The first week!

The first week of school went okay. I was very busy. Lots of "stuff" that had to be accomplished before the first week was over. I do already love my new position as Campus Reading Specialist. I was a little nervous in the beginning, but the things I am doing are perfect for me. I love writing lesson plane, creating documents, and coming up with new ideas to help out teachers. The Lord knew what he was doing when He led me to this position.

I still have 3 classes of reading, and it is going well too. I look forward to getting to know these students and hoping that they succeed this year!

I am also actually enjoying being back at school. You know you were meant to teach when after the first week you are exhausted, but also very excited. So, no matter how much I have questioned going back this year, the Lord knew what was best for me! It has also been great to get back with my teacher friends. This year is going to be soo much fun and I think we are all going to mesh well. I cannot wait to see where this year leads all of us! I will keep you posted!

Meals?

Well this week I do not have to worry about meals thanks to my wonderful husband. Yesterday he left and went to the store to get a "few" things. Little did I know that he had planned out the entire week of meals. When he came back he told me that since it was my first week back to school, and things would be crazy he decided to plan the meals, go to the store, and is going to cook every night! I have the best husband in the world!

Thanks babe, you are so amazing to me! I love you soo much! I appreciate the help and support you give me every day! The Lord has truly blessed me with you!!

Meal Planning!

Monday: Ground Turkey Enchiladas, Re-fried Beans and Spanish Rice

Tuesday: Fish Tacos, Mango Salsa, Avocado and Black Beans

Wednesday: Crock Pot BBQ Chicken Sandwiches and Okra

Thursday: Pizza and Cesar Salad

Friday: Our Night out! ;)

Saturday Lunch: Sandwiches and Chips

Saturday Dinner: Somewhere fun out!

Sunday: Stuffed Green Peppers, Potatoes, Salad, and Baked Bread

* if you have not noticed already... i love pizza! i am a little obsessed with it. So Thursdays we have pizza. we used to order out, but then fell in love with a few of the frozen pizzas from the grocery store. they are really good, cooked on my pizza stone and soo much cheaper, OH and healthier! i always make a salad to pair with it. i never get tired of it! it is easy and i look forward to it while i watch my favorite thursday shows during the year!

rise and shine...

So I guess Wyatt has changed his sleep schedule to get me ready for school. It is a good thing, but right now at 6 in the morning I am not liking it so much. He normally goes down at 8:00p.m. and sleeps until around 8:00a.m. the next morning. This week he has been waking up between 5:30a.m. and 6:00a.m. I am not sure why his schedule all the sudden changed, but it has put my into a whirl wind of reality checks. School is back.

I know so many people hate the fact that teachers get off for the summer. TRUST me, we hear the comment all the time, and yes after a while it gets pretty annoying. BUT, to our defense.... take care of 150, loud, emotional 7th and 8th graders on a regular basis and you would need a break too. Seriously at the end of the year in a school building you can cut the tension with a knife. The kids are exhausted and turn into terrors. There is nothing like it. I do not care how many adults you deal with, you can at some point, close your door and have a few minutes to yourself... for us, we cannot do that. We have KIDS all day long! So anyway... my new comment I say to people who do not like the fact that I get off in the summers.... "Become a Teacher!" HA.... Then you will get the same days off as us and get our wonderful pay! SARCASM.....


So now... I will vent about not being ready to go back. This year I have several reason I am not as excited to start the year. I do have a little joy in my heart as I get to re-arrange my classroom and hang up new decorations. Meeting the kids and seeing the dynamics of my class is always a plus, and I also love being with my teacher friends every day. It is definitely a blessing to work with fun people. BUT, I also have to take my son to someone else everyday and this is not fun for me. This summer has been a blast, watching him daily, playing with him and watching him learn new things. So I am going to miss that. But teaching calls and my job as reading specialist is calling as well. Nerves have set in for the new position. I am ready, don't get me wrong, but I have butterflies in my stomach about getting everything organized. Working out my schedule and figuring out how I will be utilized best in each subject area. The first 6 weeks of school will be trial and error as I figure things out, and this is un-settling for me. I like to have everything ready to go, organized and in place. My new position will not look like that for a while and I am trying to learn to be okay with that.

So as I sit here early this morning, I have so many emotions and "to do" lists going through my head. I am going to try to set those aside until Monday morning, and have one last weekend of total freedom.... no school worries, and play with my little man. I just want to hold him all day long!

P.S. I also get secretly excited about this time of year because I get NEW SCHOOL SUPPLIES. New school supplies make me so happy. Fresh pencils, brand new markers, fresh packaged notebook paper, dry erase markers that do not run out, staples, tons of colored paper, Crayons that have not been used... oh the joy it brings me. It does not get much better than that!!!!!

Cooking!

Here are the recipes I told a few of you that I would post. I need to figure out how to link the recipe when I post my meals on Mondays. That way everyone will have them and not have to ask.

