The Importance of Thank You!

Ohh how things have changed in our house! I am now in my third year of teaching and we welcomed our beautiful daughter Maci Ann in April 2013 ! All I can say is God Is GOOD! As much as I would love to blog about Maci Ann today (because our world pretty much revolves around her!). Today I was reminded of the importance of thank you! As I sat in a meeting with a parent today talking about my concerns with her child I found myself waiting for her to make excuses or tell me what I wasn't doing right or tell me I wasn't doing enough to help him because as an educator that has become my new normal. As I finished the conversation and waited for her to blast me (because that is pretty much what has always happened) She looked at me and said thank you so much for talking with me and telling me these things and thank you for everything you are doing for him! Can you say WOW! In my last two years of teaching all I have heard is you should be doing more or I wasn't doing it right and how everything was never good enough. In this day and age everybody always wants more and your best is never good enough ESPECIALLY in education!  Needless to say after I finished my second year of teaching I was getting ready to find a new career because this wasn't for me (I wanted my new career to be a stay at home mom but my husband wasn't having it :)! I say all of this because since I have started my new job I have began to LOVE teaching again all because of the words Thank You! I have been reminded that as educators we have important jobs and not everybody takes us for granted! We get tired and worn down and have more responsibilities than just your children most of the time! We put more time into your children then we do our own everyday during the week and that in itself makes me sad, and its really great parents and administration that keep us going and makes us want to be the best teachers we can be! When you let us know how good of a job we are doing you make us want to be great teachers! Let me assure you if your child's teacher is a great teacher it's not because he or she has to be. There are plenty of terrible teachers who will have their jobs until the day they retire thanks to the flaws in tenure! So I would like to encourage you if you have children with wonderful teachers thank them! They truly love your children and work their butts off because they want to see them reach their fullest potential and will do whatever it takes for them to do that! Good teachers do not have it out for your children and a thank you  from parents reminds them that they are not taken for granted and encourages them to keep on keeping on another day! I am very thankful for all the great teachers I know and even better get to call my friends!! On a side note I will add a picture of our sweet Maci Ann since it has been so long since I blogged!

"Houston We Have a Problem"

"We Walk By Faith, Not By Sight"

2 Corinthians 5:7 

First comes love...check....then comes marriage....check! Now its time for the baby part right?? I wish! Yes i know not a lot of people desire to get married and then have a child right away but we did! Don't get me wrong there is nothing i enjoy more than spending time with my husband going and doing and just enjoying each other.....but for as long as i can remember my desire has been to be a mother! (Maybe it was because my mother was so awesome, I don't know :) Most couples hardest part of their first year of marriage I would think is bills or money or not agreeing on chores or even learning how to live as a house of two and realizing your decisions no longer just affect you...but ours has been entirely different! Ours has been the challenge of infertility. Yes i said it out loud....INFERTILITY! It is not something people talk about yet it is all around us and affects more people than you think and we are one of those couples.  My heart breaks for the people I know going through the same thing, The ones who endure this kind of heartbreak again and again and again! This was my reason for starting to blog. I want to remember it all and one day my child can look back and know there is not a day that goes by that I wanted to have that child more than anything in this world. Years before we got married I was diagnosed with POCS. My doctor told me that when the time came having children would be a struggle for me...by the time the time came my ovaries had almost completely stopped working. On January 25 I was diagnosed with anovulation due to my POCS.....that was one of the worst days of my life, but i have a wonderful doctor who assured me everything was going to be ok and hopefully he could fix the problem..That was the beginning of our fertility drug journey that lasted three months and had very little effect on my body. In May he looked at me and said there is nothing else I can give you, I am referring you to a specialist.......that was a devastating day as well! So now we have started our newest journey...the ART clinic in Birmingham...it has been an emotional  roller coaster ride! So far everything we have done with them has been unsuccessful and nothing has gone as planned. Right now due to some complications we are taking a break. Now with all that being said as sad as it makes us at times it has taught us the real meaning of joy!(It seems to be hard to come by sometimes and so we start finding joy in the little things...ex. i love to listen to jordan talk in his sleep and tell me how much he loves me ;)) We just got back from a much needed beach vacation and it was wonderful! We never  want to let the pain of not being able to have a baby right now take over the joy of all of the great things in our life! This is the moment in our marriage I learned that my husband was made just for me. He has been my rock in all of this! He is my cheerleader and my shouder to cry on...he is there to hold my hand even when he is trying to fight the urge to pass out..and I could not do this without him. But most importantly of all we have learned to Walk By Faith, Not By Sight"  in everything we do!

2 Corinthians 5:7

The catch up version

Welcome to the world of the Smith's! We got married on November 19, 2011! This year brought a whole lot of firsts!! Not only is this our first year of marriage but it was also my first year as a speical education teacher!! These two things have one thing in common, neither of them was the perfect picture I had in my head! I learned real quick Cinderella ruined me and college was a waste of my time ha! No but really it has been an interesting year so far! When it comes to being a first year teacher I learned just about everything I learned in college was thrown out the window when I got my own classroom. All the perfect lessons and made up games and centers were a fantasy when it came to the real world! To this day I have never taught a perfect lesson (Great ones yes! But a perfect one no!) I teach special education which brings on a whole new set of challenges! My students kept me on my toes and never gave me a dull day but I loved each one of them and wouldn't have it any other way! Some of my funniest moments are giving a spelling test as an imaginary friend and listening to a child say he pooped his pants except (there was no poop it was imaginary poop). In marriage some of my best first year memories so far were me catching the microwave on fire, my husband eating the top layer of our wedding cake because he did not know he wasn't supposed too( I had no idea he had been eating it until about a month ago), having our first Christmas as a married couple together, and our awesome honeymoon in Aspen. While 2011 was such a great year for both of us getting engaged, me graduating college, and us getting married, 2012 has most definitely came with its challenges and tested our faith. We faced problems this year we never expected and still have a long way to go! Through it all we have learned how to be each others best friend, how to keep going when giving up would be so much easier, and even in the very short time we have been married the importance of in good times and bad. Not everyday is perfect and neither are we but at the end of the day even if we can't stand to look at each other we love each other with all we have! I can't wait to see what else is in store for us :)