Last post of the '12!

I don't have much to say, just wanted to sneak in one last post before the new year!  This year was both very eventful and boring for us at the same time.  Eventful because we added a new addition to our family.  We have loved our little (well, big!) Sam to pieces, and my happiness just cannot be measured when it comes to my wonderful little family.  It's been so fun to watch Isaac and Sam interact and get to know each other as brothers. 
It's also been boring in the sense that we don't really do much outside of work and caring for our kids.  I take that back.  We keep pretty busy, but we rarely RARELY do anything without the kiddos. 

Sam got ear tubes 2 weeks ago, which went pretty smoothly.  Unfortunately, he was already sick at the time he got them, and ended up with an ear infection anyway.  Here's hoping that we can curb those damn infections!  Daycare has been better than expected as far as everyone's emotional well being, but just as I expected as far as illnesses.  Isaac hasn't really been too sick, since he's had time to develop immunity.  Sam, however, has pretty much had a nonstop cold since the first week of daycare.  It's gotten slightly better on and off, but he's just had a hard time recovering from one cold before acquiring another.   The ONLY silver lining to that, is that he's developing all sorts of immunity now, and will likly not get sick readily when he's a couple years older. 
My parents house is pretty much complete, they just have to move in now!  Yay!  It's been a year in the making and I can't wait to go celebrate with them in their new house!  It really is beautiful, and although it would have been better had there never been a fire, I can't imagine a better scenario if it did have to happen.
What else...resolutions?  I am never very good at forcing myself to start something on Jan. 1 just because it's a New Year.  I do better with random dates...much less stress!  However, one thing that I've GOT to make time for in the New Year is my house.  Seriously.  I have felt so out of control the last 8 months because my house feels so disorganized and cluttered.  It doesn't just feel that way, it IS that way.  Although Sam and Isaac are sooooo adorable and fun, they literally take every. single. ounce. of our time.  SERIOUSLY.  I don't know how anyone with more than one child ever accomplishes anything (well, maybe once they are all over age 2...)  Even one child age 2 and younger takes every second of your time.  Two just compounds it, so that even if there are two of you, you are both tied up.  Oh boy, I totally just went off topic.  Anyway, I need to resolve to find a way to spend more time tidying it up.  There.  If I write it, it it'll happen, right?
Here are a few photos from December:

Every Year my cute mom and Aunt Mary come to my classroom and deliver some surprises, speak elf, and have fun with the kids.  Mary always dances around the room with a happiness maker and I don't know who loves it more, the students, or me!? :)

Those of you with lots of kids, seriously, kudos to you for getting all your kids to smile in a picture.  I find it impossible with even 2 kids! haha

Cute Dave and Santa Sam

Christmas Eve at Grandma Jo's

Lately...

These are some of the things we've been up to:

Uncle Ben, Brittany, Sam and Isaac enjoying the park

This is what a good day looks like while I am getting ready for work...

Their only matching outfit - PJ's.  Adorable though, right?

Isaac is so cute with Sam

Smiles

Chillin' in Sam's bathtub - I don't know if he is begging for mercy, or showing "prayer hands"

Love those baby blues!

Loved helping decorate the tree this year.  Ornaments are in different places every day...haha

You can't go wrong with a baby and a box.  Don't worry, despite the photos showing babies being suffering on the packaging, we do watch him closely :)

Love to see bath time with all of the boys in my life.  So cute and fun.

Isaac made and I made tiny cookies for his "elf on the shelf."  He noticed that the book had a scene with the elf eating cookies, and asked to make some for his elf.  He's really into the elf.

We found Isaac and Sam's elf, Michael Jackson (named by Isaac) the next morning.  He had eaten all but one of the cookies.  Sneaky little elf.

Isaac was a sheep in his school's Christmas program.  He sang "Go Tell it on the MOuntain," with much enthusiasm.  He was also that kid who fidgeted with his costume the entire time and talked with his neighbor a lot.  haha.  He also ran over to Miss Laurie just before the program ended and told her he wanted to take his costume off. 

Santa Sam and Minnie.  Sam is 1 day shy of 7 months here.

Isaac and Quinn hanging on the stairs at Quinn's annual kids Christmas Party

Sam and Alice, his girlfriend

Isaac and I had fun decorating a gingerbread house this year

This Guy...

