Teacher Appreciations Week

Teacher Prayer

Dear Lord, bless these teachers mightily
as they seek to teach, enrich and guide
Your precious children.
Grant them abundant resources to do their job,
intelligence, wisdom, sensitivity, kindness,
and the material things that make it possible
to turn some of these tender green plants
into the strong, stable trees that will lead our nation,
to transform some of these buds into brilliant flowers
that will bring light, color and happiness
to all who encounter them,
and to give every one of them the tools
to be creative, and productive and to develop
their own kind of success in the world.
Lord, wrap Your loving arms around these teachers
who give so much of themselves to grow our youth
into creative, responsible adults.
We pray that You will immerse them
in your boundless, transcendent love.
We pray that You will strengthen and soothe them
when they have given so much of themselves
that they need Your extra attention, Your extra care.
We love, respect and admire these teachers, Lord
and we pray that you will watch over them always--
these special people who hold our children
and our future in their hands.
Amen.

By Joanna Fuchs



It's the time of year where we say THANK YOU for all the hours, they put in the time they spend and give to the kids.

This year I have had the privilege of working with one of the most amazing teachers anyone could ask for. She loves the kids in her class like they are her own. She worries when they are out and she gives them a hug when they are feeling down. She cheers them one when they have that light bulb moment, she praises them when they get the answer right and encourages the ones who didn't get it right to keep trying and to never give up. She guides them in making good choices and helps the ones that have made bad choices to make better ones the next time around. To her it's not just a job that pays her bills, it's something she was made to do. She has a great love for teaching and you can tell it the moment you walk into her classroom. Her walls are decorated with thank you cards and I love Mrs.Dean pictures. She keeps them all and hangs all of them up. Makes every kid feel important and she doesn't allow others to tear the other one down. I am amazed everyday by the growth of the kids in her class. I am happy that my kid got lucky and got to spend a whole year with her. It will be sad to move on to 1st grade and have a new teacher but, I'm hoping that the next one will be equal to Mrs Dean.

So for all the teacher's out there who give of yourself each day to our kids. THANK YOU!! Thank you for caring more about others then your pay check, Thank you for spending your own money on the supplies that aren't always covered by your school district. Thanks for spending the extra time with each kid, making sure they are on target. Thank you for your devotion and dedication to our children and their future!

Happy 3rd Birthday Serenity

It's so hard to believe that she is just three years old with the year we have had. Seems has if a whole life time of stuff has happen to her in the three short years she has been with us.

We had real reason to celebrate this year and real reason to be grateful for all that has happen and all that we can slowly put behind us. Just two short days before her birthday we were told by her GI doctors that she looked great. That her labs had come back all in healthy range and that she was finally right at the correct weight for her age and height. She was no longer showing signs of flair ups and she seems for once to have her colitis and crohn's disease under control. That was like music to my ears, it had to be right up there with the day she was born and we heard her first cry.

I made a huge cake for a big BBQ and we had tons of family over for her big day. She loved every minute of the all the attention she got. She loves to be the center of the attention. She got tons of barbie's and dress up stuff, a tea party set and clothes. Everything a little girl could ever want.

The BOSTON CREAM PIE is Rob's Birthday cake. He turned 39 this past week as well.

How with the old and in with the new

Seems like 2009 just drug and drug right along. I can't say I have ever been so happy to see a year over with as I was last year. It's seemed there were more things wrong with last year then there was right.

This year I am hoping to have a better year. I have never been good at making resolutions for what I want out of the new year. I have always felt those are just huge promises you make to yourself that you never really keep and then at the end of the year you are let down again. So instead of lying to myself from the get go, I just take each day as the come and embrace whatever happens and keep on moving. I can't say that I don't get down or get mad about things because that would be huge lie. I just try not to dwell on it.

I am hoping to get better at baking this year. I really want to start making better quality cakes. I also want to make more from scratch and stop using so many store bought items. I have been working on cutting our budget down at the grocery store. I don't know that I am really making head way there but I am truly trying.

