Resolution

I've always been terrible at consistently reading my Bible and I've decided I want to get better at it. My problem is, I'd like some direction in reading it. Do any of you have any good guidelines you follow or have you found a good devotional book that you like to use? I'd appreciate any suggestions.

Christmas

Our Christmas was very eventful. Here are a few pictures of Ryan the night before the festivities began.


Our Christmas began at my parents house on Christmas Eve morning. Ryan's favorite part was his tractor ride with Grandpa and Emily.
They rode in the trailer until their noses and cheeks were as red as Santa's. Notice Grandpa's vintage 49er's helmet.

Next, we celebrated at Grandma Net's house. All of us girl cousins got the cutest aprons. Unfortunately, I had to take Ryan home for bed before the pictures were taken. To see the other girls' aprons, check out my cousin Katie's blog.

Christmas day we had a quick present opening at home, and then we were off to Grammy's for another Christmas. I forgot to take pictures of these two events. Our last Christmas stop was at Grandad's house. Phil saved the day and took pictures for us.

Ryan had a great time and enjoyed his gifts. He got several books and a music set. Ryan seems to be musically inclined so I think he'll enjoy this set immensely.

We had a great time, but we're all very happy to be back home. Now I just need to figure out where to put everything!

Today...

I woke up this morning, stumbled into the bathroom, not yet fully awake, and narrowly missed stepping in cat poo. What a disgusting and horrible way to start the day.

Today was also a crazy day at work because we celebrated Polar Express day, which made the kids bonkers. Even though the administrators of the school have determined that we have another week of school, the students have checked out and most teachers are on the verge of loosing it. I had a meeting in my principal's office, which is surrounded by windows on three sides, and as the teachers passed by the windows after they dismissed their students, they literally leaped for joy. We had to stop the meeting and laugh because it was just too funny.

Anyway, this evening, I was getting Ryan undressed for his bath. Normally when he's undressed I let him go and he runs straight to the tub and waits for me to put him in. Not tonight. He took off and went into the living room. I didn't see him at first because he was hiding behind the ottoman. He popped up when I called his name and took off running again. When I caught up to him, I saw the puddle he had left on the floor. Clearly Rita is the most civilized and house broken child in the family.

Christmas Lights

Last night, we went with some friends to see the Christmas lights at CALM, our local zoo. Last year, the lights were featured on a show on HGTV about the best Christmas lights to see around the country. We thought it was time to check it out. We all had fun, but Ryan had the best time ever!

Jumping Through Hoops

So today I found out that I made it through the first major hoop on the road to a job share for next year. Last Tuesday, my principal proposed our job share idea to the administrative council of our district and they approved it. I'm really excited about this because without this approval, there would be no possibility for next year. Anyway, we still have to sign some paperwork and have the school boards' approval as well. I also have to work through some financial/insurance stuff to make sure this is do-able for our family. I'm very positive about all of this working out... and a little nervous.

Sick Days

This week has been another challenging child care week for us. Nancy (our baby sitter) called Monday evening to let us know she put her back out and was probably not available to watch Ryan all week. Phil took the day off Tuesday to watch him. Tuesday evening, Nancy called to say she also had the flu and she definitely would not be able to watch Ryan all week. Phil's mom volunteered to come down and watch Ryan for the day on Wednesday. Wednesday morning, Phil and I got up and were getting ready for week when we heard Ryan wake up. He was calling for us and we went into his room, we were greeted with the disgusting smell of vomit. As is was too late for me to call a sub, Phil took another day off work and told his mom not to come. I took the afternoon off and came home to watch Ryan since we had a teacher inservice day. Phil was able to work a little. Thursday came and Ryan seemed to be doing fine, so Phil's dad came down and hung out for the morning and LeAnn watched Ryan in the afternoon. When I went to pick Ryan up from LeAnn's I discovered that he still was not feeling well. Now it's Friday and here I am at home, using my 5th sick day from work. The year is not halfway over and I have already used half of my sick days. I need to keep this poor kid well for more than a month at a time.

Something good did happen this week. My principal has known for a while that I am interested in doing a job-share for next year. Every school site in my district is eligible to have two job-shares per campus. There has been an unwritten rule (at least my principal and I think it is unwritten) that there can be a job-share in primary and a j0b-share in intermediate. Our campus has one job-share in kindergarten. I didn't think that my friend and I would be able to job-share in 1st or 2nd grade next year because of this and I'm not willing to teach intermediate again at this point.

I approached my principal about this over a month ago and he said he thought it might be a possibility after all for us next year, but I didn't want to get my hopes up yet again. I've wanted to be able to spend more time with Ryan so badly, but not lose my position and tenure at work and every time that this job-share possibility has come up, I get excited and then let down again. Well, my principal came to me yesterday and asked if I was still interested in a job-share for next year, and I said yes. He said he hadn't found anything in our contract that was against me job-sharing and staying in a primary position. He said that it would be the answer to both of our problems because we have 4 kindergarten classes feeding into 5 first grade classes. He asked if I would be willing to move to second grade in a job share position (which is the grade my possible job-share teammate is currently teaching) and I said yes. He is going to start the first step of in many of the process, next week, to see if this can happen for next year.

I have such mixed feelings about all this. I am so excited about the idea of being home with Ryan more and that Ryan will be spending more of his time with me than in daycare. I'm excited about team-teaching with my friend and moving up with my current class. I'm extremely sad about the possibility of leaving my first grade colleagues as they have become an extended family. I'm also sad about not teaching first graders to read next year and to teach the curriculum that I've worked so hard to develop over the last 4 years. I'll be leaving my classroom and my next door neighbor too, which I'll really miss. Here I am feeling this way and not even knowing what will happen.

