Can't Wait for Spring...Break

Happy March everyone. Again not too much going on in our end of the pond, but thought I should put a few pics up.

I'm a few months in to my new job and have to say that it has been quite the eye-opener. The way schools are run is something I am not used to at all. The good things come in the way of having less oversight when it comes to daily duties. I don't feel like I am being watched like a hawk. The bad things come in the way of having to deal with pre-teens who have no respect for adults. It's disheartening. The nice thing though is that its a K-8 school so when I want to kill the 7th and 8th graders I can turn around and get a huge lovey hug from a 1st grader who still likes me!

All in all I have enjoyed my experience. And at this point it is going to be a pretty brief experience. The district has to make a 20 million dollar budget cut for next year and so I (along with most of the paraeducators) are on the chopping block. I'm bummed that I won't be able to keep my foot in the door for future prospects, but am not going to fret because I know many more people have it worse than I do. Our principal has been nice enough to keep us abreast of the situation so I have already started applying for other jobs. I am under contract and will paid through July, but I would rather find something now and not have to take Ella out of daycare and then put her back, so keep your fingers crossed for me that I find something before the end of May!

Peter is out of town now. He has traveled twice in the past two months for work. It has only been for a couple of days though so it hasn't been too bad.

Blake finished up an excellent basketball season a few weeks ago. He seemed to really enjoy it. It was fun to watch him play and improve throughout the season. He starts baseball here in the next few weeks. ( I personally think it is far too cold to be thinking about baseball just yet!)

Ella is a talker (like her mama). And she's bossy (like her mama). She like to tell you to sit down and if you don't hear her or ignore her, she yells, "Siiit down!" It's so funny. She also likes to name everything. If there's a bunch of us in the room she will go around and point and say, "Daddy, Mommy, Koa, Bwake, Daddy, Mommy, Koa, Bwake" and just keep going. Or if she is looking at a book, she likes to name everything on the page, she is getting really good at remembering what things are called after I have told her once or twice. She has a few Sesame Street books and she picked up "Big Bird" after only telling her a few times. She's also starting to distinguish between different drinks. Before, all drinks were "Milk", but now she knows, "milk", "water", and "jui" (juice). She still a fruit fiend. And everything is affle (apple), she calls bananas and oranges, "affles", but for some reason she knows blueberries are "bluebers". Weird.

Anyway, here are some recent photos. Take care, and love you!

She says "cheeeeese" now!

I was trying to show how long her hair is now.

Got the pillow and the cell phone, got her legs crossed. Ya know, just chillin'



Perhaps the biggest news! Ella's new big girl bed! Yay! For the most part she sleeps in it all night. For some reason she wakes up at about 5:30 and wants to go sleep on the couch. Whatever....
The pic above-she likes to "pretend". She crawls in the bed pulls the covers up, demands her "bwankie", lays her head on the pillow and says, "Sweep?"