Update: Jude's Room

I have been slowly attempting to update Jude's room for awhile now.  I have wanted to make a gallery wall and have slowly been buying and collecting prints off of Etsy or at Casey Jones Train Museum or who knows for seriously like the last 2 years.  

For my birthday this year, Joel gave me a picture of a British phone booth from his visit to London.  I was pondering what to do with it when I realized it would be the perfect addition to the wall I had been storing up and planning in my head.  

I was determined to get that done as part of my summer projects this year.  It took me until August to buy and return and buy the right frames for this.  But thankfully, it's done.  

The most exciting part of this is that Jude was so excited about it, which I didn't expect.  I sort of kept him out of the room while I was working.  As I've said before, my child is wild, so him in the room I'm working in is chaos- at least volume wise.  He loves to make noise.  I can't think in those conditions, much less work.  Suffice it to say, he stayed out of the room.  When I did let him in, he was so excited. I'm so glad I decided to capture his face with my camera.  He was just so excited.  1000 gifts!

He LOVED it!!!!  He told me over and over again how much he loved me and how thankful he was for his new pictures.  Along with some of the biggest hugs ever.  Talk about melting my heart.  He makes it so fun to give him things because he really gets so excited.  Sweet boy!

Here's the gallery wall I made.  It's a combo of the vintage train pictures from his nursery room, a few more modern looking train pictures, some Beatles references since he's named after them after all, and lastly the phone booth.  One day, I want that area to be a reading nook, but we aren't there yet :)

The license plate and Pullman car picture were originally going to be part of the gallery wall.  The Baltimore & Ohio and New York Central pictures had already been in different places in his room.  I decided to pull those and make a mini gallery wall over here, which I am glad I did.  And of course, Jude loves the concentration of trains.

I had also thought about adding this 1 year old photo set to the gallery wall, but decided to put it under his shelf when I moved the New York Central pic from under it.  I ended up liking having it separated out and divided into categories.  I have also added the midshipman hat that my brother passed down to Jude after graduating this year.  I updated the letters of his name awhile back, but am not sure if I ever posted about that.  The baseball is from when the Navy made the regional NCAA baseball playoffs a couple years ago.

The view when you look into the room.

And this night light.  I got it on zulily (actually the Beatles prints are off zulily too...).  I love this night light.  So much!

Anyway, I really like how it turned out.  As with all rooms in my house, they are constantly being updated or changed, but this is a good start I think to transforming it for a preschooler :)

Thankful --- For my time at Lee

 Thankful for coworkers and thoughtful gifts.  And gardening, which is kind of a new obsession.

Thankful for homemade flautas.  

Thankful for little boys who are made of frogs, snails, and puppy dog tails.

My very last 2nd grade class.  

This week marks the end of a very significant period of my life.  I just finished my sixth year of teaching.  Five of those years have been at Lee Elementary.  Loving these kids has been my mission whole heartedly for what feels like my entire adult life.  From the picture, you can't tell how many I have struggled to help them read.  Or how many I have struggled to show them they are valuable.  Or how many of them I have struggled to show them I respect them.  Or how many of them have absolutely broken lives.  So much is behind those smiles.  As their teacher, I've had the priviledge of seeing into their souls on a daily basis.  I pray for them daily, tried to show them Christ's love daily (although I failed at that many times), and taught them as rigorously as I could in hopes they will be prepared for 3rd grade.  Looking back, I can think of 1000 ways I could have done my job better.  But I am 1000% grateful for the grace I know covers them and will carry them on to the next phase of life.  God has consistently refined my character through each of the children who have come through my classroom door the past 6 years.  I think the virtue He has refined the most is patience ;)

Next year, I will be moving on to a different school.  One that is close to my house, where Jude can go to Kinder in a couple years.  I have been on the fence about transferring for years, but just could never leave.  This year I realized I needed to seriously consider it because Kinder is approaching.  It was so hard to leave because I love the missional aspect of working at a school that is something like 90% economically disadvantaged.  I love the challenge and truly feel like that's where God called me.  But I also know that God entrusted a wonderful little boy to me and he is my primary mission.  To be honest, this has taken me awhile to accept.  But as Jude is getting older, I realize how much he needs me to be there to teach him and model godliness.  So I am taking on the mission of really putting Jude as the center of my mission.  

My new school is going to be amazing.  The team members I have met are so friendly and collaborative.  My new admin values both strong relationships among colleagues, but also accountability.  It is such a warm, fun yet focused environment.  I'm not kidding when I say I enjoyed the interview.  I feel so blessed to be able to join the team.  And I am beyond excited to be teaching a new grade next year- 1st grade!!!!  I've never taught 1st, but I cannot wait to really dive into word families and just watching kids go from barely reading to just taking off with their reading.  It's going to be so exciting I think!  God is good :)  

My last day as a 2nd grade teacher at Lee.

My fave team members.  We have taught 2nd together for the past 2 years.  And I've grown so much because of them.  1000 gifts!

