Lucy:
Lucy loves third grade and loves her teacher, Mrs. Reich (as we all do!). She is part of GATE, the group for advanced kids. They meet on Wednesdays with Mrs. Truijillo and Lucy loves that, too. She has many friends at school and has a schedule of who she plays with on M, W, and F and then a different group of friends on T and Th. She has a crush on a boy named Miguel. I guess she accidentally kicked him during a recess this week and she told me she apologized to him 17 times. Wow, a little over-kill in my opinion. :) She also wrote him a note (!), but (thankfully) she didn't see him and so she didn't give it to him. She still loves gymnastics. She still loves the piano - except when I correct her on her practices. Yikes. She is finally wart-free, or close to it! She's had warts, including painful plantar warts, for quite some time. The OTC medication didn't work so I finally took her to an official podiatrist (who is in our ward). After the first treatment and a couple of weeks, she's pretty wart-free. She had to go in again yesterday and then probably one more time, but to our eyes, the warts are gone. Yay, because how gross are warts?!
Yes, her favorite song is La Bamba. She wants to listen to it ALL the time.
Emmy:
Our new middle-schooler. Overall, I would say Emmy loves middle-school. She doesn't always love her math teacher because she can be "rude" sometimes and math isn't Emmy's favorite subject. But now she's sitting at a new table at math and it's better. :) She goes with Jonas to the Student Council (STUCO) meetings and enjoys that; she'll help sell concessions this coming week and is excited about that. She is babysitting for our neighbors tonight and did it last week as well. The kids are adorable - Milo (4?) and Aidrey (3?). She had fun chasing a naked Aidrey around the house "for like 30 minutes" to get her PJs on. :) She loves gymnastics. She is a great student - getting her homework done and trying to go the extra-mile on her writing and reading. She, too, has a crush on a boy. Okay, probably more than "a" boy. But one of them is at school with her this year - Cade. (He's an awesome kid, by the way!) They have lockers close to each other and have about three classes together. Once Emmy opened her locker and everything fell out (So classic, right?! And so not-surprising of my disorganized and messy Emmy girl!) Emmy was quite embarrassed, but Cade helped her put everything back in. Awwww. She is still working hard on her Personal Progress for YWs. We ride bikes together to school everyday. Usually we take Lucy (on her bike as well) and then head to Emmy's school. Emmy and Jonas ride home together. Jack, our neighbor boy, rides with us a few times each week, too. Emmy has been "sooooo cold" this week riding in our 45-degree mornings. I told her to just wait until winter . . .
Jonas:
The Ruler of the School, right? Our big - or not-so-big-and-actually-really-small - 8th grader. School seems to be going well for him. He likes all of his classes, I think. His writing teacher is one of his favorite. I guess everything Jonas has written about has included some reference to cheese. His teacher, Mr. Wilson, really likes that and has encouraged him to keep it up. Oh brother. He's in jazz band, of course, and so leaves a little before 7 to get there every morning (except on Wednesdays). He likes to either sit "with the Mormon kids" at recess/lunch or spin on the "red thing and fall on my knees." Sounds awesome. He hung out with a friend last Saturday at the friend's house and watched two "scary" movies. I can't remember what they were. He told me he hid behind the fridge for parts of the first movie. Haha. Last night he went mountain biking with a friend and the friend's dad - and had a blast! Jonas loved it. He's trying to finish the Book of Mormon by his 14th birthday. He usually only reads it during sacrament meeting . . . which we've told him might not be the best time to do so. . . but he still does so!
Miles:
Miles is back at seminary, BYU high school, and a couple of classes at the Montrose high school. He has a new seminary teacher this year and she's really great! Miles had a great one last year, so I was a bit worried . . . but his new teacher is fabulous and Miles loves seminary once again. His BYU classes seem to be going well. He's taking english, a literature class, algebra 2, chemistry, and a fitness class. At the high school he is doing his Project Unify class again (he went on a field-trip to Gunnison last week), as well as Mythology 2. He loves them both. Miles is doing the mountain-bike team again. Practices are great and he really loves them. He did express a desire to have the races on Saturdays (as opposed to Sundays) so that he could race. I actually emailed some director of the Colorado League and she responded back to me. She did give me some hope that as the league grows in numbers, race days will be 2-days - Saturdays and Sundays. So maybe by Miles' senior year he'll get to race?! Miles has done about 27 hours of driving - he needs 50 by March so we are pretty much on target. He loves driving. I hate it. He did 2-hours of driving with an official instructor (who would ever want that job?!) and that was good. He has to do 6-hours total with an instructor.
Me (AKA Emily or mom):
Life has been a bit busy and stressful as I got "another" job at the cancer center. Have I mentioned this before?! I actually was thinking of leaving my current job at the hospital to apply for this one, but when I went to talk to my boss, she was all like, "Oh, yeah, that would be great for you to work there as well." So I thought it wasn't such a bad idea as 1. I didn't know if I was going to get the other job and 2. I didn't know what the other job's hours were going to be. So I began orientation the week that school started and it's been busy. This past week I worked a couple of day shifts and a night shift. For the next few weeks I will have to do a Monday DAY shift at the cancer center and then a NIGHT shift at the hospital. Aiyiyi. I try not to think about it too much. I like the new job and have the general gist of it all - except for the hundreds of tiny details that I don't know yet and probably won't until I have years of experience like my preceptor. :) This past week I worked on MonDAY and then on Tuesday night, but I was called off for Wednesday night and so I stayed up on Wednesday and got the kids off to school - then met up with some gals and went on a great hike. I felt sick as we were driving there and thought maybe I should have gone to bed instead . . . But as we started hiking, it was so nice and refreshing to just get out. I'm still trying to catch up on the sleep I lost, but it was so worth it.
Ben:
Ben has another job, but this one doesn't pay. He's our official house-painter. He's doing an awesome job, it just takes up every spare-inch of time he has. I encouraged him to get some estimates from the professionals, but he wanted to do it himself. He's hoping to finish by Thanksgiving. :) He really stressed out about the color scheme to do. We had a great area in the back to do some test-runs of colors. I liked a few of them and would have been fine with them, but Ben just didn't love it. So I told him he could do whatever he wanted because he was important to him and stressing him out. :) He picked some fabulous colors and will be a huge difference for our home (going from almost all-white to a gray!). Work has been slow on some days so he's gotten to spend time painting and that has been helpful. But a lot of his work actually isn't painting - it's fixing up stuff and prepping. He is taking a few more call-days at the hospital these next few months and we'll see how that goes. He's taking the deacons on a 14-er hike next Saturday and our boys will tag along as well.
That's it!
