Kindergarten nightmare

I subbed in kinder today. I was actually kind of looking forward to it, I have spent a lot of time in kindergartens and its always been great. 

Today was awful. Where to start even??

I got there and they don't have paras here. Which was surprising but okay. There were 9 kids on behavior plans, which does not mean they behave soooo well that they are regularly recognized for being great citizens. 

The teacher left a stack of worksheets and nothing fun to do. 5 year olds don't do that well with worksheets. 

And so it began.

I'm not sure what was the worst part of the day. Was it when a kid threw up? Or when one pooped his pants? Perhaps it was when a mom brought in surprise birthday cupcakes 10 minutes before dismisal or when one little darling, during clean up, crawled around the floor pretending to pick up trash while actually biting his friends on the ankles.  I'm not sure. 

It was chaos. 

I came home and plopped on the bed with my remote and my stash of Halloween candy, note to self don't buy Halloween candy until October 31. 

Also Rob's back is bad still :(

disney food bucket list part 1

Friday the girls and I are going to Disneyland after school! We can not wait! We love Disney, also we have a Disney food bucket list.  This is only a small part of it:

Poison apple glow in the dark cup!  We are definitely getting one of those this week!

Mickey Macaroons

beignets

candy apple

corn dog

So this one is a (?) I normally wouldn't go out of my way for a corn dog but this corn dog has it's own facebook following and it's supposed to be awesome.  I don't know.

monte cristo

lobster roll

Rob went to the doctor.  He doesn't have anything seriously wrong, it's muscular so it should heal well with rest and meds.  Yay!

Ethan had soccer practice yesterday.  Hannah and Grace had cats practice and piano and voice lessons.

I went visiting teaching.  I am exciting about my route.  My partner is cute and fun and we visit 3 very nice sisters.  I love so many things about the programs of the church. I am not always a great visiting teacher but it is wonderful to make friends with the sisters that we visit, visit with and are visited by.

Today is scouts and young women.  I am serving dinner at the homeless shelter and it's 90 degrees outside.  That's kind of warm for the last day of September.

Also I paid some bills.

Bunnies and birds and every day bummers

I subbed 7th grade science yesterday. It was an interesting day.  Not interesting = good. I will go back to middle school though, the day went quickly.

Rob's back is still bad, that is stressful for all of us. We want him in tip top shape and feeling good. Today he sees a doctor  so that's good.

Yesterday we also met with Hannah's counselor. She was very disappointed because previously she had been told she could graduate early because she had so many credits blah blah blah. Turns out that yes if she doesn't want to go to college she could skate on out but if she does she has 5 more classes to take next year. I was sad that she had another big disappointment but also glad because I definitely wasn't ready for her to fly the nest, and I don't think she really is either.

We have lots of pretty plants in our yard. This lantana is my favorite. The hummingbirds like it too.

For FHE we continued our killer bunnies game from Sunday night.

Then we piled in bed for some dancing with the stars.

Weekend

We had a good and busy weekend.  Saturday I went to women's conference with Nellie.  It was wonderful. We had workshops and lunch and a musical fireside.  My favorite talk was on having confidence, given by the wonderful Joanie Swindlehurst.  I love her! She has long been dear to my heart and such an influence for good in my life.

How to Be Confident

C courage  2 Timothy 1:7

O optimism D&C 61:36

N name/family "every man or woman is a  quotation from their ancestors"
            Ralph Waldo Emerson

F failure failure is a success if we learn from it. 

I identity  I am a child of God

D determined "if you are going through hell, keep going" Winston Churchill

E education D&C 109:7

N now "now is the best time to strat becoming the person we want to be"
               Pres. Uchtdorf

T trust Proverbs 3: 5-6

pioneer girl

Rob held down the fort while I was gone.  He took Grace fishing in the morning (they didn't catch anything).  Then they went to Ethan's soccer game.  We won.  3-0 and Ethan scored the first goal which was super exciting.  He doesn't usually score.  He is a great keeper and a great mid, but that means he rarely takes it all the way to the net. Then he took Grace to Catherine's birthday party.

In the evening Hannah went to a party with Sawyer.   The rest of us watched the women's broadcast.  It was really good.  I love Pres. Uchtdorf's story.  We can not wait for conference weekend coming up!

