Communication

In my 31 years of life I have learned that good communication is the key to success.

Knowing is different than doing, as can be evidenced in this story.

As you probably know, this week was teacher appreciation week. The teachers kindly sent out suggestions of what you could do for them each day of the week. Now, I come from a family of teachers, I have a teaching degree, and I am very grateful for the teachers in my children's lives, so I had great intentions of sending something to school each day for the teachers. The first day was a drawing of the teacher doing something the student enjoyed. We had it ready the night before. The rest of the week. . . well, we fell a little behind. Each day the kids would come home saying, "We need to bring this. . . everyone is doing this. . . can we buy?"

So yesterday after school I had the kids write letters (Madi wrote a poem) to their teacher, and then as I was running out the door to the Round Table I asked Joe if he would stop at the store after picking up Logan from Scouts and grab 2 bottles of root bear, some Reese's Peanut Cups, and some strawberries for the teachers.

When I got home I saw this (sorry, no pic): two boxes of thin mints, a 2-liter bottle or A&W, a 2-liter of Sprite, gummy bears, and X-Tremely HOT Pringles. I asked for the story and Joe said, "This is what the kids picked out for their teachers." I made big eyes and said, "Oh! I thought you were going to buy the things on the list they sent." "What list?" "You know, the ones with the strawberries and Reese's?" "Oh, I just thought you wanted them to pick something out for their teachers. I kept asking Logan if he was sure that is what he wanted to send to his teacher, but he insisted (Logan had gotten the chips and gummy bears for the teacher who said she didn't like junk food)." It was totally my lack of communication, and it was already late on a Thursday night, so we went with it.

I intended to recycle a gift bag for the teachers' gifts, but I didn't have anything non-Christmas or babyish for the huge (and heavy) 2 liter of root beer, so Madison took it to school in a Walmart bag. We're cool like that.

When I picked the kids up from school I asked how their gift-giving went. Madison said her teacher didn't give her a hug because her gift wasn't good enough. Logan smiled big and said his teacher wrote him a nice note, longer than anyone else's, and it said, "Your gift is the most surprising gift I have gotten."

I laughed so hard.

Somehow my house has become the after-school neighborhood house. I'm glad. I'd much rather know what they were doing and who was watching them than let them run around the neighborhood.

Madison's soccer get-up. Glad but sad that soccer is over, and are planning on more come fall.

Logan's soccer get-up. Couldn't find his team socks, so he borrowed some of Dad's thin dress socks and put them over some regular soccer socks. Ironically, found the real soccer socks in Dad's dresser drawer the next day. Oops!

31! We went to the temple in the a.m., but forgot to take pictures until after I had changed. We stuck the camera on a book shelf and tried to get a timed-shot. This is the best we could do, unless you want to see the kissy picture. ;)