Category Archive

It was a small class called Cottontails. It was about rabbits. James only had an hour of scouts instead of his usual 2 hours, so he was able to attend it as well. I took Noelle along too, even though she was a little young. She sat on my lap and just listened.

The teacher was a woman who used to work at another nature preserve, specifically with the rabbits. She told some interesting stories about rescuing nests of bunnies from school yards and playgrounds. Did you know that a bunny is able to be on his/her own by 3 weeks? I thought it was around 2 months, but I was wrong. That is fast. After telling the kids some facts about bunnies, she read a story and then the kids made pictures. I helped Noelle and one of the ranger ladies helped AnnaBeth a little though she was impressed by how much AnnaBeth could do by herself. All the kids really enjoyed it. I need to check and see when the next class is.

Amie and Christine are interested in doing the summer day camps they are having. They will be one week for 2 hours in the morning. I think I will enroll them in those. James will be doing the day camp that our church is sponsoring, mostly because a lot of it will be focusing on things he needs for scouting. I would like to get Noelle and AnnaBeth into something as well, but we’ll see. Maybe the artsy day camp that the park system is offering. We’ll see.

James always likes to be able to do what Amie is doing unless it’s too girly. He came back from Grandma’s house on Sunday and found out today that Amie has her little blog, so he wanted me to make one for him as well. I already knew he would, so I had already planned to do it.

He picked out his name for it and all. Meet Little Computer Geek!

Yeah, I’m the sick one. No one to be sick with me. All my kids have recovered and are very active. I was well enough yesterday to do what I needed to do at church and then after lunch, I just started feeling kind of dizzy and yucky. I went to bed and have hardly left it since. I am drained of energy, my throat is on fire, and my head is stuffed full of anything but coherent thought. I keep sneezing and I don’t know where Jeremy hid the kleenexes with Vicks on them. I guess I’ll be okay with regular ones. I took some ibuprofen and it helped take care of my headache, but my throat doesn’t want to give up it’s fiery-ness.

In other news, the kids did very well with their special song yesterday. I love how young children are not afraid to sing out loud. I really got a kick out of one little boy who just turned 4. He couldn’t remember all the words, so he kind of slurred the first of the words and came in on the words he knew at the top of his voice. Noelle refused to sing, but she stood up there and swayed. No pushing. I know some kids will be like that and if they don’t want to get up in front of everyone, I’m not going to make them. The children’s Praise Dance team did fairly well too. My kids were kind of nervous about it because they hadn’t been able to practice on Wednesday since they were home sick, but they did good and I’m happy with it. Jeremy was happy to be at church again after missing a lot of last week and enjoyed the evening service Bible Study. I would have loved to have gone. I’m really enjoying our studies in the book of Joshua. I enjoyed reading it myself when I started my “read through the Bible” thing. (I’m through the old testament, just have new to go.) I learned a lot then, but reading it through again with others to share with really helps me to see more. It’s amazing how much more comes out with the perspective of others mixed in with my own. I really missed the time last night, but I doubt I would have enjoyed it with my head feeling like this.

That’s what I’m going to be doing for a little while… sewing. I went out and bought material for dresses for each of the girls. I found a pattern to make James a vest and a skirt pattern that I like for myself. I also found a capri and top pattern for the girls for summer. I plan on getting the material for those later. Amie found a quilt package that has ballerinas on some of the material that she liked, so she bought half of it. I am still in the process of washing the material I bought, but Amie’s came pre-washed with instructions to NOT wash before cutting and sewing, so we started on hers. We cut out all the pieces and sewed together a few strips. We’ll sew two more strips together today. I’m not sure when exactly we’ll get done, but she’s enjoying this even after getting her fingers pricked multiple times while pinning two pieces of material together. As soon as the dress material is out of the dryer, I’ll start on cutting them out. These are the first dresses I’m attempting. I hope I don’t have to pull out too many seams.

That was what Amie said when I said something about her doing her homemaking schoolwork. She made hotdogs for dinner. Jeremy cooked beanless chili and I made homemade french fries and chedderwurst. After dinner, she mixed up some brownies which are in the oven right now. She did these all herself including putting them in the oven which is something she has been fearful of. The only problem we have is that the nob on our oven is gone, so we have a bit of trouble figuring out if we have the correct temperature. I realized it was not high enough when we took a check just a minute ago, so I have adjusted it and we’ll see how it goes.

Jeremy and I have discussed that when the kids are old enough, they will have at least one day every other week in which they must plan and fix a meal. Because Amie is showing such an interest in cooking and baking, we are talking about letting her have one day a month right now to do this. She has learned how to make hotdogs, mac n cheese, tuna casserole, and is interested in learning more, so this will give her a chance.

EDIT: Yummy! They came out so delicious!

Please, melt the 8+ inches of snow still left outside here. I am tired of shoveling our sidewalk and having snow jackets, hats, mittens, scarves, and boots all over my living room drying out. My kids all have two pairs of hats and mittens, which is good because they would go out and play and then come in and take off the wet/cold stuff and then later when we needed to go somewhere, they would have a dry pair to put on. I made them use the store bought ones to play because they would get really dirty and the ones made by my mom for when we were going to church or the store or wherever. They would still throw snowballs and stuff when outside, but the mittens didn’t get all dirty and they helped keep hands warm until our van would heat up (if there was enough time for that, most stuff around here is within 5 miles of us and only takes up to 15 minutes at the most to get to.)

The kids have enjoyed the snow and aren’t wanting it to go away. They were excited last night when it was snowing again (5 inches came down in 3 hours on top of the 9 inches we already had). It is pretty when it’s coming down, but I just don’t like being stuck here at the house so much. This morning, I refused to drive Jeremy to the train station because I am not one who enjoys driving on snow. He drove himself, so I’m without the van, but we have only had one vehicle most of the time we’ve been married, so it is something I’m used to. Anyway, I had no where to go right now, unless I wanted to do the last of our grocery shopping with all five kids and that doesn’t appeal to me at the moment.