(Katy... how do you link another post? Or create a seperate one that does not pop up automatically? I see you do it on your page and cannot figure it out!)

Creamy Crock Pot Chicken

4 bonless skinless chicken breasts
2 c sour cream
1 can Cream of Mushroom soup
1 package dried onion soup

Place chicken in bottom of crock pot. Mix all other ingredients together and pour over the top of the chicken. Cover with lid and cook 6-8 hours. The chicken falls apart and breaks up.
Serve over rice and veggies. (I cook broccli)

Bacak Southwestern BLT Wraps (one of our FAVORITES)

1/2 c salsa
1/3 c frozen corn, thawed
6 (8 in) tortillas
12 turkey bacon slices, cooked and broken in half
Butter lettuce leaves
1 avacado mashed (I use several since we love avocado)
4 t fresh lime juice (3 mini limes)
1/2 c mayo
1 t chopped fresh cilantro
salt to tast

Stir together salsa and corn. Set aside.
Make avocado lime sauce by combining avocado, lime juice, mayo, cilantro, and salt. Top warm torillas with lettuce, corn salsa, bacon and drizzle with avocado lime sauce.

(I also make black beans and spanish rice for sides)

One more tip!!

I made a Chocolate Cake this week and read that if you add a package of pudding mix to the cake it will make it moist. It WORKED. So yummy! You can use any type of pudding to any cake for flavor and to make it so much better.


We make the Southwestern Wraps on a regular basis. It is a great meal and so easy. Also, during the school year I try to have several nights with crock pot meals. I am hoping to do at least one a week. I have a great crock pot book with soo many varieties of meals. Andrew and I normally eat out every Wednesday night since we have church, but if I could plan our crock pot meal to be on Wednesdays we could save so much money!

Sorry it took me soo long to post these. I look forward to seeing everyone else's meal ideas! Yeah for cooking!

I needed a change!

BEFORE

So I have always had long hair and I really love it, BUT... I needed a change, something new for the year! Wyatt was a motivator in this change since he loves to pull hair and was always, as I put it... "all up in it!" I called my sister Joanne who is a wonderful hair stylist, made the appointment yesterday and at noon today went to get it cut off. I had to make the decision quickly because I have been known to change my mind at the last minute. I have never had short hair so it is hard for me to get used to. I do miss my long hair a little bit already, I think every time I cut my hair I will miss it...

but I LOVE the new do.

What do you think?!

AFTER

I am obviously not made up in this picture. I actually went on a walk before taking it tonight. But you get the idea. It will be easy for me in the mornings and my head feels so much lighter! ;) So this is my new look... if you hate it, please don't tell me! Ha... I can grow it back out in no time if I get tired of the short look! For now... I am pleased! ;)

Poop?!!!! YIKES!

DISCLAIMER....

If you do not like POOP stories... do not read! ;)

This is the face of a little stinker. Really, tonight he stunk. We were eating dinner and Wyatt was having some snacks in his highchair. He is always a mess, so before I even started to clean him up I started the bath water. Good thing I did that! As I took him out of his high chair I realized that it was not just food coming from his shorts. He had pooped out both sides of his diaper. YIKES. The doctor told us that the antibiotic he is on for an ear infection would cause diarrhea. Well.... it has kicked in and we definitely had poop everywhere tonight. This is not normal poop either. This is nasty, leaky poop. YUCK. I was thrown into the world of boys, poop and motherhood tonight.

So I laid him on the bathroom floor and start stripping him from all his dirty, yucky clothes. Some how he managed to squirm around the bathroom floor, smearing his nasty poo everywhere. Including on me! So picture this... running bath water, a naked, squirming baby covered in poo, wipes, a tile floor, and a mother yelling for her husband who was in the shower. It was definitely a scene from a movie!

I finally managed to get him clean enough to put in the bathwater and was trying to wipe the poo from the floor and off of me when he struck again. I realize now that it was my fault for what happened next. Take a naked baby and lay him on a cold tile floor and eventually he is going to have the urge to pee. Well... that is what happened. Wyatt peed. But let me just tell you, he did not just normal pee. He peed like a race horse. It was shooting everywhere! I did not know a baby of his size could pee that high, and for a moment I was actually impressed! ;) But then I was shot back into reality when I realized my cute sandals were soaked with pee and both the bathmats were covered as well. I then stopped what I was doing and put my little guy in the tub, still yelling for my husband who had no idea what was going on.

I bathed him, put his pj's on and let him play in his swing while I cleaned up the mess in the bathroom. The funniest part is when Andrew got out of the shower he had no idea what had gone on. I wonder how he would have handled the situation!? I laugh just thinking about it! Andrew is not big on poopie diapers, especially ones that spu!

We both survived... him more than me! I wish you could have seen him. Wyatt was smiling, laughing and saying "Da Da" the whole time! He thought he was pretty funny! This will definitely be a story to go in the baby book.

I should title it....

"Squirming Poo Boy and the Fountain of Pee"