Baby on Board

Thanks so much for all the congratulations! We are beyond excited about our coming baby! It has been a long, long, long road for us and we still feel like it's a bit of a dream. Although, the nausea helps brings things into focus a bit. :)

I am just over 8 weeks along and our projected due date is Sept. 2nd. Since my birthday is on the 8th, I am thinking this is going to be a great early birthday present. (I am thinking positively that I won't be having this baby ON my birthday. No late babies please!) This date works perfect for school since I won't have to leave a class mid-year and the year will end before I get too uncomfortable.

I feel lucky that I have only lost my lunch once so far and have moments of feeling pretty good. On a whole though, I am feeling pretty disgusting but can function. My best friends as of late have been: yogurt, oatmeal, applesauce, Honey Nut Cheerios, Ritz crackers, and Preggie Pop Drops (amazing candies that have something in them to settle the stomach.)

Chris has been the perfect husband of a pregnant lady. He has been cleaning, not complaining about my bland dinners, or lack of any dinner made, has been comforting, loving, and everything else. Plus he is as giddy as I am! We are now just praying that everything continues to go well. I will try not to be annoying with posts, but no real promises here. We are too happy to rein it in too much. Oh, and Audra, I will post a picture of me as soon as there is something to see!

An Order To All Things

First Comes Love

Then Comes Marriage

Then Comes Baby in a Baby Carriage!

Catch Up

I know it's been over a month since I have posted, but now I have tons of pictures so I'm going to TRY to let them do most of the talking because well, we all know pictures are just more fun. I am an explainer though so we'll see. As a general disclaimer: I can't stand how blogger puts pictures in backwards order and how much of a pain it is to move them around, so my timeline of pictures is a little messed up. You'll be able to follow along I'm sure!

I spent from Dec. 20th to the 31st in San Diego with my family this Christmas and it was FANTASTIC! My family showed us a great time and made sure we hit all my favorite spots. This meant that we saw the ocean a lot and ate Mexican food to my heart's content. Chris spent most of his mornings and afternoons golfing. I'm not kidding, he played 5 rounds of golf and went to the driving range on top of that. He was pretty much in heaven.

For the first time in a few years all of us were together so my parents could get a much coveted complete family picture.

My sister Audra, Me, my brother David

Three of us with my parents

Whole group

(Me, Chris, Mom, Dad, Dave, Luke, Will, Audra, Chloe, Ethan)

I got to meet Audra's baby, Chloe, for the first time! She was to die for! I'm in love for sure.

Oh, I love this guy too! :)

We had a fun day at the San Diego Zoo. Audra's boys, Ethan and Luke were the resident experts and corrected me many times. Ethan told me the birds were not just condors, but CALIFORNIA Condors! Duh!

Luke had me cracking up with his love of this gross stuffed cheetah on a little train we rode and his comment about the hippos we saw playing in the water. Turning to me with a big smile on his face, "Oh, that's quite a creature!"

The boys weren't cooperating...

until I asked to take a picture of Ethan's nose!

Cute Chloe, being as happy and content as always at the zoo.

I had to make it to the La Jolla tide pools. It being December did not deter me at all.

There were HUGE starfish everywhere we looked!

I finally found a pet I want. I seem to be the only one who wants these sea slugs as pets. Not to mention I'm the only one who thinks it is awesome to hold them. I tried to get some kids to pet them and they looked at me like I was crazy. I always did like sea creatures better than any others. Aren't these guys fat! The fattest I've ever seen!

We also saw an octopus, but he got away before we could get a picture.

Gorgeous, gorgeous day! Look at all these views we had that day. Why did I leave San Diego???

We also biked around that day on the coast up on the cliffs. The waves were huge! We saw Seal Beach (which really is roped off for the seals), and a wedding going on that was beautiful.

This one is on Coronado Island right off Downtown San Diego. It is famous for the Hotel Del Coronado which Chris and I got to stay at for part of our honeymoon. I love their huge tree they decorate different every year. I buy at least one ornament from there every year.

Christmas morning. I think Chris was most excited with his pound of Sees Chocolate plus two more pounds of it in gift certificates. Well, that and the money both sets of parents contributed towards a new TV. Oh boy, this could be dangerous!

I got the boys Zhu Zhu Hamsters. Winky and Scoodles. Although for the first day they were "Tinky and Skittles."

Luke was pretty excited about his. When he first opened it he said in the sweetest voice possible, "Awww! What's this cute little guy?!" Gotta love that kid.

I also got them some books. Luke is "reading one" very intently.

I loved seeing all my family, including grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins too. I couldn't have asked for a better Christmas!

These are just some fun pictures of school stuff before the break. We did lots of fun Christmas crafts and centers the week before Christmas.

Gift Bags,

Holiday themed worksheets and another gift bag,

Christmas Memory,

Reading corner with all my Christmas books (and yes that is a cup of hot cocoa I let them drink while reading. Only 2 spilled and thankfully not on the books! I'm crazy, I know),

We made cute Christmas trees out of upside down ice cream cones, white frosting for snow, green for the tree, and lots of candy for decorations.

