The Figgins

Dance machine

2011-12-29T18:08:00.001-06:00

Elijah was quite a kick on the cruise. Every time with went into the "club" area and took him on the stage he danced around like crazy. He even upstaged the comic before Bingo on the first night. He was a celebrity for the rest of the cruise. In this video he's dancing while Home Alone 2 is playing but you get the gist.

Anyone know how to flip a video?

Honeymoon (5 years late)

2011-12-29T11:20:00.002-06:00

When David and I got married 5 years ago we intended to take our honeymoon trip 3 months later but a delay with our passports required us to push it back. After that our Spring Break schedules never lined up. So this year over our 5th anniversary we finally took our Florida "honeymoon" vacation (with Elijah).

We started were gone for about 10 days. We started in Orlando and found a cute little place called Celebration. There were some little shops and a little town square area that had snow like bubbles at night. Elijah loved it and danced around like crazy it in.

The next day we went to Islands of Adventure @ Universal Studios. We decided not to do Disney World because it would be more fun when Elijah was old enough to care and we wanted to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We were also delighted to find out that there was a Dr. Seuss section of the park and Elijah was able to go on every ride there.

There was also a Grinch show the Elijah LOVED. He sat spell bound for the entire 30 minutes and he giggled and clapped at the right times.

There is also a Jurassic Park section to the park.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter was packed with people but it was so fun. It felt like stepping into the book. There were some characters around but we weren't able to get a picture due to the crowds.

First you walk into Hogsmeade.

Then you get to Hogwarts. Hogwarts is mostly just a ride but while you wait in line for the ride you get to see quite a few memorable parts of the castle like the fat lady and such.

After we left Orlando we drove to Palm Beach and left on a short 2 day cruise to the Bahamas. We decided not to spend the money on an excursion but walked off the boat and enjoyed looking at the ocean there.

My favorite picture of the whole tip.

This is the area we walked around as seen from the boat.

Our last place was near Ft. Lauderdale. We spent most of our time there relaxing and went to the beach every day since it was right next to our hotel. This was the view from our window.

Elijah loved picking up handfuls of sand and throwing them in the water.

I was really surprise at how much coral and how many shells were on the beach there.

And even though he got a face full of water numerous times, he never cried about it.

All in all we had a blast. I don't think I ever want to be gone over the actual day of Christmas again, but I'm glad we finally went. It was relaxation and a great break from the stresses of life. I love you David! Happy 5th anniversary.

San Antonio Trip

2011-12-29T11:19:00.003-06:00

We decided to use our free Sea World San Antonio passes one last time. Dave's sister Lindsay and her family joined us. We had a great time despite the fact that on the way home Dave's car threw a rod and Mazda doesn't want to have anything to do with it because we didn't service our car with them. Apparently a manufacturing defect isn't something they cover if they can find a way out of it. Anyway . . . more on that another time. Here are some pictures.

The green eyed monster

2011-11-14T12:41:00.001-06:00

I have a big problem . . . I am envious of others who have things I want. To me there is nothing worse than watching someone get exactly what I want, especially if they don't really want it in the first place. I know that the Lord is in control and will give me things at the "right" time but it still sucks right now. I hate giving up control SO MUCH!

That's all. Hopefully with that out I can move on and find other things to focus on. Sigh.

Gary Randall

2011-11-10T19:29:00.001-06:00

Just over 2 weeks ago a dear family friend named Gary Randall died. I want to pay tribute to him a bit and just mention what he meant to me. Gary was the only home teacher that I really remember from my childhood. He came each month and although there was a time when he served in a Spanish Branch in our area he was still a constant in my life. When my parents got divorced and my dad proceeded to leave our church Gary was the one who filled in where there was a void. I don't know that he was ever asked to or if he just saw the void and did what he could to fill it. Between he and my brothers I think that, all things considered, I didn't miss out on as much as I would have otherwise. Even though there was not always a priesthood holder in my home I knew there was one 5 minutes away who would come when ever he was asked. After I had a bad car accident he was there to give me a blessing of comfort and a chocolate bunny to ease my pain. I was lucky enough to have him seal my husband and I for time and all eternity and that will always be something that is a tender mercy for me. My dad wasn't worthy of being there but Gary was.

He will always be special to me. A second father or sorts or at least a grandpa to me and I will miss his positive influence in my life. I will be eternally grateful for his love and kindness and how he helped me grow into the person I am today. I will try to be a better visiting teacher to honor him and his memory. Thank you Gary. You made a little girl/young woman's life brighter and happier because you were in it. I love you!

Nursery Boy

2011-11-05T08:45:00.001-05:00

Last Sunday I decided to start putting Elijah into nursery at church during the 3rd hour. He's not quite old enough but the nursery leader has told me to go ahead whenever so I did. He had a lot of fun. He had no clingy tendencies and when I peaked in during snack time he was such a big boy sitting at the table with the rest of the kids. I'm so proud of my big boy.

Halloween

2011-11-05T08:43:00.004-05:00

This year we did a lot for Halloween. I didn't take many pictures but here are a few of my cute little puppy.

On the Friday before Halloween we went to our church's Halloween party where there was a potluck, carnival games and a trunk or treat. We had lots of fun and were glad grandma and grandpa Figgins came too. They got to witness Elijah finally getting good at saying "thank you".
The next day we went to grandma and grandpa Figgins church Halloween party where there was a chili cook off and trunk or treating. Grandma's "swamp punch" was a big hit. From the moment the trunk or treating started there was a line up of kids wanting to sample the punch with dry ice and rubber bugs in it. It was a lot of fun.
On Halloween David stayed home and passed out candy while I took Elijah to a few houses to trick or treat. He said thank you to everyone and said buhbye to them the entire walk down the driveway while I pulled him on so he didn't try to run back to the house we just went to. I think next year he will be a pro.

Oil Ranch

2011-11-05T07:53:00.002-05:00

A few weeks after my sister left Elijah and I got to go the Oil Ranch again with his cousin Remy. Here are some of the fun things we did.

Horseback riding. Twice!

He LOVED it!

Remy liked it too.

We got to pet a sheep and this is Elijah baaing at one.

We got to ride on a little train with Hallie and Remy.

We also went on a hay ride of sorts and fed some cows and went to see a cow get milked. Elijah was too scared to touch it though. It was a lot of fun.

Fun with the Stevens

2011-11-04T07:42:00.001-05:00

Bonnie reading to her son, Eric, and Elijah.

My sister and her husband came to visit at the beginning of October. Unfortunately I forgot the camera everywhere we went so I just have a few pictures of when they were at my house the day before they left.

The first day they were here we went to Oil Ranch in Hockley. It was such a blast! There were tons of animals to see and pet, horses to ride, the older kids enjoyed playing on a "sky swing" and doing a little put put course that was on site. There was even a train ride. I was able to go again with my sister in law a few weeks later so I will post some of those in another post.

I could not get these two guys to stop sharing Elijah's cups with each other.

That evening Dave joined us and we honored my brother in law Jason's mom Linda (who passed away last year at this time) by going to Fajita Willie's for dinner. I wish I lived closer to Willie's!

The following day we went to the Texas Renaissance Festival and had a blast eating lots of fair type food and seeing lots of shows. The kids and Bonnie and I spent some time jumping on some trampoline's attached to bungee cords which was a lot of fun. All in all it was a blast. I am so glad that even though I don't get to see my family very often I have a sister who comes to Texas at least once a year.

calling all readers

2011-10-20T10:13:00.004-05:00

So I'm toying with the idea of going private and just keeping this blog as my own personal journal. I haven't gotten any comments in a while so let me know if you are still reading my blog so I can decide to start a new personal one for myself or just make this one private.

Hey Mom, Look what I can do!

2011-09-30T06:56:00.003-05:00

One thing I was going to write about in the last post (before it got so stream of consciousness) was some of the things Elijah is doing these days just so I have a record of them.

Elijah can tell you what a cow, sheep, horse, dog, kitty (not cat), lion, bear, and 3 singing pigs say. He's actually been able to do most of those for quite a while now.
can sit down on command so I can put his shoes on.
can find his binky in my pocket.
is starting to use a fork.
can show you his eyes, ears, head, nose, tongue, teeth, mouth, fingers, toes, knee, and his belly which always becomes bellybutton (he's also done most of this for a while).
can smell his feet and if you ask them how they smell he waves his hand in front of his face to say they stink (thanks David).
does all of the actions for patty cake and popcorn popping as well as most of the actions for 5 monkeys swinging in the tree and jumping on the bed.
can put himself to sleep at night and sometimes for naptime too. Yay!
can put things back upon command, like daddy's socks from the drawer. Sometimes he doesn't want to so he won't but it's nice that he does sometimes.
can give closed mouth kisses which is so cute but a little sad because it means he's growing up.
folds his arms for prayer (but he's been regressing at this I think because it is losing its novelty).
says momma, dadda, night night (na na), love you (la la), shoe, sock, amen, cracker (ca ca), cookie (a variation on cracker), diaper (di doh), no, grandpa (pa pa) and attempts grandma but it's different depending on the day. He some others which I can't think of right now.
has said banana perfectly once and randomly said gnome perfectly when I was telling him what something was, neither have persisted.
signs more, all done, drink and uses a sign I made up for binky which he has for a while, and recently added sorry.
throws a ball and walks backwards.
pushes cars along the ground.
dumps out baskets of things like toys and clothes.
climbs into his high chair booster thing as well as onto most chairs and sits on them.
gives me his binky when I ask for it although he usually wants it right back if he's not distracted.
grabs any writing utensil he can find and uses it to draw on the nearest paper.
loves to look at books and turn the pages.
climbs on the outside of his crib.
is starting to be able to blow from his nose on command.
dances to music in a few different ways.

He is just so precious! I love this boy!

The humdrum daily life

2011-09-29T18:37:00.000-05:00

First some recent pictures of Elijah in all his cuteness.

Every morning I send Elijah to get stray binkies from under his bed and often he gets them and just lays there. It is so cute!

I was so thrilled when Elijah finally started liking fresh fruit. I think he had some strawberries each week for a month. It's nice when I know he's eating something healthy.

Elijah is obsessed with walking in mine and David's shoes.

Elijah also LOVES pizza.

I had given Elijah some food one morning and left to go do something for a minute. When I came back I found this.


It only takes a minute . . . I was getting a bag ready to go swimming and I came back and found this, Not only was it on his face but it was on his tongue

Everything is pretty humdrum here these days. We have pretty much lost our lawn in the drought but I suppose the upside is that we haven't mowed in months. The weather is really starting to get to me and I am looking forward to fall and winter with much anticipation. I keep reminding myself that we have to stay here until 2014 because we got the new homebuyer tax credit when we bought this house and don't have the money to pay it back if we move out before we've been in it for 3 years. Sigh.

I have been talking to my sister recently about the difficulties of being a homemaker. I never expected myself to struggle with it to the degree I do. Some days it is very hard to get things done and as much as you love your child(ren) they can really get on your nerves some days. Elijah broke his first glass today and I was MAD! I should not have been so upset because he is just 16 months but I wanted to make an impression and hopefully stop his obsession with getting things off of the table. It seems that it only takes 10 seconds away from him and he will get into something bad, as is evidenced in some of the above pictures. I just feel overwhelmed some days and it I feel guilty for feeling that way. Sometimes I have a hard time knowing how to interact with Elijah in meaningful ways.

