Our Growing Family.

I could (hopefully!) be getting a new sibling...or 2...or 3...
Read my mom's blog to find out the extraordinary way it could happen.

Amazed. Excited. And hopeful for the miracles and blessings only He could bring from such tragedy...

Keep reading mom's blog to be updated!

I wanna be like daddy.

Grant came walking into my office the other day wearing his daddy's tie, just as proud as could be. And he wore it the whole afternoon. When I asked him to smile for me, he did that silly little thing with his arm. I need to look up some adjectives for cute, so I can stop sounding so repetitive.

craftiness.

I really like the scrabble pendants on etsy for some reason. I bought one before Christmas that has a vintage camera on it with the words, "capture life"...did I post that? I feel like I have...anyway, I then googled how to make them. And last night I finally did! I bought the "where the wild things are" images from etsy. They make me smile...and I'm pretty sure I know some 4th graders who will like them too!

BFFs 4EVER

Mason has made his first best friend. His name is Cole Henry. They are inseparable. CH lives just down the road so they play together almost every afternoon and weekend. Mason spent the night at his house last weekend, so we invited Cole Henry over this weekend. It was just about the cutest thing in this world to see their tiny bodies on our pull out couch. : ) And it made Troy and I feel like such parents to have to tell them to "quiet down" several times as we remembered being told that millions of times by our parents and our friends' parents. It was also so funny to hear their claims of "staying up all night" as they ate their breakfast the next morning.

It doesn't seem possible that I have a child that is having sleep overs when I swear just a few weeks ago, Sarah Ruth, Penny and Hannah were sleeping over at my house as we dug through our Caboodles and put our hair up in scrunchies and teased our bangs into extraordinary heights...oh, those were the days. : )

It's fun living it all over again with Mason...except the caboodles, scrunchies and teased bangs have been replaced by light sabers, Mario Kart and Nerf guns.

We took them bowling which was super fun...and funny! At one point a bowling ball somehow bounced right on over to the next lane... yikes!



Grant even got to bowl. His granny rolls were so cute...and hilarious...and s.l.o.w. :)


He was really more interested in the balls than playing.

oh! Grant wanted to give you a kiss!

We're, like, famous. Totally.

A few weeks ago, my sister asked the boys and I to help her out with a project at work.
She needed me to model "good parenting practices" while the boys acted like children who respond well to said "good parenting practices." By some miracle, it turned out okay. So now, we're all like fancy and on a website and everything. Uh-huh. Watch out Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock. There's a new actress in town and she's playing the role she was totally made for - mom.

Our big debut. (click on the children behavior videos)

And, yes, I'm getting the boys agents like asap. : )

(aren't they so cute!?)

Hope for Haiti

I sat and cried yesterday afternoon watching the coverage of the devastation in Haiti. What my broke my heart was the children. No child should have to endure anything like this. And no mother should have to feel hopeless as she tries to save her child from a fallen building. It's too painful to imagine, to heart wrenching to even begin to understand.

My parents have been to Haiti a few times with a group of people who work to install water wells in Haiti. They provide fresh water to villages all across Haiti. As you might imagine, they are especially saddened and prayerful for the country of Haiti.

Below is an email from Don explaining how their Texas based charity is helping the disaster relief, and I thought some of you might be interested in helping them with a donation. There are hundreds of places and way to send our money, but I like the fact that people that have been to Haiti themselves, people who know how desperate the need is, people who know how little Haitians had even before, will be getting what little I can give. I'm not Angelina Jolie or George Clooney and I can't donate a million dollars. So I want to know that my $50 will go straight to Haiti, in the best possible way.

If you're interested in helping in this way, here is the information you will need. And if this isn't where you feel led to donate, please find a charity, a foundation or some missionary that you feel needs your donation, no matter how big or small.

Dear Family and Friends,

We are sure you all have heard about the massive earthquake in Haiti. We thought maybe you were wondering what you could do to help. We wanted to let you know what our ministry (Hope for Haiti) is planning to do and possibly you would want to join our efforts. We heard from our missionaries, Dennis and Jennifer Maupin, who are now staying at a mission near Port-au-Prince. They are safe and are working to help others in need. Bill Neusch, President of Hope for Haiti is organizing a container to go with heavy equipment and a team to help with the clean-up and clear the roads and also will send a container of food. Another team, including two of our board members, is going there to begin drilling water wells with the new equipment we just sent down there. Clean water and food are dire needs.

If you feel led, you can give to Hope for Haiti, Earthquake fund:

Make a check payable to Hope for the Hungry (they handle all our finances)

with a separate note "For Hope for Haiti, Earthquake Fund)

Mail to Hope for the Hungry

P. O. Box 786

Belton, TX 76513

Every penny will go toward helping the immediate needs of the people of Haiti. Your donation is tax deductible and you will receive a receipt for your gift.

Thank you so much for your consideration,

May God bless you,

Don and Julie Barlow

Herman and Janet Neusch, Founders of Hope for Haiti, Inc. www.haitigardens.org

Mason travels through time... via photoshop.

Here he is in the present. All Bright and sharp and colorful.

