Twenty10:89

I got to officiate my first wedding today. I had the priviledge of joining the letters Q and U together, forever, in Holy mattress money. This event is something I've looked foward to all year as a Kindergarten teacher. The girls dressed up as Queens and the boys as Quarterbacks. The got to walk down the isle, say their vows, and dance at a very high class reception. We ate cupcakes and drank applejuice and we loved every minute of it. How cute are these little ones? I have so many great pictures but so little time. Plus, this is a family blog, not a teacher blog. I need a blog for my classroom. I have so many great pictures and stories to share every day. Maybe someday when I get my act together.....whatever that means.

Twenty10:88

I count my blessings when I watch Lindsey cut Jack's hair. Not many people are willing to make house calls and deal with an angry 6 year old. Buts she loves Eric's cooking, and says it worth it for one of his meals. It's also a bonus that we are best friends. :) Love her. Don't love hair cut days. We tried cutting his hair in front of a video game this time. That didn't work. I couldn't get a shot of Jack flipping out because I had to drop the camera and do damage control. This photo in no way expresses the real picture of what she deals with. He sure is handsome though! I now have two very cute boys (including Eric) with very nice hair cuts.

And Jack looks JUST like my dad and sister in this picture. I just saw this for the first time.

Twenty10:87

Twenty10:86

Today was great. We tried out a new church, and Jack loved it. We kind of went on a wierd day as far as the sermon goes, but got a great idea of what the church is all about. We are in a wierd place with church, and we just don't know where to go with our feelings. When it comes down to it, nobody delivers a message like Andy Stanley and Joel Osteen, so I've got to lower my expectations and focus on the kids. As long as the kids are happy, and we feel the church isn't corrupt or pushy, we will most likely stay. We are tired of church hopping and want to raise the kiddos in one place. Eric and I want different things from a church, so we've met in the middle and decided to look for something the kids love. I'd be happy listening to Andy and Joel in the comfort of my living room with my husband and my coffee, but we already do that, and it gives our kids nothing. I would "home church" but that takes away from the experience of growing up in a youth group and participating in outreach progams, which teaches the kids to serve the community. So were trying this one out for a while. We'll see. We weren't thrilled, but we came on a wierd day. I am looking forward to the Easter service.

Funny story worth remembering: Eric made this insane meal tonight. Grilled chicken, spinich, broccoli, grilled onions, YUM. The sun came out and we decided to eat on the porch. It was so nice to sit outside with the family and eat a good meal, even though neither one of our lovely children wanted to. Kaitlin noticed a cloud and started to freak. I made a smart elic comment about the chances of that one little cloud passing over our house and raining on our meal and told her to calm down and eat. I believe I may have use the phrase "drama queen". oops! About 5 minutes later, Eric and I heard this rush of water. We couldn't figure out where it was coming from but it sounded like a flood, and it came on so fast. Within seconds, it started HAILING on our house, and our fabulous meal. It was SUNNY outside, but hailing on our house. hmmmmmmm. We bolted inside and watched the remainder of our delicious food get washed away by this random monsoon. I could not help but burst into laughter. We all did. Thank goodness we were done eating! It lasted maybe one minute and was gone. Maybe I shouldn't have called Kaitlin out on that panic over a cloud. She was right, and I believe God has a lil' sense of humor! Next time I'll keep the name calling to myself.

Twenty10:85

I know I don't look welcome in the bathroom with my camera, but they are fifth grade girls, and they love having their picture taken....even if the looks on their faces says otherwise. They all have their own cameras and they are all constantly snapping away at each other. I remember this time in my life....when I first started growing up and thinking I was pretty, and wanting my picture made....jumping in front of the camera and then rushing to the camera store to get them developed, yes developed. {HOW did I survive my teenage years without a digital camera? HOW?} Then I got terrible acne and my hair turned to frizz (and we DIDN'T have straighteners) and I pretty much spent the rest of my high school days running from cameras and hiding behind the pretty girls. I HATED having my picture taken. I use to rip up pictures of myself because all I saw was a pimpled monster. Moment of prayer: Please Lord let the gene dissapear from my family. Please, PLEASE do not let my children or neices and nephews go thru the torment of acne in such important years for self esteem development. Amen. I think I just went off. Biter? Nope, not at all. Thankful, actually. I was forced to work on my personality instead admiring myself in front of the mirror. God knew what he was doing. I might have been an ego maniac if I was pretty in high school. My life could have taken a very different direction. But since kaitlin is already a beautiful person on the inside, my prayer for her is that she gets to enjoy her teen years as a beautiful, confident, morally driven young lady.

They had fun last night at their little gathering. We are taking all of them to a new church today. I am really excited to check it out and I hope we all love it and make it our new church home.

Twenty10:84

We got to spend some time with Jake and Meagan tonight. I haven't laughed that hard in a very long time. Our cheeks hurt when they left. Jake is hysterical, but in a totally non-offensive kind of way, which I love. And we are so excited for them because they are having a baby this year! We played Apples to Apples, ate a delicious meal, and laughed. It was a perfect Friday night. Congratulations guys! I'm looking foward to meeting baby Smith in the Fall!