I was very grateful that I was able to watch our church's general Relief Society (women's organization) broadcast. I needed the words spoken by the Lord's apostle. I am so grateful for the reaffirmation that the Lord knows me and my personal struggles.

I have also been finding my load easier as I have been making time to read my scriptures each day. I started reading Sept 1st and will finish the Book of Mormon by Dec 31st. It has been such a blessing and I seem to find myself able to get things done that I wasn't able to get done before. Some days are worse than others (like today with the broken glass) but I am getting through it with the Lord's help.

Spur of the Moment Utah Trip

2011-08-19T18:39:00.008-05:00

A little over 2 weeks ago I started getting antsy about all of the things we were wanting to do next summer. We had planned to do 2 vacations apart from our family reunion this summer and then decided to put of a Utah trip to next summer and then our other trip didn't happen either. When talking to my sister she suggested I see if there was a chance at getting a last minute deal on airfare so we could go before school starts. I found a good deal and convinced David it was a good idea to go. So a week and a half after I bought the tickets we headed out to Utah for 3 and a half days of craziness and saw almost everyone we set out to see! It was great!

Elijah did very well on the flight out there considering it left 45 + minutes after bed time. He slept most of the flight and even though he woke up when we landed he went back to sleep in the car and slept the rest of the night. What a good traveler!

Our first day was fairly laid back. We got together with my friend Mindy for breakfast. It was so good to see her for the first time since David and I were married almost 5 years ago.

The rest of the day we hung out at David's grandparents Maxfield house since we were staying there. They had some errands to run and when they came back wanted to go to dinner. They asked us where we wanted to go and while giving suggestions Grandpa kept mentioning Chuck-A-Rama. We had no problem with that and suddenly Grandpa was pushing us out the door to get there before 4 so we could get the lunch prices. We pulled up at 3:58 and Grandma let Grandpa out of the car and he ran (as only a 70 year old grandpa can run) into the restaurant to get the good price. We laughed and laughed.

The next day was Sunday and we went over to my Aunt and Uncle's for some breakfast crepes and enjoyed chatting with them. That evening I got to get together with some old roommates from college. Almost everyone from the apartment was there except one who lives in Denver (we missed you Brandy!). It was so fun to see them and to meet their kids and husbands, some for the first time. We had a barbeque and played some games and it kind of made me feel like I was in college again . . . . kind of.

That night Elijah did not do so well. He fell asleep just fine in the car on the way back to the Maxfield's but was up numerous times during the night which we later decided was due to teething. Poor baby. Somehow in the transition into the house we dropped the camera out of the diaper bag and of course it rained that night. Grandma and Grandpa found it laying next to our rental car in the morning and I was concerned it might be done for. We decided to let it dry out and recharge the battery to see if it would recover. Consequently we have no pictures from Monday (and that means no Maxfield pictures :(.

On Monday morning we went to breakfast with Grandma and Grandpa Maxfield (are you seeing the running theme of food during this vacation. We did.) and then went out to lunch with Dave's uncle Mike (Figgins) and his cousin Anthony. We enjoyed seeing more family and just catching up. We went over to Grandpa Figgins for a little while that afternoon and he showed us his garden and we made a game of tossing apples into his compost bin. Elijah thought it was a lot of fun. That evening Grandma Maxfield had organized a big get together with all of the Maxfield family in the area for Monday night. It was a lot of fun to see everyone and get to meet family most for the first time. We were sad that we didn't get to see Uncle Lynn or Uncle David or their wives..

On Tuesday morning we bade farewell to the Maxfield Grandparents and went to Grandpa Figgins who took us (you guessed it) out to breakfast. Afterwards we played a little game and did some more apple tossing which Elijah thought was hilarious. While they started that I found some jacks (the good metal kind) and sat down and played for the first time in YEARS. I love jacks so that made my day.

We flew home after seeing Grandpa Figgins and Elijah again slept the whole flight since I made him stay awake past his nap time. All in all we had a great time. We enjoyed the cooler weather and everyone enjoyed seeing Elijah for the first time. He even showed off for everyone we met! I was so pleased.

Family Reunion

2011-08-19T18:30:00.005-05:00

During the first week in July David's family had a little reunion. It was nice to have everyone together for the week. Unfortunately we stayed in Texas and it was over 100 every day so we could only really stay indoors and play games or go the the pool. Despite the lack of things to do we had a grand time. We really love playing games anyway. Thanks to Dave's sister for setting it up and using her time share to get us a great place to stay.
Elijah cuddling grandpa after a swim.
Our family.
The shocker game that Lindsay brought. The slowest person to push the button get's a mild shock.
Elijah and his cousin Jamison.

1st birthday

2011-08-19T18:27:00.006-05:00

2 and a half months ago our little guy turned 1. It is crazy to think that Elijah has been a part of our lives for more than a year now. We made it easy on ourselves and just had family over. We had homemade pizza (which Elijah LOVES), salad, fruit, and of course cake and ice cream. Elijah had a lot of fun with all the attention on him. He got some lovely gifts and we enjoyed celebrating him.

Us with Elijah and his "build-an-owl" from Aunt Jacque.
Remy and Elijah checking out his new toy from mommy and daddy.Elijah and mommy.
Letting him dig into his first birthday cake.
The back of the awesome cake I made (with Melanie's help).The front view.

The side.

walking

2011-03-10T15:27:00.003-06:00

Elijah's been walking at least a few steps a day since Feb 24th. He's getting pretty good now as the video shows. He most often falls when he tries to turn around while standing still or gets distracted but I'd say that as of today about half of his locomotion is walking although he still likes to crawl under things when he can't walk under them.

Movin'

2011-02-08T09:05:00.005-06:00

We officially have a crawler. He started crawling consistently on Jan 17th and there has been no stopping him. He was crawling to couches and such and pulling himself up within a week so our life has completely changed. Elijah now crawls very fast. He was starting to cruise along furniture before he started crawling but now he is everywhere. He cruises holding on to walls now as well. every so often if he is distracted he will let go and stand on his own but as soon as he realizes he is doing it he flops one way or another to hold on or to sit down. Elijah's favorite naughty thing to do is to go and play with the blinds by the front door. As I'm typing right now he is holding on to the pullout keyboard platform thingy.

For a while Elijah was giving kisses if you made smooching noises but he doesn't do that as much anymore. We're trying to teach him to clap and give high five and high five is coming along better than clapping.

We don't have any stairs in our house but a few weeks ago at Grandma and Grandpa's house I put Elijah by the stairs to see what would happen and he was going up the stairs withing 5 minutes. It is now one of his favorite things to do there.

Last week we put together a truck that our friends got for Elijah. If you put the seat perpendicular to the truck he can walk behind it and he has gotten the hang of that pretty quickly as well.

He is just growing and progressing by leaps and bounds these days. It is really fun to see. Plus it's nice not to have to carry him from room to room, he just crawls after us with little or no prompting.

Here are a few more recent pictures. (None since he's been walking but I'll try to get those up later this week).

Elijah has been feeding himself Cheerios since he was about 6 months old!
Before he could crawl I stood Elijah up against the wall and he stayed. You can see by the look on his face that he thought he was the bees knees!
We were trying to get ready for church and this was a great way to contain him.
Daddy and Eli, the two headed monster, ready for an evening walk.
Our little rudolph.
Daddy's trains always calm down a cranky boy.
Pink cheeks after a cool evening walk.
Cool dude sitting in an Amish chair.

Crawling

2011-01-10T16:03:00.004-06:00

So I've been a little out of sorts lately and not really in the mood to write but I need to do a little journaling so here it goes.

Last night and today Elijah is really starting to work on crawling. He doesn't get onto his knees from his tummy yet and he's only crawled a foot or 2 twice today so we'll see how long it takes him to get proficient.

Elijah loves solid food and I am working on getting him on 3 solid feedings a day. He would eat until he threw up if I let him. He now has 2 teeth and loves to feed himself cheerios so I think I may start working on other finger foods.

Elijah is a very happy baby unless he's sick and unfortunately he has been sick quite frequently lately. He had some throat thing that put him on antibiotics before Thanksgiving. Then he got a nasty cold. When the cold subsided he was a fuss bucket again and we took him in and found a double ear infection. A week after he stopped antibiotics for that I took him in after a sleepless night and he is now on antibiotic 3 for a sinus infection. I am really hoping that this is the end of that for a while.

Other than that life around here is good. We had a nice Christmas (but forgot to bring the camera to the in-laws to take pictures so I'll post pics when I get them) and Dave's grandma came the week after and we enjoyed getting to know her better. We also had a fine New Year and we're looking forward to the summer break (but not the heat).

Just realized that I needed to mention that Elijah has been sitting on his own since the Wednesday after Thanksgiving.

Our little Halloween sandman

2010-11-01T11:30:00.002-05:00

biker baby

2010-10-21T15:54:00.005-05:00

We get told all the time that it looks like Elijah's got a mohawk. His hair is just growing in that way. So I finally remembered to spike it up with some product before bath time and we got carried away making him look like a biker with some eyeliner. Here's a few pictures.

The last one is very "blue steel" in my opinion. What do the Zoolander fans think?

Eli's latest tricks

2010-10-21T15:36:00.002-05:00

Here's a few videos. One of Eli laughing and one of his more recent sounds.

When it rains, it pours

2010-10-18T14:11:00.002-05:00

Not much to update about, when I get the house to a place where I'm happy with it I'll take and post some pictures but I am side tracked again. Eli, Dave, and I were driving home after a late dinner out last Thursday and got rear-ended. We're fine but our backs are sore with some whiplash but over all we're doing fine. We were feeling good enough to have some friends over Saturday morning and show of our work in progress house (we still have boxes in just about every room that need attending) and Sunday had one of Dave's old buddies over for dinner with his new wife. We're pretty excited to have them in our ward. Ah but I forget Saturday night I realized I was getting mastitis yet again. Ah the joys of motherhood. I'm pretty tired but have a ton to do this week so I hope I can get to bed early enough at night not to delay healing. I'm grateful to learn but I hope I can relax one of these days, but we're getting Eli's 4 month shots tomorrow so it could be tough. Speaking of Eli, he's crying some big ol crocodile tears so I better go.

Linda

2010-10-12T09:42:00.003-05:00

So I've been feeling like I needed to write since we've moved but didn't know what to write about. Then I read my friend Shasta's blog and how she lost a dear mother figure by the name of Linda. How could I have wondered what to write on . . . .

So we moved in last Saturday and I had a goal of getting all unpacked by Thursday, the day my sister would be coming in to town with her family. Her husband's mom had pancreatic cancer and things weren't great. I got a phone call Sunday evening saying they were moving things up and flying in that night because Jason's mom, Linda, was not doing well.

