Julie’s Journal

We woke up to snow this morning…7 inches!  What!?  It WAS nice to have our Spring Break extended by one more day…and I’m looking at only 3 days of teaching this week.  That’s a nice way to ease back into the routine.

Today wasn’t such a great day.  I don’t know what it is, but my kids were like trying to eat all day.  By about 4 I decided it had to be because they were bored.  They were also fighting a lot.  Well, he have been spending a lot more time together this last week, I guess.  Anyway…after they have consumed half of the snacks and stuff I bought for lunches this week, I closed the kitchen…no more food till Dinner.  And I started giving them jobs to do. They were kind of motivated since we got back on track with the Dave Ramsey way of working for money to GIVE, SAVE & SPEND.  But it was hard to make them do a good job.

We did dye our Easter Eggs today.  I actually did half of them.  It just isn’t the same.  They don’t care about decorating them, they just want to eat them.  I suppose it will just get less important to them.  It’s kind of sad.

I also got paint out today for them to do a painting.  Savannah did a cute fairy picture…Karson painted something about firemen or robbers or something…Max just played and made designs and stuff.  It was really funny.  Karson wanted to PAINT his egg with watercolors.  It is actually really cute.   I thought it was funny that he wanted to be different.

I told you I’d post my pages from the Scrapbook Weekend I went to last weekend, so here they are.  They are from Jasmin’s album.

I know…7 pages isn’t much…but I spent Friday evening and some of Sat. morning preparing for the workshops that I taught in the afternoon on saturday.  And after I taught them, I slept until dinner…so really…I only worked on MY scrapbook for about 8 hours all together ( I’m guessing.)

The last page I really love.  I made 3 pockets, with notes that slip out.  The first one tells about how Jasmin was named after our babysitter Jasmin (aka MIMI), the last one is about her and how she is important to our family, and on the middle one I have asked Jasmin to write a note to baby Jasmin about her.  I actually would like to make a page like this for each of our kid’s albums and have her do the same for them. I asked her to think about what she might like to write.  I think it would be so special for them.  She has been so much a part of their lives the past 5 years.  I know they will enjoy looking back at something like that when they grow older and perhaps won’t see her as often.

…I think I’ve kind of developed a theme with color, embellishments and techniques in this scrapbook of Jasmin’s.  I really like the unified way it looks compared to my other album…where the pages are designed around the event.  You should see some of my old albums.  Too funny, yet, I love to look through them.  They are so different than what I do now.  You can see how I went through phases of materials and design.  Interesting (to me) to compare all the albums.  I have finished 1 wedding album, 1 album of a trip to Florida, 2 baby albums of Savannah’s, a college album (me) and 2 Sam and Julie scrapbooks (1990-2000).  UNFINISHED:  Karson’s (left off at 3 wks), Max’s (left off at 6 mos.), Jasmin’s (about 3 weeks done), & Savannah’s from age 3-9!, a super cute ABC album I started when Savannah was 3, and another Durocher family album that ends at 2002 and only has about 17 pages in it.  I really do like to scrapbook.  I should do it more often.  I have a friend that does 30 pages in one day!!!  That’s not me.  We approach scrapbooking from two totally different views.  I really think mine out.  Envision it in my mind, sometimes sketch the design.  I have a lot of layering.  I coordinate colors.  I often add embellishments and draw/doodle on my pages to enhance the design of the page.   It’s more of a work of art by the time I am through, I’m afraid.  Which doesn’t work well for me in getting anywhere with these unfinished albums.  But I enjoy it when I get the chance to work on them (over the past few years it has only been 1-4 times a year).  What I really should do is instead of blogging about it, get up and go clean up my room so I can set up my scrapbook stuff to do some more pages.  Yeah.  But it’s now midnight, so maybe tomorrow.

In an effort to get drawing more…I have revisited the Everyday Matters Group drawing challenges.  I have done several of these in the past…but it’s been a long time.  These are weekly challenges – drawing from life.  View the complete and weekly updated list here.

I had to sit in Professional Development meetings all day today.  One of the “perks” of being a teacher!

Thanks to Jackson County ISD for providing the Post-it Note.

