Aaaaaaaamen!

One of my favorite things that David does is say his prayers. I can say that this isn't something we really worked hard to accomplish with him. We didn't practice or push him to do this. We have been saying the Lord's Prayer every night at bedtime since the day we brought him home. About 6 or so months ago he started trying to say it with us. Now he can say the whole thing on his own! We've added some additions since he was able to say the prayer, including some blessings on family members (and Dawg, because who could possibly forget Dawg!?) and the closing sign of the cross, complete with gestures. Maybe more than loving watching David say his prayers at night is knowing that he WANTS to say them and reminds us if we forget! It truly is a beautiful thing seeing such an innocent child, one who does not yet know evil, pray to God who is good.

Our Father, who art in Heaven

Hallowed be Thy name. 

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done

On Earth as it is in Heaven. 

Give us this day our daily bread

And forgive us our trespasses 

As we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation

But deliver us from evil. 

Amen. 

"God bless Mommy and Daddy,

God bless my grandmas and grandpas,

God bless my aunts and uncles,

God Bless my cousins,

And God bless Dawg!

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

Aaaaaaaaaamen!"

A picture is worth a thousand words...

To the untrained eye, it probably looks like the cup of hot chocolate was meant to be the focus of this picture. To be completely honest, originally that was the intent. A facebook post perhaps about how David went to bed fairly easy tonight and that now I could sit down and just enjoy the cup of hot chocolate in relative peace. I couldn't really get the "picture perfect" picture with all of the other "stuff" lying around. That's when I thought a little more about it all. 

• Yes, the cup of hot chocolate is significant because I am sitting down, enjoying my relative peace. When I first poured it (it is the cheap Swiss Miss kind fyi) the smell evoked amazing memories of camping at Eagle Lake and getting up early to go fishing with Dad and Grandpa or sitting around the fire waiting for them to come home from their fishing excursion. The smell is so comforting somehow. 
• In the back you can see Dawg's kong toy. Tonight we took him for a walk for the first time in ages because it is finally warm enough to take David out, too, without too much trouble. We were all happier for it. I'm grateful the weather looks nice for tomorrow so we can go out again. 
• The toy train on the couch is David's. Well, actually it is a very gracious friend's who let David borrow it after hours of fun with their train table yesterday. Remind me to buy one of those asap. Talk about peace! That kid was totally engaged and independently playing. IKEA here we come!
• The pillow is catching my eye. The tag on the pillow actually. It's just bothering me. I will have to turn it over before I go to bed. 
• The blanket envokes  feelings of comfort and warmth. It is perfectly weighted and soft. Makes me want to cuddle up with a good book...ah a book. Haven't read one for fun in ages. Looking forward to some of that over the summer when the sun is shining and we can go out back for David to play. 

Really though, that picture looks like clutter and a mess with stuff just laying around. But the cup of hot chocolate keeps me in my place for just a few minutes tonight...just long enough to think of happy things and the beautiful life we have, the two of us with our perfect little boy and amazing Dawg. Clutter or not, this picture tells a story of comfort and love. 

~Heather

Menu Planning

A month of trying to work off of a planned menu has just ended. For the month of January I decided to plan out all of our dinners and buy groceries  based on a very specific list. I didn't know how it would go, but wanted to at least give it a shot. We wanted to save some money (little trips to the grocery store always add up to at least $50) and I never know what to make for dinner so this seemed like the perfect experiment for our family.

Here are the results:

Cons:

• It took about two hours to plan our dinners for the month and make the grocery list.
• Our schedules often change, so on nights I thought I had time to cook, I really didn't, and that meant I didn't follow the plan and things got mixed up.
• Because of those schedule changes, we really didn't finish the month well.

Pros:

• I felt GOOD planning - I am a planner so it was a huge success to just sit down and write everything down.
• We saved a lot of money not  buying out as often and not making as many small trips for extra ingredients, etc.
• On nights we were able to stick to the plan, Sam was able to get things started before I got home and we ate dinner at a decent hour. This led to dishes getting done earlier, and us having our evening with David and then ourselves once he went to bed, without doing as much work.
• I tried new recipes! It was my goal to try 3 new recipes. It was really fun!

My plan moving forward is to create a list for about 20 meals (leaving room for some busy night where we eat leftovers or go out), and to just have the shopping done so that we can decide what to do the night before. That might help with the change in schedules. I think it was totally worth it - despite the initial planning time - because it saved a TON of time in the end. :)

Adventures in one parent land...

Summer has arrived! Or at least that is what the calendar says. Sam is off to drum corps. We are only 5 days away from getting him home for one night and I can't wait! I can honestly say that I don't know how single-parents do it. God bless them! David and I have been on our own for just over a week now and while we have definitely gotten into a groove (and discovered how I can take a shower with him awake - quite the accomplishment!), it is definitely a test!

