Monday, December 12, 2011

The little old lady that lives down the hill

There is a little old lady that lives down the hill from us. She has the cutest little dog that she walks every time we drive by her house or so it seems. Normally when we drive by she points her cane at her dog like she is threatening to shoot the poor thing if it moves before the car goes by. I've always smiled and waved at her. Usually I get a dirty look back, but today was different. I smiled and waved, and.......she smiled and waved back! Maybe it's the Christmas spirit or maybe she's finally used to this little family driving by and waving that she decided to return the favor for once. Today she made me smile!

Cole goes to school!

Last Friday was Cole's first day of school. Since it was Friday I picked him and Sarah up after lunch as is my normal routine. He's quite the character. He refused to let me take his picture as is our first day of school custom. I did get some pictures after school, but they were more action shots than then were pictures because I was literally chasing him all over the place. He didn't cry, and seemed to have a good time Friday. All I could get out of him though was that he ate lunch at school. Today he rides the bus, so maybe I can get a little more out of him. I would also like to report that mom has been managing these drop offs tear-free! I may not be very productive while they are gone, but emotionally I am doing well with everyone being gone.

The tooth story!

I've been holding on to this story for about a week, but I have to share it! All the teeth Elizabeth has lost have been loose since before we moved to Reform! About a week ago we noticed that they were just barely hanging on. I cannot pull teeth. I am too afraid I will hurt her, so her Daddy decided he would be the man for the job. I had the job of hand holder while she screamed. After talking with her last night we decided that the fear of the pain was much worse than the actual pain. Anyway, he pulled on tooth one night and another on the next night and last night he pulled on on the bottom. She is now missing her front teeth. Her bottom two below those are in, but their neighbors on each side are gone too. I'm not kidding when I tell you that you can already see the teeth that are coming in! She still insists that we could have waited a while, but we were seriously worried that she would swallow them! The second front tooth is the one with the story. Daddy was wiggling it and she was screaming. I was holding her hands. She wiggles and Daddy throws her up and says, "Don't swallow!". When she wiggled his finger bumped the tooth slightly and it came out. It's a good thing she didn't swallow it. I don't think the Tooth Fairy comes if the tooth is swallowed.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Another year

You guessed it...another year has passes. My sweet Sarah Grace is now 4 and my Coley Bear is 3! It's hard to believe they are this big already. It seems like yesterday (well, it would be 2 different yesterdays) that they were born. They are so big! Sarah is going to Head Start. She loves her teacher and her friends, but HATES naps. She hates them with a passion. She is very smart. Her teachers told me that she was the star student one day because she was the only one in the class that could spell their spelling words (red and blue). She can also recognize and spell her first name. She can write the number one and draw circles. She's 4 going on 14. She can be quite sassy, but is usually very sweet. Coley Bear is still home with me. We are waiting to see if Head Start has a place for him now that he's 3. We're hoping we can get him in soon. He LOVES to go to football practice with his Daddy. The "football babies" are his heroes! He loves football games too. He calls them "putball" games. He loves to ride his tricycle and shoot basketball. He is talking so much more and it is getting to be so much easier to understand him. I always worry about sending my kids to school before you can really understand them, but they always get better just before they turn 3. Elizabeth is doing well too in case you were wondering. She was the student of the week for first grade last week and got to have ice cream with her principal. She was so excited that she talked about it for days. She reads all the time. She is so smart! Regular season for football is over, so now we're doing play offs for state stuff. I am half way done with my last Master's class. I have 4 weeks left, and I should student teach in January. We might actually have 2 incomes next fall. That will be a first since we've had kids!

Monday, October 10, 2011

Going Home

We spent the weekend in Clanton, and it was just like going home. We saw all the girls' old teachers,and got to see all their best friends. We went to the Pumpkin Patch, and got to go to our old church. We had a BLAST, but were so tired!

