A Bite from a Friend

When I picked Adilyn up from school today, she had just been bit. It had been quite awhile since she had been beat up at school, so I was a little bit surprised. I was even more surprised when I found out it was her little bestfriend, Abby who bit her! I asked her the story, and here was her response. "I was playing with Morgan, but Abby wanted to play with me. I usually want to play with Abby, but today I wanted to play with Morgan. Then when Abby tried to play with me, I blocked her out, but she blocked me out too. Then I walked away and she grabbed my arm and bit me right there!" I asked her "blocked out" meant, and she told me that it's when you stand in front of someone so they can't get by. It's so funny to hear her tell all these stories about her little social interactions! Of course, I wish that all her interactions were positive and sweet, but we all know that real life is not like either, so why should daycare? :)

Grandpa Lee

I'm a little late on all my posts, but better late than never. My grandfather passed away a couple weeks ago, and Adilyn and I went up to Michigan for the memorial service. When my grandmother passed away 6 years ago, I decided not to go. I had just had knee surgery, and I was still recovering a little bit. The minute I decided not to go, I regreted it. Because my grandmother lived in Michigan with the rest of my extended family, I never really had any closure on my end. I never really felt like she was gone. From that time on, I promised myself that I would never miss another funeral or memorial service again no matter what the circumstances were. Cory and I went back and forth trying to decide who would go and who would stay, but I decided that I would take Adilyn. She can sleep in a normal bed, and she can handle a couple long days better than Kacy could. We decided to use some standby passes that my mom had access to from working at American Airlines all those years. Our adventure began on Friday night. We flew up to DFW to spend the night at my dad's house. Everything went well except for the fact that our bags were stuck in transition, so we had to sleep in Mimi's borrowed t-shirts! Adilyn thought that was pretty funny. In Fort Worth, we picked up two more travelers - Brandon and Greg flew on the same flight with us on Saturday morning from DFW to Detroit. We had to wake up so early; it was pretty painful! Luckily Adilyn slept on the plane a little bit because we had a long day in front of us. Adilyn is such a great traveler these days! We color, read books, talk about things, and she is just fine. The only problem we had was when she had a bathroom emergency at a time when there was no bathroom available. We had just began our decent when she said that she had to go peepee. I told her that we couldn't go right then, but she proceeded to scream, "It's coming out! It's coming out!" I tried distraction, I tried calming her down...nothing worked. I was ready for a wet seat right there! Then I told her that if she had to pee that bad she could pee in the throw up bag. I took it out and everything. I was a kind of serious, but she was mortified! So...she held it! What a big girl! :)
My uncle, Richard picked us up and we headed straight to my grandfather's house where everyone was getting ready. We were there for enough time to grab some pizza then we had to head straight to memorial service. It was so great to see everyone. Of course, the circumstances were not the best, but it is always great to see family that you haven't seen in years.
The memorial service was amazing. My mom and all my aunts had beautiful things to say about their father. There were so many people there that just adored him - friends from the coffee shop, waitresses from his favorite restaurants, and other people from the community. How nice it must be when the end of your life comes that you have a room full of people with beautiful memories of you! There were many slideshows in between when everyone talked, and those are always my favorites. Moments in time that will never be erased...I love it!
When my mom gave her speech, she was crying. Adilyn started crying too. It was really sad. She asked me why Nammie was crying, and I told her because she missed her Dad. She said that was why she was crying, too becasue she missed her Daddy.
After the memorial service, we went to dinner with everyone and then back to the house. Dinner went well, with the exception of Adilyn throwing a fit in the corner. It's a good thing that the restaurant was loud because I completely ignored her. :)
Back at the house, my aunt Marcy and Adilyn made a leaf pile, so Adilyn could jump in it. I think that was her favorite part of the trip! We had to get to bed early because we had to get up the very next morning at 5am. Finally, we made it back to my aunt's house. Adilyn went right to bed, and Brandon and I stayed up and chatted with my aunt. It was a nice time to reflect on memories and all the fun times we had in the past.
I know now that we really need to go up to visit each summer. We thought about going last year, but we didn't because it was expensive. If we would have spent the money, Adilyn and Kacy would have been able to see Grandpa Lee one more time. I would have been able to spend a little more time with him before he was gone. I think that many times when someone passes away, you think about what you could have done differently when they were alive. I don't want to feel like I didn't do enough again. I want to feel like I spent as much time with that person that I could have!
All in all it was a great experience, and I am really glad that we made the quick trip! It was a time that I will never forget.

