Sold...

We did it! The first (and only) showing we had made an offer on our sweet little home. We are so pleased that we won't have to manage our jobs (I start back on Monday) and trying to have our home constantly ready to show!

It's extremely bittersweet to be moving. I love our home. We have done so many projects (some little and some big) that have made it exactly that: a home. It has definitely got its flaws like 1 bathroom and terrible apartments overlooking the fence (once they caught on fire, another time we got egged, and I even found a knife in our yard once...yuck). I love it here though!

I thought it'd be fun for me to save some pictures from our time here to look back on!

You can see why I call my blog the Bright Yellow Door. I'm not sure if the new house will have a bright  yellow door...

First, let's take a look at our laundry room when we bought this place:

Pretty exciting isn't it? Aaron made this his first project.

He used old cabinets a home owner didn't want and made it beautiful!

The next year we worked on the yard:

 

Yep, those are all weeds! A lot of miserable weeds. Aaron installed a sprinkler system in the backyard, then threw out his neck before we could put grass down. 2 months later and we had this.

Thanks to a group of incredible friends we were able to haul a brick of weeds to the dump. (2 tons in all).

Now we have a wonderful and big yard to play in. Hopefully, the new owners will add some trees and plants.

The next big project was the living room/dining room/kitchen/hall area. Yep it is all one big area! The kitchen and dining room had lovely linoleum and the living room and hall had pergo.It was nice, but cold and created a lot of echos. The cabinets were your basic starter home wood. Aaron and his new spray gun were determined to have white cabinets.

The before

It was fine, but we wanted some carpet. We moved the pergo into the kitchen are and put carpet in the living room (mmm...soft carpet, I will miss you!)

 

Oh, and I can't forget to mention the adorable cabinets handles we got at an antique store in Astoria and the wonderful tile entry way.

Last year we had a project that I was so excited for! Kennedy's room!! EEK!!! Her room was still a lovely yellow from the previous owners and held a guest bed.

And my laundry.

Aaron did an amazing job with wainscoting and painting her room. We worked together on the color scheme and nothing permanent is bright pink! We redid her dresser together and my mom made her bedding and curtains. I love her room and think it'll be the hardest to leave behind! Hopefully, her next room will be even better!

The guest room, master bedroom, and bathroom haven't really been touched yet. They were down the road project, but now we will leave that up to the home's new owners!

Aaron did do a pretty sweet closet package in our room, though.

There you have it. A quickie house tour. I will definitely miss this place, but am so excited about our new home. We don't close for about another month, but I definitely feel at peace about this whole process. 

I will share our new home soon, but want to make sure the inspection goes through well first! For our new home Aaron and I had a few prerequisites:

• Needs work, but is currently liveable.
• In a nice neighbor with some established trees.
• Not new constructions (at least 15 years old)
• More than one bathroom!
• At least three bedrooms
• A shop in the back where Aaron can build, so I can park in the garage.

 This house meets all of these! Stay tuned....

A Post of Party Pics

Kennedy's first birthday is not until this Thursday, but we had her party a few weeks early (grandparents were going out of town and didn't want to miss it). We wanted to do something simple, but fun. So a backyard bbq was the plan!

 Night before dinner with the Spokane grandparents!

About 30 minutes before the party it started down pouring. Needless to say, I wasn't too pleased. We quickly had to pull everything inside and pray the rain would stop.

Thankfully, it cleared up by party time. Not too much damage was done, except for a wrinkly banner.

Daddy was the grilling master of the day with some singed arm hair to prove it!

 

We loved having our family and friends there to celebrate our little lady!

Kennedy's sweet cousins! Almost exactly a year older.

Yum! Cupcakes and cake! Kennedy loved having her own cake.

We set up a play yard for the little kids, but ended up using it for our pooch.

But that just made the little kids want to go in!

For some reason I love this picture of Kennedy with her grandpa. They are just the cutest!

We were tired at the end of that day!

I love this little girl so much! She's so much fun and has such a wonderful personality. It's a blessing to watch her grow. But for now...time needs to slow down!

Big Changes are Coming!

When I moved to Pasco almost 6 years ago, I thought it would be a temporary move. I wanted to "gain experience" so I could move back to Spokane and teach. Teaching jobs were few and far between in Spokane. My plan was to teach in Pasco for two to three years and then start applying in Spokane again.

And then he happened...

I met a this guy and got married. With Aaron becoming a part of his family's small construction business, I knew that we weren't leaving the Tri Cities anytime soon.

During our first few years of marriage I completed my Master's Degree at WSU Tri Cities, earned my ProCert, and worked hard at becoming a better teacher. I have taught at the same elementary school, in the same grade since I moved to Pasco.

My experiences at this school have been unlike any other. Coming from Spokane an almost all Hispanic, low-income school was a huge eye opener and a gigantic culture shock. I never pictured myself teaching in a setting where most students are taught in Spanish (not my class, I can't pick up Spanish to save my life) and majority of my conferences are done through a translator. This has been such a learning curve for me. Without an incredible administration and an amazing team of teachers (shout out to my amazing fourth grade team!) to work with, I probably wouldn't still be teaching. However, I am still teaching and I love what I do! My school is absolutely wonderful. The teachers there are hardworking and the students are determined! The school has become part of my family.

Over the last few years my school has been integrating STEM into our curriculum. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The idea is that for this generation of students, majority (but not all) of future jobs will be in these fields. Therefore it is important to encourage students to engage in these STEM subjects. Of course that arts are still incredibly important. Reading and writing essential for students, but often the components of STEM are often ignored in education (specifically, technology and engineering). You can learn more about STEM at the STEM Coalition site.

