Weight Loss and Student teaching

It's been a long journey helped out by a stressful situation called student teaching. I took advantage of the fact that I could not leave the school to make sure I had a healthy lunch and took note of my calorie intake. I also hit the gym every other day or so and started lifting weights again. I'm so excited to be 3.7 pounds from my first goal!!!!! I started at 200+ lbs and I am reaching my initial goal of 170 it's taken roughly 90 days, whew. I still have weigh to lose but I have not been this light for almost 6 years. I plan to make it to 132 and celebrate this Halloween in a costume that makes me feel and look great!

Looking back I remember how tough it was in the beginning and how I thought it would take me forever. Now that I'm so close it was not that hard and I know the rest of the weight will be harder to lose but I feel like I am up to the challenge and I can do it. I can do it. Funny that is something I tell my Kindergarten students. You can do it.

I am looking forward to a healthier me! I gave up quite a bit of my red meats and started eating more veggies and fruits. I think it helped that Tim decided it was time to jump on the weight loss bandwagon as well. It certainly makes it easier!

My student teaching is coming to a close. I cried in the car on the way home today thinking about saying goodbye to my students. I have really come to think of them in that way. I know I'm going to be one of those teachers who will get emotional at the end of the school year. I officially graduate on the 13th of June. What a wonderful feeling.

So with the scarcity of work I will be going back to my old job (Ross Dress for Less) at least for the summer and working a 3am paper route. When school starts up again my plan is to guest teach at the 3 local school districts. This will allow me to work only when Tim is home and still manage to make more money than I did at Ross. A full time job would be ideal but at this point I am competing with at least 200 other people looking for a teaching job around here.

The boys are doing well, with all this wonderful sunshine I need to get some summer pictures of them and post.

Almost done!

No new pictures at the moment, some should be coming soon...maybe...

I just finished up my last quarter of night classes! (YAY). On March 23rd I start student teaching. I'm nervous and excited all at once. June 13th I will graduate from Western Washington University with a major in special education and my certificate for teaching. However, because I don't want to fork over anymore money to WWU and I did not take a test all that money spent on dual endorsement was a waste (sort of...it will be helpful as a general education teacher to know what I know!) but it feels like they wasted my time and money because they were greedy and could do it. Wow look at me go on a tangent.

Enough of my whining. I'm happy to be almost done, what a feat to finally graduate from college 10+ years after I started the first time, and to do it with two small children one born a week before finals last year!

More to come as I have more to tell.

Leavenworth Weekend

Last year Tim and I were able to make a trip out to Leavenworth. Friends of ours have a timeshare out there so we stayed there with two other "couple" friends of ours. We had a ton of fun, we went shopping at the little shops, inner tubing, and played in the snow down by a river. We left the boys with mom and dad. This year we had the chance to do it again. What fun! It was so nice to get a weekend without the boys and able to do things like take pictures, take a scenic drive, go inner tubing again, shop at the little stores and play Wii.
See pictures below! To the left: My friend Kevin To the right: Tim coming down the tubing hill
Fake ice sculpture.

Snow and Sprained Ankle

So long story short, I sprained my ankle while taking pictures of the snow. But I got some good pictures of the boys playing in it, or rather Jaxon just sitting in it and Tim dumping snow on Garrett...

Here are a couple more notables some of the boys and some of just things around outside.

Fall: Fun, Crisp and Colorful!

I decided to take a few hours out of a busy day to play with Garrett outside. We raked some leaves and played in the pile. Once Jaxon was done napping I brought him out to play also.

Happy Halloween!

Garrett had a blast this year. I decided to take him to the mall with my friend Tanna and her son and daughter and that worked out really well. We got there early enough it wasn't too busy and we got to do the whole circuit. He ended up handing over his shield and helmet so I got to wear those along with carrying Jaxon around the mall. We got to see some great costumes, there was a 2 year old dressed as Chewbacca, an adult stormtrooper and an adult Darth Vader who had those great deluxe type costumes.

Once we were done at the mall we stayed at Tanna's place for just a little bit then I took the boys home and had Garrett trick-or-treat down our street. Towards the end he was telling the neighbors about getting candy from the other houses. I think it was nice for the neighbors to see the boys in costume since I've never taken them out before thivn s year.

I'm glad Garrett made out like a bandit gives me incentive candy for potty training!

School days

I went in for my first day of practicum in the class I will be student teaching in. Wow. Kindergarten is just like 7th grade only they are not learning the same things. It is an interesting mix of students. The age range is comical, there is a 4 year old almost 5 and a 6 year old almost 7. According to the teacher none of these students have had preschool. So they are learning that you do not hit people, spit on them, say bad words, call each other names, kiss the hallway, touch others, line up etc...

I have a couple ideas I hope I can get my host teacher hooked on for some classroom management. But so far I have to say I love it! The children are interesting and lively and I am definitely looking forward to working with them. I also like my host teacher she's very energetic and patient with her students. We also have some runners. I think it will be nice for her to have me around for two quarters helping her and it will be a nice break for her when I student teach.

The students were certainly very interested in me and what my role is and I think they know that I am like a second teacher. My only concern is that I do not want to over step my boundaries in terms of "her" classroom. I know there are some possessive teachers out there and I do not want her to resent having me there. But so far so good we are pretty good at communicating with each other.

Well off to do some housework (which is never ending with a child like Garrett...)