Adorable

I stole this picture from my mom--it's my current favorite. It says so much about her personality! A little bit sneaky & manipulative, determined, cute, and charming.

A bit bouncer crazy

Maybe it's time to start strapping her in...

Football game vs. Elm Grove

Too much excitement?

Science in your own backyard

Life cycle...spider eats dragonfly.

Best surprise ever

Yesterday afternoon Jon called, and we were talking about the usual stuff. He asked me for an address that was on the computer, so I went into the office to get it. Then the doorbell rang, and when I opened it, he was standing there!!! I was so excited, I think I let out a yelp/gasp. He sent me to the office to get me away from the window so that I wouldn't see him pull up--big liar! Emily and I were both very glad to have him back, and he had even called & made arrangements so that we didn't have to go to youth group. What a sneaky sweetie!

Bathtime fun

"New" toy

Emily seems old enough now to add the toy to her favorite bouncer chair. For the first fifteen minutes or so, she'd hit the toys with her hands, but didn't quite seem to understand that she was doing it. She was very, very focused, though, and I could tell she was starting to connect that when she did certain things, the little toys would move and make noise. She was working so hard!

True Southerner

Church often wears her out...she slept in her carseat until I made her get up at 4pm.

Emily inherited this smocked dress from our pastor's family. In order to get her to smile for the pictures, I told her to say "y'all" instead of "cheese".

Next journal entry

This weeks journal topic was a bit broader ("If I could visit anywhere in the United States..."), so I didn't have quite the same problems as last week. I did have several ask questions about places, though, like "Can I say Alaska?" At least they seem to know what's in the US and what's not.

Electricity

I came home after school yesterday to discover that I had no power. It had been pretty windy in the afternoon, and when I called the power company to report the outage, I learned that about 6000 people were without power, but that it should be back on by 3:30pm (I called at around 3:45). Anyway, I had already put Emily down for her nap, so I figured I could stick it out for a little while--no sense getting her up again just to be put back in her carseat. The only unfortunate part was that I had decided to wait to pump until I got home (ha ha), and the last time I had pumped was at 9:45am. So I only made it until about 4:15 and decided to put Emily back in her seat and head back to school to "take care of business". I also graded some papers and played around on my limited internet for a while. I went home at about 5:30, and was still without power. This was ruining my night of "Arrested Development" and cookies...so I called my friend Renae who told me to come over immediately. I hung out with her until about 8ish, and then decided to try home again. When I got home, I had power (hooray!). I went out to feed the dogs, and a sparking transformer in our neighbors yard scared me half to death--it looked like huge sparklers and sounded like fireworks going off. After it happened twice, I called the power company to report it, thinking that it couldn't be a good sign. about twenty minutes later (9:15ish), my power went out. I used my cell phone to find matches and candles, and Emily and I hung out in the semi-darkness. By 10:15 I could hear chainsaws--I'm guessing they were removing tree branches. The power came back on at about 2am, thankfully. I was very glad for the air conditioning to click back on, as well as the refrigerator.
Today it's supposed to be stormy, I'm just hoping the wind doesn't get involved.

Literal translations

It is one of my "policies" in my classroom that you need to sit in the seat that I assign you. I mean, it seems like the point of me making a seating chart. There are times, however, when I goof up and put a student in a spot that then need to be moved from (a kid in the back who can't see, etc). So my policy is, if you need to be moved after a new seating chart, you need to write me a note telling me your name, where you want to move to, and why you need to move, and put it in the inbox.

Apparently this student took the "note" part waaaaay too seriously. The pen is there for size comparison. I'm surprised she didn't try to pass it to me while the teacher was talking...

Mom & Cindy visit

I know the one below isn't great of Cindy (sorry, Cind), but it was the only one where Emily was laughing/smiling.

My mom & Cindy were here from Sunday afternoon until yesterday morning at about 5am. It was a great visit, although a little weird that I worked every day that they were here. Emily had a great time staying home from daycare to play with them. I did a terrible job of taking pictures, though--I only have these few. There are some good ones on Cindy's blog, and I'm sure my mom's will be up when she gets back to California.

Football vs. Benton

Emily & the Mustang mascot.

Emily fell asleep in Ashlee's arms.

Lizard friend

If you look very closely between the wires, you'll see a little gecko/lizard. After he scared me to death, he was really cute. He's only about 2 inches long.

Impressive hair

I just can't stop playing with her hair after baths...

Sunday best

This was Emily's outfit of choice for church today. Granted, after last night's impressive win by the Ducks, I would've gladly dressed her in green & yellow (if I had any). But since Dad is out of town...Mom gets to dress the baby :).

