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Shauna
So, apparently Sam can't go any length of time without a broken bone. Sigh. He broke his wrist on Thursday playing tag. He jumped to miss getting tagged and fell backwards. AJ took him to the doc the next morning. Broken again. Orange cast this time. Good thing I wasn't there or I would have made him get pink! This kid must have extra soft bones. Of course it is his writing hand, but thankfully all of his teachers are working with him. Ok, Sam, really, enough is enough.
Avery started 2nd grade! I can't believe it. He will have a great year with his new teacher, although he misses his fabulous 1st grade teacher. :) He was spoiled.
Sam started Middle School! I REALLY can't believe that! I don't have a picture because he had a tough morning, but his day went great and he is loving it now. Whew!
I also started "unofficially" student teaching. Technically, I don't start for a couple weeks, but I went ahead and started on my own so I could meet all the kids and see how to run the classroom the first few weeks of school. I love my 3rd grade class already! Can't wait to meet Kindergarten!
I also got my first apple from one of my third graders today. So cute! She is so sweet. Love her. Awww, little kids rock!
I have a thousand things to do. I forget how I got everything done last year and I had to throw in school on top of that. I will get back in teh groove soon, but for now, I will keep this short and sweet.
Bye bye!
So we have had a crazy, busy last two weeks.
First came Sam's party. That week I was gone almost every night doing something or other so I didn't get to get ready for his party until the day before. If you remember, he was having a Harry Potter party at the theater for the last movie. We could not wait! We (or should I say I) went all out for this party, but it was worth it, and was so much fun. We had 25 people at the party and it was opening day so we were all so excited.
Sam doesn't like cake that much so he requested brownies. I didn't want to do plain, old brownies, so instead I made these. 
Wizard Hat brownie cakes. They were cute. Not too hard to make, but it did take a lot of time. Sooo chocolatey. Yum.
Then I wanted to do party favors that related to the movies, so I made these. 
They are chocolate frogs. They were cute and really looked like little frogs. Much better in real life than in teh picture. I don't know if they were good though because I never had one. I made hald dark chocolate and half milk chocolate.
And lastly, I made these. 
I got 40 flavor Jelly Belly beans, put them in the bag, and made my own label. each bag also had a chocolate surprise, which were the chocolate frogs. They were wrapped in foil, so you couldn't tell what they were. These were my favorite part of the party. They looked so good and real. Loved it!
Anyway, we had a great time, the movie was great (can't believe they are over!), and Sam is 11 years old! Woah!
So since we moved in to this house, 6 years ago, I have been one by one changing the rooms and making them more grown up. :) All of our furniture was cheap Wal-mart stuff from when we first got married 13 years ago. It was crap and I hated it. I finally decided I had to do something about it. I couldn't stand it anymore. I had two rooms left, the music/piano room, and the office. So I searched all month for the perfect furniture. Boy, is that hard to do. I had specific stuff in mind, so finding them for the right price and exactly what I wanted was difficult. We went to several different stores and almost decided to build them ourselves, but then I was lucky and found the best furniture store ever! They carried the exact furniture I wanted, for half the price of the name brand store, and got it here in 4 days! Amazing! So my office is transformed! YEA!!!!!! Also, this week, we built (mostly I built with AJ's help thrown in here and there) a corner storage cabinet. We built it in like 3 days. It would have taken way less, but it is so hot here, we had to wait until 9:00 at night to go to the garage and build it. Anyway, it is FABULOUS. I love everything about it and it fits in the room perfectly. Almost looks like a built in. Yea for building cheap, better quality, perfect furniture yourself!!!!
Here it is before accessories and after. I need more decorations, but haven't gotten that far yet.
Here is the whole room. It isn't quite finished yet, but it's a start and WAY better than what we had.
