Graduation

I have to start this post by telling everyone how proud I am of my husband. The thought of going back to school scares me, and he did it with very little complaint and really good grades! Yup, my husband is a big graduate. He is now officially a corrections officer. 10 weeks of hard work (mentally and physically) paid off! We started off the day with a spouse class. This is what I saw when I walked in. It was an hour of statistics of the probability of law enforcement officers to abuse substances, be abusive, have depression, commit adultery, and commit suicide. They want the families to be aware of any warning signs so that these things can be helped or avoided. Then they had the ceremony. Our County Sheriff (Ryan's boss) spoke, and one of his classmates also spoke. They were supposed to be sworn in, but the guy leading it must have decided that they shouldn't have to repeat the whole thing. Kind of weird! Oh well! The bottom line is, he is a Graduate! Good job Ryan, we love you and are so proud!

AAARRGGGGHHH!!!!!

I am so far behind on this thing, I am not quite sure where to start! I think that cronologically, I should start with oil painting class. There was a grant that was received in our county for some arts classes. The first one was an oil painting class. I am not artistic, but Jace has always loved "drawling" so I really thought that he would love it. Branden, Jace, Jarom (one of the neighbor kids) and I went to the class. I was hoping to paint myself, but had to take Keira with me because Ryan was still at school, so my painting skills will just have to wait dormant till I have enough time and money to discover them. So, here I am with 3 painters and a grumpy baby. I was trying to help relay the instructions (the teacher went much too fast for the little ones), mix paints for all of them, and explain how to use the brushes. By the time we had finished one step, the teacher was 4 steps ahead of us! It was pretty overwhelming! Jace started to notice that we were behind and that his picture didn't look like anyone else's. Not so good for him! He started saying that he was no good at painting, and that his picture didn't look anything like it was supposed to look. I was trying really hard to encourage him, and keep up with the teacher. I told him that every painter will do things different, and that his wasn't supposed to look exactly like everyone elses. At this point, the teacher starts walking around the room to "help" people. She looks at Jace's painting and tells him that he's doing it wrong, and that the gray color we were using was supposed to go around the sun, not on it. That was the end of Jace's artistic career. He won't even sketch anymore. I am so upset! He used to draw me pictures all of the time, now... nothing. He tells me that he is no good at art. I have continued to encourage him to try again, but he wouldn't even go to the art basics class with me a few weeks later. Here are the boys' paintings. I am really proud of them! The first one is Jace's. At this point, he had grandma come and pick him up.

Branden's finished picture. I think he did awsome!