Do you know who you are? Even Steven!

So. Things change so fast don't they? one minute, im going to school monday. the next minute i'm staying home, the next minute i am going to my doctors appt, and teaching the next day, the next minute i'm driving to southern utah to see my grandmother off to the next world. or so it appears. in a way, that makes my desicion very easy, and i appreciate that. i've already called my assistant and told her i wont be there this week. but that i could be there next week if needed. so this week, im going to southern utah with sisters and kids, to see family, and probably say goodbye to grandma ruby. and there is something to help the money issue, jeremy offered to buy 2 paintings, he picked out pictures, and im going to try my best to accuratly represent. so that will get me about $300. which isnt much less than i would normally make in a week i think. so it all evens out for me. anyways. and luckily, i made TONS of olive garden soup last night, even thuogh dan didnt think i should start cooking at 9 oclock at night. but now look- he's got dinner all week when im gone. so im feeling better now. i gotta go pack, and then i am going out to audreys to make sure she's on schedule (she keeps stalling so the kids will sleep on the drive , aka drive all night! dan isnt okay with that), and so this is goodbye.

So it wasnt working out, but it wasnt the end.

And its Still not the end huh? funny thing, i called my assistant annalisa today to make sure she didnt quit incase i go back, and she was like "OH you should come back!" and she told me one student was crying for a while after i left, and so i was like "okay tell the school monday when you get in that i will be back" and i will call the school too, and then she called back like 10 minutes later and said the teacher i have been covering for called her (wierd huh?) and said "oh i hope she comes back shes such a good teacher!" so that made me feel good, and i felt pretty wanted and needed, so i said "sure why not!" so im back in business i think. the permanent teacher when she heard from annalisa that my school was pushed back said "i'll call the principal right now!". so anyways. that seems to be the plan. man im so hot right now, i just made olive garden soup, and its already kinda warm in our house, and i this big bowl of steaming hot soup..but it was good. and tomarrow i think we're gona have pot roast with potatoes and carrots. and jenny and her babies will probably come over since audrey will be in training. we had a good time today , went up to the valley and dropped emma off to her Rock Start party, and then we went and did some shopping and that. looked at some great model homes!!! we found the perfect house, for only 1/2 million!! i loved the ceilings, like i think 10 or 12 foot, LOVED it. awesome built in entertainment centers, awesome kitchen... someday...someday! and ya dad, i have seriously thought of taking more art classes. i just love painting. love it. and when i thought of taking more classes, i heard dorothy from wizard of oz "everything i need is right here". i have that book, Alla Prima. i just simply need to take more time to read and study it. its got everything i think i might ever need to learn. the class would be for practice. and someone other than my own self critiquing my work. so ya art classes are a great idea. and also, richard schmid has instructional videos of him painting, and i would LOVE to get my hands on those. he wrote alla prima and he's pretty much a super star of a painter. AMAZING work. simply amazing. anyways, i will post another picture, jenny and i worked on her mountains in the one with the yellow flowers, and so i will repost to show the difference. thanks for your comments, i love to hear from my audience! Good night !

Upper Cascades , Washington

These paintings were done from a photo of washington in my national parks book. Jenny took her mountain out. but both i am happy with! that mountain was really hard. and it took us a long time! and by the end of it parker and olivia were just dying! they were pretty dang good though, seeing as we painted for like 6 or 7 hours!! without stopping really... it was intense.

So you had a bad day....