I am so proud of the room and love every piece in it. Really, I could leave it like it is and be happy, but a few more things here and there will really make the room. We also finished the piano room besides art and decorations, but realized I haven't taken a picture, and the office far surpasses that room, so I am in love with it at the moment. My whole downstairs is exactly what I wanted. It's all cute and nice and all of it is REAL wood, not plywood or MDF and should last a long, long time. :) SOOO happy! Now, on to the upstairs.... We did all this in one week. Craziness, but worth it. :)
I also had a Thirty-one gifts party last night. It was fun, the stuff is so cute, and I get some good stuff, and got to show off my new room. :)
Tomorrow starts the getting ready for school process. I am going to help teachers get their rooms ready this week. Next week is a half day of school to meet the teachers and then the next week they start full time, which means I start full-time as a student teacher! Ahhhhhhh!Two week until real-life sets back in. Sigh....
Now onto July. I will get caught up on this blogging thing, just in time to fall back off once school starts again. My poor family journal is suffering.
Our 4th of July was good. We had our cul de sac neighbors over, Lindsay and fam, and our friend Robin and her little boy. We grilled, played a game, ran through the sprinkler, and the guys played a game of basketball. It was a nice day. Yea for cul de sacs!
The 6th was Sam's birthday. He is 11! Unbelievable! He's so big! It's weird. AJ said yesterday that he will be in High School in just 3 years and driving in 5. That is tooooo soon! He is having a big party on Friday for the opening of Harry Potter. Each year we give the boys the option of either having a birthday party where they get 2 presents from us, or no party, and we take the money we would spend on a party and get all the presents. So, Sam chose a party this year. It will be fun and we can't wait to see the movie!
For his birthday he got a basketball goal. isn't it funny that our short little munchkin family has a basketball goal. Well, we do, and we love it! He also got a cell phone. Yes, I know, he's 11! You would be amazed at how many 3rd graders already have a phone though! We did not want to do it and were totally against it for a long time. He has asked for more than a year. We said no way. He is always with me, why does he need his own. Well, then I realized that he will be at a different school, I will be working, he will have extracurriculars, etc. I still was against it, but finally after several months, I decided it was a good thing with RULES. Plus, I needed a new phone. LOL! He has been very good with it, and hopefully it stays that way. It will make my life earlier, since I won't be around him as much, and can always keep track of him. Also, it is a good consequence for when he gets in trouble. We can just take it away and he won't be able to stand it. Muahaha! We're evil.
Avery had his very first throwing up sickness on Sam's birthday. He was perfectly fine the day before. I was sleeping and just after 8:00 he runs in my room with his hand over his mouth saying he was going to throw up. I told him to go in the bathroom and he made it just in time. He threw up every hour until about 4 o'clock that day. No fever, nothing, just constant throwing up. It was very strange. He is rarely sick (the opposite of Sam) so it was very unusual. The most he ever has is a cold. He made it through it though, without even whining. Woohoo! Poor kid. I felt bad for him, especially on a day that should have been fun. Thankfully, Sam got his phone so he was occupied with that and didn't care that we didn't do anything special. Thankfully, we had gone out to dinner the night before since AJ had to go back to work. No one else got sick, and he was fine the next day. Whew!
He also lost his second tooth the other night. He thinks that is just the coolest thing. The tooth fairy brings 5 quarters for each loose tooth. When I asked him if she had left him anything he said, " Just about a doller in quarters". I said, "Cool! That's great! " He said, "I don't really use quarters for anything!" LOL! I told him quarters were just as good as dollars, and he should use them from now on.
I guess that is about it for last week. I will post party pics sometime next week. Who knows, maybe I will post something before that and actually have 3 posts within several days of each other. Weirdness!
Yeah, I've been bad at this blogging thing! Oh well.
Yea for school being out! I love summer! We are non-planning, go with the flow, lazy summer people. Totally opposite of the rest of our lives!
June went by fast. I can't believe there is less than a month until school starts. Geez!
We went to Holiday World a few weeks ago. Yes, we go every year, and yes we LOVE it there! This was our best trip yet!
