Three Christmases

We had a wonderful "Three Christmases" this year!  

We hope you had a wonderful holiday season as well!

Here we are at my Dad and Helen's on Christmas Eve!

Here we are at our house on Christmas day opening (and riding) presents from Santa!

Here we are at Dan's Parent's house.  Kelsey got an American Girl "Bitty Baby"!

More from Christmas

Here are a few more pictures from Christmas Day at our house.

What am I doing?

Michelle cutting the squash for dinner.

Betty and Alan relaxing in the living room.

Merry Christmas

Here are the kids in their Christmas outfits.  Have a wonderful Christmas!  Blog you next year!

Cherub Choir

Today Connor sang at church in the "Cherub Choir".  It's the pre-school age choir.  It was really cute.  The first service he sang most of the time because he couldn't see us.  But second service we sat right up front and he could see us watching him and cheering him on.  Our extremely shy boy clamped up and didn't sing the whole service.  We have a couple of great shots of the kid in front of him, who he hid behind the whole time, as well as the back of his head as he watched the performance live on the big screen!

Here is the only one where Connor is smiling.

Here is the only one where Connor looks like he is singing.

Connor giving Dad the evil eye for daring to take pictures of him.

Enjoy!  and Merry Christmas!

Princesses and Pirates

We went to a Princess and Pirate party.  It was amazing!  The girls all dressed in princess dresses and the boys in pirate costumes.  They all had a blast.  A few minutes into the party guess who showed up?!?! Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella!!!!!  

Here's Connor in his pirate costume after he got his face painted!

Here is Sleeping Beauty!

Pretty Hair!

Kelsey got her hair braided at school!

Field Trip!!!!

My friend Tressa and I went to the zoo on a field trip with Pre-School. This our second year taking the day off to spend the day with the kids there at the LA Zoo.  We had 5 kids amongst the 2 of us, so it was a little hectic, but we survived!  What we really had to survive was the hills at the zoo pushing that much weight in the strollers!  These pictures are taken with my iPhone, by the way.  Pretty good pics for a phone, don't you think?

Rock Stars!

Here are my little rock stars at Best Buy on Black Friday!

Fo-Hawk

This past weekend we headed down to Sea World to use our passes one more time before they expire!  We had a ton of fun! We left late morning so the kids would hopefully sleep in the car a bit.  We wanted to stay late this time so we could see the night-time show "Shamu Rocks", which was really good!  Connor insisted that morning on styling his hair in a faux hawk!  So funny!

You know you are a Twilight fan when...

You know you are a Twilight fan when ...

Your heart leaps when you see a silver Volvo drive by.

You drink cranberry juice...just to pretend.

You doodle his name.

You hunt mountain lion.

You compare every guy to Edward.

You pretend to read minds.

You run really fast (or at least try to).

You love meadows.

You suspect others of being vampires.

You think that pale-white is the new tan.

You think the Cullens are the new Brady Bunch.

StephanieMeyers.com is your homepage.

You quote the book in every day conversation.

You fantasize about fangs.

You spend rainy days pretending you are in Forks.

You will name your first born after a character form the books.

You put on white make-up and hiss at strangers in public.

You downloaded "Clair de Lune".

You interrogate pale people.

You friended Edward Cullen on facebook.

You cusually migrate away from redheads in crowds.

You are afraid of dance studios.

You think being accident prone in now "in".

You have the countdown to the movie on your blog.

You have already purchased your tickets.

Settlement

After yet another day of mediations, the district and our union have finally reached an agreement!!!  I am not happy.  At all.  But, if this is the best deal we are going to get, I trust that our union contract negotiators have done all they can.  If they are for it, then I know we can't get more than this.

