How to change a bad day into a good day.........

Anna made this picture in school. I loved her responses:

My favorite is number 2. She's a girl after my own heart.

Can ya see me now?

I changed the color of my font, so hopefully said person with said issues can now see what I write. It's unfortunate that the lovely template is going unseen by aforementioned said person (who knows who she is). But while it is so very lovely, I realize that most come to read my very interesting comments about life in general. How can you not appreciate the world from my eyes?

ENJOY!!!!

School is almost over!

Tomorrow we are having field day. The kids get to play all kinds of fun games, bounce in a bounce house and eat popsicles. Friday is early out, and so is Monday which is the last day! YAY! The day after school is Tristan's bday and he will be 12! Where did those years go? I can't believe he is already that old. That makes me old too.

I went and talked to the principal about my dilema. She says she is willing to work with me, and helped make me feel better. I am so relieved. I talked to another aide who just wants to work 2 days a week so I think I will work the other 3 and together we can do the job of one full time employee. I think that will work! It's nice to be wanted.

I'm glad I'm able to have the summer off, it will be nice to be able to sleep in and hang out with the kids. We need to find lots of fun things to do that are nearby so we won't have to use much gas. I just can't imagine paying much more than we already are.

What?

I'm really surprised I haven't gotten any comments to my last post. I really thought people would want to give me their opinion. Oh well, I'll figure it out on my own I guess. It's still a hard choice, but I think that talking to the principal about it to see what my options are.

Also, I have comments that my blog isn't loading very well. I can see it fine on my computer, how does it look on yours? There should be a green background with white, brown and orange flowers. The posts are on brown. The first picture you should see if a very bad picture of Anna's sad no book night. Please let me know what you see.

dilema

I am now working about 27 hours a week at my job. I am really really enjoying it. It's nice to be where my kids are, and be a part of their education. I have made some really good friends. I feel like I am a valuable employee. I have told them that I would be willing to work more hours (probably 35 hours a week). Now I am having second thoughts....

Being away from home so many hours a week is taking a toll on my family. I am tired a lot of the time. My house isn't as clean as it should be. Projects are going undone. Good meals aren't being cooked. It's hard to have enough energy to get the kids' homework finished when they need my help. Bedtimes are getting later to get things done.

I know that the people at work would be willing to let me cut back on my hours. I probably wouldn't be able to pick which classroom I would like to work in, I would just have to go where I could fit in my hours. I feel like I would be letting them down if I didn't work full time. I know it would be easier on them if I just stayed all day. I'm dependable if anything. I have hardly missed any work at all this year. I feel like I would miss out on things if I weren't there all the time.

If I had 3 hours a day at home without any kids here, I could get so much done! Laundry, grocery shopping, visiting teaching, scrapbooking (which has REALLY fallen by the wayside).

BUT, is it really 3 hours? Probably more like 2 1/2 because of travel time and being a little early to pick up the kids. But 2 1/2 is still 10 hours a week. (4 days since fridays are early out).

Now for the money question. All money is good money. I like earning my own money. It came in handy when Chris wasn't working as much. Part time I would still get some spending money and money for savings. Chris is working a lot and has jobs lined up in the future (he is really doing well and getting his name out there) so he can take care of our family.

Oh and one other thing.....after this school year I will no longer be PTO president. That takes away a lot of time and stress!

ARGH! What would you do?

Mommy guilt

I am not usually one to have tons of guilt. I mean, I do my best and I worry that I could do better and stuff, but I don't beat myself up a lot over little things. But this morning, I felt a little of the classic "mommy guilt".

I need to back up a bit to explain what happened. Last night, Chris and I needed to work together on the school yearbook video. He did not need my computer savvyness (that I have none of ), but just knowledge of the classes (which I have tons of). Chris only had a small window of time to get it done, and that window was opened just after we put the kids to sleep. I put Anna to bed and apologized and told her that we would not be able to read that night. We are working our way through the Little House on the Prairie series and just started the fourth book, "On the Banks of Plum Creek". We hugged and kissed etc., and then I turned off the light and worked with Chris.

Fast forward to this morning.....
I went to wake Anna up for school and saw a little note she had written on her whiteboard.
This isn't the best picture, so I will describe it. Now realize that she is not a reader yet, so her knowledge of spelling is very limited. The note started with a frowning face :( and the words "no book". That is all. GUILT!!!

It's just the saddest thing ever.

So tonight we read extra and all is well. I forget how important it makes her feel when I take the time to be with just her and do our reading. I know I look forward to it too.

Oh and Laura and Mary had lots of fun playing with the bugs in the creek.

Fun at the Park

There is a cute little park just about a block and a half away from our house. Anna wanted to show us how good she is at crossing the monkey bars. After one good wipe out, she did great!
Notice her tongue sticking out in concentration.

The boys were really into the swings today, and were swinging really high and jumping out. We got some great action shots!

For some odd reason, this winter some statues were added to the park. There are now four huge metal cats that look the same but are different colors. Connor likes to climb on them and this is his favorite.

We had a lot of fun and are glad for the nice warm evening weather!