yah. so im in a big dilema right now. the stupid school called today and as i am the only student enrolled, they are not proceeding with my school. they hope to get a class started may 15. i was like GEE THANKS THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN HELPFUL BEFORE I QUIT MY JOB. im so mad right now. mostly because i dont want to go back to subbing. but what else can i do right now? UGH. what kind of school has one student? and what if they dont start may 15? then im out again, and do i really want to take classes from a school who cant even attract more than 1 student? REALLY. im just mad. i dont know what to do. or what i can do. i already quit, we have a party for my goodbye and everything. we took pictures. i counted down the days. i think my aide may have already quit, she said thursday if things werent going well again, she wasnt coming back either. this just stinks. there is one thing i am looking forward to. i have a doctors appt monday and maybe soon i will be able to get pregnant with any luck at all and stop worrying about jobs and working after a while... but who knows. im not holding my breathe yet. such is life right? things just arnt going as planned and there is nothing i can do about it. and i think thats what bothers me. IM not the one who pulled out on school. the school pulled out on me!!!! i've never even heard of such a thing. i feel like an idiot, especially if i ask for my job back "yah, the school that im going to must be really good, cause i was the only student , and classes were supposed to start monday, yet even though i enrolled over a month ago, i was the only student and they called friday april 28 (TOTAL LAST MINUTE) to cancell my class." i just dont even want to think about it right now. i wish i could go to sleep tonight and forget what im gona have to try to come up with to do for the next two weeks. me and jenny and my friend camie did paint today. but i will post that tomarrow...

Paint ON!

This is the painting i did

This is my painting, and me.


Here is Jenny and her painting, its funny because olivia fell asleep and then we started painting, and it was great, and then livy woke up and i brought her out to watch us paint, and she kept trying to tell jenny her nose was covered in paint. it was funny, livy just stood there forever staring at it and saying "nose" "nose". anyways one of these pictures i put because the flash was on, and you could really see how wet the paint is!
(This is the wet one)
This one is of how we were set up for the painting.
And this one is jennys painting.

So yesterday, me and jenny attempted to paint Impressionistic style (not really painting in normal stages with beginning, or underpainting to secure objects and that sort of thing. with impressionistic, we jsut start by doing small spots of color and sort of work across (or in our case down) the canvas. it was very difficult, because its hard to keep the colors clean. which is exactly what richard schmid said would be the most difficult. hes ALWAYS right. so if any of you readers out there want to learn a thing or two about painting, read Alla Prima by him. its a great investment if you want to learn about painting. ) anyways. that was a longer breath than i had planned... so lets go on. i think we did a terrific job! especially being the first attempt at this style of painting... and jennys FIRST time ever painting! im very proud of her, she did a great job. so i have posted here some of the pictures of us painting. I will note this, i am not sure i would do another painting so simple, being there were SO many flowers. the field was HUGE! and it got boring, or rather, we let ourselves wander a big after a while. we needed something with maybe a more interesting foreground.. but that said, i think they turned out pretty cool. jenny might do something to her mountains today, but if she does, i will post it. and i think we may paint today. so check back later if you'd like. (knock on wood..) i would really like to paint again since i have no work today!

All DONE

Well. here is a picture! We are ALL DONE! so thats is exciting. The last picture was of us , but 2 students were absent in that one. They are all here in this one!

Good Bye

Well. Today was my last full day as Mrs. Jacobson, Special Education Teacher. Yep. last full day. it feels like the last day of school, you know that you will never be in the same group of kids again. i will go back tomarrow for half a day, but thats its. i leave at lunch. i think my aide is very nervous about who is taking my place. i am worried about who is taking my place. this class is very unique. they take a lot of patience, you nearly have to do everything for them. but sometimes its really cool, they remember something you have tried and tried to teach them, and you didnt think they noticed. today i really felt like a teacher. i walked into library to pick them up, and on the overhead was "Mrs. Jacobson" and then a bunch of blank lines, and all the kids had a paper, and they were writing letters to me, wishing me luck at school, saying they'll miss me, saying what they liked me helping them with. and this morning luciano's mother sent a note saying how much she appreciated me taking time to teacher her son, she said she really noticed hes getting better at reading and can write on his own now. aww. then there are days like today, when it makes it easy for me walk away. all day today they werent listening very well, and instead of getting cupcakes , they didnt. they got to put their heads down and practice listening and following directions. but yah know? im glad i got the opportunity to be a long term sub, to see what its like being a teacher. i never thought i liked 3-5th grade, but i like these kids. they are all so different. and its given me a lot of experience, this past month. it just feels strange not to go back now. im used to that classroom now... and i'll really miss a lot of these kids. they are so funny. im glad i got to know them. it is very rewarding to teach them. and although it can be very frusterating when you wait at the front of the room for them to be quiet and they dont even notice , and just get louder and louder, sometimes its a lot of fun. But tomarrow i say goodbye. i will never be a teacher or a substitute teacher ever again. im not swearing it off, i am just saying, i start school may 1, then i'll go to school and then i will be an aesthetist. and then i will work at the clinic until i have children of my own. Well. i really do love these students, even though i was with them a relatively short time. i worry about them in the future. so many of them have such a bleak future- a lot of their parents are on drugs and what not. they have very tough lives for being so little. Im out! (no pun intended!) (i attached a few pictures of my students and my aide)

