Just thought I would let everyone know that John has a ton of pictures on Photobucket. Here is the link and all you do is pick the categories on the side to see the pics.
http://s248.photobucket.com/albums/gg181/jfj3rd/
So I’ve been so so busy lately. I just realized that it’s been darn near two weeks since the last time I posted. I’m finally on Christmas break from school and it’s definitely a much needed break. I’m loving being able to be home with the baby again. It’s really nice. I’ve been out of work for 5 days now and haven’t yet had time to be bored.
We did Christmas with my dad Sunday. We met with my mom, stepdad, brother, sister-in-law, niece and of course John and JJ. We had the breakfast buffet at the Marriott and it was delicious. They do made to order omelettes which I think are the best. Plus they have the best fresh fruit. It was yummy. JJ got a few nice toys, a stocking, and some munchies. His grandma and great-grandma sent him some gifts too. He got a stocking, bib, and baby’s first Christmas hat. The landlords even got the baby some gifts–one is an ornament and the other is yet to be unwrapped.
JJ is starting to feed himself now. He eats cut-up bananas, pieces of itty bitty pasta, and the best gift of all–strawberry apple puffs. He loves those! He’s even getting a tooth. I’ve been feeling it in his mouth (bottom center) for darn near two weeks now. It hasn’t quite popped through though. He’s handling it pretty well though.
Well, tomorrow is Christmas and we’ll be celebrating with family. I’ll give you more updates later!
Okay, so my title is a little hick-ish if that’s even a word. I used to be a devoted blogger, blogging a little each day. Now, I rarely have time for stuff like that. Heck, I rarely have time for much of anything these days. My days begin at 5 am—well okay, okay. You got me. They really begin at about 5:40 a.m. by the time I really drag my butt out of bed. I’m out the door by 7:15 and return home between 4:15 and 5:30. Most days, I’m not even in bed until 10:30 p.m. Feel sorry for me yet? Ha! I know what most of you moms are thinking. That’s what being a mom is all about. You think you get to sleep? Give it up. That was over the minute you gave birth.
Anyways, we took a trip up to Tahoe, Chico and Sacramento last week. Boy were we busy?!? The baby and I flew in Tuesday to meet John who had been up there since the previous Friday. Our first stop was out to Chico so JJ could meet his grandpa, auntie, and great-grandparents for the first time. We did a lot of visiting. JJ also got to visit his 2 year old cousin Aubree while we were up there. He took his first ever bath in big tub and boy did he like it. Too bad we don’t have a big tub for him to take a bath in here. The sink just isn’t the same. (We know this because we also tried a sink bath while up in Chico.) We spent Thanksgiving with JJ’s great aunt and family. Loads of people came. JJ got to try turkey for the first time and he loved it. (Well it was turkey and sweet potatoes and it went over way better than the plain turkey we had earlier this week.)
After Thanksgiving, we decided to skip the sales. (Too dang cold for a mama and baby to be out before the sun comes up.) We drove out to Sacramento to watch John’s brother get married. Never thought that would happen! (Just kidding, Steven.) Anyhow, we’re all glad he’s making such positive changes in his life. He’s a much different person than he was a few years ago when I first met John. I’m excited for he and his new wife who are expecting a little girl early next year.
We decided to head on out to Tahoe to spend our last day of vacation with friends and family. We visited with Steve, Sissy, and the girls which John was super excited about. We also got to spend a little bit of time with JJ’s grandma and Nana. Everyone seems to be doing decently.
On a completely different note, I just found out that I won’t be getting a contract from Adams. As long as a leave of absence is filed and not a letter of resignation, then the position must be filled by a long-term sub and not a newly hired teacher. Sucks for me….but what do you expect with all the budget cuts? Why would they want to fork out the extra money for benefits and salary? But, I’m getting lots of professional development courses out of the way and if I stay here all year, then I will have my first year done for clearing my credential. That takes a little stress off as I’ll have 3 years to get my last year of clearing done. I can’t wait. As soon as I get my clear credential, we’ll start trying for baby #2. Plus my resume will be amped up with all the extra work I’m putting into this.
