We're Back!!!!

After 8 years, we have finally moved back to Arizona!! Ryan decided to transfer to Arizona School of Massage Therapy and will be graduating in October. I got a job at American Leadership Academy in Queen Creek teaching Kindergarten. We are so excited to be closer to our family and friends!! Its a little hotter than I remember, so we have been doing lots of this. Austin turned 1 last Sunday, so I will be posting pics of that soon.

Mary's 60th Birthday Extravaganza!

Last weekend we drove down to Arizona to celebrate my mother in laws 60th birthday. On Saturday we went with Ryan's family to the Renaissance Festival.

It was so much fun!!! We ate yummy food, played fun games, watched some cool shows, and rode on some "man powered" rides.

As we were walking out of the festival, there was this guy standing there holding a rock in one hand and a roll in the other and he was sayind "Rock N' Roll". :)

That night we went to eat at a really yummy Indian restaurant in Gilbert called the Guru Palace. Most of us had never had Indian food before, so it was so much fun to try something new.

Then we came home for some VERY yummy birthday cake that Alicia made special for Mary's birthday. :) Make a wish Mary.

Alicia and Melanie planned ahead of time to spend the night, so we stayed up late and had a really fun slumber party with everybody. :) The next day we had a yummy breakfast and since the weather was so nice, we decided to go to Freestone Park.

Paisley with her Grandma Mary and Uncle Shaun. I love this picture because Mary and Shaun are looking one way and Paisleys looking the other. :)

That night, some family friends came over and we played games and made smores and roasted hotdogs over Mary's firepit in her backyard and had a nice relaxing night. It was the perfect ending to a really fun weekend.

My Classroom

I have now been teaching for 5 months and I have been loving every minute of it. Here are some fun things we have been doing...
Paper plate santas

Tissue paper wreaths

Our class word wall. During writing time the kids like to write stories but sometimes can't spell "non first grade words", so everytime they ask me to spell one of those words, I write it down and put it on our class word wall.

Snowflakes. They had sooo much fun making these. They made a total of 120 of them and I hung up every single one of them!

Our library corner. Ryan made the sunflower. He is SO talented!! He really makes me look good. :) On the bulletin board it says "Our Giving Tree". Everytime a student notices another student do or say something nice, they can write what it was down on a leaf and then I put it on the tree.

My first graders have to learn their subtraction math fact families to 13, so I thought it would be fun to create something to encourage them to memorize those fact families. Once all the kids memorize all 13 families, we are going to have a popcorn party.

This is the same as the popcorn idea, but this is for addition. And they get an ice cream party when they memorize their addition fact families.

For Presidents Day, we made these fun Abe lincoln hats. Abe Lincoln used to keep his speeches in his hate so he wouldn't lose them. So for this writing activity, the kids were told to write down what they would put in their hats. You can't see it, but the hats flip up to show what they wrote.

This big long chain hanging across the ceiling is called "Ernest". He is our class caterpiller. Everytime one of my kids reads a book, they get to write their name and the name of the book on a piece of the chain. So far my kids have read over 400 books since October!

Last month our class got to go to a Junie B. Jones Play! It was so awesome!! This is a really bad picture. The lighting wasn't really good.

For the 100th day of school. I made this HUGE sign for the kids to walk through.

Fun 100th Day treat

Christmas door hanger craft

My Valentines "Card" to my kids and co-workers. :)

Also for the 100th day, I had the kids do a "buklet list" of things they want to do before they are 100. They got to do a little drawing of what they thought they would look like at 100 using cotton balls for hair. :)

I am so blessed to have this teaching opportunity! I could not of asked for a more perfect class for my first year of teaching.

Paisley's 2 1/2 Year Update

Paisley is now 2 and 1/2 years or 30 months or 120 weeks or 840 days or 20,160 hours old (whichever way you want to look at it). :) She is at such a fun age. She is such a happy little girl. Here are some things about Paisley at 2 and 1/2...

