Recap

Here's a brief recap of what's been going on with us in the couple months since I've blogged. I'm sure I'll forget a lot, so this is really just the basics.

I'm still teaching the Laurels at church. I LOVE it. I have the best girls. I've had the opportunity to head up a couple week day activities as well and while I hope they don't make a habit of giving me that responsibility, I did enjoy the activities I've done. I'll be teaching them to make German chocolate cheesecake this week (thanks Deb!). Dance Festival rehearsals have gone to stake wide instead of building wide, so I'm not really needed for that anymore. I'm both sad and relieved by that. I mentioned in my last post I was doing daycare for my neighbor. That's 4 days a week most weeks with occasional Fridays as well. I've started going to water aerobics at a local pool a couple nights a week which has been a nice change from yoga and the gym. Last month, for the first time, I played piano in public. Our ward had a talent show and I promised my laurels I'd do something, so I signed up to play the piano. I did not play well. In fact, I screwed it up big time. But I played. That was a really big step for me.
I had kind of a hard time turning 32 this year, but I had a really fantastic birthday party at Chopstix, a dueling piano bar, with some really great friends and that helped.

Scott was released from the Elders quorum presidency a couple months ago and called into Primary. After a few months of subbing and shuffling, he finally has a regular class. He's teaching Valiant 10. It's a good class for him. Since Rachel's teacher isn't always able to make it, he also has her class pretty frequently as well. He's now carpooling on a regular basis which has been nice for our budget, especially considering the ridiculous gas prices, and his job is going well. I wish there was more to report for him, but his job really takes up most of his time.

Rachel is doing cheerleading at The Little Gym and loving it. In fact, she loves it so much she wants to do "real" cheerleading with our neighbor this fall. We're looking into it, but no decisions have been made for sure. She has her first real crush on a boy at school and even had her seat changed because she was talking to him instead of doing her work. This is so not my little girl. She's only 8 for heaven's sake! She's still doing well at school, but I think she's a little bored. Her teacher doesn't work to keep the kids challenged like her teacher last year did, instead teaching to the lowest common denominator in the class. She's very nice and very capable, she just doesn't know how to keep the couple really smart kids in the class challenged. So Rachel is bored.

Tyler finished his second year of soccer and is already into his first season of t-ball. He loves it. He always seemed a little lost in soccer, although he loved being goalie. He gets baseball. At least mostly. He likes batting best, but is happy no matter what position he plays. His eye is responding well to the patching. He's now able to see the 5th line down on the vision chart instead of just the big E, and it gets better all the time. As his vision improves, so do his social skills. He's becoming a leader in all kinds of activities instead of being content just to follow. He also got to hold an 8 foot snake on his shoulders during the "Reptile Man" assembly at school. He loved every second of it. He is easily the smartest boy in his class and tested for the Challenge program at school.

Becca is doing a combination dance/gymnastics class for the second semester. She's actually tired of the dance portion of it and will go back to just gymnastics in the fall. We're also looking into all day kindergarten for her. She's trying to read and learning how to write her letters. Mostly she spends her days trying to figure out how to get into trouble, but she is also still my snuggler and the first in line for hugs and kisses. She lost her first tooth on my birthday and her second last night, and got her ears pierced last week, so she feels very grown up.


We're still doing the sign route on Fridays and Sundays. We try to go to the Build and Grow program at Lowe's as often as we can. If any of you are looking for something free for your kids to do, see if your local Lowe's is doing it. My kids love it. We're looking into swimming lessons for the kids. Hopefully that'll actually pan out this year. The first leaves are sprouting on my quaking aspen in the front yard, and we had record high temps this weekend! Driving home from gymnastics last week I got the triple pleasure of bright sun, Mt. Rainier out in full glory, and the wonderful smell of lawns being mowed. The days are getting longer, the sun is coming out more, and there are flowers everywhere. It's finally spring!