We went up on a Monday morning. We planned on leaving about 8:30. We got all packed and loaded up. The boys and I went out to get in the car, when all of a sudden, a bird flew straight into the garage and smacked right into our freezer! It fell down and went underneath the garage stairs. Poor thing was hurt and scared to death. Part of his tail was missing when he flew in, so he must have gotten attacked or stuck in something beforehand. Anyway, I was trying to find him, but all I could hear was his little chirping. I called AJ out and I was on one side of the garage, AJ on the other, trying to find the bird. Finally, he came out enough that AJ could see him, but he was far back under the stairs and we couldn't reach him. AJ moved everything and tried to crawl back there, but couldn't get to him. I started stomping on the stairs, hoping to scare him in the right direction, but he kept flying further and further back, the wrong way! Then all of a sudden, 4 other birds came and were circling outside the garage, screeching for their friend! It was craziness. I finally got the broom and tried to gently push the bird out. AJ had a bucket and we were trying to get the bird to go in the bucket. We tried forever and it was not working. Finally AJ said to just leave the dumb bird. I said no way! We were going to be gone for 3 days and he was going to die! I tried one last time with the broom. I got him to come out, but then we couldn't see where he went. AJ looked down and the bird had flown right into the bucket and we didn't know it! HAHA! Anyway, he took him outside and dumped him out with the rest of his bird family. They all tried to fly away, but that poor little bird crash-landed in the neighbors driveway. I felt bad for it, but what could we do. AJ was very annoyed at the bird and it had messed up all our plans. It took over 30 minutes trying to rescue him. WE cleaned up the garage really fast and were finally on our way. Whew!
We got to Nashville and got stuck in terrible traffic. This was like 9:30 in the morning! Why traffic?! Ugh! We finally got past it and managed to make it to Holiday World without any more trouble.
Since it was a Monday, the park wasn't very busy. Yea! We did some rides, camped out in the water park, and then did some more rides. Avery got to do a ton of water slides for the first time. We played in the wave pool a lot and just had lots of fun. 
We left and went to the hotel. We immediately went to the swimming pool. I hate hotel swimming pools. THey are usually freezing and yucky, with too much chlorine. Not this one! It was the best hotel pool ever! It was warm, we were all alone, and it was great. We had lots of fun and stayed in forever. There was even a hot tub. Yippee! We have a water proof camera, so Sam loved experimenting with underwater shots. :)
We watched a movie before bed and then finally went to sleep. Boy, those boys were wild and crazy and sure tried to get in big trouble that night. Naughty, naughty. The next morning we woke up and it was raining. :( We checked the weather and it looked like rain the whole day. It took a while to decide what to do, but we had already paid for our next day tickets, so we decided to go ahead and go on to the park. It rained the whole way there and was cold. We got there and it was drizzling. Avery and I were freezing, so we went to the gift shop where we looked for sweatshirts or jackets. Um, $40, I don't think so. We decided to suffer. LOL. We rode several rides and then the boys were dying to go to the water park. CRAZY! It was only 66 degrees, but we went. I was sure, they would do one thing and be done, but nope. They rode water slides, rode the wildebeast (the world's best water roller coaster) and then went in the wave pool! I sat there and watched. I was already freezing enough. The good thing was that there were NO lines for ANYTHING! The wave pool did them in though, so we had lunch and then left the water park. By that point, the sun was peeking through the clouds, and it had warmed up some. Sam was tall enough for every ride this year (it's a miracle!) and AJ convinced him to go on the Pilgrim's Plunge (the highest water ride in the world. I LOVE water rides and they don't scare me like roller coasters, but i won't even go on this thing. It is REALLY HIGH!!! You even have to take a log elevator up to the top.I expected him to freak out, but he LOVED it. They were the only ones on the ride, and when they got back down, no one was waiting in line, so they went again! 
