Soccer Pics

Here are some pictures from Matthew's soccer game last week. It's an instructional league, so they don't keep score, but he still had a great time!


I'm actually very impressed that I got this shot. :)

While I'd love to post pictures tomorrow from his game, we are beginning to build arks down here in Atlanta, so there aren't going to be any games tomorrow. I'm just hoping the rain stops someday. My children (both my own and the ones I spend my days with) really need to go outside to play.

It's Official!

I just finished talking to my mentor at Western Governors University, and I'm officially enrolled in my first two masters classes. The orientation course is a kind of get to know you course. If you don't finish it, you don't have to pay for it. Now, I'm on the hook for tuition. Or Sallie Mae is since they're borrowing me the money to go back to school. I'm enrolled in Introduction to Special Education, Law & Legal Issues Policies and Procedures; and Literature Reviews for Educational Research. They sound fun, don't they? Both of them are introductory courses which involve a lot of reading and learning of terms and procedures. The Literature Review course will also get me started on my capstone project (think masters thesis). During that one, I'll get assigned a capstone chair who will help guide me through the entire process. During my last term, I'll write the project and then have to present an oral defense of it. That's the one thing that has me worried. I've never done any sort of big research project, so this will all be new to me. But before I get to all that, I have to get through the next three terms and lots of classes. Guess I better go start studying now.

Matthew's New Sport

Before I start, I blame all of this on my Aunt Judy. You'll see why in a minute. :-)

Matthew is starting soccer this week! He's mentioned it off and on for a while because one of our routes to church on Wednesday takes us right past the soccer complex, and he would see the kids play. But it was never a big thing. That changed this summer. My cousin Penny was down here visiting her mom, and her oldest son, Jon, introduced Matthew to soccer. They played one Sunday evening when we went over for dinner. Matthew had a blast. Plus, he was pretty good! (To my untrained eye.) I figured it wouldn't be too long before he was asking about playing. He waited until we were home. Being the wonderful mom that I am, I decided to sign him up. (Actually, I had already decided to put him in something this fall, so it worked out fabulously.) I picked up a soccer ball and backpack a couple of months ago when the Wal-Mart near me did a big clearance before they remodeled, and Matthew and I went out tonight to get him cleats, shin guards, and socks. His first practice is tomorrow, and he's getting pretty excited. They'll only play on Saturdays, and the games only last an hour or so, so it won't stress the schedule too much. With this and KidzLife on Wednesdays, he's going to stay pretty busy. No time to bother Nathan then. Wow, this really is a great plan! :-)

First Day of School

Not only am I a teacher, but starting today, I'm also a student! Yep, I FINALLY got around to starting my master's degree. I wanted to try and start last December at Georgia State, but things just didn't work out for me. So this summer, I decided that I was going to find a school and a program that would work with my schedule. I did LOTS of searching online and found lots of diploma mills, but finally I stumbled on a great university. It's called Western Governor's University, and it's located in Utah. Like its name implies, it was the brainchild of the governors of the nineteen western states. It's a completely online campus. Plus, instead of credit hours, its classes are based on competency units. Once you show competency and pass the assessment for the class, you are finished! It's really designed for working adults who have lots of experience, but need a college degree for career advancement. It's also really easy to apply to, and it's the only completely online school that participate in federal financial aid. It took me about two weeks to go from application to acceptance to start date. Instead of paying for credit hours, you pay a flat per term fee no matter how many classes you take and pass, so it's very affordable. I'm hoping to be able to get my whole degree done for less than $10,000. (Which is ALOT cheaper than some schools I looked at.) I decided to get my master's in special education. My ultimate goal is to teach in a primary self-contained special education classroom. Hopefully, I'll be able to get done in 18 months. We'll have to wait and see. I started my first class today. It's an orientation course that needs to be done in the first two weeks. It's not too difficult, so hopefully I can get it done sooner and get into the meat of my classes. While it will take a lot of organization and planning (and mountains of help from Jeremy), I'm so excited that I've finally taken this step!

Hey, it's me!