Some lowlights of the settlement are:

• A 1.4% raise for the current school year.  We will not be getting a raise for last year in which we had no contract.  This contract is through August of 2010, for some reason, and offers no raise for the next year.  This also means no retroactive paycheck for last year (which I was really hoping to use for Christmas shopping!).
• The district had proposed putting a cap on the amount that they would pay for our health care plans.  This would cause a family of 3 or more to pay an additional $300 (approx.) out of pocket.  Instead of paying an additional $300 a month extra out-of-pocket for our health care plan, we are incurring higher co-pays, prescription costs, and deductibles (while the district pays the insurance companies less).
• Full day Kinder was not pushed through, but the district is forming a committee to look into doing this in the future.
• Coaching stipends were increased by 10%

All in all it is good because we can stop the madness, but I am not happy about what we are getting.  I should add that I am so glad that my prayers were answered and we did not end up striking (assuming the teachers vote to ratify this agreement).   Did the march work?  Maybe we will never know.  

P.S. Trebs-you were right!  Good things come in 3's!  Here's our 3rd!

Front page

Look!  Our march made the front page!

March

Tonight myself and 609 fellow employees and families had a march on our district office.  It was awesome!  It felt so great to be out there doing something a bit more tangible than wearing red every Tuesday.  (I can't complain red is my "signature color")  

I wrangled up Dan and the kids, and some hats, mittens, jackets, a

nd umbrellas, and we hit the streets of Covina!  We had a great time hanging out with the other people from my school.  All of the kids know each other from pre-school/day care, so they all had fun running around and playing together.  

We started out at a park about a quarter mile away from the district office.  We assembled there and collected our glow sticks, kazoos, and signs.  We then marched to the district office where the board was having their monthly meeting.  They did have the door propped open so hopefully they heard our chants: 

"2-4-6-8 settle now it's not too late!" and 

"What do we want? A contract! When do we want it? Now!"

It was great to be part of something like this, 

especially right before the national election!  Get's ya all riled up for it!  

*In case you have not heard the scoop on our district's woe's, here is the abbreviated version: The teachers in my district are without a contract.  We have not settled our contract from LAST YEAR. SO, we have been without a contract for over 14 months now.  The district is offering us nothing.  They are not agreeing to ANY of the union's proposals.  They will not even give us our Cost Of Living Allowance (COLA) which has already been funded by the state.  They are also wanting to put a cap on our health care costs so that I would end up having to suddenly pay thousands of dollars out of pocket for our health care plan.  Etc., etc., etc.

So far, we have been wearing red on Tuesdays, a button every day, and have passed out flyers to parents at back to school night and football games.  Finally I feel like we are doing something real.  

I pray it does not come to a strike.

Trick or Treat

We had a great time on Halloween!  The kids were so excited to get in their costumes and go trick or treating!  Kelsey caught on after about a block that she was going to get candy at each house and became much more eager to go to the door.  She just wanted to eat that piece of candy NOW!  Patience is so hard to teach a 2 year old!  

After about 2 blocks Connor said he wanted to go home (whew!).  Which was great because that meant we didn't get very much candy!  When we got home the kids had so much fun greeting the other kids, seeing all of the other costumes, and handing out candy!  I really think they had more fun doing that than trick or treating!  Connor was rotating through, "Happy Halloween", "Happy Harvest", and "I like your costume".  He is such a crack up!

Two-Wheelin'

My baby boy has hit another milestone!  He has learned to ride a two-wheeler (no training wheels!).  He actually learned at pre-school.  I guess one kid could do it and then his whole class was Determined (with a capital D) to do it too!  They spent about 2 weeks doing nothing but taking turns on the two-wheelers and now they all can do it!  

We of course had no idea that this was going on, but Connor spent about a week trying to convince us to take off the training wheels.  We kept telling him that we needed to wait until the weekend so we could spend the whole day working on it.  But, he wore us down.  I ended up texting his teacher to ask her if he was telling the truth about doing it at school-and he was!  We felt so bad for not believing him!  

Hate

I hate campaign smear ads.  I hate watching TV in October every year for this reason.  I hate that people can be so deceptive.  I hate that there are people in this country who are listening to the lies and not finding out the facts for themselves.  I hate that people at Obama's events are yelling things like "He's a Muslim!  Kill him!"  

Seriously?  SERIOUSLY?????

GET THE FACTS!

Barack Obama was actually sworn into the Senate on his family Bible.  He's regularly attended church with his family for years.  He is a committed Christian.  