We did ALL of rides that day and had a great time with no lines and it was the perfect temperature after the first little bit. Yea!
That night was more hotel swimming and we finished watching out movie. After lots of threats, the boys settled down and went to sleep quickly. Whew! They learned their lesson. :)
The next morning we woke up to rain again! It was our last day, so we went on to the park anyway. There were a few more cars than the day before, but still not busy at all. By the time we got to the park, the sun was out and it was warm. We went straight to the water park where we spent the majority of the day. Yea, my favorite! We had lots of fun and went on tons of slides. We only had to wait a few minutes in the lines and only 20 minutes for the Wildebeast. It was great. When we left the park, we went to the rides and Sam finally decided he would ride the Voyage, which he has been scared of for years. The Voyage is the #1 Wooden Roller Coaster on the planet with one of the steepest drops of any wooden roller coaster. Scary! He went though, and loved it!! So Sam did all the #1 rides on this trip. He was so proud of himself. :) After the coaster, we decided to do our last favorite things and then leave to come home. As we were walking to the rides, I noticed heavy clouds rolling in. I thought to myself, "I hope the rain holds out until we get through with these 2 rides". AJ and Avery went to one ride, while Sam and I went to another. As we were waiting in line, I heard a lady tell another one that her family had told her a bad storm with hail was on the way and quickly. Again, I hoped it would wait until we got off. We finally got loaded on the ride, and the guy was coming around to check everyone's seat belt, when we heard the first clap of thunder. Oh, great! Then over the loud speaker they announced that all the roller coasters would be closing, but the other rides would still operate. Yea! They started the ride and we had fun. The ride was coming to a stop, when the lightning started. They announced over the speaker that ALL rides would then be stopping. We got off the ride just as AJ and Avery walked over. We started walking to the exit and I said, we needed to hurry because hail was coming. Just as I said that it started to rain. We started jogging to the exit, but by the time we got to the ticket booths, it was POURING rain. We stood under the awning for a minute, with everyone else in the park. I then said we should just run because we were already wet and when the rain let up EVERYONE would be leaving at the same time and we would have terrible traffic. So, we started to run and it started to rain harder, and harder, and harder. I couldn't see a thing, we were pretty much running blind. It was CRAZY. We got to the place where the tram picks up people to take them to their car and stopped for a minute. That is when the wind started. It was blowing big barrels over, the wind was going sideways, and it was hard to stay in place. AJ ran on to get the car. As he was running, the wind got even worse and it actually did start moving us! I grabbed on the kids and we were all huddled together holding on tight. AJ pulled the car up as close as he could, but we still had a run to do. We started and so did the hail! OWWWW! All of us were saying, "ow!, Ow!, Ow!" on our run over there. The van has an automatic door so the kids jumped right in and closed the door. Well, I was trying to get my door open, but the wind wouldn't let me! It was blowing so hard it kept slamming shut if I even got it open an inch. I kept wrestling with it and finally got it open enough that I jammed my hip in and slithered in. It then immediately slammed shut. Thankfully, I got my feet in just in time! Yikes! It was WILD. I have never been in a storm like that before! We sat there for a minute, just stunned. We then got out the towels and dried off the best we could, and by the time we finished that, the sun was out and everything had stopped like it never happened! LOL! We got on the road and started the trip back home. Holiday World is in the middle of nowhere. Just a bunch of trees and fields. The storm had caused a TON of debris in the road and trees were down everywhere, so AJ and I were really watching the road ahead. I was sure we would run in to a tree any minute. Suddenly, we came to a break in teh trees and Sam said TORNADO!!!! But we were back in the trees so fast, AJ and I couldn't see anything. I told him it was probably just the clouds, but he said no way, I saw it! Aj and I were trying to convince him it wasn't, when I looked back and saw his face. He had burst in to tears and was terrified!!! At that point, i realized he really might have seen one! I kept looking back trying to see, but the trees were too thick. Darn it! I wanted to see a tornado! LOL! Of course, we couldn't pick up the radio, so we didn't know what was going on. We kept on driving and ran into the same storm 3 times on our trip. We stopped at a gas station about an hour later and changed into dry clothes. We were still soaked! LOL. Craziness! When we got home that night, I checked the weather and 11 tornados were spotted in Indiana that day. of course I don't know the counties, so I don't know if one of them was what Sam saw, but I am willing to bet we were in a tornado and didn't even know it! Anyway, we had a great time, it was the perfect weather, no lines, and we had quite an adventure, so it was fun! We loved this trip. Our favorite yet! 