And by the way, just in case you are wondering, I know my archives do not work with this template.  Sam has promised me he will work on it.  But, currently, he is spending extra time that he has working on email issues at work…so it might be a little longer.  In the mean time…(and I have no idea why this works – though I am sure there is a technical reason) but this link takes you to my blog on my old template…where you can access the archives – and my Flickr albums.

It’s been crazy around here the past two weeks.  Here’s a recap of our life lately.

We pulled Karson out of Young Fives and moved him to Kindergarten at Max and Savannah’s school.  Now we have both the boys in Kindergarten right next door to each other.  Anyway, he’s happy and we are happy and it solved our day care issue with him, since it’s all day K.  Now we only have to pay for Jasmin…it cuts our childcare costs in half.

Kindergarten is going better.  The first day was awful, but each day it gets easier.  I’m figuring stuff out and enjoying it more.  The afternoon goes by so fast, it’s crazy.  One thing about half day kindergarten…I don’t know how you are supposed to fit everything in!  I really like my class.  They are a good group of kids.  We have fun, and I think maybe most of them love me.  One little boy gives me a hug and tells me he loves me everyday.  So cute!

Here’s a picture of my class and their flags that they made last week.

Our camper is still sitting in our driveway after four weeks!  I have barely touched it except to get things we needed out.  Though tonight, I did clean out the refrigerator because we unplugged it for a while this afternoon.

I totally forgot until Thursday that today is Karson’s birthday.  What kind of mom forgets to plan a party for their kid’s 5th birthday!?  I feel terrible.  It is going to be very hard to have a party now anytime close to his birthday because our family has so much going on this week.  Luckily he doesn’t really care that much.  I was going to plan a party at Fun For all Kids.  We did Max’s party there and it was so easy.  But he just wants it at home.  Last year we had a big party with an army theme, so I guess this year would be his year for just a family party anyway.  I think we are kind of planning for Thursday night.

Tuesday is Penny’s memorial service.  I am kind of looking forward to it, but then kind of anxious to get past it.  It’s been kind of strange having so much time pass between her death and her memorial service.  Sam has been working on putting together a slideshow of her, but we wish we had more pictures of her…we don’t even have enough for a whole song.  That was the thing about Penny.  She was always helping behind the scenes, serving people and ministering to them…it seems that she avoided the camera at most of our family celebrations because of that.

This weekend we took Pirate Island out to flavor fruit farms.  My nephew Josiah wanted it for his birthday and so we had the party out there.  Because we came out there for free, Meckley’s gave us all the perks of a party…free hayride, doughnuts and cider, walk through the corn maze and free tickets for the inflatable.  The kids had a blast and our shows were really fun.  It was a beautiful day and the kids were all great.  We were tired though and Sam is sick this weekend, so it was a lot more work for me tearing down.  We pulled out right as Laura the elephant was pulling in to our spot.  Perfect timing.

I’m writing this at 2 in the morning.  When we got home I took the kids upstairs and gave them all baths/showers…but trying to get them in bed was challenging. You know how kids love to stall…and I just had no patience…so I came down and asked Sam to finish putting them to bed and Jaz and I layed on the couch with a bottle and fell asleep for a few hours.  So now I am wide awake.  I put the roast in the crockpot and got it cooking for lunch and did some laundry, wrote some emails and updated my school’s website.  Now I think I am ready to go back to sleep.  I don’t know if we’ll go to church tomorrow…it’s always weird going without Sam.  He’s staying home and hoping to get some extra rest.