More Halloween Pics

Here are some more pictures of our Halloween fun!

Halloween 2010

Our Halloween celebrations started off with me dressing up for 80's Day at school. Adilyn really liked my pink hair, and Kacy was obsessed with my jewelry. The next day was the girls' Halloween party. We woke up extra early to get them into their hippie outfit and Thumbelina dress. Kacy was not interested in wearing any of cool hippie accessories, but she looked cute enough in her homemade tie-dyed shirt and khaki pants with patched. Adilyn was more than happy to get into her beautiful dress. She even sat still while I put her hair in a bun to make her look just like the beautiful princess Thumbelina. They, of course, wouldn't sit still for a picture, but they were adorable.
Sunday finally came around, and we ate dinner with our neighbors then got ready. We were kind of rushed because trick or treaters started coming way before the sun went down. I thought there was some universal rule about not starting until it was dark outside, but apparently I was wrong. We threw our costumes on, took a couple pictures and then began our candy adventure. This was the first year that Adilyn really went up to houses and felt comfortable talking to our neighbors. Kacy wanted to walk around like a big girl, but she didn't really care about getting the candy (which was a good thing). After about 10 house, Adilyn asked, "Who is giving candy out to people when they come to our house?" Once I told her that nobody was giving out candy, she wanted to go home. She was so worried about giving other people, that we decided to just head home. We had enough candy anyway! Once we got home, she sat out on our sidewalk and handed out candy to kids for at least an hour. She would get nervous with the scary costumes, but she would still slip some candy in their bags. I was so proud of her! She enjoyed giving candy more than getting candy...hope that lasts. :)
Here is a little video with some of our Halloween pictures! Enjoy!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Brandon's Visit

Brandon surprised us with a visit a couple weekends ago, and we had a great weekend. We were really lazy, but we still had fun hanging out around the house. The girls love Uncle Brandon, and he seems to be getting way more comfortable with them as they get older. He takes the best pictures of the girls; I wish I had his eye for photography! Here are some of the pictures that he took over the weekend.

Adilyn was showing Brandon all her "looks'. This is her "sad" face and her "sweet" face. I can't believe how grown up she is getting!

It was Brandon's birthday, so we made him cupcakes. Adilyn absolutely loves to decorate cookies and cupcakes with sprinkles and icing. Kacy liked them, too!

It was a gorgeous weekend, so we hung out outside a lot. Another one of Adilyn's favorite things to do is paint, but it's such a mess. Luckily, when it's nice weather we can go out there and make a mess outside. Of course, she asked if she could paint her hand, as she was painting it.

Kacy loves to pretend she's a big kid, and one of her new skills is trying to drink from a regular cup. Again, this only gets to happen outside!

Some days I can't believe how big my little girls are getting. Every now and then I will just get a glimpse of them, and it hits my how the time is just flying by! They are going to be in school, and out of school before we even know it! I try to enjoy each moment while they are young, and I hope that I can remember these sweet, simple, little memories.