On a better note, Sunday was mostly a good day. I enjoyed some good discussion in Sunday School. I did better this time with leading the congregational singing and directing the choir special. I was more prepared this time than I had been a few weeks ago. The choir director had been sick, so I was ready in case she still was (she was feeling fine, but had no voice yet.) The pastor had a really great sermon on Luke 4:1-13 (Jesus in the desert being tempted by Satan) and Hebrews 4:15-16 which I wrote a post on a few weeks ago. Later, after a lunch at the Chinese restaurant and a rest time, we were back at church for another good feeding of Biblical teaching. We are studying Joshua on Sunday nights and a book on leadership (will have to find out the title for you.) We were in the book last night and talked about our motivation for being leaders in the church and how we handled different things that came up. We didn’t make it through the whole chapter we were on, but that was okay. The fellowship of talking about it was refreshing. It is good to get this. The down part of Sunday was the Patriots loss of the Super Bowl. *sigh* Oh well. It’s just football. I wish I could have seen the game. It sounded like a great game and since we don’t have TV, Jeremy pulled up a radio stream on the internet for me to listen to. James was trying to listen and figure out what was going on, but couldn’t follow it too much. After the game, I got on Facebook and did a bit of racing my (fluff)pet, Little Samson. He had won a bronze trophy now, so that made up for the Super Bowl disappointment.

Today, I’ve just done regular stuff, dishes, laundry, and so on. I also had to go out and shovel the walk of it’s snow with slush underneath, so the mail lady can walk up to our mailbox easily. The slush was heavy, so I guess this was my shoulder exercises for today. I can’t do my weights after that or my shoulders will be overworked. Anyway, there you are… an update to today.

It’s Noelle’s 4th birthday today. Oh wow! Time has really flown since that time when I had that itty bitty preemie baby. I only got to see her for about half an hour or so on the day she was born as they had all kinds of test and stuff they were doing to make sure she was okay. Also, I had some trouble after she was born and went into a bit of shock, so I was out of it for the first 4 hours. She was born at 6:30 pm. Once I was feeling okay to sit up, I was wheeled into see her and they were doing a test when I first came so I just sat next to her and rubbed her little hand and arm and sang to her. “The First Noel” was the first thing she heard from me after her birth. The nurse said it seemed to calm her when I was singing to her since she didn’t cry at all when they had to prick her and she screamed the other times. That has been the first song I’ve always sang to her on her birthday ever since.

This morning, she knew it was her birthday. She got up and came into my bedroom and crawled up into my lap and I cuddled her and sang “her” song. (She says the song is about her and how the angels sang when she was born and it’s about Jesus and the shepherds too.) After that, we got up and ate some hot oatmeal for breakfast (9 inches of snow fell yesterday and last night) and got ready for church. Just before leaving for church, we gave her the present we had for her for today (she’ll get another at her birthday party in January), a Faith and Friends doll, the pink one. Jeremy had to shovel the sidewalk and the van out and we headed to church.

We have some brownies in the stove and ice cream to put on top after they are done.

Today was hard. I was sick yesterday and still feeling yucky today, but the kids have been really out of whack the last few days because of being so off their routine. We got up this morning and I started them out on their daily routine: getting dressed, have breakfast, do chores, schooltime, lunch, more school (for older two) or rest time, playtime, dinner, more play, clean-up, get pjs on, bedtime. Most of it went about right except for a lot of crankiness, especially about chores since we were in and out so much last week and didn’t get the house as clean when we were here as we needed to. I ran all over the house picking up discarded drawings, pencils, crayons, and the doll socks that Charlie cat keeps dragging out. I had the dishes from yesterday to do (since I slept most of the day and Jeremy took the kids to church and watched them for me while at home) and lots of laundry from the last week (which I’ll still be doing for a few days.) I don’t usually let the dryer run at night because I can’t sleep well with it’s noise, but because of the amount of laundry, I am doing that tonight. I still need to get my bedroom organized again. Hopefully that will be done tomorrow.

I am glad to have kids that help out around the house. It is so wonderful to have that help. Amie did a pretty good job sweeping and mopping the kitchen floor and Christine cleaned the bathroom sink and floor for me. AnnaBeth and Noelle like to help pick up toys and dust mop after a big kid sweeps. They also usually help pick up the dirty clothes from their room and get the blankets/sleeping bags into their proper places (not exactly neatly, but good enough.) James usually is really good at helping out too, but today he just rebelled against it the whole day which earned him a grounding from the computer and snow play and an early bedtime.

I’m praying for a better, more even-tempered day tomorrow.

I really enjoyed spending some time with my girls today. First, Jeremy, his Dad, and I did some work here at the house. We got most of the boxes put into storage for now. Then I went to Jeremy’s parents’ house and spent the afternoon with my girls. It was great! We haven’t received the results of Noelle’s last chest x-ray, but she seems to be doing much better. She really clung to me until Jeremy got there and then she wanted him for a while. Christine is a little upset about having to stay away from us for so long, but she’s doing fine otherwise. The others either don’t understand or are okay with it. I played outside with them for a bit and then we went inside to eat. After dinner, I gave the little girls their bath and brushed their hair and made sure they had their curls still. That’s something we always play after a bath. When I brush their hair, it straightens out, so I have to scrunch it to make sure the curls are still there. After that, Jeremy and I left and had sometime with our best friends. It was an exhausting day at the beginning and a fun day at the end.

I missed my boy though. Hi James! I love you! I know Grandma will read this to you.

Christine prayed to ask for forgiveness for her sins and for Jesus to come live in her heart tonight! She’s been talking about it for well over a year and praying that God would help her learn about how to be a Christian, but didn’t understand everything until this week. It just seemed to click with her when Jeremy and I were talking with her over dinner a few days ago and we could see that it wouldn’t be long.

That’s three out of my five!

This weekend was mostly full of getting girls ready for dance or watching dance, but I did get a lot of cleaning and packing done.

On Saturday, we went to the 2:00 pm showing of the dance recital that AnnaBeth and Noelle were in. They were cute. AnnaBeth did better this year than last year, but she still didn’t do a whole lot. Her costume included a pair of gloves and she held her hands up near her face the whole time because if she put her hands down they fell off. That took a lot of her concentration, I think, so it distracted her from dancing. Noelle did the first part of her dance, but became ornery and didn’t do the rest. That’s okay. I know she enjoyed her class a lot and it helped with her large motor skills.

On Sunday, we went to the same showing of Amie’s dance recital. She did a very good job. I felt my eyes tearing up a bit thinking of my little girl who is growing up so fast up there on that stage. She looked more grown up in the costume this year and the light blue went very prettily with her brown hair, always tan skin, and chocolate eyes. I couldn’t believe how beautiful she has become. When I went to pick her up, she was downstairs with the ballet mistress saying her goodbyes and getting slightly upset. Poor girl. She has really come to love Mrs. D over the last three years.

The Sunday performance one was a tearful one for many people. It was the last one of all four performances. One of the Seniors has been there since the dance program opened and she had a solo performance. She was crying at the end of it. Also, the director of the dance and drama program is leaving. She’s been there for ten years and worked with so many of the children. She was Noelle’s teacher this year.