Since Sam has been gone, I got pulled over for the first time (thankfully only because we forgot to put the new tabs on...didn't even get a warning ticket - phew!), cleaned up a gigantic mess from an upset/angry Dawg missing his dad, endured a night of sick Dawg - probably from the trashcan he devoured, have miraculously kept up on laundry and watering the lawn, and dealt with a scary solicitor. David is now sick and has a fever, and we are about to have record setting temperatures for the second time this year, forcing us to vacate our house because we do not have air conditioning.

But, despite all of that ;-), we did drive up to the camp to see Sam for a couple of hours and have lunch, which was awesome! This morning, before David showed a temp., we went with Leslie and the canines for a hike, and I am getting to spend a TON of quality time with him. I am LOVING that part! This is what summer is about! This is why being a teacher is awesome! Even though I have to go into work on Monday, and again on Wednesday for a couple of hours, I am getting to spend hours upon hours with our fun, sweet, energetic, absolutely amazing son. He is learning new things everyday and his sense of humor is just the best. I am so excited and thankful that we will always have summers together and that our schedules will continue to line up when he starts school in a few years (what?!). We are so blessed.

Even though I cannot wait for drum corps to be over so we can spend a few days as a family having all this fun before school starts back up, I have to say that I am enjoying the adventure we are currently on - David and I are becoming quite the team! But I also do not envy single parents. David and I are also blessed to have Sam in our lives and we really can't do it (well) without him.

*On a side note, our neighbor brought up the trashcan today. I can't even begin to describe how thankful I was for what seems like such a little thing, but was such a big help!

End of the Year Chaos!

Sam's principal made a comment to him the other day during his annual evaluation that really made me think about how blessed we are in the midst of the end of year chaos. She told him that she was wondering how we were still married after a year like this one. Between Sam teaching K-12 music (totally unheard of...he is literally doing the work of two teachers right now), my ever-growing music program at school, being in school this year, and having a toddler at home...I suppose looking in from the outside someone might wonder that. And it will only be crazier next year with my internship and applying for jobs again.

But coming from where we are, it doesn't seem so crazy to me. I mean...our lives are crazy, but being married still? It's because we understand and have understood from the beginning. Living the music life through middle and high school, we both saw the lives our our directors. And we signed up for it anyway. In college, our dates revolved around concerts we were performing, volunteering together, working marching bands together, and doing homework together. We established that from the beginning. I knew when I married Sam that he would have concerts, professional development, and lesson planning to do. As he knew about me. We are still married because we get it. I could never be married to someone who didn't. It just wouldn't work. We are passionate about what we do. It makes work/our job so much better - loving what we do.

Now throw into the mix a 19 month old toddler...the love of our lives. We treasure every moment with David. He is our everything. We work for him, we play for him...he is amazing. This weekend we left him with my parents so that I could help Sam drive 11 kids to a music festival in Portland. While we know we both needed the time together (after we dropped the kids off the weekend was ours), and it is important for us to have the time to reconnect, we missed David terribly. It was a little bit of extra sleep, a little bit of freedom, but a lot a bit of missing and talking about him. It is so hard to leave him, but we really do appreciate the extra time to reconnect.

So, as we enter the most busy season of the school year (two and a half more weeks!), it is with great pride that we say we are still married and that this is just our life. We are lucky enough to get to spend the summer, majority of evenings and weekends with our family. It just seems crazy for a couple weeks at a time, a few times a year.

Looking forward -
Heather

A student once more...

By "a student once more," I refer to being a student of many kinds, but mostly of life!

I haven't written since before David was born. Sam wrote once this summer. Boy have we been schooled! :) Having a baby has been the biggest blessing in our lives, but that boy sure does keep us busy! We are learning so much about ourselves, each other, the world around us, and of course, so much about our son, because of our son. Good thing we like learning!

I am a student in school again as well, learning to become a school leader...a principal. Just like student teaching, there is so much to learn from real-world experience! In short, and for the sake of a brief update, though, I am enjoying learning the theory of leadership, and am also enjoying the opportunity to lead some work at my building.

Now that David is a year old, and I *think* finally above water again, I am recommitting to this blog. Look for some exciting changes coming soon! I plan on changing the title to more accurately reflect the purpose of the blog, and also to  add some pages to separate and organize some things (Family, Home Improvement, Travel, etc.). Hold me to it!

Hope everyone had a relaxing Thanksgiving...we have so much to be thankful for!

~Heather

Summertime...and the living is easy.

David is eight months old. David is eight months old. David is eight months old.

