Girls Room Makeover

I had a great week at home. Gabby was sick all week, opposite of great for her. She had an upset stomach for about 6 days. She barfed a lot only on a couple of the days but she was not feeling well for days. She missed most of the week of school. I didn't feel like I could sub because I wasn't sure when she would be well. It thoroughly enjoyed not subbing last week. I took full advantage and finished the girls room and scrubbed down my kitchen! I've been wanting to give my kitchen a good scrub FOREVER but not enough to actually do it. I finally did it! I scrubbed it down for 4 hours. It was disgusting. In the girls room I finished painting the pink wall. It only took me 4 different paint samples and an entire day painting all of the mistakes to find the perfect shade of pink. I did touch up on the other walls and touched up the baseboards. It looks nice! Then I bought some wall decor and put it all up. I love it and the girls love it! Yay! 

I've lost steam unfortunately. I'm hoping I can regain my energy boost and touch up paint the rest of the house. I can do it! The kids are on Thanksgiving break. I don't have any plans other than going to my parents house over night. Hopefully we don't lose our minds with boredom this week! 

Scott has been working hard on the shed, putting up dry wall and taping and whatever the heck else he's doing out there. We are close and far away. 

I peeked on Ryan one morning and found him sleeping like this. It killed me! 

New drapes.

Painted the closet doors.

Pink wall with decor. I love the gold circles! 

The girls bedding.

Ahhh a clean kitchen! 

Keep up the good work! 

Stomach Bug

I survived the week! Hooray! No more 4:00 am classes plus subbing all day plus 3 basketball games for me! Luckily the sub job I did all week was a bit easier than I anticipated. The teacher teaches resource room math, which math in itself stresses me right out, but also I wasn't sure how manageable the classes would be. Luckily her classes were all small and most of the kids were pretty well behaved. It was an endurance test all week for sure. I didn't get home until 6:30 or 7:00 pm 3 of the nights. Oy! Glad it's done.

Luckily my b-ball boss was cool to me on Monday and it was clear that I'm not coaching in the spring and he didn't bug me about it anymore. Phew!

Corbin had the barfs all night Thursday night and Gabby is sick now. I wonder who and when the next person will be down for the count.

I'm in the middle of trying to redecorate the girls bedroom. I've been busy painting all weekend. After two failed paint samples I think we've found the winner. It's a little darker on the wall than it looks on the sample paper but it's good enough. Hopefully it doesn't look too much like pepto bismol. Speaking of pepto bismol my stomach feels skethcy but I can't tell if it's just in my head.

This week will be much easier. I'm only teaching 1 VIP class a day and I'm only going to sub on Thursday and Friday. Praise Be!

Ryan the Science Guy getting ready for bed.

I forced the kids outside yesterday. These kids are couch potatoes. 

We went to Five Guys to celebrate the week of survival. 

A friend came and watched one of my games and took some action shots. We won by 1 point! It was intense! 

It's My Birthday!

Well, it was a crazy week as usual and I hit my limit. I was sitting in the locker room with Lana exhausted trying to get through my 12-hour workday and talking things out with her. I decided I was going to cut way back with VIPKID, basically take a possible permanent break. I'm not sure though so I'm just going to teach one class a day to keep my options open. The Chinese government made new regulations that don't allow kids to take classes after 9:00 pm which is probably good honestly but it cuts an hour of work for the teachers. An hour is a lot when you only teach for a few hours anyway. So now I have to get up earlier and make less money and it's killing me. Getting up at 3:45 is the worst! So I'm taking a break. I'm locked into my early morning schedule for the next week, I can do it! Doing all of these different hustle jobs is seriously making me consider just getting a full-time teaching job. Working full time might be easier than what I'm currently doing. I decided I was done coaching as well. I told my boss on Friday that I didn't think I could coach the 7th-grade girls this spring and he did not take it well. He was not professional about it at all and tried to guilt me into it. It's not going to work. He has 4 months to find a replacement. I'm going to write him an email saying explicitly no because I think he will try to guilt me into it otherwise. Nope! I mostly just want to sub because it's something that I can do during the day when my kids are at school and it might help me find a good full-time job. We will see what happens. Now that all of my kids are in school it feels like a good time to transition to something else. Who knows what I will decide I just know I'm done being torn in so many different directions. The end!