Anyway, it was a good program and we’ll miss the way this small town makes a big deal over the dance recitals. It really makes the kids feel special to have so many people come to watch them. Enough to have to split up the classes into four performances. Half of the classes, usually the high school age, dance in all four. The other half is put into two groups and each dance in two performances each. So many people at our church came up to congratulate my girls on how well they did.

I took two cell phone pictures of the girls and put them up on Flickr. I took some more with my film camera, but you know how long it takes me to use a whole roll of film and get it developed, so I decided to let you see the low quality shots now.

that most days, the kids wake up around 7:30 or so, but when you want or need them to wake up around that time, they sleep in? *Yawn* I woke up a little earlier than when I expected the kids up this morning and they didn’t wake when they usually do. I have to take AnnaBeth and Noelle to the dentist at 9:30 am and it’s a 45 min drive, so I need to leave by 8:30 am to get down there and be there a few minutes early to fill out paperwork on them. It’s now 8:00 am and I had to wake them up. This will be Noelle’s first visit.

edit: No cavities for either one. Noelle is shy when first meeting someone and almost didn’t go back until they told her that she could watch cartoons while they looked at her teeth. They said that she wouldn’t let them into her mouth, so they only saw the front ones and they look okay.

The friend who brought me flowers has a new little shih tzu puppy. She brought him over for a small amount of time to show us and let the kids play with him. (We had the cats in their cage during that time, just in case.) They enjoyed playing with him. That next Monday was when Jeremy and I went to Chicago and the kids stayed Sunday night with Jeremy’s parents. When we came to pick them up, his mom said that Noelle had taken a small pillow and named it Muffy. She was pretending it was her puppy. Apparently, she played with it almost all day. I didn’t hear much about Muffy for a few days. Near the end of last week, it was in the 70s and sunny, so my friend and I took the kids and her puppy to the park. The kids each took a turn at walking the puppy around. The next day, Noelle was talking about how much she missed Muffy since her doggy was at Grandma’s house. Then this morning, she decided she had a puppy here too. She has named him Spikey. She was telling Spikey all about her other puppy at Grandma’s house and how much he would enjoy playing with her. I found it quite amusing. So, now she has two puppies, one here and one at Grandma’s house.

Christine finally lost her first tooth this morning. It’s been loose for a very long time. She woke Jeremy and I up by announcing how loose it was this morning, so much looser than before. When I was getting dishes washed, she came over to show me and I told her that I bet it could easily be pulled out. She was kind of nervous at first, but tried anyway and out it came, no pain at all. Now she’s waiting for the other bottom front one to get loose enough. Unfortunately, I can’t get a “gap” picture. Her other two teeth already have come in behind and so there is no gap there.

We didn’t have a really busy vacation for the kids’ Spring Break. It was really cool down there which is unusual for this time of year. The first day was somewhat busy because it was Easter and we were traveling right after church. I thought that at least Noelle would have taken a nap on our way down, but they all attacked their candy after lunch and not a single kid slept the whole way down. We got there about 10:30 pm and got the kids ready for bed and down. Amie was awake by 6:30 am on Monday morning and able to see her cousins before they went to school, but Noelle slept until 9 am. That morning, we went to a park and let the kids play while my aunt and I talked. In the afternoon, the kids played on the trampoline and see-saw at my aunt’s house. On Tuesday, we went to the Botanical Gardens down there. The kids really enjoyed going there. The cool morning meant there weren’t a lot of people there and the kids ran around on the paths in our sight while we had a nice walk. That afternoon, it got up to around 65* and the kids really, really wanted to swim. My cousin (Amie’s age) did too, so they all got their swimsuits on and got into the pool in the backyard. Brrr! AnnaBeth got in, but not for too long. Amie, James, and Christine all got in and played for quite a while. Noelle took a nap during most of the time they were swimming and even after she got up, she didn’t want to get into the “cold freezer water”. Christine fell from a raft into the 4 ft deep part while trying to reach the side of the pool. Her swimming lesson stuff helped her to kick herself up and I was able to pull her out without getting into the pool. (I was fully prepared to jump in if needed.) That was the end of her time in the pool. Not long afterwards, the other kids all got out and we had them get dressed and then settle down with a movie while dinner was fixed. On Wednesday morning, we went to another park. It had a bunch of good climbing rocks all around it and my kids spent more time on the rocks than on the playground equipment. That afternoon, we went to the mall for dinner and walked around a bit. I got Amie a shrug for ballet. In the winter, she needs something to help keep her arms warm, but can’t have it cover her lower back or abdomen, so her teacher can tell if her posture is right. A shrug is perfect for this and we finally found one. It is a size too big for her right now, but she should be able to wear it for next year. She may wear it today since it is still kind of chilly around here. On Thursday morning, we let the kids play in the backyard while I was getting all the suitcases packed back up and Jeremy was getting the van all ready. We left after lunch and traveled home. Noelle, AnnaBeth, and Amie all took good naps not long after we left.

It was a nice relaxing time for me and the kids had fun and enjoyed no schoolwork to do (though I did go over phonics with Christine a few times).

This cold snap that came around two weeks ago destroyed all my early spring flowers. Thankfully, I happened to get pictures the day before the storm hit that brought the cold. I also took a few pictures during the day of the storm.

On Good Friday, we went to a goat farm. The kids had a lot of fun despite the cold. They also got to have their Easter egg hunt then. The chickens “hid” and “colored” the eggs for us. They enjoyed finding the eggs in the chicken coop and later eating them.

I have a few other pictures up as well. Enjoy! I sure love my new camera. I still have the ones from Alabama and Chicago to upload sometime from my camera.

The internet really helps with homeschooling sometimes. With Christine, we just look something up on Enchanted Learning and print it out and then look for real pictures of it online. Today, she picked out the Beluga whale. We found a bunch of pictures of them. She liked the first picture the best. I think it is because of the mom and baby together. She also liked this one. She always enjoys picking out one of the animals and seeing all the pictures. She thinks it is really cool.

Pray for Amie and James and the other kids their age at our church. They have our church Bible drills tonight. I would love it if one of them was able to go to the Associational Bible drills and maybe even State. No matter what, I know that both of my kids have worked hard at these and I’m very proud of them.

Update: Amie and James did very well, but didn’t advance to the Associational. James cried, but I think he was just over tired and so much had happened. When the 1st - 3rd graders got up there, James had to go to the bathroom, so they told him he could run to the bathroom. About 2 minutes later, he had someone call me back there. His new belt wouldn’t come undone, so he’d wet himself and he was so upset and thought they would do the drill without him. We’d walked to church, so I didn’t have our van to run the 1/2 mile home. Someone else lent me the keys to their vehicle and the 4th - 6th graders did their drills while I came home and got clean pants for him and James got ready.