I am very proud of this guy:

This picture really has nothing to do with the story, but it's a good picture of "this guy."  :-)

Among many, many things, he is smart and ambitious.  Although Dave and I have both chosen a path that does not pay what we are surely capable of making, it is a path that pays back in so many other ways.  Dave is very dedicated to being a wonderful teacher.  He makes learning fun, exciting, and challenging for his students.  He has the most fascinating, engaging lessons - I wish I'd have had a science teacher like him in secondary school - I probably would have enjoyed science much more in college!
Dave has only applied for a handful of teaching jobs since beginning his teaching career five years ago and do you know what? He has been offered every job he really wanted. and even had to turn some down.  He had a difficult decision to make recently.  A job teaching biology full time at Murray High School opened up a couple of weeks ago.  It's rough to lose a teacher in the middle of the school year, but he had his principal's word that it would be okay - they'd survive, though surely miss him if he was offered a job at Murray.  He went in for an interview and was offered a job the next day.  He will be leaving Crestview Jr. High in a couple weeks to work at Murray.  He thinks (and so do I!) that this will be his final landing spot for the rest of his teaching career. The school is new, he's got a huge classroom with a brand new lab, new technology and he is teaching ALL biology!  That means no more prepping for multiple units of study each day - just one.  He will be working much closer to home, and with students who are more his speed.  I know he'll miss many of his current students, but he feels really good about his decision, and I think with good reason!
Anyway, congratulations to Dave on this new path!  Hip hip - hooray!

Almost Forgot

In Sam's 6 month post, I neglected to post his stats! 
Weight:  20.04 pounds - 89%
Height  26.75 inches - 61%
Head: 17.9 - 90 %

Still a big boy!

6 Months and Such...

First Food

Favorite activity - laying with Isaac and Isaac's favorite activity?  Touching Sam's tummy, cause it's SO cute.

Well, 6 months passed over a week ago, but here is a quick catch up on the things Sam is, or is not doing these days :)
- Sam sits up on his own great!  He became really good at it at about 5.5 months and seems like it opens up a whole new world for him.  It's easier on mom and dad, too, because he does a lot more self entertaining!
-Sam has his two bottom teeth now.  They came in one after another around 5.5 months, too!  Much earlier than Isaac's, which came in at nearly 8 months.  Teething was a bit of a catastrophe, mostly at night, but 2 of those sharp little suckers down, and 18 to go?
- Sam started solids a little before his 6 month birthday and he's definitely got mixed feelings.  So far, we've tried sweet potatoes, avocadoes, apple sauce, and whole grain rice cereal.  Naturally, like his mama, the sweetest is his favorite.  Apple sauce.  He does like the other stuff, too :)
- Sam smiles all the time.  He still smiles at everyone he meets, which is adorable.  I wonder when he will hit the stage of stranger danger.  I'm glad I went back to work before that occurred, because then it would have been REALLY hard to leave him.
-Sam started "school."  He seems to be pretty content and happy there.  He definitely loves watching all the other babies.
-Sam loves to grab Isaac's face and hair, and babble as close to his face as possible a whole lot of gibberish, which Isaac thinks is hilarious.
-Sam loves to slap anything and everything (people, objects) over and over.  He also loves textures, and will be content scratching different surfaces/feeling them for several minutes at a time.
-He continues to be an observer and very contentedly so.  Like mom, he likes to watch, take in what's going on.  Isaac, like dad, likes to be in on the action/conversation.  It's nice to have a balance in the house :-)
-A couple things he is NOT doing:  Sleeping awesomely. He sleeps a good 10 hours, but not straight and not in his own bed.  He starts out there, but always ends up in our bed.  It's been hard to break him of this habit the last month between teething and catching a cold from Isaac (which led to an ear infection, poor baby.)  Now he's back to normal, so we'll see.  I'm just waiting for his top two teeth to mess up our sleep routine again. Gah!  It definitely makes for a zombie mom and dad.
-Sam is NOT interested in crawling right now. Not at all.  That's okay.  Isaac was a late crawler. 9.5 months.  We'll see what Sam does.
-In closing, we love this boy - for everything he is, and isn't :)

Halloween - trying to overtake the camera

Always (well, except if he has to sleep in his own bed heaven forbid) happy

Some Challenges...

