Preschool, Birthday, Back to work and more!

So, it's been like forever since I last updated. Needless-to-say there is lots to catch up on. Shauna, please stop sending me death threats for taking so long to update. :-)

First I'll update you on the list of summer goals that I made. I lost a little weight but I'm not so sure that I didn't gain it back. :-( Makenna pees on the potty all of the time if you remind her (HUGE accomplishment if you knew how the summer started out) but she still won't tell anyone when she needs to go. I re-read the 6th Harry Potter book and saw the movie (not so happy with the movie as I was hoping to be). I didn't even look into swim lessons for Makenna...that will just have to wait until next year. I got some reorganization done around the house but probably not as much as I should have. I also started going into the school towards the end of July and cleaning and organizing there as well. And I planned out the entire year in all three of my subjects. WOOHOO! So, I didn't do too bad on my summer goals I don't think.

Mom had her final chemo treatment (FOREVER I HOPE!) sometime in the middle to end of July. She has to go back every couple of months to have her blood work done to check her blood cell counts and everything, but as of right now she is cancer free and doing well.

Makenna started preschool on Friday, Aug 21st. She is in what is called the beginnings class which is for 2 and 3 year olds (she had to be 3 before Aug 1st to move up). This school has 3 play dates set up for the kids to help them transition into the new environment. The first day was an hour and the parents were able to stay. I took off the morning session of my meetings because it was my 1st day back to work as well and mom and I both took her over there. SHE LOVED IT! She cried when it was time to leave preschool. HAHA Yesterday was 1 hour without any parents and tomorrow is 1 1/2 hrs without parents but I think that parents can come back the last 30 min. Next Monday will start the normal 2 hr class with no parents and on a more structured schedule. The class is from 9:30 to 11:30 so obviously I won't be taking her, mom will.

This past Saturday we had Makenna's birthday party at the Charlestown Civic Center. We had food, basketball, and one HUMONGOUS blow up bouncy thing. All of the kids had a blast. Makenna just smiled when everyone sang Happy Birthday to her, it was too cute. We also signed Makenna up for WEE SOCCER!!! Her first sport!!! I'm sure I'll have lots of pics and videos soon.

As I said earlier, work officially started back for me last Friday. Tomorrow is the first day of school for students. It seems that as much as I prepared and made lesson plans for, it feels like I'm not fully ready. Maybe it's because we have a new super intendant, maybe it's because we have a new principal, maybe it's because we have laptops this year and so much more is now expected out of us than before. But tomorrow just doesn't seem like it should be the 1st day. But I am glad to get back into a routine and start teaching again, and excited at the same time for what this school year will bring.

Well, I can't think of anything else that I really need to update you on. So, I'll leave you with a quick story about Makenna and some pics.

We went out to eat the other night and on the floor by our booth was this bottle (think old moonshine looking). She bends down to the opening, cuffs one hand around her mouth and yells into the bottle, "HEEEELLLLLLOOOOOOO DOWN THERE!"

UGH! What a fake smile!

Could there be any other cake for this girl?

Big, HUMONGOUS bouncy thing!

Getting ready to blow out her candles while everyone sings.

Getting ready to wake her up for her 1st day of preschool.

Working on her morning pee. HEHEHEHHEHEEE!

Ready and on our way, and styling in those shades!

In the parking lot, getting ready to walk in with her Dora bag.

A really awesome double rainbow right after a storm.

Her MOST FAV ride at the fair this year. She giggled on this so much.

LOL! She looks like a hollywood girl in those sunglasses.

Updates and new pics

So, I've slacked a little. I've been totally lazy this summer, with the exception of keeping up with this nonstop house work that seems never-ending (was that a little redundant? :-) ). I decided to not take any classes or teach summer school this year and just enjoy my time off and spend some overdue quality time with Makenna.

