Friday, December 14, 2007

Almost Christmas!!!

Happy Friday!! We are almost finished with school for the year and we are getting ready for all the Christmas time activity. Tonight Rachel will be going to girls night out tonight with the Junior high group and the rest of us will be going to the live nativity!! That is always fun, although I think the signifigance of the recreation of Jesus' birth is lost a little to the cookies and cocoa at the end of the tour.
We will be celebrating Christmas a few times this year, first on Sunday with Mom and Dad before they go to Kim's to celebrate. Then our traditional Christmas eve Chili and going out to look at the lights.
The kids were so excited to buy each other gifts this year!! They earned money for each other's gifts and went shopping and then came straight home and wrapped them up, and walked up to the others and told them what they were getting!! So cute!!

Saturday, December 1, 2007

OK, what is going on in our lives?

Hey, it's Steve here- so much going on in our lives and so little contact with family and friends due to time constraints. It is really frustrating to know that we are all capable of so much, but are so consumed in our own lives. Not due to selfishness- it's just that once you have kids (and most married adults do!), they consume your lives.

Our three children, Rachel (11), Logan (5), and Kenzie (3) are at such different developmental levels- each one with different wants and needs- giving them quality time (which is really 'quantitiy' time) as a group and individually, plus keeping a good marriage, and being active in the church- takes so much out of us. Getting to know our neighbors, taking care of the house, keeping up with planning lessons- can you see where I'm going with this? I feel so constrained time wise that I figured it's time to make a blog- we all have time after the kids are down later at night to catch up on the news- so here is MY NEWS!

Rachel is active in the Junior High program at church. She is making lots of friends and developing quite a few good relationships. She is growing up fast!

Logan is starting to read pretty well. He is a bright, inquisitive, loving, caring young man who is good at memorizing bible verses. He is getting to be really good at coloring.

Kenzie is just a mess. She does not listen very well, but has that comical goofiness that gets her out of trouble often. She is the comic relief in the family and does goofy, hillarous things all the time that just crack us up.

Laurie is homeschooling the kids, and doing a great job. She went into this not knowing what to do and worried about whether or not she would do a good job. She now has gotten to the point where she is GREAT at what she does! She was really inspired by Pam Tebow, Tim Tebow's mom- who we saw speak at a homeschool conference. Laurie is really teaching the kids character over everything else, something I see a complete lack of as a public school teacher.

I am back in teaching. I taught for 10 plus years in Duval County and had up and down experiences. I tried to go into real estate in new home sales with a company called Ryland homes. Great homebuilder, but the market went flat- no, it died! with NO income coming in, we lost a ton of cash, so I went back into teaching. I got a position with Landrum Middle in Ponte Vedra Beach- and so far am loving it- this is really what I excel at- just wish it paid more $$$$

More later,

Steve Harrison