At the end of a very long day on Tuesday, I had to rush all the kids to go to Corbin's band concert. It was cute though because the kids had dished themselves up some soup ahead of time and Corbin had told Ryan and Piper to get their shoes on to get ready to go. They are such good kids! Corbin's concert was cute. He plays the trumpet. A teacher who teaches that many 6th-grade kids band is really something!

Wednesday was my birthday! I bought some cereal Corn Crunch that used to be called Corn Bran. I love it! It's the cereal that my grandma used to have when I was a kid. Love it! We also had bagels. Scott heated me up some of his famous hashbrowns,  that he made for me on Sunday. He also made me his delicious stir fry on Sunday as an early birthday celebration. Later that day I ended up going shopping and to lunch with a friend. I then had a basketball game. We won! Happy Birthday to me. Another friend had made me her delicious soup and bread for dinner so I came home and had that and shortly after went to bed.

On Thursday we had another game that we won. I had a sub job that day that I had canceled on Tuesday when I was feeling overwhelmed. Hallelujah! On Friday I had a super easy half-day sub job that was for a keyboarding teacher. I was able to prepare all of my lesson plans for my VIP classes next week during the sub job. That is THE best. That night we went to a Japanese grill with our friends and then they came to our house to play games. It was super fun.

I have a crazy terrible week coming up that I have to get through it day by day. I made three dinners ahead of time on Saturday to get ready for it. I also just did a bunch of chores around the house that day. Today I'm just trying to gear up and get ready for my "terrible, horrible, no good very bad [week]." Wish me luck!

Corbin is the left of the kid with blue hair.

6th Grade Band

There he is behind the blue haired kid.

Ryan's reaction to the music.

Birthday Song

B-day dinner at Kyotos

Coaching against Victory although we were victorious!

Ryan's B-Day, Halloween, and More

It's been a fun filled week! Ryan's birthday was on Tuesday. We had Little Caesars pizza for dinner and carved pumpkins (meaning I carved 4 pumpkins!) and watched Hocus Pocus. I'm not carving 4 pumpkins next year! I think we may need to paint pumpkins instead (and by we I mean the dang kids). We had cake and Ryan opened presents. He was a cute little birthday buddy. Scott and I went on an impromptu movie date night later that night as well and it was super fun. 

On Halloween I had my first basketball game. It's such a relief to get that first game out of the way. We lost but it was a close game throughout so that's good. We have two more games this week. When I got home we went trick or treating with the kids. It was so fun! My kids are at really fun ages. I love it. I also love that we do a really short route but we get a lot of bang for our buck! It's not a very busy neighborhood so at some houses they will tell my kids to take several handfuls. It's like going to 10 houses at once. Love it! We get home after a short time and the kids get plenty of candy. It's the best. Plus it was cold! We were all happy to get home quickly. 

On Friday after basketball practice I did a few things around my house and then headed to Rigby to help my sister paint. We were talking several weeks ago about getting together. We were trying to think of what to do and Trisha said she was wanting to paint her basement and I said that was perfect! Trisha and I aren't hang out people as much as we are project people! It's really fun for us to get together and work on a project together. My mom and sister joined in on the fun. We painted for a few hours and knocked the project out so fast! My mom made me an early birthday German chocolate cake! So, so good! We watched a movie that I slept through and later went to bed. I really don't get enough sleep. The next day we went to breakfast together. My breakfast was SO good. Yum. Then Trisha and I headed to the fabric store to pick out some fabric. Trisha made me a quilt when I got married and I've been using it on my bed ever since. It's starting to fall apart. I asked her if she would be willing to sew me another one and she said yes. I'm very excited. I hope I made good fabric choices. I will be excited to see it when she's done. I've given her an indefinite time line so I'm not sure. Who knows maybe it will be a birthday present next year. Until then I'll just use the one I have. After that I drove back home. I was actually glad we finished so quickly because it was nice to be able to go and have fun but still get back and have some of my weekend to relax and get a few things done. It was perfect! 