Back up a little, I moved to Texas in May of 2005 because I felt prompted that this was where I should be. I knew no one, and my only family was my sister and her kids and husband. Shortly after I moved here I became better acquainted with Russ and Linda. Linda even let me come and stay at her house for a few days and do some work around her house when I hadn't found a job yet. In my first year here I went on 2 family vacations with them and met up with them in Boston on my own personal vacation. It was nice to have such generous people to welcome me into their home and into their family. I met my husband to be a little over a year after moving here. Since then I have not seen Russ and Linda much but Linda was kind enough to quilt a Christmas tree skirt I had made. I saw them periodically when my sister still lived here. Then she moved away and I didn't see Linda much (except when Bonnie & Fam were in town) although I knew Linda had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I thought of her often (usually when I was making my quilt as she was an avid quilter).

So last Monday I talked to Bonnie and told her to let me know if she wanted me to take the kids. Then I talked to her in the evening and she said she was at home as her almost 5 year old Jeremy could not be quiet enough for a hospital. After asking if she wanted to drop off the kids I had an epiphany and told her I was coming to get the kids. I came and got them and they spent the night because Linda was being brought home in an ambulance that evening and Bonnie didn't want her kids to have to see that. I brought them back to their grandparents house the next day and spend some time with Linda's family who had all come in to town to say goodbye. I was reminded what a wonderful lady she was. Always serving others in many ways and often making them quilts (she had several unfinished ones still in her sewing room).

Linda passed away Tuesday night/Wednesday morning with her sons, their families, and
husband in her home. I took my nephew the following night while his sister was at her cousin's house. His parents had explained that grandma was in paradise and he said he didn't want her in paradise but wanted her closer to them in Chicago. He and I talked a little bit about grandma while he was at my house and he said he was sad but that grandma could see him now with her spirit eyes. He prayed that night for grandma to be happy where she was.

I was able to attend a memorial service for Linda last Friday (her funeral and burial are today in Utah) and it was a tender meeting. Mark (her son) gave a wonderful Eulogy where he discussed her and how she exemplified the young women values of our church: Faith, Divine Nature, Individual Worth, Knowledge, Choice and Accountability, Good Works, Integrity, and Virtue. He talked of her service to others. Her friend gave a wonderful tribute as well and I found myself sad that I hadn't seen her so much. I should have . . . not for her good, as she had many wonderful people who cared about her, but for me. I missed out and I will always be sad about that.

So I guess this is a testament to all, there are a lot of people in our lives who are wonderful. Don't let yourself miss out on knowing them better. You never know how short their time is and you don't want to regret it. You may be missing out on a valuable lesson they could teach you.

Oh, and for those of you wondering why I haven't invited you over, all of this last week is the reason we're not quite settled yet.

Looking Forward to

2010-09-23T14:01:00.002-05:00

I've been intending to write this post for a while but these are a few of the things I am looking forward to being grateful for in our new house (that we will own in a week).

1. Not having to haul the stroller down a flight of stairs in order to take Eli out in it (I think we will have more walks in the house.

2. No more obnoxious neighbors in the next apartment over whose kids are outside all day screaming.

3. A garage to park in (and we will once we get an opener for it).

4. Storage space! An attic, a garage, and closets! Our current apartment only has two closets (one in each bedroom) good thing the master is large enough for our linens too.

5. Two bathrooms! Now one of us can go to the bathroom and the other can bathe the baby without interfering.

6. A big kitchen. Now it's not big by anyone's standards but ours seeing as our current kitchen is smaller than our master bedroom closet.

7. A separate office from the nursery. Maybe now Eli can take naps in his crib more than once in a while.

8. A fridge with an ice maker! Now that is not the house but the fridge we bought but I'm still totally stoked!

I'm sure there are more and I will post them as I think of them. Thanks for letting me share the excitement!

Never forget

2010-09-11T08:53:00.004-05:00

It's been 9 years since the attacks on the world trade center and it's crazy to think it was so long ago. Though my memories of that day have faded some, I still remember quite a bit.

My roommate Kirsten turned on the radio as she always did while doing her make-up. It was strange that the music station wasn't playing music and it wasn't commercials. There was some agitated talking. We heard something about a plane crashing into a building and I remember not really understanding what was going on. I was only 19 and really didn't know much about the world outside my comfortable life as a college student. We started to understand that 2 planes had crashed into the world trade center towers and that it likely wasn't an accident. While we were listening a plane also crashed into the Pentagon. I called my brother Mike to find out who had such hatred for the US to do this and it was the first time I remember hearing the name Osama Bin Laden. How naive I was at such an age, thinking no one really had such hatred towards America and Americans. I had no idea about world affairs. I wanted to know it was real and since I did not have a TV in my apartment at college I knocked on peoples doors until I could find a TV so I could see what was happening. It was one of the most surreal things I have ever seen, it seemed to tear at my soul. I had always felt so safe as an American. People weren't dumb enough to attack America any more, right?

My first class of the day was a religion class (I was at BYU-Idaho) and my professor just turned on the news in the class as we sat silently watching. I still remember exactly how I felt and what a scary thing it was to feel like my safety was gone. He turned it off and we read from the Book of Mormon about wars in those times. I can't remember anything that we read but I know that there was some peace in something we read (in fact I probably have it marked, I should find that).

There was a TV in the lounge at my apartment and I watched it constantly for a few days, still shocked and trying to make sense of it all. It felt like the last days. A neighbor of mine had a family member in one of the towers and I remember she could not get through on the phone to anyone to find out if he was okay.

Sometimes I feel like we forget that day. For the first few months afterward it felt like our nation was united. It didn't matter what political party you were affiliated with, or how you felt about abortion, we knew that Americans had been murdered in a political move by al-Qaeda. Our hearts were broken and we felt the weight of the tragedy universally.

Do you still remember?

Cousin Pictures

2010-09-07T08:49:00.005-05:00

Dave's parents have a friend across the street who is a professional photographer. We caught up with her the other day and got these pictures of Elijah and his cousins. (They were all born in a 16 day span). Elijah is on the right, Remington (Dave's younger brother's son) is on the left, and Jamison (Dave's older sister's son) is in the middle. Enjoy!

If you live in Houston area and want a good photographer check her out at www.k4photography.com

A home for the Figgins

2010-08-31T15:48:00.004-05:00

We are officially under contract for a home. It's quite a scary venture but we're excited. As long as the sellers take care of a couple of issues we found in yesterday's inspection we'll close Sept 30th and move the next 2 days! Moving at the beginning of Oct will cut Dave's drive to work in half which will be really nice. Anyway . . . we're stoked. Here's some pictures of the place.

Dave's New Job

2010-08-20T14:11:00.004-05:00

After lots of cell phone minutes and lots of crying on my part, the Lord came through and David has a job. I learned a lot about faith and I think David and I grew as a couple. I learned to be a little more trusting and let go of control a little.

We found out last Tuesday that David was going to have a job. Both Eisenhower High School and Clark Intermediate called on the same day to tell him they were submitting his name to HR and wanted to hire him. He at first was going to take the first person to get him a contract but when Eisenhower called the next day saying they wanted him to start meetings the next day and he could sign something then he just didn't feel good about it. He and I talked it over and I told him to call and talk with the district Fine Arts chair (he'd been talking with him over the past few months about getting a job). He had a good chat and they had him sign a letter of intent securing his position with the district. It was such a relief.

It's taken until today for them to finish his background check and get the paperwork in order (they're swamped and have a new person in HR training) but he signs his contract tonight and I will send out my resignation when he does. I have always wanted to be a stay at home mom and now I will get to. Funny how the thing you want can sometimes be the most scary . . . we'll be fine but I need to start figuring out a cleaning schedule so I can do a better job of keeping house and making dinners. I'll have to grocery shop when Dave gets home until it cools down here because my car's AC sucks if it's over 90 as it always is here. I am just excited to be a homemaker and to raise Elijah. He lights up our lives.

Now it's on to house buying, we're almost ready to make an offer and that will start a new chapter in our lives as real home owning adults!

Elijah Update: I just had to share this picture of Eli. He's such a sweet boy and at this point he rolls over nearly every time I put him on his tummy. So strong! He's also putting his fist in his mouth (some days more adeptly than others) and grabbing his elephant toy on the bouncer. He no longer grabs and shakes his rattle as well as he used to but I think he's just bored with that now.

Sad face

2010-08-01T08:21:00.002-05:00

Last night I was trying to help Elijah finish waking up from his nap. So I took his binky and continued doing whatever I was doing. I looked back and he was looking at me with big eyes and his typical sad face, which happens to be the cutest sad face I've ever seen. I happened to catch it on film finally. So here is Eli's sad face.

Isn't that great!

Sleep

2010-07-27T08:46:00.003-05:00

So I really need to post more and not worry about if this is a nice looking entry with lots to say. So I was telling my friend Melanie about how well Eli is sleeping and she told me it was journal worthy and I didn't journal it. So here it is. I've been working on getting Elijah to sleep through the night (8 hours) as the pediatrician said that a baby can sleep 8 hours through the night by 8 weeks. She said that if you get them sleeping 5 hours by 5 weeks, 6 hours by 6 weeks and so on that they can be sleeping 8 hours by 8 weeks. It sounded good to me and since he was already doing 4 hours when he was 1 week old I figured it could happen. She said that when you are doing this that the baby will probably eat every 2-3 hours during the day. At 4 weeks old Eli had a bad tummy and the next day he was better and we went to San Antonio but he has altered his "normal" schedule a little the night before with his bad tummy. The first night in San Antonio he put himself on a 5 hour a night pattern. I was thrilled and he kept it up and was eating every 2-3 hours. When my mom was here I didn't want to mess with it and keep her up if he cried but he was consistently sleeping 5 hours each night.

When she left I thought I'd try putting him to bed 30 minutes earlier and see how that went. He woke up at the same time the first night putting him at 5.5 hours and the next night slept 30 minutes later which was 6 hours. Last week his eating changed a bit (eating less at each feeding for a while then increasing again). He had a really bad night with some gas last Wednesday and so he kept fussing but was happy with if I put his binky in his mouth so I did that every 10 minutes for an hour then a few more times and then I realized he has slept 7.5 hours. I felt so guilty so I got him up and fed him and put him back to bed.

The following night he whined 2 or 3 times total and I put his binky in his mouth and he slept for 8 hours before I was in so much pain I had to wake him to feed him. The next night he had just had shots and ate like crap during his last 2 feedings so I was sure the dream was over, but he slept for 7 hours before I woke him up to make sure he had some Tylenol in him and fed him (who wants a hungry baby in pain screaming at night right?) Since then he has consistently gone 7-8 hours between feedings at night. Sometimes he has really bad gas and I have to rock him back to sleep but he is doing so well. He eats about every 2 hours during the day but I am so glad to have good sleep at night. I have such a sweet boy.

Now all I need is some advice about adding formula to his eating. I don't want to stop nursing but I do want him to bottle feed formula periodically so that if I need to be gone for more than 2 hours (ie a date with my husband) I know he'll take a bottle. Advice?

The 4th

2010-07-06T17:09:00.005-05:00

We were lucky enough to be able to go to San Antonio for the 4th of July to see Elijah's cousin Jamison be blessed. It was the first time all of the cousins were together. For those of you who don't know Elijah has 2 cousins who are about 2 weeks older than he is. Here are some pictures of the boys. Jamison (Lindsay & Logan's) is in the plaid shorts, Remington (Doug & Hallie's) is in the navy shorts and of course our little one is in the red shorts.

