This is for all the teachers out there!!

Have you heard about this website called heygirlteacher.com?  It is hilarious!  Check it out.  Here are some of my favorites from the site:

There are so many more!!

Garage Sale! Woot Woot!!

Do you know what I love even more than going to garage sales?

Having one myself!!

My mom and I usually team up once or twice a year to try and sale our old junk.   We didn't really have  junk.  We actually had some pretty great  stuff. 

I'm the opposite of a hoarder.  I don't know if they have a name for that yet, but I like to throw stuff out.  I can't stand accumulating junk.  Sometimes I get carried away and throw away things that we actually still need.  I can't stand clutter.

This was one of our biggest garage sales ever.  I think it has to do with the fact that Mom and Dad are being sort of forced to move.  You can read about that here.  And Brent and I are trying to sell our house to downsize and pay off debt.

 In other words we were purging, big time.

This was one of our biggest garage sales ever. 

In total we made about $600.  Not to bad for a Saturday morning!!

I went searching for a garage sale sign on Bing and found all these funny signs.  So naturally I stole them to share with you.  Enjoy!

This one is for all you teachers out there.

We might have to try this one!! lol

This one is not funny, well maybe a little. Sorry :}

This one is my favorite.  Make sure you read the fine print!!

searching for a good book

I LOVE to read, but I haven't read anything since Jackson was born.  I have to force myself to take a break from reading, because I pretty much ignore everything and everybody around me when I read.  The house doesn't get cleaned and the kids have to fend for themselves. When I really get into a book I will stay up all night or until my eyes will no longer stay open to keep reading.

Hello, my name is Jena and I am a book addict.  Seriously, it is a problem.

 Here is a video that explains exactly how I feel when I'm reading. 

Isn't that too funny? 

Anyway, I knew with having a new baby I should not try and read anything.  I would only get frustrated with it.  But now that Jackson is almost 9 months and getting a little independent and we only have about 20 days until I am off for the summer, I am feeling the need for a good book. That's where YOU come in!

I need some suggestions. 

Here are some books I've read and loved:

Twilight series

Fallen series: If you haven't read I highly recommend.   There is a fourth one coming out pretty soon.

Vampire Academy Series: Really good and very different from twilight.

Mortal Instruments Series

I also really enjoy just some good ole feel good christian romance.

or some not so christian romance (don't judge)

These are Christine Feehan Drake Sisters Series  I loved these. 

The last books I read were the Hunger Games.  I enjoy all types of book genres, but I need at least a tiny bit of romance no matter what.  Is that bad?  I have read and enjoyed books with no romance, but I just prefer a little lovey dovey stuff.  That being said I'll try whatever if it's highly recommended. 

I am hearing a lot about these Shades of Grey books.  People are loving them.  I have reservations because of all the raunchyness I'm reading about in the reviews.  I have read some smut romance novels in my time, but I hear these are REALLY bad.    Not sure if I want to go down that road.

I'm also looking for some good commentaries to go along with my quiet times.  I just started Beth Moore's "Get Out of That Pit."  My mom read it last year and said it was awesome.  I'll let update you about it soon.

Ok, so give me some suggestions.  I want to make a reading list for the summer.   I will take ideas for leisure reading and bible study reading.

Obsessions {April 27}

This is my second link up today!  My first was with From My Grey Desk for High Five for Friday.  If you are looking for that post you can click here.

For this post I am linking up with Saige Wisdom to share my Obsessions. 

* I am really obsessed with getting a nice new camera.  Especially now that I'm really getting the hang of this blogging thing.  I have noticed how many bloggers have really nice cameras and how much better their pictures are than mine.   The Canon EOS Rebel is what I have my eye on.

*I'm also obsessed with fudge rounds right now.  We have some leftover ones in my class room from testing week and I eat one a day.  They are crazy good.  Oh and there not the little normal sized ones.  I've been eating the big boys.   I have a love/hate relationship with Little Debbie snack cakes.