1. She has long brown naturally curly hair and blue eyes (sometimes her eyes turn green depending on what she wears just like her mom).
2. She can and does say pretty much everything.
3. She is not a picky eater, but currently has an obsession with cheese.
4. She is getting used to nursery. Except for last Sunday when it was time to go to nursery, she started crying and said to Ryan "I just want to go home". It was so funny and sad at the same time.
5. She likes to get into the fridge and cupboards and bring us whatever she finds in there.
6. Her favorite movies are Cars, Toy Story, Madagascar, Chicken Little and Tangled.
7. She loves to sing. Her favorite songs to sing are "I am a child of God", "Twinkle twinkle little star", "The wheels on the bus", "I love to see the temple", "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam", "You've got a friend in me", "If your happy and you know it", "I'm a little teapot" and "ABC's". She also sings the songs from my phone ringtones whenever my phone goes off. :)
8. She loves to got the park.
9. She likes to go to the library. She will say "go to the library and get books?". Thankfully Cars came out with a series of books, so every other week we go check out a new Cars book.
10. Her newest phrase is "How about we...". So she will say "How about we go to the park?" or "How about we watch Cars 2?".
11. She loves to give Austin hugs and kisses.
12. She does not love to share with Austin though. Shocking right?
13. She is quick to announce "Austins crying" whenever she hears him cry.
14. She loves to play with her kitchen.
15. She is ALWAYS bringing us a play cup or bowl and asking us to put water in them so she can pour them in to other cups and bowls.
16. She likes to put stickers on everything (including Austin). :)
17. She no longer takes naps.
18. She loves to talk to people on the phone.
19. When we say "I love you Paisley", she responds "I love you too".
20. She is the happiest little girl.

Paisley has been a special blessing from day 1. I don't know what we did to be so lucky to have her in our lives. I am so grateful to have the opportunity to be her mom.

Austin's 8 month Update...

Let me just start out this post by saying "I am a very bad mom". :) When we had Paisley, there were updates every 3 months. With Austin...not so much. So Austin is now 8 months old! I can not believe how fast he is growing up. We are loving every minute of it. At his 6 month check up, he weighed 14 lbs. He has gained weight since then, but he is still just a little guy. :) Here are some things about him at 8 months...

1. He has taken a few steps on his own. He wants to walk so bad!!
2. Doesn't want to crawl (refer to #1 as to why), but if he does, he goes backwards.
3. Loves bananas. Is ok with squash, carrots, beans and peas.
4. Has the most contagious smile and laugh.
5. Paisley likes to make him laugh by going up to him and saying "tickle tickle tickle" while tickling his tummy.
6. Is still NOT sleeping through the night :(
7. Is still a blue eyed toehead. :)
8. Used to suck on 2 of his fingers until they were red and swollen, but has finally quit that nasty habit. :)
9. Loves playing with a foofa (sp?) in the bath.
10. Loves to people watch (he got this from his mama). :)

We are so lucky and blessed to have Austin in our lives.

Christmas Midway Style

Ok, so I finally had an extra few minutes in between dinner, a bath, stories, cleaning, and preparing my lessons for tomorrow to update the blog. So we have had a busy last couple of months. I guess I will start with Christmas. For Christmas this year, we went up to Midway Utah to spend the holiday with my parents. It was a lot of fun. As soon as we got there, Paisley saw the snow and immediately went to go play in it (no pics ofcourse). My dad set up his big train set and Paisley and Austin had so much fun watching the train go round and round.

We got to see the temple lights at the beautiful Salt Lake Temple.

We did the traditional Alexander Christmas Eve:
Yummy Buffet: check (no pics)
Nativity: check (no pics)
Pass Around: check
Paisley really caught on to how the pass around game works.

On Christmas, we all got to sleep in a bit. Thank goodness, Paisley hasn't figured out that this is the day she is actually allowed to get up super early. Santa surprisd Paisley with a Buzz Lightyear car!!

We are still working on her driving skills. Right now it is VERY funny to her to run into people and things. :) She also got a cash register that she really loved playing with. Austin was just happy looking at the pretty christmas lights on the tree and watching Paisley run into things.

This is my most favorite picture of the whole weekend. Papa playing "Jingle Bells" while Paisley sang "I am a Child of God".