Life as a Leach

I am a part of the MOPS group that is starting up at our church.  Although it's hard to get a new program started and I am running low on time these days, I am really excited about the idea of having a group of friends who are all in the same stage of life as me!  In planning for MOPS, I've gotten to know some of these ladies a lot better and I'm really enjoying it!  (Plus, I get to hang out with Jenn, which is always a good thing!) :)  I have really needed and wanted to develop some friendships with other moms, so this is definitely a good thing for me.  YAY!  :)

On the Monday before I headed back to school, we took Caleb to Baltimore.  Matt had been itching to ride the ducks We knew Caleb would love to ride the ducks, which are special vehicles used in WWII that can both ride on land and float in water.  Did you know that Eisenhower said they were the reason the USA won the war?  We wouldn't have won the Battle of Normandy if it hadn't been for these little ditties.  There's your history lesson for the day. Anyway, we got our tickets as soon as we got there and killed some time until it was our departure time.  Matt Caleb was incredibly excited!  Matt and Caleb sat in the seat behind me because we couldn't all fit on the same bench.  Despite the heat and lack of air conditioning, it was a ton of fun.  Our driver, Captain Privateer, was really silly and actually encouraged us to "quack" along to the songs he played!  We learned quite a bit of Baltimore history in addition to lots of boats. When we fi...

*  I didn't have a conversation with my honors reading class about Mussellini and Hitler on the second day of school.  I wasn't absolutely THRILLED that these kids have an interest in WWII that I could encourage and cultivate this year!  I do not LOOOOVE this fabulous class!!!  :) *  I didn't tell my science class that it takes one day for the earth to orbit the sun.  I certainly know basic astronomy and don't need to be corrected by a nine-year-old who innocently pointed out my mistake.  There definitely wasn't a special ed teacher in the room at the time either! *  Babies R Us was having a "Cash for Clunkers" trade-in event.  You could bring it old car seats, strollers, etc. and get 20% off a new one.  Of course, I did not jump at this offer even though I am not yet pregnant simply because I can't turn down a good deal!!  I did not take two of Amy's outdated car seats, go at the first chance I had to BRU, and buy a new car sea...

Here I am, totally not sleeping, so I decide to go downstairs and do some work on my computer.  The internet at school is down, so I had a few things I needed to catch up on.  I was setting up a new blog to use in my classroom when I discovered that my Blogger account was using the old editing method.  Who knew that there was a NEW method that could do cool stuff like this????    Or what about this?  I can also insert pictures and actually see what I am inserting into my blog (before it was just a ton of html jumble) and move them around as needed.  It also inserts the pictures where I want them instead of defaulting to the top.  This means no more pictures inserted out of order when I write captions!!!  OH this is so exciting!  (All of you professional bloggers, stop laughing!)  Alright I guess it's time to go to sleep   time to work on something else for school!

Today was the first day of school. Stressful? Oh yeah! I see 67 kids each day, which means a lot of names, a lot of explaining of rules, and a lot of chaos! There were a few tears when kids didn't know where to go, and a lot of overwhelmed faces. Poor kids! I keep promising it will get better...they just have to believe me! Tomorrow should be better as we embark in some sort of a routine. While the first week won't truly be "normal," they will definitely start to get used to it. While I'm relearning how to juggle a full-time job and a full-time family, here are a few pictures from recent excursions. Call it a teaser to tide you over until I have time to blog about them!

* I definitely did not sneak Caleb into my school twice because we weren't allowed to have our children there (even though it was after the work day!) I certainly didn't tell my son to tiptoe down the hallway and be silent until we got to my room! What's more, I didn't actually get to stay in my room for 3 1/2 hours because he was such a GOLDEN child and let Mommy get a ton of work done!!! * I did not have a lengthy conversation with Owen and Sara about how their parents do love them and that going out together for a night doesn't mean that they love their children less. Owen didn't continue to argue with me that his parents don't love him because they dared to go out one night without them. * I didn't get ridiculously excited that there are pictures for each of my kids on Gradebook now so that I can put a face with the name before Tuesday. It's really not that thrilling, so I definitely didn't call to all of my coworkers about my find! *...

Matt has always wanted to throw the first pitch out at a baseball game. It's just something that he has always dreamed about doing. He is a baseball lover, and just seriously enjoys every minute of a game. I, on the other hand, do not enjoy baseball at all . So I find it a bit ironic that I absolutely LOVED every second of the game on August 13th! Ready for the play-by-play? We all met at the church at 4:30 and were ready to go by 5 p.m. There were 24 people going total, but some were meeting there. Jenn drove the church van. We rode with my parents, Aunt Sue, and Uncle Larry. When my dad started the van...it was dead. He was afraid that the starter had gone bad, which they had just replaced in the Yukon. Oh no Thankfully, Stephen saw us and pulled his van around to jump it (I had jumper cables in my SUV like a good little boy scout should!) and it started right up. Off we went to the game, where we played a few silly games in the parking lot at the Hershey Park stand. ...