Why I love my job...

I'm definitely not in it for the money.

I'm certainly not in it for the fame.

Or the "summers off" (ha!).

I am in it for the kids. 

I love them.

Even the ones who make me want to pull my hair out on occasion.

Kids these days get a bad wrap.

Kids, in general, aren't "bad". 

Their behavior sometimes is displeasing, but they do have goodness in them.

Even the ones who are often labeled as "bad".

At the beginning of each school year I make it my goal to find the goodness in each of my kids...especially the ones whom I've been told are "bad".

That seems to work well for me.

That and the fact that I pride myself in being disciplined.

Just ask my kids.

Yesterday a group of kids came to me with letters. They are working on "Random Acts of Kindness". Shouldn't we all get into this trend? 

Reading each of these letters absolutely made my day!

Each letter had one thing in common...the word strict (used to describe me, of course:)!

A teacher (and wife and mother and Christian) who I greatly admire once told me there is a difference between strict and mean...kids just don't know the difference yet. I think about those words quite often.

Obviously, it would take quite some time to share each letter so I will share excerpts from a few...

*Spelling and grammatical errors have been left in tact...just

to remind myself there is ALWAYS room for improvement:)

• "Even though you are sometimes strict I know you care about me because you correct me. So, thank you very much."
• "You are so nice to all the students, even though they think your being strict. That's just showing how much you care about us. And I appreciate that."
• "We always appreciate that you always let us come to gifted and have a good time no matter how behind or stressful that it makes you."
• "Everybody doesn't see how nice you are, everyone thinks you're mean. But I don't think so I think you're strict because you don't want us to grow up to be thugs and disrespectful."
• "You are strict, but as you and my mom always said the more strict you are the more you care about your students. You are my school mom and my 2nd mama. You are so special!"
• "You're strict, but that's what I love about you! If you didn't love us you wouldn't tell us our faults. That's what my mom loves about you also! I love you and you're like a mom to me!"
• "You only get on to us if we need it, but if you do we no not to do it again (but sometimes we do). You help us not to forget stuff by giving us paragraphs. You teach us not to act up and to do our work. You also teach us to be responceible."

Did I mention that each of these letters was hand delivered and included a hug? I do love my job...and days like yesterday remind me why. :)

Happy Birthday Papa!

Since last year's photo shoot was such a hit, we decided to do it again. My, how these two have grown...and their love for Papa has grown too! We hope your day is as wonderful as you are!!

Rough & Tough

Emma and Luke are complete opposites. I could go on all day long about how completely different they have been since day one. The most recent thing we've noticed, though, is how rough and tough Luke is...and how he literally gets into everything.

Emma almost never got into my cabinets. She played in the basket below my baker's rack that contains pot holders, but other than that she pretty much stuck to her toys unless I pulled out pots and pans for her to play with.

Not Luke.

He can turn the house upside down in a matter of seconds...no exaggeration.

Another thing I've noticed about Luke is that he doesn't cry much. We were at my Mama's over Christmas when he pulled out a very heavy pan (almost as heavy as a cast iron skillet), hit himself in the head with it, laughed, and went on about his business. It left a mark on his forehead...not a single tear was shed. He has bumps and bruises quite often, and we have no idea how he gets them...because when accidents happen he goes right on.

At 11:15AM I got a phone call at work. I have had kids at Mrs. Elizabeth's for almost 4 years, and I don't think she's ever called me at work. She said he had fallen on a toy and cut his lip. She wasn't sure if it needed stitches, and she wanted me to come look. I ran up there, but I didn't know either. He was laughing and playing and acting normal...as if nothing was wrong. I called the doctor's office, and they said I could bring him in after lunch (but Dr. Ray was out of town so I'd have to see someone else).

When I got back to school Coach P suggested I bring him by and let Talisa (the school nurse) look at it. When I did she said she definitely thought he needed a stitch. We went to the clinic, and Dr. Buddy said the same thing.

One hysterical mama, one calm-as-a-cucumber daddy, two nurses, one doctor, too many shots to count, and four stitches later...

 On the bright side he is getting popsicles on demand...

(And anything else he wants:)

R-O-L-L-T-I-D-E

Update: Alabama - 21; LSU - 0

2011 National Champions

ROLL TIDE!

Two Little Monkeys:)

Family Date Night & Pinterest

Yesterday afternoon Justin and I both had dentist appointments, so we took the kids with us and had a little "family date night". Of course, the night ended with a trip to "the Walmart store":)!

Before I privy you to the much anticipated pics from my phone, let me tell you about my girl. She has been SO GOOD this week! For the past several months she has been a beast at bedtime...crying, pitching fits, coming up with a plethora of interesting excuses to stay up "5 more minutes"...and mornings have been wicked. Grumpy doesn't even describe her demeanor!

Not this week, though. This week she has gone to bed with such ease, and then every morning she has gotten up, gotten herself dressed and pretty much ready all by herself. This makes my life so much easier!

Her daddy told her yesterday morning that if she was really good at Mrs. Elizabeth's we would do something fun after our dentist appointment. She was so excited when we picked her up.

The kids did as well as kids can do in a dentist's

office for 1.5 hours...thankfully the sweet ladies up

front played with/entertained them part of the time!

When we left the dentist we headed to Longhorn

and then to the mall...more specifically the arcade:)

The boy and I watched...he'll be playing soon enough:)

On to Pinterest...

I'm not a very crafty person...that's actually an understatement. I'm not crafty at all. But I still love Pinterest. I get a lot of recipes off of there, and they have all been really good. I did run across a "do-able" project that I decided to tackle...a weekly menu board! I'm pretty excited about the way it turned out...and now I don't have to search for scratch paper to make my menus.

Without further ado...

Through the Eyes of a Child Thursday

I'm linking up today with Leanne at Life Happens When.

One day last year the kids and I were on our way home, when I noticed there were cows standing outside of our pasture fence. I pulled over to call Justin. As I described the cows and eartags to him, he told me that he thought the cow's belonged to "Rooster" (nickname of a neighbor). When I hung up I told Emma, "they're Rooster's," which she took as "they're roosters." She quickly replied in a tone, "Mama, those ARE NOT roosters, those are cows!"

Through the eyes of a child...

:)