Our Sunday school class has been on God's sovereignty over the last 3 weeks and I just have to wonder what He has up his sleeve. I know I've prayed about this for a long time and have gotten the "no" or "not now" answer so many times and have wanted to scream like a child, "But why?!?" I had decided to give up on this topic of being home more often, 3 weeks ago, and had really accepted that I was going to work full time. Period. Now the door to this question is open again, when I thought I had closed it for good.

Trick or Treat

This year, Ryan was superman for Halloween. We went to Woody and Sara's to pass out candy and Ryan and Georgia got to play. I loved watching Ryan and Georgia look at each other inquisitively, seeming to wonder, who is this other person who is at my eye level? Ryan's Grandpa and Grandma also stopped by to see our little trick-or-treater. He only has eyes (and hugs) for his grandpa.

Founding Day

Halloween marks the 7th "Founding Day" for this little bundle of joy that my cousin, Katie, saved from the Fresno gutter and we adopted into our household.

Look what a beautiful lady she's grown to be.

Happy "Founding Day" Rita!

Pumpkin Patch

This weekend, we all went to Fresno to spend some time with Grammy Beth and Papa Don. We had a great time. I got to go shopping at Anthropologie and Ann Taylor Loft and Phil went to the Apple store. Phil and I also got to go on a date to the Limelight. The highlight for Ryan was going to the pumpkin patch. He loved all the pumpkins and feeling the different textures. His most favorite part was collecting the corn cobs they had mulched to make the ground cover of the pumpking patch (as you'll note in the above picture). He came home with two little pumpkins and one larger pumpkin.
Usually balloons are of significant interest for Ryan, but the pumpkins and corn cobs trumped all on this occasion.

Mud

So tonight I invited my parents and Julie and Dana over for dinner. Phil and I had found a fantastic new recipe for burgers. They're called Feta Sun-Dried Tomato Stuffed Prosciutto Burgers and they're fantastic. My parents came over early because they wanted to play with Ryan. Upon arrival, my dad promptly took Ryan outside to play and my mom stayed to help me in the kitchen. I commented to my mom how fantastic it was to be able to cook dinner without my little munchkin hanging onto my legs and how quickly everything was going with another set of hands. I noticed that I hadn't seen Ryan run past the kitchen window in a while, but I figured my dad had everything under control. I went to get something from the bedroom and my mom yelled for me to get the camera and come outside. I went outside and this is what I found:
My dad triumphantly announced, "Ryan's learning how to play in the mud." Ryan took this opportunity to squeal and crawl through the mud to come give me a hug. All I could do was laugh. What a cutie.
He was so tired by the end of the evening that he carried his blankie and sippy cup of milk to his bedroom and just stood there, leaning up against the door jam, waiting for me to put him to bed.

Boden

A friend of mine gave me a catalogue from a company called Boden last night. The catalogue she gave me had kids clothes in it and they are sooooo cute. I went to their website today and discovered that they also have women's clothing. Everything is anthropologie-esque and I love it. It is a British company so if you order, definitly check the size charts as they are not the same as U.S. sizes. Enjoy!

Ryan's One Year Pictures

Ellie took Ryan's one year pictures about a week and a half ago and we got the proofs back yesterday. I think I have one handsome boy. Here are some of my favorites.





If you'd like to see all of his pictures, go to flickr.

Our Weekend

We had a very busy weekend. On Saturday morning, Ryan and I got up early and went to Grandma's house to visit so Ryan could watch Calfey eat breakfast. He thought that the cows were really cool, but a little scary at the same time.


Dana was the one that fed Calfey her breakfast. She ran right up to Dana and slurped her milk down in a hurry, then chased after Dana with her milky mouth, ready to slobber all over him. Dana did his best to get away, but Calfey was pretty persistent.
Calfey was unsure of us being out in the pasture with her, but she still let us pet her (mostly because Dana was there with the milk).
Today, Phil, Ryan, and I all went to Via Arte at the Marketplace to see what the chalk drawings looked like. There were two areas of chalk drawings. One area had smaller squares where most of the drawings were weird anime pictures. I was feeling a little disappointed with those, but I later found out that those drawings were part of the student/kids section. In light of that discovery, I was proud of those kids for participating and expressing their artistic voices. We found the large drawing section next, which had a few good pieces, but most were still pop art kind of drawings. This was one original (I'm assuming) creation that I liked.
My favorite drawing was done by the fabulous Ellie Grover, our photographer-friend, who has taken all of Ryan's professional photos.

I don't think these pictures do Ellie's drawing justice because you can't really see all the detail that is on the right side of the picture.

I really enjoyed going to an art event here in Bakersfield and supporting the art community.

Ryan's First Birthday

Even though its been almost a month since Ryan's birthday, I thought I'd share some photos of the event. I thought that since Ryan gets into everything, a monkey theme would be appropriate. I found some really cute pictures of monkey cupcakes, which inspired me. These are the ones I made.

Ryan really enjoyed the day and especially liked the cake.
We just had a small gathering of family so as not to overwhelm Ryan, as the birthday festivities were exciting enough. As an added bonus, Ryan also started walking 2 days before his birthday so I think he enjoyed his toys even more because he could actually push the toys that were designed for pushing and pick up other toys and carry them around. Overall, it was a great day.

Welcome to Our Blog

I've really enjoyed reading the blogs of friends and family and I've appreciated being able to keep up with the happenings of so many people. I've also been inspired by several creative layouts so I thought I'd give blogging a shot. We'll see how well I do with keeping the blog current.