September has come and gone...

Wow, has it really been that long since my last post? I am getting so bad at this. I can't believe that September is already over!!!

So, what have we been up to around here? The kids are doing great in school. Everyone has been working hard and they all seem to be getting really good grades.

Kaylee and Tiffany have been playing Volleyball. Both girls made the varsity teams for their grades and both girls have played very well.

Tiffany plays setter and she has learned so much. She had never played an official game of volleyball before, but you would never know it watching her. She plays well and she plays hard. Her team took the city by storm and won the 6th grade championships last week. Here are a couple of pics of her.

Tiff has a great serve and often goes on a run of unreturned serves they call that an ACE!!!

Tiffany has also surprised us with her grades this year. She has always been a good student, she has always had B's with an A or 2 thrown in, but right now she is pulling straight A's and most of her averages are over 100% thanks to her enthusiasm for doing extra credit. I am so proud of how hard she is working this year. I knew she had it in her, she just had to figure it out for herself. Go Tiff!! She and I had the chance last week to go with her volleyball team to CSU to watch a college volleyball team play. It was so much fun and amazing to watch. Now she knows how hard she is going to have to work if she wants to play on that level.

Kaylee plays "Outside Hitter" on the 8th grade team and has improved her skills so much over the last year. She is very aggressive and plays really well. Here are a couple of pics of Kaylee playing.

She has an awesome serve!!

She saved this one, she got under it and got it up just enough for someone else to hit it.
Her team will be playing in the Conference Championships this Saturday, however she will be watching from the bench after a season ending injury to her pinky finger led to surgery and two screws this week. It was a freak thing that happened, as she was catching a ball off a serve in practice, it popped up and caught her finger just right and broke it bad!!! Here is the x-ray.
She is so disappointed to miss the last few games of the season, but we are hoping that all goes well in her healing and she is able to get back on the court soon to get ready for next year. She too is pulling straight A's and is working hard. Though now she is a bit stressed from missing 4 days of school thanks to her injury. She has some work to make up, but I know she will pull it off. I have been able to help her by scribing for her with some of her work. (Did I mention she injured her right hand and she is right handed?) She will do fine and be caught back up in no time. She is enjoying time with friends this year and has been attending football games for the high school with them and hanging out whenever possible.

Ryan decided to run for Student Council Historian. He had to come up with a campaign, make posters, and give a speech. He chose a concept of Harry Potter for his campaign and used the idea to make posters that said "Harry says vote for Ryan" and used different characters from the books. Then in his speech he acted like he was Harry Potter recommending Ryan for the job. It was good. He was elected out of 7 who were running for that position. He is following in his sisters' footsteps. Both girls were also Historian in 4th grade and both went on to be elected President in 5th grade. Go Ryan I am so proud of you. Mom and dad were unable to watch him give his speech since dad was out of town for work and mom was at surgery with Kaylee, but Grandma went and got a picture for us. She said he was very confident and did a great job on his speech. Here is a picture of him giving his speech for the elections. He also received an award today for good work in his daily language exercises. He is a great student and doing really well in 4th grade so far. He has been reading the Fablehaven book series by Brandon Mull and is really enjoying that.

Jake is active as ever and is a bottomless pit to boot. He is always hungry and can never get enough until it comes to meal time when he is suddenly not hungry for what I have cooked, oh how frustrating!! I have squashed the snacks (he hates that) but we have stopped buying chips and other things that he likes to sneek. He is doing well in school and I am so proud of him for working so hard. He has been reading some Henry and Mudge books and is wanting to start reading Harry Potter too. Go Jake!!

Kyle has come alive and I am so happy with our decision to put him in all day kindergarten. Before, he wouldn't write anything for me, he wouldn't practice his letters, write his name or anything. I knew he could, but he wouldn't practice for me. Now he comes home everyday to do his (self-imposed) "homework." Last week he had Mike help him make a book to practice his letters and he does a couple of pages each day. He has also made his own numbers book now too so he can practice his numbers as well. He is thriving in school and I am so excited to see his improvements. Here is a picture he drew of our family.

As for me, I have been busy with the girls' volleyball games, homework, housework, volunteering with school projects, digital scrapbooking, and cooking. I recently learned how to make bread thanks to my mother in law. I then filled in for her to teach a class about it at our enrichment meeting. I have since been making a couple of loaves of bread each week. The kids love the homemade wheat bread and it has been kind of fun. I also had a cook day with my friends a couple weeks ago and enjoyed that as well. I especially love having all the meals in the freezer. I have been working out on a regular basis and I must say I am glad to have a workout space in the basement. I have been combining cardio (on the treadmill) with weights to give myself a pretty well rounded workout. Though I haven't noticed a difference on the scale yet, I am noticing that I am toning up a bit. Hooray!!! Overall, I am doing really well.

Mike is back to traveling agin. We enjoyed having home for almost a month. He is arranging for an apartment in Lawton, Oklahoma where he will be living Monday through Friday every week starting in November. It's hard on all of us to have him away so much, but we are managing and we are so grateful that he has such a great job. The benefits alone have been a huge help this year with 2 surgeries again for the second year in a row. Everyone loves the weekends around our house. We spend our time together as a family, Mike and I have date night and we just treasure the little time together.

Well, I think that about catches us up on what is going on around here, so that is all for now.