We're Famous!

Check this out! Remember the camel picture? The one that's going to be in a book? Well, it made Rachel Ray today. Not just made Rachel Ray, but was the 1st picture in the interview! How crazy is that!?!

The Last Two Weeks in Review

So I know I've been incredibly lazy about updating. So in the spirit of always wanting to be like my big sister, I am using her post idea and bulleting our last couple of weeks.

• I started subbing at our local school. I've only done it twice and I actually enjoyed it. It wasn't nearly as hard to be away from my kiddos and home as I thought it would be. I am only available 2 days a week and usually one of those is full of appointments, so it's not much, but the little bit of income will be nice. It might even pay for groceries!
• I also picked up 3 extra credits. I am doing an internship at said school. I'm helping out in a high school math classroom. There are 29 kids in the class. This is the smarter group so they are not as challenging, but 29 kids is a lot for one classroom, math or not!
• Speaking of school, I got an 85% on my latest differential equations test! Whoo hoo! I was pumped.
• Cole is loving school. I still get the same "I played, had snack and water" when I asked what he did at school, but he seems to really like going. He's even mentioned a couple of kids from his class.
• Cole is also in underwear. Potty training since June, we finally made the switch just over a week ago. We still have occasional accidents, but he's been doing really well.
• Tate is walking! He finally gave it a go a couple of weeks ago and now is a full blown walker.
• Being a walker means he was also released from all PT and special ed services!
• He also had his 15 month check and is 22 lbs and 30.5 inches (only about 4.5" shorter than his big brother).
• We did manage to get our soybeans out, but still have about 160 acres of corn. It's finally sunny and windy today, good drying conditions, but they are predicting rain and snow for the end of the week. Should be great trick or treating!

That about sums it up. I do have some post ideas, including a toy review of Tate's Christmas present. Today, however, I have to get my lesson plan for class done!

Noisy Kids

For those of you who think my kids are always quiet...

The Walking Tater

I finally broke out the camera to catch Tate in his new found skill. He gets steadier and steadier every day. It's still a fairly new skill if you can't tell from Cole's commentary.

NICU Reunion

Every year in October the NICU where Cole stayed as a newborn does a reunion. We've never gone. It's always been something. First, it's in October, which is harvest so I'd have to go by myself. The first year it meant traveling with a newborn. The second year I don't remember what it was, but it probably involved harvest. Last year meant traveling with a newborn again, but this year I decided I was going. So I left after breakfast with the boys and started our 2 hour journey. We had snow the night before so the roads weren't great, but after about 20 miles they cleared up and except for the occasional waaay overly cautious driver, it was smooth sailing. We met my college roommate for lunch then headed to Toys R Us for a costume for Cole. Do you know the selection of costumes for a 3 year old boy is? Nada. We ended up buying a dress up outfit, which worked out fine.

We finally headed over to the reunion. It went ok. Cole was not a memorable baby, which was probably a good thing, but it made the reunion less fun for me. Cole enjoyed it. They had some carnival games, a bouncy house, an inflatable slide, and another inflatable climbing wall/slide thingy. He went down the slide by himself and even tried the thingy. I was nervous about that. He did the short wall fine, it was the big wall that he had trouble with. It started out ok but then a bunch of kids came in after him and that made him nervous. He finished it though and he was so proud and Mommy was too, of course. As for me, there was only one nurse I remembered and I didn't like her. She was loud and obnoxious. One of the doctors was there. I think he recognized me, but that's probably about it. A couple of the nurses recognized the name, but he didn't stick out in any one's memory. There were a couple of other kids there that were there at the same time. One was about 10 months at the time Cole was born, the other was there about a week before we left. The 10 month old was born at 24 or 26 weeks and she had a lot of problems, but from the look of her, she hasn't seemed to suffer any major issues. I of course forgot my camera, so here is the only picture we got.

My New Job

I started subbing this week. I started Monday by teaching the last 2 hours of high school math. I'm also doing an internship in the same class a few hours a week. Monday went ok, but the kids didn't have enough to do so they got a little rowdy by the end of class. Today went better. The first 3 classes basically continued working on whatever they had been working on. The last 2 classes I introduced a new lesson. The school is using integrated math, real-life application type math. I haven't worked with it much, but I get the drift that the kids really don't like it that much and I honestly wonder how applicable it really is. Yes, the examples are nice, but it's a lot of examples and very little typical math. I remember a professor telling us that math is about learning the process. It's basically teaching students a different way to learn. I don't see them learning the process. If you give them a completely different example they can't process it. It certainly isn't making them ready for college level math. I obviously haven't worked with it enough to make complete and total judgement.

Anyway, I survived. I'm exhausted. My knees and back hurt but I've finally thawed out from my room in the arctic circle. It felt kind of nice to go out and earn a paycheck, but it would be a whole lot nicer if I didn't have homework tonight.

Cruising with Papa

Tate had a blast playing on the stairs with Papa a couple of weeks ago.

First steps attempts

Tate is starting to take off with the walking. He's been doing more and more each day, but doesn't cooperate so well when the camera is on him.