This coming week should be a doozy. I need to pace myself big time. 

Pojos on Sunday night for pre-birthday celebration.

Cutest 6 year old! 

"I'm rich!" (Money from my mom)

He was So excited! 

He just LOVES stuffed animals.

Cute Pipes

We may have jumped the gun in having Corbin and Gabby watch The Visit with us. By the end of the movie they were hiding! 

I dressed up for my Chinese students on Hallowen. Fun! 

Corbin-Scream character, Gabby-magician, Piper-cat, Ryan-army dude

All the loot! 

Paint Party! 

Waiting for our breakfast at Black Bear Diner. Yum!  Fun times! 

Parent Teacher Conferences

The kids had school off on Thursday and Friday for parent teacher conferences. That was a nice welcome break for all of us. I didn't have to sub or have basketball practice so I really loved it. I went to the small three kids' conferences and they are all doing well. Ryan is getting special reading intervention because he didn't do well enough on his standardized test even though the test is on his upper and lower case letters which he knows. The teacher showed me his paper assessment and he only missed 1 on each test. Whatever. He was probably slow to click the answers or something. I'm not worried about it. Piper and Gabby are doing well. I went back and forth on whether or not to go to Corbin's and I decided against it. I didn't see the point in waiting in lines for hours to try to talk to 6 different teachers especially since I can look up his grades online everyday. I figured even just relaxing and watching a show would be a better use of my time. I had a talk with Corbin about his grades and behavior and it's all good except for one C and I expect him to step it up on that one. 

We finally got around to painting our Willow rocks for her grave. On Wednesday night I had my book club over to watch a movie. I crammed pillows and a futon cushion in there to be extra comfy. It was SO fun. The kids also had a sleepover in it the next night. I had to take everything out so we can continue to work on it and finish it. 

On Saturday night we had a Halloween party that my friend Krista throws every year. She is the queen bee of parties. We had a great time. Today we are doing some celebrating for Ryan's b-day on Tuesday. We had our usual birthday breakfast and we will be going to Pojos later. 

It was really nice to have a few days to catch up, rest up,  and gear up for another work week. I just bought my costume for Halloween for my online classes. I'm excited. Halloween is SO fun! Love it!

Willow grave site rocks.

Ryan b-day breakfast.

The sweet set up for the movie.

All the party guests.

The most amazing spread for the movie. That is the biggest bowl I have ever seen.

We dressed up as Pam and Jim from "The Office." I think we pull it off pretty well!

Book club movie night in the shed!

Scott took Corbin on a special lunch date to the China Buffet and he LOVED it. Cutest.

The girls helped me make these cute Halloween cookies for the Halloween party.

Basketball Try Outs

Well as usual it's been crazy town over here. Basketball started on Monday. We are doing 6:00 am practice which I love! I love being done by 7:40 am...LOVE! Lana starts practice and lets me come late so I can teach at VIP right up to 6:00. I didn't want to lose all of my clients or hours of work at VIP so I started getting up an hour earlier which is rough. I need to go to bed soon. I'm also subbing a lot so that leaves me working 12 hours but at least now with AM b-ball practice I'm done right after 3:00 rather than after 5:00. Basketball should be interesting. We started with low numbers and kept dropping some every day it seemed like. Between the 2 teams we only have 14 girls so now we have to have floater players who play on both teams. It is less than ideal. Oh well.