I do need to work on me but I am not going to get hung up on that or worry about it if it doesn't happen. I need to loose weight. I have needed to do that for years. Sometimes I lose a little and then I stay there but for the most part I have stayed the same weight for 4 yrs. So I am pretty comfortable with the weight I am. Not that it's a healthy weight or that it's something I want to stay at. I just don't worry about it or get all hung up on exercising or eating things that taste like cardboard. We eat pretty healthy and I don't over eat and I try hard not to stress eat. I drink lots of sweet tea and diet Dr. pepper and very little water. So I am sure if I cut those things out and maybe walk a mile or two I would be fine. I'll just play by ear and see what happens.

So far this year in the baking department I am off to a busy start.

January 6th- I am making a cake for Logan's teacher. It's her birthday and she loves Chocolate,cheesecake,strawberries. So she will get my Cheesecake stuff chocolate cake with butter cream frosting and chocolate covered strawberries on top.

January 9th- I am making a ton of cupcakes for my niece's baby shower. She is doing a black and white theme for her shower. I will be adding a little pink since her baby is a girl. We are super excited for her arrival and I can't wait to make the cup cakes.

February 1st- Is Logan's birthday. I have not clue on the cake as of yet but it will be fun. Also cupcakes for his class.
February 1st- Is my mom's birthday. I want to make her a nice cake and have her over for dinner. She rarely does anything on that day and her husband doesn't push her to do stuff. So I am wanting to do something great for them.
February- My Mom and Step dad both turn 50 this year. We are having a big party for them. So that is another cake.

March 14th is my Anniversary and I will make some kind of fun cake for that.

April 4th Easter and I am hoping to host an Easter egg hunt and make a ham and cake and some other great goodies for that.
April 14th- Rob's birthday and I am going to make him a boston cream pie(cake)
April 17th- Serenity will be turning 3. So that is another cake with lots of pink.

May 9th- I will host my mom and my MIL over for a brunch. I am hoping to do a small desert of some sort for them.

June 20th- Father's day. Not to sure if anything will happen that day.

July 4th- I am sure we will cook out and I'll make a flag cake or something like that.
July 27th- Jordan's 14th birthday. WOW (tear tears and more tears) I have no clue on the type of cake or if she will even want one. Teenagers are so funny.

That is as far as I have gotten with my baking and party plans. I am sure the details and plans will all fall into place and things will work out nicely.

Hope everyone has a Happy and healthy and a blessed 2010.

Christmas has come and gone

While it has come and gone, it's not completely over for me. My oldest has taken a trip with her Nana and Papa and isn't home as of yet to celebrate with us. She left on the December 18th and won't be home until after the 1st of the year. While I have been on edge I am so happy she got to go and see parts of the world she may not get to see other wise. It's always nice when anyone things enough of your child to want to them with them on a long car ride and even nicer when a family member has open their home up to your child. So until she is home I have to look at the tree and the stockings all hung up. I am ready to see it down but I want things to be just like she was here on Christmas morning when she opens her presents.

I baked and baked and oh yeah baked. I made so many cookies this years, I can't even being to tell you all the dozens that have come and gone out of my kitchen this year. I made most of the ones I wanted to and a few that I hadn't planned on. I gave many as gifts and many we passed along to people who had stopped by to visit. I made my first ever Yule log. It turned out nicely and it was very tasty.

The little kids got everything they wanted and then some. We opened up our home to a couple who need a place to have a Christmas dinner at. It was really nice to have them in our home. They are lovely people and I hope that we get to have them over more often.

Throwing Stones

Today while outside I was watching my two younger kids throwing pebbles at different things. I heard my son tell my baby throw one at this leaf because it was ugly. And in that moment I could see a life lesson already being taught to her. It's a life lesson we all need to learn.
To often we are so ready to judge this person or put down a person or complain about someone for whatever reason. It's almost as if we are throwing stones at them. While we aren't perfect ourselves.

