Double Trouble

Mahkala x 2= Trouble!! For the open house at her school Mahkala had to build a duplicate of herself. I'm not creative at all, so she and Eric built 'Mahkala #2' last Friday. The thing scared me numerous times. After it was done, we placed it by the fireplace. Every time I walked into the room, it surprised me. We even had it sitting in the chair with a laptop in its lap for part of the weekend. It's not in the picture, but we even attached Kala's pon-poms to her hands. I was very happy to get it out of the house on Tuesday. It sat in the passenger seat of the car on the way to her school. It was kind of freaky and I had to carry it in to her room. I felt like I was carrying Mahkala. It was cute at their open house last night, though. Most the desks had a duplicate of each kid and they were dressed in cheer uniforms, football attire, beach clothes, skateboarding gear, etc. I'm glad it wasn't my classroom because if I walked in first thing in the morning, I know it would freak me out. The question is now what are we going to do with it when she brings it home!

Reality #1 & #2

I've done some myths of what I thought it would be like to be a stay-at-home mom, but I've decided to do some "realities." Can't focus on what's not there all the time! Don't even know if that makes sense. Okay, here are a few things I've realized this year.

Reality #1-
Teachers have it pretty good. Now before all teachers yell and ream me for that comment, hear me out. Believe me. I've been cussed at, gotten attitude, sat through numerous fire drills on the football field, watched kids ditch and show up tardy, and been treated like dirt by parents, however overall there are many wonderful parts to be a teacher. For the amount of time we actually work, we are paid decent. I still think our country is backwards since celebs/athletes make the ridiculous money they do and firemen, police officers, & teachers make what we do, but teachers make okay money. We get a lot of time off-every night, weekends, every imaginable holiday, and summers. I know teachers take their work home with them and some do work extra, but I'm talking about what's required. Most jobs require people to bring their work home with them at some point. I couldn't wait to spend extra time with Eric this year but he never gets holidays off. He gets one President's Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. THAT'S IT!! Not 4th of July, not New Year's, not MLK day, nada. It sucks that he has to work and we are home wishing he was here. I'm grateful for all the time I get home with my family that the teaching schedule allows. Another positive is the benefits. I knew we had good benefits, but I never understood the magnitude until this year. We are on Eric's insurance this year. I'm appreciative we have at least some insurance but it can't even get close to what my district provides. I'm so excited to get those benefits back effective Aug 12th! We are hitting up all the doctors then (: And of course there's the wonderful aspect of interacting with students and watching them learn.

Reality #2 (the most important one)-
I've learned how wonderful it is to be home to spend time with my daughter and be there as a mom. When I first announced I was staying home, one of my best friends, Krysta, told me it is the most wonderful job yet one where the reward isn't always seen on a day-to-day basis. She couldn't have said it better. I've loved being the room mom for Kala's room, being able to attend all school functions, parties, and field trips, say "yes" whenever the school called and needed volunteers, bring Kala a fun lunch from Subway or Zeni-ya once in a while, doing the monthly crossguard (I'll give Eric credit for this one too. He always comes with me), and being able to drop off Kala at 8:15 and pick her up at 3:15 rather than having her go to the before/after school daycare. Any working mom has felt guilt for having to leave their children while they work, so it was great to not feel that this year. Who knows what we are going to do next year when she's in jr. high since there's no more day care. We'll work that out this summer. I'm not the most motherly type, but it's been wonderful to be a full-time mom and wife. I may not have cooked and cleaned all year long (if at all), but spending so much time with my family has been wonderful. I've been able to meet Eric for lunches and stay longer than 35 minutes (that's what we have at my school) or run errands for him because I know it's something I can help out with. I'll miss many aspects of staying home next year, but I'm beyond grateful to Eric for allowing me to stay home this year. I never thought I'd get the chance to do so. One more year would be great!! But I know once Kala's in jr. high most of what I was doing goes away and I'm okay with that. So thank you bebe (Eric) for your support this year and NO you cannot stay home next year (:

Sad Soy Sauce

Poor Soy Sauce! She was spayed today and lost her ability to make babies. Fine by me though. I don't want more puppies running around. She is still feeling the effects of the drugs and is drowsy. She'll have to wear the cone for 2 weeks and I know it will be so much fun dealing with that!!

