I Love My Students

It is no secret that I loved my first class at BYU-I. So when this semester started, I was skeptical and just knew I couldn't love these two classes as much as I loved my first.

After the first few class sessions, though, I could tell that I had a problem and I needed to fix it. I started praying to love my students. I prayed for them by name and asked Heavenly Father to help me love them so that I could be a better teacher.

You'll never guess what happened.

I loved this class. This is my 9:00 class. They were awesome. The let me celebrate their birthdays. They tolerated me making them sing primary songs (and do the actions). They let me discuss The Scroll with them. The men in back, from L to R: Dan, Jay, Jordan, Stephen, Travis, Jaron, Tyler, Jared. The girls standing are Christina, Melissa (Jordan's wife), Sammi, Ashlie, Marina, Kiersten, Christine (in back), Nicki (leaning in), and Marissa. Kneeling in the front is Kevin, Bryce (Bruce, what's the difference?) Scott, Chris, Amber, and Laura. Not pictured are Marisha, Jose, Ashleigh.

But they had to share my love.

This is my 10:15 class. I loved them, too. They sang happy birthday to my mom and dad on their birthday (my parents share a birthday). They clapped for each other. They liked to discuss and share. Logan and Nathan shared with us their contributions to the college film festival. The Canadians were great sports and sang the Star Spanled Banner with us. Don't they look happy?  In the back, L to R: Kaitlyn, Sarah J., Kaylee, Rosie, Ryan B., Jon, Dylan, Jakob, Kristopher (a professional photographer), Nathan, Chu Chih-Hao, Aron. Kneeling in the middle are Logan, Shawna, Hannah, Amanda, Marie, Amy, Megan. And in front are Jenna, Jordan, and Jaclyn. Not pictured are Kate, Ryan K., Sarah S., Crystal, and Caitlyn.

*Note to self: don't wait until the last day of class to take the picture. A lot of people skip.

When they were lining up I told them they had to get closer. Ryan took me a little too seriously. Sorry, Jon.

These guys were goofing around, so I told them to give me their best mad look. I think some of them have some work to do on looking mad.

I had a great semester and I learned so much from my students. The most important thing I learned, though, is that in order for me to feel like I'm doing my job, I have to love my students. It's not enough to just love what I do, I also have to love those I teach. I learned to love the ones that came late every day. I learned to love those that constantly disagreed with me, and I appreciated their contribution to class discussion. I learned to love those with very unique personalities.

It's sad to end this semester, and I will miss these students, just like I miss the students from last semester. But now I find I am so excited for fall. My heart may be full, but I know that if I ask, I will be blessed with the capacity to love 75 more students. 

June Birthdays

Randy turned 42 in June. Not that we want him to feel old or anything, but he is now six years older than me.

(And Randy would point out that he's the one without a single gray hair.) He requested pie for his birthday and picked out a Razzleberry pie that was so yummy!

With his birthday so close to Father's Day, presents are sometimes not very much fun. However, this year we needed a new barbecue grill so I selected one and then told him he had to go pick it up. The greatest presents were the ones from the kids, though. Braxton evidently got sick of his dad borrowing Braxton's water jug and gave Randy one of his own:

Kilee and I found this great blanket and she absolutely had to have it for her dad.

For those of you who don't know, Randy is a die-hard Univeristy of Idaho fan. He did part of his undergrad there and got his master's degree there.

I don't have a picture of it, but Tanner got his dad cinnamon bears. Those are Randy's favorite candy.

Father's Day was a just a few days later. Kilee had actually thought ahead and picked up some fish hooks for her dad. The boys all gave their dad new clothes, but strangely enough, they boys don't remember buying any shirts for their dad.

One week later, we got to celebrate Kilee's 8th birthday. Tanner had a baseball tournament that weekend so my parents had come up. We live close enough to Grandma and Grandpa Stocking and Uncle Rod and Aunt Christy that they were able to come up and celebrate with us.

We made the kids eat outside so that we could have some peace and quiet inside.

Kilee scored some great presents for her birthday. In addition to a new swimming suit and the Children's Songbook on CD, Kilee also received a new bed set.

And a new scripture case (totally cute!).

But I think the best gift of all was from her Aunt Bear. Months ago my sister and I started discussing jewelry for Kilee's baptism and my sister set to work making a necklace for Kilee. My sister sent me the necklace and it was her gift for Kilee.

I was concerned that the necklace was actually too small, but it fits Kilee perfectly and will be beautiful on her baptism day.

Eye: Meet Baseball

I got my own Rocky Balboa. I sang the "Rocky" theme song to him, but my attempt at humor was completely lost on the 11-year-old who has no idea who Rocky Balboa is.

Tuesday night, Tanner came home from baseball practice looking like this:

Amazingly, his glasses survived the hit. If you look closely, you can see the outline of a baseball around his eye.

Wednesday morning, his eye was there...somewhere.

Oooh, pretty. We were icing it three times a day and his face hurt clear down do his jaw.

Wednesday night his eye was open, but some black and blue was starting to set in.

Thursday morning, I accused him of playing in my make-up. He didn't think it was funny at first.

Tanner was born with a happy disposition. It's a good thing, too, because he's the one who winds up with broken teeth, scraped up knees, and black eyes.  

I Need Your Help!

I'm getting ready to paint Kilee's bedroom. She picked out a new bed set for her birthday, and it isn't pink. I was shocked. I'm still shocked. Using two of the colors in her cute new set, we purchased paint. For the wall behind her bed, we're going to paint it this color:

It's kind of an indigo-purple-gray color.

For the other walls, we are going to paint them this color:

It's a very pale blueish-greenish color. We're leaving the trim and ceiling white.

The problem is this space here:

That ledge up there and the wall above it.  And the closet to the left. See, the wall straight in front of  you is going to be the blue-indigo color. The other three walls (that you can't see) will be the pale blue-green.  I think I'll paint the wall above the ledge white because it is so dark up there.

What I really need help with is figuring out what color to paint the ledge.

Here's a close-up of right above the bed. The wall below the ledge will be blue-indigo. The wall above the ledge will be white. Do I paint the ledge the indigo color? Or do I paint the ledge white? Or should I paint the ledge the blue-green color?

Here's a close-up of above the closet. The ledge is to the right. The wall above the door (to the left) will be the blue-green color, maybe. Maybe it would look better white since the wall above the closet will be white. So do I paint around the closet blue-indigo? or blue-green?

So, all you interior decorator, craftsy, color-minded people, what do I do? And yes, I expect you to comment. No comments will not help me at all and then I'll end up painting everything neon green.