These nasty rumors have got to stop!  It is really insulting to people of all faiths.  Spread the word!  Get The Facts to your Mc Cain supporting friends and family.

Feelin' Groovy

Thank you all for your prayers and good thoughts.  I am feeling better, although my stomach is still a little sensitive.  I will be having an ultrasound on my tummy and gall bladder area, as well as follow up blood work this week. Apparently my liver enzymes were just a tad higher than normal, so my doc wants to see if they are still high.  One of the causes of this is the gall bladder.  So we will see if that is the case.  JUST SAY NO TO SURGERY!  

Party!!!!

I've always found myself to be pretty moderate in my political beliefs.  I agree with some issues on both sides of the aisle.  At election time, I find myself choosing "the best man for the job", or the "lesser of two evils".  I have voted both Democrat and Republican.  But now I find out this interesting fact:

Our 4th president, James Madison was a "Democratic Republican".  Can that be a new party for the moderates?  Or a revival of an old one?

Gastro-itis?

About 3:30 yesterday I started to have really bad stomach pains.  They were excruciating to the point of me crying-a lot.  I thought it might be my gall bladder.  I went to the ER and they gave me some green foamy stuff that tasted like scope to "calm" my stomach (didn't help).  Then they gave me a pain medication in my IV which took the edge off the pain, but it came back full force after about an hour.  The doctor poked and prodded me and decided it was stomach inflamation, rather than my gall bladder or appendix.  Then they gave me morphine-which worked within minutes-and sent me home.

So, I can't eat spicy food, caffeine, chocolate, alcohol, acidic foods, etc.  But at this point I don't really want anything.  I had some plain past last night and did OK.  This morning my raisin bran made the pain come back and has been here all day.  I will try soup tomorrow.

I was given a prescription antacid (plavorix?) and vicodin.  I am still in some pain, but at least it is bearable today.  

I was very upset, however that I missed girls night to see The Women!  HOW WAS IT???

I LOVE fall!

Autumn is such a beautiful word.  It flows nicely off the lips, don't you think?  I love the silent n.  It is a much more beautiful word than fall.  Autumn encompasses my love for this season so well!  

It has been so hot here that I didn't even realize autumn began two weeks ago!  Finally some respite.  Today it is cool. It is sprinkling.  I am wearing my pumpkin colored sweater.  The kids are wearing long sleeves.  Only Dan is unaffected.  He was still in shorts today.  (But, for those of you that know him, you have to give him credit for wearing pants to work every day!)  

Last Saturday I got up and, instead of starting the usual weekend chores, I decided to make some pumpkin bread in the hopes that it would bring autumn temperatures and colors to our house.  I guess it worked!!!

Maybe I will find a new "autumn layout" for my blog . . .

"I'll have the manipulative shrew."

Watching the VP Debate made me think of a scene from friends where Monica manipulates Chandler into having sex even though they are in a fight.  At dinner, when placing his order, he says "I'll have the manipulative shrew".  

I recalled this episode because as I watched the debate I found myself thinking how manipulative Sarah Palin was.  Don't get me wrong, I think she did her job very well that night.  However, she has a way of manipulating her audience by saying things like, "The American people want to hear ..." or "What the American people want right now is ..."  I found myself thinking, "If I didn't know any better I would agree that the American people DO want this!" Manipulative.

She has a way of looking directly into the camera and talking about being a soccer mom that makes you feel like, "I relate to her.  She's one of us.  She's a normal gal.  She could be my neighbor."  I just don't think that being relatable or being "just like me" makes her qualified to be the Vice President or, God forbid, the President!  I don't think I am qualified to be the president, nor are 98% of other joe-shmoe americans.  Why would I want that?  No!  I want someone who is qualified.  Who is very intelligent.  Who is level headed. Who can make good decisions and who surrounds him/herself with people who help him/her to do these things.  

I don't know if any candidate can live up to these high expectations, but I sure hope they will try.

I was a little dissapointed that Joe Biden was not the attack dog he is known to be in DC.  I hope he was not being chivalrous so as not to look like he was attacking a woman.  He did "man-up" after a bit, but by that time she was on a roll.  She even ended up attacking him in such a nice and genial way that you ended up chuckling along with her (and the audience who was supposed to be silent).  Luckily the polls showed that it did not help her. 

