Our Ultimate Life

Friday, March 13, 2020

Happy Birthday Logan!

Wednesday was Logan's 2nd birthday! Emmett helped me make his birthday cake the day before. Mom and Dad came over Wednesday night to open his gifts and have some cake. Granny and Gramps gave him cash. Grandma and Grandpa Rose got him a cute church outfit (which he won't be wearing anytime soon!...) and a Book of Mormon quiet book (also mostly for church but, both kids love it so it's getting good use). Uncle Joe got him a flatbed truck that carries an excavator which the boys totally love, and we got him a dump truck from Diers.

I had my favorite class to sub sing for Logan's birthday

Logan watched it over and over! So cute

I've been subbing quite a bit lately. One of the teachers had a tragedy in her family so she was out for two weeks. I ended up writing the sub plans for those two weeks for her so she didn't have to worry about school stuff while she had to deal with her situation.

Along with subbing I'm still volunteer coaching the 6th grade basketball girls (practice on Mondays and games on Thursdays), and high school track started on Monday. I'm the official jumping coach. I've been pouring over youtube videos preparing workouts for high jump, long jump, and triple jump. I was a district champ at triple jump, but doing it and teaching it are two very different things! Plus we didn't even have a pit to practice on when I was in school - the only practice we got was at the meets! 🤣 I've been taking videos of the athletes and showing them how/where they can improve. Today I am meeting them in the weight room to do some lifting. Yesterday I brought Emmett to practice with me and he was in heaven digging in the sand pit (with Logan's new dump truck - ha). With sports and schools shutting down left and right, I really wonder if the track season will end up getting cancelled as COVID-19 moves into Idaho...it should be interesting!

I'm going to have the wood shop class make these for us

I bring my giant white board for the kids to know what to do each day

Can you believe Arco has a track? Spoiled rotten kids!

With all that said, I'm looking forward to basketball ending (two more weeks) and I won't be taking hardly any sub jobs now that track has started. The last two weeks were extra busy with track/basketball/subbing all at once BUT we made it through.

Today we got up and drove to Costco first thing. It was a little crazy, but we managed to get a cart full of goods and checkout all within 30 minutes or so. We hit the Blackfoot Walmart on the way home which was mostly ransacked as far as non-perishables go. It was lovely to come back to Arco where life feels non-apocolyptic.

We are finally melting over here! Chelsie texted me and said they were going to the park so we gathered all our offspring to enjoy the sunny warm 40 degree weather

Logan's position while watching Little Baby Bum - ha he's so cute!

Reading to Emmett before bed and he clocked out!

sooo warm the other day sitting on the porch...who knew 40 degrees could feel so good?

lesson planning

Going for a walk to Granny and Gramps

Emmett was asked to give the scripture and prayer last Sunday in primary. He did GREAT but the microphone wasn't working so nobody could hear him but, oh well.

Justin catching me in my element

We went to the Museum of Idaho again for something to do with the kids.

I've been having the kids play outside as much as possible - lots of snow still but it's melting quickly.

I've been doing more preschool activities with Emmett. Who knew butcher paper and stickers could keep a mom sane during long winter days?

He tried to get as many toothpicks stuck into the apple as he could - he did pretty great, I'd say!

Sunday, March 1, 2020

Skiing and Subbing

I took Emmett skiing the week following my previous post to give him just one more chance at the hill. We were able to borrow Lacy's skis again and I managed to buy a pair off facebook marketplace for $10. I will have to have the bindings adjusted to the boots I got - maybe I'll be able to go just ONE more time with his set? We'll see.

oh yeah look at that pizza!

I love these videos his teacher snagged of him

I subbed 2nd grade and 7th/8th grade and have a couple sub jobs this week. The 2nd grade class had 11 kids in it! Talk about a dream come true for a teacher. I knew many of the kids parents and one of them said, "Are you Emmett's mom?" I said yes - he said his brother Paul goes to preschool with Emmett - Emmett and Paul are buds. It was cute. When I was subbing the 7th and 8th graders, my old middle school basketball coach came up to me (she teaches math) and asked me if I wanted to coach track with her. I said sure! I told her I'd double-check with my family to make sure we were okay with the time committment. I told her I had experience coaching track at my last teaching position and that pretty much settled it in her mind, so that will be fun.

Two weeks ago I agreed to be a volunteer coach for the 5th/6th grade girls rec basketball. We have practices on Mondays and games on Thursdays for the month of March. A personality trait of mine is that I pretty much have two speeds - on and off. I don't know how to tone it down regardless of the age and yes, I found myself just as loud and obnoxious as I always am when I'm coaching. Oh well -the girls loved it. During one of our timeouts, one of the girls Tessa said, "You're fun." Ha - yes, I like to make it FUN! We ended up winning 18-14 coming back from a 7-14 deficit. They'll switch up the teams every week so everyone will get a chance for me to scream at them.

I snagged these pics off facebook that one of the moms posted.

Justin decided to show me up on his double-unders in the house and broke through they very thin subfloor. Dad came by a few days later and helped him rip up the carpet and repair the damage. I was happy to not have to use our renter's insurance to get it fixed. Dad had extra plywood in one of his shops so we didn't even have to buy anything for it. We'll have a carpet guy come eventually to get the carpet back nice and tight but for now, thank you Dad you're a life saver!

Grandma Judy sent the kids presents just because - that's what grandmas are for, right? The kids loved opening up their new treasures.

Well - after seven years - I finally managed to get Justin on a ski hill with me. Years ago for a birthday present Justin gave me a bunch of homemade coupons - you know, the "Fullfil for a back rub" kind of coupon. He made one of the coupons a ski trip with me and I've held onto it ever since. I was finally able to convince him because I decided that since Emmett's learning to ski, I wanted to learn too. So we signed ourselves up for a group lesson with my friend Claire and after two runs down the bunny hill we were training on the beginner's hill. After two runs with the teacher Justin was done - I went up the lift by myself for a final run and we called it a day.

Justin got a new calling - he is basically doing "scouts" - activity day leader for the boys. He still doesn't have a partner so I went up with him last week and it looks like I'll be there again this week. He had them make no-bake cookies but first had them find all the ingredients that were hidden around the church building.

Logan helped me vacuum some spilled ingredients

I finished teaching my primary kids "I Feel My Savior's Love" - today we reviewed "line upon line" to go along with the Come, Follow Me lesson for the week. Using legos, I called kids up one at a time to put the different phrases together. I put the finished products on top of the podium and we sang all the verses with scarf motions I had taught them last week. They were kinda into it, kinda not - ha! Oh well - I'm learning constantly with this new job

I also started to teach them "Peace in Christ" this week. I had the kids do a slap-slap-snap-snap beat so they could feel the timing of the song first before we went over notes and words. I just spoke the words for them to hear the timing and oh man - I had tears right away and had to fight through the rest of the song to get it all out. I love this song and I'm so excited for them to learn it and sing it for our Easter Sunday. When I was in the Young Women program two years ago we learned this song, and then my friend Donna who was serving in the YW with me suddenly passed away a year ago. They asked me to play it for her funeral and - well - the song will always have a special place in my heart.