Wed. Oct 4, 2006--LONG entry!

Oh boy...it's been a while since I last posted.  Oops!  I think of posting every couple of days, but stay too busy to actually do it.  I'm so sorry that I have fallen behind on this when there are many of you who keep up with us this way.  If you see that it's been a week (or longer!) since I've posted, feel free to email/call/whatever & say "Hey you!  Post something!".  :)  Let me see if I can catch you up.

 

Andrew & Samuel:

A couple of weeks ago, the children's pastor passed out info about a Children's Baptism service coming up at church.  The boys brought us the cards & said they wanted to get baptised.  Larry & I don't believe that either of them are really ready.  While they both know the "church answers" to questions about salvation, they don't seem to get the personal side of it.  It is interesting, however, to see that they both have no real concern for salvation aside from the fact that if they do it & get baptised, they get to be in a big bathtub at church.  Hmm....the novelty of it is not a good reason to get baptised.  :)  It'll come in time, though!

 

All the kids:

Sundays have become more "intense" for us recently as the kids are now all old enough to attend Sunday night worship service with us.  Keeping 5 children still & quiet while trying to listen to a sermon & worship the Lord is umm.....challenging.  They do pretty well, though, so I can't complain too much.

 

Mondays:

On Monday evenings, Kourtney & Sarah are in twirling & jazz class.  It's one combined class that lasts 45 minutes.  They are both enjoying it, but I think Sarah is REALLY into it.  She stays glued to the teachers left leg most of the class time because she wants to be "right there" to see all the new steps & moves.  Kourtney, on the other hand, is more of a back row dancer.  She likes it & has fun, but she's not as "into it" as Sarah seems to be.  Sarah's already excited about the pretty costumes for the recital at the end of the year....Kourtney's excited about getting to dance on stage.  I am not sure if she realizes she'll have to do the class dance...not her own.  :)  Their two personalities make me giggle...they're so different, yet so much alike it's funny!

 

Tuesdays:

Tuesdays afternoons are a little nutty here.  All 5 kids have homework on Tuesdays.  Four out of five need some close supervision & help to get it done, so if you need me, please don't call on Tuesday afternoon/evening.  It's way too crazy for me to spend time on the phone.  Larry teaches the DivorceCare class at church on Tues evenings, so we don't see him til about 9pm--which means crazy homework time is up to me.  Oy!

 

Wednesdays:

Wednesdays are my "lazy day", hence the reason I'm able to sit & type this!  It's one of my days off each week where I can get some things accomplished at home, or just sit around & do nothing if I want to. 

Wednesday night church is getting exciting!  The boys are in Royal Rangers & the girls are in Missionettes.  Afterward, Andrew & Savannah are in choir.  They've begun practicing for their "Christmas Crosstalk" play they'll do in December.  They're both pretty excited about that!  If you think you might want to come see the show, let me know & I'll send you the details of date/time, etc.

 

Thursdays:

Thursday afternoon is when Savannah has art class.  She is really enjoying it!  The boys also have Scouts on Thurs evening.  They're both in Cub Scouts.  Samuel is a Tiger Scout & Andrew is a Bear Scout.  They're having fun getting to learn & do all the fun stuff that goes along with Scouting.  Larry is pretty giddy about it himself.  Being an Eagle Scout, he's always hoped to get involved w/ the Scouts again.  He's having a ball taking the boys & getting to be one of the Tiger Scout den leaders.  This is the one thing in the boys' lives that I am sort of uninvolved in.  I mean, I'll be there for any big events that they want me to come for, but it's one thing that I can stand back & let Larry handle so that the boys get some "guy time" to do things that maybe mom doesn't know how to do.  It's good for all three of them & I enjoy watching them all come in from den meetings bursting with energy & excitement about what they've done.

 

Fridays:

Friday nights are usually filled with birthday parties or family outings of some sort.  This past week was Savannah's party.  Yes, her birthday was in August, but she wanted to wait for school to start so that she could invite school friends.  We used the church youth building & had 3 hours' worth of crazy, squealing girls.  They had snacks, pizza & cake, watched a movie & played 2 games.  Savannah got a bunch of cute gifts (not to mention some money & gift certificates, too!).  Everything went really well!