By incorporating STEM into my teaching, I am able to appeal to students in a more engaging way. More responsibility of learning has been placed on the students and they are more determined to build understanding. For example, during our school's Westward expansion unit our students designed and built wagons that could roll, float and carry weight.

 

Students were also taught fraction and multiplication concepts by understanding how to plan supplies for a several month journey (ex. If you need 1/4 lb of flour each day, how much will you need for 90 days?). This year they have studied the science of waves and have built musical instruments to demonstrate how sound waves travel. They have written informational brochures as if they were the American Red Cross after a natural disaster.

Pasco is a rapidly growing area and our school district has added enough students for a new elementary school every year for the last 10 years! The growth is absolutely crazy! In the next two years, the district will be opening 3 new schools. These schools will be full STEM integration schools. Learning will not be segregated into math time and literacy time, etc, but the curriculum will build on itself throughout the day. Only some prefab curriculum will be used; the rest will be teacher designed, standards-based, rigorous and relevant...

Curriculum I helped write. This year I applied and got offered the chance to be part of the planning team for these new schools. I have worked extra hours (and all of my spring break...) on building this curriculum along with 7 other teachers. We will be presenting the curriculum to the school board and implementing it next year at the new school.

Touring my new school

Next year I am moving schools. Eek. It was time for me to push myself out of my comfort zone. It'll be a scary and difficult year, but I am so excited. I will have a brand new classroom, in a brand new school, with a staff of people excited to try something new! I do not like change, but it happens anyways. I like to make my change on my terms as much as possible. Plus, some of my favorite people from my current school are coming with me. Doesn't get much better than that!

Unlatched (A Story of Failure and Success!!)

I knew that breastfeeding was important to me way before I knew I was expecting. I have nothing against formula and am actually grateful for it. I believe that it has saved lives! However, with all the benefits of breastfeeding, I knew that was the route I wanted to take. Plus, I'm cheap and didn't want to buy formula!!

The days after Kennedy was born were a blur of emotions and anxiety. In short, Kennedy's birth was traumatic for me and I got nailed with some instant postpartum. These are posts for another day though!

Soon after birth

One thing that stressed me out was the constant supervision of breastfeeding from the nurses and the lactation consultants. I value these people so much, but I felt a lot of pressure in the hospital to constantly try new things (with an audience) and never felt like I had time to actually work with Kennedy on nursing. It really messed with my head and caused a lot of stress. The nurses convinced Aaron and I that Kennedy was not getting enough milk and started filling her up with bottles of formula (oddly, they had her drinking several ounces her first day).

By the time we went home I was a mess about breastfeeding. Kennedy's latch attempts were short lived and we feeding non-stop (I know this is normal). Each feeding was filled with crying (her and I). All day crying; all night crying. It was anything, but a bonding experience. It was making me resent her wanting to eat. Even Aaron was struggling with the frustration he saw in us both.

(Note: I did not say I resented  her; just her hunger!)

Occasionally, Aaron would encourage me to pump. There was no doubt that I had a milk supply! For me pumping was easy and quick. It didn't cause pain and Kennedy loved bottles. So we decided to pump and only pump. It worked beautifully. Kennedy and I enjoyed our time together so much more and Aaron was supportive of the pumping!

Of course there were times when pumping wasn't so awesome. I would wake up at night to pump, even went Kennedy was asleep. I would leave family functions to go pump in a lonely room, but I did it. When Kennedy and I were alone, it was sometimes difficult, but we were creative and always made it work! I would also feel really sad whenever I saw other mom's breast feeding. It made feel like I'd failed. A lot of people would make innocent and hurtful comments, but I just had to do what was best for my family.

Plus, my milk supply...was kinda fantastic.

I ended up have an oversupply of milk. This caused some problems, but let's just say that the picture above was from when Kennedy was 3 months old (we had to buy a new freezer). At one point we had about 25 gallons of milk stored. I have donated some of the milk, but we saved lots too. I started weaning around January and pumped for the last time around the end of February. It was bittersweet. I loved giving Kennedy my milk, but I do not miss that pump.

 

 Kennedy turns 11 months next week and hasn't had a sip of formula since leaving the hospital. I am so proud of this. We have worked hard and she is a healthy, beautiful, bottle-fed, breast milk drinking girl!

This kid loves to eat!

Almost 10 Months!

Ten months ago my life changed.

It goes quickly (cliche, right?) It's time to start keeping record of it!

I'll be honest...these blogs aren't for you. They are for me! If you happen to enjoy them, hooray; two birds, one stone!

I think I'll start out with a short update of our lives for Kennedy's first 10 months. I have so much to record from this time, but I'll start with a ten month picture summary.

Life is full of gifts. I have a whole blog post about the day this little one entered my life, but I'll save that for another day.

She's so little; I can't stand it. This was the first day we left her for any extended period of time. We went to a concert!

 

Growing up fast!

 Back to school...our first day apart! Mom was a blubbering mess!

 At 4 months Kennedy and I flew to Philly together to meet Kennedy's new twin cousins. Kennedy wasn't allowed in the hospital nursery though.

Oh my goodness! I love this family!

These two are crazy together!

First Christmas! 7 months is a fun age at Christmas time. I can't wait until next year!

This kids will eat anything and everything! (Including the pup's food)

She's so big! I can't handle it!

There's our little Missy Moo in a quick picture update. I honestly am shocked by how much she has changed.