I returned to work on October 22nd.  The first 8 days of work consisted of Julie (1 day,) my mom (2 days,) and Dave (5 days) watching Sam.  It was not too hard to leave Sam those days, knowing he was in good hands, and that he was past his 5 1/2 month mark.  However, Sam started going to St. John's CCDC (same school as Isaac) on Nov. 1.
This was much, much harder.  I guess my coping mechanism up until that day was to just try not to think about it too much.  The morning came for me to drop him off and I was sad.  I had been in multiple times since I was used to taking Isaac there 3 days a week, so that was good.  I had met the caretakers, which was also positive.  But there is just something hard about leaving your baby with strangers.  There are never more than 8 babies max, and every time I have been there, there are fewer than 6, with two teachers and an aide. The teachers are these very cute Hispanic ladies who have worked there over 15 years and very schooled in caring for babies.  One is also a nurse, and both are very sweet.  Whenever I pop in, they are each engaged with the babies, either playing with them, rocking them, feeding them, etc.  The babies always look pretty happy. He has done very well so far and the teachers report he has only been fussy a couple of times when he gets tired.  So, when it comes down to it, I know he is being well taken care of and loved.  I just have to get used to Sam not getting one on one (or two) attention.
As far as going back to work (my feelings of leaving my own kids aside,) it has been a mixed bag of emotions.  The sub who had taken my class for the first two months of school "lost" my lesson plans.  Since this blog is public, I don't want to go into a lot of details, but let's just say my room did not look at all like my classroom when I came back (which was very disconcerting and has taken me hours and hours to get back to normal,) and the things that were supposed to be taught, were not.
However, I do have a pretty cute class.   Here are my class in numbers:
23:  number of students I have
18: number of students I have who are learning English as their second language
8: number of girls in my class
15: number of boys in my class
81: percent of students in my class who came to third grade reading significantly below grade level (a handful of them are unable to identify all of their letters.)
7: number of refugees in my class
2: number of Caucasians in my class (yes folks, my classroom IS in Utah.)
1: number of students who has never set foot into a classroom until this school year.
22: number of students in my class on free lunch.
100:  percent of my students our local, state and federal government think that I can and should get on grade level by the end of the school year.
I think that sums it up.  Despite the obvious challenges I face with this class, they are a very diverse group of wonderful kids, some of them with backgrounds you couldn't even make up if you tried.  They are sweet (most of the time) and I am  happy to be working with them this year.
One policy that I had to institute right away was "no tattling."  I could not BELIEVE the insane amount of tattling that was happening when I returned, so my policy consists of teaching them the difference between a report (identifying and letting me know about bullying type situations,) and a tattle.  If they aren't sure if it's a tattle, they must write it down during free time and leave it on my desk (they get tired of writing it down and soon realize that they need to stop tattling on each other for dumb stuff.)  I've had a lot of little notes on my desk that are of this caliber, lately:

chuckle chuckle

Busy Halloween

We did a lot of Halloween-ish activities leading up to and including my favorite holiday.  Halloween is just fun.  Costumes, candy, pumpkins, spooky decorations, parties - what's not to like?  Plus, I really like that Dia de los Muertos is the following two days.  I was happy to be back to school before Day of the Dead, because they love learning about it, doing art projects with it, and sharing their traditions with each other (my class is usually about 40-50% Hispanic each year.)   I'll write more about returning to work later....
Our October activities included:  Witches, Red Butte Gardens After Dark, Witches Night Out (party I went to,) Pumpkin party at Sam and Isaac's school, Trick-or-Treating at Wheeler Farm, Halloween party at the KP's Wasatch Presb. Church, and of course, Halloween trick-or-treating and hanging with the neighbors.
Here is a photo summary of our last two weeks:

Isaac and Quinn at Red Butte Gardens After Dark.

There were a lot of fun activities, including painting pumpkins, making a were wolf mask, making a vial of herbs to ward off vampires, creating a lantern to send off into the pond, and more.  So much fun :)

Before heading off to a Witches party.

Our fam at one of the kiddo's Halloween parties.

