Lately

In an effort to get caught up on the blog in the most efficient way possible, I've decided to do a "lately" post.  Here's some things we've been up to lately.  Also, I use the word lately loosely because some of these things date back to summer.  Oops!

- We had an awesome time with the kids from our church during our week of VBS (back in August).  I had never even volunteered for a VBS before and somehow found myself with the responsibility of planning the whole thing (whaa??).  God was very gracious to me and everything was so fun!  Here are some of our sweet kiddos.  I love them so much!

And a few of our fearless volunteers...  Thanks guys!  We couldn't have done it without you!

- Our friend, Ryan, from JMU stopped by for a visit.  We took him up to Rockport for a little New England sightseeing and some lobster.  We loved seeing you, Ryan!

- School started and I was blessed with the sweetest class to ever come through Pre-Kindergarten.  No, seriously.  Look at these sweet tiny people:

Could they be any cuter??  Nope, not possible.

- We moved!  We left our sweet little one bedroom and moved into a 2-bedroom apartment across campus.  It was a little sad to leave our first apartment as a married couple, but we are moving on to bigger and better things, literally.  And now our baby doesn't have to sleep in a closet...she will have her very own bedroom!

I'm not even sure who took this picture...it's not very exciting, but is evidence that moving occurred.

- We finally went to the Topsfield Fair!  This fair is a pretty big deal around here and we've had plans to go for the past 2 years, but have somehow never actually made it there.  Since this is potentially our last year here, I told Curt that we haaaad to go (yes, I whined).  We went with a couple friends from church and had a really fun time.

- Lastly, our baby girl continues to grow each day.  I feel very blessed and thankful to say that the pregnancy is still going very smoothly and I am enjoying feeling her move around all the time.  We have made very minimal progress on the nursery, but I'm hoping that will change in the coming weeks.  I have some fun plans for it though!  These belly pics are a little old...I'll try to update soon.  Right now I'm actually already in my 3rd trimester at 28 weeks.  Crazy!

21 weeks

 25 weeks

Ha..the 21 week pic actually looks bigger...aahh the power of a bad camera angle :)

Schooool's out for summer!

**Disclaimer:  I started this post at the beginning of the summer and forgot to post it!  This is part of my effort to slowly bring back our blog...bear with me.

Sooo, things have been a little crazy around here.  Hence the zero blog posts I wrote from April until now.  But I am happy to say that now that school is out, I have a lot more free time.  Yay!  It was so exciting to have a relaxing Monday morning on the couch, sipping my coffee, and watching the Today show.  While it was sad to say goodbye to some of my sweet kids, I am really glad to have some down time.

Here's a picture from the last week of school.  I've done this shaving cream activity back when I taught 1st and 2nd grade, and it definitely did not disappoint my Pre-K'ers.  They LOVED it.  My assistant and I were laughing at how we couldn't believe how much joy could come from a $1.50 can of shaving cream.  It was so fun to watch them.

So...what are we up to this summer?  Curt will be taking a few classes and I will still be working part-time for our church and coordinating Vacation Bible School for the church in August.  Despite some extra responsibilities at church, I'm still looking forward to getting some rest, enjoying the amazing New England summer weather, and hanging out with friends.  We will also be going home for a few weeks in July.  Can't wait!!

Recently I talked to a dear friend of mine (also a teacher) and she told me her two goals for the summer:  1) get in shape and 2) pay her bills.  Now, I'm sure she'll accomplish a lot more than those two things this summer (because she's awesome), but it got me thinking...it's good to have goals.

Sooo what are my goals for the summer?  Good question!  Here are a few that I've come up with:
1)  read my Bible more
2)  read more books in general
3)  hang out with my husband and take advantage of our flexible summer schedules
4)  not stress out about VBS and trust that God will work through me and the volunteers
5)  go on walks with friends

That's all I can think of for now.... What are your goals for the summer??

Happy Easter!

We are looking forward to celebrating Easter this weekend and rejoice in the fact that the Lord conquers all, even death.

I can't help but share this sweet picture from our Easter egg hunt at school today.  Oh, the excitement!

Rest time

I have 12 cute little things lying on mats in front of me. We are listening to a Lullabies CD on low volume and the room is dim.  Half the kids are asleep, half are restless....rolling around, kicking their legs into the air, looking at board books.

