Early Learning at Home

Before I even start this post, let me preface it with two important facts:

1. Not everyone is going to want to do what I am doing in this and subsequent posts.
2. Not everyone SHOULD do what I am doing...it's a calling that not everyone is frankly good at.

Now that we have that out of the way...I LOVE TEACHING AT HOME!

First of all, the students are amazing.

Look at that face! How could you NOT love it?

Second, I can teach in my pajamas.  No picture of that, naturally.

Now the most awesome aspect of this is that I can really provide individualized instruction for the kiddos I teach.  I am not confined to and restricted by a narrow curriculum.  The upside of being an educator is that I can assess the learning level of my kiddos and build a curriculum that fits their needs...constantly pushing them to reach just beyond what they are currently capable of into development.

Look how hard they are working :)

This is something that, sadly, just isn't done enough in any large school.  Teachers are stretched to the limit with very large class sizes and handcuffed to standardized curricula and assessments that measure little more than the ability to take a test.  The fact that this practice is becoming common in early childhood is sad.

So each week as we learn and grow I will post about our progress and give tips and tricks to help others try to do the same.  I am so looking forward to this journey!

And so is she...clearly.

Grown-Ups Weekend 2013

It's the most wonderful time of the year that has nothing to do with Christmas.

That's right folks - it's selfish mommy weekend.

Some of you may not understand the importance of such an event.  In my world, this is the fastest 72 hours of the year.  It is the only weekend of the entire year that my husband and I go anywhere without our children.

It. Is. Glorious.

This is not to say that I do not love my children.  I do...with every ounce of my being.

But some days they make me want to go run another half marathon with no training and a million blisters.  You know, they're normal kids.  And since we are really pretty lacking in family here, with the closest blood relatives over six hours away, we really only get this one time each year to just do whatever the heck we want to do.

Doing what we want = drinking beer without shame!

So what would you do with a weekend that was all your own?  If your wonderful in-laws came to stay at your home, take care of your kids, and promise not to kill your small horse of a dog, where would you go?  For us, that answer is easy...St. Augustine, Florida.  We jump in a car with our two best friends (who are childless) and have ridiculous arguments about the definition of carnies and other such nonsense until we arrive at our lavish accommodations within walking distance of historic downtown St. Augustine. 

And by lavish, I mean clean with mini-fridges and the empowering ability to walk everywhere so no one has to be stuck with driving duties.

Please keep in mind that this annual tradition coincides with The World's Largest Cocktail Party in Jacksonville...and since I neither work for either university nor do I care about the correctness of the title I will continue to call the game by it's most appropriate title.  As a proud Dawg I love this weekend, as much as I love to hate the swamp lizards.  And now that my kid-less weekend shares this awesomeness I just bask in the glory of all that is good and enjoy every single moment.

2011 at the Landing - never again!

We did go one year to Jacksonville and hit up the Landing.  That will never happen again.  While it's not the worst place in the world, it is the best way to find out just how young you are not as you watch college "kids" act like total schmucks and make you feel like the most responsible person in the world.

Now that this year has come to a close, I look forward to the next...we have won every year we've been to Florida.  That in itself is reason enough to go. Only 360 days until GUW 2014 :)

Best Laid Plans

I think it is safe to say that I am not the best blogger on the planet.

But, if nothing else, I am persistent.

And as I write this all I can hear in my head are the voices of my two children singing the "Keep Trying" song from Yo Gabba Gabba...something only a parent with young kiddos can understand.

I think my biggest obstacle has been that I don't blog really for me.  I always think about the hypothetical audience that I don't actually have and wonder what those folks might want to read about.  There are lots of great blogs out there if you are bored and need something to do...this blog isn't going to be for that.

This is going to be for me.  Because, like most mothers, I don't do enough things that are for no other reason than because I want to.

I pretend that running is me time.  Nope. I hate running.  In fact, I only run half-marathons because the training plan is long and I am slow so going on training runs means that for eight weeks I get at least an hour or two to myself a few times a week.  If I actually run for more than an hour, I hate it.  10K is my happy distance, and 10 minutes/mile is my happy pace.  

See that smile?  Note the distance - six miles.
Add another mile and I stop grinning and start swearing!

So now there is proof.  Running for charity is fun.  Running for around an hour - also fun.  But not the "me time" that I really want.  Because the thing I want is to empty my head, and all running does is make me think about all the things I have to do.  That's the opposite of helpful.

I know lots of ladies who blog.  They all have super cute layouts and are just amazing at everything.  I find myself viewing their blogs like I do Pinterest and thinking that I can try what they are doing.  I'll be crafty and fun and clever and do everything at all times completely perfect.  And I'll have on makeup and curl my hair too.

All lies.

What I will do is say whatever I want on here and hope that I remember to do it every day. 

