Dear Santa,

How are your reindeer? Are your reindeer thirsty? Please give me that jungle thing. And please give me lots of Star Wars guys. Please give me Legos and ocean Legos with that shark and that 2 boats and that guy and an ocean and those guys that are sitting in their seats in that helicopter. That viper fish and that crocodile guy and that diver man from Toys R Us. And those alien ships and an astronaut and that ship. I'm good.

Love, Isaac

Howdy, Folks. I haven't updated this blog in ages. I am finally on Christmas break. It doesn't see like a break though! I spent over 7 hours shopping today and I haven't wrapped a single gift yet!! I am super excited about Christmas this year. My parents will be spending it with us, which is nice, since usually they are with the Pyfers. The kids are very excited about Christmas, which makes it even more fun! My baby Gabi is also turning one year old this Friday!!! Where has the time gone?

Yes, it's been too long! I have been very busy with school and let my blog slip away again! So I will try to do better. However, now is not the time! I just had to share this, though. I connected with one of my old high school friends on Facebook and he sent me a couple of music files. The one called Lover Man features me on the alto sax my senior year. The one called Spain features me on the flute. Wow! These bring back some amazing memories! I seriously had chills. I have had some wonderful blessings in my life, but I must say that being blessed with the gift of music has to be at the top of my list! Besides my children, it has brought me the greatest joy I have ever known! So check them out and take a listen for yourself! (I must say I was smokin'....ha ha!) More updates on the family coming shortly........

LOVER MAN

SPAIN

Candy Corn

I made this picture on accident when I put my hand over the flash. Isn't it cool? The first thing I thought was that it looked like a piece of candy corn. How appropriate, considering Halloween is just around the corner.

Perhaps some of the best artists made their masterpieces on accident?

Here is a little update on us with some photos.....

Make a Smilebox photobook

Our elementary school is having a huge bazaar in December to raise money for classrooms. The kids have to make the items and sell them, but we get to keep whatever money we earn. So we could use that money to buy instruments or other things for music class.

I have been looking for ideas on the web and found these cute candy trees. Isaac helped me make them this afternoon.

Which one do you like the best? How much would you pay for one (keeping in mind it's for school charity)?

Gabriella is 9 months old! She now has 7 teeth and FINALLY started crawling last week. She took her sweet time, but I can't complain because now she is into everything! She is almost sitting up, too. She can sit up alone for a few minutes if I put her in position but soon flops over. It's just a matter of time! She tried her first meat - Turkey rice dinner - a couple days ago and loved it! I guess she's no longer a vegetarian! LOL!



Isaac has another loose tooth. He is excited for the tooth fairy to visit him again! He will be 5 years old on Halloween. I still can't believe it! He is really enjoying pre-k and asks me lots of questions. Just a minute ago he came in from the bathroom and wanted to know why we have eyebrows!
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I started teaching my kids at school about the Medieval period of music history. They seemed really interested, more than I expected. The first graders are especially interesting. One boy told me that we come from apes Another boy raised his hand and told me that Obama doesn't believe in the Bible or go to church. Interesting. I don't know where these kids come up with some of these things, especially at such random times. We were talking about how the church ran things and music started from the Gregorian chant. I guess that somehow made him remember what he thinks he knows.

Check out the new sea creature book we got!!!

First of all grrrrrrrrrrrr..... I hate it when Internet Explorer unexpectedly shuts down. I was right in the middle of posting.

Today one of my 4th grade students told me he loved me being his music teacher better than the last one because she was always so tired. Lol! I told him I am always tired, too. He said I always seemed to have so much energy! Ha! All I can say is that teachers should get Academy Awards for their performance! If he even knew how tired I am every day he would change his mind. I guess it's good that it doesn't show.

I DO try to have high energy in class, even when I don't feel like I do. It is music class, after all! Honestly, once I start teaching any aliment seems to go away and the time goes by really fast!

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My sweet baby Gabi turned 8 months old a couple weeks ago and I am just now getting around to posting a picture. She is getting so big! I just can't believe how fast time flies. Her hair is really starting to grow and it appears to have a bit of wave in it. He rolls all over the place and scoots, but she won't crawl. She gets around, though! She isn't sitting up, either! I guess she's taking her sweet time. She IS getting up on one arm now and seems to have the desire to sit up so I expect any day now I'll walk in the room and she'll be sitting straight up. She is really tall and her legs already go way over her end of her seat. I guess it's time to get a bigger car seat. She gets so excited to seem me when I pick her up. She kicks her legs about a million miles an hour! :) I LOVE IT!

