This Past Week

Ok, I know it has been a long time and I am sorry. My mother is making us do family updates to her while she is on her mission so I thought that I would take the shortcut and paste what I sent her so I at least have something to post. It has been entirely too long since I posted something and since my camera is broken, I figured this would do.

This past week, what happened, or didn't happen? Morgan started all-city Orchestra this week. She took principle chair 3rd violin. She was pretty happy. That means that now she has a rehearsal every Monday from 4-5. That is after a full day of school and an extra magnet class of 45 min after school. I get to go up to school early because Kennedy can't ride the bus home and can't be "unattended" at school, so we go and sit for an hour until Morgan is done. Anyway, other than that she is busy with life in the 4th grade. She is very excited to start playing the viola this year. She has decided, all on her own, that she wants to switch to the viola now so she will be ahead of everyone else by the time she hits middle school. They don't teach viola in elementary so there are 50 million violinists and no violists so she is getting a jump start on everyone,. Pretty smart if you ask me, which she didn't. She is also very excited because Friday she came home with the ugliest safety orange belt I have ever seen. The fifth grade will be going to camp in a week so the 4th grade gets to step up and be "safety patrol" for a week. She didn't take it off for 2 days. She may have some control issues and I don't know where she gets it from. It probably doesn't help that Scott yells for "safety patrol" for every little thing that could possibly go wrong so I have had to deal with things like, "safety patrol, Kennedy is still in her PJ's." "Safety Patrol, Emersen didn't put her clothes in the hamper." etc. Lots of fun and she is really enjoying it.

Kennedy is on the student council. I don't think she has any idea what that means other than all the kids in her class voted for her and she gets to help design the t-shirt but she is excited. She is doing very well in cello and has passed more songs than any other 3rd grader. Not that she really cares too much. She just goes and does her thing. She has been really into her hair lately. Not just the "bumpit" but I had to sponge roller her hair last night for church today and when we took them out she decided that the dress she had picked out was just not good enough and needed a wardrobe change. That and the fact that she loves makeup and it doesn't matter what kind. Yesterday I came home and she had applied zombie makeup to herself in preparation for Halloween. One has to prepare, you know!

Emmy is so ready for school. She is busy telling me everything and doesn't often stop talking for anything. I have to tell her in advance what day tomorrow is and what we will be doing. She doesn't like it we aren't going somewhere or she doesn't get to play with friends for a "long time". She loves her daddy quite a bit these days and I think she is just getting used to seeing him more. She has appointed herself his personal hairdresser. Scott is such a good sport. The other day she told him that he had to wake her up so she could do his hair before he went to work. When she woke up and he was gone she was a little upset until I told her that he had "tried" to wake her up but she was too tired to get up. She said, "well, I guess he will just have his hair in his face all day."

Ian is forever busy. I am constantly amazed at how different little boys are from girls. He never just sits still, unless he is watching "Cars" or "Diego" is on and I get a little something done. He loves cars and trucks and throwing things. He loves to "jump" even though his feet never leave the ground. He loves shoes and it doesn't matter who they belong to. He loves to tease. I'm not sure why that is either. He is so snugly and I love it, that is when he is tired or I haven't been paying close enough attention to him. I just want to eat that kid sometimes. He is too cute.

Scott started a new job a few weeks ago and I love it. He is still trying to figure it out but I couldn't be happier because the quit at 5.. That is right. 5pm. Which means that by 5:30 Scott will leave because he is the last one in the office and feels a little funny still being there. He gets to eat dinner with the family. I didn't think that was ever going to happen again. I love it.

Me, I don't know, I am the mom. Oh, I guess I played in the stake women's volleyball tournament yesterday and now I have trouble walking up and down my stairs. It was great though. We dethroned the giants that have reigned for as long as I have been here and it was great to hear their cries and complaints that we were "not playing fair". Music, sweet music is all I can say. Justice has been served. You just can't show up wearing shirts that say "All stars" on them and think you are going to get away with it forever. It was great.
I can relate to Melissa with church. It is a struggle every week. As I sit on my pew with my 4 darling "well-behaved" children and watch my husband sitting on the stand all by himself I have to wonder why I agreed to such an arrangement. A few weeks ago I actually caught myself reaching over to yank on someone's arm to stop a fight and said, "Sit quietly, be happy and think about Jesus!" I had to laugh at myself on that one. Who says that? Are you kidding me? The lucky thing is that Ian loves nursery. Thanks heavens because he was going to love it or die in it as far as I was concerned. Anyway, we made it home in record time today because a friend of ours make the mistake of telling us that they race us home every week. Given that they live about 5 minutes closer and only have 1 kid and both parents. That didn't matter to my kids. They spotted their car in the parking lot today and told me to park closer to the exit so we could get out faster. They, Morgan and Kennedy, then orchestrated who would pick up Emmy and Ian so we could get out faster and set up a meeting spot. We were home in record time and the girls even got to leave a nice little "We won, we won, we shot the bee bee gun" song on their answering machine. It was a good Sunday.