My Kiddies Come To School

Valentine's Day

New Years Eve Bowling

I put together a fun new years eve night.  We all spent the night bowling in American fork. The kids loved it. And by kids I mean the adults.  Ha.

We got tons of Chinese take out and waited for midnight to roll in.

Love family!

The Annual Late Christmas Post

Christmas was great and insane all at the same time. 

Jake and I were completely frazzled from Groupon and the 16 hour days we were trying to get through. Bryant got married and my parents were here and we were making thousands of cake pop s a week. 

I was so sad to see the Christmas season passing by without really being able to embrace it.
My mom got us the little elf on a shelf and the elf maybe made it to two spots.

It took serious strategic planning to get presents bought and wrapped!

But Christmas day and Christmas eve were great.  I love seeing zoey and Logan so excited to have Santa come.  They really make holidays so special. 

They got spoiled with presents from grandmas and grandpas and aunt julie. They were so lucky to have so many people who love them. 

We are so lucky to have the freedom to teach our little ones about Jesus Christ and his birth. It warms my heart to hear zoey express her love and understanding for Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. 

I hope next season I personally will have more time to really focus on Christmas and the special time of year it is.

Valentine's day

It was a good Valentine's day this year.  We made no plans at all.  We got the kids some dollar store presents,  I packed Jake a special lunch and Jake brought home flowers for me and zoey. She was so excited about it. 
We had maddi come over and watch the kids and we went to dinner with the 'big kids'... all Jake's uncles and aunts. 

I love my family and Jake's family. 

Sick Zoey

Love this shot of Zoey. She threw up last night and had a fever throughout the day and just wanted to cuddle a lot! She got her kitty and got binkie and was so happy to get to nap with mommy in her bed. I am so glad it was a Sunday and I was home and just got to be with her. She was feeling better tonight.

Love this little girl. I love that she is willing to cuddle and just be loved whether it be her mommy, or her kitty!

Smarties & Virginity

Today I had one of the best teaching days of my careers. I started teaching Teen Living for the first time this year. I really love all of the subjects within the course such as goals for the future, self esteem, conflict resolution, family, friendship, dating, marriage, teen pregnancy etc... This week I was DREADING having to teach about Sexual Intimacy and STD's and abstinence. There are so many laws about teaching these subjects. Permission slips must be signed just to allow the kids to be present in the class. Utah follows Abstinence Only, which means as a teacher we can't even talk about the option of sex before marriage. (yet we talk about STDS and teen pregnancy) so the whole thing is very confusing in my head!
Anyway. I picked up some candy at the store and it happened to be smarties. I was going to give the students the smarties in the beginning of class and tell them not to eat it until the end of class where I would give them something better. The smarties equal virginity and the better candy would have equaled waiting until marriage.
Well I got the idea to have them wait until Friday to return the smartie, making them safe guard their smarties all week. I was surprised how much the students were excited about returning their smarties.
I was up until 1am last night making two huge rainbow cakes. I thought about buying them but I wanted to know how special it was and wanted to put the time into making  it for them. I wrote "Worth The Wait" on the top. They looked great!
The students mostly ALL brought their smarties. We shared how they kept their smarties safe and how some of them lost them. We talked about abstinence and marriage and then we all had cake and ice cream. The students who didn't have their smarties had to have the "other" cake. The cake that was messed up and crumbled and "while it was STILL cake, It's just wasn't as special".

Some of the students said they would continue to save the smarties I gave them and hoped to be able to give them to their future spouse. I told them they better invite me to the wedding!!!!

It was a great day. I feel really happy being here at Joel P Jensen. Some days are really tough, but I know what I am doing is making a difference. I have purpose being here. I never felt this fulfilled teaching at the high school. Middle schoolers are still teachable and vulnerable and sometimes crazy annoying.