I've noticed some kids really don't care if their stuff looks nice, EVER, so I tried to document both sides.

Kid who doesn't care...

Kid who does.

Kid who doesn't care...

Kid who does.

(If you want to learn how to make cool snowflakes, just ask - One of the perks of being a teacher :)

Kid who doesn't care...

Kid who does.

I didn't take a picture of one of the ones that didn't care about their reindeer, but let me tell you... there were a couple doosies!

Want to know what the common theme was? All the "Kid who doesn't care" were boys. There are exceptions to every rule of course but...I'm just sayin'.

Just so you know we did "real" work too, here is an example of a cool clock each kid made to help them remember how to tell time. I should have taken a picture of a kid who doesn't care. Wow, you should have seen that.

This I posted so you can see how creative kids are now days. I had them add to Verb Man showing different actions he can do. Please note "farting" and "bleeding." I stopped them there though there were many more hands that soared into the air after having been inspired by the two children before them. I had to laugh.

Candid Comments

Last school year I had an abnormally large amount of creepy and gross kids and parents who would shock me. Think back to creepy dad with no semblance of personal space, sweaty dad (even in December), "I believe in killer whales" child, I will wash off the math game piece I dropped in the toilet and put it back child, and so forth. This year I have such an awesome class, that I feel I am being repaid for my sufferings last year. I still crack up at some of my students' comments and doings and am so glad they just keep on coming. It seriously is one of the best things about teaching to me. Anyway, with these cute kids, I don't have so many gross or weird stories as just funny ones. (Why is it so much funner to post the former kind?) Here are some of my recent favorites anyway:

1. On making a list about places that are special to them, one student wrote:

"Disneyland, school, Adventure Island, church - because I'm supposed to like it and if I don't God with PUNISH me! The bathroom is also special to me because everyone needs some privacy you know."

2. I have 3 students who spend part of their day with a specialist because they have some learning disabilities. One of them has a bit of autism along with some other things, and this kid has become one of my favorites. He is draining because he has to be refocused every three seconds, but he cracks me up. One day he couldn't do what we were doing so he was drawing a mask instead. He colored it with markers and was very proud. He asked for some tape, but when I told him I wasn't going to let him tape it to his face, he took matters into his own hands. When I wasn't looking, he went to the sink and doused his face in water to make the mask stick. I felt a tap on my back and a, "Mrs. Hawwis..." (which is how he says my name). When I turned around I saw this

The marker bled through the wet paper, covering his entire face in marker. He didn't seem to mind though and even wanted to see the picture I took on the camera. His reaction to seeing himself was, "Oh, so funny!"

I had to scrub this poor kids face with soap until it was red to get all the marker off.

3. Same kid as above... We are finishing a test when this child comes back from his special class. I tell him to grab a book to read for a couple minutes. The class is totally silent when he YELLS, "Ha Ha, HE FARTED! Oh my gosh, ew, look at the fart. I can see it, look!" He was reading a book called Walter the Farting Dog. As you can imagine, my whole class erupts in laughter. I do too, so what are you gonna do?

There's a bunch more, but I can't think of them right now.

Baby Shower and School Stuff

My sister -in-law, Camie, Is due with a baby boy on Nov. 10th (the Marine Core's b-day which Mike is seriously excited about) and I thought it would be fun to throw her a shower!

We ate tons of food, played a couple games, and watched Camie open some great gifts.

Her husband, Mike, made a guest appearance and brought their daughter, Calla, since a lot of people there hadn't met her yet. She is going to be a cute big sister once she realizes she has a brother! Right now she kisses the "ball" in Camie's tummy.

This wasn't nearly all the gifts yet! She's a lucky girl! (Oh yeah, her son is a lucky boy too :))

The invites

On a totally different note, my class has been awesome so far! I am having a really good time with them this year. I am feeling so lucky! This doesn't mean there aren't days where I think they are all crazy, but it's such huge difference from last year! We read this cute book called, Glad Monster, Sad Monster. Each page describes a feeling and things that make the monster feel that way. Then there are masks for each emotion for the kids to put on and tell what makes them feel that way. At first they were embarrassed to do it, but soon every child wanted a turn.

I was surprised how much I learned about each kid during this. Some have horrible siblings that ignore them or injure them, some have parents who are ill a lot, many of the kids have had bad experiences in water, and some just wanted attention. I have to say that I am scared for the day when my future kids go to school because kids spill dirt like no other! No shame and nothing sacred.

I have several things I do to promote good behavior as a class and as individuals. As a group they try to get pebbles from one jar to another by following directions, being really quiet, or just doing something good. Once they earn the whole jar they get a surprise. This time around they got candy to eat while painting some canvas bags that we are going to use to put their center work in. They had a lot of fun doing it. There were a lot of other cute bags but I didn't feel like editing all the faces out of the pictures. I wish I could post my students' pictures because those are the best ones! Oh well.