The Call Family

Thanksgiving this year was spent at Grandma Call’s house. We went over early and made some fun desserts for everyone.

The finished product.

Kaden loved the desserts so much he didn’t want to eat anything else. He is such a cutie!

My cute little Avery.

After dinner Grandma Call had some fun crafts for us to do. The kids made super hero masks and the women made coasters using tiles, scrapbook paper, and modge podge. We had a lot of fun!

We had a really fun Halloween this year. Avery was Rapunzel, Kaden was Flynn Rider, and I was the Queen.

We got to go trick-or-treating around our neighborhood this year and afterwards we went to Grandma Call’s house for soup in bread bowls. Yummy!

This year my grandpa planted pumpkins again. We all went down to his pumpkin patch after our monthly family dinner. Avery and Kaden had a lot of fun choosing their pumpkins.

Great Grandpa Hutchings cutting the pumpkin Avery chose off the vine.

Avery and Kaden sitting with the pumpkins they chose.

Kaden with his pumpkin.

Kaden loved his pumpkin!

Kaden wanted to be like his cousin, Jaden, and pick up the pumpkins and squash great grandpa had.

Kaden and Jaden set all the pumpkins and squash in a line.

This year we decided instead of carving faces on our pumpkins we would wrap them in duck tape. Avery and I carved the tops off and pulled out all of the seeds.

Skyler was the master duck taper!

Skyler came up with the idea for the mummy and the skeleton.

Avery and I created the witch and Dracula.

Skyler and the kids with our pumpkins on the porch.

Kaden wanted to be in a picture with Mommy.

A couple of weeks ago we went on our annual visit to Cornbelly’s. We planned to go one night with my whole family (mom, dad, brother’s, sister, spouses, nieces, and nephew) Well, the night we planned to go my mom, brother, and brother-in-law got sick. It was a really nice, warm night and my older brother was still planning on going so we decided to go anyway.

We started walking up to the park and I realized that I forgot my camera in the car so I walked back to the car to get it. When I caught back up with Skyler and the kids, Skyler held out our wristbands to me along with our tickets I had printed off the computer. Someone had just handed him wristbands so we didn’t end up having to use our tickets so we could go back again with the rest of my family.

Avery wanted to start off at the “Pumpkin Princess Playland”, her favorite part.

Kaden enjoyed playing on the train while Avery played dress up.

My brother, sister-in-law and nieces and nephew met us at the “Pumpkin Princess Playland” and the girls played dress up and danced together.

Avery had a blast dancing.

Avery had to ride on the horse.

Skyler and my adorable children.

They had these really fun bouncy horses that Avery loved bouncing around the track on.

We went on the hayride as our last activity of the night. While we were on the hayride Avery saw the big creature and she insisted on going inside. Skyler and I took her in last year and she hated it. I reminded her that she didn’t like it and she said, “I am four now I won’t be scared!”. So Skyler ended up taking her in and it scared her once again.

Because we didn’t use our tickets we were able to go again with my family. This time Avery wanted to sit on the BIG rocking chair and have our picture taken.

We had tons of fun both times we went to Cornbelly’s and can’t wait to go again next year!

These pictures are not the greatest, but I thought they were cute. This is what my kids like to do when Skyler is working at home.

Kaden wants to be just like his daddy. (Skyler put the pajamas on Kaden not realizing that they were going to be way too small).

Avery wants to be just like daddy too!

For Labor Day last month we spent the day at Provo Beach Resort. My mother-in-law has been talking about wanting to take the kids there for a few months and so we decided to all go together on our day off. It was a lot of fun. They have so many fun things there to do.

The first thing we did when we walked in the door was take pictures on the surf board. Isn’t Avery so adorable?!?

I love this one because it looks like she is actually surfing.

This is what Kaden did while we were taking Avery’s picture. He loved the lights and trying to figure out how it worked.

I love this one where he is up on his tippy-toes trying to see what is going on.