*I don't want to be a copycat, but I'm also obsessed with blogging.  I've only been doing it for about a year and it takes some time to figure things out, but I would say I am on my computer way too much these days.  Now that I have 12 followers (Go Me!)  I am starting to feel like I have an obligation to my few readers, and it's not the bad sort of obligation.  I want to make sure they don't regret choosing to follow me. 



High Five for Friday!! {April27}

I'm linking up over at From My Grey Desk for my Friday High Fives!!

My first High Five goes to Abigail, my little slugger, for hitting a triple at her t-ball game.  She was soooo proud of herself. 

My second High Five goes out to me and my husband for making the tough decision to put our house up for sale.  We are planning on downsizing for a couple of years to pay of debt, because debt sucks!!

High Five number three is for the fact that summer vacation is only 20 days away!!!  AAgghh I can't wait!

High Five to my mother-in-law Mindy for saving the day.  My mom is my babysitter and she called at 3am to say she was sick and couldn't keep the boys.  I had maternity leave at the beginning of the school year and have no sick or personal days left to take.  I was willing to take off and be docked probably around 200 dollars, but Mindy is watching them for me today.  Yayyy!!

And my last High Five goes to....... Austin for finally deciding to be a big boy and tee-tee standing up instead of sitting and tucking.  Maybe that's TMI but I thought he would never do this.  He is very stubborn about things and I really didn't want to explain to his teacher next year why he sits down to pee. 

TGIF!!!!
Have a good weekend!!

why do babies hate sleeping?

I'm sitting at what feels like a fork in the road.  Technically, I'm sitting on the couch in the living room listening to my sweet baby boy cry his eyes out in his bed. 

We aren't even trying to do the cry-it-out method.  I rocked all my babies to sleep for the first year or longer of their lives.  I don't mind doing it, IF they stay asleep and that brings us to the problem.  Jackson is not staying asleep.

Every night we deal with one of the following:

A.   he wakes up less than an hour after laying him down for no good reason, but usually goes back down fairly easily

B.    he wakes up between 1am-3am, we feed him and he is wide awake and ready to play.  It usually takes over an hour to get him settled down and back to sleep.

Both scenarios are not good.  I'm not sure what to do at this point. 

I have two older, busy kids, so it's hard to keep a routine, but he is usually bathed, fed, and rocked between eight and nine o'clock. 
He has never slept all the way through the night, which I know at 8.5 months he perfectly capable of doing.  I just don't know what to do. 

I feel like every decision I make is turning him into a bad sleeper.  Should I let him cry? For how long?  We usually leave him for about ten or fifteen minutes and he only gets louder and louder and angrier and angrier. 

I remember with Abigail we tried the cry-it-out method and she was literally scared of her room and bed for a few days.  We only let her cry for thirty minutes, but it was scaring to her. 

Austin was and is my awesome sleeper.  Right around age one he lost all interest in being rocked to sleep.  We could just lay him down and he would go straight to sleep and sleep ten or more hours. 

The BIG, HUGE, MAJOR difference between my first two kiddos and Jackson is the PACI.  Jackson never took to the paci and believe me I tried hard.  My first two were paci babies big time.  I LOVED it.  It helped sooth them at night, it kept them quiet in public, it just made my life easier.  Breaking them of it was a little hard, but not as hard as a baby that won't sleep.



Here is Abigail at 1 with her paci.




Here is Austin at 1 with his best friends, the paci and the blankie.




And here's Jack-Jack with no paci or blanket

 
Jackson hasn't developed any self-soothing habits as far as I can tell.  Austin also had a blanket that he is still very attached to.  Jackson doesn't have anything like that.
Why is sleeping so hard for babies?  The type of humans that need sleep the most and they hate sleeping!!  I just don't get it. 

While I was typing this Brent got Jackson out of his bed.  I just don't want to teach him that crying will get him what he wants, but I also don't want him to feel insecure and abandoned.  Or what if something is bothering him, like ears or teeth?  I don't think so, but what if? 

Being a parent is so hard, even the third time around!!

midweek confessions

Wednesdays are confession days, so here goes nothin...

