Jakob will visit the dentist...

The other day, Jakob took a decent fall. I had him stand up and proceeded to check for any scrapes or blood. We looked at his arms, legs, and even his mouth. No blood, nothing really. I was actually pretty surprised as active as he is. Well, today at his school, they noticed an upper front tooth was loose!! I am suspecting it was from his fall from over the weekend. Jeff and I put some Oragel on his gums to help with any soreness. I was able to schedule an impromptu dentist appointment at Kids Dental in Coppell at 1:30PM on Tuesday. The receptionist was so sweet on the phone and said most likely if it was loose it would end up falling out but checked with the doctor and stated to have him come in for an X-Ray to make sure everything else was okay. He had his first dentist appointment this past March for a normal regular cleaning/check-up in Plano. It does not really seem like it is bothering him too much. Jakob has an easy day tomorrow and I am undecided if he will attend school. He has a haircut at 11:00AM and then the dentist appointment at 1:30PM. Since I am graduating, Jakob's last day of school is this Friday, May 9th. He will return to school in the upcoming school year in August.

Student Teaching Finished

I have completely finished my student teaching within Lewisville ISD. It is hard to believe, but on May 10, 2008 at 1:00PM, I will graduate from the University of North Texas! I will receive a Bachelor in Science in Interdisciplinary Studies Generalist 4th-8th Grade. I have had two interviews, but no such luck yet. Its so exciting to think I will have my own classroom next year! YEAH!

Jakob signed up for BlastBall!

Since Jakob has turned 3, I was curious if he was old enough for any sports within the city. He's too young for soccer in Lewisville, but he's old enough for a form of T-Ball. For 3-4 year olds they play an easier form of T-Ball, known as BlastBall! To my understanding, they have small teams and there is only one base they run to after hitting the ball. I thought it sounded interesting and figured he would have fun with it. He is registered with the Lewisville Baseball Association and I should find out in a few weeks what team he will play on.

Jakob turned 3 and decided he wanted underwear!!

Jakob turned 3 on February 1st, 2008! About a week after his birthday, Jeff went into his room to check to see if he was asleep and he was up playing with underwear! He had taken his pull-ups off and put underwear on! Jeff put him back into pull-ups for the night. However, the next morning Jakob was still very interested in the underwear. He saw them out and wanted to wear them to school. I was a little nervous and did not want him to have an extreme mess for his school. However, he had only one accident the first day wearing underwear to school. He has continued since last week and is still wearing underwear most of the time. We are having fewer and fewer accidents and he is doing quite well. It really seems like he woke up last week and decided he was ready!

2007 Christmas Letter

This year has flown by rather quickly! Beginning in January, Jeff and I continued our education at the University of North Texas. He was enrolled in six credit hours and I was enrolled in fifteen during the Spring 2007 semester. In January, I visited the College of Education’s Teacher Education Macintosh computer lab and lucked into a job position working in the computer lab. The position was convenient because I was able to work on homework when the lab was not busy with other task or people to help. Overall, Jeff and I finished the semester well.

On February 1, 2007, Jakob turned 2. We scheduled a birthday party at the local McDonalds in Lewisville. Since we moved to Lewisville in November 2006, we had other daycare choices. April 2007, Jeff and I decided to move Jakob to the Children’s Courtyard. His new school is larger than his old school and has a lower teacher-student ratio.

Summer was here before we knew it and that meant more school! I had six credit hours to complete before starting the first half of my student teaching. I was able to enroll in both of my classes in June. Jeff was also enrolled in six credit hours between the two summer sessions. I ended up working in the computer lab in July and Roland enjoyed visiting the computer lab with me. He was quite spoiled since he was able allowed to play computer games for part of the day!

In late August, the Fall 2007 semester began. This semester has proven to be a challenging one for me, but I am almost finished. I started PDS 1 (Professional Development School) and it is the first half of my student teaching training needed to receive my degree. Between my school district choices, I was assigned to the Lewisville ISD. For college credit hours, I am currently enrolled in twelve credit hours. However, besides college courses which I have on Mondays and Tuesdays; Wednesdays and Thursdays I work an internship at my assigned school within LISD. My first rotation was with 5^th graders at Degan Elementary and I am currently working with 8^th graders at Huffines Middle School. Around October, I found out I was awarded a $1000 General Academic Scholarship. There was a scholarship award dinner on November 1^st to celebrate the award.

I turned 27 this year on September 30^th and Jeff hit the big 30 on October 21^st. We also celebrated five years of marriage on October 19^th. My mom and dad watched Jakob and Jeff and I took a weekend trip to San Antonio, TX. Our six year old black Labrador, Tito, spent the week in Abilene with Lana and Greg!

We stayed at the Sheraton Gunther Hotel in downtown San Antonio. It was only a few blocks away from the RiverWalk. We were walking distance from the excitement and we were able to do extra things since we did not have the kids with us!

Roland will turn eleven years old on December 1^st! He started the 5^th grade at Beverly Elementary in Plano this past August. Roland continues to play soccer in Plano. He played during the Spring 2007 season and enjoyed it.

And for the most exciting news for the year! Jeff will graduate from the University of North Texas on December 15^th with a Bachelors of Science Degree in Business Computer Information Systems! Back in August, Jeff and I made the decision for him to leave GameStop. This allowed him to enroll in his fifteen remaining hours in one semester instead of two. He has had many job interviews with perspective employers looking to hire for January 2008. It should work nicely because after he is hired at a new company, I will know which school districts to apply to next March during their job fairs.