Two of the children from the older grades are going to the Associational. James did just as well as they did, but he also stepped forward a few times and then would forget the verse reference which marked him down.

My kids wear almost all hand-me-down or second hand shop clothes, so this is the time of year we actually buy them something new. Yesterday, we went shopping for their Easter outfits. Jeremy needed a new church outfit as well. I’ve always been the one to pick out their clothes before, so Amie was thrilled with the privilege of picking out her own dress. James was slightly disappointed because the color suit he wanted wasn’t available in his size, but after Jeremy found the same one in his size (George clothing at Walmart is great for my big shouldered men) then he became very pleased and is eager for next week to come. Christine also got to pick out her own clothes, though I had to veto the first one she picked on the fact that it had spaghetti straps and a somewhat low front. Why do designers do that with little girls clothes?!?!? Anyway, she really wanted a pink dress, but there wasn’t a decent one in her size, so she settled for blue. After trying it on in the dressing area and seeing how pretty it looked with her light skin and hair, she is quite satisfied. AnnaBeth was able to pick from either the toddler section (5T) or the regular section (5). She actually wears size 4, but I like the skirts to come down just a bit lower and smaller dresses seem to have shorter skirts. There was a bigger selection in the toddler section, but she prefered the one and only dress left in her size in the other section. I had thought I would pick out a dress for Noelle, but she loves doing her own choosing (whether it’s what is put on her sandwich, to what clothes she wears everyday) that she put in her opinion. There was a BIG variety in her size to pick from and she looked at ALL of them. She had one picked out halfway through, but she wanted to look through, “Just for case” (her words). What I think is great is that she picked the same style dress that I would have picked, but a different color. I wanted the yellow one, but she got the pink one. I’m sure that if there had been any purple dresses, both of us would have been very happy with it since it is the favorite color of us both. Anyway, that took us only about an hour and a half.

What did I get? I didn’t get any new clothes. I found a favorite dress that had been packed away that I want to wear. I did get new sandals. My current regular sandals are very much casual and look funny with my nice Sunday clothes. I was happy to find some beautiful sandals for my child-sized feet that don’t look like they belong to Amie. The other thing I got was more important to me than anything else… my engagement and wedding rings back. I know that I told some of you that I haven’t worn them since I got pregnant with AnnaBeth, now 5 years ago. I couldn’t get them on. Money was tight, so I wore them around on a necklace for a while and then had them put away for safety until we could get them taken care of. The day after our tax money came, we were at an independent jewelers. They were really sweet and gave us a discount because they found out about us having 5 kids. Jeremy needed his wedding ring fixed too, it had broken a few months ago, so we took them both in and got them back yesterday. I got a new head put on mine to hold my diamond. The old one was tilted and cracked. It looks brand new. Oh, so beautiful.

Anyway, that was our shopping spree yesterday. We probably won’t spend that much all at one time on clothes for another year.

Yes, I’m writing this during the time when I would normally be in Sunday School. Noelle started running a low fever yesterday as we were getting done at Walmart and is still slightly hot. Jeremy will stay with her tonight for evening service.

I have a HisStory bracelet and either she or Noelle have asked me to tell the story of it many times in the last few days. Today she picked it up and almost told the whole story herself. I changed the story they had just a little bit, so it isn’t the exact same as on the card that comes with the bracelet, but it is still Biblically correct and works with the beads.

She is a thin kid and must have a high metabolism because sometimes it is hard keeping her weight up even though she eats enough (three meals and two snacks a day). Today, she came to me and pointed to her belly and said, “Look Mommy, I’m getting some fat!” I tickled her belly and said, “Fat? I didn’t know you could ever have some of that.” She laughed and went off skipping and saying, “I’ve got no fat. I’ve got no fat.”

Yesterday and the day before were lovely. We had the heat off and the windows open. My kids played as long as they were allowed. Amie and James are happy that they are allowed to be outside longer now. I used to call them in when the light started going a little. Now I let them stay out a bit longer and told them to come in before it was too dark. They have both done fine and not stayed out so long I feel the need to call them. Their play territory has enlarged as well. I told them that they could go play with some kids up the street as long as they let me know beforehand. There are about three different households of kids that play together about a block away and they love having so many kids to play with now. Amie really loves it because our neighbors are all boys and there are a girls in this group as well as boys. It’s nice to have a neighorhood with lots of kids around.

Last night, it started raining and bringing in a cold front. It was still nice out at 8:30 pm when we got out of church even with the sprinkling rain. I started dancing in the rain. It was fun. I think my brother-in-law and my friend were laughing at me, but that’s okay. I was enjoying myself. Today, it isn’t even 50 outside, so we had to turn on the heat again. It won’t be long before we’ll have those nice temps more often. I like spring so much. It’s always so beautiful.

I lost Noelle at Walmart today. I always try and count heads fairly often while we are out, but I had AnnaBeth needing to go potty pretty badly, so I was kind of trying to herd all the kids toward the front. Noelle had spotted a little boy with a ball she wanted to play with and I’d called to her a few times and she had turned and come in front of me at first, but I’m guessing she turned back. Once I realized she was gone, I turned around and started retracing my steps. Not long into my search, I heard the intercom ask for a lost mommy for a found child up at Customer Service. I sighed with relief and started up that way. I don’t think she was gone for more than ten minutes, but the employee who found her said it felt like it was a whole thirty minutes. She had been found nearby where the little boy had been playing with the ball. This is the Walmart which Andrew (Jeremy’s brother) works at and he knew it was one of mine as well and started toward Customer Service too. I encountered him on the way and told him who had wandered off and since he can walk a lot quicker, he got up there and had her happy by the time I got up there.

Boy, my heart sure had got fast before I knew she was safe. I haven’t lost a child since Christine was a baby and a 3 yr old Amie wandered off at the St. Louis Science Museum on a crowded Saturday. That search lasted longer and was much scarier for me.

We were talking about Matthew 5:16. “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.”

Her little booklet from Bible Drill asked her to write in her own words what the verse means to her. She asked me to help her, so we talked about what light does (helps us to see) and how people look at us and see what we do. Because of that, we are candles for Jesus and show them His ways by doing good and talking about Jesus and the Bible. Our flame shows the way to Him and sometimes it might not be as bright, but if we realize we aren’t doing as we should and repent, than our flame can become bright again. She ended the discussion by saying, “Then God is the Candlemaker, because He made us and we are His candles.”