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Spiritual Drought

I have decided to be completely honest with myself and in turn with others. I have been faking it till I make it for far to long now. I'm not sure when it began, but at some point I thought I could do it all on my own. FAIL! I am an over worked, under paid, mom of three that is also a Master's student. Life is not always easy especially when you have 5 people and one income. For some reason I have thought I could handle it all on my own, but I feel like I'm running on E. I almost think it took moving for me to realize that I can't just get by from what I get on Sunday mornings at church. At our last church things were a little different and you could feel the Spirit during worship. Maybe it's me, but I'm not getting that here, so starting today I'm doing more on my own in order to get that back. I miss the closeness I once had with the Lord, and I'm not going to fake it anymore.

Monday, September 19, 2011

NO TEARS!!!

Last week was a bit traumatic for both my Sarah and myself. She started riding the bus to Head Start last week. The first day she was excited. The second day she cried. She cried four days last week when it was time to watch for the bus, and I don't mean sniffles. This was an all out DON'T MAKE ME GO TO SCHOOL cry. I told the bus driver Friday that I was going to try taking her to school and let her ride the bus home afterwards. We did that today and although she didn't want to go because she doesn't like nap time she agreed when I told her that she had to at least go turn in her homework she had worked so hard on. She was ok with that, so as we were waling in I asked her if she would want to play with her friends for a while and she said yes! She went right to her teachers and I stayed to help for a while. She is so smart! She answered all the teachers' questions. So proud of my girl! In other news I know some of you have wondered about Cole. He has made a miraculous recovery. He goes back in a few weeks, but if you look at him now you would never know that just over a week ago he had hernia surgery. He's amazing too!

Thursday, September 15, 2011

My Sweet, Sweet Sarah

So I posted about being the Mom of the Year the other day because I sent my Sweet Sarah to school crying when she had a fever. Today she was crying again. It seriously breaks my heart. I'm not sure why she is not liking school, but I hate it for her. She LOVED preschool last year. Things are different here though. She rides a bus to school and home. She goes from 8-2 instead of 8-12, and she has to lay down for a little while. She also goes 5 days a week instead of just 2. I don't know what it is that is causing her to not like school, but it's killing me. I hold it together until I get in the house (can't let her see me cry), but it truly breaks my heart! Any ideas on how to help her?

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

SNAKES!

We are currently renting the house we live in. When we moved in the house had an AC, but it didn't work, so there were 2 window units we used. In less than a week the AC unit in the house was replaced, but the transformer on it didn't work, so we have to turn the air on and off from the breaker box which is in the office. The office is another story....The foundation of the house shifted at some point, and the office is messed up. There are holes and cracks in the wall. I'm assuming that one of the holes in the wall was just big enough for a snake. Yesterday I went in the office to turn the air on and I saw a snake skin in the floor. Being the girl that I am.....I FREAKED OUT! I called my husband and told him that the AC and the office had to be fixed ASAP because I wasn't going in there anymore! I like wildlife as much as the next person, but the fact that wildlife came in my home makes me feel violated!

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Mom of the Year

Yesterday was a good day. Sarah started Head Start last week and yesterday the bus came to pick her up and she was SO excited. Today....not so much. Every day since school started she's done the same thing her sister's done. ("My head hurts. My tummy hurts. I don't want to go to school.") They don't like to wake up early and go somewhere. They don't mind waking up before 6 on Saturday or Sunday though. I know....it doesn't make sense to me either. Anyway, Sarah cried this morning and said she did NOT want to go to school. I thought she needed to go. I don't want to let her think that every time she cries, I'll let her stay home. I carried my little crying child to the bus and kissed her this and told her bye. Fast forward to around 11:30. I get a call from one of her teachers. She has a temperature of 101. Yep, that's me. The mother of the year.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Precious Angels

Lately the kids have been angels, and by angels I mean almost completely the opposite of an angel. It has been quite rough. Anyway, we were in the van after taking Elizabeth to school and Cole and Sarah were singing David Crowder's version of "Never Let Go". There were so sweet. Just like the little angels I see glimpses of from time to time.
There is something that I absolutely LOVE about this house. Every night before I go to bed I check on each one of them and I watch them sleep for a while. They look the most angelic then and so peaceful. It's my favorite time of day, and not just because it's the ONLY time the house is quiet, but because watching them while they sleep reminds me of how precious they can be (when they want to, of course!).