Avery turned 7 years old last week! Wow! He was sooo excited! He was counting down the days a month in advance. He knew it exactly. He even made himself his own calendar on a little notebook he found.
He woke up on his birthday to presents and blowing out candles. I even brought him lunch at school and spent the afternoon with him. He was loving it. Then.... towards the end of the school day we had terrible storms. We ended up having a tornado warning, which means everyone has to go into the hallway and crouch down with their heads against the wall. We did that for a few minutes and then the power flickered on and off over and over and over. Finally it went out completely. Which made it hot in those hallways. Hundreds of kids, curled into a ball, whining and complaining, in the hotness is not too fun. Wellll, we had to stay that way for an HOUR! In the middle of all that Avery said, "This birthday isn't so fun anymore!" It ended up that a tornado formed right above the school (teachers in the 4th grade hallway and parents outside saw it)! It hit some houses down the road and knocked down tons of trees and fences, but we were all good. We had no power the rest of the day and we got out of school very late! That night we took Lindsay's family and went to IHOP to celebrate his birthday. He was DYING for the restaurant people to sing to him. His wish did not come true, however. :( There were only 2 workers there, they were very busy, and they just couldn't do it. They did at least bring him cake.
The next morning Avery woke up asking what fun thing we were going to do for his birthday that way. I had to break it to him gently that birthday festivities do not happen for a whole week. :)
His party was on Friday. He was DYING to have it on a Friday. This kid knows what he wants!! The present he wanted the very most was an Ipod. I didn't want to get him one! Sam has one and it has the exact same music Avery would want, so WHY would I get him one?? Plus, he is only 7! Why does he need an Ipod. BUT he has been wanting one since his last birthday. Do you know how long a year is for a 7 year old?! LONG! He was DYING and POSITIVE he was going to get one. I finally decided we would get him a fake Ipod (mp3 player)as long as it didn't cost over $30. Welllll, I looked for 2 weeks, but he wanted one with a camera so he could take his own vieos, like Sam did. There aren't any cheap music players with cameras! I spent the whole afternoon before his party, going to SEVERAL, different stores and the cheapest I could find was $70. No way! That night AJ went to get his hair cut. Right before bed, Avery got soooo excited. I asked him why and he said, "I can't wait to get my Ipod tomorrow!!!" Ummmmm. I asked him why he thought he was getting one. He was sure someone at the party would be bringing one as a present!!! I then had to gently explain to him how party presents don't cost more than $20 usually and that no one at the party would be bringing him one. He BURST into tears!!! I have never seen him do that before! It was terrible! He said, "But it's the ONLY thing I want. I have wanted it FOREVER! I have been waiting a LONG time!" He cried for like 15 minutes. No matter what I said, it wasn't helping. He really didn't want anything else. I felt bad. :( I told AJ to stop after his hair appointment and see if he could find one at stores I hadn't been to. He finally found one. It was $50, so more than I wanted to spend, but geez, how could I make him suffer any longer?! Let's just say, we have made his YEAR! He has gone everywhere with that thing. He always has it with him and is always listening. It's really cute. He sings right along and knows every word. I don't really think he realizes that he is singing quite loud when it is in his ears. Thankfully, he got my singing genes and not AJ's. He's a good little singer. :) Cute, cute!
