Letters From Santa

     Each year I write letters for Santa and send them from the North Pole. The letters are written on Christmas paper, and sent to whomever you wish! Your child, your husband, your mom, your dad, that grumpy guy from work who needs a smile. Anyone. Well, anyone within reason. 

     Letters can be sent either domestic or international. Last year I made a donation to the Wounded Warrior Project with the money made from these letters. This year I will be making a donation to St. Judes Childrens Hospital. I will be donating 50% of each letter. I will use remaining money for supplies, stamps, etc. :) 

      There are two options. Option 1 is a handwritten letter from Santa. The entire letter will be handwritten, and signed by Santa. (Option 1 is "sold out"  Sorry! ) Option 2 is for a letter printed out on an Ink Jet printer and then hand signed from Santa. Letters will be mailed out the first week in December. You can send me exactly what you would like the letter to say, OR Santa can write what he wants. Last year, Santa reported on what Molly the Elf on the Shelf was telling him. Your choice! Make sure you let me know. You can message me on FB or I will contact you once I receive your payment. See below for the link! 

   Happy Holidays! Now who wants to come fill out my Christmas cards for me? 

Letter from Santa 

                                            Sold out

November?

I love Halloween (and nothing to note of my costume at school.) We took the Bug trick or treating at the museum on campus. He was very excited with his bat and his starfish that he got. No candy for him (because I'm a mean mom, and really, he doesn't need anymore energy.)

Somehow though, it is November. I do not know what happened to September/October (or the rest of the year even.) Time flies when you're having fun, or at least you don't have time to look at the date. With the time change today, it didn't get light here until 9:30 or so this morning. I do love watching the sunrise each morning. I feel productive for once.

As the Bug and I went grocery shopping this morning they were marking down all the Halloween candy (WIN!) and putting up all the Christmas decorations. Poor Thanksgiving had one lonely little shelf. I on the other hand have a "few" bags of Reese's.

This summer I got away from blogging due to new job craziness and pure exhaustion. When I did have time it was spending it with the Bug or getting things figured out in my new position. My exhaustion was explained by a Vitamin D deficiency, and a low Thyroid. My doctor also suggested that I cut yeast out of my diet to see if it makes me feel better.....so pretty much, eat nothing. I'm still considering it to see if it helps, but seriously, there are a handful of things I can eat (exaggeration, but not by much!)

I'm starting to organize my letters from Santa. Last year my donation went to the Wounded Warriors Project. I want to donate this year to a Children's organization, and I'm thinking of St. Jude's, but am open to suggestions. I'll have that information posted soon. If you're new to this rambling wreck of a blog, I write letters from Santa, and mail them from North Pole, AK and make a donation to an organization. Last year I sold a bunch on eBay. This year in order to keep sane, I am going to just put them on the Facebook page for FBX Adventures.



Anyway.... Happy November!

Why I don't dress up on Halloween...

...and it's probably not what you're thinking.

I love Halloween. I love dressing up, I love how happy and excited kids get, I love it all. When I first started teaching 11 years ago I did not dress up for Halloween. I taught middle school, and the kids were already over excited, and I didn't want to distract them. There was learning to be done!

When I started teaching kiddos with EBD (Emotional/Behavioral Disorders) I stood by my rule of NO dressing up. I loved those kids. They were the most amazing people I have had the pleasure of working with and they BEGGED me to dress up. I told them something along the lines of "everyone be on Level 4 by Halloween and I'll dress up." (Level Systems are a tool to help teach students rules and expectations.) Well, wouldn't you know it that was the carrot that they needed. I had to dress up.

My husband and I dressed up for Halloween every year, and this year it just so happened that we went as an Orca Whale and her trainer. I did research. I made my costume that of a 7 year old female Orca. I was excited. I was Orca from head to toe. It was awesome. I decided to just wear this to school, so I didn't need to think of another one.

I went to school that morning, put on my costume and proceeded to teach my kiddos as a fully dressed Orca for an hour. The office called and asked one of my students to come down. No one said what they wanted him for, and I didn't think much of it. About five minutes later I heard glass breaking, and then I got the call from the office. Long story short, my student was suspended and he was angry. He started punching out the windows in the office. He ran out of the office and I had to put him into a restraint (keep in mind I am very trained, and he was being a risk to himself. I'm not going into details about him and why.) We were in the front of the school in the lobby. He was screaming and yelling. I was restraining him as a fully dressed killer whale. It looked bad. As I had him in a restraint, the entire sixth grade class walked by on their way to a field trip.

Picture him yelling......with a woman fully dressed as a Killer Whale. It looked like I was trying to eat him. I had him turned away from the hall so no one would see his face,

After he was calmed down, we walked back to my room. Without saying a word, I took my clothes and went to the faculty room, changed out of my costume, threw it in the garbage and that was it.

No costumes for the past 6 years.

Today I break that stretch. Wish me luck! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Well Hello!

It's October hu? How in the hell did THAT happen! Summer sucked, and that led into our three week Fall. It snowed a few weeks ago and that was the end of the shortest Season of the year. Then I started the J-O-B that will not be named. I love it, but I believe in a separation of work and home. This blog is about home. Also, my goals in life are to not end up on CNN or an internet Meme. Life's simpler that way.

Bug is large and in charge. He will be a year and a half tomorrow. How did that happen? I feel like it was just yesterday that I was complaining that I was pregnant.

I'll update more later, but I figured that I'd dust off the cobwebs from this blog and get ready to complain about the weather!

Dear Bug

Dear Bug,

I suppose at some point you are going to find this blog on the internet. Today I dropped you off at daycare for the second time in your life. You have now spent a total of 4 hours away from me, other than times you've been with family or while a baby sitter watched you as you slept. It is hard. I'm sure it is harder on me than it is on you, but it was hard.