School and Family

Here is one of me reading to the kids about following one rain drop around the world, following the water cycle today.

Here is a group picture of the students and me.

Me Reading to the class..

Kevin, My Aid AnnaLisa and me and then Stefon.

Livi Loving a Flower (or a weed.. a very small weed).
and then there are some pictures of us at the pool we went to , the marriot resort in phoenix!

Fransisco

here is a picture of the baby i was watching today. my visiting teacher has a foster baby, named Fransisco, hes really cute. long eye lashes, very chubby. but has a broken leg since saturday (the 15th i think). poor little guy, only 4 months old. my guess is abuse, since babies dont break easily. at least bones, that young, their bones are still probably pretty soft. it would have to take a lot to break one. anyways, so he wears this little harness thing around him that keeps him in line so to speak. protects the femur*sp* (broken leg). anyways, its sort of hard to cuddle him because im scared i'll hurt the poor little lamb. but he was a pretty happy baby, and he fell asleep on me, so that gave him a lot of bonus points. hes so cute! and the kids were all really excited to hold him.

Jinxus

So jinx took a nap today. she curled up in dans sweater. although it was pretty warm today so she shouldnt be cold...and i put up a bunch of pictures to commemorate jinx's 2nd birthday which was on April Fools Day. Happy birthday to Jinxus! (thats her full name me and dan decided. we will only call her jinxus when shes in trouble and that sort of thing. nickname is jinx or jinxy). So there is one from when we moved, she found a basket to sleep in, one of us moving (she was out of her seatbelt, riding on the dash), some of her playing with dan, and just doing the things she likes to do. like playing little kitty plumber, under the fridge fiddeling around..

Happy 2 Year Anniversary!! (and Easter)

One Boy, One Girl
Two hearts beating wildly.
to put it mildly it was love at first sight.
He smiled.
She Smiled.
and they knew right away...
This was the day they had waited for
All their life.
and for a moment the whole world
revolved around
One boy
and
One girl.

Life of a Teacher

So i have been the permanent substitute teacher for Mrs. parzychs special ed almost 2 full weeks. we have no school friday! yay! im excited, that way i can clean my house for the party we are having friday night. im excited, we have never had a party, i think we'll have 15 people there (counting us). so anyways, im a "teacher" now basically. isnt that crazy? a girl without any credentials as far as college for teaching (i took NO college classes that remotely have to do with teaching), can be a teacher for like 2 months for students? they offered to let me teach here until the end of the school year. 2 months! but i have to stop may 1st to go to school. and be a student once again. anyways, im gona go, its late and im tired! thanks mare for showing me some really cool images.

To Foster or Not to Foster.

That is my question. but i've about answered that one for myself. i wanted to foster babies. but because babies need one solid person to attach to until age 2 years, they done move babies around much. if i got one straight from the hospital , i would have that baby for a long time chances are. possibly one or two years. very possibly. and then have to give that baby up. and thinking about it, and knowing me, i am pretty sure i couldnt do that. it would be too hard. especially because i dont even have any of my own kids, so it would be like raising one of my own until one or two years and then giving them up. so saddly, i think we will wait for a while for fostering. probbaly a few years. so today i went back to school. my class was so quiet, very sleepy today. i had to pry every little response from them. (just responses pertaining to the lesson,they had no trouble today arguing with each other or the teachers). one of the kids in my class was totally not himself. i am thinking something happened over the weekend at home, poor kid. last time he was like this his mom left the night before and didnt come back. (he was at grandmas). and then another one was just sort of throwing fits all day... but other than that nothin really happened. everything was fine. im so tired though now. it wears me out, im up and busy and on alert and teaching all day. its sometimes hard to relax when i get home because i've been "teacher" all day and i feel like i cant sit down or do anything without watching kids. but i really need to exercise , so i charged up my ipod and im gona go run for a while. Talk to ya later!