Amie has been doing her best at getting her chores done and all her school work done quickly. She was pretty much done by 1 pm today. I’m proud of her. At first, she complained when Jeremy and I started getting a bit more strict with chores, but lately after I’ve showed her ways of getting them done easier, she’s been getting them done quickly. For instance, the dining room is also where we have the wooden play kitchen set with all the play food and dishes. That part of the dining room gets a bit messy. On the days that she has the dining room, after she cleans the table from breakfast, she takes the broom and sweeps everything into one big pile and then sorts them out as to where they go. That puts everything in one place and she can pick up all the play dishes at once and put them all away and then pick up as many play food as she can at once and put them away and so on. This helps her to get it done much quicker. She is then able to do another more thorough sweeping of the floor and is pretty much done. She had the bathroom today and got it done fairly quickly too. I’m proud of her. If she continues with this, I’ll take her out on a special day with just me.

I’m sad. There are no more babies in this house. Noelle is officially potty trained during the day. There are no diapers in this house. I’m glad not to have diapers to change, but it’s still sad to think of all my kids growing up.

The good thing though is that the day we used the last diaper, I decided to put the extra $20 a month which we used to spend on diapers into a savings account for an anniversary get-a-way sometime. Jeremy and I decided to use around $100-$150 of it a year for our anniversary and save the rest for the special years. We’ll use a bit more for our 15 year anniversary, maybe $200, and then when our 20 year anniversary comes around, we’ll see how much we have saved and what we can do with that.

You all thought I had a full house before, didn’t you? Well, guess what? We had SEVEN kids here this weekend, all under 10 years old. I watched my sister’s two daughters while she and my brother-in-law went to a Marriage Get-a-way night. They said it was very refreshing. Anyway, for Friday and Saturday, I watched Tabitha and Naomi who are almost 4 years and 20 months old. I went and met them halfway to pick up the girls. We met at a McDs with a play area. They did very good, not a single cry the whole time from either of them. Naomi got a pouty face when her parents left, but as soon as they were out of sight, she went to playing and had no problem. At bedtime, Naomi had no problem. Tabitha tried the “I have to potty” thing a few times, but I put a stop to it the third time up and she was asleep soon after that. The next morning, Amie got them breakfast and they all played very well. After my older three children got done with their chores, I got out the big legos and the lincoln logs and all seven children were happy for the next two hours. Naomi even went down for a nap without a problem and James was still playing in that same room. My sister and her husband got there about 6:30 pm on Saturday and had dinner before leaving. We had no problem with any of the kids and I know they all enjoyed having the time to play together.

Do you think James was overwhelmed with all those girls? Nope, he loves them all.

Funny thing Naomi said: At dinner on Saturday, she was sitting on her mom’s lap and Jeremy was sitting beside them. She’d been calling Jeremy “Dadduh” the whole time here. She turned to him and said, “Hey, Dadduh, HEY DADDUH!” Jeremy pointed to her dad sitting behind him and asked, “You mean him?” She looked over and got a surprised look on her face and said, “Wow, TWO Dadduhs!”

I taught Amie and James how to play using this Jigsaw Sudoku. I changed it to 4×4 squares and they figured it out. Amie did it by herself in a little over 8 minutes. James did one by himself in 51 seconds. He’s more mathematically minded, so it didn’t surprise me how easy it was for him, but I didn’t expect him to be able to do it so quickly. Now he wants a more challenging one. He’s asking me to print off a 9×9 puzzle to work on. We’ll see how he does on that.

She is at the age where lots of interesting speeches come out, for example, what she said today. She had me help her get a tissue out of the box for her and then after blowing her nose, she looked at it for a second and then with astonishment on her face, said, “Mom, I had syrup come out of my nose.” LOL Oh, yes, we had french toast for our family breakfast, so she had just got done with washing the sticky stuff off her hands.

On the potty front, she hasn’t had another completely dry day again so far, but she is only having one change of clothes a day for the last few days. I think she’s really getting the hang of it.

Playtime: My kids got a bit too much cabin fever today and were so stir crazy since we’ve been stuck inside for pretty much 3 weeks now with these frigid temperatures. They donned a lot of clothes (and I did as well) and went outside, into the 5 inches of snow we got here. The snow was not the snowball type, but that didn’t stop them. They picked up handfulls and threw it in the air, at each other, and at me while I was trying to take pictures with my camera phone which made my pictures turn out blurry. At least I didn’t have my good camera out there. The older kids lasted about 20 minutes out there and Noelle, AnnaBeth, and I only lasted 15 minutes. The cats got outside while we were all trying to get in through the dining room door and get our shoes off. Tiger Lily didn’t last 30 seconds. She hated the snow on her feet. Mittens stayed out a total of 5 minutes before she was begging to come in. She enjoyed cuddling up with me for a while to warm up. Since she hardly ever cuddles, that was a treat.

Pottytime: Noelle got to the point where she was wetting on the potty a decent amount and starting to use it for the other thing every once in a while. I made up a sticker chart for her which we started last week. If she made it to the potty without anything in her pants, she got a sticker. Today, she got her tenth sticker for wetting, which also won her a piece of starburst candy, and she got her first dry all day sticker. It was the first time she’s not wet any pairs of pants since we started and most days she wets at least two, so I was very proud of her. I figured out her schedule. If I have to go, she has to go. Every time I need to go, I tell her that we’re both going to head to the bathroom and she’s quite happy with that and I am too since I can remember much easier this way. I think it won’t be long before she is doing well.

One last thing: I had said that we were planning on keeping Christine in ballet, but after going a few weeks and not acting up as much, but still being quite distracting to the other girls, we pulled her out. We decided that we didn’t want her to ruin the recital for all the other girls and their families. Those other girls will learn their ballet stuff better without her to distract them. She is starting back in Kung Fu with Jeremy’s brother, Andrew Read. I think she’ll like it more, but I don’t know if it’s her thing. I want her to find something she enjoys herself and not keep trying to copy her older brother and sister. I want her to know that God made her special and He has a special purpose for her. It might not be ballet or Kung Fu, but something else. Something unique just for her.

Amie ate BEEF tonight and asked for seconds! She even knew it was beef beforehand. This is from the girl that hasn’t eaten beef except for the required bite whenever we have it since she was around 3 years old.

What did we have tonight? Beef stew and biscuits. I put a biscuit (or half depending on how much I expect the child to eat) into the bottom of the bowl and pour stew over it. Amie has always had only half a biscuit and a bite of all pieces of the beef stew (beef, carrot, potato). Today, I gave her that and then she asked for a seconds when she was done. I gave her the other half of her biscuit and more stew than normal and she ate it all and asked for more, but the stew was gone by then. About three months ago, she cried when I made this. Two months ago, she pouted. Last month, she made a face. This month, no complaints or faces and asking for more. We’re doing good. Now to get her to eat hamburger.