Look at the way her child behaves- throw a stone
Look at that house,it so run down- throw a stone
Look at the way she is dress or her hair is colored- Throw a stone
If you were not so fat you would fit- throw a stone
You should eat more your as skin as a toothpick- throw a stone
He cheated on his wife- Throw a stone
He was accused of behaving badly with children- Throw a stone

At ex-NFL player Steve McNair's memorial service the minster there touched on this same topic. He asked that if people there and in the media were so perfect then they could cast all of their stones. But if they weren't with out blame that they should put those same stones down. Seems like the more and more that came out about Steve McNair the more and more people forgot about his football career and the good things he had done in his community. The only thing that was focused on was his affair and his relationship with that young girl. How quickly we were throwing stones his way and kick him when he was unable to defend himself. I'm not saying that his affair was right. But we don't know what his home life was like, we don't know if that girl was chasing after him and he was giving her things to keep her away from his family. There are so many things you just don't know. The one thing that seem to be over looked during all of the findings were his wife and her hurt and her shame that she was carrying for not knowing about the secret life he was leading. We forgot all about his grieving kids while we were raking him over the coals. One day his kids are going to read all of those stones that were thrown and find out that people were saying just ugly and mean and hurtful things about him.

I know I do it all the time. I don't mean to and I never thing about it at the time. But I say things that hurt, I think things about people that are unkind. Many times before I know it have thrown that stone at them and never take the time to stop and think about my own life and what I have going on that isn't so perfect. Those stones we throw are the words that destroy people, that tear them down emotionally and mentally. Those same stones are the stones we teach our children to throw as they bully the kid on the playground, or the tease the kid because they are not dress a certain way. Those stones are the stones that cause people to do harm to others, those stones are the stones that make a person feel less then, those same stones are the stones that lead to people killing themselves. If we all just lay our stones down. Take a step back. Realize that we all need each other and we all to build each other up instead of tearing each other down. Our world would be a better place. We can't ask our future generations to be better then the one before them when they example they have to lead them are to busy teaching them to throw stones.

After listening to my son tell my daughter to throw that pebble at that leaf because it was ugly. I went over to both of them and ask my son can't you find one good thing about that leaf. Isn't there some beauty in it somewhere. The leaf was brown with yellow and green spots all over it. It was not the best leaf but it was not an ugly leaf that need to be stoned by two small kids. So after a minute or two my son said come on baby lets go put the leaf in the water and see if it floats. He looked back at me while picking up the leaf and said I think this ugly leaf will make a good boat. At his age it was hard to make him understand that everything had beauty in it.

Look at the way her child behaves- Lay that stone down
Look at that house,it so run down- Lay that stone down
Look at the way she is dress or her hair is colored- Lay that stone down
If you were not so fat you would fit- Lay that stone down
You should eat more your as skin as a toothpick- Lay that stone down
He cheated on his wife- Lay that stone down
He was accused of behaving badly with children- Lay that stone down

What's been going on..

Well the last past 2 months have been super busy for us. Everyone has had some kind of sickness and we have been running like crazy..

February was lots of fun. We moved after 8 years of being in the same place. We moved in the same town. The very first day of our move was crazy. Logan woke up and couldn't not bare any weight on his leg. He looked like a flamingo. So I thought maybe he had some kind of serve leg cramp that need a good day of rest and a good day of rubbing and he would be good as new. Well that night he was just in pain and crying. We were carrying him every where. So I decided the next day he was going to the children's hospital to find out what was going on. They put him through the mill that day and I was there for 10 hours to only be sent back home and told that I need to see an orthopedic specialist that they had found a pocket of fluid on his hip. Not a good feeling to leave the ER and not know what all that meant or what was going on. So we waited on the Doctor to set the appointment up for us. Well after waiting for a little over a week and carrying my son around. I called to find out what was going on. The Doctor still had no clue why we hadn't been contacted by the ortho's office and he said he would check into it. (you are the mercy of all these doctor's who claim to know what they are doing.) Well Rob had started to notice that Logan was trying to use his leg some and had him try to walk on it. He got up and walked with a limp for about 3 days and by the time we got the word to meet the Ortho doctor at the ER he could walk and run on his own. He was released from medical care and able to go back to school. And we were told it was viral and it attacked his joints and now he is better. The very next day after one whole day of school he broke out into a rash. Which turned out to be just the virus leaving his body completely.