No more plans.  Just a forum to dump whatever I can't get out of my head onto the screen in hopes of sleeping a little better tonight.

Uber-Update: Because I just can't keep up with everything...

Okay...I was getting ready to start a whole new blog about my lifestyle and how awesome I think it is when I came across this.  I remember starting it, with the best of intentions, but somehow I let myself get too busy and here we are, 18 months later, making our first new post.

I guess that's okay though, since no one reads this thing besides me.  So no one is really angry that the pause in the drama took this long. 

Major updates:  

Job:  I am wearing many hats now, and recently I took one of them off and hung it off for a while.  It's hard to believe that I accepted, rocked, and left a pretty awesome full-time gig since the last blog post, but hey, that's exactly what happened and I am all about honesty.  I spent the 2012-2013 school year teaching Pre-K and I LOVED it! It made me super happy.  Here's our graduation day photo:

See how cute and happy we are? I was trying not to cry!

For professional reasons I elected to resign after my very successful rookie year of teaching.  I have one semester and one massive applied project capstone left and I will have my MAEd to add to my nerd accomplishments, so please include full-time grad student to the list of things that take up lots of my time.

I also received a bittersweet promotion at church when I became the Director of Early Childhood Ministries last fall.  I just love working with the kiddos, interacting with the parents, and integrating my two graduate degrees into one fun job.  Problem here is that a) it's ministry, so pay is kinda meh and b) job is a part-time gig, with no foreseeable bump in that status.  So I will just enjoy the ride until God bumps me up or sends me out to do more amazing things.





Lastly, but not least, I am an Advocare advisor.  Love, love, LOVE this company and all the opportunity it affords my family!  I feel better now than I have in a really long time, and I cannot describe how great it feels to help other folks feel this good too!   The pictures here show just how amazing the results can be with these products.  As a mom I often find myself putting myself last, and it takes a toll on your body.  Putting the best nutrition in makes all the difference between looking and feeling like a stranger in your own body, and looking like the awesome person you are!  




Family:  Things with the families are pretty good.  If you recall I wrote about my grandma's fight with cancer...she lost that fight last May.  She's been in heaven for over a year now, and sometimes it seems like she's been gone forever.  Some days I miss her like crazy, and some days I forget and think I should call her about something and then remember I can't.  Much like the death of my dad, I just have a hard time remembering that they really are gone sometimes.  She was amazing, and I know someday I will see her when it's my turn to go.

The kiddos are growing up so stinkin' fast!  Joel turned 4 in April and Kaylen will be 3 in September.  They play together so well and they are both so smart it can makes things awesome or make them pretty tough.  Joel will start Pre-K in just a few weeks...I just can't believe it is already time for that.  Kaylen will be homeschooled until either I find a full-time teaching gig or we get her and Joel both into good local schools.  It's going to be a pretty intense transition, but I know they are both excited about school. The think they are so big...and in a way, they are right.

Reflections on the last year-ish:

There was a brief moment there where it seemed like all the dreams my husband and I had planned were finally coming to fruition.  I was teaching full-time, the kiddos liked their school, we had put an offer in on a great little home, and Ky was looking at a promotion.  Just as quickly as all that happened, it was all taken away.  The house wasn't what it appeared so we withdrew and haven't offered since.  My job wasn't what it seemed so I made one of the hardest decisions of my life and put in my notice.  Ky is still waiting on that promotion, and it probably won't come at this company.  Despite all of those things, we are making it.  We have a bigger place to live, so the kiddos can run a muck in our 1500 square foot apartment.  We have four jobs between us, so thank God for that.  And we have a wonderful little family...so no matter how things change, the good parts seem to stay the same. 

Jogging for Judy

Last year I lost my mind and decided I would push my body and run my first half-marathon.  The training was difficult and, at times, completely skipped due to a teething toddler and her sleepless nights.  Despite all of that, I ran and finished in slightly better time than anticipated.

This year running is more of an addiction to my hour of mommy time.  Another Mother Runner has really encouraged me to lace up and run like the mother I am.  There are many things that can get in the way of your run; what is important to learn is that you run not just for yourself but for your family.  If running makes you the best version of you then you should run for the sake of everyone, yourself included.  As someone who used to run as punishment this is new territory.  So if I am running for my family, then I am really going to run.

I have previously posted about my dear Grandma and her fight with cancer.  Lately when I hit the pavement or the treadmill I think of her and work even harder knowing that if she can stick with something that big the least I can do to honor her is to go a few more miles.  And in that thought I had a great idea, one which I hope will resonate with others and catch on.  I decided to dedicate this year in running to my Grandma.  So I started Jogging for Judy.