For two hours you screamed. It breaks my heart that you think I left you. I will never leave you. Know that you are my favorite thing, the love of my life and my heart now rests within your tiny chest. I will never leave you and if I do, a part of me will always stay with you. I promise that.

You are such an amazing guy, and I love you more than any words can ever begin to describe. Before you were born I'd hear parents talk about how much they loved their kids and I didn't get it. You'll never get it either, until one day a nurse hands you a blanket with a tiny bundle of love in it. Your heart will fill with so much love, and somehow, someway, you will love them more every second. You do such fun things that make me laugh so hard. You are an amazing little guy and we are so lucky to have you in our lives. I am so blessed.

Daycare is hard. It makes me feel so guilty to go back to work. You love other kids so much and you seem to get so bored at home that I thought this was a good idea. I hope this is a good idea. I hope that in a few months I'll come back and read this blog and think, "Oh yeah, he hated that, I forgot." I hope this is a good decision.

I realize that as I write about daycare, that soon it will be kindergarten, (blink) middle school, (blink) high school, (blink) college and so on. Time stops for no one, even for over protective mommas.

I love you, and I'll always come back for you.

Love,

Momma

Bugdate

I successfully have blogged what, once? twice? in the past month. Summer is here, which means that my hubby is off doing field work off and on. That leave me lots of one-on-one Bug time, but also less "sit on my butt and blog time."

Bug is doing awesome. He is up to 5 teeth and his hair is in his face. He is a solid walker now, and can run (and it's adorable, even if it isn't steady.) He loves to do everything that mommy and daddy do, even if that leads to some frustration on his part. It truly amazes me at what he watches us do, and he mimics it perfectly. Example from this last weekend. Friends from Pennsylvania came to stay in the Moosequito Inn and we took them gold panning. Bug spent most of the time playing in the creek while we panned for gold (daddy and I took turns watching him.) At one point we put down our pans and sat on the edge of the stream. Bug walked over, grabbed a pan, threw a scoop of dirt from the bucket into it and started to pan. He did it exactly like we did. It was adorable.

Friday, Bug started daycare. It was horrible and broke my heart to drop him off. He was there for three hours while I ran to the greenhouse to pick up my free green bean plants. He seemed "ok" when I showed up, but then just sat in my lap and cried. The poor guy has never been away from me. I'm glad I have the opportunity to have him transition slowly, I think....

Lots going on. We've had a TON of rain, and my garden is not happy. Hopefully it gets warmer and stays a little dryer for a bit. I'd like SOMETHING in my garden to grow.

Now, for some photos.

Garden Update

I am 1/2 way through Solo Parenting. Hubby is out SOMEWHERE in Alaska flying in a helicopter doing archaeology "stuff."  I know he was in a cave. I'm a horrible wife when it comes to explaining what he does.

ANYWAY Solo parenting is going well. I'm afraid to say "great" because Karma might come bite me in the ass. We're having fun! Lots of fun. Bug is an amazing little guy and I love spending time with him. We went through a few days of injury after injury.

Thursday last week he cut his finger - blood everywhere.
Friday night he fell and "fixed" his lip tie himself. - blood everywhere.
Saturday he fell a the park and hit his head - giant goose egg
Sunday fell and bit his lip- little blood and black and blue lip.

SO, as you can see, we had a rough couple of days. Poor Bug.

The Garden went in last weekend. I'd like to say that it's doing "awesome" and things are growing like crazy, but this is my first year growing in AK and things that did great in Seattle (i.e. Basil) are NOT doing well here. Not sure what I'm doing wrong, but if it starts to go south, I'm going to harvest it all and call it good!

I have a ton of things planted.

Basil, Red Onions, Yellow Onions, Strawberries, Sunflower, Pumpkin (pie), Pumpkin (Atlantic Giant), Cabbage (OS Cross), Cabbage (Gonzales), Radishes (French Breakfast- I think!), Lettuce (Simpson), Lettuce (Corn), Cilantro, Thyme, Chives, Rosemary, Beets (? I forget!), Carrots, (I forget!! I have it written down somewhere...), Rhubarb, Garlic, Squash (variety of types, Winter, Spagetti, Yellow), Zucchini, Cucumbers (Bush, and three other types....dang it....only I would write a blog post with 1/2 the info!), Potatoes (6 towers), Corn  (Earlivee), Chard,  Tomatoes (a variety of types and they are driving me NUTS.) I'll do an updated list of everything and how it is doing for my own records (at some point.)

Seriously. Tomatoes like it hot and are not doing very hot. Last night I threw together a greenhouse for them to live in. In the process of building it the Bug attempted to help so I ended up getting my finger with the drill. OUCH. Tomatoes are more needy than the Bug. I spent today figuring which spot in the yard saw the most sun and I pulled that stupid thing there with the Bug's "help." I then had to move the cabbage because it was where the sunniest spot was.

SOMETHING BETTER GROW!!!!

The radishes and Simpson Lettuce are coming up. I had to giggle when I saw that. The first few rows are nice then I said !@#$ it and threw the seeds and ran to the house. The mosquitoes are HORRIBLE!! HORRIBLE-HORRIBLE-HORRIBLE. In 45 minutes I got bit 47 times (the marks that I could see and count.) I HATEZ THEM! Did I mention I hate Mosquitoes? Also, the onions are doing well, the first potatoes are peeking up, and the strawberries are getting flowers.

I bought a Mosquito Magnet at a yard sale the weekend before my husband left It needs propane and I don't want to drive with propane in the car with the Bug. I know people do it all the time, but with my luck I would do something wrong.