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!

Wow! It's been almost a WHOLE year since I've posted!!

So sorry I let this slip away! My friends Charise and Jamie have both started a blog to keep up with their new adventures in motherhood and it made me remember I had a blog once in a blue moon! To catch up on some things we will do a quick play by play...

October: Jeff quit Rockwall Ford!! He is now an independent insurance agent and we love it. Still working on building up the client base, but he is so happy and has more time to be a happy husband and daddy! He was actually able to coach Jo's baseball team this spring! YOU NEED TO LET HIM GIVE YOU A QUOTE!! jeff@farmnhome.com check him out on facebook

December: Christmas! Fun times!

January: I was blessed to be able to teach kinder for a friend of mine while she stayed home with her beautiful new daughter! It really made me feel great that she requested for me to teach in her classroom while she was home. I really felt like her class was my "first" class. I had a blast despite a few tough kids.

March: Jeff's Birtday!
Baseball Season Started! Jeff got to coach, finally! we only won 2 games of 11, but our last game really showed some improvement in our team! Most of the kids want to return to our team next year so we hope to have more time to practice, learn and grow as a team.

We put our house on the market!! We really need/want to be back in Wylie. We spend so much time there; I work there, Jo goes to school there, our families are there, friends are there, baseball is there... tell your friends about our house here is our listinghttp://www.2817spencercir.cbapex.com/

April: Jo's Birthday! We had another successful party at the park in Rockwall! Love cheap, fun days for the kids!
When Whitney came back to her classroom, I moved over to another kinder class for a teacher on bedrest. I finished the year with them and learned a lot this semester!

May: Birthday for me!! The day before my birthday my principal texted Jeff to see if we were in wylie and we were so confused. After he told her no, she called me and told me she forgot to tell me happy birthday. (I wasn't going to be at school the next day on my birthday) I still was confused becasue she had in fact told me happy birthday. She then told me she knew I would have a tough day the next day and wanted to give me something good to hold on to... her exact words... "Heather Buckley, I am officially offering you a third grade position at Birmingham next year!!!" I cried and screamed, then looked across the table and Jeff and he too was crying! What great news! We were getting really worried I wouldn't get a job with the crazy budget crisis in education right now! Yay! I'm really going to be a teacher!! For Real!
Staci and I also had our annual birthday getaway in May! It was fantastic. I really enjoy having this time with Staci Bo! Best massage of my life!


June: Summer Time!!!!!!! I love it! A lot of my summer will consist of working at school but hey-I have a classroom!! I'm teaching in August!!
Jo was retested for GT (gifted and talented program) this year and got in! He was super excited and so were we. Of course we knew he was a smartie pants, but now the school does too! haha!
Also, our sweet 'nephew' (Luke Riley Thomason) should be here soon! I can't wait to meet him and spoil him rotten!!

Phew! That was a lot!

Just have to share...

After an extremely busy day in Kindergarten with Whitney, I was pretty whooped tonight. I was ready for bed but Jo was NOT! After getting up for oh...I think the 2nd time, I was getting a little frustrated and told him to get back in bed. This is what you would have heard at our house tonight...

ME: "Get back in bed, I love you GOODNIGHT!"

Jo: "Goodnight, I love you"

Me: "I love you too, now go to sleep!!"

Jo: "As soon as I wake up in the morning, I'm going to tell you I love you mommy!"

Me: *with a soaring heart and a tear in my eye* "Me too buddy!"

Boy, I am blessed! Thank you Lord for an amazing life! I don't think I give You the glory enough!

Say a prayer for a more peaceful day in Kindergarten tomorrow!

P.S. Here is a couple of pictures of Jo on his first day of 1st grade! I will have to take a picture with his teacher tomorrow, I was way too busy to remember to do it today!

Love watching what He has planned for me!

The Lord has been working in some mysteriously cool ways in our life lately!

