Halloween

This year for Halloween, I slacked off.  Usually I make the kids' costumes, but because of my upcoming deadlines with school, I knew it wasn't possible.  I ended up buying Ruth and Gareth's costumes and Ronan wore the costume we made for Gareth last year.  It worked out well.  

Ruth was dressed as Cleopatra.  Her favorite thing about the costume was that she got to wear make up.

Gareth was Luke Skywalker.  Picky people who are nerds about Star Wars would probably point out that Luke's light saber was green.  Target only had blue.. so I got blue.

Ronan was dressed as the red Lego Ninja from the show Ninjago.

We had a fun-filled Halloween.  Ruth and Gareth had a Halloween parade at school and class parties.  Ronan had a class party at his preschool.  Right after school, we went over to my parents' house where we played Munchkin and had dinner.  We then went trick-or-treating.  The kids got a lot of loot--mostly chocolate!  The Halloween Fairy came for a visit that night and took all of their candy and left them each a prize.  Ronan and Gareth each got a fun Batman toy and Ruth got an umbrella (she's been wanting one for a LONG time).  

We were happy that the weather cooperated and we weren't too cold while trick-or-treating.  Halloween is so much fun.  We're already planning our outfits for next year! :)

Here's a fun pic my sister, Keli took.  Luke is using the force on Cleopatra. 

Hallow City (A story by Ruth)

Ruth wrote a Halloween story for your enjoyment!!!  

Hallow City is not your normal city.  No one knows this, but Mayor Dracula is a vampire! 

I know though.  Now because I have discovered his secret, he’s out to kill me. 

It all started on Halloween.  That year, I was being Cleopatra.  Now just so you know, for some reason, the monsters of Hallow City have a grudge against Cleopatra.  So I guess that was a bad idea. 

My friend Cilica and I were on the Johnson’s porch. Cilica was dressed as a vampire that year.  I rung the doorbell and in the doorway was a giant gorilla.

“Nice costume, Mr. J,” I said.

“Shhhh!” he said, “Don’t blow my cover!”

Me and Cilica laughed.  Mr. Johnson dropped a huge bag of candy into our bags.

“Hey! We didn’t say trick-or-treat!” said Cilica. 

“Do you want me to eat it then?” Mr. Johnson exclaimed.

“NO WAY!” we wailed.

We ran down the cracked sidewalk screaming.  When we finally opened our eyes, we were on an ancient walkway.  “Cool décor!” Cilica remarked.  “They must be giving a ton of candy!”

We ran anxiously up the murky sidewalk.  We were puffing by the time we got to the top of the walkway.  “Oh my gosh,” said Cilica.

In front of us was a house that looked like it used to be baby blue and all the paint was peeling away from the termite-infested walls.  On the decomposing porch, was a pumpkin that looked as though someone had stabbed it with a knife.  The giant wooden door had some strange red liquid on it.  “There’s blood on the door,” I whispered as we cautiously walked up the creaking steps.  With my heart pumping, I slowly lifted the bronze knocker and dropped it.  It made a loud thunk and the door swung open, revealing a musty living room.

On a crowded wooden table was a gold candle holder with a small pool of hardened wax.  Next to the table was an old, mildewed-smelling chair with some sort of rip in it.  In a creaky corner was a wooden chair with a leg missing. “Okay,” I said, “maybe the candy is in here.”  We came to a set of double doors.  Inside were many things like moldy bread.  Cilica walked up to some tomato soup and tasted some.  “Still tastes good!” she admitted.

Just then, the beautiful chandelier crashed down to the floor!  We just escaped by going through another set of double doors. “That was close!” I murmured, clutching my sides. Now we were in a blue carpeted dining room.  “This is starting to get freaky.” Cilica whimpered.  Many strange foods were set out on the table.  A glass full of 1,000-year-old wine sat near a plate of Halloween candy.  “Okay, let’s grab some candy and go.” I turned to the door but it had disappeared!  “The exit is probably over here.” Celica replied.  She was pointing to a shady hallway. 

As we walked through the heavily decorated hallway, the pictures seemed to move and we heard talking ahead.  When we reached the end of the hallway, the door was opened a crack.  I peeked through the crack and was shocked.  My mouth opened in a silent scream.

Inside, I saw our mayor all dressed in black.  Around him was a gathering of real monsters!  There was a witch with one eye, her eye socket looking like an ominous black hole.  There was also a werewolf, black eyes flickering around.  Next to him was a ghost, its black mouth opened in an O.

“We have to get out somehow!” I panicked. 

“We could run through the ghost and run out the open door.”  Cilica commented. 

We decided that the idea was perfect. “On three,” I whispered.  “One, two, three!”

We threw open the door and before anyone could blink, we darted past the werewolf, took a deep breath and ran through the ghost.  It felt as though a bucket of ice-cold water had been dumped over our heads.  I ran to the open door, and we ran.  We ran and ran until we made it home. 

I will never forget that night.  This is a lesson to kids of all ages: stay out of old houses!!

