Various Things

I haven't had time this week to get a good post together, but here are few various pictures from the last week or so to hold ya'll over until I can get a legitimate post up...

I love this picture... it shows Luke's silly personality - in a box, no shirt and playing with bath toys. ha! and if you'll look closely at the window in the back of the pick you'll see a giant pile of stuffed animals - he LOVES stuffed animals right now. He piles them all up, carries them around and gives them periodic hugs. I put them away every night and they're one of the first things he gets out in the mornings: I finally finished "World Without End"!!!! YAY!!! Last summer I picked up ThePillars of the Earth by Ken Follet - historical fiction isn't generally my genre, but I had heard good things, so I gave it a try and LOVED it. Then last Christmas my parents gave me World Without End, the sequel (kind of) to Pillars of The Earth. It was a whopping 1500+ pages (eek!) and considering that I only really get a chance to read a few pages a day it's no surprise that it took me almost seven months to finish it. I absolutely loved the book and if you're looking for a great read I'd highly recommend it:

As you all know, Luke loves him some Baby Einstein, and he has a new favorite way to watch it (please note the crossed ankles - of course!):

I'm sorry, but how cute is this?!!?!?!:

If he's not watching it lying down, then he's probably standing WAY too close to the TV, in only a diaper, with a hiney cheek hanging out: Hope you enjoyed my completely unrelated and random post - hopefully I'll have better pictures up later this weekend! :)

Small Victories

If you had told me before I had Luke that I'd be cheering for someone because they used a fork, I would have told you that you were crazy... but today that's where I find myself. :)

Luke's been "playing" with a fork for a while now, but just this week has really got the skill down pat. You can see in the video below that he's really into stabbing his food as hard as humanly possible before putting it into his mouth. ha!

I have a feeling that reveling in all of these "small victories" will be something I get to do a lot as a mom :) Next up... potty training! hahaha

Tagged!

I logged into Facebook yesterday, and up popped a notification: "Hanna Marshall has tagged a photo of you". Crud. I was in college when Facebook came out, and at the time it was just for college kids... now everyone and their mom (including mine) has a facebook account and it seems like they're all digging up the most random and unflattering pictures to tag me in :) ha!

So when I clicked on my notification, here's what I saw: Ugh! This was snapped while I was calling out attendance on the Freshman bus before we left for Pine Cove and I have no idea why my hand is in front of my face. Lovely.

So since I'm in the mood for self-deprecation I thought I'd share some other misc pictures that I've been tagged in on Facebook.

In NC I used to babysit for a little girl named Evelyn every day after school. She's now a sophomore in college and posted this picture of us:
Umbro shorts, a giant t-shirt and a huge retainer... I don't even know what to say.


This picture showed up after our day at the donkey farm when I took my group to eat at Chipotle... why someone would post this on Facebook is a little bit beyond me:

If you're on Facebook then you've seen a bazillion of these: It's all these random "characters" and then people tag the "characters" as their friends. This is probably my favorite tag of all time, because I'm the "hot mama" hahaha!

Another fantastic picture snapped by one of my students - I think that this was after we had just spent 5+ hours on a bus to Houston and we arrived at Main Event to bowl at like 11:00 in the morning:

Here's another one of my favorite, I got tagged as the "stylish one". hahaha:

Oh gosh - here I am with two of my students at The Snow Ball two years ago - I was 7 months pregnant - enough said:

This was during Wild Week (our basketball spirit week) two years ago and one of my students took this picture because she thought it was funny that our shirts said "Wild About MCA Basketball" and it looked like I had a basketball stuffed under my shirt: (I don't think I realized how big I was at the time... but looking back I'm shocked... I still had 2 months to go in this pic!)

There were a few more that I opted not to share, simply because I didn't think ya'll would want to be my friends anymore if you saw a picture of me dressed up like Daphne from Scooby Doo in a college skit (seriously - it's mildly disturbing).