Over the weekend I busted out 5 gum drop pillows with the help of some friends. We picked a terrible book for book club that not one person read. It's a movie so we decided to do a movie night in my shed instead. That is happening this Wednesday night. It gave me the motivation to make some new pillows for people to sit on during the movie. I made some and then the kids wanted more so I made a giant one for each of the kids' rooms. I had a friend who wanted to hang out yesterday and I asked her if we could hang and work on my project and she said yes. She's the best. I had the same thing happen with another friend today as well. Score! I have some awesome friends!

Scott has been working a ton on the shed this past week. He almost has all of the dry wall up. He's learning from some mistakes and you tube videos. He's doing great work! I absolutely love the shed already. I love going out there to chill out. It's my fav! I found an awesome ottoman on craigslist this week and some of our friends drove all the way to Marsing to pick it up! I have the best friends!

Okay well I need to get ready for bed and gear up for tomorrow. I need to make a b-ball practice plan stat!

My awesome ottoman and favorite place to chill.

Gum drop pillows! 

Dry wall man! 

RIP Willow, Utah visit

We had a tragedy on Monday. Our sweetest cutest bunny died. Gabby discovered Willow on Monday morning. She came in the house screaming that Willow was attacked. One of her ears had a wound and blood splattered on it and the opposite side of her head had some open wounds on top. I couldn’t decide if we should take her to the vet mostly because of the cost and also because I wasn’t sure there was much the vet could do. The wounds didn’t look deep enough for stitches and I decided I would clean the wounds and watch for signs of infection in which case I would take her in to get antibiotics. Gabby made Willow a bed and Willow drank some water but would mostly did not move. Around 3:30 Gabby went to check on Willow and started screaming because Willow was spazzing out. She was screaming about going to the vet. I found a vet close to Scott’s work and decided to drive there first. I was quite sure Willow had died already but I wasn’t sure. We went to the bank and Scott came out and saw the bunny and said she was dead and Gabby started screaming. It was so sad and traumatic. Scott left work and he dug a spot for her. We held a little funeral for her and buried her. We are going to paint some rocks to put on top of her grave. This was sad for everyone but especially Gabby. Scott took it very hard as well. I’m sad too. It was so fun to look outside and see the cutest bunny in the world back there. RIP Willow. I think in the end her neck may have been broken. Poor poor Willow.

I am working on redecorating the girls’ room since we have a girls’ room now. I started out with cleaning it out. I got rid of  SO much stuff. I had some paint that blended with the new bedspreads so I repainted the closet doors and painted their book shelf. I ordered some new drapes. I need to figure out how I want to paint the walls and how to decorate it.

We headed down to Utah on Thursday. Scott was barely able to take off work and come with us. We took the kids out of school for a couple of days. Usually they have a couple of days off in October but they didn’t this year. We decided we like out October visit too much to skip it. I also had a follow up eye doctor appointment I needed to go to. Thursday night the kids told spooky stories around the fire. 

On Friday they harvested and decorated the pumpkins. That night we went to Frightmares. It was very cold. This fall has gotten very cold very fast. I survived but by the end it hurt to walk because my toes were so cold. I do love Lagoon though so I’m still glad we went.

On Saturday we mostly hung around and that evening Nana had a family Disney Halloween party. The food was delish and the kids had a great time singing Disney karaoke.

This morning Nana had a special breakfast and early birthday celebration for Ryan. As always we had a great visit. One of the highlights was Mandy and Attie were there. We haven’t seen them in over a year. It was so good to catch up with them.

Basketball practice starts tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Cute Willow pics

Gabby made Willow a little indoor home after she was inured.

Right before we buried Willow.

It was our 14th Anniversary on Tuesday! 

Cleaning out the kids room.

Repainted the closet doors.

Repainted the book shelf.

Lagoon!

Gabby and I got to ride Bombara all by ourselves! Gabby was super brave this year and stayed out late and went on all the scary rides along with Corbin.

Not sure what's happening here.

Pumpkin Pickin'

Sleepover at Colie and Rustin's.

Disney Karaoke 

Cannon grandkids minus a couple

Ryan presents!