Jared and Cait Update

This is already news that is three months old, but I mentioned previously that Jared purchased a new car so I finally got a picture of him next to his Hyundai Sonata.  He is very thrilled with it and the keyless ignition, heated seats, bluetooth, etc.  It took him a couple weeks to let me drive it, but after I got a driving lesson from him he finally conceded ;)

Now that Jared has been feeling better and we have a little project money from re-financing our home we have been busy picking up where we left off last year.  Jared finished replacing all of our doors to white paneled doors just in time for all of his family to visit.  Last weekend we used our date night to go pick up another load of craigslist rocks (after Jared and Lilly had already gotten a load earlier in the day) and we filled in the rest of the weed-bed out front with some river rock.  It looks great!  It is dark right now but I will have to get a picture of the finished product now that we re-arranged all the plants and filled it in with the rock.   Here is a picture of the second load of rocks that we were unloading, at least.  We definitely both got our workouts and went to bed exhausted after unloading two trailers full of those babies.

Unloading all the river rock into our front landscaping

This weekend Jared and Greg installed a tile floor in the sun room which I am very excited about.  When we moved in the floor in there was a nasty thin carpet that had been, as far as we could tell by the stench of it, used as a place to keep wet animals.  We tore that out before we even moved into the house and it has been for the past three years an unfinished concrete floor (not like the new sleek ones).  I think the tile will look awesome!!  Thank goodness for these handy guys!

Greg and Jared installing the tile in the sunroom

Side view of sunroom project.

Jared and I still team-teach the CTR 4 class at church (meaning the 4 and 5 year olds) which happens to be Jonas's Primary class for the last 2 hours of church.  This is them recently dressing up to act out a scripture story.  It is so great to co-teach with Jared.  He is reliable, responsible and a great teacher!  It makes me glad to be on his team.  We do have 2 girls in our class, but they must have been absent this week along with a couple of the boys!  For Mother's day we helped them decorate some cards and give their moms these cupcakes.  I also made some for teacher appreciation week for the kids' teachers, and for visiting teaching.  I was able to try out a new swiss meringue buttercream frosting recipe from a friend and had a lot of fun making them.  They were white cake with strawberry frosting and were yummy!

Our CTR 4 class dressed up for scripture story re-enactment

Cupcakes for mother's day and teacher appreciation

 As I mentioned, it was teacher appreciation week which I helped to coordinate in both the girl's school classes.  Thanks to pinterest, we came up with some cute, usable ideas and both the teachers seemed really pleased and appreciative.  One day in Jocelyn's class we had each of the kids walk in with a single stemmed rose to give to the teacher and the teacher's aide so they both ended up with a bouquet by the end, another day they all dressed in her favorite color, another day we helped them write out thank you notes to her and give her a decorated chalkboard banner Jared had cut out at my request.  Here are some of the cute things we gave to their teachers, and we also duplicated some for piano teachers, church teachers, art teachers, etc.  Boy, am I grateful for these wonderful teachers in our lives!

Teacher Appreciation Gifts

After we were done with the lice fiasco, my dear friend gave me a gift certificate for a hair cut to a local salon to treat myself.  She had won it at a school fundraiser auction and was so generous to share with me.  I donated the required amount for "locks for love" and am really enjoying the change.  It took me years of patience to grow it out and I do miss having it longer to wear with hats, but it does feel more like home to me to have it short. 

We found out this last week that my Dad obtained a job in San Jose with another one of his cronies for 3 days a week so we will be his second home for the next 22 months or so.  He will stay with us (and hopefully bring my mom sometimes for a couple nights a week).  I am sure we won't see him a ton because he will be working long hours on the days he is in town but we are excited that they will have more excuses to come visit us and we can repay them a little for the generosity in letting us live with them while Jared was in Law School.

Last month (right before the lice fiasco) I hosted my annual turn for book club.  I chose "The Light Between Oceans" by M.L. Stedman (upon recommendation from my SIL Tausha) and there was a ton of discussion and participation.  It helped that I got the book club kit from our local library and made sure everyone had a copy but the food, etc. all turned out great.  I again failed to get a picture of an event I was hosting :( but I was pleased with how it all turned out.  So far this year I have been able to read quite a bit!! I always love that but I have finished probably a dozen books or so thanks to the audio app from my library and the fact that I don't have to get up at night with a nursing baby so I can stay up a little later reading to my heart's content.