What?! You mean a baby is going to come out of there?

Hanna turns 11 today and it's blowing my mind. Maybe it's that she's the size of a 6 year old that makes it hard for me to wrap my brain around her being this old. She's a great kid who was funny from birth. Not so funny when crying 24/7 the first few weeks, nor when not sleeping the first 10 months. In between crying, not sleeping, and nursing like a monkey with ADHD, she was a riot. I might not have been in love with motherhood those first few months, but I was for sure in love with Hanna. Hanna is an everyday example to me of how I should be living my life. She amazes me! Happy Birthday Boo!

She still loves being naked

Ryan's favourite picture of Hanna

One of my favourite pictures

Hanna at her 11th birthday dinner riding the saddle

"No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers dirty looks"
I've officially survived my first year of teaching first grade. It's been a wild ride but I've learned so much. I had a great class and a great team to work with. Now it's on to fun, fun fun! After a day of deep depression where I didn't know what I was to do with all this spare time, I've found my groove. I took a deep breath and told myself to relax. It sort of worked. I've started taking early morning classes at the rec center. My favourite thing about this is that even though I have to get up at 5:30, I can come home and go back to bed! In my mind, this is heaven. If you haven't tried it, you should. After a hard workout sleep is really the best. Anyway, this is a picture one of my students drew for me. I especially like it because she has put me in one of my favourite winter outfits, black turtleneck, brown corduroy skirt, tights and brown boots. I must have worn this a lot.

Where Ryan faces his fears and tries not falling to his death
When starting a project, I like to get all the correct tools together/purchased and then begin. Ryan, likes to just begin, hoping he has tools that can be jerry rigged to worked. As you can imagine, Ryan's projects usually end up peppered with a lot of foul language. So it went when staining the wood on the front of the house. Ryan is afraid of heights, so it made the day even more sweary. He had to crawl on the roof to paint the top beams. He was using a paint roller I dug out of the kid's craft supplies. Near the end of the project, I finally went over to Lowe's and bought him the proper roller for the job to which he exclaimed,"This would have gone much better if I had this to start with." Sigh.
Before


After (planting/yard word is still a work in progress)

I'll be painting the front door on my own.