After taking pictures we decided to walk around to see what we wanted to do. Kaden loves bowling to we let him bowl on the mini bowling lane.

Aunt Lacey showed him how to roll the ball down the lane.

As the ball was rolling down the lane he would say “Whoo!”

Skyler, showing Kaden how it’s done!

Avery wanted to play in their BIG play area. We bought her a ticket to play there while we went to do another activity.

She loved the really big slide!

And the rock climbing wall. She loves to climb on things.

While Avery was playing we decided to go play mini croquet. Skyler and I had never played croquet before so we thought it would be fun to try it out.

We asked for an extra ball for Kaden to play with so he would not grab ours. He loved it!

Here I am trying to hit my ball into the last wicket. We had a ton of fun playing.

There was another small area for younger kids to play in. Kaden hated it. He would not go in unless I went with him. I took him down the slide a few times and he held onto me so tight. I don’t know why he doesn’t like things like that. Strange.

When we were all done playing we went over and had the balloon guy make Avery a Rapunzel balloon. He did an amazing job!

Then we went over to Malawi’s Pizza for lunch. As you can see Kaden loved it!

Outside there is a water fountain. Skyler told the kids not to get too wet.

They were having so much fun that we didn’t want to stop them.

By the time we left they were both soaked! We had to strip them down before they got into the car.

After that we went over to my parents house for some amazing bbq pizza made on their grill.

We had an awesome day!

Well, school has been back in session for a little over a month now. Things are quite a bit crazier being full time. I spent most of the summer getting my room ready for the year. My theme is “Crayon”. On the second day of school I read the book “The Crayon Box That Talked” and we had a discussion about how we are all different not one of us is the same color as another. You can’t make a beautiful picture with just one color you have to have every color to create a beautiful picture. With that, here is a picture of what my room looked like at Back to School Night.

This is the bulletin board right behind my desk. The “C” made with crayon was given to me by one of my students a couple of years ago for Christmas and it went right along with my theme. I love it.

These are my class jobs. I had the students color crayons that had their names on them on the first day of school to use as job markers.

We have the “Teacher’s Assistant” who does whatever I need them to do. The “Inspector” who makes sure that the other students do their jobs and also checks the room at the end of the day to make sure we are ready to go home. The “Banker” who checks to see if anyone has lunch money or other money to turn in to the office at the beginning of each day. The “Mail Carrier” passes out papers for me. The “Photographer” uses my special camera to take pictures of the different activities we do in class for me to use to create a slideshow at the end of the year. The “Line Leader” leads the line. The “Librarian” makes sure that all of my books are put away nicely. And the “Hall Monitor” walks beside the class in the halls and sets an example of how we need to act in the halls.

This is my Math and Writing bulletin board. I created all of the posters on the Writing board. I think they turned out really cute. We are using this new method of writing called “4-Square”. It is a great way for the students to be able to organize their ideas and put them into paragraphs. I am loving it so far!

This is my “Classroom Rules” poster that I created. (I had a lot of fun creating everything for my bulletin boards and walls as you can see!)

This is my Reading and Calendar bulletin board. You can also see my bench at the bottom of the picture. My teaching partner from last year left it for me to use. It used to be white, I took it home and painted it black and changed the cover on it and it looks completely different. I am loving it.

As I mentioned earlier it is a lot crazier teaching full time than I ever expected it to be. The first couple of weeks were a blur. I felt like I didn’t have enough time to get anything done at work or home. Things are starting to settle down now that I am getting the hang of things. I am loving having my own room and being able to do things my own way. I feel like I have more control over what happens in my classroom.

The biggest downside to teaching full time is having to leave my kids all day. Luckily, we have a neighbor who does day care in her home. I took Avery and Kaden over to meet her about a week before school started and they loved it so much they didn’t want to come home. I am so thankful to have such great people taking care of my kids when I can’t. I am so grateful that my kids love to be there. Avery asks me every day if she can go to day care and play. As hard as it is to leave my kids every day I am extremely grateful that they love to be there and that they are being loved and taken care of.