I haven't done anything too terribly exciting at all really. Makenna and I have gone to the zoo a couple of times, Incredible Daves, shopping, the Founder's Day Balloon Glow, to various parks to play, and hang out at the house and in the back yard. I'm trying to reread Harry Potter and Half Blood Prince before we go to the movie when it comes out on July 15th (we are going on the 18th)...I already have the tickets bought and printed downstairs. :-)

Mom's last chemo treatment is coming up on the 13th of this month. Her first treatment made her terribly sick and gave her these awful blisters in her mouth on top of the normal tiredness. Supposedly she was told to come the next day and get some sort of shot but neither she nor my aunt that took her heard them tell her that. But for her 2nd and 3rd treatments she did and she was only tired with those treatments. So, whatever that shot is it does wonders I guess. I just hope that follow up check ups is all she will have to deal with from now on.

Makenna's potty training has made some progress but not what I was hoping for. We will be starting our 5th week of potty training on Tuesday. She has peed in the potty several times but only when I tell her to sit on it, never on her own recognizing she needs to pee and she has never pooed in it yet. I think over the next couple of days I am going to give in and go buy a book on this subject. I've been doing some research and have a few in mind.

I had my annual gyno appointment right after school was out and Dr. Reily has been trying to get me to have blood work done for the last 2 years just to check on few things like thyroid, blood sugar, anemia, and cholesterol. So, I gave in and went back the next week to have my blood drawn. When the results came back I wasn't anemic and my blood sugar was fine, but my good cholesterol was low and my thyroid was a little high. So I made an appointment with my family doctor to see if I needed any meds or not. He doesn't want me on anything right now for my cholesterol, just told me to eat a little healthier and exercise more...yeah, who doesn't need to do that. He did suggest to eat more baked fish and that can help raise it too. But he did give me a pill for my thyroid. Once we find the right dosage (if this first try doesn't work) and we get my thyroid regulated I'm hoping it will help me lose weight a little and also help with my energy level. He told me not to expect big changes but it might help with both of those things a slight bit.

Speaking of losing weight, in the 3 weeks between going to my gyno and then to my family doctor I had lost 4 lbs. Of course, that was on 2 different scales, but it's a good sign. I'm trying to cut back on the amount of food that I eat and I'm also working in slimfast shakes. I don't mind them and many years ago when I was in high school my mom and I did the slimfast shakes and we both lost a lot of weight. I'm also trying to walk at least 4 times a week about 1 1/2 - 2 miles each time which is about 45 - 60 min. By the time school starts back up, which is another month-and-a-half since we start later this year, I'd like to lose another 10lbs at least. It doesn't sound like a lot but it would be a big step for me. And if I can lose more than 1olbs between now and then, then GREAT! I could kick myself in the butt everyday when I think about how good of shape I was in when I was in high school and played a sport every season...I'd give anything to have that body and energy right now!!! I'm hoping that I can lose as much weight as possible before school starts and that will be enough motivation for me to keep it up because when school starts and classes start it's hard to keep up with life!!!

Makenna is just a growing and learning more every day. She's at least 1 inch taller than she was this time last year (according to my wall measurements). I think this growth is only in her torso though because she's still only wearing 2T in capris, and some 3T in shorts, but she's wearing 4T and 5T in shirts. That or she's just going to have short, stocky legs like her momma. She says things sometimes and I have no idea where she comes up with them. For instance, she told me to fix her some chocolate milk. I asked her what do you say, expecting a please or actually ask me instead of telling me and she said, "NOW." haha She is having a rough time with behavior right now and throwing little tantrums. I don't think they should call it the terrible two's as much as the terrible toddler years. !@#$%! This fall she will start preschool. I had to find one that took kids that weren't all the way potty trained. She'll be going 2 days a week for 2 hours each day. I could have signed her up to stay all day on those days or all 4 days but that was just too expensive and since mom is around to watch her I didn't see a point. She's in what's called the beginnings class...it's really the 2 year class but she had to be 3 before August 1st to be in the 3 and 4 year old class (her bday is August 24). They told me that if she seems like she should be moved up during the year they can but I'm fine with her being one of the oldest in the class...afterall she will be in when she starts kindergarten.