The Joker likes Greenday!

Once in a while we take our kids to McDonalds for a Happy Meal, and tonight was one of those nights.  Connor's Happy Meal Toy was a fake-lego Joker.  As we are driving along, a song by Green Day comes on and Connor says, "Oh!  The Joker likes Green Day!"

Don't kids sometimes say the funniest things!  

Speaking of, Kelsey is finally learning how to "Use her words".  Yesterday she said Connor was mean, which got him very upset (like sad upset).  Then today she told me when he kicked her.  Yeah for using your words!  Now if we could just do something about that kicking . . .

Disclaimer: Connor is a very nice boy who usually treats his sister very kindly.  But they all have their moments!

TMI

        There is soooooo much political info going around right now (which is good).  But, I know the overload is coming!  As soon as Season Premier Week begins (9/22) I am sure we will be inundated with ads.  Thank goodness for the DVR!  I can fast forward through all of that crap and make my hour long program 42 minutes like it should be!!! 

          Here is a link I received to a video about McCain lying about Obama in his TV Ads.  Once on YouTube I decided to search for videos about Obama lying.  I like to be thorough in my research.  It's always good to hear both sides.  There is also a video about Palin's views on shooting an endangered species.  Then I've included Palin's interview with Charlie Gibson (I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this one!).

McCain Video

Obama Video

Palin Video

Palin Interview

Now I am the one inundating YOU with info!

No matter who you are planning on voting for it is important to be well informed. People often look over their preferred candidate's faults.  I have been guilty of this too!  Unfortunately we end up voting for the "lesser of two evils".  Either way, find out all you can about both candidates.  Visit their websites.  And make sure EVERYONE you know is registered to vote!

I am an Olympaphile

Apparently I am an Olympaphile, according to Bob Costas.  I have really enjoyed watching the olympics this year.  I, of course, would have liked to see more coverage of some of the less popular sports, but have enjoyed it nonetheless.   Sorry Trebs I thought the olympics were great!

Hopefully the IOC can fix the gymnastics scoring as it seemed heavily NOT in our favor.  It seemed we got ripped off quite a bit in the scoring.  If you saw ANY of the many interviews with Bela Karolyi you could know this.  :-)  I've got to rent Nadia again!  If you did not see this on TV back in 1984, you've got to put in on your Netflix!

What???? It's over already????

I was back to school today for a bit.  I needed to organize my classroom.  I moved rooms this year after 10 years of being in the same classroom!  Our staff had 2 sixth grade teachers leave due to downsizing, so I was sent over to the sixth grade quad from my cozy little home in the 7-8 quad.  I was not very happy about it because that may mean I will see less of my friends from that quad.  So I am hoping for a good lunch schedule!  (We have two lunches, so I am hoping to be with those friends!) 

My cupboards were quite the "hot mess".  (It's the new catch phrase, apparently).  So I went in to organize.  I had a very productive four hours of work.  I feel like I have most of the stuff in my room in place.  I just need to do some decorating.  And untangle the mess of cords that are attached to the sound system in my room.  I pulled out two cords from that mess that aren't attached to anything and don't go to anything.  Weird.  

It's sad to be back to school already.  Summer was quite shorter due to the fact that I taught summer school this year. There are technically 11 weeks from the time school got out until the time school starts.  Four of these weeks were taken up by summer school and half of the last week is a work week.  But, I can't complain right? At least I had time off.  Dan has been a temp at his company for almost a year and so he doesn't earn any sick or vacation time.  He is on the list to be hired, but they are in a hiring freeze right now, so we are just waiting.  "Wishin' and hoping and thinkin' and prayin'.  Plannin' and dreamin' each night . . . "

I am Emma!

Take the Quiz here!

You are Emma Woodhouse of Emma! You like being the queen of your social circle (small and provincial as it may be), and feel it's your duty to help those less influential than you. You often meddle in the affairs of others, though you do it with a pure heart. You are often deluded in your flights of fancy, but your good intentions and creative spirit make you someone anyone could like.