                                                   This is Grandma. And Megan. Not me :(

Jogging for Judy is all about doing something for someone else.  When I started running it was for selfish ambition - losing baby weight, proving I could still be something other than a SAHM.  Now I run because it is part of who I am, and who I am is due in large part to Grandma.  So each time I run, training or racing, I run for her.  And I hope that her story will inspire others to do the same.  And I hope to raise some money to help her fight her battle.  Its the least I can do for a woman who has meant so much to our family.  She'd do the same for me.

www.giveforward.com/joggingforjudy

What's in a name? Everything...

When it came time to name our two beautiful children there wasn't too much discussion.  As I recall our first child only took one real naming session to get it done.  Joel is named after all of the influential men in the lives of both my husband and me.  Our son's full name is Joel Elton Everett Marshall.  Joel is my "1st Dad", my mother's second husband, and the man who took me in as a little girl and loved me like his own until the day he died.  Even after things didn't work out between him and my mother he still kept up with me and was always there for me, no matter what.  Elton is Ky's granddad's middle name.  Elmer Shockley had more of a hand in raising Ky than his own father; essentially he was the main father figure in his life.  He sadly passed away the month before I met my husband, so I never got to meet him, but he lives on in our little boy.  Everett is my "2nd Dad"'s middle name.  Anyone who has known me since about middle school will know Troy as my Dad because that is exactly what he is.  Dad has been a wonderful father for me and I nearly had him adopt me in high school.  As far as I am concerned, he's my dad.  He's been a good friend, supporter, coach, and occasionally a therapist; everything I hope to instill in my son, or at least have his Papa instill in him!

When we found out we were having another child the discussions happened much more often.  We talked about boy names and girl names since we weren't sure what we were having.  For boys we threw the name Xavier around a lot...girls names were so much harder to pin down.  At the time I was working nights as a bartender to keep our family above water since my hubby's job refused to pay people what they are worth.  One night as I was driving down Timothy to cut across town and head home I noticed a street sign I had never seen before.  It said "Kalen's Woods" on it and I remember thinking how neat that name was.  It stuck with me and I tried spelling it so many different ways before settling on Kaylen.  Once we found out we were having a girl Kaylen became the only choice.

Kaylen's whole name is Kaylen Ann Denise Marshall.  We again named our child after the most important people in our lives, except for the Kaylen part.  I carried the baby and I like Kaylen so I won that battle.  Ann is a family name on my side.  My mother, grandmother, and I all have the same middle name; now my sweet little girl does too.  I am especially excited that we chose to do this in light of my grandmother's battle with cancer.  I am so glad she got to see her legacy live on in another little Ann girl.  Denise is for the greatest mother in law on the planet.  Yes, I am biased, but Ky's mother has been the most supportive, helpful, kind human being I have ever come across.  It's funny to think back on when Ky and I first got together and remember how absolutely petrified of her I was at the time.  Now when she calls she calls to talk to either the kids or me.  Poor hubby :)

We don't plan on having any other children.  We have currently taken steps to be certain that this doesn't happen for at least ten years.  I am so blessed to have two beautiful, healthy babies.  We've had plenty of scares, hardships, and difficulties with each and I see no reason to tempt our chances.  I had a dream the other night about another child; in the dream my kids were about 8 and 6 and there was another little girl with us.  She was Kaylen's age and her name was Lei Mae.  She was an Asian girl that we had domestically adopted.  Strange how specific this dream was, and when I woke I told my husband about it.  Perhaps our family will expand later, just not via my uterus.  That joint is inhospitable from here on out.

Christmas Reflections 2011

It's all over now but the eating.  Our living room looks like every preschool child's fantasy.  There are four new babies for Kaylen.  She previously had no babies and since I mistakenly made that comment to family she now has a multicultural sampling of infants.  There's a Mickey Mouse music set, complete with enough noise makers to create instant insanity for any parent.  We have a full dozen miniature action figures for Joel, all of which complete my husband's fantasy of playing with his childhood toys again.  There's Star Wars, Transformers, and Marvel comic book characters...all boy, all the time.  We also have a junkyard of Matchbox cars and enough play groceries to stock a pretend Publix.  Santa come. He saw. He conquered.

We also took a minute to thank Jesus for all of our many blessings.  It completely warmed my soul to see my children stop playing when we said we were going to pray and thank the Lord for our gifts.  The kids came over, folded their hands, and waited to hear our prayer.  We have so much to be thankful for and it was important for us to show our children that all of our gifts truly come from God's provision.  Lord knows that we aren't making it paycheck to paycheck without any help.

This Christmas has been especially emotional for our family as we deal with the medical crises on each side of the family.  God has been so good to us by allowing our special relatives to be home after brief hospitalizations due to their serious illnesses.  Granddad was home in time to watch the kiddos destroy the gift wrap via Kinect.  A real scare had us circling the prayer wagons for my sweet Grandma; prayers were answered positively and she is home with a treatment plan in place.  So, so grateful to God for letting us borrow her for just a little bit longer!