Jenn and Greg

In the words of one of my darling preschoolers.....

“Be good so SANTA will come to your house.
He is a nice guy with a BIG white beard.”
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

My roommates are fabulous and threw me a surprise birthday party! They went all out and I had absolutely no idea! They took me to dinner while my friends Melissa, Brigham, and Dillon decorated my apartment. They wanted it to be decked out in pink since its my favorite color. Melissa was amazing and put pink tulle, streamers, balloons, and pillows all over the place....it looked beautiful! I got to wear a crown and sit on a throne. Everyone drank Diet Dr. Pepper and ate princess cake. Apparently they had been planning it for weeks and had even talked to my mom about it and I still had no idea. I was very impressed with their secret keeping skills....especially since we are always together! I love these girls so much and I am so blessed to have each of them in my life!

The amazing girls that threw my party!


I love these girls too...Leslie and Stacie--my future roommates! yay!


Look how cool my apartment looked!


Presents!


McKenzie's favorite game....This poster got more kisses than I have!!!


Whitney had fun with the decorations


Cupcakes in the morning!

Well since everyone else uses their blogs to brag about their adorable kids I thought I would start bragging on mine. I have 20 kids between the ages of 3 and 5. They are all sooooo cute! They call me Miss Jenni and I get to see them for 2 hours every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Ok so they are my preschool kids. But I still love them!

I have the opportunity to teach preschool on campus as part of my major. It is a class so I work my butt off but don't get paid. I actually pay a lot of money to do it! But it is all worth it because I love it so much! This is my second semester in the preschool and I am now what we call a "lead teacher". I teach the most lessons so that I can gain experience writing, planning, and teaching lessons. Last semester I was a "support teacher" and I pretty much just learned how to write plans, taught three of them, and learned as much as I could to prepare myself for this semester. Next semester I will be a "Supervisor", meaning I will pretty much run my preschool class. I will be in charge of talking to parents, paperwork, teacing my lead and support teachers, and all the other administrative type stuff. Luckily I also get to teach a few lessons here and there! And then I will be done with my associates degree and ready to start working on my bachelors! Anyway, that is a little bit about the program.

So far this semester I have taught 5 lessons--3 on apples, 1 on pumpkins, and 1 that is called a Story Stretcher. That is when your whole lesson revolves around one book. I did mine on one of my very favorite children's books. "The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear". If you haven't already, read it to your kids, its so cute! Anyway I have planned out activities and lessons for all of those topics. We even took a field trip to an apple orchard on campus. The kids got to pick apples from the trees and then we made mini apple pies. That is what the picture is from.

I really, really love what I am doing and I love these kids! I could probably talk about them all day! My roommates set a time limit and I have to tell them all of my stories and then I can't talk about it. Sometimes I forget and I'll say something like "One of my kids said somethig so cute today!" and then go off. It is especially weird when there are people around who don't know me. When they ask I just say I have 20 3-5 year olds! haha One of the little boys I have this semester I also had last semester. So he remembers me and we have gotten to be buddies. He tells me he loves me and that I am his favorite and I just melt! He is the cutest little thing, I just want to take him home!

We also get to work with children with special needs who are refered to us by the Madison County School District. I have gotten the opportunity to work with kids who have autism, physical disabilities, and speech issues. It has been a really great experience to learn how to work with these kids. I have learned what their individual needs are, how to stimulate language, and so much other stuff. It is amazing how natural it comes after awhile!

Our preschool is also the referal school for children who are learning English as a second language. We have a few kids in my class whose parents don't speak Engish. Most of the children are fluent and can communicate easily but we have one who doesn't know any Engish and one who understands everything but either can't or doesn't want to speak English. I became really interested in this little boy. It was so frusterating to see him play on the outside, I just wanted him to be included. He never talked to anyone, he would just stay quiet or shake and nod his head if he had to, but nothing else. I decided that I was going to try to get something out of him. The first 2 weeks I just felt like I was bugging him but I kept trying to get him to interact with me. FINIALLY I somehow got through to him and he started playing with me. There was still no talking but he was playing and I was thrilled! Then one day I discovered the he really likes to be read to. So for the next few days during free play all we did was read books. I got him talking by having him say the words in the book with me. We read "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" and I had him say mouse, cookie, milk, and all kinds of other words. That is when I started to realize that maybe he just didn't have the ability to speak English words, he could just understand it. Anyway I have been working really hard with him the last month and a half and he has made so much progress. He isn't very talkative but he can ask for what he wants or needs, show things to his teachers, and point out things in books. He was a little dependant on me at first but I had the other teachers help out and now he knows that they can help him as well. He has become a completely different kid, he has the sweetest personality and is such a great kid. He still loves to be read to and one of my favorite things is when he grabs my hand to take me to the book area, picks a book, and then rests his head on my arm while we read. About a week and a half ago he said my name for the first time and I about cried! Now he says it all the time! :) It has been such a great experience to see him grow and learn and come out of his shell. I really love knowing that I can make a difference in his life. I just love these kids!!!

See I told you I could go on and on about them!
This is my class at the apple orchard a few weeks ago!