-I am dreading taking Austin to his first dentist appointment.  Austin was a pretty difficult 2 and 3 year old.  Getting a toothbrush in his mouth was no easy task, so we didn't brush his teeth like we should have.  Plus the fact that if it weren't for chips and apple juice(not the best food/drink for your teeth), Austin would probably have to be on a feeding tube, he's such a picky eater.   I know he is going to have a cavity or two.  I think I'll make Brent take him, so he can get the reprimand from the Dentist. 

-One of the things I dislike about my job is talking with my "not so good students" parents.  I know that sounds bad.  It's not that I dislike them, I just never know how they will react to the bad news that their kid is misbehaving or failing.  Will they be surprise?  Will they make excuses?  Will they blame me?

I hate giving bad news.   My motto for as long as I can remember has been "avoid confrontation!"  It scares me. 

-I went to three movies and one play in the span of three days.  That is crazy for me. 

-I watched my brother act in a play this past weekend at the Lake Charles Little Theatre.  This is his third play and after every one I secretly wish I could be on stage performing.  Then I return to the real world and realize that acting does not really fit my personality.  It looks like fun though.

What are your confessions? 

I want one, pleeeeeease!!!

On Saturday a friend of mine asked Abigail to play in the Awana Games with her church kids.  We have Awana at our church, but we weren't going to the Awana Games.  Abigail had a blast playing all the fun games.  Even though it was a different church, Abigail still knew all the kids and fit right in. 

Sweet girl ready to play!!

That's my friend's son being silly in the background. 

This was probably the silliest game.  They had to crawl from one side of the square to the other, while the other teams were crawling the opposite directions.  It was mass chaos when they all got to the middle.

Abigail didn't get to practice any games before hand, but she caught right on.

This is the game where you pass the balloon under your legs and then the last person sits on it until it pops.

She  got a patch for her Awana vest and a ribbon. 

As fun as all that was and as happy as I was for Abigail having a good time, this was all I could think about after it was over.

My friend was coaching the kids so she asked me to take pictures and now I'm addicted!!

I need one of these baaaaddd!! 

I mean just look at the poor quality of blurry pictures from my cheap camera. 

I even went home and started pricing, to see how much I needed to save up.  Of course our money situation is almost always bad, so it will most likely never happen, but a girl can dream right. 

Anybody want to loan me about $600?  LOL

I would even settle for a used one if I knew the previous owners.  I hate to spend hundreds of dollars on a used camera to have it fall apart.  My mom said she would just give me money for Christmas instead of gifts and if I could convince Brent to do this too, then maybe I could gather about $300. 

 I guess after two Christmas's I could finally afford one.  I will just have to be patient and not think about all the beautiful pictures I could be taking of my children at t-ball games, and school awards days, and dance recitals right now. 

Patience, Jena, Patience!!

Double Feature Tradition

In memory of my Nanny, who died from colon cancer 10 years ago on April 21st, Mom, Kelsie, and I did a double feature. The last time my Mom went to the movies with her Mom, they went to a double feature.


This is my Nanny in 2001. 

It's crazy to think how much all of our lives have changed since she died.  I was a senior in High School and now I'm married with three kids and am in my fifth year of teaching.   We love and miss her.   My favorite memories are of going to garage sales with her.  I still love going and I think of her every time.

 I usually have at least one or two dreams a year with her in them.  My mom is jealous. 

At the movies we saw The Lucky One and Lockout.  They were both really good movies. 

We didn't originally plan to see two movies, so we parked outside of Kohl's in the front of the mall.  When we got out of the movies, which is in the back, the mall was closed.  We had no choice but to start walking through the empty mall parking lots all the way around the entire mall.  It was pretty spooky.  I had 911 dialed in my phone ready to hit send if I had to. 

We got about half way to our car when a security guy pulled over and offered us a ride.  It was crazy, but exciting. 

It might sound silly, but our new tradition will be to go to a double feature every year on April 21st in remembrance of my Nanny. 