We enjoyed our stay although Elijah was quite overstimulated by the end and screamed our last night there. We were glad to be home and Elijah was too. So much so that he just laid on the floor and talked for 30 minutes when we got home. Now for his blessing this weekend!

Strong boy

2010-06-21T11:55:00.006-05:00

The day after Elijah was born he was laying on my chest in the hospital and he lifted his head turned it the other way and laid it back down. That was my first indication that I had a very strong boy.

The next evening when we brought him home from the hospital I did my first diaper change on the floor on a blanket. I have quite a bit of diaper changing experience but I was not prepared for my little boy to straighten out is legs as I was wiping him up and stiffen up his whole body so he was balancing on his head. Needless to say, diaper changing was a two person affair for the first little while until he got used to it.

When Elijah was 5 days old we went to our first pediatrician appointment. We were pleased that he had regained birth weight and laughed as he peed all over the scale and the wall next to the scale. It was quite amusing as Dave cupped his hands and put them in front of the stream to try to prevent the pee from going everywhere. The doctor came and checked him over and when she was holding him and checking him over she was like "Holy Cow he's strong." She let us know that we are NEVER to leave him unattended on anything. She even recommends that when we put him on the changing table that we buckle him on even though we are right there.

At his two week appointment a week later the doctor was checking him over again and put him on his tummy on the table and started saying "Oh my gosh, you should not be doing this." Then he rolled from front to back. I was dumb founded. He's definitely not a pro at it but he's rolled over twice more since then. The other good news was he's gaining weight very well. He had gained 9 ounces between his one week and 2 week appointments.

Elijah tends to eat in 4 hour increments and night which is great for me. After he eats and I change him I end up getting about 3 hours of sleep about twice in the night and about 2 hours around the same time. He's been doing this since birth so I really hope he keeps it up. The pediatrician said he should be able to go 5 hours once a night by the time he's 5 weeks, 6 at 6 weeks, and if we can keep that up we should be able to have our boy sleeping 8 hours a night at 8 weeks. Here's hoping it works that well.

That's about all for now. He's doing well, we're doing well although a bit bored at times when he's napping and when I can't nap. We're looking forward to him being more interactive. For now he sometimes stares at us when we talk to him and that's nice.

The Birth of Baby Elijah

2010-06-13T18:00:00.012-05:00

As most of you already know Elijah David Figgins was born on Friday, June 4th at 4:28 pm. He weighed in at 7 lbs 14 oz and was 21 inches long. For most of you that's all that matters. For journaling purposes I'm going to write a detailed account. Feel free to skip it.

It really started on Wednesday morning. I woke up around 3 feeling horrible and fluish. My skin hurt and I felt sick. I had a doctor's appointment that morning and in the waiting room I noticed I was having contractions pretty regularly. The doctor stripped my membranes and said that my fluishness could be early labor. I was beside myself being so uncomfortable and feeling so horrid. She told us to go find someplace to walk to try to help the labor. She told Dave if I was still feeling so horrid to come to the hospital later. We had some lunch and walked around the mall and my contractions were still 10 minutes apart albeit pretty painful at times.

That evening we waited at Dave's parents' house for my little sister Stacy to fly in (that was an adventure). We ended up driving all the way to Hobby airport only to find out that she had flown all the way to Houston and then been turned around back to Dallas due to bad weather. We stayed the night at his parents to be closer to the airport to pick her up in the morning. That night I was still having contractions.

The next day we picked up Stacy and headed back to Conroe. She and I went walking at some stores in our local strip mall and the contractions were seeming to get harder. She kept me walking and bending over and all sorts of moving. When I got home we had dinner and I was having some pretty decent contractions while talking to my two other sisters on the phone. We decided that we'd wait through the night and go in the morning if the contractions continued. I went to sleep around 11 and woke up at 1 having contractions every 10 minutes that were hard enough that I had to breathe through them. Poor David did not sleep much that night either. We put off going in until I was sure they'd talk to my doctor while I was there. They hooked me up to the monitors my doctor came and checked me and said that I'd progressed 1 cm from my appt 2 days before. They admitted me and I was ecstatic! We were having a baby. They admitted me and broke my water which had a little meconium in it. Dave watched saying that he had to see everything once. He has since said that he doesn't ever have to see that again. I thought he was gonna puke right there.

I told them we should go ahead with an epidural seeing as the contractions were getting stronger. By the time the anesthesiologist came I was glad I had asked. I do have to say that getting the epidural was one of the worst parts of the whole thing. I cried and the got yelled at for crying because I needed to tell them what was hurting and not just cry. So then it became "pinch" sob sob "nervy feeling" weep weep. I do have to say I was grateful for it though. Labor wasn't too bad.

My contractions became weaker so I had to have some pitocin. Then my blood pressure started to drop (no big deal unless your normal blood pressure is 90 over 60) so I was given oxygen and rolled on my side. Then the baby's heart rate started dropping between contractions. I was rolled from side to side each time I set off an alarm for either myself or the baby. The doctor came and explained what was going on and checked me. I was dialated to 7cm by then and they said that they would see if I would progress fast enough to deliver vaginally but that if things didn't get better that I'd have the have a C-section.

I cried. I know that once you have a c-section you always have to have one and I didn't want to have the longer recovery. I had David give me a priesthood blessing and just had faith that if it was the Lord's will that I would not have to go to the OR to have the baby. Another nurse came in a little while later to turn me yet again. When she did so she yanked the mat under me really hard and got me on my side better than I had been (it's hard to be on your side with a completely dead leg) and the baby's heart rate stabilized. I was dialated to 10 when the doctor checked me so we sent Stacy out to the waiting area at 4:08 (because seriously, no one needs to see that who doesn't have to). They got me into the stirrups and on my back and explained the art of pushing. I started pushing and the doctor called the nurses station for a bunch of stuff among which was forceps. I was proud that I held it together and just kept pushing. Dave was watching and thought it was gross until the doctor pointed out the top of baby Elijah's head. They all praised my pushing which I assumed was normal and then asked if I wanted to feel his head. When the nurse came in with the forceps she asked the doctor what for and she said nevermind, they wouldn't need them (YES!). Baby Elijah David Figgins came into the world at 4:28 after about 15 minutes of pushing. He was holding onto his umbilical cord when he came out (which may have been the cause of the heart rate issues). He is beautiful. I cried, David cried and we both feel so blessed to have him in our lives.

Ready whenever you are!

2010-05-24T12:30:00.001-05:00

So here I am at 38 weeks. Our baby is due in less than 2 weeks! We're so excited. I decided that Friday would be my last day so I let the school know on Wednesday. Now all I have to do is change our spare bedroom from a storage/computer room to a nursery/computer room (we decided that since we're moving by the end of summer it doesn't make sense to relocate the computer). In preparation for that I started to catch up on laundry yesterday and finished this morning. I also cleaned the kitchen and started rearranging things in the closet (we took one load of stuff to Dave's parents for storage a few weeks ago) now that there is more room. We'll probably get Dave's drafting table and some art supplies down to his parents house tomorrow and then bring up our changing table and crib. Then the real fun will begin and after that our baby can come whenever he wants and I won't feel unprepared.

Now people keep commenting on how little I am which is kind of nice (no one wants to feel huge) but I do have to let you all know that as nice as it probably looks to you all, I assure you that my baby is normal sized. He has been in my lungs for months and has been pushing on my pelvis for weeks. He has always been nearly in my ribs and now they are his favorite kicking place because he is completely in them. Not that I mean to complain because I couldn't be more thrilled to be having this little guy. Dave and I have wanted kids for a long time. I'm just saying that when you are pregnant and sticking out into the world you need to remember 2 things. 1-sticking out pregnant is cute, much better than kinda just looking fat which I did until about 2 weeks ago. 2-as uncomfortable as you are I'd be willing to bet your innards are quite pleased that the baby hasn't squished them all up. 3-(I know I said only two but I just thought of one) I have stretch marks too so it doesn't matter that I held my baby all on the inside.

I love you all . . . thanks for reading with me and keeping me company, being my friends, and making me feel like I'm cute in my tiny but uncomfortable pregnancy. I am excited to introduce our little guy to you all soon.

Graduation

2010-05-24T12:26:00.004-05:00

It's official . . . my husband is now a college grad.

An Awesome Daddy

2010-04-25T09:14:00.003-05:00

We are now 6 weeks away from the due date of our baby boy. I turned 28 last week and I'm a little miffed to realize that when our baby is born Dave will still be 27. Not only that but this Mother's Day I will not technically be a mom yet and Dave is certain to be a father by Father's Day. Sigh. Not that those things really upset me but are just a little annoyance to think and then get over.

It's amazing as I get closer to my due date how much more active our little boy is getting. It's getting harder to sleep through his little kicks and nudges. I used to think when he was born that I might miss feeling him move inside of me but I think I won't. It's probably part of the plan for having 9 months of pregnancy and feeling the baby move for about 6 of those months. It's awesome and amazing but by the end you're ready to be done.

I'm also coming to realize what an awesome daddy Dave is going to be. He loves talking to his baby and the baby responds to his voice. It's pretty cute. I still haven't figured out how to talk to the baby and maybe it's because I can't get my face to my belly and I am never alone. David is also starting to get protective and is insisting that I take time off at the end of the school year which I just think is cute. I probably will take the time since he is so insistent and I think I want to but just needed to feel "permission" from someone.

I am so excited to be able to make Dave a daddy and even though it's not fair that he gets an extra Father's Day I think he deserves it. He does so much for me as I am finding myself less able and willing to do some things around the house. He is very thoughtful and hard working. When my sister Stacy got married a few weeks ago he asked 3 of his nieces to dance with him at the reception and I think the 2 that obliged very much enjoyed his thoughtfulness. He also saw that more help was needed in the kitchen, stepped in to do it and was there with my brother most of the evening, despite having to miss out on eating much of the good food.

I just can't say enough about how lucky I am to have him. Neither of us are perfect and we don't always agree, but he is the perfect man for me and will be the perfect dad to our little boy and our other future children. What a blessing.

A few wedding pics

2010-04-25T09:00:00.000-05:00

My husband is also a pretty good photographer.

Cheater

2010-03-26T21:11:00.005-05:00

So I got tagged by Tanya for this but I cheated. It wasn't the first folder with 10 pictures it was the 3rd but the other pictures were lame.

This is 2 of my nieces at my brother's wedding reception a few years back. With 6 previously married siblings there were a lot of kids around enjoying the cousins they don't often see and I just love this picture.

So. . . this is how you play:

1. Open your pictures and open the very first folder.

2. Go to the 10th photo in that folder.

3. Post the photo and write the explanation of it.

4. Tag five more people.

I tag Brandy, Andrea, Bethany, Haley, and Holly (I'm tagging you because I'm pretty sure you read my blog but anyone else who does should do this. I had fun even though I cheated).

Quick Update

2010-03-07T12:15:00.002-06:00

Baby boy continues to grow and I am starting to understand people who get annoyed at the constant movement. He's pretty good but sometimes I get kinda motion sick especially when he goes nuts right after I eat. Yuck. We are so blessed to have our little boy in our lives and are super excited to meet him in 3 months.