ALoha

SO today was the Louau (sp) for the casa grande area, saddly, not that many showed up. i mean probably a couple hundred people. but maricopa had a louau and i think a few thousand showed up. so thats sorta too bad. but it was a lot of fun, they had hula dancers and stuff, there was this one girl who was AMAZING at it, i dont see how her hips moved like that!! it looked totally fake but it wasnt!! that was cool, and they had really good food, and david was really happy because the skate park was next to the louau. if i am going to be spelling that word over and over i should have looked it up so i am at least spelling it correctly... anyways, earlier today we went up to change the oil in the acura, but then found out the dealer sold it to us with bald tires and the wrong tires for the car. i think they are just not high performance tires, but they were okay, but we had to get new ones because they were bald. so that stunk. we changed the oil, went to the mall, dan went up to the dealer we got the car from, they basically laughed at him, he came to the mall with us, then he went to get new tired and that took literally ALL Day. we barely made it to the louau.audrey got emma some ADORABLE dresses from limited too, they are so cute. kinda pricey but worth it i think. and then i got some shirts at hollister. sometimes it just feels so good to shop. i feel like me again. it reminds me of days with out bills and days with money to spend. someday that will happen again!! maybe not the lack of bills part, but the money to spend part... so anyways. my two year anniversary is in one week. wow. 2 years. it feels like 2 years. in some ways it feels like forever, i cant even imagine living at home anymore, not decorating and cooking at my own house, and buying my own groceries and all that, and it feels like i've known dan forever. and it seems like so long ago we lived in holladay and got married. see like maybe 6 months ago it didnt seem that far back, but now it does. so much has happened in the last 2 years. a great 2 years- definatly time of my life...and it just gets better right? going to hollister brought back some memories. one of my favorite places to shop, but somewhere i dont think i've shopped since before i was married. anyways.. ... we are going to watch arrested development! that show is SO funny. i highly recomend renting then season 1. or any other season i am sure but i have only seen season 1.

Happy BIRthday mom!

heres some cake!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!
Hey everybody! i am now a "teacher" at Palo Verde Elementary School. mrs. parzych had her baby on april fools day so since monday i have been the new teacher. this week is a little crazy because its AIMS DPA testing. the standardized tests! and we have special education students , lots of them! it was a little crazy. but things are going okay.Weather is good here , still nice. So tomarrow and the rest of this week is the testing. So i will be doing this everyday until may 1st when i start school to become an aesthetist!! (skin care specialist). Yesterday david was doing so well at the skate park. me and audrey were running a little bit around the track and emma was bawling because she forgot the plastic rod to keep the wings of her kite up and so she couldnt fly her kite, and dave was on marys rollerblades going over the "spine" and doing cool jumps all over the skate park, i was very impressed! what a stud! he said it was the best day of his life. because he went over the spine and did the tricks! he was so proud of himself. and then emma was excited because she got to come to my house and get some cheesecake! and we had olive gardens zuppz toscana soup! I'll post a picture of the cheesecake we made! our first one! and exciting news, jenny and the kids are coming to arizona on the 20th!!!

Aesthetics

So that is what i am going to school for. at least that is the plan. thursday morning i have a meeting up in chandler at the artistic beauty college to enroll in school there, and classes start may 1st for aesthetics. so today we went to go do splits but nobody showed up , so i talked to audrey and emma and dave (dave's pine wood derby is tonight), and then we came home to work out. so i didnt see his car race, but thats okay. his moms there. so thursday no work! im just kinda bummed i didnt set my appt for later , cause it would have been nice to work out with everybody in the am. on tue and thurs mornings i guess there is a really good aerobics class , but i am always working. and now with school, i dont see how i will ever attend! and its the only group activity i know of. i wish there was something the women did more often to exercise, like dan has basketball every morning. but i dont know if that many women have time or make time for that sort of thing. so im on my own. well , not my own, dan and audrey still like to work out with me. anyways, it rained here this morning! and for az that is saying something! it was nice! and then after school i had to go to training for Terra Nova Testing, because i will probably be helping palo verde elementary with their testing, when my long term sub begins. any day now, mrs. parzych is still pregnant. but she will have that baby any day so i will just wait i guess. thats fine with me. im a little nervous about her class. Well. Talk to ya later.