Who's Looking At Me?

As I was walking to my car today after school I felt all of these eyes on me. They were wooden eyes! Most of these little wooden faces were smiling at me, but I did find an occasional frowny face. We have had terrible rain for a couple days. The rain on the wood formed perfect, haunting outlines of their faces. The photographer in me went searching for my camera. Of course I didn't have anything except my cell phone so the quality isn't the best.

Moral of the story...never leave home without your camera and you never know who is watching you!

MY BABY IS ALL GROWN UP!!!

I got some news today from Lemuel who called me on my way home from school.

ISAAC LOST HIS FIRST TOOTH!!!!

My first reaction was...."WHAT?". I got worried because he seems a little young to lose a tooth. I thought maybe he had another accident. Lemuel reassured me that it fell out. In fact it was just gone! It may have disappeared when he was eating his happy meal after school or it could have happened some other time...I guess we'll never know since the tooth is gone and gone for good. (We all looked for it!) My next thought was, "I'm not going to cry." I just can't believe my sweet baby boy has lost a tooth already! He's been in pre-k for only 2 weeks and he already seems so much older! Where does the time go?

I thought 4 years old was a little young to lose a tooth. I read on the Internet tonight that most kids lose their first tooth at age 6-7, but yes, you can lose your tooth as early as 4 years old. In fact, the younger a child is to get his teeth as a baby, the younger he will be to lose those baby teeth. Isaac got his first tooth around 3 months old, which was early (just like me), so this makes sense. My mom even told me that I lost my first tooth when I was 5, so I guess like mother, like son!

He is super excited to see what the tooth fairy will bring him tonight. We just need to write her a note to explain where the tooth has gone! :)

Rude people SUK!

Something I can really give my parents credit for is teaching me good manners. Now, I'm not saying I'm perfect because I'm not! But I like to think of myself as one who has been educated on how to behave as a decent human being and show respect for others. When I was a kid we used to carpool to school. My mom always insisted that we say, "Thank you for the ride." I remember how the moms who dropped me and Mike, my brother, off would smile as we thanked them for giving us a ride home. Many times their kids wouldn't.

Let me back up a bit and tell you what triggered my rant. I have always made it a point to really work with Isaac where manners are concerned. I have taught him to say please, thank you, excuse me, etc. since he was a baby. He has learned to ask to be excused from the dinner table. In fact, the other day we were watching TV and someone got up from the table without saying a word. Isaac said, "Ooooooh, he was being rude! He didn't ask his Mama if he could be excused." I was so proud of him for realizing that! A couple of weeks ago, when I had to put him and Gabi in temporary daycare the lady who watched them, Ms. Janet, told me that Isaac had really good manners and that we must be really working on that with him. I couldn't be prouder!

So for the past few months we have been teaching Isaac to open the door for people. He's gotten quite good at it. Most of the time I don't even have to remind him anymore, he just does it. There are still times he forgets, like today when we were going to the movies and he forgot to hold the door open for me as he ran in totally excited. However, we did have an incident at the post office today that totally made my blood boil. I took the kids with me to the post office after it was closed to use their APC (that's automated postal machine). It was just the three of us inside. Isaac was standing by the front door and say a lady coming. So he pushed the heavy door open and held it for her. She opened the other door (there were 2 doors) and walked in, blabbing on her cell phone. Isaac just stayed there holding the door for her. She checked her mail and then proceeded to walk out the door that Isaac was still holding. She didn't say one word to him. I expected a 'thank you' of some sort. She didn't give a smile even! I was SO mad! My poor little boy is just standing there and she is too busy and rude to bother to thank him. So I said very loudly, "You're supposed to say thank you." Isaac misunderstood me and thought I was talking to him, so he yelled 'thank you' very loudly to the lady! At that point I told him that he did the right thing by holding the door. I had to explain to him that sometimes people are RUDE and won't say thank you, but you should hold the door anyway. I told him that the lady was RUDE and she should have told him thank you.