Dave has secured a long term subbing position at the school where I work. It has its ups and downs. As much as I know he is frustrated with the kinds of kids we deal with each day I know they are blessed to have him. He is also blessed for working hard with kids who need an influence like him. We're not sure if this will last until the end of the year or if the art teacher will come back but we're hoping that either way this job will get him an "in" with the district. He's been told there will be some openings in Spring High School next year and think that may be a good fit . . . mostly we are just hoping that by having an "in" that we will know sooner if he has a job next year and I can quit and we can buy a house.

Thanks for keeping up with us and we appreciate everyone who is loving and supporting us and keeping tabs on how we're doing.

It's a BOY!

2010-01-23T13:59:00.003-06:00

this is for those of you without the benefits of facebook who don't know yet. On Monday he showed us his manhood but wouldn't move so we could get a good look at the heart so we'll be back soon to look at that.

Was that what I thought it was?

2010-01-09T07:19:00.003-06:00

So around Christmas time I started to feel something faint. I felt a distinct flutter a few weeks before but nothing since. It felt like maybe the pulse I normally feel around my bellybutton but it wasn't in the right place. It also kinda feels like bubbles moving through my stomach. I am officially feeling our baby move and it is really exciting. I was on the phone with my sister Stacy last night and the baby totally bumped me twice. It was like a little "Hello Aunt Stacy."

On the other hand a friend at work yesterday said I am looking particularly pale and anemic. I have been wondering if I should be taking additional iron supplements and I think I probably should. Ah the joys of pregnancy. So worth it though because I am so thrilled to be on this journey with Dave. A week from Monday we'll find out the sex of the baby (as long as the baby cooperates) and I'm excited to start being able to use the correct pronouns instead of "it".

November with the Figgins

2009-12-06T08:00:00.010-06:00

We went to the Renaissance Festival a few weekends before Thanksgiving and it was nice to have an outing with just the two of us (well the 3 of us as is evident by my expanding waist-line).

For Thanksgiving we went to San Antonio and had a fun time seeing our nephews.
Here they are at a fountain inside a restaurant we went to.

Dave and I realized that we missed our true callings when we had a contest to build towers out of spaghetti and marshmallows. We didn't finish in the 20 minute time frame time but ours stayed up for nearly 5 hours which was about 4 hours and 50 minutes longer than anyone else's. I think this is a fabulous idea for a Rogers family get together.

It was nice to have the Figgins family almost all together for one last time this year.

Doug shipped out the day after Thanksgiving and will be heading to Iraq soon so I'm glad we were able to be with him before he left. We love him and appreciate all he does for our country. It's crazy to think the next time we see him he'll be a daddy.

And I wouldn't be me if I didn't have some great pictures of "owies". "Rando, want to see my husband's owies!" The first is one Dave got from falling on his cell phone.

The next is one he got at the turkey bowl but he can't figure out when it happened.

Planning for the future

2009-11-01T15:09:00.002-06:00

So for those who want details we found out we were pregnant at the very end of September. We were waiting until we saw a heartbeat to make things public and that happened the day before my last blog (Oct 22nd I think). It was a very neat experience. We were looking at our monitor seeing nothing . . . then they fixed it and we saw our little bean looking baby and a little section that was moving. It was really cool to say the least. David was picture perfect leaning over me holding my hand. I always thought it was cheesy what people said about seeing their baby for the first time but it was a special experience. I am anticipating feeling more like myself again in a little over a month when I finish the 1st trimester. I really hope the food sensitivity and overall sensitivity to everything will pass because it is not fun, although if it's what has to happen for us to have a happy healthy baby then I will survive because I couldn't be more thrilled.

I started back at work in mid August and I'm currently staring down my last year teaching here. I love where I'm at much of the time but I am glad to know that I will be moving on at the end of the year. I'm suddenly having mandates put on me and I just don't have the energy to do everything that's being required of me. It is straining my emotions and I don't have any time to myself which I hate. I really wish I could do what is asked and not worry about it but I just can't. It's too much. I hope I can figure out what to do soon.

Dave started his student teaching this fall. He has started the assignment working in an area high school and he loved it and they loved him there and want to hire him. He's finishing at an area elementary school and he's loving it there too and they want to hire him there as well. He's also taking an online Spanish class which he seems to be doing very well at. Next semester he'll take his final Spanish class and he'll sub or find some other job while he's finishing.

It's exciting to be coming up on a time of change in our lives. He'll graduate right before our baby is born. We're hoping to be able to move out of state to a climate that better agrees with me (I'm stuck indoors here for half of the year because it's too hot outside) but we've decided that we'll look at one other location and then just look inside Texas for now. I'm just excited to know what I'll be doing next year! Thank you all for your well wishes and encouragement. We are thrilled as can be.

The reason I've not posted for a while

2009-10-23T05:58:00.002-05:00

Due date 6/6/10. Yay!

Our first "just us" vacation

2009-07-15T22:27:00.019-05:00

We went to San Antonio on July 3rd to spend the 4th with Dave's sister (Lindsay) and her family as well as his brother (Doug) and his new wife. We got to meet the newest addition to Doug's family, Rugar. He was a sweet puppy and we are tempted to get a dog now. . . well maybe not that tempted.

Benjamin (Lindsay's) thought the dog kennel was a pretty cool place to hang.

We also had an impromptu limbo contest which Dave, Lindsay, and I tied on. I do think I may have been able to make it but after seeing Dave and Lindsay go down my confidence was shot.

On the 5th Dave and I got up and drove to Albuquerque (it's taken planning the trip to learn to spell that right), actually my sister, Theresa(who we were visiting), lives outside of the city in Rio Rancho. We were in love with the weather there. If it weren't for the fact that the desert scares me and the cost of living is too high for what they pay teachers, I could live there!

We overlapped with Brent (my brother) and his wife for an evening and enjoyed seeing them (they had to leave the next morning). Another highlight for us was seeing our newest neice Rebekah. We took lots of pictures of her but I'll just post 3.

While we visited with my sister we went down to Old Town Albuquerque (see that I spelled it right again without having to look it up!) and perused the shops. I love the geeky souvenier shop stuff and here's a picture of Theresa in the geeky shop (the only picture I got of her).

We also saw a 200+ year old church (they claimed 300 but it burned down and had to be rebuilt so that doesn't count).

We also had a fabulous hike near battleship rock and the following pictures were taken there.

Dave in front of the falls.

Me and Brendan (Theresa's) with him under the falls.

Dave's fabulous pic of Matthew (Theresa's).

Dave and I in front of the falls.

Another great pic by Dave of Brendan and Emily (Theresa's).

All in all we had a wonderful time there and although we spent more than we intended it was so inexpensive and fun! I can't wait to find another trip for us to take when we've recovered from the drive.

You gotta have faith

2009-06-18T16:11:00.003-05:00

I have realized something recently. I have a big lack of faith in much of my life. I have a really hard time not being in control. I was talking to my sister-in-law the other day about having a hard time feeling the way I feel about the whole TTC thing. She reminded me that sometimes you have to remember the impressions the Lord gives you and focus on those because he gives them to us to comfort us. I know I will have kids when the time is right. Not for me but for the Lord. I know it will happen and that is enough. I am still concerned about getting my body on track to get there but I know that I will have kids. Maybe it will be good for us not to right away. We can get a house next summer when Dave knows where he'll be the next fall. If we both work then we will have money and can be generous, pay off our little bit of debt, and maybe travel a little. Some days I feel my faith growing and I am seeing the options in life that are there that will make me happy even if we don't have kids right away. Every so often I am still concerned and sad but I am not at all the basketcase I was 2 months ago. Thank you Heavenly Father for helping me grow and thank you Kelsey for being an answer to an unuttered prayer.

Dave and I are getting a little extra money this summer watching the kids of some friends of ours. We're watching Sasha (7) and Chandler (13). It's so nice. We can relax and I am having time for things I have been wanting to do. I have been reading some General Conference talks in the mornings before the kids get up and it is nice. I am realizing that I need that more in my life. It is so easy with the stress of school to get unfocused but I am so grateful for apostles and prophets that the Lord has called to teach us. I have felt such an amazing spirit as I read the talks. I am hoping that next week and can finish my quilt top and the back so that I can try to go see Bonnie's mother-in-law to have it quilted for me soon. Most of all I am just enjoying time to be and time to remember who I am and ponder the Lord's plan for me and my family.

TTC

2009-05-17T19:45:00.005-05:00

So my stressors are mostly done for the school year. TAKS is over, Doug and Hallie had a lovely wedding (and I survived taking the day off) and we had a fairly successful field trip. Life is good. I was also released from my calling teaching the same age group as I teach at school. I couldn't take basically adding a 6th day to my work week. I got a new calling doing more administrative and planning type stuff for cub scouts which will be better for me. I need to learn the program better and I need to get better in leadership/facilitation roles.

Even though Doug and Hallie's wedding was a little stressful for me I definitely enjoyed it and enjoyed meeting some of Dave's family that came into town for the wedding. I got to meet some family that I hadn't previously met and got to hang out with his grandparents again which I enjoyed. We even took Grandpa Figgins to an Astros game.

I rearranged my end of the school lesson plans after realizing that the project I wanted my students to get done wasn't practical. It is too close to the end of the school year and I don't need to try and test the last week of school. I'm now feeling better about my ability to keep the kids busy until the end and I still have time to show Fern Gully while I clean up my classroom.

The good news is I'm also stressing less about trying to concieve (TTC). I want it to happen but I'm realizing that I can still make other decisions and I'm feeling less tied to the outcome. I was basing too much on whether we got pregnant now and I should enjoy the fact that we have some room in our decision making that we wouldn't have with pregnancy right now. It took me 7 weeks to cycle after going off of the pill and I think the Lord needed to remind me that He was still in control. Point taken. It's also inspired Dave and I to spend more time at the temple which we've needed for a while so that's good.

Dave is really enjoying the chance to have some time off before summer term starts. He is loving the painting skills he acquired this last term and most of the time when I call home from school he is either working on his current painting or getting ready to start. He'll be really happy to finish up school soon and be able to put that part of his life behind him.

Most of all we're looking forward to a relaxing summer. I'm applying for jobs and trying to find something low key to bring in a little extra money but might also allow me the flexibilty to travel this summer after Dave finishes his only summer class 1st term. If I don't find something I'll keep looking but it will be nice to have time to do some deep cleaning and sorting. Our apartment definitely needs it because I have been too busy the past month to think much about it.

Wow this is a pretty boring post but I need to remember I started a blog for journaling not just to entertain folks. Oh and we also got to go bowling for a good friend of our's birthday. Here are some pics.

haven't updated in a while

2009-04-25T07:03:00.003-05:00

So I thought I should write even though I'm not sure what I'm going to write yet. I am back to teaching science and the kids are glad. I hope that the sacrifice we made by teaching math for 4 weeks was worth it for the kids and that they hopefully perform better for it. As much as I don't think that the testing should be like it is you have to deal with what is in place now and it would be bad if our kids don't do well. All I can do know is hope they paid attention enough to do well. I'm just glad to be back to my subject.