Now, on to the party! He wanted a swimming party at the YMCA. We invited all of our good friends and neighbors and only 3 people from his class, two of which happen to be girls. Hmmmm. :) The entire first part of the party he kept asking where his teacher was. She was late. :) That is all he cared about. he kept telling me to call her, or text her, or email her. :) He couldn't wait until she got there. She was obviously going to be the life of the party. :) She finally got there, thank goodness. :) Well, as we were eating pizza, one of the little girls said that she felt like she was going to throw up. Our hostess went to find a bucket. Well, then Syler (Lindsay's baby) actually does throw up. He always does, it's an allergy thing" so we weren't worried. Well, then Avery's teacher's baby starts to throw up too!! What?! What was going on with out party?! We get them all cleaned up. The little girl went home, and everyone is feeling good. Avery opens his presents and then we all go get in the pool. We were in there about 20 minutes. Everyone had just finished their swim tests and had just gotten in to play when guess what. Some random kid, not with out party, threw up in the pool!!!! It just wasn't our day!! What a fun party, huh?! Everyone had to get out and they told us they were not going to open the pool back up since there was only an hour left before it closed anyway. Ugh! We got the party lady to blow up the bounce house that they use for other parties. Whew! Party saved! The kids all loved it, even though it was craziness! Now, parents are telling me that their kids want to have parties at the Y. LOL! Little do they know, their party probably won't be so adventurous!
That little boy had a great birthday and is so proud to be 7! I took pictures, but haven't uploaded them yet, so when I do, I will post them.
Also, the same birthday week, Avery had some exciting stuff happen at school. They take a timed math test every day. The goal is to get a certain number of problems right in a short time frame and then they get to move up to the next test. Well, Avery moved up 5 days in a row. No one in his class had done that, so it was a momentous occasion! His handwriting also improved a TON and he can spell like an expert! Go Avery! Obviously 7 is a great age!
Sam has also grown up so much in the past month. How did he get so big! He is super responsible (except for leaving his clothes all over the house every day!!!). He is going to be a GREAT babysitter! Boys can be babysitters, right?! Syler LOVES him and whenver he is around, Sam take care of him. He also helps all the little neighborhood kids. Although, now he is "too old" to play with them. They are too young for him. Which is trues, they are all 7 or 8, but it isn't too much fun to sit inside, is it, Sam? ;) He just really has matured lately. Sigh...
Besides all that, AJ broke his foot. I wonder if I already posted about that??? Hmmm. Oh well, here it is again, if I did. He was playing dodge ball at church and tripped over a kid. He thought it was just badly sprained and went on a 20 mile backpacking trip a week later. Well, after 2 weeks he went to the doctor and nope, not a sprain, badly broken! Nice. He is in a boot. Broken bones must run in the family.
School is almost done for me! Yippee! I only have 3 classes left! I will have done 45 credits this semester. Craziness! I just got my scores from my state Praxis exams I took last month. I was 4 points away from having a perfect score on one of them! WOAH! I couldn't believe it! I was so worried too! It happened to be the one, where I messed up the essay questions and had to erase 2 pages of writing and then rewrite it! See my last post for details.
Our house is wild and wacy, but I love it. Well, most of the time. :) :) :)
Smile.ly—Be Heard. Be Happy.
Wanna try country crock? Go get a coupon now!
So today I had to take two Praxis exams, which are the state teaching exams. I had to be there by 7:30, which is bad in itself. At least for me. :) A morning person, I am not. Anyway, I had plans on going to bed at a decent time last night so I wouldn't be tired. Well, AJ had other plans for me. I got in bed at 10:00 on the dot. That is EARLY for me. I was actually going to sleep, then AJ came up and said, "I've been thinking...." I knew at that point that it was going to be a long conversation and I should stop it, but I didn't. LOL. Well, I let him talk til 11:00. What a nice wife I am, huh?! Well, of course after that I was wide awake and my brain was running like crazy. Ugh. I finally went to sleep about 12:30. Then, I guess I was nervous, but I woke up several times all night, finally waking up at 5:45 and staying awake. UGH!!! That is NOT good for this 9 hour of sleep girl!
