Baby love, my baby love...

Our dear friend Ms. Cindy had her baby this afternoon. (Forgotten about Ms. Cindy? See The many adventures of a chocolate goat, the closing gap and a pregnant babysitter http://lionheadden.blogspot.com/2008/01/many-adventures-of-chocolate-goat.html ) Long story short, she was 4 weeks early and was born via C-Section, partly because of the baby's enlarged heart. Her name is Jillian Marie and she was 6 lbs 4 oz. She's on a breathing machine, but I think she's hanging in there pretty well.

Top 10 Reasons My 30th Birthday ROCKED!!!

Whew. What a birthday!! It was amazing. Let me preface with saying that my Hubby is the greatest. And I don't deserve him. On to the list...

10. My students were super sweet on Friday. They made me cards, some brought me presents and they sang to me. A lot.

9. Mrs. Social Studies left 30 balloons in my classroom. And bought me lunch that day. Nice. The balloons don't look so pretty now, but they did, trust me.

8. Mr. Science gave me a bag of chocolate, and sent his entire ACE (Homeroom) class in with construction paper birthday cards. Some of the kids didn't even know me! He is awesome!

7. My Hubby threw me and his twin sisters (their birthday is today) a surprise party. Well, I knew there was a party, but I didn't know my parents and one of my BFFs and her girls would be there. Check out the cake. Yeah, even though his sisters are 8 years older than me, guess who had the "Over the Hill" candle? Mmm hmm.

6. I have discovered a new favorite coffee drink which I bought for myself Friday morning: a Strawberries and Cream Frappucino from a local place. Coffee? Yum! Strawberries? Really yum!! Happy Birthday to me!

5. My Hubby surprised me after the party with a super fantastic fancy shmancy resort for the night. It was goregeous. Here are many pictures of the beautiful place:

4. My Hubby (seeing a pattern here??) arranged for me to get my hair colored, cut and styled at an actual SALON on Friday evening. That was fun. They brought me wine and cookies! No snack at Fantastic Sams or Cost Cutters!!

3. Hubby is on the list again for getting me a MASSAGE this morning, before we left the resort. It was super relaxing. I felt a bit slick from the oils after the fact, but it was worth it.

2. This one is a biggie: MY HUBBY TOOK ME TO SEE THE DAVE MATTHEWS BAND LAST NIGHT!! (A bit ironic that my last entry was regarding Leroi and I didn't even know I was going) He had actually joined their fan club months ago, hoping to get awesomely close seats, but there was a glitch with our credit card (a incorrect charge) and he couldn't get the tickets that way. So, we didn't have as nice of seats as he had anticipated, but it was still amazing. And they performed for 3 hours!! I was blown away. Sorry the pictures is unidentifiable. I took it with my phone and it was dark outside but really bright onstage. (but not as bright as it looks--that's not the actual sun on the stage, just to clear up any confusion!!)

And the Number 1 reason my 30th birthday rocked, is....

1. MY HUBBY STARTED PLANNING ALL OF HIS SURPRISES TWO YEARS AGO!!

That's right ladies and gentlemen!! He started putting away $8 a paycheck (not too much, so I wouldn't notice) for 2 years, made a ton of phone calls and searches on websites to get it right. Is that incredible or what?

My question is: What did I do to deserve him? Only God knows...

This is sad

One of my hubby and I's favorite bands of all time is the Dave Matthews Band. I subscribe to their myspace, and this was posted today:

LeRoi Moore 1961-2008
We are deeply saddened that LeRoi Moore, saxophonist and founding member of Dave Matthews Band, died unexpectedly Tuesday afternoon, August 19, 2008, at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles from sudden complications stemming from his June ATV accident on his farm near Charlottesville, Virginia. LeRoi had recently returned to his Los Angeles home to begin an intensive physical rehabilitation program.

We will be praying for his family and the entire band.

It's party time, excellent...

Okay, for a brief moment in time, I had a fallish (I know it's not a word!!) background, because I'm already tired of summer, but I changed my mind. I decided to go with a more festive and fitting background--PARTY!! My big 30th is on Friday. Yep, I'll no longer be in my 20's. Yowza. It's good, but a little freaky too. Anyways, hope you enjoy the colorful and partyish (also not a word) look of things around here. Feel free to comment on your comments...Errr, wait...Whatever. PARTY!!!!

