Frightmares and more!

Last week was a great week. Work was slower with VIP because of a Chinese holiday so I didn't have to teach as many classes and there were three days off of school so no subbing either. After the previous week I was okay with things being less busy. Monday was Gabe's birthday and he invited everyone over to have dinner and watch Monday night football. It was cold and a little rainy but he still had his TV and fire pit going outside so he was set. Christy made enough food for an army and it was all delicious. I don't know how she does it. She's a miracle worker.

On Thursday morning we got packed and headed down to Utah for the weekend. The kids always have some days off the first week of October so it's been our tradition to head down to Utah every time. I love Utah in the fall. We drove straight to Lehi to Carole's house and spent the evening there. We had pizza and some brave souls went hot tubbing. It was freezing outside and the wind was blowing like crazy. We had s'mores and the wind would blow the flames all over the place. It was an adventure! We put the littles to bed for a sleepover and we played some games.

On Friday Scott and I browsed through IKEA on our way to pick the kids back up from Lehi. I love walking through IKEA. We went to Hires for lunch and the kids and some adults painted some rocks. That evening we went to Frightmares! It was so much fun. Ryan wouldn't go on any rides last year but this year he did great! I had a lot of fun riding with him on some rides as well as the other littles. We played with the kids for several hours and after hitting the trick or treating loop Nana and Papa were kind enough to take the kids home and put them to bed while the adults got to stay and ride the big kid rides until closing. I took my winter coat this year. I'm so glad I did. It was cold, but it was fun. I loved it! 

On Saturday we caught up with some friends in the morning. We just hung around the house. That evening we harvested the pumpkins and had dinner and celebrated Ryan and Hannah's birthdays this month and Scott's and my Anniversary. After the kids went to bed Scott and I went and met up with some friends. We drove home after breakfast this morning. It was such a fun trip. We all loved it. It's back to the grind this week! 

Cutest cousins!

Getting ready to ride Bom Bara. It's a roller coaster ride that's pretty tame but it's still a roller coaster. You can't see Ryan behind Rustin and even 2 year old Attie went. Brave souls! 

Ryan Birthday balloon.

Happy Anniversary/Birthday!

Pumpkin Harvest Time! 

Hannah's B-Day cake with her family.

Presents! 

All the grandkids.

Rocks!

Colie and Rustin with their harvest.

Busy Week

Last week was pretty busy. It was the last week of the month so I was trying to squeeze in some extra VIP classes. I try to teach around 100 classes a month and sometimes that goal is attainable and sometimes it isn't. I was about 14 classes short but I was able to get to exactly 100 classes! Sweet. I taught at 5:00 am all last week. I think I may do that from here on out. It's only 15 minutes less sleep and adding that one extra class makes a big difference at the end of the month. I also subbed three days last week. Two of those days were at Summerwind. I have a love/hate relationship with subbing for Elementary teachers. The day goes by really fast which I love. I don't love figuring out 9 pages of subbing notes and juggling everything that elementary teachers have to juggle. I subbed at Centennial High for the Resource room as well. In one period I was supposed to help a girl who didn't need help so I read my book for an hour and a half. It's kind of nice to not be as busy but the day goes SLOWLY. It's all a trade off. It's kind of nice to have a mix of both. 

We've had a nice relaxing weekend. On Friday night the big three were at a birthday party for awhile so Scott and I went with Ryan to The Habit for dinner. Yum! On Saturday Scott cleaned the kids room ALL DAY! (I guess not as relaxing for him). He went through and organized everything and threw a bunch of junk away. I didn't really want to look through what he was throwing out, sometimes it's better not to know. Ha. We also put up our Halloween decorations. This time of year is fun!

Gabby hair.

Ryan getting some cuddle time with  mom.

Playdate

Well my frozen stew didn't fair so well. Next time I may try putting it straight in the crock pot instead of trying to defrost it first.

Nicole bought a fuzzy blanket for Scott and we are all fighting over it. Ha. I think Corbin is cuddling with it now. 

Update

Things are good. I'm adjusting to my new schedule and trying to ensure I don't burn myself out. If I can make myself plan ahead, and go to bed early things are much better. I made a menu plan for a couple of weeks and bought all of the ingredients. I make dinner for Thursday and Friday ahead of time since those are my subbing days. When I can be organized and on top of things it's manageable. Hopefully I can keep that up. I subbed for the same school on Thursday and Friday last week. It was for another ERR (extended resource room). This a more challenging group than other ERR students I've worked with. I think that paras (name of people who work with ERR students) are saints. I have so much respect for them. That is not an easy job and the pay is terrible. One of the ladies there has worked there for 15 years and her pay is poverty level and one time a student kicked her front teeth in. Wow! She was a great lady though. Man, she's amazing.