Sorry to all three readers who read this blog, because I never posted anything about Andrew's surgery on Friday. It went fabulously. He didn't go back until about 90 minutes after the scheduled time, but he was really good waiting in a little tiny room for a very long time without having eaten anything all day. They only time he would get really upset is when someone would come in. When they did finally come to take him back, they wanted him to ride in the guerney. That really set him off, so he went through the OR doors wailing. While it was upsetting, I know it didn't last for long, because the nurse had assured me that they put the babies under almost as soon as they are in for just that reason. After he left, I ran down to the cafeteria since I hadn't eaten in ages to grab lunch. In the time it took me to get my lunch, get back to the room, and eat one chicken strip, the tubes were in. The doctor came back to the room within 15 minutes to tell us it was done. They brought Andrew back about a half hour later, and 45 minutes after that we were able to head home! By the time we got home, he was already back to his normal, happy self. He ate a full supper that night and headed to bed with no problem. All in all, it went perfectly!

Now, if I could only get him to start talking. . .

What a Day!

Well, it has been quite the day today. The boys and I headed to school this morning, and I taught until 9:30. Then, I left to take Andrew to his pre-op appointment at Children's Healthcare at Egleston. This hospital is closer to us than Scottish Rite where he had his surgery last year. It's actually on the Emory campus and right across the street from Emory hospital where my Uncle Ron got his new heart almost two years ago. His appointment was at 10:30, and I arrived at the parking garage before 10:15. After driving through all four levels of the garage, I finally found a family that was getting ready to pull out of their spot. Thankfully, it was right beside the elevators, so it didn't take me too long to get Andrew out of the car, into his stroller, and up to the right floor. I signed in at 10:29. :) Then, the wait started.

First, we waited to get called to registration. Then, we waited to get called back. Then, we waited for the tech to get his vitals and take a history. Then, we waited for the pre-op clinic nurse to come and ask me the exact same questions that the tech asked. Then, we waited for someone from anesthesia to come and ask me the exact same questions. Finally, we waited for the doctor to come to look in his ears and ask me some of the exact same questions. (Are you sensing a pattern?) We didn't leave until after 12:30. I zipped through the drive-thru at Chik-fil-A and got us both some lunch, raced home (without speeding on 78!), and dropped Andrew off so I could get back to school at 1:30. I was actually only about 3 minutes late.

Then, tonight, I went to our church's training for KidzLife. This past spring, our church decided to drop our Awana program and begin their own. I will admit that I was a little disappointed at first. Matthew and Nathan really enjoyed Awana, and Matthew only had one more year left of Sparks. I liked that it really gave him a goal to finish his book twice each year so he could get his review patch and go to the skating party the church sponsored for book finishers. But after seeing what our church has put together, I'm really excited. We're going to spend the year studying the Sermon on the Mount. And the lessons will encourage the kids to really think about what they are studying and how they can apply it to their lives. Plus, the journals that the K-2nd grade kids will use are incredibly cute! I'm going to be working with a group of Kindergarten kids, and I can't wait until next week. We have over 1000 kids registered to start next week! It will be awesome!

Musings about our First Week

One thing I will say for the first week of school: It seemed to zip by. It feels like it was just Monday morning, and suddenly I'm already getting ready for another week of school.

Nathan's love/hate relationship with school has not diminished over the summer. On the way to school on Monday, he was complaining about how he didn't want to go. I told him he could be miserable for the next 179 days, but on the first day of school he had to pretend to be happy!

Matthew still hasn't learned that there are times when he needs to zip it so his teacher can talk.

Even though I hoped that starting school would cut down somewhat on the fighting, that hasn't proved to be the case.

I think I'm going to really enjoy my group this year. I had a fabulous first week. While I was exhausted at the end of it, I had a great time. I'm diving headfirst into both Writer's Workshop and organizing my reading time around something called "The Daily 5". Both went really well, and I'm very excited about the rest of the year!

On another note. Andrew's surgery is this Friday. I still don't know what time it will be. I'm not sure if I will take my laptop or not with me to the hospital. Either way, I will be sure to post something by Friday evening.