Pine Cove

Last Wednesday I headed off to Pine Cove with our high school for our back-to-school retreat. It was three days of heat, camp food and so much fun :)

They broke the 130 students into 12 teams and assigned each chaperone to a group - this is my group coming up with their team name, "White Lightning", and team cheer... yelling white lightning really really fast and loud - they were a creative group. The second pic is of another team presenting their name/cheer: Most of the trip consisted of team competitions including pillow fight basketball (where three guys tried to score as many baskets as possible with a volleyball while 6 girls got to smack them around with pillows), ultimate keep away and the biggest game of dodge ball EVER:

I was in charge of a cabin of 9 freshman girls who, amazingly, weren't tired at all when we finally got back to our cabin around 12:30 a.m. :) They giggled and talked and did each other's hair with a bump-it until WAY past when I was awake: (side note on the picture on the above right - I have no idea what that nasty stain was on the bunk above my bed... I tried really hard not to think about it. ha!)

We ended and began every day with a worship service and speaker and I think this was the best part of the trip - there is NOTHING like being amidst a big group of students who are worshiping wholeheartedly - amazing! Our theme for the year is "In His Steps" and it was great to see the speakers incorporate this into their testimonies and messages.

After our morning service on Thursday we had a bunch of free time and I hung out at the pool with my freshman girls and watched the older boys jump/dive/belly flop/be generally stupid on the diving boards:

Thursday night after our service we had several team competitions including a latex glove popping competition, seeing how many marshmallows we could shove in our mouths and a talent portion:

And it wouldn't be camp without the camp food:

On Friday two of my girls asked if they could borrow my camera and of course I obliged... when I uploaded my pics yesterday this is what I saw:

goofy pictures of themselves and them a bunch of "stalkeresque" pics of two students talking at a picnic table... probably a budding 14 year old romance. hehehe

Anyway, I came back exhausted, bruised (thanks to being a teacher in a dodge ball game) and full of greasy food, but also with deeper and more meaningful relationships with my students, a renewed excitement about the school year and fantastic memories. Can't wait 'til next year!

Shades

I picked up a pair of sunglasses for Mr. Man last week since he and Gibi are going on walks every day (he didn't get to go on that many walks when I was home during the summer because there was NO WAY IN HECK that I was going to pull my 24 pound child in a wagon in the 100+ degree heat, but I guess that's why grandmas are so much better than moms, right?!?!)

Anyway, I wasn't sure how he'd react to having them on, but he ended up LOVING them. He wouldn't even let me take them off his head to remove the little sticker on one of the lenses.

I'm loving that his personality is coming out more and more every day as are his little quirks and likes/dislikes. He loves his stuffed animals and on this particular day he insisted on taking his big brown bear along for the ride (as well as an empty yogurt cup - ha!)

On an unrelated note: I'm headed to Pine Cove today for our High School start of school retreat (even though we started last week... oh well!) and will be gone until Friday night. I just looked at the schedule and am already tired - "team activities" (which will probably involve dodgeball, some kind of relay race and other misc fun) until 11:30 each night and breakfast at 7:00 each morning. Yikes! I'll be in a cabin with 10 freshman girls, which is nice because I didn't have to bother packing shampoo, a hair straightener or blow dryer. ha!

All kidding aside, this is one of my favorite times of the year and I love getting to bond with the kids outside of school (even if it is disgustingly hot). I'll be back on Friday with lots of pictures!

The ones that got away

I was so excited when Jessica asked me to design and print Abigail's birth announcements because her red, white and black color scheme sounded like so much fun and the picture she sent me was seriously one of the cutest things I had ever seen :) I gave Jessica three different options to pick from and these were the two that got away:

If you think that these two are cute, just wait until you see the one that she did pick - adorable!

Julie Clark, This One's For You

If you're like me you've watched WAY too much Baby Einstein and if that's the case you probably know that Julie Clark is the creator of the Baby Einstein company (becasue she comes on to tell us that at the beginning of every DVD). Anyway, I find myself indebted to Miss Julie Clark because out of her simple videos has come one of Luke's greatest habits...

We've gotten into the routine of letting him watch a Baby Einstein before his afternoon nap and before bed at night to kind of wind down, and as a result, as soon as the credits roll he's up and off to bed (sometimes after a little bit of stalling).

I've told some of ya'll this before and I don't think you necessarily believed me (ha!) so here's a video showing Luke RUN to his room when his video is over:

UM

Last weekend, my brother Mark came home for a quick visit in between his summer and fall semesters. We hadn't seen him since May and back then Luke was barely walking, so seeing him run around like a wild man was a big treat for UM (get it... Uncle Mark... UM... I think it's super cute and am pushing the name, but I think I'm the only one who likes it, we'll just have to wait and see what Luke calls him) to get to see how much he'd changed in such a short amount of time. Luke was his insta-friend and L.O.V.E.D. hanging out with his uncle.

