Memories from last week

This past week was busy. 2 of the main things were that we met grandpa and grandma at La Casa, one of our favorite Mexican restaurants for supper. Grandpa was driving bus for a field trip in the evening and had enough time to bring his bus to the restaurant, eat with us, and let the kids
"tour" the bus. Jenna wasn't all that excited as she rode the bus for 3 years, but the other 2 have never ridden a bus so they were very excited.

Jenna had a volleyball away on Thursday night. It was kind of like a tournament, there were 3 teams. Her team has never won a match before and they won the first match! It was very exciting and they did so good, lots of 3 hits on their side instead of just banging it over. The second game was against a very large school with a very good team. They had played them earlier in the season and lost big time!! But Thurs. night they won the first game, lost the second and the third was close. They lost the match but were so psyched to stay with them. Jenna has a really great, consistent serve.

This weekend is just catching up at home. Last week I was so stressed all week because I was supposed to be observed, but my principal said he is going to have to hold off until Monday for me because he just didn't have time to get everyone in! UGH! So I have that hanging over me another weekend!

I have spent HOURS practicing flash cards with Mikayla this weekend, plusses and minuses. They do speed drills at school and she wants to get fast. Friday night we could only do about 10 in one minute and yesterday she got 30 in one min. so she is all excited. You know what I will be doing this afternoon. Yesterday we also went through all the fall/winter tubs of hand-me-down clothes for Mik and Haley. It took Mik about 45 mins. to try on all her clothes but Haley it took over an hour, she had so many! It was a work- out for both of them. Not one pair of about 10 pair of pants fit Mik so we will need to go shopping. She is shaped totally different than Jenna was at her age.

Need to get to church so I will have to close. I will try to keep up better this week.

Birthday recap!

My class had a birthday party for me. If they got a question right about me (like my favorite food etc.) then I had to put another item of clothing on.



Yesterday I had a great birthday. Work went well, I wasn't observed by my principal. :) The kids had a party for me in the afternoon. My class gift was 2 bags of Starbucks coffee and a David Crowder Band CD. I really like that band. I had asked Jeff and the girls for a new coffee pot. One with a programmable timer so my coffee is ready for me at 5:30 when I get up. That is what I got! Not only did it have a timer but it is one of those that stores the coffee inside and you put your mug under it and push the bar thing and the coffee comes out. It is pretty cool. I will feel like I am at a restaurant every morning. Jeff and the girls made a yummy dinner, Jeff did all the running of the girls to and from dance/ballet and also did the dishes. I was in bed reading at 8:30 and lights out at 9. It was a great day!





Thanks to all of you that sent cards and well-wishes!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Haley and Mikayla with our school mascot, the eagle. Jenna and her friends with the mascot. Also they "sport" some of the prizes they won at the games.

Friday night we went to the Iowa Women's volleyball game. The girls gave Herky hugs! The good news is that I had my camera, the bad news is that my camera battery was dead! Oh well, there's always next time. Jeff and I, Mik and Haley left after the 3rd match. Iowa was ahead 2 matches to 1. Haley was miserable with her broken ear drum and Mik was very tired. Jenna caught a ride home with another family that was there with us.

Saturday I had a meeting at church at 9, Jenna had guitar at 10. After those 2 we ran some errands. I picked up 3 girls, the Wichharts. Dayna is Haley's age, Nicole is Mikayla's age (but in 2nd grade) and Ellie is in Jenna's class. I dropped the older 2 off at Kia's house so they could all practice their instruments together. The other 4 came home to our house. I was going to take them all back home at 1:30 when I picked up Jenna but they were playing so nice I said ok you can all stay until 2:30 when I take Jenna back into town for a birthday party. But then they were all playing so nice that they stayed until 4:30 when we went to the school for a fall festival. The pictures above are of that. Haley got to dunk her teacher! She was so excited all day to try! She hit the target but wasn't strong enough to "trip the trigger" so they let her go up and push the button. She loved it!

On Sunday we went to church. My parents came to our church. After church we went to Texas Roadhouse for lunch. Jeff wasn't feeling the best on his stomach so he only ate my dinner salad. it was a nice birthday celebration for me.

This week is formal evaluations for my work. We will be observed/critiqued 3-4 different times by the principal and by another man at various times. My principal told me he would give me a birthday gift and not observe me today!

Pray for me this week when you think of me! It's kind of stressful. I loaded up on tums in my purse because I know that I will need them.

Homecoming!