One little girl likes to get her mat as close to my rocking chair as possible without me rocking on her tiny fingers.  She's touching my shoe right now.  It tickles a little.

I whisper to her to put her own shoe back on...somehow it always finds its way onto the floor during this time.  She struggles with the zipper on the side and then looks up at me with pleading eyes.  I nod at her and she yanks it up.

Another little girl is across the room, quiet as can be, pulling her spare clothes out of a ziploc bag and trying to dress herself...over her normal clothes.  I catch her eye and she slowly puts them back in the bag, a little smile creeping onto her face.

Rest time is both calming and hilarious to me.

birthday craziness

We've had a lot of birthdays at school lately.  I think I had 6 kids with a birthday in November.  Crazy.  So since we've been celebrating at least one birthday a week, somehow now all the rest of the kids are convinced that their birthday is coming any day now too!  It's really fun.  Also, preschoolers have no concept of time, so our conversations go something like this:

kid - "Mrs. Kenney, is today my birthday?'
me - "No, so-and-so your birthday is not until March so you have to wait a little while longer."
kid - "So, is my birthday tomorrow?"
me - "No, not tomorrow either.  March is a long time from now.  You have to wait for many, many days."
kid - "So, is my birthday the next day?"
me - {sigh}

They've also gotten really into telling everyone in the class that they are going to invite him/her to their birthday party.  Even if their birthday is in June.  And if they get mad at a friend, the first thing they say is, "You can't come to my birthday party."

One of my favorite things about teaching preschool is what the kids say to me as soon as they walk in the door.  Most of them are already talking to me when they are still down at the end of the hall.  Talking about something that happened at home, talking about what clothes they are wearing, talking about something that happened 2 weeks ago that they are just now remembering...pretty much anything that comes into their little brains.  So the other day one of my little girls comes down the hallway talking about....you guessed it....her birthday party!  She's going on and on about who she is going to invite, what kind of cake, etc.  Then she hands me this:

So I say what I always say.  Something like, "Oh, how pretty!  Can you tell me about it?"

Her response:  "It's an invitation to my birthday party!  It says, Dear Mrs. Kenney, I love you so much.  I am having a birthday party on 15  20 (what??).   I want you to come to my birthday party.  Also, don't forget to bring me a present.  That's important." 

"Oh wow. Your card says all that?"

The best part?  Her birthday isn't until April.

Twins!

One day my student and I wore matching shirts.  I was way more excited about it than he was. Bahaha!

Big news!

Sorry for the delay in our big news!  And sorry also that our big news is not that big news.  It's job news!

I got a teaching job!  Yay!  I'll be teaching Pre-K at North Shore Christian School in the nearby town of Lynn.  I've been talking with this private school since about March and we thought that I'd be teaching 1st grade.  But due to low enrollment the 1st grade job became unavailable, so they offered me the Pre-K job.  This classroom is known as a "satellite" and is completely separated from the main school.  The classroom is located in a church and the space is shared with the Sunday School at the church.  To be honest, when I first saw the room I almost turned around and walked away from the job.  It was dirty and messy and I had a hard time seeing the potential, not to mention that I was wary about being separated from the main school.  When I got home Curt talked some sense into me and reminded me that this preschool is really a ministry to the city of Lynn.  These children are getting an opportunity to go to preschool that they may not have had otherwise.  That sold me....and it's amazing what a little organizing and elbow grease will do to a classroom.  I was even more encouraged when a mom decided to keep her child at my site instead of transferring her to the main campus after she saw the change in the classroom.

Around the same time I accepted the teaching job, my church approached me about working part-time in their Children's Ministry.  Our church recently started up a new site slightly west of downtown Boston, in the neighborhood of Chestnut Hill.  They were in need of someone to head up their children's ministry at the new site.  The job sounded like such a great fit, and after some prayer and thinking, I accepted that job also.  So now I have two jobs!

In retrospect, it was probably not the wisest idea to start two new jobs at pretty much the exact same time....but I'm so happy with both jobs.  It will definitely be a lot of work, but I'm just so excited to be doing something that I actually want to do.  It's already been a bit overwhelming, but I'm thankful that I have an amazing aid and am just taking it one day at a time. 

Here are some before and after pictures of my classroom...

Before:  view from door

After

 

 Before: view from back of the classroom

 

After view 1

 

After view 2

Before:  nap time room

After

 Aaahhh organized supplies....nothing better!

Come by and visit us sometime!