We're now officially trying to conceive. I'm surprised at my nervousness but I shouldn't be, I'm a worry wart. Both of my sisters have had some problems with infertility so even though I'm trying not to think about that, it is in the back of my mind. I guess it's in the Lord's hands now and I know he has the best plan in mind for me. I just hope that plan involves conception before too long. I also really don't want to teach a full year next year but if we don't conceive it would make more sense for me to finish out the year because I would make more money as a 5th year science teacher (I have a 3k stipend) than Dave would as a first year art teacher, if he could find a job mid year. Being grown up certainly is complicated! It's definitely a growing experience for me. I may love next year and be glad I get to stay the whole year or be sad to leave (depending on if Dave gets a job or not or if we have a baby). I just hope that I have the power to let go of this now that I have it written down. I don't want to worry. I just want to be happy for this new phase in our lives. I pray that I can just be happy and grow from whatever happens because I know that any growth I have will make me a better mom whenever the Lord blesses us in that capacity. I just have to remember it will happen. I think I'll go read my patriarchal blessing now . . . .

Dave's Paintings

2009-04-08T17:46:00.003-05:00

He's so talented! The pics aren't great but you get the idea . . . really awesome work!

The Latest

2009-03-18T14:16:00.005-05:00

I finished sewing the quilt top! I had some issues with making my seams smaller than I intended so it looks like I'm going to have to add an edge to the backing before I put the thing together. Oh well . . . I was already starting to change my plans for that so I'm not too concerned. Yeah me!

This week has been my spring break and it feels wonderful to spend some time at home. Dave's parents came up last night with his sister and her 2 kids and we had a nice time. It was a good excuse to get things cleaned so that I didn't spend the rest of the week thinking about how I needed to take care of it. The following picture is Dave playing a game while on the phone with his parents trying to coordinate last night. I just thought he looked cute in my dad's old national guard hat so I had to take a picture. You can tell he was pleased ;)

Anyway . . . I started teaching Math just before spring break. The book we were given to use is pretty good and I'm enjoying it. I've got some ideas that I will probably start using later on but right now I'm hoping to reduce my stress and worry less so I'm putting off working on school stuff until Friday and I figure whatever I get done, I get done and it will be good enough. I'm also enjoying the time I have this week to spend with friends that I feel like I don't get a chance to talk to except rushed conversations on Sundays. I used to be a good friend and I feel like I don't get to be anymore because I get spread so thin that I end up being self centered when I do get to see my friends. Sorry friends!

Our lives are pretty boring right now so I'll leave it at that. Tanya . . . I will post more of Dave's work later this week. He's working on a really cool painting right now and started another one at school so I'll post them when he is done with them.

Our Bedspread and Dave's Art

2009-03-01T14:19:00.007-06:00

I've laid it out and now I just need to do a bit more cutting and I'll be ready to sew.

These are some of Dave's latest art projects for his classes.

Doing Everyone Else's Job

2009-02-28T06:35:00.006-06:00

That was the story of the week and it was a hellish one. I am about to halt my science curriculum for a while to work on math with my students. We have a high percent of kids who are looking like they will fail the Math TAKS test. When we got this news I felt that the best thing for the kids would be more time with math and offered to rearrange my curriculum to give time for math instruction. It's too bad that it has come to this but as Spence Rogers says "Our kids are worth whatever it takes." So here goes nothing. I hope it helps because the math teacher of most of my students is refusing to tutor due to "health issues" so this will be very important extra help for them.

I also received word that I am going to be attending Family Leader Meetings starting next week (our grade level faculty is broken up into families who have most of the same students and we meet each week to disperse info and talk about students). I'll probably start doing her duties as well. I'm not sure I'll be getting the pay for this but it needs to happen because our current family leader is having health issues that are affecting her ability to do the job.

My neighboring science teacher recently had liver surgery to remove some benign tumors. It was successful and she is doing well. Her long term sub however got "sick" for 2 days this week and didn't leave anything for the subs and here comes Jill to the rescue AGAIN. I also covered an ARD meeting for another teacher who just didn't attend on Wednesday. I was called to do it again the following day but my wonderful Assistant Principal told me I wasn't to cover for her again and that my conference period was mine. She really was the joy in all of this. She knows I will do what has to be done to get the job done but doesn't abuse that about me. She asks what she needs to of me and then lets me do my job and have the time I need. Thanks Karen! She makes my job good on those bad days. She has also had a really rough week but took it all in stride. When my rough week started to show up on my countenance, she made sure I was taken care of at work. She was meant to be a boss and is great at it.

Update

2009-02-15T20:31:00.002-06:00

Things around here are pretty boring though I am happy to report that I have had my class of 15 Special Ed students reduced to 9. It makes life a bit easier. We also went down to Dave's parents' house today to meet Doug's fiance. It was nice. She seems nice but it's hard to really get to know someone in a few hours. It'll be fun to get to know her more at other family functions. It reminded me of how awkward I felt when I first came into the family. I always felt REALLY nervous every time Dave left the room.

In other news we had a nice Valentine's evening. We had an early dinner at the Olive Garden (courtesy of Doug's Christmas gift card) and went out for ice cream later in the day. I am so lucky to be married to a sweet and laid back kind of guy. We have our differences but my life is better with him in it.

Um . . . I think I've run out of things to say. I love you all. I'm not sure if I have any blog followers these days but it is nice for me to have a reason to keep up with my journaling

Life as usual

2009-02-03T17:00:00.003-06:00

It's been a while since I updated but there's just not a lot going on. I am so jealous of all you who have kids to write about because kids stories are much better than teacher stories. Oh well . . . .

Dave started his first on-line Spanish class this semester. He has to take 4 all together and the ones taught on campus are ridiculously hard so he decided to do them on-line. It's pretty frustrating for him because it isn't something he's interested in at all but it's required for a BA. I hope he finds his groove in the on-line class so it won't be such a headache for him.

This weekend Dave's dad was finally able to bring us the entertainment center Dave built so we moved that in and got the old beast out (with some much needed help from Ben). I really like it. It's much smaller and fits our living room nicely. We now need to get another small storage something to get some now displaced knick-knacks hidden away.

As for me it's life as usual. We are doing some math testing for the first half of today. Our math teachers will take the data from this test to see how we think our kids will do on the year end state tests and then figure out who they need to target for tutorials in order for them to pass.

While nothing can be as bad as my first year teaching, I'm finding this to be one of my most stressful years. 25 of my 131 students are Special Education students with varying ranges of disabilities. In one class alone 15 of the 23 have accommodations and both of these numbers do not include ELL (English Language Learners) or dyslexic students. The paperwork and ARD meetings are endless and anyone who has taught Special Education students knows that many of them have also developed behavior issues which take up more of my time and energy. I feel unqualified to serve their needs (or even to keep all of the needs straight) in a class that still has others without disability who deserve my time too. Even with a co-teacher there's just not enough teacher to go around and it makes me sad for them.

In all of this stress I am grateful for caring family, friends and especially my husband. Dave has been so sweet in picking up the slack I'm leaving at home. He has taken to making dinner most nights which helps me out a lot. At work I hear a lot of people discussing the relationships with their spouses and I realize how lucky I am to have a husband who treats me with love and respect. He is truly my partner in life and makes my life better for being a part of it. I love him so very much and could not do it without him. Love ya babe!

Bubble Time Warp

2009-01-11T08:57:00.004-06:00

So I found this show on the Discovery channel this morning. They use high speed cameras to show things at an ultra slowed down pace and you can see the detail of what happens to things that happen at a fast rate. I.E. Bubble popping. The first is a quick clip and the second is the actual segment.

This one is mostly for my sibs. It's the dry ice bomb segment. Check out the end where they totally destroy a water tank with dry ice bombs under water.

Christmas

2009-01-01T13:33:00.010-06:00

Dave working on the entertainment center he's building for us.
Teasing the cat on Christmas morning.

Dave's dad, Gary, is pretty goofy.

We played some Guitar Hero demos on Dave's X-box before watching a movie on Christmas night.

Benjamin enjoyed sitting on grandma's lap and putting her Settlers of Catan peices in the play band-aid box.

Here's Dave showing Benjamin how to hold a baby nicely.

Benjamin holding the baby. He was really into getting his picture taken. I feel bad that we don't have pictures of Gabe but BenBen kept posing.

Me playing the piano with Ben.

Dave and I were very blessed this Christmas. I think I have everything I need now to start making our bedspread . . . when the sewing machine arrives at the end of the month. Sigh . . . I'm just glad to be getting one. Thanks mom! Dave's mom and I started working on getting his professional wardrobe established and he also got a sander from his dad too bad he was done with all of his sanding on his furniture project.

I am so grateful for a new year and the opportunity to look at my life and see where I need to improve myself. I am also grateful for my many wonderful friends and family. Happy New Year all!

Our Story

2008-12-20T08:57:00.009-06:00

Warning!! Very long post. I won't be offended if you just look through pictures.

Tomorrow is Dave's and my 2nd anniversary. I can't believe it's been 2 years. It's odd to think that most of my time in Texas has been as a wife! I'm going to take my old roommate's idea and use this as a chance to journal for myself about Dave's and my courtship and marriage.

Those that know me well know that when I felt impressed to take the job in Texas I wasn't thrilled about the prospect and I really hoped that moving down here meant I might find someone meant for me. My first year was awful. I hated my job. I didn't date anyone that was worthwhile as far as finding anything lasting. I really thought I wanted to leave but couldn't hardly form the thought because I remembered the clear impression to move here. I enjoyed my time playing ultimate frisbee with the singles ward and actually met Dave when playing ultimate shortly after I moved to Texas but he was dating someone else at the time so I forgot all about him.

I quit my first teaching job at the end of the year because I knew that if I was to be a teacher that I could not be a good one at that school. I applied for jobs in other districts and toyed with the idea of trying something else. I interviewed for two jobs in Spring ISD and really liked what I saw at Bammel MS. They offered me a job at my first interview and after thinking about it for a day I accepted. I spent the summer, between my first and second year teaching, traveling and enjoying the fact that I finally had the money to do those things. I didn't know it then but I had already caught Dave's eye but he hadn't worked up the guts to say anything and I was also gone very often.

Shortly after the new school year started a friend of mine walked up to me at church and asked what my last name was. I found that odd so I asked her later why she asked. I'll never forget the response "because there's this really hot guy that wants to ask you out." I didn't believe her but when she told me who it was I remembered him vaguely and agreed that yes he was hot.

The next week I saw him talking to a friend of mine and thought I would go say hi to my friend and give Dave the opportunity to talk to me. He took it and we talked for a while and realized we both had MySpace pages. That night I went home and looked him up to see what more I could find out about him. He looked me up to and sent me a message later that night. He called me the next day and after a long conversation (very out of character for Dave) he asked me out on TWO dates! Our first date was September 10th and we went to a mexican restaurant (well Tex Mex actually seeing as we live in Texas) and as we were leaving he said, "I don't have to take you home yet do I?." I didn't want to go home either so we went and got a malt and talked. It was really nice. We started to email and talk and see each other just about every day. I think we counted once and we've only been apart for 2 days since our first date.

