Happy Easter

This last week flew by which was awesome on the one hand because I love when a work week goes fast but not awesome on the other hand because I don't want my time with my kids to go fast. I survived just fine without my morning coffee and I'm glad I made it through the withdrawal phase. I might start drinking decaf because I enjoy drinking coffee in the morning, but I needed to do a physical and mental break and drinking decaf too soon wouldn't give me the mental break I needed. We had a good Easter weekend. I spent Saturday cooking all day my Easter dinner and we had that Saturday night and we joined Gabe and Christy's family for their Easter dinner on Sunday. Christy went all out and had the cutest table decorations and she did an Easter egg hunt. It was great!

The weather was warm-ish over the weekend and the kids spent a lot of time outside. Ryan got a new skateboard and he skateboarded a ton. There are a few kids in the neighborhood and that's been fun for the kids to meet people and have fun with them. We discovered a new nice neighborhood we live next to that has a park and basketball hoop. My yard was full of weeds from the previous owners and lucky for me it rained last week and the weeds pulled up SO easy and fast. It was the most fun I've ever had weeding. I wish I would have taken a before picture. I made incredible progress fast! It was very satisfying. I also mowed my lawn with my new mower and I love it!  I am SO ready for Spring. I'm so excited to have made it through my least favorite months January through March. Woot! 

Ryan skateboarded for hours on Saturday. He crashed on Sunday and was ready for a break.

Cute Easter bunny kids.

Cute place setting with a British cracker you pull it and there's a prize inside.

Cute gift bag. 

The kids were all trying to get the one egg with money in it. 

 

Spring Break Continued

Spring Break has almost come to an end. Tomorrow should be rough! Haha. I gave up coffee over Spring Break to get ready for my upcoming pregnancy and that wasn't fun. I tried to taper off slowly but I'm not very patient so I probably went too fast. I was pretty sick on Friday but I hope I'm through the worst of it. I'm on day two with no caffeine and I feel okay. I'm wondering how 5:30 will feel tomorrow and how this next work week will be. I signed my legal contract on Friday for the surrogacy so I should be starting injections soon, I'm curious how those will feel and make me feel. Fingers crossed it will be okay. 

Normally I would drop the kids off Sunday night to Scott's but he is very flexible around the kids which I appreciate. He wasn't leaving until Tuesday to take the kids to Utah so I was able to keep them for a little longer which I loved! Corbin wanted to go to McCall rather than Utah and Scott agreed to that as well which I also appreciated. Corbin had so much fun because Gabe took him skiing everyday. Corbin and I drove up on Tuesday and I came home on Thursday. Corbin ended up staying in McCall so he could keep skiing and hanging with his cousins. He will get home sometime today. 

I haven't done much this weekend. I've been pretty low energy as my body is adjusting to no caffeine. I wanted to cut out coffee over Spring Break because I knew it would affect me and I wanted to kick the habit and be adjusted before I started doing hormone injections. I did get a nice check for signing my legal contract so I went and bought an electric lawn mower which I've wanted for a few years now so I'm excited about that. Well, that's all!

Spring skiing in a t-shirt!

Corbin, Spencer, and Gabe.

Movie nights!

Charly loves the sun!

Spring Break!

We made it to Spring Break. It was a bit rough. Daylight Savings hit the week before Spring Break and it was hard to make it through the week. My kids have to get up extra early at my house because I have to drive them to school and to their dad's house on my way to work. It felt extra painful waking up early and trying to adjust to Daylight Savings. We did it! I am happy to report that this  has been my least stressful March in years and I wasn't dying to get to break and that feels really good. 3 years ago it was studying for my stressful Praxis test. 2 years ago it was in the midst of Master's stress and Yearbook stress. 1 year ago it was at the peak of my marriage stress (which had been really hard for years) and the last three years I've always done the sewing unit in March for some stupid reason and teaching 8th graders how to sew is EXHAUSTING! I didn't have to teach them this year because they all signed up for Teen 1 instead of Teen 2. Huzzah! Long story short this year has been a good breathing year for me at school but I better take a deep breath because I get to start fresh at Borah next year which will be good but hard.  

I sold Corbin's car for $700 it was a big fat bust and I lost money. Hopefully I'll have better luck next time and I've learned some hard lessons. 

