn down and when one of my students returned to my room after the lunch bell to ask me how long I thought he should heat up his leftover pizza in the microwave I weighed the pros and cons of answering him with "what do you think" and instead told him that I thought 45 seconds should do the trick. :)

The picture on the bottom right cracks me up - it's a group of my students (boys, of course) seeing how close they can get to the water and then pushing eachother into it.

Squirrels!

Last weeks rain and overcast days provided a little reprieve from the oppressive sun and heat and so I opened up my back blinds to find this...

Three out of our four patio chairs have been attacked and destroyed by what I can only assume are squirrels. Granted, the set isn't new or anything, but I was still really ticked. Pretty much the only time of the year we spend any extended period of time on the patio is in the fall and now we'll have to replace the set (seriously, have ya'll seen how expensive it is to replace cushions?!?! It's crazy!). Anyway, if you have any squirrel repellant ideas please let me know. :)

NO WATER!!!

I woke up this morning at my customary 4:45 and went to turn the shower on and we have NO WATER!!! I mean, we have some water, but it's pretty much just dripping out of the faucets. It is storming really bad and I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it, so instead of going back to bed like a smart person, I've decided to blog. Because, seriously, when else am I going to do it. The past couple of weeks have kind of been a blur - between in-services, incorporating solid foods, meet the teachers, student government elections, laundry and etc. I honestly don't think I could tell you the date. :)
So... to sum up the last week or so, here are a few pictures:

Wiped after SaltGrass

(Thank goodness I had a paci in my purse... I can't even tell you the last time he took one, but it seemed to do the trick!)

Sitting in his portable high chair thing for the first time

This is Dave's brother Stephen - who, as we were walking out of Saltgrass, got slipped a piece of paper with the hostesses phone number :) It was the cutest thing ever

Being silly

Luke and Lilly

Luke and Lilly

Cousinly love... it's fun to think about how they're exactly (to the day) 3 years apart
So I was at Hobby Lobby and they had all of the fall stuff out... who cares if it's still August, I am soooooooo ready for fall (aka cooler weather)

Luke was just as excited about his SpiderMan PJS as we were

Three of his favorite things... his swing, his swaddle blanket and his thumb

Manpris :)

Luke and his "UM" (Uncle Mark) before Mark headed back to Tech for his last semester

Future plumber

Cadence swimming in the pond

Cadence running in the mud... the water was really low so there was lots of good gross stuff for her to rub her face in

Luke and Mommy

ARRR! Ahoy Pirate PJs!

LOVING his prunes

Tasting prunes for the first time... and yes, they've been working :)

In his new exersaucer... the first time he was in it I could hear him squealing and I thought that he was having a great time, and when I looked over he was covered in Cadence drool... she had pretty much been licking him to death while I was looking the other way :)

sporting the world's largest Elmo bib

Check out my new shoes... they have drums on them!

Chewing on his jumper

This is the hair we deal with every day :)

Back To School

If you're wondering what happened to my regular blogging, I went back to school!

The students came back on Wednesday and teachers had been back for about a week before that. It's been rough leaving Luke, but I couldn't be happier or more at peace knowing that he's having a great time with Gibi everyday! :) He arrives in his pjs every morning and gets to spend some snuggle time with her before beginning his day.

Although going back to work has been tough, I couldn't ask for a better place to work. I love my students and that I get to be a small part of their lives on a daily basis.

Here are a few pictures of my classroom...

View when you walk in the door

John Calvin quote

My desk area

Proverbs 3:5-6 above the board (yes... I cut out each and every one of those letters, and I actually cut them out twice - once on white paper, then I taped them onto green paper and cut them out again!)

View from the window by my desk - I used to be able to see across the field to the playground, now I have a nice view of the new Student Life Center that's being built :)

View from my desk to the front of the room

Get it??? If not, that's a radical sign... math is radical :)

This is my favorite part of the room... my wall of fame. Junior High kids seem to love to look at themselves, so I make a point of taking pictures of them throughout the year and then cutting them out and putting them on the board. I redid it over the summer and took out a bunch of old pictures, but I imagine that it will be filled back in by the end of this school year.

This is one of my favorite pictures - it's me and one of my students, Drew, on Senior Citizens day during homecoming week two years ago