Friday was a bit of a crazy day. I taught my VIP classes in the morning, subbed, and taught some more classes that night. Marathon day! We had friends over after that and watched a movie. I relaxed all Saturday morning. It was nice! On Saturday night we went over to our friends house and hung out with them. The kids decorated sugar cookies. Yum

I put a stew together and put all of the raw ingredients in a bag and put it in the freezer. I will throw this in a crock pot on a subbing day. We will see if it turns out. I read on a blog that it works just fine. We will see. 

Gabby was experimenting with Piper's hair.

 

Ryan learned how to play the "tractor game." It's a video game called Digger. He loves to play it and he likes to play it with other people.

Cookies

Cute!

Quick Trip to Utah

This last week was pretty good. Nothing much to talk about. Subbing went better last week so that was nice. On Thursday I subbed for an ESL teacher and I had refugees all day. On Friday I subbed for an ERR teacher (extended resource room) I was really impressed by how kind the middle schoolers treated those students. It was a great thing to see. We ended up going to Utah this weekend. We recorded another podcast and they like to do it in person. They came up to Utah from California and we drove down and did an interview with them. We drove down to Salt Lake on Saturday and came back today. Luckily our kids are easier to travel with now that Ryan is almost 4. Hooray! We will be going back down in October when the kids are out of school for a couple of days. They were not happy about going down for only one night but we assured them we would be right back.Well that's all! 

Ryan quotes: "Lets read Captain Poopy pants!" (Captain Underpants). 

"We don't eat poop for breakfast." No we do not. Gross! 

Checking out a garden. 

Bed head!

Piper and Ryan fighting to look through the peep hole to see the kids coming home from school.

After work cuddles.

Friday night movie night! 

Update

This last week was pretty busy. I'm enjoying my time with just Ryan in the mornings. He's my little buddy. He's fun to take on errands and we go to story time and he comes with me to the park to workout with some of my friends. Piper is doing great with Kindergarten. Gabby likes her teacher and loves school. Corbin doesn't really like school but he gets through the day fine. I've been trying to go to bed earlier because I get up so early for work and I don't get enough sleep. Now that the kids are back in school and it's getting darker earlier it has been easier to go to bed at 10:00 instead of 11:00. I will have to keep trying to do that. I subbed two half days last week. Subbing is hard. As a teacher classroom management was a struggle for me and it's hard for me as a sub as well. I need to get better. I'm hoping with more practice I will get better and get more of a groove with subbing. I've worked it out with Scott's schedule to sub on Thursdays and Fridays. I'm already scheduled with jobs through this month. We will see how it goes. I know that if I hate it and it's too horrible I can always quit. I'm hoping that I can like it well enough so it can be a little source of money and a social outlet for me as well.

Scott's amazon listing got high jacked. People will take other people's listings and steal them for their own. I think it can be solved so fingers crossed.

The girls started their dance classes last week. They love it!

On Friday night we had some friends over and played some games. On Saturday I had a girls night out with some friends.

Well that's all!

Piper helped me make some homemade tortillas. 

I try to put Ryan to bed earlier than his siblings and sometimes he goes to sleep and sometimes he doesn't. When he doesn't you can often see him sticking his little paws out from under the door. It's so cute and funny!

I made a fresh peach pie. YUM! (I just used a frozen crust from Walmart. It was pretty good but broken in pieces. One pie crust was all broken up. 

Ha! Love this picture. They are playing a game were watching some video where a scary monster will pop up and they all scream. So funny.

Gabby crafted this yesterday. Love!

I found a coat for Ryan for $.95 at Kidz Again. SCORE! I also found some costumes for the girls and some clothes for Ryan and for a really good price and quality.

All of Corbin's adhesive strips are gone now. All the wounds are shut and healing. 

Piper turns 6!

The big event last week was Piper's birthday. The kids had their first full week of school and I subbed at Summerwind half day I'm already pretty sure I don't ever want to be an elementary school teacher.
For Piper's birthday we went to the church farms in the morning and got a lot of yummy fruit. That night we had dinner and went to POJO's of course. I can't believe my little Pipes is 6!

Gabby's DIY you-tube projects.

Aunt Mandy sent Corbin a get better care package. In it she included that awesome lizard. Corbin loves it!

If I sit on the counter Ryan has to come and use me as a human bridge. 

Pipes is 6!

I won 200 tickets on Deal or No Deal! It was very exciitng! Ha.

The tickets just kept coming.

Gabby's intricate playing/watching videos happening here.