Loves his daddy!

Proof. Warning: Stinkin' cute adorable baby alert.

My 12-4.

I spend two hours in a car, Monday-Friday. That's not too exciting. I spend four hours with ten 2-5 year olds, Monday-Friday. That can be...interesting. I always hear of first-year teachers keeping a journal of all the ridiculous and crazy things that happen to them (I haven't done that), but to be honest...I don't think it would matter how many years I teach preschool...they are just going to be full of funny things! There are so many moments that I just want to capture and share with others, but can't. Like the time a little guy showed up with two left shoes - one loafer and one sneaker. Or the girl that showed up on "Wear Blue" day in a too-big, blue dance leotard with blue and white puffy sleeves and a sheer dance skirt. Those are the cute and funny moments. Then, there are moments like this:

Setting: Just before we go out to recess near the end of the day, we all line up and walk to the restrooms. One girl was having a particularly sassy day, army-crawling down the hallway, running back to the room, and finally somewhat walking with me to the restroom. Once she got in the stall, I thought the excitement would be over (I was a little done with her that day.). Much to my surprise, the stall opens and she scoots backwards - pants at her ankles and hands spreading her bum. She exclaimed incredulously, "Did you know that this line is ALWAYS going to be here?!" Wow. Not expecting that! I surprised myself by not laughing and just saying firmly, "You better turn that thing around and go to the bathroom, missy!" Looking back on it, I laugh a lot. I shared it at our staff meeting this week and won the prize for the best student story of the year.

We've been having parent teacher conferences this week. I have really enjoyed speaking with all of my students' parents! It kind of makes it real that I am a teacher when I hear the parents share stories from their child's perspective. An especially cute story I heard today involved a well behaved boy in my class. His mom told me today that he purposely spit in her car. After he did, and knowing that his mom was coming to the school tonight, he said, "Don't tell Miss Karen what I did. It'll be our little secret, okay?" He's also the kid that can identify all of his colors and numbers based on characters from Thomas the Tank Engine. This kid has a one track mind!

But, you know the best part of my day? Coming home to the two sweetest boys ever. Tonight was especially hard because I was gone from 12-8. I was kind of bummed that I wouldn't be able to really see Everett until he woke up at 3 AM to eat. Well, this guy must've had a bad dream or something because about 30 minutes after I got home, he started crying in his sleep and I was able to hold him and comfort him back to sleep. It is good to be home! And, one funny story about home life. Adam and I love spending the first 20 minutes of our day playing and talking with Everett. He wakes up SO happy and playful, so the three of us just stay in bed and slowly wake up to cute baby smiles. This morning I couldn't find my glasses. I am blind without them. I tried looking around my nightstand (with my face about three inches away from it), while Adam looked on the floor and in other places in our room. After searching most of the house without luck, I remembered something. I told Adam to check the floor next to the crib. Sure enough, there they were! At 3 AM this morning, I had gone into feed Everett while sitting in our glider. Well, halfway through I became so tired that I knew I couldn't stay sitting up and I was too tired to carry Everett into our bed to feed him. So, I took Everett and laid down on the floor next to the crib, fed Everett, fell asleep while doing so, and 30 minutes later, woke up enough to put Everett back in the crib and stagger back to my bed. Talk about sleepwalking and sleepfeeding! Mystery solved.

A year and a day earlier...

It's hard to believe that it's been an entire year since the morning we took this picture:


Did we have any idea what the next year would have in store for us? Two brutal semesters, half an income, an earthquake in Haiti, three apartments in four months, a real teaching job, nine amazing months, and the past three months with the most adorable baby boy in the world. The two people in this photo don't really exist anymore (okay...we exist...but we are such different people now!). We will never go back to being "Just Adam and Karen." We are now "Adam and Karen" and "Daddy and Mommy." And that is just amazing! The whole Plan of Salvation just blows my mind at times. How awesome is it that Heavenly Father trusts Adam and I to raise one of His children during his time here on this earth. What a huge responsibility we have to care for our son who is really His son. We can already tell that the Lord has wonderful blessings and responsibilities in store for our little Everett. We love getting to know him better each day!

In our desire to capture the miracle of pregnancy, we started that day taking weekly photos and creating a journal of letters to our future child. Sadly, this only lasted until our trip to Haiti and then we stopped doing it (we just didn't make the time for it.). The really sad part is that we took all the pictures during the stage of pregnancy where there weren't huge changes from week to week! In fact...there were sometimes where we missed weeks, so we would just take two pictures in one day (I would just put in contacts, change my outfit, and change my hair...very tricky!). Maybe with our next one we will be able to keep up with it! Then again, Everett will be quite the handful by then, so no promises there!


....and those weeks did fly by!