Cupcakes and Vaseline

Chasen loves cupcakes, as this picture shows! He is also obsessed with Vaseline. Strange story, my mom's cat is too but that's another blog another day. He keeps trying to get a hold of the Vaseline at his changing table. I keep having to move it, take it away etc. Well, tonight he was in his room and we were down the hall and he found the hidden treasure! He came in the kitchen with Vaseline covering his hands and we found that he had touched a lot of things in his room with these greasy hands! The walls, the chair, the table! We will just have to remove his drug of choice for a while until he gets under control!

We are off tomorrow! Yeah! But, now we will be shopping for a kitchen faucet since ours broke and is squirting everywhere! It never ends, these messes! My sister came to visit this weekend, and I told her that it seems like all I do is clean up messes! It was bad enough cleaning up after Justin, now I have an even messier boy! I will teach Chasen to clean when he grows older. His future wife to be will thank me for me! I'm not going to give her a boy who can't clean up after himself!

We had some snow this weekend as well. Nothing big, but it did keep us from going up to Dunwoody to meet some friends for dinner. Didn't want to risk the drive and possible ice. We were really looking forward to our all-you-can-eat sushi buffet! I hope we can get a rain (or snow) check on that date!

Oh, Seahawks!

Justin and Chasen were cheering for the Seahawks yesterday, but to to avail. We will miss seeing them until next year!

Time has been strange since Christmas. It seems that we have been so busy, yet it's only the 13th! Which wouldn't mean too much to some, but since the school system does payroll once a month and was "kind" enough to pay us on the 14th of December it seems like it's a long way to February!!!!

We celebrated birthdays last night-my dad's birthday is tomorrow and Justin's is on Wednesday. We went with my parents to our favorite place in the world-Daruma's! But instead of sitting in the sushi bar we sat at the hibachi table. Chasen thought it was so cool! He loved the fire and flames. We had a funny hibachi chef and Chasen just laughed and "ahhhhhed" him. It was a very nice dinner. Those are rare these days. Chase is just at this stage where we can't take him out to eat anymore! He doesn't like being restrained in the highchair and usually within a few minutes starts getting loud and reaching for us to get him out. I'm not saying he was perfect last night, but he was extremely good!

It's been crazy the last few weeks at work. I don't know what was going on last week, but the kids are in a rare mood. It's like they are all wild and angry! We had several fights, one right at my feet with two of my students rolling around in the hallway. And the attitude of my 8th graders! Geez! I don't know what or who they are mad at, but they are not happy campers! It's only to get worse too I fear since we are all going into a CRCT panic and laying the pressure on the students as well. It's frustrating because we have to teach them so many things to pass these tests and they just DON'T CARE. I don't remember a lot from middle school, but it's hard to understand now how students can care so little. Even with the threat of the CRCT's determining if they go on to the next grade! I don't get it. I get frustrated with the students because of this attitude, maybe because I'm a first year teacher. I will probably learn to just accept it and reach the ones that I can reach. It seems like a struggle and waste of time to try to reach those who have no will to do better. I can just hope that this is a middle school thing and that they grow out of it!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2008! I wonder how long it will take to get use to writing 2008?!?

We spent the evening at home, trying to save our energy to return to work. It's been so nice having two weeks off for the holidays. I've gotten a bit spoiled sleeping in! Things will get back to normal tomorrow I guess. The next few months will be crazy getting the kids ready for the dreaded CRCTs-a state mandated test that is a huge pressure on the schools.

Chasen is still enjoying his Christmas toys. He likes to stand in his dump truck from the Millers and ride his cattipilar rocker from Kim. He scoots that thing all over the living room! He is so active now that he's over his cold! His latest thing is to spin himself in circles getting dizzy. He can do that for hours without getting bored! He also loves hats now and likes to get in front of his reflection and try his hat on in different styles. He just cracks up at himself! He also tries to put the hat on mommy too...