Mark probably won't be back until Thanksgiving (he's a Grad student in the Architecture and MBA programs at Tech and is working, so it's not often that he makes it home for a weekend) and I have a feeling that Luke will have changed A LOT again by then, but I'm sure that they'll be fast friends again. While Mark was home we went out to dinner where Luke made a gigantic mess of himself (and the floor) and engaged in a pretty serious game of peek-a-boo:
Dear UM,
I miss you tons and can't wait until your home again at Thanksgiving. Maybe by then I'll be talking (and calling you UM) ha! I hope that you're having a great time at school and with the soccer team. I love you!!!
xoxoxo - Luke Man

Because sometimes you just have to spell it out

Math is _____________ .

Although I've been in in-service training since last Tuesday, yesterday was my first day to have students back in my classroom and it feels like we never left :) One thing that I love about MCA is that I get to have students a couple of years in a row and so we get to pick up right where we left off in May... although several of my students are now several inches taller than me (why is it that kids seem to grow like crazy during the summer?!?!).

Anyway, yesterday we just went over the syllabus and did introductions and stuff like that, and today was our first day of real class. Much to my students horror, they have "math journals" this year, where they're going to be writing (in complete sentences - GASP) about a math prompt EVERY (GASP AGAIN) day. Today's prompt was "Math is __________" and they had to fill in the blank however they chose and then explain. I thought I'd share a couple of my favorite entries:

"Math is serindipitous" (Seriously?!?!?! I don't even know what serindipitous means)

"Math is taught by the coolest, most funnest, nicest teacher ever" (This is an A+ if I've ever seen one!)

"Math is necessary, but I still hate it a lot"

"Math is my second most favoritest subject, but my third worst subject, but I hope it will get better for me this year. Because I think I'll learn a lot." (Oh, the joys of Junior High)

Judging my the varied array of journal entries, I think it's going to be a fun year :)

On a side note: Luke isn't missing me at all. ha! I've come home for lunch a couple of times during my inservice days and he would briefly look up from whatever he and Gibi were doing and then go back to the important business of playing.

He did manage to rise and shine (completely unprompted, mind you) at 6:45 yesterday morning - just in time to take a "first day of school" picture with me...

Waiting Game

On Sunday we were super eager to see Dave after his trip to Germany and so after Luke's morning nap we loaded up the car, picked Gibi up and headed to Grapevine Mills. We hadn't been there in FOREVER and thought it might be a fun couple of hours - but it turned out to be kind of a nightmare. I have no idea why, but the place was PACKED! There were tons of people and it was completely overwhelming and hot (ha!) and so after hitting about 4 stores, eating a PB&J sandwich and downing the biggest Diet Coke we could find we headed to the airport. Jessica was already there with Abigail and Kate and Luke immediatley hit the ground running :) He chased Kate around and they had a fantastic time:

This happened to be a day when a lot of military were arriving home and so we got to watch all of that which was really neat:

It put my whining over Dave's 10-day absence into perspective when you got to talk to wives whose husbands had been gone for a year or more. Thank God that there are families willing to do that! All of my pictures are blurry becuase Luke and Kate were just that - a blur

We ended up waiting almost an hour and a half, in which time Luke met plenty of strangers and ran himself completely weary. It was nice to get to catch up with Lori, Manda, Jessica and Kelly as well... but honestly, I hope that we don't have to wait at the airport again for a VERY long time. ha!

Reunited

Dave got home from Germany yesterday, and as you can see from my boys' goofy grins, they couldn't be happier to be back together again :)

This picture is an even bigger testament to Luke's pure glee because he was about an hour and a half overduue for a nap, exhausted from running around the airport for what seemed like an eternity and about 30 seconds before this picture was taken was almost asleep in his stroller.

We couldn't be happier that Dave is home! More posting to come...

Simplify

Today was my first day back at school (yes, crazy private school is already gearing up!) and it was great.

Last year was a CRAZY year for me - between adjusting to being a working mom (which was WAY more complicated than I thought - I seriously had visions of grading papers while he nursed in the boppy - let me tell ya... it most definitely didn't go down like that!), teaching five classes, dealing with my rowdiest bunch of Junior Highers yet and tackling all of my Student Government events I was BEAT by the end of the year.