The End

My School Update

I am in the middle of my second-to-last semester of school!  This is actually my last semester of actual classes--next semester will be full-time student teaching.  I'm really starting to feel the pressure now that I'm at the end.  My course load has tripled and I'm constantly under pressure of deadlines.  Every day I have to stretch myself and go out of my comfort zone.  It feels so scary and yet, very good.  I started this whole process of working on a teaching degree with the plan of going strait from earning this degree to working on a Masters Degree in Library Science.  This was the plan originally because I was a pansy.  

Let me explain:

Sure, I would love to be a librarian.  Someday I might even do that.  But secretly, all my life I have wanted to be a teacher.  I have always felt at home in school.  I loved elementary school so much and I was sad to leave it.  My only problem was that I was(am) horribly shy.  The very thought of standing in front of a classroom full of students scares the socks off of me.  This is why when I first went to college I avoided even thinking about a degree in Elementary Education.  I found the program that required the least amount of doing-scary-things and went with it.  

A few years ago, when I finally realized that I needed to get on with life and secure a career, I admitted that I wanted to work in an elementary school.  I also knew that I was too scared to actually do the teaching thing so I wracked my brain about which elementary school career I could handle.  I know, librarians have to put themselves out there too, but I thought that it would be less scary than teaching so I researched how I could go about doing that.  The advice I received from a couple of school librarians was that I should get a teaching degree first.  I convinced myself that I could handle getting a teaching degree and I forced myself to avoid even thinking about the student teaching (which really gives me anxiety every time do I think about it).

So now here I am 2 and a half years later.  I begin student teaching this January and will graduate in May.  I have learned so much these past years and I feel like I've started to change inside.  I am still super shy but I have started to recognize that it is something that I just have to ignore and beat down every day.  The times I've spent in the schools with the students and talking to teachers have convinced me teaching is really what I want to do.  I was talking to the principal at my kids' school and he told me that teaching changes you.  He had no idea how true his statement was for me--and I haven't even started teaching yet!  

I spend every day feeling stressed about my classes, scared about student teaching and anxious about the future in general but I also spend every day excited for this new chapter to begin, knowing that the person I am being melded into is someone I can be supremely happy with.  

Preschool!

Ronan started preschool last week.  He was so excited! (...so was I!)  He did great the first day and had no problem going in.  He's been doing great every day since.  He comes home with lots of stories and pictures.  Already he seems like he has learned a lot!  We're so proud. :)

Summer Memories-- Cookie Dough

One thing I will always remember from this summer was the cat.  When Ruth and Gareth came running in one day announcing that they found a cat, we became a bit nervous.  Okay, who's cat did you steal?  After checking this cat out, it became obvious that it was a stray.  She was very skinny.  A neighbor kid brought it some food and water and fed it right outside our door.  Great.  Now we are going to have a stalker cat.  There is no WAY we were going to adopt this thing.  I can barely take care of my kids.. I am not the type to be able to care for an animal.  So we told the kids to stop feeding it and just leave it alone (i.e. stop holding it).  They put it down and she didn't run away.  (I say 'she' because we assumed it was a girl.... we never actually checked now that I think of it).  They fell in love with her and named her Cookie Dough.  At one point the kids started taking it around to the neighbors to see if it belonged to anyone.  They were becoming very emotionally attached to the thing.  When they got near the field, the cat jumped out of their arms and ran away.  They couldn't chase it because it had gone outside their boundaries.  Gareth started crying.  He was crying so hard his nose started to bleed.  I was able to trace his trail of blood from that spot all the way to our door.  Ruth was crying too.  We sent her to her room to calm down.  When she came out she was holding this:

Cookie Dough

I miss your little eyes that darted around.

I miss your paws that didn't make a sound.

I mis your meaow, soft and sweet.

I miss the box in which you would sleep.

I miss the times we had together.

Now I will miss you forever.

So apparently our little girl is a poet.  We always knew she was a good writer and very expressive, we'd just never seen her do it in the form of poetry.  The best part about this poem is that it comes complete with a picture of the cat and 3 actual tear drops.

So anyway, we thought we were done with the drama.  But we weren't.

The cat came back the very next day.  And the next.  We started worrying about her health.  The thing would just lay on the stairs by our door all day long.  One of the neighbor kids said they saw her throw up blood (who knows if that was actually true or not... you can't go around trusting neighbor kids).  Either way, Jones and I were convinced that she was sick and dying.  We got into the habit of waking up early every morning and poking our heads out the door to make sure there wasn't a dead cat waiting for us. It got to the point that I was not sleeping at all.  I decided that enough was enough.  None of the neighbors had claimed her and she had been wasting away outside our door for far too long.  The next morning, we put her in a basket and took her to the animal shelter.  I thought my kids were going to get emotional again but they handled it well.  I think they had secretly noticed that she wasn't too healthy so they felt relieved when I told them we were taking her to a place that could help her more than we could.

So yeah.  The neighbor kids weren't too happy with me.  They'll get over it.

