Going Back to Teaching

It's been 8, almost 9 years since I taught at MST. I have loved having my time home with Nathan and Charlotte. Now that Charlotte is about to start Kindergarten, I am ready to go back to work. But it has been a lot of work to get ready for work!!!! My dream job would be one at Hicks, the school where Nathan and Charlotte go. So I first applied to be a substitute in Lewisville so that I could sub at Hicks. I started the process last year and started subbing last year. That process was very involved! Once I started subbing, it was fun but still hard to manage. Since Charlotte is only in school from 9-2, the hours aren't great for subbing. Everyone had to help me! Grandmother, Mama, Papa, and Daddy all had to help get Charlotte to and from school. Once I started subbing, I had lots of jobs! It was so much fun to be at Nathan's school with him. I even subbed in his class several times. At the beginning of this year, one of the fifth grade teachers asked me if I would be her long term sub once she went on maternity leave. Mr. Martin, the principal reccommended me to her so I had to say yes. Then I found out it was a fifth grade job! I have to admit, I was very nervous about the job, but I have since observed her twice, and am now really excited! Her kids are wonderful! I start on Friday so I'll write another post soon! 

Pete the Cat

At Charlotte's school, they have Pete the Cat. He gets to go home with each of the kids each weekend. And then they are supposed to take pictures with him and write about what they did over the weekend. This is Charlotte's 2nd time to have him and it happened to be the weekend that we were going to Austin for Pearce's birthday party that we had Pete. He would have had a great time at Pearce's party except that I forgot to take him out of our bag the whole weekend! Leave it to Mommy! So Mrs. Amy let us keep him through the next week. We still had a great time with him.

Charlotte had a play date with her friend Addie and took Pete with her. They decorated cards and included Pete in their play date. 

On Tuesday, Nathan had his first soccer practice so we took Pete with us. There was a fun playground right next to the field so Charlotte and Pete and newborn baby had a blast! As we were playing, we happened to see one of Charlotte's friends at the park! Madeline lives right next to it and was riding her bike with her parents and brother. 

More Pictures

Nathan and Charlotte want a puppy very badly! I do too but it is going to take a while to get Daddy to agree. So in the meantime, we like to go to the pet store to look at the puppies and hold them. On this trip, Charlotte and Nathan both begged to hold the golden retriever. She was the sweetest dog!!!!! She reminded us so much like Cookie. Nathan and Charlotte could hold her like a little baby and she just let them and licked them. 

Charlotte and Skylar love to play together! Charlotte is going through her separation phase again where she doesn't really want to go to skylar's house (or anyone else's) but LOVES for skylar to come here. So I end up having never ending playdates at my house.

On the Friday before Martin Luther King Jr.day, Nathan got out of school at 12:30. Another mom and I took a group of boys to a park so they could run off some energy. It was so fun to see all of them together! They played football, soccer, and on the playground equipment. I love all of Nathan's friends and am so proud of him for having such great friends. Charlotte had fun too. She was a good mommy to her newborn baby. She pretty much stayed by my side the whole time but got adventurous the last 45 minutes and went out on her own a little. Of course, she made sure she could still see me. 

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the kids were out of school so we planned a playdate with Alison and her kids, Lauren and Trevor. It was so nice on Friday but REALLY cold on Monday! We still had fun though. The kids hadn't seen each other in a while but got along just where they left off. They played while Alison and I got caught up and then we had a picnic. I just love Alison, Lauren and Trevor. 

Cute Lily lives down the street. She is in Nathan's class and is so much fun. Charlotte loves her too. After school, Nathan does his homework and is then out the door to play football with the other kids on the street. Lily's brother, Reid, is one of them. He's in kindergarten but loves football just as much as Nathan. And he just likes to be able to hang out with the big boys. On this day, Barron came over to play and Lily wanted to play too, so I told them to do their homework first and then they could have fun. 

Random Photos

Star Wars The Force Awakens...Imax 3D! It cost us a fortune to take the four of us but was so much fun! And we all loved the movie.