Amie hit the reading railroad this week. She’s always liked reading, but with all her books, she’s never read very far in them before stopping and getting out another book. My parents gave her Beverly Lewis’s Cul de Sac Kids books last Christmas and this Christmas (6 of them each Christmas) and though she’s read a little here and there in each of the books she got last year, she hadn’t read them all the way through. This week, she’s read books 1 through 8 now and I’m sure will be done with all 12 by tomorrow or Saturday. She’s found that she can read through one of them in a two hour sitting and she finds them quite funny. She’s becoming a book worm like her Mom and Dad. She also has been reading her Bible everyday. It has a page where it has read through the Bible in a year, giving chapters to read in the morning and some to read at night.

Her day goes like this as far as I can tell: wake up around 6:30, read her morning Bible chapters, grab a Cul de Sac Kids book, read most of it, eat breakfast, finish book, do chores, do school, eat lunch, more school (usually reading a Bible story from her school reader), grab another Cul de Sac Kids book and read a little before being made to put it down and do more chores, eat dinner, finish book, brush teeth and get ready for bed, read nighttime Bible chapters.

That’s a lot of reading. She also has some playtime in there too, but lately she’s been opting to read in her free time instead of play and it’s starting to drive James nuts. Christine loves it though because James plays with her more.

Hmmm, I wonder which books she’ll start next? Her Box Car Children mysteries or the Sugar Creek Gang (James’s Christmas present from my parents)

Some sentences from Noelle, who has really had no problem picking up the correct English language.

“Yes!” (No yeah from her)

“Dad, excuse me, Mommy needs some soda.” (after being asked to bring me a Dr. Pepper. I didn’t use the word soda.)

She was fussing while trying to put on her pants yesterday.
Jeremy: “Noelle, do you need something?”
Noelle: “Yes, you to help me.”

Noelle commented today about how my belly feels. I said it was because of her and the others when they were babies in my belly and made it big. She gave me a funny look and said “Babies don’t go in your belly, Mom! They go in your arms to hold.” LOL I’d forgotten that she’s never seen a pregnant belly that she could remember.

I wrote about this on my Vox blog and put pictures over on it since this blog was down for a little while.

I love my wonderful 8 yr old son!

Poor girl. She doesn’t like ballet. She wanted to take it so much that I put her in it for this year. By the end of the second month, she was making excuses as to why she didn’t want to be there. I told her that she had to make it through the year since we’d paid for it. This last Monday was her first day back after Christmas break and her teacher told me she was disruptive. I’ve talked to her about it and explained that since we’ve already paid for it and the costumes for the May recital have already been ordered that she can’t back out now. She will have to keep doing her classes, listen to her teacher, and participate instead of joking around. It’s only an hour a week, which she can handle. Once I know a bit about her recital piece, I might have her go over it a bit at home too. She’s a sweetheart and can do it if she tries. I promised her that next year, we’ll see if we can find something she likes better.

I’m getting a bit more strict with Noelle about the potty.  I think she would be happy to stay in diapers for a very, very long time.  She is three years old and knows when she is going to do something.  She can also hold it for a very long time if she wants to.  She has gone many naptimes dry when I’ve put a clean diaper on her before laying her down.  She is just not wanting to stop being a baby.  She keeps telling everyone she is still a baby.  She wants to sit in high chairs because she says that’s where babies are supposed to sit.  She tells me that she is NOT a big girl, so she NEEDS diapers on.  She is old enough to dress herself and even tries to put on her own diaper at night.  She gets close, just can’t get it tight enough, so she comes to Jeremy or me afterwards to make it tight enough.  To me, these are signs of being big enough to potty.  I know that if she makes up her mind, she would be trained in a day.  That is how she is.  It may sound like a weird prayer request, but pray for her potty training that she will stop being stubborn and learn how to use the potty and pray for me to not get frustrated while I’m trying to teach her that she needs to do this.

With small children, you never know what you will find in your pocket.  We went out to Fazoli’s today to eat dinner.  All the girls, except AnnaBeth, had fetticcine alfredo.  Afterwards, we went to Walmart to grab a few things.  As I reach into my coat pocket to get the money for Amie’s boots (she got them from money from returns we had to make with some of her presents), I found…

… a fetticcine noodle!  Still wondering which one put it in there.  I’m guessing Noelle.

My children love music and singing.  Amie’s penpal from New York sent her a CD this last summer and they were listening to it.  It has “Trading My Sorrows” on it sung by kids.  All the kids were dancing and the older kids were singing the words they knew to it.  Suddenly, Noelle starts singing with it very loudly, “Yes, Lord, Yes, Lord, Yes, Yes, Lord!”  I found what part she knows!  She sure picks up on some of these songs easily.  (She enjoys Mark Schultz’s “Broken and Beautiful” song as well)

Christmas morning wasn’t quite as early as I expected. James and Amie were probably up around 7 am. Jeremy and I heard them playing in the dining room around 7:30 am, but they were being quiet and waiting for the other kids to wake up. By 8 am, Christine was awake and I had them put on Christmas music and see if the little kids were awake yet. They went up yelling, “Wake up, let’s see what’s in our stockings!” Noelle didn’t understand that stockings=presents so she didn’t want to get up at first until we asked if she wanted to open presents. After stockings, we had breakfast of monkey bread for everyone except James (because of his milk allergy) and he had crescent rolls which I’d put butter and cinnimon sugar on before rolling up. Directly after that, we unwrapped the presents which the church had given us and the ones the children got at the church’s shopping spree. We took a bit of a break after that to clear out the living room a bit, all those boxes and wrapping paper, and let Jeremy put the ham in the roaster to cook. The last presents we unwrapped were the ones we had gotten everyone (one present a piece, matching skirts for the girls and me, cowboy shirts for James and Jeremy) and the presents from my parents. I started boiling the sweet potatoes after that and we all got dressed and ready to go to Jeremy’s parents’ house. We wore the new skirts and the boys wore their new shirts. It was fun. We put the sweet potatoes, ham, pumpkin pies, and zebra bites into the van as well as children, of couse, and headed on down there. I finished up the sweet potatoes there and we finished fixing the food that Jeremy’s mom had started and then we ate. Yummy! I kept my eating down and didn’t stuff myself. The rest of the day was spent talking and watching the kids play. The guys (Jeremy, his brothers, and his dad) all went out to the room behind the garage and worked on putting the floor into Andrew’s room. They got that done and put up the closet pole. It is starting to look really good. He can start moving furniture in now. They still have a bamboo chair railing to put up around the room and a few other things, but it is almost done.

We didn’t get home until around 9:30 pm and had some very fussy children.

