Holly Natale Photography Giveaway!

We have not had family pictures taken with our sweet new girl (I know, I know she is almost 5 months and that is terrible!). I saw this giveaway and thought it would be perfect to try and snag some free photos of our family! GO check her out!

http://www.hookedonthehowards.com/2013/07/giveaway-holly-natale-photography.html?showComment=1375301346083#c2507879290051806604

We are still here!

Hello out there! Sorry it has been so long... I know I say that every single time I post! Why do I even keep this thing anyway?! Sometimes it is fun to blog, when I remember! News around here... We moved back to Wylie!!! Most of you already know that though... I will get some pictures uploaded soon and post them. We really love it here! I went 2 weeks without having to fill the truck up with gas! Two Weeks!!! That is so wonderful when we were filling up every other day ususally. I can't say that I am ready for school to start by any means, but it will be cool to see how short of a drive it is in the mornings! Any whoooo, that's it for now. I promise to get some pictures up of the house next! Happy Friday to you!

Constipation... Thanks Jo! haha

To explain the title I will first give you some background info.

This is me about 2 weeks ago on New Year's Eve with my sweetie.

This is not how I want to look anymore, nor has it been for a long time. I always told myself that when I got a classroom job, that I would join a gym with the higher income. Thanks to my insurance, that I usually complain about, I joined several gyms! Their fitness program is dirt cheap compared to gym membership fees and I am allowed to go to any of the gyms on their list. As soon as I learned about it, I was convinced it was for me. I signed up and was ready to go! I just figured I would go to 24 Hour Fitness after school but the little fitness center here in town was on the list too. I decided to try it out and LOVE IT! The lady (that's what I will continue to call her becasue I am HORRIBLE and can't remember her name) said she would be my trainer as well as my nutrionist and I get to pay NOTHING!! Did you read that? NOTHING! I went 6 out of the first 8 days and missed the next three days thanks to STREP! AGAIN! Nobody is happy about getting sick, but I think I was more mad at the fact that I couldn't go to the gym! I love it I tell ya, LOVE IT! Today was my first day back in and I had to take it kinda easy considering I spent the last 3 days in bed, but it felt good to go. I can take Jordan with me and he can play in the kids room, so far he likes it. I usually go while he is in bed though, easier on me and I don't want him to get burned out.

Now to the story...

We went to the gym today and I took Jo with me. The only stipulation of letting your kids play in the kid's room is that you make sure it is clean when you leave. I was helping Jo put a puzzle on the shelf as we were walking out and handed him my water and this is how the conversation went...

Me: Here hold this for a second; but don't drink it, I'm still a little sick.

Jo: (as we are walking into the area where all the other people are) But your aren't constipated anymore.

Me: What? I was never constipated.What are you talking about? (Looking around to see who now thinks I have constipation)

Jo: Huh? You know, when you can get other people sick...

Me: OOOOHHHHH Contagious! Not constipated!

Funny Kid! Hope nobody heard him though!

Posting again before the year is over!

Well, it's been a REALLY long time since I have posted so I suppose I should do that before the year comes to an end. I never showed you pictures from classroom. I did on facebook, so I guess you could have already seen them if you are my facebook friend. I am having a great "real" first year teaching 3rd grade. My kids are so sweet and really work hard. They amaze me everyday. I do miss teaching the kinder babies sometimes though, I don't know if it is because I miss how well I worked with my team, if it is the age, or the love those babies have for school. My kids really have started to show a love for learning, but it just seems to be in a different way. I absolutely love how independent my kiddos have become. That is something you rarely see in kinder! I got an amazing Christmas card from one of my students that just put everything into perspective. He told me that I was his favorite teacher of all his teachers he has had so far! I can't wait to see how he will grow as a learner and a young man in the years to come. I strive to always be that "favorite" teacher!!! :)

Here are some pictures of my room before school actually started, it never stays this clean. The furniture will be different after Christmas as well. We had new carpet put in over the break and I am going to rearrange and try to fit my old futon couch in there some where. I think my kids would enjoy it.

 Jeff and I worked hard on this super cool baseball table!

W had a great Christmas this year, as you can tell from this picture of Jo. I didn't take a lot of pictures because I'm a loser I guess. I do have some from the in-law's house but they are on my real camera and I have yet to get them on my NEW LAPTOP!!

Here is a picture of the totally cool lego table Santa and Mrs. Claus spent loads of time and effort building for Jo while he stayed the night with his Granny before Christmas. I found it in a magazine and had to do it. It can later be flipped over and turned into a desk for Jo when he out grows his legos...if that happens! And now we will finally have somewhere to keep all the legos in one spot!