My wonderful husband is home! The girls wonderful father is home! All is right with the world again!! :)

He came home bearing gifts, he always brings treats for the girls...usually candy. But this time he also brought me a Yankee Candle. He said he stood and smelled each one to get the perfect scent. He chose "Autumn Wreath." A beautiful Fall smelling candle. (I told him that if we could just get rid of this 90 degree weather I could light it!)

Friday's A-Comin'

Is it Friday yet? This has just not been a very fun week to put it mildly. Lots of late nights, tiredness, and grumpy mornings. Haley began complaining of an ear ache on Tuesday. I gave her some Advil and sent her to bed. She woke up in the middle of the night with pain. In the morning I noticed that her pillow was all bloody and "gucky". Her eardrum has burst during the night. Poor Baby! So yesterday (Wed.) I took her to the dr. after school and had to wait an Hour! I was so not happy and we were all starving. She had to go the whole day at Pre-K with her ear bleeding and draining pus. (sorry for the details) I did stop by her room a couple times and administer Motrin. Oh, and the Motrin has a story too. I gave Haley the last dose Tues. night in the middle of the night. So at 7 Wed. a.m. I had to call my friend Kim and ask her if she had a bottle I could borrow for the day, that I could pick up on my way to work. So Kim- if you are reading this- THANKS AGAIN!! It is so nice to have a friend that I can call in a pinch! By the time I got her perscriptions we didn't get home until 6 p.m. I begged the girls (really I did) to let me pick up some fast food and take it home to eat. They would hear nothing of it. They wanted spaghetti with my "Special" sauce. So finally we ate, around 6:30. (And then, I accidently dumped 1/2 of the spaghetti noodles down the drain and had to make more!)

I got Haley to bed around 7 and the rest of us were all in bed around 8:30.

Jeff comes home TONIGHT!

"Good" Morning?

Good Morning!- or should I say "not so good morning". It was a really shaky one. Jeff is gone all week, he left yesterday morning. Last night was very stressful. We got home around 4 and then had to do homework, make supper, practice sax, homework, homework, catch bugs with Haley, Homework, ride bikes with Haley, homework, clean up supper, take Haley to dance, Jenna to the library to check out books so she could do her homework on Ancient Greece Mummification, then back to pick up Haley and drop Mikayla off, back home to take Jenna and Haley, get Haley in bed and asleep, homework, back to pick up Mikayla at dance, back home to get Mik in bed, more homework with Jenna. At 10, Jenna and I went to bed still unable to finish 3 questions about Ancient Greece because we just couldn't find the answers in our sources, we were not happy about that!


This morning-

Up at 5:30, had devotions, drank my coffee, got the girls up at 6:15, was informed by Jenna that I HAVE to wake her up at 6 because she can't get out of bed for about 20 mins. (sounds like her father)...ok so I won't go through all the gory details but by the time we got out of the house at 7:30, which I really should leave at 7:10, I think that all of us were in tears (including me). Mikayla just cried all morning, Haley cried a couple times, she is is not used to the rush as she doesn't go to school that early. Jeff brings her in at 8:30. Jenna had to throw all 4 lunches together, so who knows what we have. I ususally try to get them packed the night before but that didn't happen. No one got breakfast either. I have a major stress headache this morning. Luckily my class has art at 8:30 so that I can try to collect myself. I pulled into the parking lot at 7:44 and I have a meeting at 7:45, so I was late for that!!


Please pray that today goes better for all the girls, Haley was really clingy as I tried to "pass" her off to her teacher. Mikayla was pretty teary and her face looks like she has been crying all morning. Please pray that my headache goes away and I can feel like teaching today. Please pray that our evening goes better. Jenna has volleyball practice until 5, so perhaps I can spend extra time with the other 2; catching bugs, riding bikes, reading practice with Mikayla, making lunches, making supper, baths, while she is at practice. 5th grade is a HUGE step up and Jenna has been very stressed. We needs lots of prayer this week basically, with Jeff gone.

Ok- so now I am going to go grab a Diet Pepsi and try to get myself organized for the day.

p.s.- At recess, which I have duty today, Mikki came up and told me that she forgot her p.e. shoes so she will have to sit out. Sigh...

Good Morning all! I wanted to catch you all up on our lives since I have been a little neglectful. These pictures are of our Fall fun days at church last week. We had a cook out after church and these are pictures of that.

