A Day with the Little Boys...

Well, the clock is ticking to the time my little boys will hop on a plane with their Grandma Carol and go visit their family in Michigan for two whole weeks. What am I going to do without my little guys? I have never been away from them for more than 48 hours. I am pretty sure it is bothering me WAY more than it is bothering them, and I try to put on a happy face when they ask, "Is it time to go to Michigan yet?" But this will be a great chance for Greg's family to see how much they've grown and just how much they are like their daddy (and I don't mean it is always in a good way!) Plus, I will be in classes five days a week until July 10th, so this will give me ample time to get a lot of work done before they get back. Their cousins from Texas, Tanner and Cayson, will be coming to stay with us in July, so I will definitely get my "little boy fix" by the end of the month!


I wanted to spend a special day with my little guys before they head out to Michigan. I finally have a break frolm classes, but they are still in school, so it was hard to find a time (and good weather) to go out in. But we committed to a special Sunday, and we had a great day! We started out making the early church service. We were a little late, so Tyler's class was already full. He went to big church with me, and he was so great. When I told him he would have to go into the big church with me, an interesting conversation ensued:

Tyler: "Is it hard in big church?"
Me: "What do you mean?"
Tyler: "Do they make you do hard work?"
Me: "No, it's fun! We sing and listen to the pastor talk."
Tyler: "Oh, okay. As long as I don't have to do any hard work. Kindergarten church is easy."

He was so good during the service. He was amazed by all the big screens around the sanctuary and was even more impressed by the people "in the big bathtub". They were having baptism, and we were sitting so close Tyler could see the people going under the water. When we got in the car, Tyler was telling Logan about big church:

Tyler: "Big church is fun. It's so easy."
Logan: "What did you do?"
Tyler: "We sang."
Logan: "What else?"
Tyler: "We saw the people get baptized. Now they get to go to Heaven."

Wow, I guess he really was listening!

After church, we went to La Casita, and then we went swimming. It was 78 degrees, but the wind was blowing, so it didn't feel so great once you got out of the water. After about an hour, Tyler came out shivering so badly that I had to wrap him in two towels. Logan had a blast going down the water slide. Of course, I forgot my camara in the car! After swimming, we went to see the new movie Up! in 3D. It was so cute. The boys love those silly glasses. Of course, what day wouldn't be complete without a trip to Toys R Us? I let the boys pick out some new Bakugan (which I still don't understand) to take to Michigan with them. Even I left with something...an IPOD arm holder and new earplugs. My earbuds always seem to disappear...after I let little boys borrow them for their handheld games!


The night ended with dinner at Zio's. Ed was home from Bandimere where he went for a Mopar car show and drag (which, in hindsight, I realized the boys would have loved to have seen Ed race) and met us for dinner. By 7:30pm, both boys were in bed sound asleep. It was a long, but very fun day! I am really going to miss these little guys when they're in Michigan.

Just call me Betty Crocker...

That's right folks. Lori got cooking today. I've tried to start eating a bit healthier (disregard cookies), and I decided that making my own salsa from fresh ingredients complete with Baked Tostidos would do the trick. Yummy! My first batch was a bit spicy, which I prefer. But I did take in the rest of my target audience--Ed and Tyler--and tried to tone down the next batch. Maybe this healthy thing isn't so bad after all!





Okay, so not everyone in my family has borderline high cholesterol like me. No need for everyone to suffer, right? I made the guys some chocolate chip cookies. They've been so great helping me out when I had so much work to do. It was the least I could do!

They ain't no Little Indian Relays...but I guess they'll do.

Logan being ever so patient...so not a Smith trait!

Tyler getting his first "talking to" by his teacher. He wasn't happy about missing the bullseye.

Tyler falling. He did a lot of this.

Logan and his teacher doing the water balloon throw. Not to take anything away from their second place finish (the teacher dropped it, for the record), but with the exception of the pair next to them, everyone else failed to follow directions and managed to break their balloons before the second toss.

Like I said...Tyler was on the ground a lot.

Another weird station...bubbleology. Not sure what the purpose of it was.

Big Sponge/Baby pool/Bucket game...see story below!

Logan did a lot better on the bullseye game than Tyler did.

Tyler during the "pick up all this crap and run across the gym without falling" game. He never fell. That was in and of itself a victory.

Logan doing the big sponge/baby pool/bucket game...seriously, read below for this crazy event!

Like I said, they ain't the Little Indian Relays, but they'll do. Today was Field Day at the boys' school. I'll admit that they had some pretty weird stations, including the Vaseline/cotton ball combo that freaked Tyler out and the big sponge/baby pool/bucket game that I'll discuss in more detail later.

As usual, Tyler is a terrible "loser". Now, it is impossible to "lose" at field day. You're on teams, you have partners, or you work as a class. When Tyler didn't immediately score for his team during the bullseye station, he lost it. His teacher had to have a "talk" with him a couple of times. After about the 5th time, Mom took over, and the threat was issued: "Either you knock this fussing off, or you're going to come with me, and we will watch Logan finish with his class." Mom 1, Tyler 0

Logan, on the other hand, had a blast. He really enjoys field day, and it was really fun to watch him play around with his classmates. He really is a great team player, but he is also a very compassionate child. One little girl fell (big sponge/baby pool/bucket game--another story in itself), and Logan completely stopped what he was doing to check on her. He is such a sweet little boy. I know he is going to grow up to be a great man one day.