Busy Life.

Whew... i am feeling very overwhelmed with everything right now. Today i subbed for special ed at palo verde elementary, and it went fine, i had a little free time in the afternoon, so that was good, i read from the ensign (i have to read 30 more pages before tomarrow mornings breakfast..) and then some kids showed up, with nothing to do, and i had nothing for them to do, so i read to them, and then gave them a math worksheet, and then they told me i had to go to room B5 so the aid took over, so i went to B5 to find ms. underwood (the principal) in there with mrs. parzych, this very pregnant special ed teacher for students more than 2 years behind their grade level, and i guess that is the long term sub position they were asking me last night if i was interested in, so i guess i am doing it, it might start this coming monday, it was not supposed to start until the middle of april i thought. so wow. a lot sooner than i thought. and so for like an hour or more i was just in with the teacher, and walking around the school looking for her students with her (i was compeltely lost, it was a field trip today and i was just following her..)so then we came back to the classroom and she very quickly went over lesson plans and that (she will be gone SIX weeks) and i was kinda stunned. i dont really remember much of the million things she was ratteling off , there was just TOO MUCH !!!! too much to handle! way too much to process. at first i tried to keep up, but the more she kept piling on, the harder it got to remember, and things started blurring together... and by the end i just sort of had nothing to say. i didnt know what questions i would have , and i just felt very overwhelmed. these students (which many of whom she has expressed can be a handful) will be with me all day, i pick them up at 8:20, and i teach them all subjects.. wow. thats a lot to take in. her lesson plans arnt REAL detailed. they have a list of approximatly what time things go on, and what the activity or worksheet or whatever is called. i didnt even go over all that .. she briefly would point to where the materials were in the room, but again.. blurr...i feel like all this stuff just kept heaping up and up, and now its all falling off. and then there is school, i decided i think i will start school may 1st to be an aestetician , doing facials and laser hair removal, that sort of thing, and so i will go up to chandler every day for that. so until then i will be doing this long term subbing. EVERYDAY! so i will be very busy. so then there is another x factor, foster care. i have about decided not to do it. because the training is starting next week and goes for 10 weeks, every saturday, that really takes up a lot of time. and then will i have energy and time for a foster baby? i will be going to school all day, and then probably working as a tech until i can work as an aestetician at the office from like 3-7 pm, from like, well school is may-sept, and then i would be a tech just as soon as the office opens probably. so that is sort of hectic... i will be exhausted when i get home, when am i even going to work out? and art? im gona be swamped. right now im just subbing from 7:30-3:30 and im tired when i get home. so....SO MUCH GOING ON!! and then in the midst of all that, we are trying for a baby of our own, if theres anyone here who didnt know. so THATS whats going on. right now in my head ther e are a million things floating... i was going to work out with audrey today, but her foot hurts i guess, and i had to go pay the water bill anyways, and then check on another bill (that i paid but forgot), and then call the doctors office about a bill but they are closed. and i had to try to get ahold of GLoria at Artistic Beauty College to make an appt for aestetician school , and i have to do the enrollment appt and the financial aid appt in the same day because since i am a long term sub i cant just take days off all the time, i am expected to work everyday... Whew. i feel a little better now. i better go read that ensign before tomarrow. and im helping camie plan a surprise birthday party for her husband Rhett next week, oh an tomarrow we are going with the new members to see the new Joseph Smith video and ice cream... Anyways. thats whats going on... Talk to ya later!!

So cute!!

Here are the kids and their bunnies, they are pretty tiny little things, very well behaved so far, love cuddling and being held. So tonight i was informed they got their cage all set up. and they should be sleepin outside!

Bunnies

Here are some more pictures of the kids bunnies!