Now on to Serenity.. (these two together are trouble I tell you!!) During the move we were eating when we could and eating fast food a lot. (something we don't do, I don't like it and I cook as much as I can so I know what's going into my kids) Day 2 of the move I ran to the store to get some milk for the kids so they could eat some cereal the next day for breakfast. While I was there my husband calls and says Serenity had a poopy diaper. Ok I know what you are thinking, what the heck change it and why do I need to know this. Well I thought the same thing and said the same things to him. He then tells me it had blood in it.. I was like get her cleaned up and ready to leave when I get there. Well in the time it took me to get from the store to my house (which is less then 1/2 a mile) she had two more bowel movements. All of them had blood in them. Off to the ER we went,got asked tons of questions and had to explain that she hadn't had good meals for the last 2 days and that we were moving. They checked her over and realized she was dehydrated. So they gave her fluids and sent us home. Told us that it may take a couple of days but she should be fine and to keep pouring fluid into her and if she got worse to take her to the ped's office. Well we all got the stomach bug shortly after that and things got better.

Fast forward to the last week in 2 weeks in March. Once again we changed her diaper and she had blood in it again. I was able to take the diaper and her to the ped's office and they did samples to test for any bacteria that they could think of. Those test came back a week later negative. Then they sent us to lab to get blood work and test for allergies and anything else they may have missed. Once again we waited and listen to our sweet baby complain of her belly hurting and not knowing what was going on. Well I go the results back yesterday afternoon and it turns out the little stinker is ALLERGIC to MILK.. So we changed her to Soy last night add some chocolate to it and she loves it and tells everyone that it's her special milk.

Jordan has had some exciting stuff as well but nothing like the other two.. She made Junior National Honor Society this year and we are so VERY PROUD of her.. She works her butt of at school and makes great grades with out much effort. She is in all honor classes this year and loves being involved in everything. She is doing volunteer work now and seems to enjoy that. She is getting ready to turn 13 and boy have we noticed that she is almost a teenager.. UGHH the attitude, but all in all she is just a good girl...

Rob and I celebrated our anniversary in March and we were both sick with the some kind of stomach bug. So we didn't do much other then watch TV and sleep. It was perfect.

Rob and Serenity are getting ready for their birthday's this month. He is on the 14th and he will be 38 and Serenity's is on the 17th and she will be 2. He wants a big bowl of banana pudding and Serenity wants either a princess cake or elmo. So we will see what I can pull out of my hat for that one. Maybe do princess crown with little elmo faces as the jewels. Who knows..

That is our update.. Sorry it's a book..

What's the sound track of your life?

One of my neighbors has been doing his homework on my computer this week. He has this English project called sound track of your life. I started thinking about it and decided what an awesome idea.

So here are the categories you only have to pick 8 of them. The object is to pick songs that relate to your life in the different scenes. The songs themselves do not have to mention the events in them at all. They just have to fit your life at that moment.
Your birth
driving in a car
fighting
falling in love
breaking up
sleeping
being alone
being with friends
school
hobbies
Eating
death

So here are my 8

Birth- There Goes My Life by Kenny Chesney- My parents were very young, mom 16,dad 19. I am sure at some point they both felt this. And in the end it showed when they divorced for whatever their reason was at the time.

Falling in Love- Tangled up in You by Staind- Nothing better then being in love and having that person in gulf everything about you and you doing the same for them

Breaking up- I F**King Hate you by Godsmack- I normally would say that it applies if I walked away.

Sleeping-I Can Sleep When I'm Dead by Jason Michael Carroll- being a mom to 3 kids sleep isn't something I get to much of. So this song fits..

Being alone- Listen To The Rain by Evanescence- If I had an alone moment that is what I would do..