Well, I think that's about all of the updates for now. I put a few pics below. I hope everyone is having a fun and safe summer!

Seriously, another picture?

She had my sunglasses on, I guess they were a little too big.

Stick 'em up!

She told everyone after this that she gave Dora a hug...which was the farthest thing from the truth!

Trying to get her to touch a millipede.

Waiting in line for the merry-go-round.

My little girl just isn't so little anymore. :-(

Summer Goals

1. Potty-train Makenna.    She is so stubborn...I don't know where she gets that from, I'll just blame her dad. We are currently on day 2 of sitting on the potty every 30 minutes (yes I have a timer on the fridge that goes off when it's time) and me asking her every 5 minutes if she needs to potty. We went through about 5 or 6 pair of undies yesterday and 2 so far today, with no successful potty attempts. Right now I am putting undies on and then pull ups on over top of them...I'm not ready to clean up pee messes everywhere. I have made charts to show her progress and to show how many stickers earned gets a certain prize. As of 11:25AM we haven't earned any stickers at all. I sure hope this gets easier. Back in November and December we weren't peeing on the potty but we were sitting on it all of the time without crying about it. Then in January we had sort of a traumatic experience and since then even trying to get her to sit on the potty has been torture. And then the last several months have just been inconsistent because of where mom has been sick and going through her treatments and then 3 or 4 different people have been taking care of Makenna. I'm hoping that just having me around and staying home as much as possible over the next couple of weeks will trigger her to go. Wish us luck!

2. Lose weight.    I don't care if it's only 5lbs, I want to lose some weight. Let me rephrase that, I NEED TO LOSE SOME WEIGHT! I went to "my doctor" on Monday and just couldn't believe what I weighed. I've become so consumed with teaching, taking classes, and taking care of this family, I have completely given up on myself and as a result I've let myself get to a point that I hate. Please keep me in your prayers because eating healthy and doing exercise for me is not that easy of a thing. It's not that I really I need to eat more healthy, I guess just maybe not as much of a helping or cut back on the carbs. Exercising is the bigger issue. I HATE IT and can't find the motivation anywhere. But I'm hoping that since I'm not teaching or taking classes this summer I will find the motivation that I need.

3. Make lesson plans.   This is always a summer goal for me but since we are getting brand new laptops sometime in the fall I need to make some new ones for sure that go with the software. We have our training sessions on June 22 and 23 so I will probably just wait until then before I start anything.

4. Reread the 6th Harry Potter book, "Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince" before we go see the movie on IMAX! I don't know if this is sad to say or not, but seeing this movie may be the highlight of my summer. But I LOVE HARRY POTTER!!!

5. Reorganize.   Anything and everything that needs it in my house. This will probably be an ongoing summer project. I guess I should start with closets and drawers/cabinets and then go from there. My motto is, "If I haven't used it in the last year, obviously I don't need it" and I usually just chuck it.

6. Try to find Makenna swim lessons.  If not then definitely next summer. I'm scared to death of the water (thanks Mrs. Howard  :) ) and can't swim for nothing. I don't want Makenna to be afraid and I most definitely want her to learn to swim. She can develop fears of things very easily (I think I made a blog post about having hear ears cleaned out....) and sometimes she already acts afraid of the water. My cousin is taking her almost 1 year old little girl to Infant Swimming Resource classes where they teach you how to save your life if you fall in more than actually swim. I want Makenna to learn to swim 1st before I enroll her in something like this because I'm afraid the ISR will totally freak her out, which is not what I want. If she wasn't almost 3 I might go ahead and do the ISR but I think she's old enough to know what being afraid of the water is and I don't want to scar her for life.

I'm sure I'll come up with other goals or things that I could be or should be doing that will add to the list, but for now that's all I can come up with.

How could I have forgotten?

I forgot 2 of the best pictures from when my family was in town....do enjoy!!!  :-)

It's finally over...and boy has it been interesting.