Twenty10:83

Cindy, this one's for you. My lovely, crammed, hodgepodge kitchen cabinet. It's that place that I put everything that I don't know where to put. I like it just the way it is. Gotta have one. If Debi Hice every reads this post she may pass out. :)

Twenty10:82

Eric came home tonight with dinner, and this rose in his hand. He looked at me with this silly grin and asked "will you accept this rose?" in his best bachelor voice. I about fell out of my chair! We both laughed, and no matter how silly he was being, I thought it was the cutest thing he's done in years. It blew me away.

Twenty10:81

Today was tough. I woke up with a fever and a throat so sore I cringed every time I swallowed. I knew it was coming. I started getting chills yesterday and had to leave school right after work because I was so tired I had to sleep. I would have taken the day off, but I had to take 21 Kindergarteners on a field trip to a local museum. It was a big day, and I had to be there. I swallowed several advil, and prayed that I could smile my way through the aches and pains. I made it through the day, but by the time I got to the doctor, I felt like I had the flu. I wanted to cry for my mommy like a 5 year old. Turns out I have strep. YUCK. The kids had fun, and Jack got to go with my class all day, so I got to do both the mom thing and the teacher thing. That was very cool. Great museum, not so great to feel terrible when 21 kids need you to be super perky and happy! And to make matters worse, it was SO cold, and we had to picnic outside. Thankfully I have great parents in my class that took over and helped me lead. Praise God for them!

i heart faces: week 12 {focusing on angles}

i heart faces is all about angles this week. i am glad i re-read this one. i questioned how i would get a picture of an angel. It took me a minute of pondering how all these people would get pictures of angels until i thought.... um, i think i read that wrong. angles suzy, angles. That would have been embarrasing.

click on the button below and check out all the funky angles this week at i heart faces!

Twenty10:80

I bought Jack some brand new crayons so he could use them for his homework. Obviously, with my being a Kindergarten teacher, I love me some new crayons! He stared off crayon happy, making me all kinds of pictures, and then he moved on to breaking them in half and building spaceships with them. Boys. Go figure.

You can tell by the severe crookedness of his bangs that I was the one who gave him a trim recently. I had to. It was a trimergency. His hair was shaggy and long and terrible and he had school pictures the next day. I use to be good at it, but I must have been having an off day.

Twenty10:79

This is one of those rare photographs that I will be so glad I got years from now. I don't know what made kaitlin give her dad a back massage after dinner, but she did. And to make matters even cuter, Jack decided to do the same for Kaitlin! I looked up from doing dishes and could not believe my eyes. I love how Jack has to use a stool to reach his very tall sister's back. I treausure every moment that they get along. And I love how Eric looks like he is praying. I can imagine he was praying that this moment would last. Too bad it didn't!

Twenty10:78

Today was perfect. I vowed when I woke up this morning to the sun shining that I would not go inside all day unless I had to. And I kept my vow. We went inside for Jack's quick allergy treatment, and again to use the restroom, but that's it. We enjoyed the beautiful weather outside all day and it was wonderful.

We went to both Camden and Layton's baseball games, and then headed straight for the park afterward. It was just Jack and I all day, because Kaitlin was with Jenna for her birthday party, so we got to spend some really great one on one time together. I learned a few new things about Jack today. I learned that he can pump himself on the swings, he wants a dog, and that he is lonely. He needs a brother bad. But since its too late for that, I am wishing, hoping, and praying for a neighbor for him to play with. I am so thankful for his new friends at school, and I am hoping he will be blessed with someone in our hood for him to hang with on the weekends. I love hanging out with him, but he explained to me that he needs boys to play with. All of the kids on our street are girls, like me. BOYS mommy. BOYS.

(things are starting to turn GREEN....my favorite color)

But since he didn't have anyone to play with today, I was his playmate, and I loved every minute of it. We played hide-n-seek, army guys, chase, Jack's version of base tag (the one where he always wins), and we swung on the swings. We also got to pet some sweet little dogs, and Jack expressed to me how much he wants a dog. A little one.

Throughout the day, he talked a lot about how big he is now that he is 6, and how he is going to swim under water this summer at the pool. He is feeling very grown up lately. He doesn't want me kissing him in public or treating him "like a baby". My heart hurts just thinking about it. I am not ready for him to be big.

I loved this day. We ended up grilling on the deck and eating a delicious meal, right before watching New Moon. Eric and I are both not huge twilight junkies, but we've now seen both movies and liked both of them a lot. Now I am going to have to read the books. I have 3 books in line before them, so they will be my summer reads.

Happy Birthday Jenna! Thanks for ruining my fruit!