Thursday, August 11, 2011

First Grade




Elizabeth's first day of first grade was a success. She already has a "best friend" although she does not yet know her name. I told her we should work on that today. She said she would. She also told us that she has a boyfriend, but that she hasn't told him he's her boyfriend yet. She told me that she loves her teacher and thinks she is very nice. She really seemed to have a good time. I am SOOOOOOO relieved because I have prayed for her to find friends and love her new school. I'm so glad she does even though she doesn't like to get up in the mornings.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Adventures in House Hunting.....Shedd style!

Jonathan and I spent a day in Reform house hunting. We went through all our normal channels in order to find a place to live. We stopped by apartment complexes, got a newspaper, and a shopper's guide and came up completely empty! We were upset and didn't know where to turn. We came home and that's when the phone calls started coming in.

We were getting phone calls from Booster Club members and other people in the community who were on the prowl for the perfect house for these five Shedd's. We got a call from a coach who said he had found a house for us to come see. We went the very next day, and the owner of the house had an emergency in Birmingham and couldn't get to Reform with the key that day. Four hours in the car....wasted. We were getting really frustrated, but we made plans to come back in a few days and try again.

Our next attempt was more successful except for the part where we got there around 10 and couldn't see that house until around 6. The coach did have another house for us to see, so we went to that house. It had holes in the walls and the ceiling and there was pink insulation on the floor. Sarah called this the soft house and she loved it because it was soft and pink. I, on the other hand, was not to impressed. The houses around it kinda scared me and there were bad words written on the sliding glass doors leading to the back yard. Not my number one choice obviously.

We killed time with the kids for what seemed like forever. We went to City Hall and talked with a lady there that had called us. She gave us a few more leads, and we called about one. The lady I talked to was selling her house, but it had been on the market for over a year. He husband had been the former principal at the school Jonathan will be at next year. She told me that the school was closing and that there was no way they would do a lease to own deal with us on their house.....it was like getting a phone call that the world was going to end. After calling our coach friend back and talking with the lady at City Hall we were reassured that the school had it in writing that the school would not close for at least 3 years.

I was still not convinced and was thinking about the worst....me here in Clanton with the kids while Jonathan lived in Peewee's hotel in Reform during the week. Not quite what we were hoping for, but we toured the elementary school with Elizabeth anyway.

Finally the time comes to see the house we'd tried to see before. Although the carpet needs to be replaced and the walls need some paint it has everything that I had wanted in a house. It's on the end of a dead end road, so there shouldn't be anyone out there. It had a huge front porch with a swing, a car port big enough for 2 cars, and a big back deck. Inside it had a long living room, a real laundry room (as opposed to the laundry closet we have now). It had 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, and an office. Although it had a few issues we were excited about the possibilities. We let them know we were interested and that's when our adventure began.....

TO BE CONTINUED.....

Monday, May 23, 2011

Fast Paced

In all the hustle and bustle that was a typical Sunday with the Shedds I got to thinking. These little monkeys are growing so fast. Some days it seems like we're living life in fast forward with no way to slow down.

Elizabeth is in her final week of Kindergarten and it just doesn't seem real. She's had a wonderful year. She loves her teacher and has learned so much. She's such a smart little booger! She's reading above grade level and absolutely loves to do it. I do have to say though that this time last year she was so worried that her new teacher wouldn't teach her how to read. We've come a long way. She's good at math too. She did a "math exam" that she made the other day and although I was only allowed to see part of it I was amazed. She did 30-3 and 27-2 and every time she got it right.