So on to the test. I get there with 20 minutes to spare. Then the testing people were late so we didn't get in the room until almost 8:00. Then they had to get everyone checked in, hand out tests, etc. It is funny seeing all the people trying to be teachers. Let me just say there are a TON wanting to teach middle school! Anyway, the testing didn't start until 8:30, an hour after it was supposed to. This first test was Elementary Education: Content Knowledge, which meant I had to know everything a K-6th grader has to learn. Yeah, I was a little freaked out. First of all, I am only going to be certified to teach up to 3rd grade, so I have no idea what a 6th grader should know. Also, Sam's homework sometimes freaks me out, plus, that is A LOT of stuff. How in the world do you study for all that. The test was made up of 4 parts, Language, Math, Science, Social Studies. I was confident in Language and Science, but the other 2 I was worried about. Math because I am TERRIBLE at math, especially fractions, and Social Studies was worrisome because I might have to know dates, certain people, amendments, etc.
Anyway, before the test started we looked at the clock and it was going WACKY! Apparently, all of the clocks in the school were. They were just spinning and spinning. It was crazy. Bad sign???
The Language part was a breeze. I had no trouble. Then on to Math. Um, yeah, that was trouble. It was bad. I had to circle a lot of the questions to come back to later. Thankfully, I had lots of time left at the end, so I came back and was able to figure out a lot of the problems. It just takes me a lot of time to really think about it and then I can finally do it. I think I did ok. Whew! Then it went on to Social Studies. Um, yeah, FAIL. I don't know if I really even knew one of the questions! It was so random, I don't know how in the world you would study for it. Let me just say, if you have to take that, brush up on the 60's! Obviously I know nothing about that era. I am pretty sure all through school, we always only ever got to World War II before the end of the year. Hopefully my scores on the rest of the test, make up for Social Studies. Thankfully, I usually could narrow down the answers to two so I have a 50/50 chance of getting it right. Maybe? Finally was science. That wasn't bad, I think I did pretty good.
Since we started so late, my hour break in between my two tests, turned in to 5 minutes. I had enough time to go to the bathroom, and that was it. :( We came back in and got everyone situated. This time, I took Education of Young Children. That one was easy peasy. Make sure you brush up on the different philosophers like Piaget, Erikson, etc. This test had 60 multiple choice, but then it had 6 essay questions. I'm not talking about a one or two paragraph essay either. These were like 2 pages long. Man, my hand was dying by the end, actually, it is still tired! Even the essay questions weren't that bad though, but this test is where the craziness started. First, the clocks were still messed up and it was very important that we kept time well because the whole test was only 2 hours long so we had to leave plenty of time for the essays. Thankfully, I have a watch on at all times. Well, halfway through, we heard a loud siren right outside the doors and then a minute later started hearing someone talking loudly through a megaphone or something. We couldn't tell what they were saying, but something was going on! I have no idea what though. Then I got done with essay 4 and started moving on to essay 5, only to realize that I had written almost the whole essay (1 whole page) on the wrong test page!!! AHHHHHHHHH!!! What in the world was I supposed to do?! I only had 30 minutes left so I just went on to the last 2 questions. I finished up just as the lady called that there was 10 minutes left!! YIKES!!!! I QUICKLY rewrote that whole page on the correct page. I write pretty small so that was A LOT of writing. I managed to get it all down and started erasing the page I had messed up on. I was erasing frantically when my pencil flew out of my hand and flew across the room. Oops! I just left it and grabbed my other pencil and kept going. LOL! I was just finishing erasing the last sentence when she called time!!!! WHEW!!! It wasn't erased well at all, but oh well! That was nerve-wracking to say the least! Sort of funny now though. Another issue was that while all this was going on, I hadn't eaten since 6:30 in the morning. Well, I have blood sugar issues and can't even go 4 hours without eating, normally, or I get really sick. Well, it was almost 2 O'clock and I was dealing with the freak out session. So I was sooo weak, shaky, had a terrible, terrible headache and I got so hot, I think I was about to pass out. I was supposed to go eat during my hour break so I didn't plan for not having time! Anyway, when I waslked out of there, I wasn't sure I was going to make it to my car. I was so sick. :( Thankfully, there was a Wendy's right across the street so I got food immediately. It took my like 2 hours, food, a root beer, and 2 cookies to finally get my sugar levels back in check. I still have a terrible headache even now though.