FLASHBACK FRIDAY

Spring 1980 (ish)

Suzy & Cindy

~I Love This Photo~

{Cindy- I already had a picture of the day yesterday but I will most definitely use your idea for one day this week when I worked all day and didn't get one.} :)

Twenty10:77

oh.my.goodness.

i love this girl. and i know she will come back. but i think an alien has come to my house in the middle of the night and taken the real kaitlin, and replaced her with someone i may not get along with real well. time for prayers in my closet. and clearly, its almost time for middle school. if you see me walking around with my eyes closed talking to myself, that's because i'm praying, all the time. i'm not sure how else i could ever make it through the next however many years without prayer. if the last 2 months are a taste of what is to come, i may need to quit my job and start a business in prayer.

on a lighter note, isn't she so cute? it's a good thing she's so cute, and that i love her more than my heart can bare. it's a real good thing. and in the future, when i post things on here that require a password, that's because i have written real stories about raising a teenager that i can't post for the world to see. i wouldn't want her friends reading things that would embarrass her. i try to keep this blog positive.

i am the first of my friends to raise a teenager, so i am the guiney pig. i am going to need a lot of help from my older and wiser family and friends. god has been forcing a lot of growth on me lately, in a totally free and loving way, but i am beginning to think it is because He knows i am going to need oodles of wisdom and guidance to get KK thru the coming years. my normal, dingbat self "ain't" gunna fly with this one.

prayer.......lots. of. prayer.

Twenty10:76

A friend gave me this idea a while ago and I am so pleased with the results. I love kids artwork, but was holding off hanging up their masterpieces for these expensive frames that I had been wanting for a while. She (Angie) suggested that I hang them on a line of ribbon with clothes pins, so I did.....and saved hundreds of dollars. I went into the playroom this afternoon to hang up the kids latest Square One Artwork and saw Kaitlin's little Kindergarten handprints. Made me smile.

Twenty10:75

We had a visitor today in my Kindergarten class. He was a very messy, very tiny, very green little visitor. He painted his feet and ran all over my classroom. He also stole the gold and candy from my students' leprechaun traps, but somehow escaped from being trapped inside any of them. It's days like today that make me love what I do for a living. It's also days like today that spawn 3 hour afternoon naps for both Jack and I. The kids loved every minute of St. Patrick's Day, and I learned what this holiday is all about! I never knew it was a christian holiday. I knew it was an Irish holiday, but I never knew what it was about until today. I guess you learn something new every day. Very cool.

Twenty10:74

Happy Birthday Dad!

We enjoyed a yummy meal at the cracker barrel tonight. Not your typical birthday dinner restaraunt choice, but very much my dad. He had all four of his children and 5 out of the 8 grandchildren in one place (step sis and kids missing). We were one LOUD group of people. And just to bring back old memories, I knocked over a glass and break it all over the floor...just as the waiters came in to sing happy birthday to my very young and handsome dad. My childhood nickname was Suzy the Spiller. I couldn't dissappoint! My brother brought his "special friend" Wendy to dinner. She is this beautiful asian girl, totally stylish and young and adorable. And we secretly hope, despite their 8 year age gap, that they will someday marry and make beautiful asian babies. We need some diversity in our family!! Love her. Love my dad. Love my step mom. Loved the whole night. :) Family rocks.

Twenty10:73

Jack and Carsyn worked vewy vewy hawd on this.

My First Award. Ever.

Kimberly @ Under the Umbrella blog nominated me the prestigious creative blogger award. I know this is very silly, but I am so excited in the most nerdy way. It's my first award. EVER. At 31 years old! Well, I did get one award in 4th grade for cutest girl, but if my memory serves me correctly, I bullied (threatened) several people into voting for me, so that doesn't count. (Yes, before I grew up and was humbled by life, I was not a very sweet little girl...so I've heard :)).

Anyway, thank you Kimberly for this honor. I will accept this award in front of my bathroom mirror with my plastic tiara and my shampoo bottle this evening.

Now I am supposed to say 5 things about myself that people may not know about me. Here it goes. I know you are just aching with anticipation.

1. I can still do a round off back hand spring.

2. I have the memory of a 90 year old fish. Dori anyone? I'm confused. Wait, maybe I'm not.

3. My birth initials spell a cuss word. I'll give you the first 2 letters. A and S.

4. I am going to write a book someday. I have several in my head, so I may write more than one.

5. When I was growing up, I had a pretend friend named Amy. I use to tell stories about her all the time. Everyone in my family knew she was fake, but no one told me. My family would just listen, giggle, and move on. I guess they didn't want to hurt my feelings, or they just liked my stories. I'm pretty sure they still laugh at me to this day, but for different reasons. I'm cool with that.

Now I am supposed to nominate 5 people for this coveted award. Get your shampoo bottle ladies!

1. Angie- for inspiring me to be a better blogger, mama, and friend

2. Kimberly- for inspiring me to be a more diverse photographer

3. Kelly at Lucy Blog- for giving me hope in having my own business someday

4. Ivey- for making me laugh and cry and miss you and baby Day, everytime I read your blog

5. Jessica- for making me laugh hysterically

Thank you Kimberly! I love getting awards! Does anyone else want to give me one?