Things progressed pretty fast. We knew we loved each other by General Conference weekend. We mentioned marriage but didn't want to rush things so we kind of ignored it as long as we could. I don't remember the day we decided to get married but we thought we'd get engaged before Christmas and married the following March. Little did I know I was about to have a break down.

I started to have serious doubts and fears. I was hurting all of the time and didn't know what to do. Most of my friends know about my parents' painful divorce and the affect it had on me. Dave and I decided to spend a few days apart on Oct 30th. By the next morning I was beside myself in pain and emotional turmoil. I didn't know what the Lord wanted me to do. I tried to go to work but had to leave because I was crying all the time. I called my bishop and met him at his office late that morning. He counseled with me and I realized that the Lord doesn't talk to us through pain. I realized that Dave was a good man and could make me very happy and we could be a great good in the world and that Satan really didn't want that. I decided at that moment that I would marry Dave but we needed to get engaged NOW. I called him on my way out and asked him to marry me. His response was cute. It was something like "Are you serious?" or "Are you sure?" I don't remember. We made plans to meet in The Woodlands at The Cheesecake Factory after he got done with work. He later called me and said that his dad thought it might be a good idea to get married sooner . . . say Christmas. A long engagement probably wouldn't be good for me considering my issues and I agreed.

That night when I met Dave he told me he forgot his wallet in the car. When we went to it he opened the trunk to balloons and a picture of his YMCA kids holding up the letters to "Will you marry me?" (the pic is in our slide show) and a teddy bear with a ring tied to its finger. He said something sappy I'm sure but I don't remember. It just felt so good to know for sure that he was the one for me.

And he is. We had a beautiful Wedding with almost all of our immediate families there. It was kind of hard to pull it together in 7 weeks but I'm glad we did. We've never looked back. I am still teaching 6th grade and love it most of the time. It's been a little struggle for us putting Dave through school but he will graduate next Christmas and we are looking forward to being able to expand our family sometime soon. We are so grateful for the love we share and the blessings we have. When my bishop counseled me that day he told me that being married isn't easy but that sharing it with someone you love it makes the hardships half as hard and the joys twice as joyful, he was right. I love you David.

Door Decorating Contest

2008-12-19T17:16:00.003-06:00

One of the things my school does to celebrate is have a door decorating contest. I wasn't really going for winning and doing it was really an after thought but I liked it.

The teacher next to me has an 8th grade daughter who attends our school and she had wanted to do this door last year and finally got to do it this year. I thought it was clever having an Einstein Santa.
If I don't get another change to blog before Christmas . . . I hope you all have wonderful holidays. You are a blessing to Dave and I and we are grateful for each of you.

~The Figgins~

2008-12-06T16:08:00.006-06:00

You'd think that seeing as I had a whole week off for Thanksgiving I'd find time to blog but alas . . . my life is boring. Dave and I did have a nice Thanksgiving though. Before we left I really wanted to get our tree set up. We bought it last year at the day after Christmas sales and despite the fact that we have very few ornaments but I think it's pretty cute!

Because it's our tree we have to be nerds and have Star Wars ornaments.

We spent Thanksgiving with Dave's family at his sister Lindsay's house. It was a lot of fun and I'm so happy they were so accomodating for us. I always struggle sleeping away from home so it was nice to have our own room that was quiet. Dave loves playing with his nephews and Gabe is kind of funny. He likes to line things up like he did with cars on David's tummy. He also lined up the window stickys later in the week.

On Friday we went and worked off some of our food by playing volleyball. Dave's parents watched the kids so we were free to kick butt and we did . . . at first. Then we got tired and sucked. We had fun though and I was mostly glad to be active after all that sitting and eating. My stomach had been achy but volleyball did the trick. We went home on Saturday morning and we were so glad to have time to ourselves before heading back to the daily grind.

Missing the Cold

2008-11-24T08:58:00.002-06:00

I am missing the cold weather this week. We've had a few days of cold mornings and I love being able to put a jacket and a scarf on to head to work. I sometimes even needed gloves. Yesterday I had to turn the AC back on and it was SO depressing. I just miss cold weather. People think I'm crazy but I grew up around people who were happy with what we had and that was snow. Consequently I love snow. It's so sad not to have that to look forward to. I just look forward to the cold weather and snuggling with my husband. Sigh . . . . Happy Thanksgiving all! If you have snow for Thanksgiving be grateful! Some of us don't have that blessing.

Need to write, nothing to say

2008-11-16T18:58:00.002-06:00

Life is pretty boring around here. I shouldn't say really boring because I love my life but it's not very noteworthy. Today was our Primary Program and I am getting really tired of my Sunbeam class. 3 and 4 year olds are so frustrating. They are great during regular Sunday classes but sitting on the stage for everyone got them too rowdy and they can't be reasoned with the way my neice Karin could be reasoned with (sometimes) at that age. The beauty is that for the most part they know how to act right and if their next teacher expects as much from them as I did they should be great.

School is the same old thing. The 6th grade assistant principal is dealing with some health issues and has been out since our open house. Some people like it without her and not having so many expectations but I hate it. The kids are more unruly and I don't feel as supported without her. I really miss her and maybe not really the things she does but just knowing she's there and that she knows that I work hard. I'm so glad I didn't change schools for this year because it is so nice being in the 3rd year on the same curriculum. I'm not fabulous at it but it makes for less stress and when I get ahead I can worry more about the students and helping myself be mentally healthy. I have my down days and Dave will attest to that but I seem to get out of ruts faster because I am comfortable where I am over all.

My personal ruts lately have been cause by all of the turmoil with people against the church since the elections. I have always been happy to just avoid confrontation but it seems that isn't an option anymore. I can't say I'm a fence sitter because my beliefs are firm but I have always been happy to know what I know, say my peace then live and let live. It makes me sad that people are so hateful towards other people who exercised their political rights. All I know is that the only way to live a happy life is to listen to the promptings of the spirit and follow them regardless of how people respond. The line has been drawn and through time in prayer we will weather the storm knowing that the Lord is on our side as long as we stay Christlike but firm in our stance. Nothing that was really worth it was ever easy and with the Lord on my side I will always have comfort and peace.

Getting Sick

2008-11-02T14:48:00.002-06:00

So after finally joining stake choir for stake conference this year here I am at home sick. No singing at stake choir for me. I had a very stressful end to the week at work and think my body was already getting sick but today I seem to have a slight fever.

Last week at school was homecoming . . . for middle school! I thought it was VERY lame to do that in middle school but I did try to participate. We had a pep rally and the kids behaved admirably. I was so proud of them. Past 6th graders have had some huge issues with assemble type events but our kids were able to show pep but not get crazy. I was pretty happy.

I was also identified as someone with older brothers by my ability to give in nice punch in the arm when being teased. It went a little something like this.
Me: Giving odd signals to my students at the pep rally to remind them to sit.
Brian: Making odd gestures to mock me behind my back.
Me: Turning and taking a couple of jabs at his shoulder.
Brian: "You got older brothers or something? You sure hit like you do."
Me: "Four. OLDER."
I should mention that Brian is built a lot like my brothers but with a bigger gut so he inspires me to treat him like a brother. I don't generally go around hitting people at work.

Hope everyone had an enjoyable Halloween. For Dave and I it was a special day being the 2nd anniversary of the day we got engaged. When I got to school I remembered that 2 years ago on the same day I was in a pretty bad state trying to figure out if the bad feelings I felt were inspiration or not. It was a day that I will never forget. It started off terribly but ended up being one of the happiest days of my life. I am so happy that I had a bishop who helped me discern the Lord's will and for a sister who helped me realize that just getting the ring on my finger was half the battle. Mostly I am happy that I found someone who loved me as much as I loved him. To have finally found someone with whom I wasn't the only one working at the relationship. I know he is the best match for me and I love him more today than I did 2 years ago. Happy engagement anniversary Baby.

Working in Education

2008-10-25T06:21:00.003-05:00

I really wish I could sleep in on the weekends. My body gets so used to getting up early that I just wake up by 5:40 every day! Ouch.

This week has been pretty good. I gave my students their first real test and it went okay for some and really bad for a samll group. I recently decided that even if I use the pre-made tests at school I will divide them into objective so that I can figure out if the student didn't get it over all or if it is certain concepts that are giving them trouble. It's definitely a lot of work but If I can find the time it will help me know what kinds of assignments to give to each student to make sure that they understand the material before they leave my class at the end of the year. I think it's very idealist to think that I will be able to do all of this but I'm going to try. If nothing else at least I can say that I am attempting to do data driven instruction which is one of the domains of the new teacher evaluations in my district.

I'm trying to just do what is expected but I just can't see how the education system has decided that after all of the time and energy teachers put in to try their best to help kids understand with just basic teaching that it is now my fault if they don't get it. Sometimes it is but sometimes it has more to do with the level of effort of the student. I'll do what I have to do to try to help kids succeed but I get really concerned that if I am constantly the one making sure that the kids understand the material and to pass the test . . . when do children become accountable for themselves and their own learning? When do they try to see what they are having difficulty with and ask for help? And if after all I can do they still don't get it am I to be blamed by the system? Just things that worry me about my job.

Over all my students seem to work better for me this year. I already have some kids who I know hate me (which I really don't mind except for the fact that I wish they'd see it has more to do with them than me) and some kids that love me which I always count as a bonus and don't necessarily expect. I'm starting to be very thankful that the Lord didn't get me a job at a school closer to home like I wanted. I have a reputation at my school and I see new teachers struggling with behavior management more than I do and I know it has more to do with time than talent. I am very grateful that the Lord takes control in my life because my decisions wouldn't always make me happy.

Afternoon Naps & Babies

2008-10-19T17:14:00.003-05:00

So I used to love my afternoon naps. Not so much anymore. I really like taking them and my sweet husband is kind enough to let me sleep but I sleep a little too long. Then my going to sleep Sunday night is restless. I seem to do fine on Mondays so the lack of sleep at night isn't causing too much of an issue but I wish I could get over my desire/need for Sunday afternoon naps.

Dave and I hung out with a friend in our ward this weekend. She has a newborn and a little girl and we had such a blast. Her daughter is SO cute! She calls me Miss Jill and my husband Mr. Dave which is too cute! Both Dave and I got chances to rock the baby to sleep. It was awesome and we're just in love with babies. We're looking forward to when it's our turn to have our own. We know it's not all sunshine and roses but we'll take it when it comes. For now we're doing okay with our Sunday afternoon naps.

Thanks Mom

2008-10-17T17:17:00.006-05:00

Interesting week. Open house went well and as much as I don't really like talking to parents (I really don't know what to say especially if their kid is a good kid) it was nice to meet parents. Some of the conferences were very insightful. One parent was very down on her child and it helped me understand why he is often so negative. He also has a very tough background and I am finding that I have a lot of kids this year with difficult backgrounds. I do every year but every year it breaks my heart to hear the new stories. It makes me very grateful for what I have and for the fact that, even though my upbringing wasn't what it should have been, it wasn't bad. No death, no abuse, no one had to take me from my home and I am more appreciative than I can say.

Thanks, Mom. You gave me all the best!