Latest "here's your sign" moment

On Fridays my class has to write five sentences to the journal prompt of my choice. I decided that this year I'd try to tie in other subjects so that they were learning more than how to write a complete sentence. Yesterday's prompt was, "If I could go anywhere in Louisiana, I'd visit..." and they had to tell me where & why. It was fine until my last block, where a boy raised his hand and said, "I'd go to Dallas to a Cowboys game." I explained that Dallas was in Texas, but that would be a fun place to visit. The VERY NEXT STUDENT said, "I'd go shopping with my mom and sister in San Antonio." Argh. We're just adding to the list of things to teach Emily before she reaches the sixth grade (this follows closely behind "how to write your address on an envelope").

Errands

Emily is such a good baby--she was content while we ran errands, and fell asleep on the way home.

Needless to say, I am NOT happy with the new Toys R Us return policy. I could rant for a bit longer, but I'll save it for when I email them...

Girls' night in

A little homemade pizza...
a little Netflix (Arrested Development--Season 1, Disc 3)...
makes for a great girls' night in. And yes, I know she looks terrified in this picture.

Little laugh

Video

I'm pretty proud of myself that I figured out how to make the video post smaller so that it doesn't mess with my blog! Yay me.

Back-to-school night

Well, I attended my first BTS night as a parent. Granted, there wasn't much for me to see...while Emily is a genius, she's not very artistic, and has't colored any masterpieces yet. I also talk to the teachers a lot when I drop off/pick up, so it wasn't necessarily special to get to meet them (and only one was there, anyway). So I guess the highlight was going out to dinner with our friends whose 2-year-old, Grace, attends.

Emily smiling

Sweet sleep

I'm pretty sure it's just a fluke, but the last two nights Emily has slept from 9:30-6. It's most likely linked to the football game & youth group (thus, short naps), but I'm loving it. The best part is that she's not cranky about it--both evenings she's been a very happy baby.

Second football game

You can see the edges of her carrier--I promise she's in there.

Emily was SUCH a good baby at the football game. We were there for 3 1/2 hours, and she never made a sound except to laugh. She was mostly held by two of the other teachers, but the girls also loved drooling over her. She was a big hit.

Pep Squad

This is part of our 75-member pep squad. They're all sixth graders, save three--one eighth and two seventh, who for some unknown reason thought it would be fun to hang out with 72 sixth graders. That's a psychology paper just waiting to be written. Anyway, some of them just joined when we came back to school (instead of in May when we went around to the elementary schools), so their uniforms aren't in yet.

Danceline

Two of my absolute favorites--they're both super short, and the sweetest girls ever.


It's fun to see the 7th graders on danceline--some of my favorite students from last year. They are thrilled to see me "not pregnant," and are glad to finally know Emily's name (they were a literal name suggestion factory last year). Oh, and if I had classes full of girls like these, I'd never have a bad day at school--I wish we could clone them.

2 month pictures

Thank goodness for fathers-in-law

I went to the eye doctor for my annual appointment on Thursday (although it'd been almost two years since you can't go while you're pregnant). He said I had a little infection on my eyelid, which is strange, because I don't feel it at all. He put some ointment on it, and wrote me a prescription. At the end of the appointment, they gave me the usual trial pair of contacts and had me put them in. I didn't fill the prescription until yesterday, and what I read in the little printout really surprised me--it said not to wear contacts while you're using the medicine, and that breastfeeding mothers shouldn't use it! Um, I've done both of those things, and neither the eye doctor nor the pharmacist asked me any questions (and I did note on my paperwork at the doctor that I'd just had a baby). Luckily my pharmacist father-in-law said that I can take it while nursing, and I'm not wearing my contacts just to be on the safe side. But I still get the feeling that someone dropped the ball at some point.

Seven-level school

Jon left after church today for Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls, TX (where we got married) for 7-level school. He'll be gone until the 27th or 28th. It's a complete waste of money, since he'll be trained on things that they won't use until the spring, and by then he'll be out of the AF. But he does have his military credit card with $1600 to spend, so I'm sure he won't be suffering too much. Luckily Mom & Cindy will be stopping here for 4 days on their way to North Carolina, and the family at church who watched Emily before has offered to babysit whenever I need it, so I feel like I have some backup.

Hello hands

Emily is discovering her hands. She'll rub her eye on her right side, and she's started to try to suck on her hand/fingers when her binky's not around.
I asked her, and she posed for these pictures (she's a genius).