Sept 11, 2006

I know I am not doing well at keeping up with this blog. Forgive me. At least I have pictures up and those speak louder than any words I type, right? Well, I can't even remember what it is I wrote last time, so I'll just do my best to remember what's been happening. Gene is well into the football season. Vols have won their first 2 games so we have purchased more orange clothing this year than I care to admit. (since the kids have to wear it to school on game days) Gene decided to join 3, yes 3! fantasy football leagues....maybe there will be a win this year. He has been assigned to the Pellissippi ward so he attends there when he doesn't have a speaking assignment (except fast sundays) so we don't see him much on sundays. We both have decided to join up with the stake choir for a big christmas presentation they are doing for the community and had our first rehearsal tonight.Gene is still working at mls solutions...but is waiting to hear about a job in Dallas. but for now we have decided to take our house off the market and stay here. I personally am overjoyed to no longer keep the house spotless and smelling nice and round up the kids at a moments notice and find somewhere to go while strangers look thru our home. Next time we put this house up for sale we will already be happily dwelling in ANOTHER abode! Tara is loving first grade. She really doesn't have much homework, which is good since she's at school for a long time....her teacher is kind of wacky, will just randomly turn on the music and start dancing, wiggling, has them sit on their desks to do math, etc. She seems really happy (unlike last year where she could only tell me the exciting things at school were what was for lunch and who she played with at recess). Her favorite thing to do in music class is play the drums and she has come home from library day the last 2 weeks with cookbooks. (this week was "cooking the greek way") What does this mean? Why did you bring this home ? Her reply"because I wanted to look at it". ok good enough. I had no idea when we signed up for cheer how handy cheers would be around the house. For instance, I need to get the kids to brush their teeth, all I say is "L.E.T.S. G.O." and they automatically continue because even Jake knows the cheers "lets go, lets go L.E.T.S.G.O., lets go dogs!" There really is a cheer for everything. The weather has been beautiful this week so I pick up the kids from school and we just head out to the park, they get tired and dirty and it's time for dinner and the day is done. It's amazing how fast time is flying. Emily starts preschool Thurs. and she is so excited. Unfortunately the other end of the carpool might be a problem for a while. Lori is 5 days past her due date with baby #4(she could be having it any minute now) so we might be taking and picking up Ben for a little while. Emily's drawings lately have been really detailed and amazing. She could sit for hours and draw. I caught her the other day in the front room sitting with eyes closed and head swaying to a cd she had put on. She feels it in her soul. She just goes through the stacks and finds the cds she likes and remembers the number. She's our automatic jutebox. On Sundays I tell her "only sunday nice music" and she puts it on for us. She's got artistic genes in her for sure. Jake is evaluated tomorrow for his speech. Hopefully there will be something close so I don't have to run all over town...3 kids in 3 separate schools could get complicated. We had a primary activity yesterday a birthday party celebrating the primary's birthday. It was a lot of fun including the chicken dance and limbo, pin Jonah in the whale, etc. We had a good turn out but a big cleanup. The girls were invited over to the Tullis' house to play in the afternoon when we were showing the house so I went grocery shopping alone (hooray!) and Gene took Jake to the train store ...seems to be his obsession lately that Thomas the very expensive train....it makes him happy just to go and play with the display train, so that has become their bonding time. Well, Happy Grandparents Day to all you grandparents. Thanks for all you do.