AAAHHHHH!!!!!

I have two weeks left in the school year. (Insert panic now...). In that time, I have end-of-the-year keepsakes to make, father's day gifts to make, curriculum maps to get done, putting together the end of the year party, putting together the fundraiser party, cleaning, sorting, ordering, end-of the year drama, teaching!...the list goes on. I'm looking forward to the break, but at the same time there's so much to be done! Life is insanely insane.
I also had an incredibly emotional week with daily breakdowns-including one in the principals office. It at least ended okay. A parent brought in three desert tortoises for all the children to see and they LOVED it! They're really cute and she asked if I wanted to have one. Apparently, they're often mistreated, so she gets them from a rescue place. The smallest tortoise had been abused-his previous owners had actually drilled holes in his shell so they could tie him to a pole! So sad....
This weekend was really busy as well (though there were some relaxing moments, I admit). The Cummins' came by to spend the night Friday and stayed through Saturday afternoon. We switched off babysitting to go to the movies-some went to see Robin Hood while Mom, Kiely and I went to see Letters to Juliet (very disapointing and boring movie). We came home and rented Leap Year on pay-per-view, which turned out to be a much better movie. On Sunday, we went to hear Kiely give a talk (they asked her to speak one hour after she came for the first time! They definitely know how to grab onto fresh meat!).
We didn't see much of Casey since he got a three day free trial to play a game he's been waiting years to come out. He's been pretty happy all weekend.
Kiely and I have been making our way through seasons of The Unit. Gotta love those boys in uniform!

Rain, sun and Kiely's home

The weather has been all over the place! It can't seem to decide if it wants to be winter/spring or if it's ready to be summer. Over the weekend it was BEAUTIFUL, sunny, clear blue skies and very, very warm in the mid 70's. Today and yesterday it's back down in the low 60's, overcast and drizzly. It's my personal opinion that if there's going to be grey clouds then it should be stormy with heavy rain, wind and lightening. Alas, it's really been drizzle here and there with lots of dark clouds that promise rain but don't deliver (at least over the house). 'They' are forcasting that it's supposed to be in the low 80's over the weekend. Go figure.
Kiely and Casey came home on Monday (Kiely home from college for the summer and Casey from a weekend visit to his friend Jacob). We've already starting quoting to each other. We went out to lunch for Casey's birthday to Famous Dave's (or Diggory Dan's, as Mom likes to call it) and ran a few errands (Casey for some reason didn't see the 'fun' in that on his birthday) and then came home to eat ice cream cake and watch Sherlock Holmes. I really like that movie. The way Sherlock and Watson are portrayed is just cute. Work is moving along. I had a parent observer come in today, but I don't think I gave my best showing because I'm nursing a cold and it's difficult to talk and think when you're all stuffed up. Hopefully she was at least a little impressed....Job security and all....

Back to real life....

Easter vacation is now offically over by a week and it's back to real life. Getting up at the crack of dawn seems to get harder and harder as the year goes by. I think I have a sleep/bed addiction. I love knowing I don't HAVE to get up and being in that half asleep/half awake state. It really hurts having to get up when it's still dark outside. But, it pays the bills...
We had Garden/Bee's week at school and the kids really loved playing with the flowers and pretending to be bee's. The first couple of days back were pretty calm, but then Wed and Thurs came and they got WILD. All the teachers are complaining about the wildness-spring fever, I guess. We've started to have meetings about all the end of school activities and my stomach is starting to cramp thinking about all the things I need to get done outside of regular school planning.
One blessing we had was an idea for our Parent Appreciation Brunch. Every year the staff puts on a brunch and show for the parent volunteers. I really, really do not like getting up in front of adults and 'performing' and I'm not the only one. Several of the teachers were really struggling over what to do and we tried out several ideas that seemed to hurt the least. We settled on lip synching Bob Hope's 'thanks for the memories' with us holding up signs to add to the lyrics. When we came back from break we were talking about dreading going up and we threw out some new ideas. We finally got a blessing from God with an idea that worked and kept us from having to go up onstage. We're video taping the ECE kids and putting together a "kids say the darndest things' show. Yeah! We also volunteered to help coordinate the decorations (after a looonnng silence at the Staff meeting) so we're doing that as well. No rest for the weary....
Mom is plugging along. She's still having problems with that woman at work and is seriously considering going to HR since local management doesn't seem to want to deal with the problem. She doesn't want to do it though, since she doesn't like to make waves and it's such a hassle. Why can't people just do their job, be nice and courteous to co-workers and leave off the drama????
To cheer us up, we went to Lowe's and Home Depot to pick up some vegetable/flower plants that were on sale. We planted them around the yard on a beautiful, warm sunny day and felt really good afterwards. I'm hoping my vegetable garden survives this year as my attempts at container gardening the last few years hasn't panned out. I even planted cucumbers for Kiely, even though I don't really like the taste of them. I'm looking forward to a caprice salad made with warm, fresh tomatoes and basil straight from our garden. Yum...