Family Member of the Week

We started a new deal in our household called 'Family Member of the Week.' Each week one person is the person of the week. On the chalkboard in the laundry room, that person writes down 3 activities they'd like to do sometime during the week (can't cost money) and one meal they would like prepared. Taylor was it first 3 weeks ago. She picked wrestling, swimming, playing w/dogs inside, & skirt steak for the meal. The deal is Eric & I pick 2 of the activities and circle them sometime during the week and then write next to the meal which day we will have it. We circled wrestling and playing with dogs (it was too cold a few weeks ago to swim but not anymore!) and we decided to have skirt steak on Sat. night. THe next week no one was "it" because Kala & I were in the Bahamas; I was enjoying what I wanted to do! Kala was it last week. She wrote down swimming, take photos on our Mac computer, watch Wonder Pets (some Nickelodeon show), and spaghetti tacos for the meal. We circled swimming and photos. We had spaghetti tacos on Sat night. She got the idea from an episode of ICarly (Nickelodeon). They weren't as bad as I was expecting. It's what it sounds like....you take a taco shell, put in some spaghetti, then add the meat sauce on top. We each had one and it was decent. After that I ate just plain spaghetti without the shell, but it was fun to try. We ended up swimming both days this weekend because it was 105 and sooooooooo hot! We took photos Sunday night and we couldn't stop laughing. For those of you who've never used a Mac, it has a program called photo booth and you can do different styles of photos. We took almost a hundred pics and made a few videos. I had tears in my eyes from laughing so hard. At the end, we took photos where it did 4 in a row. Each person would yell out a word and we had to pose that way....sexy, mad, babyish, model, happy, sad, etc. I'm including the photo of us finding out some really good news. We also did the roller coaster one. I'm pretending to throw up, Taylor acts like she flew off the ride, and Kala & Eric are just riding for fun. This week Eric is the person of the week. He has yet to put up his activities, but it'll be interesting to see what he comes up with! This means I'm the person next week. I'm already formulating ideas in my head for some fun, unique things (:

Jo Bros

Here are some pics from the Jonas Brothers concert in the Bahamas. The pics aren't great because the lighting was bad but Kala rocked out to Kevin, Nick, & Joe. She screamed A LOT as did the other 4,000 girls there. It was cute and fun. And no despite what my sister, Susan, might say, I did not throw my bra or underwear on the stage!! I learned my lesson from their last concert and I'm not allowed any closer than 100 feet from them-LOL totally kidding...hello they are like 16 years old. No thank you.

Fabulous Vacation

Talk about a trip!!! First of all, I made it to the Bahamas with my fear of flying-GO ME! I may have had the assistance of valium, but whatever. I still did it. I posted tons of pics. I took over 500. These don't even include the pics from the Jonas Brothers concert. Those are on Kala's camera. Quick overview of our fabulous vacation....
-swim/layout by 5 different pools, play in the ocean, Jonas concert, Build a Bear, walks on the beach, exploring the town, water slides, lazy river, tube rides, kala swimming w/dolphins, shopping, arcade, roaring rapid river ride (which we thought was the lazy river until we were on it!), exploring all the fish tanks and seeing over 3000 different marine life, kala getting her hair braided and learning it hurts, tanning, tanning, & more tanning, eating ice cream every day, dinners, lunch by the pool, and bonding with Kala. I missed Eric A LOT but we had so much fun and I will always remember this trip!

Island

Island

More Island

More of the island

Bahamas

We leave tomorrow and I'm very excited (and nervous). It's a long way from home and Eric has to stay home and work. Kala is thrilled to take a week off of school, hang on the beach, and see the Jonas Brothers. I will definitely update when we get back. I won't be on the internet at all and my phone is staying off (too expensive). I guess it's a real vacation! We have to leave tomorrow for the airport a 3:30 am-so early! Holy cow...as I was typing this I realized PASSPORTS! I just went and grabbed our passports and other documents. Can't forget those. I need to go make a checklist. Love to all and talk to you when we get back next Weds.

Foggy Day

I woke up this morning to FOG! It's May 4th people. FOG!! Crazy. I had to step outside to smell to make sure it wasn't smoke. It cleared up within an hour or two and it was pretty warm today, but still. I'm telling you-if fog delays my flight on Weds. I'm not going to be too happy! Fog in May. Fresno is odd.