Over the summer I decided that my new motto at work was going to be to "simplify" and to get rid of the excess commitments and focus on what was really important to me. That said, I decided to give up my role as Student Government sponsor for this school year. It was one of those decisions that I agonized over but knew was the right choice.

This year more than any other I am renewed, re-energized and really looking forward to focusing on being a fabulous teacher (and on this little man):I know that this one is blurry, but come on, he has pasta hanging out of his mouth, how adorable is that?!?! ha!
Check out those teeth!

This is a sweet game he likes to play where he checks out his toes: Anyway, I'll keep ya'll updated as to my simplified status, and Shay, you can say an extra prayer for me heading back to school this week (hahaha).

UGH!

I realize that this is my third post today, which is a little excessive, but oh well, it's my blog :)
The reason I'm posting is to announce to the world that I am officially a doofus - a doofus who somehow managed to drop her cell phone into a glass of ice water. Yes, that's right, I dropped my phone completely into a glass of water while carrying it into the kitchen. I probably couldn't do it again if I tried. It's gone completely haywire (despite my attempts to heal it with my blow dryer) and I've resorted to switching out my sim card with the one in Dave's phone (that he conveniently left home from Germany). Sorry to anyone trying to call Dave in the next couple of days :) If I'm in a rotten mood in the next day or so it's more than likely because the cell phone company has ripped me off on a replacement phone. Yipee! Oh, and I have "technology training" at school from 8:00 - 10:00 a.m. and then CPR training until 4:30.
Thank you for letting me vent.
Amen.

Craft (and cooking) Therapy

Dave left for Germany for a 10-day mission trip on Friday and here's what I was doing on Thursday.... baking cookies.... in this picture you can see the 6 dozen chocolate chip and 2 dozen oatmeal raisin cookies that I had made by mid afternoon. But wait... ... there's another dozen!
I was a little bit anxious about Dave travelling overseas (the flying part - I rationally know that it's safer than driving a car, but I still get a little wierded out thinking about him thousands of feet in the air above the ocean) and so I eased my mind by baking. and baking. and baking. I think I packed about 4 out of the 8 dozen cookies in his backpack or suitcase, froze a dozen or so and have been polishing off the rest with the help of Luke and my parents.

Baking isn't the only thing that helps to ease my mind - CRAFTING is my other therapeutic pastime. So I decorated the envelopes of the cards that I stuck in DAve's bag for him to open everyday (my mom was the QUEEN of the "camp letter" and I LOVED going on any kind of trip away from home growing up becuase I knew that I'd get a bunch of really special notes from my mom and I guess because it meant to much to me I want to do it as well)

I also made a little mini-scrapbook and stuck it in Dave's bag as a surprise. We read this one book (I Love You, Goodnight) almost every night (and have since I was pregnant) and so I "recreated" it with pictures of Luke. AWWWW! I know, I'm a big sappy girl. But that's ok.

Dave and I RARELY are apart (I'm talking like maybe 2 nights while I go on a high school retreat for school or chaperone that 8th grade NASA trip) and so rather than be lonely, I've decided to revel in the things that I love to do when Dave's not here. Like wear my childish matching PJ sets that Dave doesn't find nearly as cute as I do, load the DVR with as many Lifetime movies (and episodes of Gilmore Girls) as possible, eat sandwiches for dinner and read my trashy gossip magazines. I guess that the adage "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone" is true, because although I'm enjoying my girly evenings, I miss having my partner in crime around :)

(I also miss being able to share dirty diaper duty and not having to empty the diaper champ!)

Superman Brewkeys

My maternal grandparents are Dutch and they migrated from Holland to Canada sometime in the early 1950's (I think). Growing up we got to learn lots of fun dutch words, my favorite being "brewkeys". Obviously I have no idea how to spell this, so I just spelt it like it sounds.

Brewkeys was the word for underwear and I still use it to this day.

A couple of weeks ago during a particularly bout of diaper rash, I picked up some Superman "brewkeys" for Luke to wear around and hopefully "air out". ha! He had them on, looked at himself in the mirror and then peed all over his bedroom floor. I quickly put him in another pair and he strutted all over the rest of the house and when Dave picked him up to take him outside to get the mail, he realized that he had pooped in them! Needless to say, he went straight into a diaper and has only worn the brewkies on a few select occasions :) Nevertheless, he really enjoyed wearing them and I'm hoping that this will be a good sign for when we're ready to potty train.