Updates from January

Lots of little things I haven't recorded yet.

Rachel is finally potty trained. I had to remain overly excited to keep her going after many, many accidents. She even had an incident of trying to clean her own underwear and flushing it down the toilet. No clogging, so thank goodness. The big motivater was My Little Pony fruit snacks, Tangled underwear, and princess lip gloss.

Rachel and her preschool friends. She LOVES going to preschool.

Joshua designed his pinewood derby car.

We went to Brother Bass's workshop to cut it out and sand it. Joshua did it all!

Joshua was on the Music Memory team for Cheatham Elementary. His team got 2nd place and he got a "Perfect Paper" award.

Emily LoVeS to pick her clothes for school. There are some days I veto and this was one of those days but because we were in a hurry, I let her go ahead as is.

Emily's first grade class writes a ton of class books and we love reading them as a family. They are creative and Emily's writing has progressed so far.

Allan has decided to switch from cornet (trumpet) to Tuba. He is doing good so far. I'm grateful that he has an instrument at home to practice and one at school to play.

Do you see how that folder is connected in spot? It is completely falling apart. And, yes, he is a doodler.
Check out Allan's band binder. He has a new one at school waiting for him. Allan's philosphy is "Use things up." He truly lives by it. Now, when it comes time to shop, he loves buying the best quality he can.
Allan continues to do well in school and has a few life lessons in learning to work in groups where he in doing most of the work and not happy with the quality of work from others. If he has free time after school, he usually is playing basketball or reading.

Nathan is playing the clarinet this year and has excelled. He was first chair for a long time. I credit it to his knowledge from piano. He continues to love legos, playing wii, and reading. He has put together a plan to earn his Eagle and will be awarded his First class in a couple of weeks. Nathan is my morning kid and always gets a head start on all the chores.

Joshua loves it when I practice piano with him and do homework too. His best friends this year are Eric and Aiden, but he has many other friends too. He has been working hard to master multiplication. He just started reading the Ranger's Apprentice series and loves it.

Emily is a bookworm. She has improved so much in her reading. She continues to write some letters and numbers backwards and is learning addition and subtraction facts. She loves cub scouts and will miss it.

Rachel is going through a stage and is no longer sleeping through the night. I blame it on nightmares. She often ends up in our bed. I keep reminding myself this a stage and that it will end someday. She is definitely a mama's girl. She loved Sunbeams but has refused to go by herself for the last couple of weeks. I'm hoping she will go by herself this week. She just started Joy School one day a week. She loves it!

I am always in awe at how many groceries I have to buy to keep up with how much our family eats. I cannot keep the fridge full for two seconds. The morning is always rushed and after school things can get pretty frazzling. Noise level increases and the house gets torpedoed. Of course, I love the noise. The kids compete to tell me all about the exciting things of their day and are always trying to make plans for fun adventures with friends.