Back to School

The Circe of Life continues - (cue Lion King theme song here).  While one school year comes to a close, the next one begins almost immediately - at least that's how it feels.  Since school is back full swing, my blogging has taken a backseat sadly.  In fact, I get the vibe that most posts from here on out will be slightly random and poorly stitched together (I blame the pregnancy for sapping my mental acuity.) It's only been a couple weeks and so far this school year is going well.  I like my classes, my students are relatively sweet (it's still early) and I haven't had that overwhelmed feeling.....yet.  This year though begins with some definite changes.
1.  I'm teaching AP US History again - bring on the 120 essays.
2.  Jack has been bumped up to the 3 year old class which has an actual curriculum and everything.  I don't like how quickly he's growing up.
3. I'm once again teaching while pregnant.  This is fun & exciting but frustrating at times.  Every morning I struggle to find SOMETHING that fits and doesn't look awful while attempting to keep my energy level up above exhaustion at a stage in my life when I must limit my caffeine intake for the good of the baby.  Talk about irony.  
4.  I'm adjusting to teaching at FHS without Melissa.  She has taken a job at Powell as an Assistant Principal and will do an amazing job.  But.... :(  It just feels strange.  I keep walking into her old classroom to tell her things throughout the day and she's not there.  So weird.

Powell doesn't know how good they've got it now.

Luckily we still get to see Melissa - Chelsea even had the great idea to surprise Melissa with a pedicure on Saturday!

The school year also began with a momentous day.  Well, not really.  The first day with students also coincided with my birthday.  Not exactly how you want to start off your 33rd year of life but sadly this is what you come to expect when you have an August birthday.  It just happens.  I'm lucky enough though to have parents that drove all the way up to Knoxville to take us out to dinner for the occasion :)  I have a sneaky suspicion that seeing Jack was part of their motive as well :)

 Jack and Dad spent a portion of the visit playing copycat.

These pictures just crack me up :)

 Dr Evil and Mini Me.

In other non-exciting but random first week of school stuff - we went shopping.

 Jack now has an obsession with cereal and so I let him pick out one box in Walmart.  This is what he came back with.  Notice our child selected multi-grain cheerios as one of the options.  What a health nut.

 Apple "Jacks!"

 Other activities that we partake in to pass the time on the weekends...watching Daddy mow the lawn.

Going to the FHS football game (check out his jersey from Melissa!)

Practicing our dunk shot in the backyard.

Coloring in our Catholic coloring book with Mimi. Mimi stopped by on Saturday to bring me a birthday present and some gorgeous mums for me to plant.  

 

 Learning how to ride our bike in the driveway.  This is the shot I got right before he rammed me with the wheels.

Planting flowers! My deck is pretty again.  Thanks Mimi!

And finally, hunting down any and all parks to keep ourselves busy and active on the weekends.

I want to make sure that Andy and I take advantage of every single weekend because it dawned on me that pretty soon we will be sharing our time on the weekends with another child.  This is SO exciting but also makes me realize our time of having "Just Jack" will be coming to a close & we need to make the most of every second with him.  So here's to seizing every single weekend from here to February.  Even if all we do is play in the backyard and watch Andy mow grass, at least we are doing it together.  And it makes everyone happy :)