Portraits

If anyone is interested in paying for a PORTRAIT to be done of their CHILD OR WEDDING PHOTO, ETC. please let me know. I can do portraits in PENCIL, CHARCOAL, OR PASTELS. The price would be $20 for pencil, $30 for charcoal, and $40 for pastels. They are done on 25 3/4 in x 19 3/4 in Cansom paper, and are studio quality. When we get into our own apartment in the next several weeks I can attempt to do oils also. PLEASE LET ME KNOW if you are interested.

Ryan got the job, and we are moving!!

This last week Ryan got a job for a huge farm. The job is supposed to be an assistant manager position, however they are so busy right now with harvesting that they do not have the time to train him, or really do anything with him, so they put him to driving tractor. However, he has spent all of his time in the shop fixing farm equipment. The job currently does not pay well at all, but we are hoping and praying that as soon as harvesting is complete they will be able to promote him to the assistant manager position. We are so ecstatic that he found a job, he has been looking since March. Right now the hours are incredibly long, and so he won't be seeing much of ethan these next few weeks as he leaves around 7 am and gets home around 11 to 12 at night. We thought that he would just commute for the first while until we knew for sure that the job was permanent, but we've changed our minds and decided to take the chance and move out there, so that Ryan won't have to get home so late. It will still be late hours, but not as late. We found an apartment, it's a duplex that his aunt owns. I am so excited to move. It has been over a year since we have had our own place, and I really miss being on our own. I will be cleaning and painting the place for the next couple weeks, after I get off work, and also I have to start looking for jobs in the area we will be living. I will post before and after pictures of the place we are moving into, because it is in desperate need of cleaning and paint (the last tenants were not very clean) and so we are expecting that the transformation will be pretty extreme. I am very hopefull and praying very hard that this job will work out.

Job hunt, little vampires, and a sick child.

I feel like blogging about something but I don't have anything too interesting to blog about. Ryan has had several interviews for jobs lately, so we are hoping and praying that he will get a job soon. My job is going well, I really like it. It can be a little crazy though, for example we think one of my little ones is teething becuase he bit 7 children today, and it wasn't out of anger he would just randomly tackle them or lean in towards them and sink his teeth in. I decided to nickname him my little vampire, and tried to keep him seperate from all of the other children. It was kind of comical in a way when we were outside and I'm running (on tv they would show it in slow motion....) in and out through the toys yelling "NO!!!!" trying to get to him in time to stop him from biting a little girl, and he stops and looks up at me so innocently with this look that said, "what?".
I got home from work to find Ethan sick. He's happy and playing but can't keep anything down. I really hope it doesn't last long, whatever he has, it's so not fun to be sick.

Today was a long crazy day at work. One of the children I normally have every day came down with Pink Eye yesterday, so today I had to start disinfecting toys. I say start because seriously there are so many toys that it's impossible to do it in one day. Luckily my room is sectioned off into three areas, so I can put the kids in different areas to keep them contained while I cleaned. It was still difficult to watch 5-8 (it fluctuated) 13 mon-1 yr olds and also clean toys. I finally got them down for naps and was cleaning the toys when one of the children in the neighboring class flooded the toilet that our two classrooms share. And of course the floor tilts down in my direction so instead of it flooding out into the other classroom it all came into mine. So it was a crazy day. I'm hoping I can get all the toys cleaned quick enough so the kids can start playing with them again. I wish they would let me clean them in the late afternoon when we combine classes and I no longer have any children, but they would rather send me home early.

Ethan has started his preschool group again, and he is very ready to learn. He loves school, and is responding so well. When he turns 3 in October he will go into the school district with their development program. He's started singing along with things on tv and attempts to do dances that he sees on tv. He loves the cartoons that have singing and dancing. He also has started trying to sing Old McDonald, he keeps repeating E I E I O, and I'm not sure where he picked up the song, but I think it's cute. He loves music and books, and just seems so eager to learn. He is working really hard at speaking, so it won't be long until it all comes together. He loves to count, so I am looking for books on counting, abc's, colors, shapes etc. to help him learn. I'm very proud of him.

