Let's Catch Up!

I can't believe I've let this blog sit and grow stale for over a year!  Well, actually, maybe I really can believe it.  With this amount of children, and having them getting older and involved in more things, I'm really learning that you have to fight for what's important.  You can't plan every moment, but there can't be any coasting.  The days must be full of purpose, and goals, or we risk wasting a lot of precious time.

I've  come to the recent, surprising conclusion that I no longer wish to spend Sunday afternoons napping.  When we have church in the afternoon, that option isn't available to me, but we are on the morning schedule now, and the option is there.  But for a long time, I've been dissatisfied with my Sunday naps.  Don't get me wrong, the desire to sleep is strong.  But I don't wake up refreshed.  I wake up feeling . . . well . . . yucky.  Sluggish.  Grumpy.  I'm slow to take care of dinner.  I resent having to go to any meetings, and I feel stupid and slow when I'm there.  So I'm going to experiment and fill my free Sunday afternoon time with other things, such as blogging, indexing, you get the idea.  We'll see how it goes.  So, lucky YOU!  I'm going to update you on our family.

Tim is still a high school English teacher at the same high school.  It's been a surprisingly great job, in spite of the 40 minute commute.  When they first offered him the job, and he said he wanted to take it, I never thought he'd still be teaching there 10 years later.  As far as church goes, he is a member of the high council.  He speaks in other wards, and his specific responsibilities include Primary and Public Affairs, but he has not been assigned to a specific ward, so he often attends church with me, so that has been nice.

I'm still a full-time mother, but I also give piano lessons, currently to various people in the ward.  I've also been accompanying a girl's choir that Rheanna used to be part of.  I'm not doing that at the moment, but it's been a great way to challenge myself and improve my own piano skills.  I've really grown in my understanding of what it means to practice and how to do it.  It's always nice to discover that I actually can improve beyond my current plateau.  There are so many spiritual correlations to that.  In church, I am the visiting teaching coordinator, so I basically oversee the secretarial aspects of making visiting teaching assignments and collecting the statistics for the month.  I like having a calling that makes me get to know other people because I probably wouldn't do it on my own, and I've really gotten to know many people in the ward that I wouldn't have known otherwise.  I also am in the choir.  Technically, I'm the pianist, but I've also been asked by the choir director to conduct songs and to sing.  She's my mother-in-law, so although I, like many, find conducting extremely uncomfortable, I don't dare say no.  I kid, I kid, she's not forcing me.  And I must admit that it's been good for me.  How good it's been for the choir is another question, but they bear with me.

On to the children:

Rheanna is a freshman in high school.

 (allowing time for the shock to wear off)



She is great about getting up at 5 AM to go to seminary before school, and she's still playing piano, although she could do better about practicing.  But she is also playing violin in the school orchestra and was excited to move up from second string to first string not too long ago.  She is a counselor in the Mia Maid presidency at church and is a very happy, social girl.  Where did she come from?  But I'm sure that if you asked her what her big accomplishment was last year, she would tell you it was when she grew taller than her mother.  She is currently enjoying the ability to raid my wardrobe now.  I am enjoying the fact that if I buy her shoes, I can use them too.

Ian is in middle school.  He turned 12 and received the priesthood last year.  It is fun to see him passing the sacrament in his suit, and he was recently called to be a secretary in the Deacon's quorum.  He is taking Art/Drawing and is in the boy's choir at school, both of which are right up his alley.  He is obsessed with drawing dragons, and he received the "Outstanding 6th Grade Student" in choir last year.  He is keeping up in scouting, but we are currently trying to figure out how to make his goal of becoming an Eagle scout a reality.  Right now he is trying his hand at tennis on the boy's tennis team at school.  His most recent happy event was finally getting two Russian tortoises (we promised them to him over a year ago).  That's some pretty patient waiting!

Keller is doing great at school.  He's very diligent about doing his homework, and at practicing his piano (even when it's been a while since I've moved him on to the next lesson, and he's been practicing the same songs for over a month, he will still practice them every day).  Whenever Tim and I announce that a chore needs to be done, Keller is the first to respond.  He is also good about trying things, even when I know it makes him uncomfortable.  With some encouragement, he played on the basketball team at school.  Right now he is doing baseball.  I think he actually was excited to do baseball.  I got to see him play at his first game a couple of days ago.  I actually didn't realize it was him at bat until I heard one of his teammates call his name, but I still wasn't sure.  I didn't recognize his posture.  It seemed so much more confidant and not as stiff as it can sometimes be.  He hit the ball well, getting two fouls before he hit it, ran to first, then ran on to second when the other team dropped the ball.  It was until I saw how his feet were turned inward as he ran that I realized it really was him.


Look at that!  I'm out of time.  To be continued . . .