Life As We Know It: It's been a while...

Friday, July 11, 2008

It's been a while...

So obviously it's been forever since I've posted. Since it's now summer time, and I have time on my hands, I've decided that I'm going to try to get in the habit of blogging on a regular basis so hopefully come the school year, it'll be a habit....Phew..that was a mouth full!

What have the Widener's been up to since November, you might ask. Well let me try to recap :

As many of you already know, this past year I taught 4th grade. The previous year I had taught 3rd grade, so I had about half my previous class this year. This really was such a blessing! It was 10 less kids that I had to get to know and 20 less parents that I had to win over. So great! This being the case, our wedding was extremly important to them. We got engaged at the end of my 3rd grade year, so these kids felt like had been with us through it all. So I really wanted to do something special for them, that had to do with our wedding. My great principal and I decided to a "mock wedding." I sent out wedding invitations to the kids, Josh wore his suit and I wore my wedding dress, the kids dressed in their "Sunday Best", and we cut cake. It turned out so wonderful! I think the kids really enjoyed it!

Our first married Christmas! When we planned a Fall wedding, I really hadn't even thought about the fact that Christmas would sneak right up on us. I LOVED it! It was such a special Christmas for us. It's so nice that both our parents live in Flower Mound so we didn't have to run all over the place to see everyone.

For Christmas, we decided to get a puppy! Josh & I both love LARGE breed dogs, so have always talked about getting a Great Pyrenees or Newfoundland. Well, a couple days before Christmas I was browsing the web and found the Texas Great Pyrenees Rescue. They had just had a litter of pure breed Pyrenees dropped off. We were in luck! So without telling Josh I filled out the application, and the next day got a response. I really didn't think we'd hear from them, so that's why I hadn't bothered to tell Josh. ( He would have gotten to excited) So we talked to the people, and they said we could go pick out the puppy that we wanted. Long story short...we went and looked at them one night, and after playing around with them, Josh wanted the biggest one. He was so cute with little gray ears. So that night we came home with Atticus.
Josh turned 28 on Feb. 17! Yes I know he is old! We went out and celebrated with our good friends John & Alex at Fireside Pies. Yes I chopped of my hair, so cliche I know "Get married and chop off all your hair." It really wasn't planned though :)

I finished up teaching 4th grade. In Feb, my principal told me that I would no longer be in 4th grade, I would be going back to 3rd. This was such a blessing. Althought I loved the age of my 4th graders and I really enjoyed my team, the curriculum in 4th grade is nuts! It's never ending and to try to teach a 9 year old how to get their thoughts out and on paper, is absolutely ridiculous! So many people my age can't even do that...But it was a great year in 4th and I have so many wonderful memories...Here are a few and mainly funny quotes:
Having Mary by myside at all times! I don't know what I'm going to do next year without her.
"Aunt Eidith is dead! We saw her at the grave yard. - Would they just burry the old lady?"

The day I got my engagement ring on my finger, one of my boys had a count down as to when we will be having kids. In December he decided that it would be in 23 months and he would be in 6th grade.
I'm going to miss my special ed. boys so much! They were such a blessing to have in class & brought such joy to the general ed. students.
During Social Studies one day: Student A - "Hickery Dickery Dock - Whew" then repeat..Student B - "I think I have a runny nose...I think I have a runny nose..."Student C - " I know there is petroleum on my hands..I just know it..." Student D - "Cookies...I'm hungry...Cookies...." : At this point Mary and I just put our heads down and laughed, because if I didn't I would have cried.
The day my girls finally admited who they had a crush on, BUT I had to swear to secrecy that I would not tell a sole! ( so cute!) Boy I'm going to miss those girls!
The day I had on my wedding dress a boy asked me: "What's all this? (pointing to the area about my strapless dress to my neck) Is this what brides look like? I've never seen a bride before..."
Of course, it was bound to happen with a class of 9/10 year olds, they were talking about how women have babies. So one kid said "Not all women have babies." another said "Well, only ones that are married." last one said "That's not true! You are so simple minded." I just sat and listened and tried so hard not to fall over in laughter.
Boys vs. girls Football game. Josh was the captain for the boys and I was the captain for the girls. They love Josh so much!

For about the first 6 months, Atticus gained an average of 5 pounds a week! He ate about 8-9 cups of a food a day. He was such a growing boy! Here are some picts. of him the past 8 months!