Yelling

Almost everyone has done it. From my three year old yelling at her little brother, “those are my toys!” To her mother angrily telling her she was too loud and woke her baby brother up. The fact of the matter is it takes an enormous about of self-control and awareness to NOT yell, when we get wrapped up in our emotions. (Remember we model the behavior our little ones will exhibit). Professionally, I have managed to cut out yelling almost completely. There are some times when I have to yell, but I also preface it with, “You, students, are making me yell and I HATE yelling.” They know it’s true, but because of the way our society is, yelling, at times, is the only way to grab their attention. I found a blog titled, “10 Things I Learned When I Stopped Yelling At My Kids.” In the blog, she, makes many good points. My favorite ones are as follows; • I can’t always control my kids’ actions, but I can always control my reaction. • Incredible moments can happen when you don’t yell. • Often times, I am the problem, not my kids. • Taking care of me helps me to not yell. I feel these points are so simply put, but their message is powerful. I think, many times the heart of the issue is that WE, as adults, are the problem. Many times when my daughter is not listening to me it is because she is struggling to get my attention, because I am focusing on her brother. It’s not that I don’t love her; it’s just that a baby requires more attention than a toddler. The same is true in a classroom with 30 plus students. Maybe that student lacks the attention they need from their family life and they seek it out in the classroom. Most of the time they do not care what kind of attention they receive whether it be good, bad, or ugly; in their minds it is attention. Not yelling requires more work. If you don’t yell, then what do you do? From time outs, sticker charts, behavior modification plans, there are my different strategies with lots of different resources. Find what works for your kids/students and use that. Many times we tend to lean to our personal preference, which may not be the best for the small one whose behavior you are trying to change. Adapting a plan that caters the child’s personality and needs will ensure greater success!





So it's been about 3 weeks, and I just thought I would share how Gavin's delivery went down. I started having contractions around 6am, and thought this is it better call into work going on maternity two days early (Yahoo!), but by 8am they had almost gone away. I was sad, so I walked Coraline to the park, let her play, walked back, did some squats, drank some water. Pretty uneventful. Then around 8pm I just want to go to sleep, but the contractions came back. I really didn't think much of it, but then they got more painful, so Matt and I went to the hospital around 10:30. When they checked me I was 9 centimeters and they were rushing me down the hallway to have a baby about 45 minutes later. Luckily, Susie and my great anesthesiologists were both able to do a wonderful job of helping me delivery Gavin Bosko. He was born Thursday, March 15th at 11:24 pm at 8 pounds 11 oz. Here are some pictures to enjoy :)

What are you grateful for?

After looking at the current bodyrock.tv blog they ask their readers to take the time to reflect on what they are grateful for, so I am doing just that :)

1. Living in American where I have such freedoms as speech, religion, and press.
2. A loving, hot husband who takes care of me ;)
3. Having a normal, healthy delivery for Gavin.
4. Coarline being such a tentative loving sister (and she's only 23 months!)
5. Having awesome talented friends who make me stuff...you know who you are!
6. My career. Enough said, if you know me then you know I love working.
7. Having a job next year. It may not be the same grade (ever) but I love the challenge and change.
8. Health- I am missing working out and I want to have a hot bod...now! Also, having healthy kids and husband...it's something I never want to take for granite.
9. Electronics...ac, cars, computers, phones, internet...love it all!!!!
10. Last but certainly not the least, my Grandparents. They have been such a blessing. I would not be where I am today, the person I am today if they were there. I love them and wish nothing but the best for them. R.I.P. Simo...

Twitter wars

I recently got a smart phone, and I'll be the first to admit that I am not smart enough for it. But I am learning! While I am learning Matt has been helping me out. He asked me if I would like him to create a twitter account for me, and I told him no, which turned into a big argument. He said he liked to read what other pastors had to say and it was very encouraging and inspiring. My argument was if I wanted a twitter account I would have one already and be using it. I thought it would be a waste of his time, my data, and truthfully if I don't use it, it's clutter to me and it has to go. Anyways, after battling it out, I read the intro and chapter 1 of Axiom (a book Matt is reading) and Matt's argument totally makes sense. Great leaders convey a message in a short word or phrase, and twitter is an excellent platform to do so. Although I am not on the band wagon yet, I will be shortly. Until then I read Holly Furtick's blog and ordered a book on amazon. Hahah, Matt that's what you get :)

A little Remodeling

So I inherited (stole) my sisters old dresser for Coraline. It was this cute whitish-pink color. But my sister had loved on it while growing up so it was in need of a little TLC. Since Gavin's arrival is quickly approaching (March 22), I am totally in the nesting mode and kicking Coraline out of her current room so Gavin can be closer to the master and Coraline can have the bigger room.



My inspiration came from pinterest. Someone had recovered their dresser in different fabrics. I thought that would be awesome. I bought fabrics, but in the end chickened out and just used the same color paint. Sometimes in my life I have to have things matchy matchy. Oh well, I really liked how they turned out.



I painted the drawers before I realized they were numbered so I didn't give much thought to which drawer should be what color. When I was putting them pack in I thought I could switch them around, turns out I couldn't because they were not aligned. So that's why there is a blue next to a blue.

Well, so much has changed since the last time I blogged. I am now a happy kindergarten teacher (not that I didn't like second grade, it just that I have a love/hate relationship with kinder), Coraline is running around like a crazy child, and I am expecting baby Rainey number 2 (and yes when the time comes we will find out what it is-hopefully Christmas time!). Oh, yeah and Matt's still around ;)

I really love this time of year, when the weather starts to cool off and the rest of the world gets ready for winter, and the deserts rats get ready to plant flowers. So Matt and I have been cleaning up the backyard to get it ready for many play dates. I have been search for a little play set, but haven’t found anything I sold on with design and price, but I'm still looking.

Last night I had Coraline try on her Halloween costume. I love it because I bought it last year after Halloween for half price. (Yeah, I'm that kind of mom). I made a red tutu for a red dress run, that I never did because it rained that day, so I wrapped it around Coraline twice and it adds an extra flare to her costume. I also, bought black tights. Now I just need to make some antennas and hope she keeps them on her head!