Trick or Treat at Wheeler Farm

We had to take this costume off pretty quickly, because he wasn't a fan of the bulk.  Makes me nervous for heavy coat weather.  Boo.

Odessa, Isaac and Quinn at Wheeler Farm

Cute kids :)

Isaac trying to eat a donut on a string at one of the parties....good times.

I think he successfully got one nibble.  Luckily, he did not want the entire donut after :)

Daves Halloween night window display.  It looked even cooler in the dark.

Sweet Gal and the Squeeks

Our sweet black lab, Abbie, turned 13 last month.  In fact, both of our dogs are 13, sadly.  I love how calm, mellow, almost wise they are in their old age, but it's also sad to see them age because most dogs, especially large ones like Abbie, don't live much beyond 14? 15? 
She is very sheepish when it comes to a few things, namely:  the beeping of a fire alarm (or anything that sounds close,) gates (specifically baby gates,) and a few random things that have come up.  She has been wonderful with Isaac as far as being a gentle giant, however, she does steer clear of him most of the time.
A few weeks ago Abbie started acting very strangely. She started shaking the way she does when she hears a fire alarm or sees a baby gate.  But this time, she didn't see/hear either.  She also didn't stop shaking.  She wanted to only spend time downstairs and nowhere else, and her eyes were just blank - almost catatonic.  She didn't respond to treats or her name, and wasn't comforted by being pet.  It was very odd.  Eventually at the end of the day, this wore off, and she was back to her normal self.  This happened on and off for a couple of days, then she would be fine.  She went outside to go to the bathroom and instead rounded the corner of the house and took off.  She ran away and we could not find her anywhere.  She never leaves our property despite it not being fully fenced.  We looked for her for nearly 2 hours without stop, and finally, while Dave was out and I was at home waiting, she returned to the back porch and once again, she was fine.
I immediately made an appointment take her to see the vet the following day.  I also did some research online to see if dogs can have dementia or alzheimers, as this is certainly what she was acting like.  I discovered that there was a canine version - something similar called CCD, or canine cognitive disorder.  She fit the description fairly well.  I took her into the vet, and after doing  neuro-physical exam on her, and likely ruling out any type of neuro problems, he suggested that it is likely CCD. He also said things that would not have bothered her in the past much can now trigger episodes, and the brain cannot activate itself to shut that off the way it used to, thus causing her extreme panic and anxiety.  So, he prescribed Xanax as a PRN (as needed.)  That's right, my dog is on Xanax.  We have had to give it to her 4 times since the vet visit about 3 weeks ago and it definitely helps calm her back down. 
We have ALSO figured out what is triggering her episodes.  Wait for it...
Dave's squeeky shoes.  You know how athletic shoes sound on a gymnasium floor?  Well, he has some shoes that sound like that on our wood floors at home.  We were in the kitchen and one of us mentioned that it kind of sounded like the fire alarm when it beeps just once.  Sure enough, we looked down and there was Abbie, shaking in her boots.  He forgot to take off those shoes a couple of times and wouldn't you know, Shakey McShakerson was back in town.  So, Dave has been really careful about taking those shoes off the last week and she has not had a single episode.  Now we just have to walk on eggshells with the noises we make in our house.  She has been such a great dog, it's the least we can do to keep her comfortable and happy as long as possible.  I love that girl. :)

Abbie, with her dignified grey beard that she proudly sports. 

Witchy

As per our annual tradition, we went to Gardner Village to see the Witches display today.  I was thinking that because it was a Thursday, and most kids were in school, it would be pretty low key.  Boy was I wrong!  This thing just gets more popular every year!  It's cute, that's for sure.  But damn!  -- there are a LOT of kids and moms there!  Mostly moms and daughters.  Weirdly, I swear every kid there looked just the same.  Also, I wanted to drag a kid by the ear to his mother.  This kid, probably 11 or 12, was throwing these apples that had fallen from a nearby apple tree at the ducks in the pond.  Hard, REALLY hard.  Good thing I was on the other side of the pond because if he was still there by the time I got to the other side...look out!  The "Mrs.Vala" gets tough side of me almost came out. 
There are a lot of cute shops there, but I didn't get to even peek into any of them because I was there with Isaac and Sam.  That's probably best :) 
Isaac wasn't really in a photo mood, so I took just a few.