Open House

2008-10-09T17:07:00.003-05:00

Who knew life got more stressful after you left college?!?! We have open house at school on Monday and our principal has a lot of really great ideas to make it an effective use of time for all involved. We are going to have tables for each family of teachers that we'll decorate (which I'm helping out on). We'll meet with most parents there but we are also scheduling conferences with parents of our difficult students. It'll be really nice because we can knock them all out in one day (the conferences not the parents) where it would normally take a week or more to find time before or after school to meet.

Back to the tables . . . at the tables each family of teachers had to make a newsletter giving information on what is going on in each core class. We'll hand them out to parents with their student's report card. I finally finished it today (late) after trying hard to work with a computer illiterate co-worker and scrambling to remind teachers to submit SOMETHING to the newsletter then finally telling the co-worker I just needed to finish it myself.

We (and by we I mean I) also needed to make business cards to hand out to parents with the newsletter so they have our email addresses to contact us. Notice a running theme here? That would be me doing all of these things. I really enjoy doing things to help out and serve others but I'm pretty sure I'm one of about 2 people in a group of 7 teachers who is working at this. We're all busy and I'm behind on lesson plans and grading but am still working to get it done. Sometimes I feel like people don't understand that busy or not it has to get done so just do it. Because I see the world that way I end up doing a lot of work that ought to be delegated more evenly. It's usually things I enjoy but it stresses me out because I don't have as much down time (and actual time) as I need.

Sigh . . . this blog is a lot of complaining and I'm not saying I'm super man here but I'd really be a lot happier if people would A-pitch in and help get the necessary things done and B-learn to use a stinkin' microsoft publisher template so that I didn't have to feel obligated to volunteer because I'm the only one with the skills to get it done!

All done . . . the next blog will be happy I swear.

P.S. I am in love with (my husband and) not having chinchillas anymore. No more poop kickin'!

No Chinchillas for Us

2008-10-04T08:58:00.006-05:00

After Hurrican Ike I realized that I'm not really into having the chinchillas anymore. We had discussed getting rid of them around the time we would start having kids but after the heat in the apartment proliferated the smell I couldn't take it. I already had someone who wanted them so after today we are no longer pet owners and I am really happy about that.

Conversely I am kind of sad because they are cute and sweet and fun. I just don't want the huge cage and the huge mess anymore. I'm feeling a little guilty for not wanting to deal with them anymore. I'll get over it.

I wrote the above this morning and we took the chinchillas to their new home today. The family seems to be really into pets so I think they will be well loved. Knowing that helps ease the bit of sadness. I'm now just excited for the time I'll have to keep my home cleaner because I don't have to clean out the chinchilla cage weekly anymore! Yeah.

Sharing Talents

2008-09-30T17:35:00.013-05:00

Shortly after Dave and I were married he got a job at a craft store. He got a broken corner-shelf-type thing and told me he was going to remake it. He finished it for a gift for me for Christmas and it was beautiful.

Then he realized that he liked woodworking and was good at it. He made himself a nightstand and me one to match it.

So now he is on to building us a new entertainment center unit. We go down to Dave's parents' house most weekends and he works on it with his dad. We currently have a huge unit that doesn't fit our TV and a small one that we set our TV onto and put our Xbox into. We wanted something that was the right proportions to put our DVD's and stereo into as well. The beautiful thing was that we designed it and my clever and talented husband is building it (yeah, I know I'm mushy. Just remember we haven't been married 2 years yet ;). Once it is done we can get rid of the other two and we can have space to breathe in the living room.

I mentioned before that I did some card stamping during the hurricane. Last weekend Dave's mom was nice enough to get out her stamping stuff before work so that when I came I could do some stamping while Dave worked. Here are a few that I did this weekend.

I am pretty proud of how cute they turned out. Considering my beginner skill.

Other than that life is pretty much back to normal. Our fridge is starting to get stocked again and I just got a new student with a weird name . . . note to parents out there; If you have a verb as a last name (like Baker) do not give your child and adjective as a first name (like Happy). The actual name is so much worse than that and despite how bad I feel for this child it does get me smiling on a slow day.

Insanity of recovery.

2008-09-24T16:30:00.001-05:00

Dave's parents finally have power back (yeah) and so does most of the area. Despite the fact that some areas where I have students still don't have power, we are starting school again tomorrow. We had a "meeting" day today that basically consisted of lots of time with staff to decompress about what we've been through. I was so grateful to a principal who saw the need for that and didn't give us a lot to do.

Anyway . . . I'm kind of nervous to get students back. We discussed that we don't know what will be walking through the door tomorrow. Some kids have been babysitting the entire time. Some kids don't have homes anymore. Some kids may not have eaten since they left school almost 2 weeks ago. We're not teaching tomorrow but have activities planned where the kids can have some time to get back into the groove while having their own chance to decompress from their experiences over the past 2 weeks. At the end of next week I will be turning in pretty bogus grades because I haven't really had many academic assignments in class but we're not going to alter any schedules because there's really no way to make it all up and right now we are operating under the assumption that we will not have to make up the days lost. I hope we don't . . . .

In all of this I have found out that I am a pretty chill person. A lady I teach with is freaking out about how to fit in the stuff we missed and keeps bugging about what are we going to do. I'm not really that concerned. I'll figure it out as I go and I will find time to teach everything. What's the big deal? Maybe it's because I'm pretty good at altering my plans to go along with whatever happens (due to growing up in a large family) I don't really know but today I am grateful that I am kind of chill. I never thought that I was but I guess compared to some I am.

Thanks for keeping up with me. Check out my slideshow! I think if you click on it you'll be taken to the site and you can see that captions that explain them.

Ike

2008-09-22T20:35:00.000-05:00

Sometime Wednesday evening or Thursday morning it became certain that hurricane Ike would be striking Galveston and probably the greater Houston area. The Mayor called for some evacuations and recommended that local businesses that carried out non-essential functions be closed on Friday to allow the roadways to be clear for evacuation. We all remembered what happened with hurricane Rita in 2005 when the roads where jammed with people trying to get out. I definitely remembered it. My 45 minute trip from Hambrick to Conroe, where I was living with Bonnie and Jason, turned into a 6 hour drive.

With evacuations clogging my route home I decided to call Dave and have him pack some clothes for me and meet me at his parents’. I didn’t have to take any major roads and we’d probably have decided to weather the storm there anyway. Staying with Dave’s parents is something we both enjoyed anyway and Dave’s brother Doug had just come home from Idaho too.

We spent the next day preparing the house and helping others prepare for the hurricane that looked like it was definitely headed for us.

The night of the hurricane Dave and I stayed in one of the guest rooms at Dave’s parents’ house. Sometime between 1 and 2 in the morning the gusts of wind began to shake the window above our bed so that every gust was accompanied by “BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG.” It must have been a combination of windows hitting each other and the blinds. During that time we lost and regained power a few times before it finally went out altogether. I got up around 2 and wandered the house to see what the storm was doing. It was definitely wicked windy outside. Around 2:30 Dave sat up and we looked out the window. He mentioned that it looked like the window was being sucked in between gusts. We decided to try to find some place else to sleep. We tried the game room but it was still pretty darn loud up there too. So we got Dave’s brother, Doug, who was sleeping in the game room and we went downstairs with intentions of going into Dave's parents' closet to sleep (the largest windowless room in the house). His parents were sleeping so well and it was so much quieter downstairs that we decided to sleep in the living room. We slept a bit restlessly but heck . . . there was a hurricane raging outside. It was also nice to be able to look out the windows and see what was happening each time I woke up.

Around 7:30 Dave’s parents got up and we looked out and the storm seemed to be weakening. We did a little assessment before they all decided to go back to bed. I was really into reading Eclipse so I stayed up in places that I could find light to read. Around 9:30 a man in Dave’s parents’ ward came by on his bike. He’d been around to the ward members in the neighborhood to see how everyone was. I have to say I thought it quite amusing that anyone would ride their bike in that. The second half of the storm was a lot rainier than the windy first half.

When everyone got up later that morning (Saturday the 13th) we got Dave’s parents generator running in order to keep the fridges and freezer cooling. We also jimmy rigged some plastic and some window AC units into the living room windows in order to have a comfortable place to sleep (it was still pretty moist and warm outside). Most of the day we put things back to normal and Gary (Dave's dad) and Doug helped folks in the neighborhood clear trees from the road. We had a nice evening playing Cities and Knights of Catan by candle light and went to bed in the living room. In the middle of the night the generator stopped working. Gary tried to work on it twice in the middle of the night with no improvement. He decided to try again when it was light and he could see. When we got up Sunday morning they realized that although the generator’s motor was running there was no electricity. After we realized nothing was fixing it, Dave and Doug decided they would drive toward Brenham and then toward San Antonio looking for a fuse a new generator. We also called Dave’s sister Lindsay and asked her to start looking for a generator in San Antonio.

When they were gone I talked to my brother Steve on the phone and we talked about ways to bypass the fuse to see if that was really the problem. Gary and Steve talked and after some testing of the generator it became clear that something else electrical was wrong with the generator that we couldn’t fix and we needed a whole new one. At that point we were talking to Lindsay and she told us the chances of getting generator didn’t look good. She kept looking and was lucky enough to get one of 4 generators at a store nearby. She made plans to meet up with the boys. Meanwhile D’Ann (Dave's mom) and I started working on getting some of the meat into her friend’s running freezer to keep it from spoiling and we decided to do some card stamping. It was a long day because it was pretty warm still and Dave and Doug had a hard time getting back due to heavy traffic. When they finally got back it was cooling off outside but we were very grateful that we had the generators running to keep the rest of the food in the freezer and fridges from spoiling.

After the hurricane was like any other storm recovery. I found out that the eye passed right over Conroe so we were likely close to the eye if not within it down at Dave's parents. The boys helped folks clean up trees that had come down and we did our best to work with gas to run stoves and some running water (not clean) in order to get through daily life. I came to be very grateful for power to make my life easier and more entertaining. We played games to keep ourselves entertained and hooked up Gary’s laptop in the evenings to watch a movie before bed. Mostly we were very blessed with nice cool weather and were able to enjoy being outside. Not having to run the AC much also made it easier to do things like laundry with the power that the generator gave us.

During all this we assessed damage at Dave’s parents. They had a few cracked windows in the game room. A tree almost down in the back yard and some water seepage in the dining room that was probably cause by some rotting in the front wall of the house. We considered ourselves lucky. One family near Dave’s parents had a roof that began leaking VERY badly. A family in our ward in Conroe had 3 trees come into their house and a pipe was broken that caused some severe water damage.

Power is slowly being restored to all of the areas in Houston. Dave and I got power in our apartment at the same time as most of Conroe, on Thursday, and came home to get ourselves ready for life to start again. Our apartment had no damage. We had lots of food we had to rebuy since it spoiled without power to keep our refrigerator going (luckily the management of our apartment came and cleaned it out for us). We also needed to clean up our apartment. It smelled very musty without airflow for almost a week.

Unfortunately Dave’s parents are still without power even though some areas near them do (We were able to go out to eat two times before we came back to Conroe). We are hoping for them to get power back soon.

That's all for us here. That was really lengthy and probably boring. Sorry . . . my first blog and I feel like I'm writing and English paper (poorly).