Pre-school: Learning Letters

I have been keeping an eye out for ways to integrate more formal learning for John during the day. I do realize that he is learning all.the.time and soaking up everything we say and do together. However, I want to make sure I am giving him some tools to begin a foundation for formal schooling - especially since he is interested in it.

For Christmas, Uncle Aaron bought John the Letter Factory from Leap Frog. I put it on John's wish list because it was mentioned in this great post I read on learning to read written by a homeschooling mother. John has been watching it probably once every other week, on average, and loves it! He also has learned most of his letter sounds by watching it and being quizzed with flash cards. He knows we are proud of him and so he is very proud of himself.

Several weeks ago I began reading a book called Mommy, Teach Me to Read. It is loaded with good ideas and I highly recommend it!  I've already implemented some of the author's recommendations for teaching letters. I bought some magnetic letters and I let John just play with them when he wants. However, we do put them away after he is done with them because I want them to be a special toy and I don't want to lose any of them!! In a little while, I will use them for more formal teaching, but for now, he loves playing with them and making "words" with them. He lines them up on the fridge and makes the letter sounds. It's an especially great activity for him while I'm making dinner! ;) I started taking pictures of his words and telling him how proud I am of him. In the pictures below, you can see the progression of his own pride. At first he was uneasy about me taking a picture, but now he runs to me and asks me to take his picture with his words. Very cute!

7 Quick Takes ~ Vol. 6

Hosted at Conversion Diary

1. Well, I just put John down to bed. He is going to bed earlier lately. He used to go to bed with us (around eleven). Now he goes to bed around nine. It is kind of nice to have a couple of hours to get things done and relax with out needing to tend to John.

2. For the first year of our marriage we had no pictures of us on the walls. Sure, we had some printed out to put on the walls, but we could not settle on frames we liked. Last week we finally found some good frames at Michael's craft store... and they were %50 off! We had no clue they were having a sale that day, we just happened to decide to go and check out what they had. God sure does provide! So now we will finally have pictures from our wedding up on the wall! =D

[... forget about quick take #1 because John just woke up and I had to sooth him for a while. So now it is 9:40 and he is asleep again...]

3. I was supposed to do student teaching last spring, but my little love bug was born then. So I had to postponed it until this Fall. Then I decided I will postpone it until Winter because I want to nurse John longer. So in the winter I will be student teaching full time. For now, I will be doing a practicum, which will involve me going into the school for a full day on Fridays. Hopefully this will help me, John, and my mom (she will be caring for him while I am gone) get prepared for Winter.

[...speaking of John he is up again, but my wonderful husband will attempt to get him back to sleep...]

4. John is grabbing his feet now!


5. I have always been frustrated about the quick decay of cilantro and parsley. It seems that whenever I buy either of them, they go bad within days. I did a little research on the web and found the idea of treating the herbs like flowers - clean them, put them in a vase (I used a Mason jar) with water, and keep the water fresh. I tried this and it worked really well! Every few days I changed the water and picked out leaves that were going bad. It has lasted for almost two weeks! The best part is when I used my parsley, I just snipped off what I needed with scissors and I felt like I had my own little herb garden on my kitchen counter! I also think it makes my kitchen look nice!


6. We went on vacation a couple of weeks ago. I have been working on a blog post about it - loaded with pictures! =) I promise I will finish it soon and get it posted!

7. John is up again, so I should go... maybe I jinxed myself by writing that first "take"...

Happy Easter!

We hope you have all had a holy Lent and blessed Easter! We went to the Easter Vigil Mass on Saturday night. It was very beautiful! I love watching people enter the Church. Yesterday we went to Edmonds to be with my mom's side of the family. We have an annual tradition of going to the Pancake Haus for Easter breakfast. I am not sure how long we have been doing it, but I do remember holding my cousin Megan there when she was a baby- she is now 14. So it has been quite a while! After breakfast we went and put flowers on my grandpa's grave. He passed away at the beginning of Lent. I was very happy to see that many graves were adorned with flowers. It was a good day to think about our beloved deceased and pray for their resurrection with Christ.

After we prayed for Grandpa, we went to my Aunt and Uncle's house in North Bend. We had quite a delicious feast! I really love being with my family. =)

I went to confession on Good Friday. The line was very long and my feet were beginning to hurt after about twenty minutes of standing there. I prayed "Lord, I need a Simon of Cyrene to help me now." I'm not sure exactly what I meant, but Our Lord sure did! Not long after I prayed that, one of my friends who was about fifteen people in front of me came over and insisted on trading places in line. I still stood for probably an hour, but it would have been longer if she had not been so generous!

Friday also marked the last day of teaching for me this year. I am not sure at this point if/when I will go back to teaching. It depends a lot on our little boy and his future siblings. Our main priority is for me to stay at home and raise our children, as long as we can afford to do so. I do need to go back in the fall to do my student teaching internship at a public school. I will have to do that for three months, but then I will truly be done with my teaching program and certified!

This morning I find myself grappling to establish some sort of routine. This is a weird transition for me because I have been so busy for the last two years! I am excited to put more effort and love into being a wife, mother, and homemaker.

God bless you all!

I'M DONE!!!!!!

Ahem, may I have your attention please for an important announcement: 

I am officially done taking night classes!!!  

It is such a relief to have this commitment over with.  Last Thursday night was my last class.  It was my science class and we had a science fair.  We also had a pot luck dinner and we were allowed to invite our family members, so Andrew came to support me.  It was a nice conclusion to this two-year "marathon" (as I call it!).  