Random Picture Time!!

Picture posts are the best.  Enjoy!

Ruth decided she wanted to write a song.  Isn't it awesome!?

Sometimes Ronan falls asleep in the car this position was the best ever.  Apparently he had been reading a magazine.

We went out to Sushi with Jonesy's mom and sister.  While there, Gareth decided to show us proof that he is learning Chinese.  I had to take a pic so I could document his FIRST chinese character!  (Don't ask what it means... he doesn't remember).  

He was super proud.  So was I.  I can't wait to see him writing even more. :)

We got to meet our newest niece/cousin this weekend.  She is ADORABLE.  Aunt Audra and Uncle Marrott were so nice to let us meet her.  Here is Ruth, holding McKinnley Rene for the first time. 

Tonsil Adventures!

On August 9, Ronan had his tonsils and adenoids removed.  We knew going into this that it would take 5-10 days for him to recover.  I was convinced that he would be one of the lucky ones and take closer to 5 days.  Nope!  It took him about 12 days before he was back to normal.  I'm not sad we did it though... his tonsils were huge and were affecting his sleep and speech.

Here's some pics:

Here he is just before the anesthesiologist came and took him back.

After we showed up to the hospital, Ronan got to change into some awesome hospital clothes.  We then moved to a waiting room were a few other kids were waiting.  A nice nurse came and gave Ronan a 'Hospital Buddy' doll.  The Buddy was wearing a hospital outfit just like Ronan's. Ro got to draw a face on the doll and the nurse used the doll to show him what was going to happen with the anesthesiologist and the face mask.  He also got to try out some different smells and choose one for him to smell to help him fall asleep.  He chose Root Beer.  The anesthesiologist came then and Ronan was so excited.  He said goodbye and jumped into a wagon that the anesthesiologist used to take him back to the OR.

We were ready to wait for a while, but it didn't take long.  We got to meet him in the recovery room.  It took him a minute to wake up and he was in a lot of pain when he did.  The nurses fixed that real quick with some pain meds that made his nose itch super bad.  They had to monitor his BP for a while as it was pretty high (...or was it low?  I can't remember!) but it soon normalized.

This pic shows Ronan with his mask (not hooked up to anything).  The nurses were so nice, they let him play with it and even take it home!

Once he was sitting up and talking, the nurses brought him a slushie.  He chose Root Beer! :)

Daddy fed him the slush after it became difficult to sip it through the straw.

We got to go home just a little while later.  Here Ronan is with some of his loot.  He got to keep those socks, the slush, the mask, the pillow, a hot wheels car, and the Buddy doll. 

Once we got home, he spent the rest of the day playing on my Kindle and watching movies.

 The first few days weren't so bad.  It was about day 4 that the pain started really bothering him.  He also had a fever (never higher than 101).  He slept a lot during the day and woke up a lot during the night.  The couch became his best friend.

He got to eat a lot of popcicles and chocolate ice cream but it got to the point that swallowing was just to painful.. most of the stuff got smeared all over his face and chest. 

It was finally around day 10 that his fever went away and he started eating and drinking.  Day 12 was when he didn't need his pain meds anymore and started sleeping through the night again.  Now he's pretty much back to normal--the only thing left over is that his voice sounds so different to me.

It was pretty hard watching my little boy be in pain; I wouldn't wish that on any parent.  I'm so glad it's over!

First Day of School!!

Today is the first day of school!!

Ruth is now in 4th grade. I can't believe it.  She's in Mrs. Phillips' class and she's super excited!

Gareth is starting 1st grade!  This is extra exciting for him because he is a part of the Chinese Immersion Program.  This program is designed to teach students Chinese by the end of 6th grade.  He will be spending half of his day in a Chinese-only classroom and the rest of his day in an English classroom.  Gareth's dream is to live in China someday and he's wanted to learn Chinese since before Kindergarten.  We feel pretty lucky that he has this opportunity right here in his school.

Just a few minutes before it was time to leave for school, Gareth got a very bad nosebleed.  It took about 10 minutes to get it to stop.  We're talking about 20 Kleenexes here!  I loaded his pockets up with tissues before we left for the school.  As long as he doesn't pick his nose at school, he'll be fine.

A quick update...

I've been sitting here trying to figure out the best way to catch up on this blog.  I think that the best thing will be just to do a quick overview of the past year and then hopefully start blogging more regularly from there. I'll do this in list form... in no particular order.  

• Ruth finished 3rd grade.  Gareth completed kindergarten. 
• We got a new van!  It's a white Hyundai Entourage.  His name is Gandalf.
• I got a job working as a teacher's aid at the kids' school.  It was an amazing year.
• Jones and I celebrated 10 years of marriage.
• We went on our first official family camping trip.  We went with friends from Arizona.  It was an amazing weekend.

I'm sure there's so much more that happened to us but it has all been forgotten! (Hence the reason I should blog more!)

It's been almost a whole year since my last post!  This a record!!  I miss blogging... I think I want to get back into it.  Let's see if I do.