The STORM has passed!

Soccer season is over for another year! I really enjoyed this season with Gracie's "Storm" team. They played at a different place since she'd moved up into an older league and I liked it a lot better. There was lots of room where Katie could run around a lot without me having to worry about her too much.

I think Gracie really enjoyed playing and she definitely put her heart & soul into it. We are very proud of how hard she tried! We had the end-of-season party last night right after the game where the kids got trophies & medals along with pizza (some of it donated free from

D-o-m-i-n-o-s!) and a cupcake cake that was supposed to look like a soccer ball. I had seen a really cute one online and thought that would be cute to go along with their party. Since I was in charge of snacks last night I decided to order one from K-r-o-g-e-r. Well, it didn't look as much like a soccer ball as I'd hoped, but I don't think the kids cared!

I've been emailing back & forth with the lady who coordinates music lessons at the place where we'd like for Gracie to take violin lessons. We hope to start next week. I think we're all really looking forward to it! Chris is really excited about her starting music lessons and Gracie seems excited too. It will only be 1 30 minute lesson per week so I'm glad that it won't be a lot of time spent outside of home. She'll need to practice of course but that can be done at home. I really like when we all can "just be home" together at night and not running around to this & that all the time. It's okay to do it some but I find myself craving "at home" time so I'm glad that a sport season is over and after school time can be lots of "home time!"

Gracie is still enjoying school and is learning so many things! She's been studying geography lately which Chris likes because he's a geography nerd that way! LOL He was quizzing her this morning on which body of water borders the U.S. on the West and which one on the East and which countries border the U.S., etc. I think her geography quiz is today. He's contacted Mrs. Z about coming in to the school in November to do a geography presentation for the whole 2nd grade for GIS day. He did it last year for 1st grade.

Katie and I did some puzzles together this morning. She's really good with her colors and pretty good with her counting, too. Not perfect but pretty good. She's only 3 so I'd say she's really good! Gramme got her these puzzles which are good for practicing this sort of thing. We were also looking at these "slide-n-learn" flash cards which had pentagon and octagon, etc. She was trying to say the word, "pentagon." I asked where she'd learned that and she said something about some binoculars on Noggin?!!?! I tell you, anyone who says t.v. doesn't teach kids anything isn't watching the right shows! Sure, a kid can definitely watch too much t.v. and can also watch the wrong kinds of shows, but with moderation and with watching the right shows, learning can definitely take place!

I am excited that I'm going to start a little "job" next week with my alma mater, GACS. It's a job that I can do from right here at home in front of my computer and I really look forward to starting it! I hope I'll do a good job on this first project so they'll continue to give me more projects and I hope it'll lead to more opportunities down the road with other places of business. I guess I need to pray about that, huh?!!?

I'm excited that we're going to Alabama next week for my cousin's wedding! Truthfully, my family gets together for weddings & funerals. We're all so spread out (Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Washington state, Arkansas, Mississippi!) and I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone!!!!!!!!

I just finished reading "The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Decked Out." It's the last one in the series and I'm really sad that it's over. I get really attached to people and I just really, really liked this series!!!!!! The author said she is starting a new series and some of the characters will be woven into the new series so I look forward to that! I'll now go back to the Karen Kingsbury "Firstborn" series (#2)which I'm also really enjoying!