Grama Joan and Papa Doc got me tickets to conference this year so my roommates and I all came down to Salt Lake for the weekend. Even though they weren't there my grandparents let us stay in there house and we had a lot of fun! The only roommate that didn't come was Adri, and she was there with her family. Whitney's boyfriend and our good friend Josh came up from California too so it was really fun to see him! We had really great time, I was so glad I could go to conference since I haven't been in a long time. We had awesome seats too so that made it even better! Here are some pictures of our weekend. It rained all day on Saturday, hence the umbrellas.

So far this semester is off to a great start! I stay insanely busy with teaching preschool and my other classes but I still have time to have fun. One thing I love about this place is my ward. My bishopric is AMAZING and I have tons of friends at church. For our opening social this semester we had a western theme dinner. The cowgirl in me loved it! It was a lot of fun and I was happy to have another place to wear my new cowboy hat! This picture is me and my roommates and my FHE sister Whitney who is my roommate's sister that goes to Paul Mitchel. We had a lot of fun at the party!


My roommates and I celebrated finishing the first week of school by going to dinner at Gringo's, the mexican place in Rexburg. I am so lucky that we get along so well. I love them all so much! In this picture there is Kaylen--I met her last fall living in the dorms and we have lived together ever since. Then me. Then McKenzie...the newest edition. She is from Fresno, CA and just moved in this semester. She is a lot of fun. Next is Megan, she is from Twin Falls and moved in with me last summer. I love her! Then it's Whitney who I met last Winter but she moved in over the summer. She is also from California. And last is Adri. She was in my ward last Winter and moved in this semester. I love these girls, we have so much fun!!


Whitney and I at our first party of the semester. The Apex party at the sand dunes. People at bugs for money. Don't worry, we had nothing to do with that!!


This is Leslie, me, and Stacie at the same party. I love these girls so much!


Last week my friends tried to set me up on a date. Only problem was that I already knew they guy and you can't go on a blind date where you know each other! We ended up "hanging out" in pairs so it was weird. Long story short I wasn't really interested in him and I am not really sure why they thought I would be but whatever. We had fun bowling. Meg and I are terrible bowlers but I was beating her the whole time except the last frame when she got a strike!! So I lost, something embarassing like 40 to 35. haha Anyway this is Me, my friend Melissa, and Megan.

Summer was by far my favorite semester. I got to teach in the preschool on campus for class as part of my major. It was sooooo much work but absolutly, 100% worth it. I learned so much and had a really great experience. However I am glad I didn't take any other classes because I had a hard enough time getting things done! I had an amazing summer. We went camping, fishing, boating, tubing, swimming, hiking, and even had a Cinco De Mayo party! I had wonderful roommates and a really great Family Home Evening group and ward. I LOVE it here!!!

This was supposed to be a hike. It ended up being a casual stroll because my friend Josh didn't read that the "Nature Park" was not a mountain or anything like it...just a big loop. We did see a moose though!



This is at our Cinco De Mayo party! We went all out....virgin drinks, Mexican food and music, even a pinata! This is what is left of it....these are my roommates Megan and Whitney and my FHE Brother (Whit's boyfriend) Josh.



I came home from a blind date and everyone was at the boys apartment in the pool. I didn't have my swimming suit yet so I just jumped in the pool with my clothes on!! It was a lot of fun, I was glad I didn't miss out. These girls are...Whitney (not my roommate...she goes to Paul Mitchell beauty school but is in my ward), my roommate Kaylen, me, my roommate Megan, and her friend, and Whitney's sister, Adri.

I feel sort of weird jumping into things so this is a recap of my first 2 semesters at school. Basically I lived in the dorms, got sick of the dorms, moved to a fabulous apartment (where I still am), took a lot of GE classes, had a lot of fun, kissed a boy, made lots of friends, and figured out what I want to do with my life.

These are 2 of my very favorite people and my first Rexburg friends....Leslie and Stacie. At our one and only time at Taco Time...ew



This is the wonderful, beautiful, amazing Rexburg temple! It has been under construction the entire time I have been here so it has been really neat to see it build up and everything. Last November they put angel Moroni on the top and a lot of teachers (including my math teacher) canceled their classes so that we could go watch. It was freezing cold and raining but we still went! This is my roommate Kaylen and I accross the street from the temple.



And these are pictures of Winter 2007...

My friend Kellie is wonderful and got me a ticket to the Rascal Flatts concert in Salt Lake. I drove down all by myself but it was sooo worth it!! She made t shirts for us...mine says "God blessed the broken road that led me straight to UTAH!" instead of "straight to you" like their song says.



This is when my mommy came to visit me for Mother's Weekend at BYU Idaho. It was a lot of fun....though a little weird that she came to visit me at my apartment!



Yes, this is me with a gun. I am a terrible shot but I loved holding it. The Idaho is getting to me....

On Wednesday my Church History teacher challenged us all to start/keep a journal. I don't know why but that has always been incredibly hard for me--I have tried to type it and I have tried to write it but I just can't be consistent. I decided that a blog is a much more fun way to journal. And since this is for a grade it should be fairly consistent...I hope! I know I sort of laughed at my mom when she started a "family blog" but I have realized that a LOT of my friends and family use blogs as a way to keep in touch. When I saw Stacie's it was so darn cute I decided that I needed one too, especially since I can't comment on hers unless I have one! So here it is....Stace this post is for you, since no one else in the world knows about my blog yet...love ya!!!