One of Jo's presents from his Granny and Grandaddy was a season pass to Six Flags/Hurrican Harbor. They bought one for all 3 grandkids as well as one for them. Grandaddy called yesterday to say he wasn't doing anything at work and he was leaving to take the kids to Six Flags. I just couldn't bare to let him take Jo to Six Flags for the very first time without me there to see how he reacted...so Jeff and I bought season passes too! We all loaded up and went out to Holiday in the park for the day. The kids had SO much fun! It was a blast to see Jo's face on each ride. Some were laughing faces, while others were scared out of my mind faces. He was hilarious. He must of been very worn out too becuase he slept in later than ever this morning and has been really lazy today. Maybe we should go more often!

Jo has also started playing basketball this season... That is a new experience for all of us. I like that he is trying something new, but boy do I miss baseball. Which is good since Jo will now be playing on a select tournament team. A student of mine plays on the team and his dad is the coach, he had jo come play in a tournament before Thanksgiving. The team is a 9 year old team so it was also a big change, but it was fun. Jeff is going to be helping coach and Jo will continue to learn and grow with the older boys. We will continue to play in the regular Wylie league in his age level though during the season. We really enjoy that and I know Jeff loves to coach those kids. We aren't the best team...actually that is an understatement, we won 2 games last season; but it is fun none the less.

Well, I know there is more to tell but I need to get off here and finish up some laundry. I will TRY to post more often, but I can't promise anything!

We are loving our summer!!

Let's start with some fun pool pictures of my boys!

We have had a couple of firsts and a FINALLY this summer!

Firsts:

Jo got chiggers! Yikes, no fun! We went camping for the 4th of July with Jeff's parents and he got a ton of chigger bites.

Jo learned to blow a bubble with bubble gum! They were just tiny little bubbles, but bubbles none the less!

Finally!!!:

Jo can now ride a bike without training wheels!! We were starting to think he would never do it. Part of that would be our fault becasue we didn't let him practice very often. All the house in our neighborhood are front entry and we had a scare when he was smaller of a truck almost backing over him on his bike so we just didn't go that often. I'm a big loser and still haven't taken a picture of him riding but boy is that kid proud of himself! I will take some pictures soon and get them on here.

Other big news:

Luke Riley Thomason is finally here!!! He is so handsome! I just love my little "nephew"!

My crazy boy...

Yesterday Jo comes in from jumping on the trampoline and says "Hey mom, watch this..." He then cracks his knuckles and DOES A FLIP like he does on the trampoline. My heart jumped out of my throat! I knew once his feet left the ground what he was doing and and how it would end. I tried to stop him... The words couldn't come out fast enough! He did it and it ended as I expected. Him flat on his back on the floor. Jeff and I were both worried he was hurt and started talking to him and then laughing that he ACTUALLY thought this was a GOOD idea! He started crying, he said he was crying because we were mad at him, even though we told him many times we were not mad at him, we were worried about him. He was in fact crying because his back hurt. The whole time Jeff was talking to him we were cracking up. I was so glad he wasn't hurt bad, lord knows that could have turned out really bad. There really isn't a whole lot of padding under our carpet. I felt so bad for him, he really thought he was going to bounce right back up to his feet like he does when he flips on the trampoline. Needless to say, he rested in pain for a little while and we know it is not okay to flip anywhere but the trampoline. I really never thought I had to tell him that... but I guess I did!

Summa' Time!

So it's summer time and here we are...not doing much!

I got my classroom books all organized, FINALLY! It took a good week and a half and a huge mess. I got my motivation to finish when we were told we were having an open house in a few days. (That didn't go well, nobody came-but my books got cleaned up!).

Check out the mess!

I have been feeling crafty and wanted to make some things for my classroom. I made a sign to hang outside my classroom door, it will have the name in the pink part soon. I showed it to Whitney and she gave me the idea to paint a cork board too! So I made a bigger version to hang on my wall by my desk. I will probably use it to hang family and class pictures up.

Last Friday we got together with a bunch of friends and their kiddos and took over the splash park in Royse City! We had 14 kids all together!

We got to babysit sweet NJ while Whitney went to a workshop. We really enjoyed having her...maybe in the next year we can think about having a sweet little baby... just maybe...

Jordan is enjoying summer too. He really would love to have someone to play with but he manages.

Playing some basketball in the driveway...too bad the HOA won't let us keep it out. Look at his tan little body!

This is his new spot! He even hid from me yesterday. I walked in and didn't see him, just a bunch of toy baskets under there. He hid behind the toys and stayed there for a long time. I started to panic a little because I couldn't find him and didn't think he was under the bed with all the toys! Goof!