One amazing piece of news is that I will be teaching kindergarten from January to April all on my own! YIKES! A dear friend of ours (and Jordan's Kindergarten teacher last year) is adopting a baby that will be born in November (and we are so excited, she is going to be an amazing mommy!) She wants me to cover her class for her while she is home with that sweet baby for 3 months! We found out last week that it is approved and I will get to do it! I'm so excited and honored for the great opportunity and also that she has that much faith in my teaching skills! I told her that it was just so wild that for the past few months, my heart has really been pulling towards kindergarten and it scared me senseless, now I know why!

Another great thing is that the woman from the college emailed me again to tell me that my Educational Aide Exemption will be granted in the fall! That is great news, still kinda stinks that we have to pay for the summer classes by taking out a student loan, but every little bit helps!

And lastly, I was asked to teach the 2 and 3 year old mission friends class at church yesterday! I feel like it was God's way of saying "You said when you finished school you wanted more responsibility in the church...HERE, HAVE IT!" I'm going to tell them that I would love to be the full time teacher in the fall, but see if they are open to the possibility of me bailing for a few months when I'm teaching kindergarten...just in case I get exhausted come Wednesday nights! But I'm going to try!

Okie Dokie, that's all of my news for now!

Let's get this off my chest...

So my friend Sam has become a super blogger while I...haven't posted in how long?! hmmmm

While reading up on her blog today, I decided to join in and link up to Living in France for F Bomb Friday.

I have been in a particularly bad mood for a week or so thanks to Texas A&M Commerce. Why, you ask? I have been taking classes to finish my Elementary Education degree for 7 years now! Seven! I know! As I posted before, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! I will finish in December of THIS year! Since attending Commerce, I have been able to get my tuition paid in full by the state of Texas because I am an elementary aide in Wylie. It has been such a blessing...until now! I filled out all the needed paperwork and sent it in just waiting to see my tuition balance go back to $0. I'm still waiting...It ain't happenin' no more. First, I get an email saying I forgot to fill in one of the questions on the application. Done. Check it off the list, I fixed it and sent it back. Not an hour later I get a email that is titled "Denial Letter". I went through all the emotions possible at once; confusion-that couldn't be right, laughter-haha she's kidding, anger-what the crap? Why?, and sadness-wow, I'm going to have to pay for all of that myself? GET A TISSUE, THIS GIRL CAN'T STOP CRYING! Poor Sam was on the phone with me when I got the email and I am pretty sure I completely cut her off in whatever she was saying to have my own pity party. Sorry!

What I have come to learn from this so called "financial aid advisor" from the college is that I was denied because my husband made a whopping $3,000 more last year and it put us over the limit that deems us needy. It just makes me so mad because Jeff gets paid by commission, so we never know what his check will be each month. Way to go Honey, you worked your butt off and look where it got us...DANG!

So anyway, here it is a week or two later and I'm still pretty ticked off about it. I thought maybe if I blogged about it, I would get it off my chest-so thanks for that!

If you need to vent and get it all out...write your own F Bomb and link up with Mimi.

Jo's Birthday Party in Pictures

Start at the bottom and work your way to the top....I forgot how blogger adds photos backwards and really, there are far too many to fix it! As you can tell, this picture is from the end of the day when nobody wanted to go home!

"Hiking" in the frisbee golf course.

The Buckleys

The Carters

The winners... :(

And we were the losers. We played the boys in washers and I talked so much smack in the beginning of the game that it came back to bite me at the end of the game...

Uncle Jay and Aunt Reese

Cute boys!

Aunt Jen

Taci Bo!

Love this one of the boys playing!

Mrs. Weir. The three boys are her current students, the sweet little girl, will be hers next year for sure!

Blowing out the candles!

So many presents!

The giant frisbee got stuck on the roof of the bathroom and John gave Jeff a "boost"! hehe

He was so in love with the cake

The boy was so excited all morning, he counted down the hours and then the minutes!