Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

P.S. My napkin lit on fire while I was taking these pictures.  I noticed the flames out of the corner of my eye.

This Valentine’s Day we LOVE that we didn’t burn our house down.

Hello Grandma and Grandpa!

Snuggles.

The possessive big sister – what? Someone else hug baby brother?  Not without her supervision…and participation!

See previous comment.

Careful Grandpa Kirk!  Don’t let the Monkeys Jumping on the Bed affect your heart!

The 12 Dates of Christmas - January

You may recall that one of the homemade gifts under the tree this year included some time alone (kind of) for the Mom and Dad at The House Where We Live.  Every month Kole has an envelope to open.  Inside is a date idea.  He picks the day and time, I arrange the sitter & make any final plans for the date.

January’s date: return to the coffee shop where we had our first date.  This time, instead of trading family histories & laughing nervously while downing our 11th cups of bottomless coffee, we planned some landscaping and gardening projects for the spring. 

We decided to triple our raised bed gardens, make 2 different mulched, landscaped butterfly gardens around some existing trees, and start saving to put in a patio.

Ezra was a big help.

!Ay Dios!

Okay, Blogger is KILLIN’ me with this inability to make international characters i.e. type correctly in Spanish.  I am stickler for spelling and grammar (though some posts on here do not evidence this). 

So the reference to God in the title?  Ezra got baptized. Welcome to the family, little guy!

Godfathers and us…

And an Angel Food Cake for  my angel…

More thrifting.

Or, more appropriately titled the, “I didn’t know we did THIS MUCH thrifting until I started cataloging it” post.  Here are our latest treasures.

Favorite scores – first, the hacienda cardigan.  Seriously, as a Spanish teacher, could I really pass this up?  I’m imagining it with a t-shirt and jeans or a skirt and boots – maybe a scarf! Ooh la la! Wait, that’s French, let’s try a muy bien instead.

Also on my list of favs are the pink sweatpants below.  They are a size 8.  Maggie is almost 3. Hmmm… but they’re Mini Boden which I do love, and we’ve got bins in the basement for storage…

Total today: $7.50

I am a working mom.

Call me crazy, but I'm looking forward to going back to work in a tomorrow.  I'm not excited about the chaos I anticipate as we try to find our rhythm again as a family after 3 months of being home, and I'm not excited to be spending less time with the ninos, but I am excited to get back to something that I love.

I have known since I was a very little girl that I would be a teacher. I started playing school at age 3, and I never stopped.  Okay, so there was that first semester of college where I was "undecided" because I wanted to make more money than teachers make.  I  declared an education major by the end of that first semester, and I have never regretted it.  I was born to do this.  I am at my best professionally and personally when I am teaching.

Given the crazy political climate in the state, it's been really tempting to quit.  I could take my skills and head elsewhere. But it's not just the money or benefits that keep me where I'm at.  It's the personal fulfillment that I find in what I have chosen to do with my life. The fact of the matter is that I feel most worthwhile when I'm working with kids.

I can encourage kids to try something new, to think differently about the world, to be kinder, to work harder, to live life more fully.  I can help them communicate, collaborate, investigate and reflect.  I can provide them with information and encourage discussion.  I can answer their questions, or help them explore solutions to problems.  I love doing all these things, and I can and have done them with my own kids.  But I have missed doing them on a larger scale over the past 3 months.

I am a teacher, and I'm headed back to my home-away-from-home.  Wish me luck!

Slow day. Snow day.

As the full days spent at home come to an end, I find myself trying to take in as much of our little guy as I can.  Maggie’s off playing with pals at “school”, and it’s amazing how quiet the house is.  And although I miss her insights like , “Mom, guess what we forgot to do today?  Play the iPad!” and “I have a secret…a ferris wheel is the same as a carrousel… just bein’ silly,” it’s nice to have the chance to enjoy some alone time with Ezra. 

We’ve laughed, we’ve cried.  We’ve done our tummy time and had a snack.  We played a little peek-a-boo, and gurgled and cooed.

We blew some bubbles, too.  Hopefully it’ll be naptime soon!