When we left the post office the lady was still sitting in her car. I gave her a very dirty look and Isaac said, "Look, Mama. There's that RUDE lady who didn't say thank you." I sure hope she heard him. I just shook my head at her in disgust and left.

The thing that bothers me is that I bet she didn't even know what she was getting a dirty look for. It seems like more and more people don't have any manners, both men and women. It just makes me sad and mad.

So here are a few tips from me to you on how to have good manners. Feel free to add your own in my comments section. These are just the ones that annoy me the most:

1. Always say please, thank you, and excuse me.

2. You should hold the door open for people and let them go first. It doesn't matter if you are a man or a woman.

3. If someone holds the door open for you, always thank them.

4. When you are driving and you see someone is coming up fast behind you, pull over into the slow lane. Also, if you are going to go slow please drive in the right lane, not the left.

5. If you are going faster than someone in your car, do not tail gate them. This is rude and dangerous!

6. Never, EVER spit in public. Gross.

7. All other bodily functions should be kept for the privacy of your own home or bathroom.

8. If you smoke, do it somewhere private. There is nothing worse than coming out of a restaurant and being greeted by a nasty cloud of cigarette smoke. Ick! You wouldn't want me to fart in your face so don't smoke in my clean air.

9. If you are in the movies and someone sits in front of you, don't put your feet on their chair.

10. Close your mouth when you chew and never talk with your mouth full.

11. Never blow your nose and look at the Kleenex as if you are searching for a prize...gross!

12. If you can help it, don't blow your nose at the table. Sometimes this is hard if you are eating really spicy food.

13. Don't suck up your snot in your nose..you know the sound, like you are sucking back a big loogie.

14. Please avoid talking on your cell phone at a restaurant. You have no idea how loud you are really talking. I don't need to hear it.

15. If someone lets you in front of them in traffic, always say thank you by giving a quick wave. If you don't, next time I won't let you in.

16. Don't talk on your cell phone or text message someone in a movie. Also, don't wear a wireless headset in a movie either. That flashing light is so annoying.

17. If you take your kids to the movies, church, or anywhere else where they need to be quiet, take them OUT if they get disruptive.

18. When you are eating at the dinner table and want something, say, "Will you please pass the ___."

19. If I call you on the phone, don't talk to someone with you in the background. No side conversations. Give me your full attention.

20. Ladies (or men for that matter), if you pee on the seat, wipe it up. Do you really think I want to wipe or sit on your pee? That's just sick.

21. Men, put the toilet seat down. Plain and simple.

22. Internet ettiquette - don't write in all caps because that means you are yelling. Try to write in complete sentences or at least punctuate.

So that's all I can think of for now. I'm sure there are many more, and there are some that are family specific, like asking to be excused from the table. I'm sorry for the rant but I just had to get that off of my chest. It made me mad that my sweet little boy was doing the right thing that that ignorant lady was a bad example to him. Boo to her!

People, please, have good manners. I beg you!

I thought of another unknown fact about me. This is weird. Whenever I hear repetitive sounds, like when I am gulping water, I count. I know, I know....strange. It's like an OCD thing I do. Except I don't think it's OCD, I think it's being a musician because I never used to do this. There is something about hearing a steady beat that makes me start counting right away. It must be all of those years of marching band or tapping my toe during a performance. The reason I thought of it was beacuse this morning I was feeding Gabi her bottle and she was hitting the bottle over and over with the lid in her hand. I caught myself counting again. You'd think that with all this counting I'd be good at math..ha ha!

On another note....

Doesn't this look yummy? This is the grilled shrimp from one of my favorite resturants mentioned in my previous post - The Crab Inn in Rockport, TX. Yummy!

Fours and Threes!

Fours:

1. Four places that I go over and over:

Mom's, Post office, elementary school (work), church

2. Four people who email me regularly:

Mom, eBay customers, Freecycle group, Patti

3. Four of my favorite places to eat:

Benihana, Texas Roadhouse, Red Lobster, Crab Inn (in Rockport, TX)

4. Four places I would rather be right now:

Sleeping, floating in the ocean on Mustang Island, sitting on the porch at dusk in Rockport, did I mention sleeping?