A little math for you: A full year teaching at a sub salary–approximately 21,000. Lowest starting teacher salary–approximately 47,000. Per my principal, the state of California would have to cut 160,000 teaching jobs or close every school in California for 25 days to be able to meet the budgetary demands the state is thinking of putting on California. Get real! Sheesh.
Anyhow, there’s been a lot going on, but I’m running out of time and energy to write anymore. Hope you enjoyed the latest installment of MY LIFE!
So life has been really busy lately with my new kindergarten position. I’ve been so busy trying to keep things together at home, work, and with the baby that I haven’t had much time to blog lately. Well, this weekend was a 4 day weekend, so I’ve finally found some time to catch up and put some new pictures up. We recently went up to Tahoe because we found out that John’s grandma was in the hospital with an infection and that her cancer has moved up into brain. Our visit was nice, but incredibly busy. The baby was not all that cooperative the second night. He woke up 5 times that night. But we woke up to snow. Not very much, but it was there. It sure was cold. We got a lot of visiting in. It was the first time we had been up there in 6 months.
Halloween was fun. JJ dressed up as a lion and boy was he cute. He didn’t really care for the hat all that much, but I just left it loose and he was okay with it. We had some friends come over from church. They have a 4 and 5 year old and just found out their new little addition will be a girl. JJ’s new little playmate will be born in March.
Being a teacher is HARD work! I’ve been subbing and or student teaching for the past 5 years, but I tell you my notions about what a teacher does during the day were so wrong! I thought for sure as a half day kindergarten teacher I would have plenty of time during the day to get things done. NOT the case. I stay from about 7:30 to 3:30 or 3:45 each day and until about 4:30-5:30 on Fridays. I’ve gone to a few trainings already, administered math and language arts benchmark assessments and will be doing report cards and parent teacher conferences in the next 2 weeks. All of this within my first month of being there! That’s why I’ve been so overwhelmed. I can’t wait til Thanksgiving break and after things should be back to normal.
As for the baby, he has now tried oatmeal, bananas, carrots, and sweet potatoes. He likes all of them for the most part, but won’t eat carrots mixed with cereal. He keeps his mouth wide open during feedings. Just like his mommy and daddy, he loves to eat! Also, he had his 6 month appointment a couple of weeks ago. He was 15 lbs 14 oz and 26 1/4 inches. What a big boy!
Anyhow, here’s some pictures of our recent adventures. Enjoy!
So with all the medical drama we’ve had in JJ’s first few months, I’m happy to say that we haven’t been to the doctor in almost 6 weeks! Well, not counting the specialist appointment last month. We’ve had no issues requiring us to go see the doctor or have tests run or go to the hospital. Granted, little man has been congested for a couple of weeks and he had a bad diaper rash for about a week, but nothing requiring medical intervention thank God! He’s been doing so well and learning so many new things. He can now pretty much sit on his own. He can also get up on all fours and rock back and forth. Occassionally, he will move his legs in this position, but hasn’t quite figured out how to move his arms. He also gets up on his hands and toes and sticks his little booty up in the air. It’s quite cute. He’s quite the hit at parties. All the ladies love him and want to take him home. Today at Olive Garden, every time a waitress passed by our table, she would smile at him, talk to him, or play with his feet. He’s such a ladies man and getting cuter every day. Here’s a picture of him taken yesterday. 
