What to say?

I've been meaning to post something for several days now but with two kids who don't like to go to bed and a job that I usually still feel lost at, most nights I just don't have the energy or the brain cells to do anything. Right now I am working on about 5 hours of sleep after having a busy day at school. At least it was a short day. If you didn't know, I'm a high school biology teacher, but I'm pretty sure that most of you knew that all ready. It is definitely the most conflicting job that I have ever had. I'm exhausted, I'm energized, I'm not too bad, I'm a crap teacher, the kids are great, they are all little #%&*! I'm love being there but I also dream almost daily of the time off. I guess that I shouldn't complain too much; I am officially in my second year of teaching now and I'm not ready to give up yet. It is just hard to be with 140 needy teenagers and then come home to two needy children of my own. But they are cute, my kids and my students.
I think that Nathan and Josh may have finally fallen asleep but I don't dare go check yet. They are getting to be such good brothers to each other. Today they were fighting over a toy, clawing and screeching at each other, and then all of the sudden they started to laugh their heads off. And then they were marching around the house wearing some hats that they had found and playing music on a recorder and drum. Last Sunday they both ended up taking their naps with us. Joshie wouldn't sleep in his bed so after I left him in his room he snuck out and joined Richard in our bed. He went right to sleep. Nathan joined me on the couch where I was reading a book. We cuddled up together with a blanket, he had me read some of my book out loud and fell right to sleep. It has been a long time since he has fallen asleep on me like that.

This week in our lives

I was feeling bad about not having updated the blog for a while until I visited a few that I hadn't checked for a few weeks and it was nice to see that not everyone is as diligent at blogging as my dad.

I am back into the swing of things at work, so much so that I will send my first student of the semester to the dean's office for suspension, as soon as he comes back to school. He has been ditching ever since being very rude to the substitute last Tuesday. Other wise I am still enjoying teaching and I can now say that I am not a first year teacher. Of course I'm only a 2nd year teacher and I have a better idea now of how much I don't know now.

Nathan is back into school also. He enjoyed the winter break but had a hard time understanding why he had so much time off from school. He also missed his cousin Jillian as they didn't get much time together over the break. Nathan and Jill are really becoming best friends or something like it. They are currently planning their wedding for next year and plan to live somewhere that has snow but no rain. Nathan is also training to be a superhero. Tonight he got his cousin R.J. to fix him a cape and all day he has been jumping off of the furniture. When Richard got after him for it Nathan replied "I'm not jumping; I'm flying!"

Joshie has been growing up too fast also. His vocabulary is getting bigger each day although he still mostly makes do with "uuhun" with different intonations and emphasises. Joshua's biggest accomplishment recently is that he is now able to open doors. He will now longer be crouched on the floor of his bedroom, crying pitifully through the gap on the bottom of the door to be let out. Now he can open the door and run down the hallway before you can realise that he is out of bed. There goes my baby.

Joshua's Birthday Pictures

Here are some photos from Joshua's birthday. I know that it has been almost a month since we did these but I thought for those who couldn't be there they might like to see the fun we had.
Josh was a little scared of the sparkle candles and that distracted him from actually blowing out the normal candles.
He did really get into opening presents. He got several really cute toys, including a Radio Flyer rocket that he has been obsessed with every time that he sees it in the store.
We had a lot of family and it was very nice to be able to visit with everyone.

Been a long time gone...

I'm sorry that it has been so long since my last post. And so many things have happened since then that I meant to write about. I was having problems with the lap top that I was working on and just recently moved my photo program to a different computer. Don't ask me why I have to have photos with this blog; I don't know. But it just doesn't seem worth it unless I can put some photos along in the postings. Although for all that I have missed I think that I will try to post the best pictures and just move on from there.

We had a really nice Christmas as hopefully you can tell from the photos. Nathan and Joshie got way too many toys. I got a Kitchen-Aid stand mixer that I have been coveting for years now and Richard got a flat panel T.V. that I figured that I had better buy before he did. We also had R.J's sister Katelyn visit us along with the regular family. It was crazy but a lot of fun.

Baby Sister?

OK, let me preface this by saying that I'm not pregnant nor do I plan on being so any time soon. But Nathan is getting obsessed with having a baby sister. It started out that he just wanted a new baby (Joshua was getting too much of his own personality for Nathan's taste). But then one of Nathan's Sunday school classmate's mom got pregnant and they found out that they are having a girl. So then Nathan started asking when were where going to have another baby. Then he just started talking like his baby sister was assured and we were just waiting for her to come. Richard is certain that I've been putting Nathan up to it but I really haven't (I've got too much on my plate as is).
I have to admit that I haven't really discouraged Nathan either though. His newest is that he wanted to know the baby's name so I told him the name that we would have given Joshua if he had been a girl. The end of it is that Nathan is now talking about baby Roxanne and I'm afraid that all sorts of rumors are about to get started.

The Reason For the Season

Last year our stake put on a Christmas musical performance called "The Reason For the Season." Several of our ward members participated in last years performance and they raved about how much fun it was and what a great experience it was performing. We saw one of the shows and it was a pretty good production. So when they said that they were going to do it again with the objective of doing it bigger and better, I decided that I wanted to participate this year. It has been a lot of fun working on it and it should be as good, but probably better, than last year's performance.

Tickets are free, there are three different performances, and I would like to invite you all to come. I am the understudy for the Innkeeper's Wife, which means that I have a solo and a couple lines on the Saturday matinee performance (all understudies will get to perform at that show regardless if they are needed for another). Friday and Saturday night I will be a towns person and angel only. If you can't read the flier, here is the important information.

Performances are Friday Nov. 30, 7:30 to 9:00 and two on Sat Dec. 1, 3:00 to 4:30 or 7:30 to 9:00. Doors will open a half hour before each performance and there will be carollers during this time. The performances will be at the Cerritos Stake center, 16115 Studebaker Rd, Cerritos, CA. If nothing else, it will be a great way to start the Christmas season.

I hope to see some of you there.

-Natalie

The difference between Richard and Me

You may not realize it, but Richard is a bit of a perfectionist and it is kind of annoying sometimes. For example, I would like to clean out the garage by just spending an hour or two every Saturday until the job is done. But I'm hesitant to start it because I know that as soon as Richard starts on it, he won't want to stop until it is done, even if he is working till midnight.


Another example is Nathan's sleep chart. Nathan was having a hard time going to sleep with out either Richard or me laying down with him and we were getting tired of that. So I made a chart that for every night that he goes to sleep by himself, he gets a sticker, and when he chart s filled, he gets a toy. Here is the chart that I made.

Now I probably spent all of two minutes on this and that would include looking for the pen and paper.

Here is Richard's version of Nathan's sleep chart.

I won't say how long it took, but it was a lot longer. Of course, it also looks a lot nicer.

-Natalie