Anyway, it was a wacky, wild day. Hopefully I passed those tests, cuz let me tell you, they are EXPENSIVE. The makers of those tests sure make a lot of money, especially when I am required to take 6 of them.
I don't find out for 4 weeks. Yuck. I have 2 more to take in April and then I will be done with them! WOOHOO!
I really don't have much other news. Pretty much our lives are just school and home. Nothing new and exciting. Except for Avery losing his first tooth a couple weeks ago. He was SOOO excited for that! Oh, and I just got my hair cut and it is super cute and I love it. Can't think of anything else right now. I just had to get this craziness written down so I can remember all the stuff I went through to get this darn degree! LOL!
So Sam got his cast off and got these instead. 
Yep, the time finally came. I was hoping my terrible eyesight would bypass the kids, but apparently not. I got glasses when i was in 5th grade too. He looks pretty darn cute in them, wouldn't you say? :) He was dreading getting them, but then when he realized how hard it was to see, he changed his mind. He actually kept begging us to go get them. i was the one dragging my feet. I HATED glasses and got contacts the minute I could. Then of course, had eye surgery as soon as I could after that. :) Anyway, we went to just browse one night while we were out. The first 20 pairs looked horrible! I was soooo worried and had decided his eyes weren't that bad and he would be fine without them. Yes, I was pushing my issues onto him.What can I say, glasses and I didn't get along. :) Anyway, he kept trying and FINALLY we found some that looked pretty good. We decided to wait and go look at a few other places before choosing. That weekend we went and looked some more and found some perfect for him. He just needed a certain style. What was funny was that Avery tried on all the glasses too and he looked good in every single pair!! He is now dying for glasses too. LOL! Avery obviously has the perfect face shape! Anyway, Sam looks great and decided he is going to wear them all the time, even though he technically doesn't have to. He is legal to "drive" without glasses. Hopefully that lasts and he doesn't get as blind as I was!
This winter has been CRAZY! I have never seen so much snow here! We haven't had a full week of school since before Christmas Break! We actually have been loving it, but today I realized I want them back in school and want things to be back to normal! Hopefully, this crazy weather will be done. Tennessee is not prepared for snow so if even an inch falls people are wrecking, the whole city shuts down, and it is a mess. Last year it snowed twice, i think, and Sam didn't get to play because he had a cast on and was sick. This year he was cast-free! Lindsay's kids came over and they played, and built a fort and snowman. Taylor just liked rolling around in the snow! Every picture I have of him, he is laying or rolling in the snow. He was like a puppy dog! LOL! 
I have had a crazy school load. I had to get all of my semester's classes done in one month. I wasn't sure I could do it, but I did it in 3 weeks! Craziness! Now I can student teach in the fall like I had planned. I went so quick with all this school stuff, that they weren't expecting me to be ready in time. I surprised them so that is why I had to fit in those classes like that. At least I got it done. I still have a lot to do before the fall, but it will be my typical workload, so I should be fine. Whew! Can't wait til it is over. I haven't read a book in almost 2 years and you know that is VERY weird for me!!
Guess that is about it. I just don't have time to do the extra stuff like blogging, so that is why my posts have slowed down. School and kids and school take all my time, so I have no extra.
Anyway, enjoy some more cute pics of Sam. 