I do have to talk about the big sponge/baby pool/bucket game. Let me add in the other components to this game: kids, running, and concrete. Are you thinking this was a bad idea? Me too. You also have to take into account that it was in the 50's today, and the wind was blowing pretty good. One first grader lost his balance and completely fell into the pool. Tyler cried (of course) because another kindergarten hit him with the sponge and got his Super Mario shirt wet. The little girl in Logan's class who got hurt slid on the WET CONCRETE and spent the next hour in the nurse's office. The parent volunteer running the station let Logan's 3rd grade class have 10 seconds to "do what they wanted". Really? Is it a good idea to let a group of 8 and 9 years olds loose on a pool of water and sponges to hurl at each other? Well, the sponges didn't stand a chance because these boys made a beeline and dove in...to the baby pool...on concrete. Nice. Logan didn't stand a chance. Poor guy--I grabbed him by the hoodie I forced him to wear outside (because I'm the mean mom who knew he would get cold, and he did), practically closelining him to prevent him from following his fellow classmates. Maybe this was a good time for the "if everybody jumped off a bridge, would you?" speech. But in the mind of my 8 year old, all he could see was the frolicking fun his friends were having completely soaking each other. Poor kids...their next station was in the open field. You can refer back to the temperature and the gusting wind and decide whether I was completely right for preventing my child from becoming soaking wet. Logan might not be thanking me, but I'm sure Tricare Prime is.

Worth the drive...

How could you not enjoy a view like this when you're driving home? Ed (in the orange car in front) and I (the idiot taking the picture with a telephoto lens while driving...it was a lucky shot! I was way further behind him than I look. I had the camera propped up on the dash and snapped!) were on our way back from a car show in Canon City. This view is one of many reasons why I love living in Colorado!

Is there something wrong with your brain, or are you just crazy?

This was the questioned posed by my kindergartener to one of his teachers this week. Apparently she had marked a few math questions wrong on his worksheet that were right, and he was none too happy about it. First he asked her if something was wrong with her brain. When he told me about it, he said he thought she was just crazy.

This is not the first time Tyler has vented his frustration about his teachers. Let me stress that I love all of his teachers. They are all fantastic. However, Tyler does not really like to be corrected. (I have NO IDEA where he gets that from!) He got in trouble one day by his reading teacher because he was jumping on a couch. She sent him back to his homeroom to take a cube (their discipline system), and he lost it. He told his homeroom teacher, "MRS. POGUE DRIVES ME CRAZY!" He then told his teacher that Mrs. Pogue ALWAYS gets him in trouble and causes him to lose cubes. For the record, I don't think he gets in trouble much (that I'm aware of at least), but when he does...watch out!

I think he gets more upset because he knows I look at his hands in the afternoon and if there are not two stamps...I know he lost cubes. Is it okay that he fears the wrath of his mother for only coming home with one smily face stamp? Ehhh...whatever works, I guess!

So maybe the Summer Olympics aren't in his future...

Okay, so maybe we won't be seeing Tyler in the Track and Field portion of the Summer Olympics. He had a grand time running Landsharks until sprint night. Let's just say that speed has never been a strong strength in the Smith family. I'm pretty sure the only thing his Daddy ran from was his mom...and me. So, it should come as no surprise that sprint night ended with Tyler in tears.

I had a flashback to my little brother running summer track at Baylor...crying before he crossed the finish line last. I relived that moment with Tyler...and was lucky enough to catch a picture of it. I still can't figure out how to arrange the pictures how I want them...but I still wanted to share them!

Ed giving Tyler a post-race pep talk. It went something like this...

"You ran fast buddy!"

"Oh yeah? Then why was I last???" (followed by more tears)

Realizing he is last...

He started out so good!

Good gravy...I got the job!

Some of you may know that I applied for an early recruitment program through one of the large school districts here in Colorado Springs and the University of Colorado. This is how the process went:

We had to submit a detailed application that listed our trainings and what-not, along with short essays for several questions. That was the easy part! We had to go for an interview with a panel that included the superintendent for the district. We had to teach to the panel for 15 minutes on a topic we were given 24 hours before our interview. I chose to teach on the states of matter for 3rd grade science. It was rather hilarious watching these professional men and women pretend to be third graders! I was really happy with how it went!

The next step was sitting down with the panel to answer face to face questions. We had 25 minutes to answer 9 questions to the best of our ability. I was amazed at how comfortable I felt with the panel, and I felt great when I left.

This is where my confidence took a nose dive. The man leading the panel said we were hear something this past week. By Friday night, I had resigned myself to thinking that I had not been selected, but I wasn't completely bummed. I still have a year left of college, and I have not even taken a single practicum class or done any student teaching. Just getting picked to come in for an interview was an honor (well, that's what I kept telling myself!).

When I checked the mail on Saturday, there was an envelope from the school district--a skinny envelope. Definitely not an envelope I would have hoped for. It's kind of like when you're accepted into college, and you hope for the thick envelope full of all the necessary information. This was definitely a rejection letter. Great...rejection in writing...something I can look back on forever as my first failure!

This how the letter started...

Thank you for your interest in the Teacher Early Recruitment Program...It was great to see you teach and to hear how you will contribute to the education of today's youth during your interview.

After careful consideration...(You can imagine that I was bracing myself for the worst at this point!) the committee is extending an invitation to participate in the Teacher Early Recruitment Program.

I almost cried! I couldn't believe it! I already have a job, and I still have a year of college left. What a huge relief to know that the most difficult part of the process is over!