Yesterday, I spent doing a lot of cleaning in this house. I sure was glad it was trash day because I was afraid of it getting pulled apart by feral cats looking for food and then having a ton of wrapping to pick up again.  I also took a nap in the afternoon. The younger kids were very fussy all day because of the long day beforehand and Noelle went to bed a bit earlier than normal.

There you go, you are now caught up on our life.

This is the first time I’ve been able to get online and actually check my e-mail and read other people’s blogs since Friday. I hopped on long enough on Sunday to post my Merry Christmas post and that was it.

Saturday was baking day and I made four pumpkin pies and many, many zebra bites. I also made little smokies. Some were as pigs-in-a-blanket with crescent rolls and others were cooked in bbq sauce. All were very yummy.

On Sunday, we woke up an hour later than we usually do on Sundays because there was no Sunday school. I dressed the children nice, but not as dressy as I usually have them. Service was only an hour, from 10-11 am. Afterwards, we went with Jeremy’s family to our favorite restaurant, a Chinese buffet place, for lunch. Since we got out of church an hour early, the restaurant wasn’t crowded yet and we were seated quickly. It was so nice. In the afternoon, we went to his parents’ house to open presents. We went home for dinner. After dinner, a friend came over and we had a small candlelight service of our own. I think Jeremy’s parents really would have liked it if we had been able to stay over there and do it there. I think in the future, it would be nice to do that too. I know the kids would still be open during the discussion with them as well. We read the Christmas story, starting with Gabriel’s visit to Mary and ending with the Wise Men, then we had a discussion with the kids and asked questions. Even Noelle answered a question or two. After that, we sang Christmas carols. All the kids picked out one. Noelle wanted “Jesus Loves Me” (not really a Christmas carol, but a great song about Jesus, so we sang it.) AnnaBeth picked “Away in a Manger”. Christine decided on “Silent Night”. Amie chose “Joy to the World” and James settled on “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem.” We sang more carols, but it was nice that the kids are learning all these songs and wanting to sing them. Of course, we can’t have carols without singing, “The First Noel”. It is a special song to us. I’ll talk more about that later in another post.

Anyway, that was our Christmas Eve. I’ll talk about Christmas later. I really should be getting in bed now.

Crystal has some cute pictures up, one of her daughter and niece which, as she put it, oozed with cute. In that manner, I decided to put the following picture up for your enjoyment.

A Prince and Six Princesses, Thanksgiving 2006

As always, click pic to see larger version.

I can’t believe my itty bitty baby is now a 3 year old.

She was just a tiny 3 lb 14 oz baby, with wires and an IV going all over her.  She was born at 6:30 pm, but I didn’t get to see her until 10:30 pm.  I was so wornout and worried about my little girl.

Now she is a beautiful little 3 yr old princess. She is Momma’s little girl. I’m so blessed by her.

Poor Girl is sick today with a cold. She is still happy about it being her birthday and can’t wait to eat chocolate cake and unwrap the presents on the table.

The older kids had their Christmas program tonight.  It was so cute.  It was a lot of work.  Two of the kids dropped out at the last minute and a few of the other kids had some parts that were too big for them to really remember, so this last month, Amie picked up a solo part and a trio part without a lot of time to practice.  The solo part she had down very well.  The trio part she got last week and we worked very hard on it.  Tonight before the program, I took her and the two other girls (one of them was also a last minute substitute) to work on that part.  The program went very well even with all the problems they had to work through beforehand.  The boy with a solo just before James was off by half a measure which made James completely miss his solo.  He was extremely upset during the rest of that song, but he got all his spoken lines in very well, so he was okay by the end of the program.  I was proud of his comeback.

I really enjoyed watching it.  It’s so much fun seeing all those kids who have worked so hard do that.

We let the kids do most of it.  Jeremy just helped James and Christine get the lights on.  There are a few places I may move a few ornaments around.  I did some last night after the kids went to bed because all of the ones Noelle put on were put on about three or four branches.

Noelle has been playing with some of them.  Not taking them off of the tree, just playing with them.  We have a few wooden rocking horses and one that is Big Bird playing a drum, so she just touches them a little and then talks to herself making up some story about them.  Quite funny.

Noelle came downstairs this morning, saw the tree in the corner that I’d set up last night, and danced around it yelling, “Look, It’s Christmas!!”

What is she going to do once the lights and ornaments are on?

Small update: She’s hardly gone out of sight of the tree the whole day, except for lunch. She has looked at some of the ornaments, but we decorate the tree as a family, so we have to wait until Jeremy is off of work. Thankfully, today isn’t supposed to be a long day.

Now that Thanksgiving is over, we need to get back into the school routine.  This is always so hard after such a fun weekend as we’ve had.  Our routine was so off during the last 5 days.  The kids were so cranky by Friday night.  On Saturday, after my sister left in the early afternoon, I made all the kids lay down and take a nap.  I think James was the only one who never really fell asleep, but he did lay down for a while.  Yesterday, Ash left after lunch.  Again, Jeremy and I made the kids have a nap.  I don’t know how many of them actually slept because I had to go back to church for choir practice, but they seem much better this morning.

I’m having trouble.  Noelle is my fifth child and my fourth girl.  What do I get her for her birthday?  I have gotten her books already, but I want one more thing.  Nothing expensive.  This is so hard.

I have the kids all doing something, but notice Amie isn’t in the room, so I call out for her.  The answer:

“I’m in the bathroom and doing my math too!”

I put some more photos up at my flickr.  Not in any set yet.

Noelle refused to put a diaper on today.  I put her in underwear for the morning and was planning on changing her into a diaper before we left to go shopping.  Our church is doing Christmas shoeboxes and we went to the Dollar General in another town and met a friend to shop for stuff to put in them.  When I got a diaper out to put on her, she went running the other way, so I had her sit on her potty for a little bit.  She didn’t do anything and said she couldn’t, so I put the training potty in the van and took it with us.  She stayed dry all through shopping and then after we were done, she sat on the potty and wet in it.  She stayed dry until around 4:00pm.  That’s when I checked her and she was damp, though not soaking.  I changed her into a diaper after that because I was leaving with a friend for a girls’ night out and Jeremy was taking care of the kids.  He doesn’t think about asking her if she wants to sit on the potty with all the other things he has to think about while taking care of the kids.  This is only day #2 for her and he isn’t into the mindset of our baby being that old yet.  All in all, I’m proud of how well she’s been doing.