Hum De Dum...

I feel like I should write. It's been since Tuesday. Sorry about that. I feel like the major roles in my life of being a teacher and a mom have consumed me lately. I know as time rolls on, I'll figure out a way to balance it all out and still have time for you. Right? I hope so. Recently, I have taken a virtual trip back in time and scanned through some of my older blogs, including the very first one entitled, "My First Attempt". Check it out if you're a newbie, and gasp at all the time that has passed if you're a Lionhead Blog veteran. http://lionheadden.blogspot.com/2005/08/my-first-attempt.html Anyhow, it got me thinking and feeling a little sad, because I feel like my blogs have lacked luster for some time now, and I have missing gaps of creativity in my entries. For this I apologize. I'm sure a majority of my recent entries are read out of obligation--you've been a committed reader and/or you don't want to hurt my feelings by not reading it. If that's the case, then I feel like I have wasted your time. Well, maybe not completely. I should give myself a little credit. Sometimes my blogs have been sprinkled with a little humor or interesting anecdotes. I just wish it was more of a downpour, rather than a sprinkle. I used to write good stuff. I have friends out there that are reading this right now, and are thinking, "yeah, I remember Lionhead writing some good stuff!!" What happened, you ask? I don't know. Maybe in my aging process (I'll be the big 3-0 in 6 days, people!!), I have lost touch with my witty, creative blogger side. Or maybe I'm lazy. Or don't have time anymore with two kids. Or maybe--wait, I don't have any other guesses. What I'm trying to say is that I pray for creativity. I know that may sounds trite or silly, but I miss always having the right words, and words that came out funny and entertaining. I not only miss that in myself, but I miss being able to share that with you.


So, here it goes: Dear Lord, can I please find my creative side again? Pretty please? I would like to share the gift of witty words with the world (whoa, that was an illiteration...). Amen.

Still alive

Yes, I'm still okay. Yes, I'm tired. Yes, I'm busy. And yes, that's the extent of this blog for today. More this weekend. If I feel like it.



P.S. 9 days until my birthday, people!! :)

Now that I've finally got a minute...

I wanted to take a moment and share how my first week of school went. I survived. And it wasn't too bad, all things considered. And when I say "all things", I mean that we didn't have (and still don't have) a counselor (she's supposedly coming to us from out of state), our assistant principal was moved to the high school thus they gave us back our formal assistant principal from two years ago (she was also my sub at the end of the year), we are trying out a new block schedule this year and we have about a half dozen new teachers this year. I remember laughing to myself two Fridays ago, thinking, "wow, this is going to be an interesting school year". And it turned out not half bad.

I still have the same block setup as last year, but it's considered only one period this year instead of two. And I have a class at the end of my day called ACE, which is kind of like a homeroom/study skills/prep for the big state tests. So, I have three blocks like before, and a 30 minute ACE, with some of the same kids from my Language Arts classes. My three blocks have an average of 29 which isn't too bad, and there's a whopping 18 in my ACE. A small class is nice, but out of the 18, 15 are boys!! 15!! It makes for a quaint but talkative group. I swear sometimes boys are more talkative than girls!!

I have an interesting group this year. In my last Language Arts block, I have 6 siblings of kids I've had in the past, including Hockey Boy's brother (maybe I'll get free hockey tickets again this year??), Charming Boy's sister (Charming Boy was one of my 8th graders from 2 years ago), among others. So that was kinda funny. But I have started to realize that the Curse of the Last Class of the Day seems to still ring true. They are my squirelliest and hardest to get calm. Detentions may be issued very shortly. Sad but inevitable.

Well, Gracie is waking, but I did want to leave with dumb things we've already heard in our classrooms this year:

(In Science class) "Why do we even eat food if we're just gonna poop it out?"

(In Social Studies) "I just realized that we live in North America!" AND "Is Peru in China?"

So. Very. Tired.

I want to tell you all about my first week back to school, I really do. But I am still adjusting to switching gears from mommy to teacher to mommy everyday. I am glad to be back to work. Just give me some time to settle in.


P.S. My 30th birthday is two weeks from tomorrow!!! Still time to shop! :)