Today we had the primary program practice.  Also Rob got called to be the gospel doctrine teacher.  He had to leave right after the sacrament because his back is so bad today.  Hopefully he'll be better soon but right now he's a crookedy mess :(

I love to see the temple

Another week has come to a close. We have lived here 2 months.  It's starting to feel like home.  All the kids are making friends.  Hannah doesn't even hate it here anymore.  I am sure this has nothing to do with handsome Sawyer and their growing friendship.  There are things I don't like and things I do like.  One of my favorites in the sky at night.  So gorgeous.

Today we went to the temple.  It was a lovely evening there and the kids survived.  I remember once lamenting to Pres. Volk about how far and how stressful the drive to the DC temple was.  He told me if I wanted my children to follow me there I needed to make a well worn path for them to see.  Good advice.  This is closer and a little less stressful but still far enough and the traffic is bad enough.  I wanted to go today for the stake RS temple night but E had practice, and H wasn't feeling well, and....  I remembered PV's words though and so assigned Hannah to walk with E to practice and back, and she felt better, and everyone survived.  So there you go, we had a great experience and I am glad we went.

Also I hope no one else gets sick. And I need to buy a book shelf and sell a chinchilla.  It's for sale on craigs list, as well as our electric dryer (brand new).  Hope they both sell.

Stomach bug

We've been sick. Ethan started it off, now Grace and I have it. Throwing up & the other end, fever, no fun. Hopefully Rob and Hannah won't get it too.

Sierra isn't sick but she instagramed this pretty picture and cheered me up. I'm looking forward to her visit soon. Sure love that girl!

Ziva isn't sick, she does keep me company in my new bed. So excited to have a new bed. We never have had a new one and it's so exciting and pretty.

a saga involving a rodent, a girl and the worlds worst mom

Today Ethan and Rob were both home.  Flu and bad back respectively.  R worked from home, which was fine.  E mostly slept or read or did his homework.  I think he'll go back tomorrow.
I picked up Hannah from school and she had to go get a shot.  One we were missing.  That took awhile but we got it done.
She is also meeting with a counselor to get lined up for graduating this year.  So crazy.  I don't know how I feel about that.  Well I do actually I don't want her to go.  She is so fun and we have a great time together.  I will miss her so much and feel jipped out of a year with her at home.  On the other hand baby birds leave the nest and I want what's best for her.  I am not sure this is it but we're going to start down the path and see.

So the chinchilla.  Worlds worst pet.  It is SO messy.  I sweep chinch poop up every day from multiple rooms, Grace's bed room smells like the elephant habitat at the national zoo and even though she worked for 2 hours cleaning it last night I still had to go in today and clean another half hour.  I am pretty tolerant of messy build up, particularly in the kids rooms, but I can not abide this.  I feel bad because we couldn't move the gerbils or fish.  We loved the gerbs they were awesome pets.  The fish I was neutral on.  In Grace's mind I moved my pet and not hers.  She had us over a big guilt barrel and so I agreed to the chinch.  I had no idea the mess.  So we told her today that we had to return Peter and she could pick another more suitable pet.  I even gave her an extensive list with options on it.
She could get a beta, a hamster or a venus fly trap.
She would like a cat or a dog or an elephant or a rabbit or a ferret.  I thought leasing a horse would be a great idea.  She said not.  We went to the pet store to look at replacement pets while she spends a last couple days with Peter.  She thought a ball python might be awesome! or a finch! or a guinea pig.  I agreed but Rob did not.  Then we went to Target with nothing settled but a furious girl who pitched a fit, kicked my seat, cried in the aisle, asked for everything under the sun and informed me that I am the meanest mother in the world and that she will never forgive me.  To which I replied fine.

It was a great night.

I do love my dog but I don't want two.  Cats.  No I don't like them but I would get one if that was the only problem.  Val and Michael are both very allergic and I hope they will visit sometime. So no cats.  Also a lot of other people are allergic, cats are very divisive that way.  We like to have people over a lot.  So no cats.  I'm good with a snake.  R hates them.  I am good with a small rodent (but not a mouse or a rat)  Birds are messy too.  And they live a long time.  Frankly I'd be fine with an elephant under the right circumstances.  Life in the antelope valley is not the right place though.   Grace has a running list of injustices and times when I have been mean or unfair or unreasonable.  It'll save her a lot of time when she goes to therapy as an adult.  She can hand over the notebook and they can read through it together.

In other news Grace and Hannah both got parts in cats.  So awesome!

Also we got Age of Ultron. I can't decide if Thor or Captain America is my favorite avenger.  But I will give it some thought :)