This has been the longest school year it seems. For me it really goes back to April 2008 when I found out I was being involuntarily transferred, destination unknown at the time. I had to pack up my entire room and undecorate at the end of school last year and was really just miserable all summer because I didn't want to leave. I didn't work on any lesson plans, but then again how could I seeing as I didn't know where I was going or what I was going to teach. About a month before school was to start I found out I was going to be teaching 7th grade at River Valley but the teacher I was replacing hadn't moved her stuff out so I couldn't move in. I met with my new principal and got a copy of a math book but I was still so unmotivated that I pretty much just bailed on making any sort of lesson plans. Then 1 week, 1 FREAKING WEEK before school was to start I get a call and someone at CHS was leaving and I could stay. I was so happy!!!! I go into school and unpack and redecorate over the next few days. I was so focused on getting my room back together that I couldn't get any lesson planning done...did I mention that I was teaching 4 different subjects 3 of which I hadn't taught in about 6 years and never at CHS!? Top it all off with getting less planning time and adding 2 more periods to teach to our schedules this year, I've just felt so behind and unprepared all year long. Throw in there taking classes both semesters. !@#$%! Then the last probably 2 months of this school year were particularly hectic being one of the senior sponsors and getting things together for honors day and graduation. And boy were they insane. I worked my butt off making the 2 slide shows for the seniors. The one we showed at baccalaureate was okay we just didn't have it rigged so that it went through the entire sound system and had to hold a mic up to the computer. But on honors day, of all days, 10 min before the program started the sound system worked and it was "surround" sound so it sounded awesome. Then when it's time for Mr. Rowland to speak to the crowd and the seniors walk in....NOTHING! The sound wouldn't work at all and we still don't know exactly what happened. It was so disappointing. The tradition of walking in and out to music and watching the baby/senior slide show was gone out the window. And then at graduation...well before the ceremony even started I got chewed out because I misspelled one of the graduate's name on the back of the program. Then we had a student go against our 'orders' per say about her speech she was supposed to give and basically embarrassed all of Charlestown and all of those involved with the school. And in the middle of the kids receiving their diplomas one of the graduate's 2 sets of parents got into a fist fight. A FIGHT AT GRADUATION!! I mean seriously?! All I know is that it's finally over and I'm not taking any classes or teaching this summer. I'm going to relax, spend tons of quality time with my little girl, work on getting her potty trained (she is so stubborn it's not even funny), and just have a good time.

New Pics

So blogger is finally letting me post pics from when my family visited.

This is one is so cute. 

Makenna and Kyndall swinging with each other.

In their matching outfits. So hard to get them to both look and smile at the same time.

Kenna wanted to wear Shauna's crazy shoes.

HEHEHEHE!

Visit with my from Georgia

Okay so I'm like exhausted but not ready for bed so I thought I'd put some pics of the visit with my family from Georgia on here but either Blogger won't let me put any pics on here or my internet is just being screwy. So...as soon as I get another chance and things work out better I'll get those pics posted!

Blog Slacker

I know it's been like 3 weeks since my last post. Things here have been so busy and I just haven't had the extra time. I'll give you an update on a few things and then at the beginning of next week I promise to post some recent pics.

Mom had her first chemo treatment last Monday (May 11). For the first week she was mainly just weak and not feeling all that great, she never got sick or anything like that. But this week the poor thing has been throwing up some, stomach issues, blisters/sores in her mouth and just feeling like total poop. It's 4:22AM as I write this post and I'm up way earlier than normal because she called me at 3AM to let me know she wouldn't be able to watch Makenna today because she's been so sick since last night. So here's my delimma: I've already put in for a sub for tomorrow because I have family visiting from out of town this weekend. Plus with senior sponsor responsibilities I will be out 2 1/2 days over the next 10 that remain. So, I'm going to brave the waters and take Makenna to work with me ALL DAY! She's been to work with me before but only for 1/2 the day and she didn't have to get up so early. So, I'm hoping she's a happy camper for me today. EEEEK!