In closing, God has blessed me greatly through every teacher and every student at Lee Elementary.  I am so thankful for that experience.  And I will continue to pray daily for all the admin, teachers, and students there.  You all have my heart.

But I am excited because I know that God is going to do great things in my life, and especially Jude's life with this new move.  

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.  To him be the glory forever!

~ Romans 11:36

Hello World, Remember Me?

Jude and I on Mother's Day

I think it's pretty safe to say I'm in a blogging rut.  Not because I don't have things to say, but I don't have the time to do it.  Or there are other things I want to do more.  Specifically gardening.  I have really been getting into this lately.  And thankfully with this cooler spring and now cool start of summer, it's been easy to do that.  I am beyond enjoying seeing all the new growth on my rose bushes.  This weekend I discovered morning glories growing wild so my head is full of how to try to capture and tame those.

My garden helper

For Mother's Day, Jimmy and I went plant shopping.  It's been amazing to have plants on my porch to look at and relax around.  So thankful for him and his willingness (and knowledge) to garden with me.  He is beyond amazing in countless ways.  Patient with my questions.  He loves on my child in ways that blow my mind.  And he serves me in the most humble ways, including planting flowers into pots with and for me.  He is the best man I know.

So much about this picture I love

My actual Mother's Day was spent relaxing in cool weather with some poetry on my front porch.  It was blissful and beautiful and peaceful.  Jude spent the time in what I have christened 'his digging spot'.  Because I'm pretty sure every boy needs one.  That evening Jimmy took us to dinner and because he is the kindest hearted human, he patiently played games with Jude while we waited.  I tried to get a pic of it, but none of them came out :(

Flash forward to last weekend (everything in between is a blur anyway...) and Jude and I joined my family in Annapolis Maryland where my brother graduated from the Naval Academy.  So much patriotism wells up in me when it comes to the military.  I am not the biggest believer in politics, but I love the general American ideals.  Flags, uniforms, gun salutes, etc just seem to foster that for me.  The commissioning ceremony was rather torturous as it was raining with a strong wind chill of 45*.  If it weren't for the fact that Obama was speaking and my love for my brother, I would have left.  The rest of the time was spent trying to stay warm, enjoying crab foods of all kinds, front porch sitting, and getting to know my brother's beautiful girlfriend (who happens to have been an Alpha Chi Omega at the University of Georgia.  I was one at Baylor.  My sis was one at Texas Tech.  There was secret handshaking.  And a possible night out with this...)

LITB

Some other pics from the weekend:

amazing

Future midshipman?

This is the porch I dream about.  My mansion in heaven will have this porch.

This weekend was spent celebrating that Jimmy and I have been dating for a year.  Technically a little longer, but we consider our first real date to be the beginning of June.  Last year on June 1st or 2nd (not actually sure of the date) we went to an Avett Brothers concert.  It was amazing musically.  Plus Dirk Novitski (sp?) happens to be an Avett fan and he showed up.  I was pretty nervous because this was the first date I'd been excited about since Michael.  I had no idea what I was doing.  Jimmy was nervous.  It  was the slowest start to a relationship considering I was somewhat freaked out to be dating anyone at the time.  I had no idea if I could trust myself to pick out a good one this time.  I took each day at a time and proceeded with caution.  As only God could know, Jimmy is just a naturally easy paced person, and my need for time suited him fine.  We spent 4-5 months 'figuring it out' and it wasn't until that long in until labels were attached.  And probably 8+ months in before we both were ready to acknowledge this was in any way serious.  Thinking back over this past year, (besides just making me cry right now- what the heck...) its just crazy.  Doesn't seem that long.  And yet Jimmy is by far one of the best things to happen to my life.  And in every way, one of the most patient, humble, servant hearted men I've ever met.  In fact if I had to pick a single word to describe him, servant would be it.  And having a character like that, well it's just impossible to not trust and respect him, which my heart so desperately needed to be able to do.  I love him so very much.

We celebrated last night by going to the KXT summer fest, which headlined, guess who- the Avett Brothers.  Same concert.  A year to the day of our first date.  It was a blissful evening to sit on a quilt in our warm, breezy June weather.  (until it poured that night haha :)  

So anyway, life is good.  In 5 days it will be summer.  I will get to spend my time with Jude who tells me every day after work that he 'misseded' me.  And I will continue to enjoy the ease of loving someone who loves me so selflessly for exactly who I am.

Cute Story for Your Tuesday Morning

This morning (actually all night) was full of rain, thunder, lightning... Perfection I tell you.  Could I have asked for a more relaxing spring break day.  Um no.

Anyway, it got pretty loud earlier this morning.  Jude was afraid of the thunder and asked me what it was.  I explained that it was the sound the lightning made.  He immediately got excited and said, "It's my McQueen!?!"  (As in Lightning McQueen the racecar from Cars)

I laughed and went along with it.  Now, Jude's not afraid of lightning and thunder so much.  But he does run to the window each time trying find 'his mcqueen".  It's adorable.  And I guess thunder and a race car kinda sound similar....

Boys 4/22/11

Cars and door stops.  What more could a little boy want?