Christmas

Christmas was good to us this year. We went to the river walk without the boys but they got back in time for Electricritters. We helped Chris decorate so he would get his stuff up in time for Christmas Eve. It was nice because this was the first year in a while that Scott and I had enough money to buy presents. I still tried to do my homemade gifts but I didn't have time to do as well as I would have liked. Between Scott being gone and working, I just didn't have as Much time as I used to. GG was able to come on both Christmas Eve and day so that was a blessing. She is wearing out quicker than she used to but at least she is there to enjoy it. I pray that next year will be the same. The kids don't really believe in Santa anymore but they still like to receive special Santa presents.

Brandon's Santa gifts

 Jessie's gifts

 My little Jessie gift

 Helping Chris decorate

 This year's Jesus' birthday cake

 The riverwalk all lit up for Christmas

Socks thinks he is king of the village

new job

So I posted on Facebook that I got a new job but it was just through the Christmas season. Well after I went in and filled out the consent form for the background check and did the drug screen, I was all ready to start Oct 13th. A few days after I got a call from a friend from Jessie's school who got a paraprofessional job that I had also interviewed for. She had to quit after two weeks because her son is having surgery and has a 12 week recovery time. She didn't feel it was fair to have them hire a long term sub especially if something else happened so she put in a good word for me. The next day they called and offered me the position. I am now a full time Paraprofessional for Vineland Elementary. It is only through the school year but now I have a good chance of getting on next school year. The pay isn't the greatest but once I send them my transcripts and prove I have an AA degree, that will boost the pay some more. The best thing is that it is the kids schedule so I will be off on their days off. The school is out here in the county so it is not far to drive either. There is three special ed boys that I rotate with and then I help the fourth grade with language arts. I now see why Brandon has so much trouble concentrating in school. The kids are constantly moving around and talking. I am talking about the mainstream kids also not just the special ed kids. The three boys all are at preschool- kindergarten level and they all have speech problems. They all also are prone to tantrums. One will bite and hit and kick so you have to be careful. They can also be very sweet. You tend to spend a lot of time trying to get them to work because they are all stubborn. Good thing I have had practice with stubborn children. I find I have a lot more patience for kids that aren't my own. My first week was kind of crazy anyway so I haven't had a day of normal schedule yet. Hopefully I will impress them enough to want to keep me on and I won't screw up. It is hard getting back into working full time after having my own schedule for so long but I hope I will get back into the swing of things soon.

North Pole

Chris was going to take a vacation to Las Vegas before he got another job since he probably wouldn't get time off for awhile but his friends had to bail and he didn't want to go alone so he decided to fund a family trip to the North Pole instead. The kids have always been a little leery when it comes to rides but I was hoping that they would be okay with these since adults ride with them. Chris loves rides and doesn't have anyone to ride with. Jessie was the big surprise because she loves them. She kept wanting them to go faster. Too bad she is too little to ride the big rides at Elitches. Brandon went on all of them but he didn't like a few of them. I am proud that he tried though. A couple of them he went back on for seconds even though  he didn't really want to because he didn't want to be shown up by his little sister. Everyone had a great time and the weather was beautiful. We stayed all day. Dad even rode a few of them. I am blessed to have a wonderful family who enjoys doing things together.

                                     This was at a training burn, Brandon is the little one. He is so proud of himself.

State Fair

We went to the state fair this weekend. We convinced the kids not to buy souvenirs there because we are hoping to still do a family trip this month. There wasn't really anything we wanted to buy anyway but you know how kids are they want everything even if it is junk. The food is becoming outrageous there so we ended up eating after we were done with the fair. The kids ended up getting some free stuff so they were happy. We did some games at the thrive booth and got some animal key chains. Turkey Hill was giving free ice cream away. The kids went to the safety park where city fire has a bus that teaches you what to do in case of a fire. I made Chris go in with the kids because Scott and I have been through the lectures before. Brandon was so excited to show off his knowledge, the guy ended up stopping the lecture early because he said the kids knew it all anyway. He asked them where their meeting place is in case of a fire and they said either the tree house or the fire truck. He said that was the strangest answer he ever heard. He ended up giving them t-shirts, which he doesn't give to everyone, and told them they could teach the class they knew so much. They also got suckers for participating in a scavenger hunt that was done at this really cool train setting. It is probably 100 feet around and has country scenes, mining scenes, a drive in, etc. I wanted to get pics but it was too crowded. You had to find things like the dog in the back of the truck, that sort of thing. We asked Chris to make furniture for Brandon's fire station we made last year and I might submit it to the fair next year. Some of the shows this year was a show about Australia animals, the strong man, the Olate dogs that were the winner from America's got talent, and some Indian dancers. It started raining at the end of the night so the only thing we didn't do was the kids were going to ride the Ferris wheel with Chris and they didn't get to that. All in all I think the kids had fun and it was a good night.