We had a great turn out, about 85. 85 is the highest attendance we have reached so far. We reached 85 sometime in the summer and so we were hoping to surpass that but didn't. Oh well, we keep plugging away. Our church is just filling up with young people. Jeff and I realize that we are getting old as the next generation in our church is starting to have babies-those young people. Oh, I sound so old, I can't stand it! All of our newly marrieds/out of college age are now having babies, we have had 3 new babies this year, and have 3 more that are pregnant. Plus, many many couples that are still getting their Doctorates or Masters and so are not having kids yet. It is really weird to think that Jeff and I are moving up one generation in our church, we now fall into the "done having kids" bracket. We have always fallen into the "still having kids" bracket. Really, our church is so young, that at the age of 37 (38 in one week!) we are old!

Grandpa turns 70!

*Grandpa's cake- he was in the Navy. * Grandpa with my girls. *Grandpa and Grandma.

*Wayne (Jeff's brother) and his 4 month old baby, Ryleigh. I have not met her yet. *Haley with Heather, her cousin that is a Jr. at Illinois State. She was our flower girl! *Haley with Heather's dog, Lucy. Lucy dressed up for the party and is wearing a dress. These pictures don't show all the people, there would have been about 20 people there, of just immediate family and then several couldn't come, like me. They had a really great time!!!

Jeff and the girls left Friday at noon to drive to Illinois for a surprise 70th birthday party for his dad. I didn't go because of needing to finish the day teaching and also because I am so behind on my accredidation tasks for school. They left at noon Friday. I got home at 4 Friday. I sat down on the couch with the laptop and told myself that I was going to do one small project and take a little break (a break-meaning-do laundry, clean the house a little), but that little project went into my big projects and I finally fell into bed exhausted at 1 a.m.!!! I ate while I worked. I got up at 7:30 and began working at 8. I worked til 9:30, left at 10 to do some errands. I got home around noon and began working, I worked until Jeff and the girls got home around 7 p.m. I calculated the hours and it was about 17 hours of work. That is just accredidation stuff. Now tonight, Sunday, I need to do some work on stuff that I need to get done so I can be prepared to teach this week.

I hate to shop on Sundays but today it is a necessity. I have to go out and buy Mikayla tap and ballet shoes so she doesn't have to go through another class without them. She said that her bare feet hurt her so bad last week... tapping and balleting on a hard cement floor. I had to rub her feet when we got home last Monday night! Anyway so we have to get that, and Haley needs ballet tights. I bought both the girls new ballet outfits, matching, about 3 weeks ago. Well since then they have played in them at home and we can not locate Haley's for 2 weeks now! We have looked high and low for it! Where can a little ballet outfit go? So she is having to wear another one that is a major hand me down from Jenna and has quite a few rips in it! Oh well, its a good lesson for her to keep track of her stuff! I also need to buy Jenna tennis shoes! I bought her a pair of Nike's this past Spring and they are still in wonderful condition, EXCEPT now that she is in volleyball they are giving her major blisters, on her arch of all places. The arch in the shoe comes up too high and rubs. So I have to buy that today too!! Jeff always wonders what I spend all my money on!!!! There is always something like this to buy with 3 girls!!!

ok, ok, I hear you. The title of my last post was "Manic Monday" and now it is Thursday. I am writing this on Thursday morning. There really wasn't much time last night to write. The last several days have been very uneventful. Full of school, work, cleaning, homework, practicing instruments etc...

Still no buyers for the house, but its only been like 3 weeks. We are being very patient and when it happens it happens. Hey, it gives me a good reason to make sure my house is spiffy all the time. :)

Jeff and the girls leave for Illinois tomorrow. He is taking them out of school at noon. His dad's birthday is today, he turns 70. He doesn't know that they are coming for a night. They will come back Saturday night. I am not going because I have to work and also because I am going to use the quiet time to really get a lot done on my accredidation work for school. An update on my History Curriculum Guide that was messed up. Our wonderful computer teacher came to my rescue. She went into my program and did a bunch of stuff computer wise that I had no idea you could do and saved the day!!! I do have a little more to do on it, somethings I just want to tweak, but otherwise I am done with that. I am also going to pound out my Bible Curriculum Guide this weekend and get it done!!!!!

Have a good one!

Cute saying from Haley...
Last night she was putting a dandelion in water and then she wanted to add some things like rocks to the bottom of the cup to make it look pretty, rocks and stuff like that that she found outside. She put in a bunch of rocks and then found some flower petal to drop in. She came running to me and said, "Mom, the rocks sink below but the petals sink to "be-top." She obviously didn't know the word "float". It was cute.