Then he traveled all the way back to the great depression. Where he was quite well dressed...




Later he starred in a black and white "talkie" (and was teased for his santa like eyebrows)





He then landed in the faded out, slightly colored world of the 1950s.







Until he arrived into the deeper toned, but still washed out 70s.






The 80's gave him an ethereal glow and subdued color.






Until he stumbled into the 90s where black and white was the new (yet old) thing.

Can you tell I am enjoying the last business purchase I made in 2009?

Winter, winter, go away. Come again...another day.

I love the cold weather. I do. But not when I have to walk a line of 16 students from my barrack in the back forty all the way to the cafeteria and gym. It's soooo cold!

So cold that we had a pipe bust at our house. yep. No water for the day. Until poor troy had to go dig in the cold, in the dark, and fix a broken pipe that's leaking nearly frozen water. Poor thing! But he was successful...and I no longer have an excuse not to do dishes...

And yesterday, my car just up and died. Fortunately I was in a neighborhood so I coasted to a curb and Mason and I were safe. But...it was about 29 degrees out and we were stranded in a heaterless car. It was 4:30. So I called Troy and he said he would come get us. But it ended up taking close to an hour for him to get there. Mason and I passed the time by playing a game. It went like this, "I wish the car would have died (where we would have preferred to be stranded)" He said things like, "I wish the car would have died in front of Mr. Gattis." and I countered with "I wish the car would have died in front of Hobby Lobby." Etc....it was pretty fun! We were just about to turn into popsicles when Troy rescued us.

I'm trying to think of some way the cold would give me an excuse to talk about how cute Grant is. But I can't.... If you ask him what his name is, he says "me." Cute. He also will beg me to "com'on" with the cutest little hand wave. I always go. He melts my heart into big ol' puddles every day.

Alright, back to editing I go.

A good combo.

Friends. Season Five. No commercials.
Popcorn (NOT burned in my new christmas Microwave)
Left Over Christmas M&M Sprinkled over popcorn.
Editing pictures.

And tomorrow is Friday! :) Woo Hoo!

teaching.

I didn't want to go back.
I didn't.
I was so depressed as my Christmas vacation dwindled away to nothing.
All my teacher friends felt the same way. We all know what January and February hold - long long weeks. The two longest months of the year.
The next break of substantial length is not until March.
It's cold and dark when you get out of bed.
And Christmas has given you a sweet taste of what life was like before you were a teacher. Before ARDS, IEPS, TAKS, meetings, grades...stole your life away.

Have I painted a sad enough picture for you?

But then they walk in the door.
All my 4th graders. I've never loved any students the way I love these kids.
I don't want to say their names for obvious reasons, but...

one has a smile that breaks my heart. Because I don't think she has a lot to smile about...but when she does, man. It goes straight to my soul.

Another boy is NEVER ready when we line up. Never. I really don't know how he manages it. I ask him to get ready minutes before all the rest. Somehow this annoying trait is becoming endearing. "I'm sorry Mrs. Wilde," he smiles sheepishly after I say with a wink and a grin, "You're killin' me Smalls! You're killin' me!"

A. is a boy I tutored last year. Of all the kids I knew I might have, he was one I didn't want. Isn't that a terrible thing to think? Much less say? But it's true. However...he has completely stolen my heart. He shuts down a lot. I have to approach every thing with him just the right way. But some days we just get each other, and he smiles at me, and I think, I hope, I'm making a difference in his life. I hope I'm making him realize he can.

One tiny little thing in my class cracks me up constantly with her one liners. Today I couldn't find my scarf. Straight faced(and smirking at the same time somehow,) she goes, "It's where you left it." She also wrote this sentence with the spelling word enough. "I have had enough of my brother." She's sarcastic and spunky, smart and witty.

Then there's D. I have never had a student work so hard, so relentlessly. She's a student who, despite all the learning disabilities and things working against her, will find a way to succeed. She won't settle for less than her best. Ever. It's almost frustrating. In the best kind of way.

And there's the boy who writes every paragraph with such clever usage of parentheses I crack up the whole time.

And M. who I want to adopt.

And C. who is often better at teaching than I am.

And J. who never answers any question right the first time, but never stops trying.

And I could go on...

I didn't want to come back. And I am thrilled that tomorrow is Friday. And I won't want to wake up in the morning. And I'll want to cry tomorrow when I still see papers with "wint" instead of "went".... And I'll want to run and scream when I think of 504 documentation and aes-it reports and ability grouping and extended day and all the other stuff that districts try so hard to make us focus on.
But.
Then K. will write a sentence that brings tears to my eyes. And J. will finally see on his own that he needs a period "right here!" M. will light up when I freak out about her using the word "yelped." And I'll remember where the focus should be - them. Them. They're not a TAKS score. Or an indicator on a graph. Or a "high" or a "low."
They're children.
And it's high time I started being the best teacher I can be, not the scattered, half -focused teacher I've been. It's time I simply accept that I'm a teacher. In Public Education. And for as long as I am, I give it, I give them, everything I have.
They need me to do my best.
Or at least for me to teach every minute as if they do.