More Thoughts on My New Job

The first six weeks of the year is over, and after many ups and downs, I have some new thoughts. I really believe that I this job is not "my calling". I had really hoped that I would get in the job and absolutely love it. Unfortunately, that did not happened. I think that if it was really an all P.E. job working with someone that was great to work with, I would like it. The health part is interesting, but it's difficult. I do not like try to keep them quiet and still while I am teaching. It's hard for the kids to sit still because they have been sitting and learning all day long. When they finally get to leave the classroom, it's hard for them to settle down and learn more! I try to make it as fun as possible, but the reality is that I still have to teach them information. We have been playing games for the last 15 minutes, so that makes it a little better. I have learned that all kindergarteners really want to do is color. I could probably let them color for the full 50 minutes, and they would be fine! I was feeling a lot of hostility from the 5th graders for the first week or so. I finally got them to talk to me about why they were so angry about health. They told me that the old teacher was really mean and treated them like they were in a bootcamp or something. She would not let them talk at all, and she yelled all the time. I think that they are having more fun, but I can't get them to shut up now!

Some of my interesting experiences:
*We were talking about emergencies, and I never could have imagined how many kids lie like crazy! I had about 5 people that told me that their house had caught on fire. They didn't stop there, they went on and on about how they saved their little brother and they jumped out of the window or how their dog was upstairs, but they went up and found him just before the house blew up. Wow! One boy told me that he got bit by a shark when he was a baby swimming in the ocean by himself. I asked him where he got bit, he said, "I think it was my whole leg." Very interesting imaginations!
*Some kids came outside for recess, but there was no teacher with them. I asked one of the kids, who brought them out. He said, "I don't know, I was just following the line." It's so funny that everything they do is in lines, and they all just blindly follow the person in front of them!
*I showed a video to the kindergarteners about when to call 9-1-1. The main character handed out "9-1-1 Hero" stickers to the kids in the video. I had of the same stickers, and when I gave them to the kids, you would have thought they won the lottery! It so funny that they were so amazed that I had the very same stickers from the tv!
*To 90% of the kids my name is not Mrs. Henderson. It's Mrs. Health Teacher.

Now, here is my new epiphany...I went to the Beck volleyball game last week. I was a little anxious about how I would feel. My girls and I were sitting there in the stands. I was watching the game with little emotion. The girls were climbing all over me and being really cute. Some of the Beck girls said hi, some parents talked to me, but there was no emotion connection at all. I didn't feel sad, I didn't miss it, and I sure didn't feel like I mad the wrong decision. That night I was thinking about everything, and I realized that this may not be my dream job, but it has taught me some things. The first thing that it taught me is that I do not "have" to coach. I really don't miss that. The other thing that I have learned is that I would really like to do elementary PE. The only problem with that is that those jobs are pretty hard to find, so if I leave my current job, I may not find another one! I guess I'll stick with this one for awhile, and we will see how it goes. :)

Oh, How Different They Are!

My little ones are so different in so many ways, but the biggest one lately is their eating habits. Adilyn has never been the best eater, but I never really let it bother me. I always figured that the more I bugged her about it, the more she would fight me, so I let her eat what she wants to eat at dinner. If she doesn't feel like eating what I made for dinner, then she just doesn't eat that night. I feel a little bit bad about it, but I think that it is better in the long run. I am not going to be cooking different meals just because the kids don't want to eat it! I believe that they will eat if they are that hungry! :)

When Kacy started eating solid food, she ate everything! I don't think that I ever had to throw any food away that I made for her. I would scrape the bowl for every little bit that was left. Once she started eating "real" food, she went through a period that she got a little pickier. For about two months or so, she wouldn't eat any fruit! I refused to believe that I might have a person in my family that didn't like fruit! I love fruit, and we eat it all the time. Because I refused to believe that she wasn't going to eat fruit, I put it on her plate every night. Every night the watermelon, peaches, grapes, strawberries, etc would just sit there, untouched. A couple weeks ago one night at dinner, I noticed her fruit was gone! Yay! My little eater was back! Now, she cleans her plate, and even tries to lick it some time. She loves to hand me her "happy plate" when she is "all done!" (They call it a happy plate at school when they eat all their food.)