A few weeks ago I had my mother-n-law take Makenna to the doctor because I had noticed something in her ear and wanted to get it checked out to make sure it wasn't something other than ear wax. Thank goodness that's all it was but the procedure that they had to do to get it out, well, let's just say left a not so good lasting impression on Makenna. According to my mother-n-law, she had to hold Makenna down so they could spray something in her ear and put a cotton ball in it. They waited for about 5 minutes to let it soak and then she had to hold her down again while they pulled out the wax. I'm sure she sounded as if someone was trying to kill her. Bath time up to that point had been her most favorite thing to do. Well, for the next 2 weeks bath time was horrendous!!! She would scream and cry and try to keep me from taking her clothes off. And if I was lucky enough to get her in the bath, she would sob so hard and was totally freaked of me trying to pour water on her head or near her ears. Needless-to-say, I was a little concerned with this new behavior. I dealt with it for as long as I could and then last week Chuck and I finally found a fix: we told her she could give her Dora bath toy a bath too and Chuck showed her how to suck water into this little ball and squirt it out. Since then, bath time is back to normal. Thank goodness too...I din't know what I was going to do!!!

I promise to post pics next week. I should have some cute ones because my cousin is visiting from Georgia and Makenna and her 10mo cousin Kyndall will get to see each other again. I hope everyone is doing well in blog world!!!

Then and now....

So, my mom brought over some old pictures of me and my cousin Shauna. The first pic is of our daughters (Kyndall 9 months, Makenna 2 1/2 yrs). This pic of Makenna really doesn't show just how much she looks like me (I don't think so at least). Shauna...I think Kyndall is starting to look more like Shawn.  :-)

Good GOD it looks like my head was full of blondish/reddish springs.

This looks so much like Makenna it's not even funny!

That would be my mom with the white short hair and trying to show her butt! hehe  My papa in the background.

I used to love Strawberry Shortcake. That's my cousin Roxie in the background.

Look at me in all of my sexiness. hehehehehehe

I don't know who the girl sitting to my right is. Shauna, mom said that your mom would know.

That's our granny in the background.

Shauna about 9 months.

Shauna about 6 months.

Zoo

Chuck and I aren't much on taking a 2 1/2 year old to the air show or Thunder where a million people were expected to show up...not ours anyway (for those of you that know how hyper Makenna can get you should totally understand why). So, we decided to go the zoo for a few hours. It was so pretty and nice outside. We definitely got a work out walking through the zoo...I told Chuck I wanted to take her like once a week over the summer. I do have a membership afterall. We had a great time. Some of the animals that we would have liked to have seen weren't out because it just isn't warm enough for them yet but there were still lots to see. We walked by the new ropes course and it looks so awesome. I can't wait until she is big enough to try it out. I remembered to put sunscreen on Makenna but totally forgot to put any on me...needless-to-say my arms are quite lobster red in color right now. Mysteriously there is a round white spot on my left forearm surrounded by the red...I don't know why that happened. Here are a few pics from the day. 

I thought the giraffes were pretty cool so I took a pic of them. :)

Makenna jumping away.

wheeeee

Check out my hollywood girl in her shades.

Daddy in the background on the phone. I thought I was going to have to throw that thing away because customers kept calling him with 'water emergencies'. WHATEVER! Don't they know he has a family to spend time with on the weekends?!

Pics from Easter

My cousin has been bugging me to get my Easter pics posted so here they are. This was Makenna's 3rd Easter and all three of them having been freaking freezing cold! She can never wear her real Easter outfit because it hasn't been warm enough. She has on 2 pair of pants, 2 long sleeve shirts under her dress, under her jacket. She still at one point said she was cold. ?#!@$!$@!~

Makenna was the only 'little' kid that hunted eggs this year so finding them was pretty easy for her.

Makenna's cousin Claire made it out for dinner and the Easter egg hunt.

hehehe Makenna with a foam pig nose sticker stuck to her nose.

Makenna loved dying eggs and throwing them into the cups = MESS!

This was Makenna's finished product for her egg.

This was mine....ribbit!

Daddy made a pig...I added the smiley face.  :-)