Noelle wore the underwear until 3:15 when I had to get her ready for dance class.  She kept them dry that whole time.  I was very proud of her.  She wet in her potty just before I put the diaper back on her, so I’m sure that if I’d kept her in underwear for dance that she would have stayed dry, but I’m also glad I changed her.  She later had some (hmm, how can I put this nicely) runny #2.  She is all better from last week, but I think this is her body getting rid of the last of that sick stuff.

I think on the days that we’ll be home most of the time that I’ll put her in underwear until I know better how she will do in them.  I know that they are waiting for to arrive in the church nursery in underwear sometime soon.  Two of the people who work there have asked me how she was doing.

Will the underwear stay dry on Noelle or not? Hmmm, time to find out.

update @ 1:30 pm: Still dry, used potty only once with my urging. When she wears a dress and goes without anything, she doesn’t need urging, so she knows when she needs to go.  I think she’s finally understanding the idea that she’s not supposed to get underwear wet. The last few tests didn’t even last two hours without getting wet.

Make sure Noelle has pants up before I answer a knock at the door.  She was sitting on her training potty on Monday when the Sheriff came knocking door to door as a last minute campaigning thing.  He greeted me nicely and introduced himself then glanced behind me and got a bit speechless and left.  I turned around and there was Noelle standing behind me… with her pants around her ankles.

She seems to be better, so we’re not making a trip to the dr. She didn’t wake any more after I posted last night to get another dose of pain relief and slept until about 7:00am when she quietly came downstairs and asked to have some medicine. James seems to be doing okay still too. A little fever, but that’s all. Noelle is definately feeling better. She’s much cheerier today. I’m feeling the same, but hope maybe if I get a nap today than I’ll be doing better.

edit: I spoke too soon. Her throat was really bothering her still when the meds wore off. I took a look and her tonsils look horribly big. Dr’s appt at 2:45.

edit2: Argh!  It’s strep.  Pray for the rest of the family to stay healthy.

Jeremy’s been sick since Wed afternoon. AnnaBeth was sick on Wed too, but got better fairly quickly. Noelle was sick (as I mentioned in the previous post) and is doing better, but has been running a low grade fever off and on. She’s slept really well the last two nights which was good for her. Amie has been sick since Thursday. She has a sore throat and an earache as well as a fever. If she’s not better by tomorrow, I’ll be taking her to the dr. James started complaining of a sore throat this morning and by mid-afternoon started running a fever. He acted normal all day though and was angry not to be allowed to go to church today. I’m feeling like I’m coming down with something, you know, sneezing, stuffed sinuses, slight discomfort in my throat. Jeremy’s dad picked up the two children who are doing okay (AnnaBeth and Christine) and they got to go to church. His brother took them to evening services. Christine was excited to be able to go to TeamKid. She really loves it. Anyway, I’ll update tomorrow either after going to the dr or after I find out Amie’s doing better. I have a feeling that the dr’s office is going to be seeing us. Amie’s woken up and cried about either her throat or ear at least three times already tonight. I am sure that soon she’ll be needing me to get her another dose of tylenol to get her through the rest of the night.

We don’t usually do Halloween stuff, but this year Amie wanted to do something to reach other children. Hand out tracts along with our candy. It was her idea. We’ll be heading up to the church tonight for the Trunk and Treat thing and do that. We’ll be taking our pumpkin along too. It is carved with a cross in it, not a face.

This is one of our ways of showing our faith to our neighbors.

EDIT: We left the tracts with our pastor’s wife and the pumpkin with pastor. It was too cold and the kids were not able to stay out too long. Jeremy had to work late, so I couldn’t stay up there without him here to watch the kids. I forgot to say earlier that yesterday we had the pumpkin shining out our back window which anyone driving by on the busy street beside our house (or walking by on the sidewalk) could see easily. There was residential trick or treating yesterday, but because of ballet practice, we weren’t here to pass out our stuff.

Found in a chinese cookie today:  You begin to appreciate the importance of sharing your personal beliefs.  All I thought was, “Amen!”

We were listening on the radio to Mark Shultz’s song, Broken and Beautiful, on the way home from getting groceries on Saturday.  All the kids had apples to eat and Noelle was just holding hers and looking at it.  Suddenly on the third time you hear the chorus, I heard her singing almost perfectly with the song, “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful” and I nudged Jeremy to pay attention.  She then ended it with “apple!”  It went very well with the music, but Jeremy and I couldn’t help cracking up.  Now I can’t hear that song with out putting “apple” in it.

Noelle got herself dressed today with no help from me.  It was loose clothing, so it was much easier for her and she was so proud of herself.  She got her shirt backwards, but didn’t mind me helping her after she was all done to get her shirt the right way.  She’s been trying for months to dress herself.

This week was where the family could come up and watch the dance classes. I missed AnnaBeth and Christine’s classes on Monday because of the SHE event, but I saw Amie’s yesterday and Noelle’s today.

Amie has really improved a lot. She can turn out her feet much better and doesn’t have as much trouble keeping them that way even when jumping. She is still really enjoying it. Her only problem that night was that she kept looking over to see if I was watching her and wasn’t paying attention to her teacher as much as she needed to.

Noelle has the director of the dance classes for her teacher. She really loves her class and I saw that she is making friends with most of the other kids. That is one thing that AnnaBeth doesn’t do. She likes having one or two friends and they are usually quiet like her. Noelle just seems to like playing with other kids and doesn’t care what they are like. Her teacher had trouble keeping the kids doing what they were supposed to be doing today with all us parents watching. Imagine 6 kids, either 3 yrs old or almost 3. One was so excited that her Daddy was able to come that she kept running everywhere and running out to him to hug him. Another was shy with all the adults and kept coming up with reasons to go to her mom or aunt to hide her face. Noelle did fine in the first activities all done in a circle. They were the warm-ups and a few dance things. When they lined up though, she wanted to come over to me. I finally got her to go out there, but she refused to march. She walked on tiptoes and ran on tiptoes and then sashayed, but kept coming over to me inbetween them and I had to encourage her to go back out and show me what she was learning. I wish I’d remembered my camera.

Yesterday, they had a SHE event in a nearby city.  I took Amie to it and my co-leader, S, joined us.  It was a lot of fun.  Amie was kind of nervous in a strange place with so many strangers, but after a few songs, she was enjoying it.  It was good for her first concert/event because it wasn’t a loud affair.  The main person was Rebecca St. James.  Another was an older singer who’s been singing for quite a while, Evie.  The other two singers were new to me, but they were good.  They were Charmaine (Rebecca’s back-up singer) and Vicky Beeching.  Both have wonderful voices and were able to really talk to the audience well and get their points across.  They used the church’s sound system and just had a few back up musicians, two guitars and a keyboard.  It was done to be a more intimate setting and even had a question and answer time.  They only had a few people able to