On our way home, I was reflecting aloud to Andrew that I really feel Our Lord has been present with me throughout this whole program.  I knew I was taking on a lot last year when I decided to teach and go to school full-time.  Then last February, Andrew proposed and so I was teaching, going to school, and planning a wedding.  Then, after our wedding we found out that I was pregnant.  So now, I have been teaching, going to school, and nurturing Baby St.Hilaire.  Needless to say, I have had my plate full for a long time now.  I can hardly imagine what my life will be like, now that I can focus more on being a wife and mother.  But as I said, God has supported me and blessed me abundantly in the last two years.  There is no way I could have done everything that I did without God's guiding Hand.  

Now I have three more weeks left of teaching.  I will be truly sad to go, as I have really grown a deep love for teaching and my students.  I often refer to them as "my kids" and I feel that they are in a way.  I will truly miss each of them.

However, my heart is in a different place now.  I look to the near future with curiosity, excitement and nervousness. Please keep me and my family in your prayers during this time of transition!

Christmas and the New Year

Well, here I am sitting down to blog--when I should be cleaning my desk and planning lessons for the first week back to school. Andrew keeps reminding me that I should blog. If I don't do it now, it may never get done.

Christmas was a true blessing. As I mentioned in a few posts back, we were snowed in at my parent's house for about a week. It was really fun and forced us to be focused on good family time together. We played a lot of games (a favorite Stockton family pastime!), put together a puzzle, ate a lot of yummy food, and journeyed out to Mass a couple of times.

I wasted a lot of time playing a game on Andrew's iPod Touch called "Fuzzle." I played it so much that it has become a verb: "I think I'll fuzzle for a while" or "I can't do that now, I'm too busy fuzzling!" I taught my mom how to fuzzle, which caught the interest of my dad. Now, they are both addicted. Fortunately, they downloaded the free trial, so their score maxes out at 400 points. As I said, I have wasted much time fuzzling, and it did not help that my brother beat my high score by leaps and bounds. I have spent the last week trying to beat him. A couple of days ago, I reclaimed my position for having the highest score on Andrew's iPod. Now my life can go on!

We went up to Bellingham on December 27th after a brief visit with my mom's extended family at our annual family Christmas party. In Bellingham, we were able to visit with our (Andrew's) cousins Erin, Bill, and their daughter Sydney. It was really nice to see them and visit. They were at our wedding, but we did not have much quality time with them.

Being with Mom and Dad St.Hilaire was such a treat! We have not been able to spend a lot of time with them over the past few months. And our visits are usually pretty short. We were able to stay in Bellingham for a little less than a week. As the end drew near, Andrew reflected that it was a full week. Pretty much every night we had something going on; either delicious food to eat, fantastic company, or fun games (or all three)! We brought a few games up and taught the folks and Lou and Jenna how to play them.

One of the best gifts we received for Christmas was from Mom St.Hilaire. She gave us our own "friendship table cloth". The St.Hilaires have a tradition that whenever guests are over for a meal, they sign their names and date on the "friendship table cloth". Then Mom embroiders over the signature. Their table cloth is very full the names of all the people who have visited them over the years. It is difficult to find an empty spot! At our rehearsal dinner Mom had a blank table cloth out for everyone to sign. She has spent the past few months since the weddings embroidering all of the signatures (for us and Lou and Jenna). She gave us the table cloth for Christmas. It is ready to be filled with the names of all our future guests. We are so honored to carry on this beautiful St.Hilaire tradition in our own home! So when you come to dine with us, guess what you will see on our table?

Yesterday, I was paying bills and found myself writing 2009 on the checks. Holy cow- is it really 2009 already?! This year will bring many changes for us. Changes we are looking forward to, but changes that will really stretch us. The first (and biggest) change will happen when Baby St.Hilaire comes out. As Andrew told me, we will need to be less focused our ourselves once our baby is born. Another change is I will be done with teaching and taking night classes in April. In July we will be moving out of our house and into one of the apartments in my parent's house. In the fall I will need to do student teaching and thus leave our baby with his grandma during the days (this will probably be most hard on me!). Andrew will continue working with Swingsetmall.com and growing in his business skills. Yes, we will be very busy in 2009!

We hope you are all doing well!

God Loves my Students =)

School began a few weeks ago. The year is off to a good start. I am really enjoying having one year of experience under my belt. Everyone told me the second year would be easier, and I think it is true. Of course there are new challenges, but I leave school each day with excitement for the next (but I do really enjoy the weekends!).

On Friday, I took my 6th grade homeroom to pray a decade of the Rosary in the church. We wanted to pray a whole Rosary, but were running short on time. I asked them if they would like to pray the whole Rosary in the classroom, or pray a decade in the church (walking to and from places takes a long time!). They all agreed that they would prefer to go to the church. I was pleased with their decision and told them that making a visit to Christ in the Blessed Sacrament was very pleasing to God. So we all headed over to the church and knelt down in front of the altar- all 30 of us! It was so beautiful. There were a few prishoners praying in the church at the same time, and I am sure it was good for them to see all of the pre-teens bring their hopes and prayers to Our Lord.

I think it is very inspiring to see young people stiving for holiness. It is good for me to pray with my students because sometimes being a teacher can be frustrating and trying on one's patience. Praying with them enables me to see them as children of God and reminds me how much Our Lord deeply loves each of them.

Right now, Andrew and I are in Bellingham visiting with Mom and Dad St.Hilaire, Lou and Jenna (our brother and sister), and our friends from the Newman Center. We wanted to "get away" this weekend because I will begin taking night classes on Monday. Needless to say, I will be very busy and tired until... April. I am anxious about having so many commitments, but I know this will be short-lived and Our Lord will give me the strength to do well in what he has called me to do.