                                    Brandon milking a cow, Jessie didn't want to do it

                                             Brandon roping

 

                                         I was going to get their pics with smokey but they put them away

Brandon was part of the strongman show, Jessie probably would have been too but I had to move her into the shade because she was getting overheated.

End of summer and First day of school

So the kid's summer break is already over. Since we didn't have a lot of money to go on many trips, our break was mostly spent around here. We did have fun though. We did a lot of swimming even though the temperature never got as hot as it usually does in the summer. Since Chris had time off he tried to take the kids at least once a week so they could spend time together. He is the fun Uncle who lets them do anything and takes them to lunch every time. I am not sure who enjoyed it more, the kids or Chris. We enjoyed having Pat and Jim out for the fourth of July and GG's birthday and the picnic at Chris'. We went to the summer dollar movies a few times also. We also rode the boats at the riverwalk. Here are some pics of some of the other things we did.

 The kid's went to the library's summer reading programs and Brandon got to participate

 We made giant bubbles

 Jess broke her arm roller skating

 We went to San Isabel with Chris' ex in-laws and their grandson
We also went to Bishop's Castle the same day

 Took the kids to the zoo

 Brandon's first day of sixth grade. He is not happy to go

 Jessie's first day of third grade, she was a little better

Jess was scared to go without her brother and Brandon is just plain scared to start middle school. He has to wear uniforms to school. I am taking Brandon to and from school because of where his bus stop is I would have to leave him without being able to see him and I don't trust people enough to let him stand on a corner by a busy street by himself or walk to and from the bus stop to home. Jessie's stop is right by our house so she is still riding the bus. I'll give it a few days and report back on how they are doing in school.

Brandon's Birthday

I am behind on doing this. Time just keeps getting away from me. We took Brandon to Manhattan's Pizza Parlor for lunch because he wanted the giant Pizza. Chris went with us, taking advantage of not working right now. Then we came home and watched movies. It wasn't the most exciting but he had fun. He always gets his birthday stretched out because his aunts come one day, we do something on his actual birthday, and then we have the family party on Sat. He is such a good sport. He was willing to wait until the Saturday after his birthday so we wouldn't be doing parties two weekends in a row since we had fourth of July and GG's the Sat before. I can't believe he is already twelve.

 He wanted a fire picture for his room

We finally got the go cart up and running for his birthday

4th of July

This was the first year in a long time that we were able to set off fireworks. Aunt Pat and Uncle Jim came for a visit so it was a real family affair. We had GG's birthday party as usual. During the day, every one came out for lunch and we played baseball and some games. The kids were hot so we moved to the backyard and everyone watched them swim for a while. Pat and Jim took GG home to rest for a few hours before coming back over and the wind and clouds moved in. We ended up having GG's party and dinner inside and were able to go outside for the rest of the fourth of July fun.  I wasn't sure how the dogs were going to react with fireworks because we haven't been able to have them since we got these two. Goldie stayed in her crate the whole time but that isn't unusual. BJ was a little nervous with the closer bangs but he stayed outside with us the whole time. We still didn't buy too many fireworks because we found it more fun to play instead but we thought we had more fountains and found out that they were giant confetti poppers instead. The two pinwheel fountains we had messed up and we only had one fountain that worked so that was kind of a bummer. We also had smoke bombs and snakes. Scott and Chris set all of the snakes off at once so it looked like a bonfire instead of snakes and lasted about a minute. Never let those two play with fire. All the children (that means the grown up boys) played with silly string. We also had bubbles and glow stuff for night. We tried making a giant bubble wand this year and it went over pretty good but I will have to make two of the wands next time and we are tweaking the bubble recipe. The wind wasn't completely cooperating with us either. On Saturday, we went to Chris' for dinner, this time we got to eat outside. Chris and I were playing with the kids, we tried the bubbles again and then when it got dark we played with glow sticks. It was a great weekend and we were sorry to see Aunt Pat and Uncle Jim leave. There are more pics posted on shutterfly. Don't forget GG's 100th birthday party is next July!

                                       GG's cake, fancy on the outside, red white and blue on the inside

                                         giant bubbles

                                          smoke bombs

                                        Scott looks like he is using Brandon for a plow

                                            smoked out

                                          My little fireman

                                            silly string wars

                                            the snake bonfire

                                        playing at chris'

This was on a burn but I thought it was cute, Scott was teaching Brandon