 

Saturdays:

Saturday is soccer day!  Andrew & Kourtney both wanted to play, but after one day of it, Kourtney changed her mind.  Andrew is still very much into it & loves playing.  And really...sitting there for 1 hour instead of 2 is ok by me!  :)

 

Savannah--this week:

This week, Savannah is at the Holloway Outdoor School at Camp Tyler.  She left yesterday morning & will not be home until Friday afternoon.  They take the 5th graders there each year & have them stay 4 days/3 nights.  It is staffed by parent volunteers & the school teachers & some of the Camp Tyler employees.  She was so excited about this!!  They start telling the kids about it in 3rd grade & they create a piggy bank at school to start saving in.  It is not a free program, but it is a required part of the 5th grade curriculum.  She saved every penny of the first $100 by herself!  She used birthday money, money earned from chores, etc to save that much.  Larry & I subsidized the rest of the cost.  They do all sorts of neat hands-on science projects while they're there & hike through the woods to learn about ecosystems & nature.  One cool thing they do is tagging animals with a GPS tracking tag.  They watch the animal on a GPS system during the week & then track it down & remove the tag at the end of the week.  (This is for turtles, frogs, crawfish, etc.)  They stay in cabins and play in the woods, milk cows & feed the animals ...things that many of us country kids grew up doing as part of our regular life.  I'm so glad she's getting to experience this!  Larry is going out to spend the night in a cabin with a bunch of wild & wooley boys tonight.  I know he'll have fun....but I don't know about the boys he'll have to wrangle.  ha ha!  They had an abundance of day-time parentvolunteers, so unless someone cancels, they decided they didn't need me.  I'm a little bummed that I don't get to go SEE how she's doing, but then again, I might have not seen her there anyway, so I'll have to wait til Friday to hear the scoop.  I know she's having a ball!

 

Andrew/ARD meeting/school changes:

This week we had an ARD meeting to re-do Andrew's IEP.  At the end of last (school) year, we decided to fully mainstream him this year & see how he did.  Of course, we found out recently that he's dyslexic so he was already going out to the dyslexia lab 45 minutes/day.  He's doing fine at keeping up socially, but he can't handle the regular 3rd grade academic load, so he's now going back to attending resource classes for all but science & social studies.  He's with his regular class for science, social studies & then P.E., computer lab, music and things like that, but he is out of the room for everything else.  This year is the year that he will take the dreaded TAKS test.  Because he's going to the resource classes now, the special ed. coordinator for the school recommended the SDAA-II test (I think I'm getting those initials right) for him.  It's basically the same as TAKS, but the test is modified to fit whereever your child is academically instead of testing on a higher standard than they're capable.  I'm glad they decided to do this because I know that he would only get frustrated & discouraged if he had to do the regular test & then possibly failed 3rd grade because of it.

 

Kourtney:

Kourtney is doing well in school.  She got good grades on her first report card last week.  She's mastered all but 1 of the "sight words" that they're taught the first 6 weeks.  Although she did have marks against her for being inattentive & talking too much, otherwise she did well.  We've been talking to her teacher lately & finding that she sees some of the same ADD type qualities that we do.  At this stage of her life, though, it's hard to say whether it's really ADD behavior or if it's just a matter of her being a 5yr old.  But since big brother has ADHD, she is at a higher "risk" for having problems with it, too.  We'll continue to watch her.  I know that part of her inattentiveness is because she's still in a new environment.  It's been 7.5 months, but for a little kid, that's still not enough time to take in all the new sights/sounds/smells.  We'll see, I suppose!

 

Conclusion:

I realize this is a lot of info & longer than my usual posts, but I had to catch you up.  Last weekend, while we were at the Youth building for Savannah's party, there was a stack of free Rachel Lampa CDs.  I took one & have absolutely fallen in love with one particular song.  I won't type out the entire song here, but the chorus really nails how I feel:

 

"I am blessed....oh, I am blessed.

From when I rise up in the morning, til I lay my head to rest.

I feel you near me.

You soothe me when I'm weary.

Oh Lord, for all the worst & all the best,

I am blessed."

 

And another place in the song, she says:

 

"You've given me hope, you've given me love.

You give me strength when I want to give up.

You came from Heaven to rescue my soul,

This is how I know..........(chorus)"

 

Hmmm....getting a little excited just typing those.....I may just go ahead & include the lyrics to the whole song later.  It's too good to miss the words to the whole thing!  :)