Driving- Into the great wide open by Tom Petty- That is how I feel when I am driving. I just love to drive and go no where.

Eating- Cheeseburger in Paradise by Jimmy Buffett- That is one of my favorite foods and there is a song all about it..

Death- The Promise by Tracey Chapman- I would want my kids to know I'm always with them all they would have to do is think of me.

TODAY IS THE DAY

Today is the day we have been waiting on.
Today is the day we lay aside the old ways of government and embrace the new.
Today is the day that a nation of many spoke up for.
Today is the day that we accept the change that has been need for many years.
Today is the day that we embrace a new way of doing things.
Today is the day accept responsibility for our actions as a nation.
Today is the day that we embrace our new Vice President and his wonderful wife.
Today is the day that we help them help us.
Today is the day that we WELCOME with open arms our number 44th President of the United States of America.
TODAY IS THE DAY THAT BARRACK H. OBAMA BECAME THE 44th PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!

What a huge moment for him and his beautiful family. And what an even greater moment for our nation.


CHANGE IS COMING!!! AND IT HAS ARRIVED!!!!

I want a real wedding..

When Rob and I got married it was kind of just thrown together in a weeks time. Not much planning and not much thought of how we wanted it to be. We were planning a real wedding but I was pregnant with Jordan and we had a lot of outside influences on us and we just decided to do it and get it over with. ROMANTIC RIGHT!! NOT!!
And now after 12 years of marriage I think I want a real wedding. I want the dress, the great looking man in jeans and a white button down shirt and the cute little kids in cute kid clothes all out on the beach at sun set with not shoes on.
I have the song picked out from me to him and he has always had the song for me. I have my dress picked out and what I would wear in my hair and his outfit we own. The girls I would make them dresses and Logan we would get some cute shorts and a white shirt. Easy as can be. I would make my own cake and do the food myself. Nothing over the top just sweet moment with him and I and our kids and our parents. Not other people.
Now really isn't the time to think of all of this as money is tight. But darn it I have made it through some tough times with him and I have stayed and he has stayed. We deserve to have what we wanted a long time ago.
Now to go about planning something and to get him on board with the whole idea. He says once you do it one time you don't need to do it again.. Just like a man to think that way. I'll just plan it and he will just have to show up.

We are reaching the end of babyhood

For the first time ever Rob go to put one of our babies to sleep. Sweet Serenity decided last night she didn't need to nurse to sleep. She gathered her blanket up and her paci and crawled up into her daddy's lap and he rocked her a little and she was out within 3 minutes. He held for about 10 minutes just savoring a very first time for him. He tried to be sweet and tell me it was just a fluke and that it will probably never happen again. But I know down deep inside he was dancing on the inside. You could see it in his eyes that he was loving every minute of it.
For me it was bittersweet. It was the first time in 17 months that I hadn't put her to sleep. That her and I didn't share a special snuggle before bed. At the same time it was nice to see that she would fall asleep with out me. That I could give that little bit of time to someone else and it would be ok with her and with me.
Now the not so great thing, I didn't get a picture of it because the batteries in the camera were dead. UGHH darn thing.

How will you be remembered?

After reading a great blog today it made me stop and think. http://www.hope4peyton.org/?p=788
What will people remember me by? Did I actually bring happiness to the people around me? Did I do the best I could as a mom? No I'm not dying and I'm not ready to leave the world. But I also know no one is promised tomorrow.
I would hope that my friends would say I was loyal and that I stuck by them no matter what. I would hope that they would say that I made a difference at some point in their lives.
My husband I would hope that he would say that he loved me until the very end. I hope that he would say I was a good partner and a friend and a mother.
My children I can only imagine what they would say. I am sure my son would come up with she was the best mommy in the world. As he seems to tell me that daily even when he is being very naughty. My oldest I really hope that she has learned from me to be strong and never to give up. I also hope that she would say that even though I am her mom, that more importantly I was her friend and some one she could always count on.

How do you want to be remembered? What do you hope others have learned from you?