Sarah has one day left in preschool! I really don't know where the time has gone! She has absolutely loved her teacher and her friends. She talks about them all the time. She decided who she is going to marry and already changed her mind. She's learned so much. She knows her colors and counts to about 20. We keep comparing her to her sister which is not completely fair to her. She's 6 months younger than Elizabeth when she was in this class. She is a little sponge though and absorbs almost everything.

Cole will be in preschool next year! Look out preschool teachers! With both him and Sarah I have been concerned about their teachers not understanding what they say, but amazingly the kids always seem to be able to speak more clearly by the time school comes around. I can't always understand everything Cole says, but we're getting there. He's definitely a boy. He's rough and tough and loves to climb and get into all sorts of things! He keeps me on my toes more than the girls ever did. This surprises me because he was such an easy going baby. I had hoped that he would stay that way...it didn't happen. He can be so sweet though. I had to be gone for a while one day and he had a babysitter. When I got home he said, "Mommy, I miss you!" He had never said that before and it just melted.

This has been a hard week for us. When we moved here we planned on being here for a few years and then moving on to bigger and better things. Plan failed...we loved the kids here and leaving them is a bit like leaving a part of our family. The kids have been so sweet though. They've written Jonathan letters and even signed his yearbook! I went last week and signed yearbooks too. I wish we could take them all with us! Anyway, as of now we're staying in Clanton. We're praying for one opportunity and not a choice. That way we know we're where God wants us. We hope to stay planted in Clanton for one more year! Then again that's our plan, and God has giggled at our plans in the past. At the end of the day as long as we're where He wants us we know everything will be ok.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Jobs

About 2 weeks ago I was timing my 2 mile run with some of my running buddies. I got a phone call as we went down the first hill (my phone is almost always on vibrate, so this was really strange). It was Jonathan. He asked what I was doing and I told him I was running. He told me he'd call me back later that he had something to tell me. I told him to go on and tell me now, so he proceeded to tell me that his position was being cut due to budget issues at the board of education. We've been through this SEVERAL times before, so I was ok until we made the first turn, and that's when I lost it. You see, I know that God will take care of us. He always does, but these kids he works with at Verbena, well, they're part of our family, and the thought of leaving them.....well it still sucks.
Needless to say my time was ruined and we walked the rest of the route. Seems like there is so much more at stake this time. It's not just leaving those kids. It's the thought of Elizabeth changing schools and the possibility of having to sell our house and Sarah and Cole not getting to go to the most amazing preschool on the planet. Those are the things that make me sad about the entire situation.
We are trusting God through it all though. He says he will never leave us or forsake us and we are clinging to that. If God calls us away from Verbena we know that He will find someone else to love those kids. He just better find someone that loves them as much as we do! Although I am sad of the thought of leaving I know that it is in God's hands and we will be more than ok. We will be blessed.
The week before Jonathan's phone call I was telling my running buddies (God bless you guys!) that this has been a year of God calling me out of my comfort zone. My guess is that this is just another part of that. Please keep us in your prayers as we seek God's will for our family.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Preschool Sunday

Sarah had her first Preschool Sunday at the Hydrate service at church. She was so excited to sing on the "big stage" she told me. She told her teachers she wanted to sing up there like her Mommy. I was so proud of her. She did such a wonderful job. Grammy and Peepaw were here to watch her sing.

The week before this Jonathan and I went on our first trip without kids basically since the summer after we got married. We had a good time, but we missed the kids badly. We left on Friday and didn't get home until Tuesday. I was afraid we'd get bored, but we had a good time. We did some shopping (which you can't really do with 3 kids) and played miniature golf. Sine we got married we've had a miniature golf war. Before we had kids I think I was ahead by one game. Can you believe that we tied in the only game we were able to play this time?