Wow! It’s been a crazy couple of weeks! School got out on Tuesday – the 10th. It was a great day! Wednesday we had professional development and had a blast on the last day with Mr. Bosio, our principal who is retiring. Thursday, I went to school with Savannah and Max because they had field day. We had a great time. Friday I spent the day cleaning my rooms and moving stuff to the other building (where I will be teaching at next year). Savannah came along to help and also, Heather, my SAU student who has been helping me out so much this semester. She was awesome! I will miss her. We got everything done by 3:30! Which is amazing…for all that had to be done. Saturday we drove up to Sundance and bought our new truck and then hurried back for Max’s birthday party/father’s day celebration with Sam’s dad. We ended up waiting in the Sundance lounge for about an hour! The kids were complaining – and I don’t blame them…the air conditioning was broken and there was nothing interesting in the lounge except a popcorn maker that popped us some free popcorn. I finally asked the secretary for some paper and pen so the kids could draw…but I ended up drawing this picture of baby Jasmin sitting on the floor with the pink hi-lighter she gave us. It was a busy day, but fun. Sunday went by way to fast! Then all week last week I had to go through MLPP training. It was pretty good and even though it took a lot of time…I am glad I had the opportunity to get that training before fall. Then this weekend, Max had a birthday party with his friends at Fun For All Kids. It was the easiest birthday party ever. Four of his little friends from his class came…the adults just sat and talked while the boys ran around and played. We had cake and Max opened presents and passed out the loot bags and then it was time for everyone to leave. It was great. Savannah spent the afternoon with her best friend, and it was just a fun day. Today was the first day for me to paint the show. We had some friends offer to let me paint it in their pole barn. It’s really nice. Good lighting, too, which is important for painting a mural. The trailer is 23 feet and there is another 4 foot piece that is going to be attached to the top. I will paint it separate and then we will attach it when it’s done. If you look at our Flickr pictures you can see the progress I made on it today. I only was there about 5 hours…and part of that time was spent washing the trailer and then taping it off. I was a little discouraged when Sam came over around 6:00…but I am feeling better about it tonight. I will not be able to paint again till Thursday, probably. Tomorrow I have to go to Hillsdale for a class and then Wednesday we take the kids to mom and dad’s for the rest of the week. They are super excited about going. We are keeping baby Jasmin with us. Jasmin will watch her during the day and then Sam at night when needed if I am painting late. We’ll see. Check back toward the end of the week. I will take my camera next time so I can get some better pics. Sorry for the crappy camera-phone picture.

Karson woke me up at 6:45 this morning…I was planning on sleeping in…but most likely I would have been up anyway because I feel a little sick this morning.  I am sure it was probably something I ate that is bothering me.  I haven’t actually been eating very well the past few days.

Last  night I helped out at the 5th grade girls lock in.  It was fun.  There were four other teachers.  The girls were  crazy, like 5th graders can be, and they were getting each other freaked out about someone dressed in black outside…something I am sure was made up by one of them to scare the others.  Anyway, we ate, made crafts…the girls did a scavenger hunt and we played dodge-ball.  I seriously have not played that since I was in elementary school!  It was fun.  I wasn’t very good at it…but I had a great time.  We had some kind of vinyl or leather covered foam balls…they didn’t hurt.  When I was a kid we played with those red gym balls…you know what kind of balls I am talking about, don’t you?  Those babies hurt!

While I was at the lock in, Sam took Karson and Jasmin to his sister, Shelly’s house to hang out.  Almost every time I go away, he ends up going over there with the kids.  I am sure Shelly helps out with the baby, so that probably makes it easier for  him.  Savannah and Max went with their Aunt Sherry for the weekend.  I guess they are going to a dog show today.  Anyway, while Karson was at Aunt Bean’s (Shelly), she gave him a McFlurry maker.  Apparently it had gotten picked up by Sam’s dad at a garage sale or something…she didn’t want it, so Karson brought it home.  Only it’s missing the directions – and the mix.  Karson assures me that when he was a baby he saw the McFlurry mix at Walmart, though.  So we may head over there later to see what we can find.  I googled it and found this hilarious review on the McFlurry maker. I probably can reproduce the mix…since it’s most likely just sugar or something.  And if I can figure out how to put it together, I might be able to do it…it’s just a mini (and I mean mini) ice cream maker.  So anyway, apparently even though Karson went to sleep after 11:00 last night, he was up early because he was thinking about his “new” McFlurry maker.  He doesn’t even want breakfast.  He’s a strange kid.  So I told him I’d go up and take my shower and the two of us plus baby Jasmin would go up to Walmart and see what we could find.  Then we’d go over to my friend’s neighborhood garage sales and then  come back home and we’ll see about making the ice cream.

Later on today, we have a graduation open house to go to, and then Jasmin (Mimi) is coming over to be with the kids while we go to the Lugnuts game.  One of my pricipals is retiring and wanted an event not a party, so we chartered a bus with Jackson Trippers and we are all going up to hang out at the Lugnuts game.  It will be fun, I am sure.  It looks like it will turn out to be a pretty nice day too.  Plus, there are fireworks after the game!