5. Four TV shows I watch:

Grey's Anatomy, Lost, Desperate Housewives, Seinfeld (yes I love the re-runs)

6. Four people I tag:

Leslie Kate, Mom, Patti and Leda (through email)

Threes:

3 Joys:

1. my children - the funny things they say, their innocence, hearing their laughs and seeing them grow

2.Being able to go to work and having a job that I LOVE! I never thought that would happen!

3. Driving over the causeway in Rockport with the windows rolled down, Surfin' USA blaring on the speakers...WOO HOO!

3 Fears:

1. I always worry that something bad will happen to me and I won't be around to see my children grow up, or something horrible will happen to them. I hate watching the news because my mind starts to think of the terrible things that could happen to my children.

2. Heights and Bees

3. My parents dying

3 Goals:

1. Saving enough money to go on a family vacation to Disney World. I want Isaac to see the Finding Nemo musical there before he has outgrown it (if that ever happens).

2. Moving into a house

3. Getting all of my orders filled from the past month that are weighing me down.

3 Current Obsessions:

1. teaching

2. sleeping (or thinking about it!)

3. Les Miserables soundtrack (listen to it every day in the car)

3 Random Surprising Facts:

1. I knew the gender of both of my children the moment I knew I was pregnant. I'm 2-2!

2. I have dream to sing on Broadway.

3. I want to learn to play the accordion.

The most insane 2 weeks!!

The past two weeks have been so nuts! On Thursday, August 7th, I checked the job listings for the various local school districts in my mad hunt for a teaching job. I had been checking every day, several times each day. I saw a posting for an emergency vacancy for elementary music teacher! I have had a really hard time getting a job due to lack of open positions. I had just about decided that I wouldn't find one this year but alas, there was an opening! I called the principal right away and she agreed to a phone interview the following morning (I told her I was in So. Texas). I was a little unsure that she would even do a phone interview but she didn't have a problem with that. It turns out that she was the principal at the middle school where I did part of my student teaching.

I was on pins and needles waiting for the call. The interview went great. I was offered the job the same day and that meant I had to be at work, in Arkansas, on Monday! I had to pack up the kids and car and drive the 12+ hours home on Sunday. It was hard but we made it at about 2 am. The kids did really well in the car for such a long time. I was sad to be leaving the coast, but very happy to have a job doing exactly what I wanted to do - teaching elementary music!

My first week went well. I left the kids with Ms. Janet, a lady who does an in-home daycare. She was kind enough to take them on a temporary basis, in spite of being full. I had to sit through many meetings. It seemed hard to believe that only a few days prior I was having a bonfire on the beach!

The crazies thing happened, though. After I left a meeting I was making my way to the parking lot of the school and a teacher passed by me and waved. As she did her car BURST INTO FLAMES!!!!!!! It was the craziest thing I have ever seen! She got out of the car okay, but the car engulfed in flames and the fire dept had to come put the fire out. It was really scary and she was lucky to get out alive. I was sure the car would explode but the fire dept managed to make it there in time.

I am teaching at 2 different elementary schools. At one I am there 2 days per week and I have my own room. At the other school I am there 3 days and have no room, but go from room to room on a cart. I do have a desk in the multi-purpose room, along with the P.E. and art teachers.

This past Monday was officially the first day back for students. It was also the first day of school for Isaac! MY BABY IS GOING TO PRE-K! I can't believe he is so big. I got all choked up the night before when I was watching him sleep. I work way across town so I had to leave for work early. Lemuel had to take Isaac to his first day of school. It was probably better that way because I would have bawled! Lemuel said that Isaac just went right in and didn't look back. :) (we had gone to the open house a few days prior, which I think helped).

Here are some photos of me and Isaac on our first day of school!

That afternoon I came down with a fever and Isaac started throwing up. Gabi also had diarrhea. So our 2nd day of school I had to call in (yikes) and Isaac had to miss! I managed to get well enough to miss only one day of work, but Isaac has been out the entire week with puke and poop (Gabi, too). Lemuel has been such a big help taking care of the kids while I am at school.

My kids have never been sick before (except for a minor cold) so this has been an awful week! We are getting better now, though. I was fortunate to not have to start teaching until next week (so the kids could get used to their regular classes).

I am exhausted!!

Here are some photos of my new music room!