Hopefully minus all the parking lot excitement.  I'm linking up today with Finding Beauty in the Ordinary.

 

A bunch of random things

-So far I am totally impressed with all the singers on American Idol this year.  If you're new here you can read my previous American Idol posts by clicking here.  For those of you who don't know, Joshua Ledet is from the little city of Westlake, Louisiana, which happens to be where I live.  This small town is totally pumped up!!  I was really sad about Colton Dixon leaving last week. I loved how he sang his going away song.  He was singing straight to God and let everyone know it.  What a great witness!!

-I think I am going to start Insanity again in two weeks.  I'm planning on waiting until after my last week of duty for the year.  During duty week I have to be at school so early that I don't have time to workout before school.  I want to really get my butt in gear for the last two months before the Kelsie's wedding.

-I went to the gym in the evening instead of the morning like I usually do and I felt really uncomfortable.  I guess evening time is when all the serious weight lifter guys come.  There was a ton of them and they were hogging all the machines.  Every time I got on a machine I felt like someone was waiting for me to get off so they could use it. 

- Brent started his new job at Tractor Supply on Monday last week.  He is loving it!!  I am so happy for him.  He has worked so many different retail jobs and this is the first one where he's selling things he actually likes and enjoys.  The pay is not awesome, but he is happy and home earlier in the evenings.  The kids and I are enjoying having him around more.

-We have made the hard decision to put our house up for sale and downsize.  We really want to pay off debt and get our finances where they should be, so we are making the tough choice.  In the long run I know it will pay off.  One of our prayers right now is for God to guide us through all this and that we will give him glory through it all.  This will take a lot of faith and patience, but I know we can do it. 

boys will be boys or sibling rivalry??

Just recently Austin has started getting rough with Jackson.  He will put things on his head, knock him over, try to pick him up and put him on the couch, or pat his back or head too hard.  We are having to watch very closely to make sure Jackson is safe. 



I love both the boys faces here.  This is Jackson's "what the?" look and Austin's eyes half closed is cracking me up because that is so me.  I am always the person with the crazy half closed druggy eyes in pictures. 

                                      

Most people would probably go straight to sibling rivalry for the answer to why he is acting this way, but I don't believe Austin is doing any of this to be mean.  My theory is that Jackson is looking older and crawling around and playing, which makes Austin think he can wrestle with him and that he doesn't need to be as gentle.  There might be a tad bit of jealousy or something, but I'm not totally convinced of that.

Jackson is also following Austin around everywhere and playing with his toys, so Austin probably thinks he is just playing.  The big problem here is that every time we fuss or punish Austin for being  rough with Jackson, he doesn't act like it's a big deal.  This is his phrase for everything now:

"Sorry! My Bad!"

It's totally cute and funny when he says it, but he doesn't have any real remorse.  It's more like he knows that what we want him to say and so he says it real quick and silly. 

Then, ten minutes later he will get rough with Jackson all over again. This is a tricky one, because we want them to play together and form that brotherly bond, but I'm tempted to tell Austin to just leave Jackson alone and stop playing with him. 

Hopefully it's just a phase, either that or Jackson is going to be one tough cookie when Austin is finished with him.  

My blue-eyed boy!!

Here's a little video for your viewing pleasure just to give you an idea how loud and  hyper active Austin can be.  Jackson can make some noise too!

Any advice is always welcome!!!

High Five for Friday!!

First off I will high five myself for this being my first time to link up to High Five for Friday.  I've been reading them for a while now, but this is my first time to participate.

My next high five goes to Brent(husband) for completing his first week at his new job.  He is loving it!!

High five to all my students and teacher pals for making it through testing with with our sanity intact!!

High five to this beautiful baby boy for cutting his third tooth!  I think his fourth one will be popping out in the next few days. 

Lastly, High Five to Joshua Ledet for making it into the top 6 of American Idol!!  In case this is your first time visiting my blog, he is from my town.

Have a super, awesome, extraordinary, restful, fun filled weekend!!!!