Try, try again...

I apparently still have much to learn about being a teacher, as I have been called to be a Primary teacher for the fourth time in ten years. Most recently I taught the 9/10 year-olds, which wasn't so bad because at least they could read and engage in some sort of meaningful conversation. This time I will be teaching the Sunbeams (3 & 4 year-olds, for the uninitiated), a calling I held back in college before we had kids of our own. I liked it back then. But now that I will be teaching my own kid, I highly doubt it will be nearly as much fun. Part of the appeal of Sundays over the last few months has been my ability to simply drop Ethan off at the Primary room and then blissfully walk away, knowing that I wouldn't have to watch him or listen to him for a good two hours. Ah, that was nice while it lasted.

So, once again I am sucked into the black hole that is Primary. There goes any chance of getting to know anyone! I can't help but think of the other great Primary teachers/leaders I have known over the years- the Sue Padillas, Shaunaes, Melanies, LeeAnn Hansons, Valerie Satterthwaites of the world- and assume that I am somehow being told that I need to be more like them. Sigh... why can't I just learn this lesson and move on??? Perhaps my patriarchal blessing was right and I am a good teacher, but I'm skeptical. I guess that's why I need more practice...

R.I.P. Phillips Magnavox

I have had the same 19-inch Phillips Magnavox tv since my junior year of high school. Bought at the Bartlesville Wal-Mart, it has served me well over the years- from our first apartment after we got married to our house in Manassas, and now all the way to New Hampshire. This tv gets around! Unfortunately, Ethan and Jabba have done a number on the remote. Many moons ago, Ethan put it in the silverware basket of our dishwasher, and all the numbers were washed off of it. But it kept on ticking, amazingly enough! Then along came Jabba, who grew fond of it as a chew toy. As you can see, he chewed the battery cover off, and put some lovely teeth marks in the top as well. Lovely, no?




So, while Paul's mom was here helping us move in to the new house, she gave us money to buy a new stand for our tv. It is currently on what is supposed to be an end table, and the wood doesn't really match anything else in our living room. She and I saw a really nice black tv stand at a furniture store here in town, so she left us the money to buy it (so very nice of her!). I told my parents about it, and joked about our tiny little tv looking retarded on this big nice stand. (we haven't bought the stand yet)

Because they are crazy, and cool (or perhaps crazy cool) my parents took it upon themselves to solve my little "problem" by buying us a new 32" LCD tv!!!!! I was just sitting in my living room yesterday when there came a knock on the door. Since no one ever comes to our house, aside from the mailman, I was sure it was a traveling salesman or something else equally obnoxious. Imagine my surprise when I saw the FedEx guy with a ginormous box, containing a huge television. That can't possibly be for me- I didn't order that!!! Of course, I quickly put two and two together and figured out it was from my parents. They're the only ones nuts enough to do something like that. : )

Here it is in all its awesomeness! Too bad we have to waste HD on "Go Diego Go."

And here are the satisfied customers. Evan Jabba can't tear himself away.

Five adorable months

Happy five-month birthday to our sweet pea!! Sadie is such a good baby. She loves her family and loves life in general. She is sleeping well for the most part, though still getting up once a night to eat. She's eating solids, as I already mentioned, and is just a happy little girl. We are smitten!!

Sadie has finally "outgrown" Times Square Bear!





And here's a little video of her rolling over this morning. She can do it both ways, so she rolls all over the place! Such a cutie.

Sweet potatoes for our sweet potato

Sadie is adjusting well to her new home here in New Hampshire. Last week, Paul's mom started feeding her oatmeal cereal (I had given it to her a couple times previously) and she took to it immediately. It is really quite adorable to watch her eat- as the spoon approaches her mouth, she opens her eyes wide, gives a huge open-mouth smile and kicks her legs like crazy with excitement. She will finish an entire bowl and still cry for more when it's gone. So I decided that perhaps she was ready for something other than cereal, and bought her a few jars of baby food at the store yesterday. Up first were sweet potatoes- a veggie with which Ethan was not too impressed as a baby. Well, Sadie LOVES them! She gets sooooo excited when she sees the spoon and actually squeals in delight. The problem arises when she sticks her thumb in her mouth and then gets the food all over her clothes, or hits the spoon and makes me miss her mouth. But she loves to eat and has so much fun during meal time. Here's the evidence:


And after a long day of eating solids, Little Miss Sadie was tuckered out and fell asleep on my chest at 6:00 this evening. It was so sweet and reminded me of when she was *brand new* and would sleep all curled up on my chest in the hospital. Sigh... I wish she could stay little forever.

First Pictures From Lauren's Mission

Paul's sister, Lauren, entered the Provo MTC two weeks ago. Got the first pictures of her and her MTC group today.

Eating Fried Worms....

Sadie's last chew toy is none other than a toy of Dennis "The Worm" Rodman.

Niels' Dartmouth Campus Tour

We walked around Dartmouth's campus today. Niels was nice enough to pose tour-guide style for us.

Safe and (New England) Sound

We arrived safe and sound in New Hampshire. Will post pictures once we'd done assembling the house this week (a process that is going much faster than planned due in big part of Mom and Niels' help). We are having fun getting settled and exploring the area.

A huge thank you to everyone for the help in packing up and cleaning the house last Saturday. By helping us ease the process of leaving, each of you did, in fact make it harder to leave by reminding us what an amazing group of friends we have in Manassas. Completely overwhelming and excellent. Thanks.

Best Friends Forever

On Wednesday night we took Ethan and his best friend AJ to Chuck E Cheese as a "goodbye party" of sorts. Almost all of Ethan's other buds are gone for the summer, so we got some quality one-on-one time with AJ, which was awesome! I love this kid. He is so funny and just plain cute. He and Ethan are great pals. It was AJ's first exposure to "where a kid can be a kid" as Ethan calls it, and I think it was a bit overwhelming! But they both had a great time playing games, eating pizza, and just running around like crazy people. We are really going to miss AJ and all of our friends!! : (

The boys loved hitting these sharks as they popped up (think Whack-A-Mole)

Cruisin' with Chuck

Playing the sweet snowmobile game

Skee ball!!!!

Water race!

Particularly appropriate for AJ, the firefighter game

AJ kicks some Imperial bootie on the Star Wars game


Ethan and AJ show off their hard-earned prizes: two cheap plastic "badges" and dum-dums

Ethan brings out the claws, while AJ does his best Gene Simmons