I have to keep saying this to myself because it is all so surreal. It has been a while since the last blog. As Heather indicated in that one, "it might be a while until the next post because are having a baby." Turns out, she was right. I mean, obviously she was right about having a baby. I mean the posting. Between the new position, David (his name by the way) being born, Dawg being jealous (in a cute way...not "I'm going to bite someone" way), and both of us just adjusting to this beautiful little person in our lives, we've been...preoccupied.

David was born healthy as can be and is so adorable! I know, I know. You are saying "you HAVE to think and say your baby is cute." I understand that. But, really, this kid is c-u-t-e. If you know me, you would agree that I am a pretty honest person; I don't like to beat around the bush. My wife knows full well that if something comes out of the oven a little overdone, and she needs an honest opinion, I'm the guy to ask (and I say everything as lovingly as possible). If my kid wasn't the cutest kid on the block, I think I would say so. And that would be ok. Eventually, he would grow into his awkward features and be fine. But, really, David IS the cutest kid on the block (never mind that there are no other babies on the block...you get my point).

Parenting is very awesome. It doesn't hurt that David started to sleep through the night right after the two-month mark. David is a morning person, so that's pretty easy. When we wake him up, he is usually all smiles and rolling around his crib. He eats his breakfast without complaint, and settles right into his car seat to go over to Grandma's. (By the way, having two grandmas and grandpas in the area is probably one of the most amazing things in the world. Knowing what I know now, I think I'd pack up and move home to have this if I didn't already live here. It is a blessing to say the least....and free:).) David's grumpy time is right about the time he gets back home in the afternoon after we pick him up. This isn't always the case, but he can sure give me a run for my money when he is in his fits. I'm so lucky to have a wife that is such a natural parent. She knows things that I can only guess at. He'll cry, and she will know exactly what to do. When she isn't around it is way more stressful because I can't just tap into this encyclopedia. I'm working on it. I'm becoming more patient. Because of grandma's amazingness, his schedule is very convenient and predictable. He goes to bed at around 8, wakes up around 6. For our crazy schedules, this is perfect. And it sucks when he is off his schedule. Luckily, that is rare.

After buying our house, we've just been waiting for the weather to get better so we can get outside and do some work. The first big project? You guessed it: build a fence. This may seem like a bit of deja vu as that was the first thing we did to our last house. We are SLOWLY learning that we need to include this in our offer to whoever we buy from next. NO DEAL IF YOU DON'T BUILD A FENCE BEFORE WE MOVE IN. In the meantime, I'm getting wicked good at building fences. After the fence is done, we will put down some soil and drop some grass seed onto it. Finally, a place for Dawg to roam! He's been such a good sport about it all. It helps that we live right in front of a little park, where he can use his acid pee to kill the grass (shhhh....I don't think anyone suspects that it's our dog!). We have a long list of to-do's after this, but we can take our time with those.

Although we are busy people (by our own doing most of the time), we are seriously considering having a foreign exchange student for next school year. We are worldly people that never travel, so we figured, why not bring the world to us? In this case, Hungary. We have hosted a few Japanese students for weekends, and we have really loved to teach them about our culture and especially learn about theirs. Having a student for the year is obviously a much bigger commitment, but Heather and I roll with the punches well. I think this will be a lot of fun! We are excited about showing her around and teaching her what our country is all about (guns and freedom!). She will be going to Reardan with me and will be in the music program, so it will be convenient. She sounds like an outstanding student and will fit into our academic household well. If you have any advice, let us know in the comments!

Speaking of busy, Heather just began her schooling to become a principal. It's been several years since we were in school, so we are a little nervous about doing this and just getting back our study habits (and I say "we" on purpose...it's a family affair). Heather is excited about doing this so I think any fears or doubt will be overran by sheer will. She wants to be more involved with school environment and culture and wants to be able to help teachers become better at their craft. I think she has so much to offer; she is so innovative in her approaches. I'm looking forward to seeing her progress!

The job is going well. I'm spending a lot of time just trying to get it into shape with basic necessities. For example, I successfully added jazz as a zero hour class for next year. Another example? I bought a bari sax case that will actually hold the instrument without it falling out and getting damaged...yes, that basic. Jazz has been taught for free up until now. It's K-12 everything, so I figured the least they could do was pay me for doing my job. The kids are excellent. There is a little bit of a learning curve (ok...a big one) for the community and just recognizing that music is just as important as other academic classes, and especially the almighty sports programs. But, that's another blog. It really is a great place to be. I'm hoping that the support continues and the growth continues.

So, life continues. We are truly blessed by all the wonderful things that have happened to us in the past year and all the people that are involved. We could not do this without God's guidance. We pray and think hard about all things that we consider doing and things we do. Every time we are at a cross road, we have been lucky enough to know God, and have followed him as best we know how.

Thank you for reading! It won't be so long before the next post....SUMMER HAS ARRIVED!

I hope all is well with you!

Sam