update from Mrs. Schepens

As per Susans's last request (my goodness, sounds like you're dying!) a little update from Carrie land. Last few months have been busy with running the preschool and teaching full time. But super rewarding too. The business side of things have been very successful and I've filled the program to where I want it to. Teaching is awesome as I just love being with the kids! I really should clarify, in Montessori we call ourselves guides as we don't teach the children, we guide them to the materials that will teach them. I feel so much responsibility for these little ones and that can get a little stressful but it's so wonderful when you reach the end of the school year and take the time to reflect on how much they've grown, how responsible they are, and just how much they love to learn! It wasn't an easy year as I went through 3 assistants (they all leave on good terms, just for family reasons) and it was difficult training someone new all the time, having the children get use to them too, and not having someone to share in the daily joys/struggles of where the chlidren had been for the whole school year. The stressful part of running the school was mostly trying to balance my time between being in the classroom and doing all the administrative in the evenings. So this coming school year things are going to be little different. I'll be the guide in the morning class and have an assistant with the same training as me. So in the afternoon, she'll be able to guide it and I've hired a second lady to be her assistant. That leaves me free in the afternoon to do administrative, which I think I'll really need as there will be 32 children at my school. Phew! That's a lot of families!

I'll also have time to move into my new house! Shane and I bought a brand new house (hasn't been finished being built yet) and we'll move into it at the end of October. So right now we're just trying to sell our townhouse. Here's the link to the floor plan as I don't have photos yet. http://www.hazelwoodestate.ca/floorplans/lot20.pdf We've done some modifications to the basement which they'll finish for us and we'll rent it out. We'll need some help with this mortgage! I'm very excited about my new house as we just fell in love with the showhome and it really is a dream house for us.

So now, instead of having my typical wonderful relaxing summer traveling and visiting my nieces and nephew, I'm back at school. This time it's Montessori from conception to age 3. Still not sure what I'll end up doing with this training but definitely be able to work with new parents, helping them to understand the development of their baby and what we as adults/parents can do to help them develop to their full potential. It's quite different as they don't use a lot of typical baby stuff but provide very simple things instead. It's also a very intense course and I'm barely sleeping and stressed so much with all the work I have to do, hence why I'm only making the time to do this now because of Susan's encouragement.

And one last thing, most of you probably know from my excited facebook post, but my sister had her baby on June 25 (two weeks early) and named her Elizabeth. Here's a picture of her with her big brother James (who'll be two in September). And just 'cause I'm a proud auntie, here's a photo of my nieces in Calgary. They're both going to be big sisters pretty soon as my sister-in-law is due the first week August, with another girl! And no, Shane and I aren't trying to get pregnant. We've decided to wait a little for that. Although I was warned in my course to be VERY careful as there is a lot of baby energy going on!