Manic Mondays

Well I can already tell that Mondays are going to be my running day. But compared to my sister, Leah, my life is calm and quiet. (check out her blog by clicking on the link to the right) Tonight I was supposed to be in 4 places at once. Jenna had an away volleyball game which I didn't get to go to, her first game. I was supposed to be at 2 different church meetings tonight, and Mikayla and Haley both had dance tonight that took up all evening. So I had to bow out of the meetings to take them to practice. Haley had dance at 6:30-7:00, during that time Jenna was delivered from her ride to the game to the rec. center where dance is. I got her settled in the library to do homework, where she worked for awhile. At 7 I got Mikayla into her dance class which I had neither her ballet shoes or her tap shoes for her first class! sigh... After I got her settled in I ran Haley and Jenna home. Jenna needed to complete her homework, practice her sax and her guitar, take a shower, and pack her lunch. She also needed to clean her room b/c we have a house showing at 10:00 tomorrow morning. I got Haley into her pj's, read her a book, and even got her to sleep before I left again 1/2 hr. later to go back to get Mikayla at the rec. center. whew!

Tomorrow night I have Open House at school from 6:30-8 so I won't even come home after school so I can prepare for that. Have a good one!

Ginger Jar and Fruit!

We are gearing up for a busy weekend, as the day was busy.

Jeff spoke in chapel today. He spoke about Sponge Bob which got the kids excited. I promise, he made it spiritual. :)

The pictures of Haley are of her and her art project. All I have heard lately from both her and Mikayla is of their art class. Their teacher is teaching them about Paul Cezanne's painting called "Ginger Jar and Fruit." Both their classes then went out into the parking lot and did their own rendition of this famous painting. I didn't get a picture of Mikki's because it rained and so was washed away before I had my camera to take a picture of it. The parking lot was covered with their work. It was VERY cute!

There are a couple of pictures I snapped of Jenna and her friends coming out of a classroom, and then they say a song in chapel, so a picture shows some of her class singing. There is also a picture of Haley waiting for her daddy to speak in chapel.

Our church is having a Fall Festival this weekend and so Jeff picked up the jumping castle. We have it at the house and Jeff and the girls enjoyed it.

Have a good weekend!

The Weekend is Coming!

Hi, another nice evening. I got home late because the teachers played the school volleyball team in a scrimage. The teachers were quite pumped, and we even did a cheer where we all had to "dive" onto the floor! We won, we tried to go easy on them I promise.

I had planned to make sloppy joes for supper but was overruled as Jeff was hungry for the Amana's. Or the "Amanda's" as Haley calls it. Jeff and Jenna and Mikayla ended up just going by themselves as Haley had a royal melt-down. I decided that she and I needed to stay home and have some mommy and Haley time. We played a Dora game and she took a long bath and just played. It was good for her to have some chill time since she goes to school 5 days a week now. She had macaroni and cheese and I had a bowl of cereal.

This weekend will be busy. Tonight Jenna has a sleepover birthday party but she isn't sure she wants to sleep over, so I am "on call" to come and get her if she decides not to. Tomorrow Jenna has guitar and Mikayla has a birthday party. On Sunday it is our big Fall kick-off for the church. I will include pictures after Sunday, a couple in our church have built a HUGE barn structure for our ranch theme in the children't department. After church there will be one of those jumping castles, free hot-dogs, cotton candy and popcorn and drinks. We are having a carnival out in the parking lot. It will be a fun morning. After that I am off to a baby shower. Can you just see the $ signs for this weekend, 2 birthday gifts and a baby shower gift!!! My checkbook is smoking!
Sometime during the weekend I need to correct my History Curriculum guide. I am hoping that I can do it in a timely fashion!

I hope you all have a great weekend. Love to you all!

Taunting ground squirrels

Not a very exciting evening, which is ok. As I was leaving the parking lot of school Jeff called and said that I needed to not go home because there was a showing on our house. My first thought was the messy house I left. Luckily Jeff had time to go home and spruce it up. Grandma had picked up Haley from school so they spent the afternoon together. I met them all at the church to wait out the showing. The girls and I went to DQ and got a box of dilly bars for all of us to munch on there.