Grammy and Peepaw came down to get to get the kids on Thursday before we left on Friday. After school on Friday they took them back to Tennessee with them. Peepaw came back down with the kids and Grandma Sue and Grandpa Ed on Sunday so Elizabeth and Sarah could go to school. The kids seemed to have had a good time. They were glad to see us, but didn't want anyone to have to go back to Tennessee.

In other news we are entering some very frustrating stages in development. Elizabeth and Sarah have started arguing with me a lot. For some reason they seem to think they are smarter than I am. I love the rascals, but it gets frustrating at times. Cole isn't arguing with me yet, but he has moments where he is ugly to his sisters for no reason and his fits are the worst I've had to deal with. Now let me say that sometimes my kids can be the absolute sweetest kids in the world, but everybody has their moments, right? I know I do.

We're almost done with track season. This is the first time Verbena has had a team in a long time. They have been doing pretty good. We've been really proud of them.

I am 4 classes and a semester of student teaching away from finishing my Masters and Jonathan is on his second class. We should both finish in May.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Last Day at the Beach :(










On our final day at the beach we got up early and had breakfast then headed to the beach for the last time :( We had a great time though and were there for over 2 hours. After we left the beach we went straight to the pool at the hotel where we stayed for quite some time. We went back to the room to clean up and have a snack before we went to lunch. We had lunch at the Dancin' Iguana and sat on the dock so we could watch the boats. After our lunch we had fried ice cream! When we went back to the hotel it was time to pack up our things and head back to Clanton. We were all very tired, but we hated to leave the beach.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Last full day in Destin!











On our last full day in Destin we didn't go to the beach or the pool. We thought it was going to rain and Sarah's face was red and swollen (we think from eating shrimp). We spent the morning at the Emerald Coast Science Center and then headed to the Air Force Armament Museum. After that we went back to our room for lunch and naps. We work up from naps and went to Hammerhead's for dinner. After dinner we went to the Nike outlet (just to look) and then to Bass Pro Shop. Going to Bass Pro is a lot like going to the zoo for the kids only the animals don't move except for the fish in the fish tank. It was a fun day!

Monday, March 14, 2011

Destin Day 3
















Today started much like yesterday. We got up. Had breakfast and headed to the beach. It takes about an hour for us to eat and get ready to go to the beach. We stayed at the beach for about 2 hours. Elizabeth was the foreman on the sand castle construction job today. She did a good job, but I forgot to get a picture of it before she and Cole tore it down. The highlight of today's beach trip was when we were rinsing the sand off our sand toys before we put them up and headed to the car. Daddy would fill the buckets with water and throw the water on whoever he could catch. It was lots of fun. We even saw dolphins from the beach which is something we had never seen before. I didn't get the camera out in time, but it was absolutely amazing. We came back and de-sanded ourselves and went to lunch at Angler's.
After lunch we went back to our room for naps and slept too long. Tomorrow we will have to set an alarm so we don't sleep so long. We went to the outlet mall and got Sarah some new shoes and me some new sandals. We ordered pizza on the way back to the hotel and got back just in time to get it.
Tomorrow is our last full day here. I kinda don't want to leave because it's not very often that we're all together without the distractions we have at home. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, but we have a few tricks up our sleeves.

Destin Day 2

We got up this morning and ate breakfast and headed to the beach. We had so much fun! The kids loved making sand castles or "shand tastles" as Coley would say. We stayed on the beach for about 2 hours and then headed back to wash the sand from our "quacks". We got dressed and made some sandwiches and settled in for naps. After naps we went to Fudpuckers and had dinner and fed the alligators, then came home to do some swimming. It's spring break, so it's crowded down here and at night the traffic is awful. A truck drove by us last night on the way back to our hotel and there were boys in there with their shirts off and their windows down. Sweet Sarah was convinced they were naked. She was so funny. Other than a few moments when they didn't want to listen these little monkeys have been pretty good. Here's some pictures.