Easter!

Easter was chaos and yet fairly quiet for us. Denise came with her children, minus Jordan and Scott and Shirley came on Sunday for dinner and what turned into hours of strong political 'discussion'. Being very much anti-arguement (I just can't stand being around conflict), I wandered around before finally settling down to watch old episodes of Jack's Place.
I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed that show and how sad I was that it didn't last. Another casualty of a network that 're-worked' the show to make it more prime-time friendly and they ruined it so much that everyone stopped watching.
The easter bunny came Saturday night and hid a bushel of plastic eggs in the backyard, despite the threat of rain for the next day. I was woken, VERY early by children jumping up and down with excitement when they realized that NOT ONLY were baskets hidden in the house and filled with candy, but the easter bunny had left eggs outside AS WELL!
I have to admit that I love egg hunts. There's something so wonderfully magical and innocent about them and watching little guys running around in easter finery-or still in their jammies-and happy beyond beleif when they find an egg is just fun to watch.
The day ended with a great rain storm with some nice pounding rain-none of that misting stuff we'd had earlier in the week.
Monday I took the little kids to McDonalds playplace. I was hoping to go off times and avoid the crowds, but it was not to be. It was loud, noisy and...well, I remembered why I don't go to McDonalds more than once a year. The foods really not that great. The kids loved it though.
Later we all went to see How to Train you Dragon and I really liked it. I wasn't sure since it is rated PG (a children's animated movie should NOT be PG!), but it was actually a fun movie and I'll probably see it again.

I'm missing my family!!!!

Hi everyone!

I was sitting there the other day feeling kinda sad because for the first time, we're all really, really spread out and I was feeling disconnected from everyone. It's very quiet in the house now with just the three of us and since everyone has very busy lives, I thought 'we need to connect again!'. So...I remembered the blog Kiely tried so hard to get everyone participating on.

So, I thought I'd try to get the ball rolling again since it really does seem the easiest way to get the news from everyone since they can just jot off a post when it's convient for them! Easy as pie!

As for Megan News....my first year teaching preschool has been very stressful as I've had to create my entire curriculum and make most everything since it's a LOT cheaper than buying one. The problem with that, of course, is that I always feel like I'm behind the 8-ball! The end of the year is almost here though, and next year should be MUCH easier (I hope!).

We just finished up our Spring Party (I originally called it an Easter party, but apparantly no one calls it that anymore...) and it was wild chaos. But, there's something timeless about watching children on an easter egg hunt in their spring clothes. They're so innocent and excited and it just feels hopeful and spring-like.

We also had the Easter Bunny and visit the classroom. It was like we'd been visited by a rockstar. We did have a typical preschool reception though. 90% of the children ran over to hug, chatter away at and wave at him while 2 children sat frozen on the carpet and 2 others ran over with fear to hold my hand. Of course, all fears were eased when they ate the candy the easter bunny brought!

Strawberries are offically out and I bought the first flat of the season. There's nothing like that first taste-warm from the sun and bursting on the tongue. Strawberry dip here we come!

Mom and have been having a movie marathon at night the last week. I'd gotten the sudden inclination to watch my Anne of Green Gables movie and, when I was telling her how much I'd enjoyed watching it and remembering while the books have always been favorites, she decided to watch. So, a couple of hours before bedtime we sit on her bed (the VCR in the family room is still broken. Why we keep it hooked up is a Smith family secret....) and watch a little bit of them every night. We've now started the second movie and mom was mad at Anne for not accepting Gilberts proposal so I had her watch the end so she could go to sleep. Now that she's seen them end up together, she can happily watch the rest of the movie.

And...for those in my family who are SCROOGES, yes! the Christmas decorations are finally down! Sheesh!