Around 5 we all went home and I threw some burritoes in the oven, that my mom had brought with her. The standing joke in my family is that when I invite my family over to eat I have to call them up and say, "Hey, we're having chili, but I forgot the beans for it, can you get some at the store on the way over, also pick up the crackers too, oh and the cornbread to go with it!" (Hey, I did that one time when I was hugely pregnant, sick, and tired- and I will never live it down!) I promise, this time I was going to make lasagna and put it into the crockpot but mom offered to bring burritos! Ok, I will admit that I forgot the buy the cottage cheese to put in it so I was going to have to either: change my menu, run to the store the night before, or pray that my mom offered to bring something with her! My prayers were answered. I didn't even tell you that mom! :) Anyway... Grandma had to eat quickly and then had to leave for a meeting at her church. As she was leaving grandpa came and ate with us. Mikayla just thought it was so funny that as we were saying goodbye to Grandma, we were saying hello to Grandpa. After supper Jeff and grandpa went outside and tried to get rid of the ground squirrels that are making a mess in our yard. They tried scaring them off with a b.b. gun, and putting water down their holes. I am sure they will be back. They just taunt Jeff when he is on the lawn mower. Kind of like, "You can't catch me!" Jeff says they even put their paws in their ears and wiggle their "thumbs" back and forth, kind of like, "Na Na Na Na Boo Boo!" You know that thing kids do to taunt? That's what they do to him. Grandpa left soon after and we went into the homework procedures.

p.s.- When I got home this evening and I was throwing laundry into the washer, I noticed my bra hanging up in the laundry room to dry. Well, that's not that bad of a thing normally! But when you have a realtor and a family traipsing around your house, laundry room, included, it really isn't a good thing! I was embarrassed, but Jenna was horrified for me!

p.s.s. - Well, ya know my History Curriculum Guide that I spent HOURS doing this weekend, I found out today from my principle that some of it was inserted into the template incorrectly, in the wrong order, so now I will have to spend another couple hours fixing it! Argh!

Happy Birthday Carri!

Labor Day Weekend

A HUGE HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my VERY good friend, Carri! I wish we were close enough to celebrate together! Have a good one!


It was sooo nice to have a long weekend. I just really enjoyed my time at home. Although I did a lot of work on accredidation for school. I got my history curriculum guide done!! I felt like my buns were permantely glued to the couch, and the laptop was permanently glued to my lap. It is amazing how I able to play card games, and also play "restaurant" with the girls with their play food while I worked on the lap top. Let's see what did we do...

Friday, as I wrote about earlier, was spent doing nothing, just going to bed early. Jenna actually went to one of the local high school's varsity football games. Her friend has a brother that plays on the team, I thought, "She is only 10 (11 next month), and she is already going to high school football games? " I am sure we are really going to limit that! After a dinner at the local chinese restaurant, we went home and relaxed.

Saturday- Jenna had guitar lessons at 10 and then the girls and I ran into Target where I spent way way too much money on clothes for Jenna and ballet/dance outfits for the younger 2. They start ballet/dance next Monday. We then went home and hung out the rest of the day. In the evening, we left Jenna in charge and Jeff and I went out to a quick dinner and then looked around at a few new houses to look at floor plans. It was so nice to be able to do that without kids. We have looked at A LOT of houses, but always had the kids and so we really couldn't jot down notes of our likes/dislikes, actually have a conversation about things. We then went to Dairy Queen and took treats home for the girls.

Sunday- Mikayla woke up with a terrible cold. Actually she coughed all night. At first she didn't want to go to church, but then changed her mind and went anyway. My kids have to be literally forced to stay home from church! Which is wonderful! After church I had to run to the grocery store because I had forgotten to buy the ingredients for Spanish Rice and Refried Beans that I was to take to a get-together that evening. I went quickly, came home, made hot dogs and macaroni for lunch and then we relaxed. In the evening we went over to the Dawkins house. Originally some friends of our from Illinoise, the Kaepps, were coming back in town to visit. They used to be a part of our church, but had to move. That was the original intent on the get-together, but it turned out they couldn't come because of a work conflict. We all got together anyway, and had a great time. We stayed too late, and Mikayla was begging to go home because she was sooo tired.

Monday- Today we hung out all morning, while I tried to do some laundry. Jeff was beginning to complain that he needed underwear badly!! :) At 1:00 Jeff and the girls went to the church where there was a "work day" going on. I stayed home so I could clean and go to the grocery store (again!). In the evening we had 2 families over, Darin & Kris and there 3 kids: Ben, Ella and Noah, and Steve (who is our builder) & Amy with their 3 kids: Mollie( who is my student), Cole (who is in Mikayla's class) and Brock. (She is pregnant with their 4th and soon after that baby is born, they will get their adopted baby from China!!!) We had a great time grilling out, the kids played on the water slide etc. They left around 8ish, and then I had to get the girls in bed and then sit down and work on my lesson plans! All weekend I worked on accredidation stuff, and finally, sat down to work on what I was going to do this week!

It was a wonderful weekend, relaxing, but just the right amount of activity.