So, this week Ethan got sick, and for about 3 or so days was pretty miserable. Since I work now, Ryan was home with him, and I appreciated that he was getting some cuddling time with Ethan, but I also missed being the one to give the love and cuddling when he was sick. This is the first time he has been sick since the seizures last year, so I was very worried the whole time this time around, but he made it through without having any seizures this time. I'm happy that Ethan slept all night last night, and woke up happy and feeling much better. He still doesn't have his appetite back, but I think by tomorrow hopefully he will be back to normal.

I had bought a music cd earlier in the week to try out at naptime so that Ryan would hopefully have an easier time getting Ethan down for naps, and I've fallen in love with this cd. Each night that Ethan has been sick I've put the cd on and it calmed him down enough that he was asleep within seconds. It is amazing the healing power of music, because laying next to him I could feel him relax with the music. So, I Highly recomend buying this cd. It's called Piano Portraits Lullaby featuring Jon Schmidt, Paul Cardall, David Tolk, and Michael R. Hicks.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NmOrQpV5PU This is a link to a promo for it, but it seriously doesn't do it justice. I recognized Jon Schmidt so that's why I picked it when I was looking through music at Walmart, but I was still surprised at how beautiful the arrangments are. I'm thinking I want one for work to play during naptime for my class, or just play as background music throughout the day, because it does have a very peacefull calming effect and it's so beautiful.

My Potted Sycamore Tree Needs A Home...

When the government designed my home town in Washington, which is below the Grand Coulee Dam, it chose a different tree to line each street. My street had Maples, with Chestnuts at one end, another had Walnut trees, and another had those trees with the long bean pods. Fall time was always very beautiful in my town, and there were mountains of leaves for us kids to wade through.

(this pic is of my sister stephanie and rachelle and a neighbors child playing in leaves in our yard)

The prettiest street was the one lined with huge beautiful Sycamores, which the city was always trying to cut down for one reason or another, and the "towns people" always fought. Last summer when I was home I collected some seeds from several different plants and trees that I love in the area, and took a seed pod from the sycamores on that street. I've never grown anything from seeds, other than vegetables, so I didn't really expect the sycamore to grow, but it did. I didn't realize how fast Sycamore trees grow, and I discovered tonight that it has outgrown its pot. The roots are trying to escape out the bottom. I don't have a yard yet to plant it in, so I considered re-potting it in a bigger pot, but that would be a pain to transport when we move. So if anyone wants a fast growing shade tree, which can grow to around 100 ft tall, let me know. The tree will drop a lot of leaves in fall time, so if you detest all forms of yard work than you probably wouldn't want it. The leaves are large, and it also drops seed balls. I've been told that you can mow it up without much problem though. Sycamores also have a mottled looking bark that makes them very beautiful.

(the above pictures of the trees are random ones I found on google).

I wanted to post about several things. First, we have been having really mild summer here in Idaho, It has only been uncomfortably hot for maybe a week total, and the rest of the time has been raining or on the cool side. Today it is actually cold outside, cold enough for a coat! I kind of like it though, not having miserably hot weather.

I really am enjoying my job as a pre school teacher. The hardest part of working is being away from Ethan. It's nice that Ryan is able to watch him, but he has yet to suceed at getting him to take a nap. Therefore Ethan is pretty exhausted by the time I get home from work. It's also hard to get everything else done around the house when I'm gone for a good part of the day. I will figure out how to organize my time better eventually.

I go to work at 12 in the afternoon and work until 6. I've been assigned to the oldest class, which consists mainly of 5-6 year olds. I didn't expect to have my own class so quickly, and it has been a little stressful learning how to deal with 18 or more children, learning their names and corresponding guardians, etc. I really like working there though, and now that I know what age group I will be with (for the most part, except when I'm needed elsewhere) I can start organizing lessons, games and activities for the children. I've found that I work best with the children when I don't have another teacher checking in every couple of seconds or co-teaching with me. I work best when I can discipline and decide activities all on my own, and the children listen to me more when It's just me. When another teacher comes in I find it hard to discipline because as soon as I say anything the other teachers (who feel I'm too quiet) will repeat(yell) whatever I say, and the children end up ignoring me all together and the other teacher ends up being who they listen to. I've decided that I hate yelling all day to get the kids attention, it causes more chaos, and my throat is sore by the end of the day. So, I think I'm going to use a whistle or something of that sort, which seems better than yelling all day at the kids. I wish the class sizes were a lot smaller, it's a lot easier to work with the children when there are only 12 or so of them. When the classes swell to 23 or more it can be quite difficult to keep the chaos down.