When I decided to get all of my Christmas decorations put up, guess who was by biggest helper??? CHARLOTTE! She SERIOUSLY helped me. I took off the taller ornaments and she did the lower ones. She helped me pack everything up, organize it, and put out my everyday decorations. You know how sometimes it's more of a bother when kids try to help? Well, that is not the case with Charlotte. She wants to help and actually does a really good job! She even sets the table for me. The next picture shows how useful the men are. 😉

Nathan asked Wayne to show him how to whittle wood. What??? Where did that come from??? Wayne said sure and completely impressed Nathan. Nathan once again thinks Daddy can do anything! They made 3 spears which I'm sure will come in handy one day. 

Nathan with his neighborhood friends who play football outside nonstop and compare football cards. We got Nathan a huge set of cards for Christmas along with a binder to put them in. After Jake saw Nathan's, he got one too! They are so cute together! And then Wayne got some "cool dad" points by showing the boys all of his cards which really are valuable. Daddy's the hero once again! 

Here I am at my friend Angela's wedding shower that I helped throw. We used to teach together and now she's getting married! We went out to dinner and then did karaoke, our favorite girls night out activity! 

After Angela's wedding, we all went out for an after party drink. These are the girls I used to teach with. Brought back so many memories!

The bride and groom

Merry Christmas! 2015

Nathan and Charlotte have been SOOOOOO excited for Christmas this year! We certainly added to their excitement because we shopped early and got all of their presents right after Thanksgiving so they sat wrapped under the tree for pretty much all of December. It drove them crazy! It made us a little crazy too because we knew we did such a good job getting just what they wanted. We were all very excited. I have so many pictures!

Christmas Eve: We went to the candlelight service at church first and then came back to our house for a chili dinner provided by Mama and Papa. After dinner, we got to open our first round of presents to and from each other. Nathan and Charlotte got to open their presents from Mama and Papa and Jen. And we gave them their presents.

Here we are at dinner. Jen and Alexandra were here along with Grandmother, Mama and Papa, and Grandma.

Nathan and Charlotte were so energized from the night and getting to open presents, that I thought it would be hard to get them to go to bed. Nope! Nathan and Charlotte went outside to walk everyone out that night, and then they came running back in. They saw a flashing red light in the sky and were completely convinced it was Santa. They came running back inside and told me they had to brush their teeth and get in bed. I swear I didn't do a thing! They got their pajamas on, brushed their teeth, got in bed, and went to sleep within 30 minutes. It was a miracle! So I had lots of time to get things ready for the next day and set Santa's gifts out. Oh they also said a quick goodbye to Melf the Elf. It was kind of sad because they were really going to miss him. 

Christmas morning! 

Wayne and I had so much fun watching them. They were so happy about every single thing and kept thanking us over and over. We love that they don't just tear into a bunch of presents all at once. They like to open one at a time and play with it for a little while and then go to the next. It's so cute to see them do this. They like to make it last!

Around noon, everyone came back over for lunch. I made these baked ham and cheese sandwiches on Hawaiian bread rolls, and they are always a hit!After lunch, everyone went home for a little rest (I took a nap!) And then Carrie, Chris, and Pearce arrived! And everyone came back over for dinner and to do presents with them. 

Mama and Papa got us all a selfie stick so here are a couple of pictures using it. We are going to have fun with this!

The next day, we met Mom for lunch and then went to the mall for a while AND I got my new IPhone activated! We then went over to Mom and Dad's house to have a birthday celebration for Chris. That was an interesting night because we had really bad weather. In fact Dallas and the area north was under a tornado warning for most of the night. It turns out that 5 tornadoes touched down and one hit Garland pretty badly. Nathan is so scared of storms.We were watching a football game when the warning came on and all of our phone alarms went off. So we went into Mom and Dad's closet (Dad had actually just left to go pick up our food!) Nathan ended up getting so scared that he threw up. Then he sat with Wayne the rest of the night until the warning was gone. Poor little guy. Every day, Nathan looks out of the window to see if there is a blue sky. I dread the next thunderstorm! But other than that, we had a fun night. Pearce and Nathan and Charlotte always have fun together. They were all sad when the visit was over the next day. But they were also very happy that they still had a week left in their Christmas vacation! We got our decorations taken down, house cleaned up, errands done, and the four of us really relaxed for the rest of the break. They are already asking me what is the next holiday. When Wayne told them Valentine's Day, they asked me how many days they get off of school. So funny!