The upcoming year is approaching us quickly! Before you know it, Jakob will turn three and I will have graduated too! We will possibly begin looking at houses beginning in the New Year. We hope everyone has had a wonderful 2007!

Box Tops for Education

Box Tops for Education
http://www.boxtops4education.com/

Activity Center (Download activities and worksheets for collecting boxtops!)
http://www.boxtops4education.com/ActivityCenter/

Today at school, I saw a piece of paper with Box Tops glued to it designed to purposely have them glued. This sparked my attention and I went online and found the same resources! I have been collecting Box Tops for a while now and wanted to find a way to get more involved and possibly students involved too. Their webpage has great resources including how much money schools have earned since 2002 and the past year. Overall, every little bit helps and this is one way we can all help local schools.

Homework assignment

Last Tuesday, my Language Arts/Reading methods teacher assigned some homework. One of the assignments was to buy a composition notebook and decorate it before the next class period.

BEFORE PICTURE:















AFTER PICTURE:



















Here are other images of the notebook.

A Walk Down Memory Lane

Today while working in the computer lab, one of my projects was to look for new software to update some of the old software we currently have in the lab. One of the old titles which was on my list was Sim City. I found a webpage on how a teacher incorporates Sim City 2000 into different lesson plans. Since the game focuses on building a city there are a variety of activities (from writing reelection for city mayor, mapping actual town, building actual skyscrapers, etc...) students can incorporate. However, the original Sim City is quite old and outdated and really does not run well on our computers at school. The concept of the computer software in the lab is to allow future teachers the resources to possibly incorporate different technology equipment into our future classroom and lesson plans.

Anyhow...I told Roland how I really liked playing Sim Farm and Sim Tower as a kid. After we ate dinner we looked online and found both games available to download for free! I remember owning both of these copies on 3 1/2 inch floppy disk. The files are only 3-4 MB! I think I played these games when I was around 13-14 years old! I was shocked to get the games installed and actually running. A few other older games did not work properly, but overall Sim Farm and Sim Tower were my favorite!

Here's a quick shot of my Sim Tower! hahah.

Outside Playing

We went to Target today and bought a new outside toy for Jakob. It's a combo sand and water table made by Little Tikes. I have been cleaning the balcony and it was time to exchange the toys anyhow. It came with the little castle and characters to play along with.












We also bought some Moon Sand, which is supposed to be easier than real sand. The reviews I read talked about how it is still messy...but it's still a form of sand! I would not expect Roland or Jakob to play with any type of sand inside! I figured we'll see how it is and we could even do play-doh in the 'sand' portion of the toy when it gets cooler (since play-d0 is cheaper than Moon sand). We ended up buying the Monster Truck Moon Sand since Jakob enjoys cars...he'll probably have fun making the molds and then destroying them!

World of Warcraft update

I have been enjoying the break from all the homework. In between work and all the chores, I'm still playing World of Warcraft. My guild, The Templars, now has a webpage. Jeff was playing yesterday with signature creators and I found it interesting. I made the one below using Video Game Signature Generator.













Overall, Evaelyn is now a 27 Blood Elf Mage. Jeff and I play quite often together. His alt character, Darkhide is now a 48 Tauren Shaman. He helps me out when I need to do something that requires multiple players if I cannot form a group.

Over the weekend, Jeff helped someone in the guild and gave him 40 gold - a decent amount of money in the game. He did it to be nice but it backfired because the guy starting whining to both of us for help and wanted Jeff to run him through something. (Running through means having a really high level to make it easier, rather than just grouping with a big group of same levels...he wanted the easy way out.) Anyhow, this became annoying and we talked to the guild leaders and they spoke to him about it. You are not supposed to beg or bother/harass other guild members. Anyhow, so Saturday night (Jeff and Roland were at the Weird Al concert), the same character asked me if he could borrow some money because he wanted to buy something expensive. I did a screen shot showing the text and then spoke to the guild leaders the next day. We sent it over and as soon as they looked at the screen shot - he was kicked out of the guild. Later he accidentally was re-invited by someone (who didn't know the story) and was kicked right after! What irritated Jeff and me was Jeff had just given him 40 gold and then the character who was a level 40 asked me (a level 26 at the time) for money! Made interesting conversation over the weekend though!

Jakob and the potty

Monday morning, Jakob woke up at 5:50 am. I heard him and was thinking to myself why are you up so early? So I was about to put him back to bed when I asked him, "Do you need to go pee pee?" He said, "Pee, pee. Yes." I was shocked because normally when this question was asked he would yell NO! So we headed to his bathroom and he continued to be happy. He sat down and after a short moment, he went to the bathroom! I was so proud and glad I hadn't put him back to bed. Later Monday evening, he also went to the bathroom before going to bed.

Yesterday morning, he woke up around 6:00 am and we had the same routine. He sat and went to the bathroom! To my knowledge, he didn't go at school; his main teacher is sick and hasn't been there this week so far. I suspect when she gets back it'll help his routine at school. Since he went again yesterday morning, we put him in pull-ups.

And today, 4th of July, he woke up at 6:00 am and diaperless! However we went to the bathroom and after a short moment, he went to the bathroom. When I found his diaper in his bedroom it was completely dry!!

My little boy is growing up!