So this is like a hodgepodge post since it’s been almost a week since I last posted. I didn’t get any of the jobs that I interviewed for, but I do have applications in right now with Alvord and also with Colton School district. In the meantime, I’m going to be doing a long term sub position in Kindergarten at Adams. It should be very eventful with me having to do report cards and parent conferences within the first month of being there. It will last until at least Christmas break, though many of the teachers there have said the lady I will be subbing for has no plans to return. So, it could turn into a full time position for me–however, they may keep the job secured for her until the end of the school year which means I would have to do the whole year on sub pay. Or it could open up earlier and I would be first pick for it unless there are some district teachers who are already on contract that don’t have positions. In that case, it would go to them which would suck. Either way, I’ll get good experience and I may get a letter of recommendation from a principal which would make my resume look way better.
This is baby shower season. I have been to three baby showers this summer; Between these 3 showers, a donation, and my soon-to-be new niece, I’ve finally gotten down to getting rid of most of my surplus stuff. I’m glad I was able to do that because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to give it back because of no reciepts and Target’s stupid return policy. JJ was given a Bumbo chair yesterday and he loves hanging out in it.
Bible study has also started back up again. It’s a good thing because John and I needed to get back to fellowshipping. We’re meeting in a new place this year, but not much else has changed. The food is still great, the company is wonderful and everyone loves the baby.
So our trip to Wisconsin is over. We’re back home and tired as ever. It went really well though. We woke up at 2 am Friday morning to leave at 3. We arrived at the airport at 4 am. I packed some bottles of milk because I knew that they would probably be needed for our busy Saturday. Although the TSA website says you can have ice packs for baby milk and medicine, they almost confiscated ours and they told John only for medicine. I’m thankful they didn’t take it away from us because then the milk would have been spoiled. Anyhow, the baby did great. We had two flights there. His ears didn’t seem to bother him at all. Sometimes he was sleeping at takeoff, other times he was eating, other times he took a pacifier. He didn’t make a peep and the other passengers commented on how good he was
So we arrived in Milwaukee and started our drive to the rehearsal. Wisconsin is absolutely beautiful this time of year. The trees were so many shades of colors and everything seemed so tranquil and peaceful, not like California where there’s buildings and cars everywhere you go. Anyhow, we were about 30 minutes late for the rehearsal. After the rehearsal, we went to the rehearsal dinner at a place called Adam’s ribs. It was yummy. I had a steak with mushrooms, french fries, and a salad. I got my wedding party gift there as well. It was the jewelry for the wedding, some bath and body works lotion and shower gel, bath salts, and chocolates.
The next day was crazy. I had to be at my hair appointment at 10:45 am so John was on baby duty. I got my hair put in curls. Then at 2 pm was pictures, 4:30 was the wedding and 6:30 was the grand entrance of the wedding party. I had planned to nurse after each of these events, but things didn’t go as planned. I was able to nurse after I go my hair done and then quickly at about 6:15 pm. I was so engorged I was in pain. This was the same situation as the day of the flight because the baby was too distracted to eat much at all during the day. The pictures took until 4:15 and after the ceremony, we went out on a boat overlooking the lake. The reception food was delicious. I had to give a speech and was amazed that some people actually laughed at parts. Who would’ve known I’d be a comic? Anyhow, I was so nervous during the speech, I was shaking. But the bride loved it.
We stayed at the reception til 11 pm, then made our way to Milwaukee. We go there around 1:30 am or so and found a Denny’s to eat breakfast at. We got to the airport around 4 am after returning the car and we arrived home at about 10 am. We finally stepped in the door of our house at about 1 pm after lunch. We then slept darn near all day because of how tired the weekend had made us.
Congratulations to Heather! You were a beautiful bride. I wish you a long lasting, happiness and romance filled marriage! Pictures to come soon.
Well, we’re off to Wisconsin. Ready to have baby’s first airplane ride. Ready for me to give a speech in front of a hundred or so people and embarass myself. Ready to have a pretty much sleepless weekend. (And I can’t even blame the baby for that one.) I probably won’t be posting much when I’m gone, but stay tuned for lots of pictures and an update of our trip when we get back. Oh yeah, I forgot! I have an interview. I have an interview. Neener neener neener.