I don't have my kids during actual Spring Break and I wanted to do something fun and I needed something to look forward to as well so I decided to surprise my kids with a staycation. I booked a nice hotel in Eagle and we had a great time. Corbin didn't want to go and I don't blame him, swimming is not as fun as you get older and let's face it home beats a hotel room. So I didn't fight him on it and then he could also take care of Charly. He joined us for dinner though and that was fun. The other three loved it and I'm glad we were able to do something special and fun. I will join Gabe's family in Mccall for part of this week and probably do some yardwork this week. It should be a good week and I'm excited for a work break.

The kids swam for hours. 

Corbin joined us for Freddy's and we ate way too much!

We discovered a cute fancy chocolate shop. Yum!

The kids were obsessed with this squirrel for some reason. We called him Brutus and Ryan named it Susan and then Brutus the Susan. 

We had fun walking around our hotel and soaking up the sun! It was glorious! 

We were right by the river (right where we got family pictures actually).

I surprised the kids last week with this candy bucket to announce our Spring Break staycation!

Puppy had to go potty in the night and I saw Ryan sleeping with his leg up. So cute and funny.

The stupid mailbox was broken when I moved in and it kept getting worse! I posted about it on Facebook and one of my Facebook friends from my old ward helped me! So amazing! 

Check out the skills!

I had to paint it to prevent rust.

It's up! Until the next idiot hits it (my mailbox is not in a great spot). Also, you can see my spray paint lines. Whoops. 

Movie cuddles

Cute puppy loving the sun!

Leap Day

    I didn't write last week because I didn't really feel like there was anything to say. I hosted a dinner for my local siblings and their spouses for helping me move and that was a fun night. The next night I tried to host a game night with my friends but they mostly bailed but my friend Lisa came and we watched a movie and chatted and had a fun night. It was a SUPER long week without my kid because of schedule changes because the Cannons came to town. I was SO happy to get them back last Sunday. I just hate having them half of the time. 

    I got my formal evaluation over with at school which always makes me super happy to get over with. The VP had to cancel on me twice so I was super relieved when he could come. The best part about him canceling was that he ended up observing my easiest class so that was nice. I haven't gotten my evaluation back but I'm sure it was fine.

    I have been thinking about switching to high school for a few years but this year at North has been my best year of teaching yet so I had put the idea to bed but the Borah teacher took a state job and wants me to take her job. I initially told her no but she reached out again trying to persuade me and I decided I should just go check it out. I went and observed her for a day last Wednesday and being there made it feel like a no brainer to go there. The next couple of years will be harder while I try to make the curriculum my own but after that I think it will be an easier more enjoyable job to teach at the high school. I really do like junior high kids but I think my sustainability over time will be better at the high school level. It's not official yet because the job doesn't technically open up until April but then I will fill out paperwork and it should be mine. I won't feel totally at ease about it until it's official and then of course I will be stressed transitioning but I think having my own room and more mature students is the right career move for me. We will see!  

    For leap day I had my AVID students make time capsules that they will open up their Junior year on leap day. Most of them will probably throw them away but maybe someone will keep it and it will be fun for them to see their progress since the 7th grade. There was a deal at Krispy Kreme for leap day so I got the kids donuts and then we watched the movie Leap Year. Gabby was the only one that would watch it with me.   

    It was state basketball this past weekend and both of my sisters came to town to watch it so I got to hang out with them and that was fun. Kelsey and Justin came and hung out for a bit Friday night and Trisha came over on Saturday to help me brainstorm landscaping ideas for my yard. Trisha, Kelsey, Justin, and I went and watched the Butte boys play for 3rd place but they lost but it was still fun to hang out and watch the game together. 

    Last night I made molten lava cakes and watched a movie with Corbin and Gabby and that was fun. This morning I'm making my kids omelets for breakfast. I'm going to need to up my cooking game if I'm going to be teaching a high school culinary class. I think that might occupy me this summer. Time to take a home crash course on the art of cooking. Alright, that's all. I'm so glad it's March. One more crappy month until the weather is somewhat decent. Huzzah. 

So cute. 

Gabby had art supplies on the table so I had all four kids at the bar stools. Cutest. 

Gabby busted out an art painting in one night that she entered into a contest at school.

She's so talented.

Piper hates meat and after a student talked about eating a rabbit (which made her think of Willow) she officially decided to become a vegetarian. I am not super excited about this but she's been making her own food. This is her vegetarian lettuce wrap from last night and she loved it! We will see how long this lasts and how it goes. Time to learn more about how to make complete proteins!

The family went to the Butte game on Friday night and I met them for dinner after the game.