Whew!

I haven’t written in a lllooonnnggg time because I honestly haven’t had time.  Well, and, I’m rarely online anymore (which, by the way, has been awesome!).  Things around here are CRAZY but awesome at the same time.  School started this week and I absolutely LOVE teaching 4th grade.  It is the perfect fit for me.  My team is also a-m-a-z-i-n-g.  We work together so well.  We support each other in weaknesses, we focus on each others’ strengths, and we don’t get mad about anything, we just talk about it.  This is the way a team should work together, but it rarely happens.  I realize that it’s early in the year and we will probably eventually have some arguments/disagreements, but I feel like we will deal with them as adults and it will pass quickly.  When my English/Language Arts team meets, we plan lessons well and quickly because ideas build off of each other, and again, we use each others’ strengths to put things together.  I can honestly say that I love the girls that I work with and I already love my students.  I can’t imagine going back to second grade :).  We’ll see how I feel about 4th grade in the spring when we have testing going on ;).  I have a feeling that it won’t affect my desire to teach 4th grade, but I won’t assume anything yet :). 

Robert, the kids, and I spent all morning cleaning the house and it feels SO good to have a clean house!  Keeping it clean just doesn’t happen during the week so we always end up spending Saturday morning cleaning.  It’s okay… I’m thankful to have the weekend!  It’s such a relief after going, going, going all week long. 

This afternoon we’re headed out to look at cars… our Expedition with over 245,000 miles on it isn’t going to last much longer (it’s having quite a few issues and we’re tired of spending money on it).  So, we have no choice but to pick up another car payment.  We’ve been looking for/at cars for weeks because we want a minimal payment but we also want a good car that we won’t need to do anything to right away.  We’re going to be looking at an Explorer with a third row, a Lincoln Aviator, and a Ford Freestyle (wagon).  We want a car with a third row, but we don’t want a HUGE vehicle like we have currently.  The Freestyle isn’t the nicest vehicle in the world (I mean, it’s a wagon), but it seems to be the best for our family… it has great gas mileage, it has three rows, and it’s small enough that it would be easy to get around.  It also has very high consumer ratings!  We’ll see what happens :).  I didn’t think we’d be buying another car for a long time, so it’s crazy to me that we are about to!  I’m looking forward to next year because we will only have one child in day care!!  That will be SO nice!!  I plan to put Ethan in at my school so Karis and Ethan will both be in school.  Can’t wait!

Speaking of school… Karis has seemed to love school so far, though, she’s already getting in “trouble” for talking so much that she doesn’t get her work done.  She is SO my daughter hehe.  But, she is making friends and seems to be learning a lot already!  Ethan and Levi are both doing WONDERFUL in the child development center that Karis was in last year.  They are in a wonderful routine, they are learning a lot, and because of such great routine during the day, bedtime has been going well!  I feel like for the first time since we’ve been married, everything seems to just be falling into place!  I’m so thankful for all of the provision that the Lord has given our family!  :)