What's New

It's about time we gave an update around here. Sometimes life is just too full to keep up! I'm composing this message on our Kindle Fire--me using new technology--that's worth writing about! It makes planning lessons for church so much easier. And it is cool how you can surf the Internet so conveniently. After about a year serving as Cubmaster for Kian's cub scout pack, I have been released and asked to serve in the Young Women Presidency instead. This is a calling I have looked forward to for a long time and I was totally ready for it. Actually, I knew I was going to be asked to serve in young women's even before they asked, but that's a whole other story. I get to attend a lot of youth activities now. And teach on several Sundays and attend meetings. But so far my experience with the youth has been really fun. Being around the young women makes me feel younger. My girls are awesome. I have felt my heart growing with love for them already. I honestly think that one reason I am comfortable being there is because I have lost some weight. Remember my goal at the beginning of the year? 24 pounds in 12 months. I am right on track, having lost 14 pounds so far. It feels awesome to pull on pants and feel their looseness when they used to be tight! The best resource I have used for the weight loss is the website loseit.com. You input your goal weight and how fast you want to lose it, and it gives you a daily calorie allotment. The key for me is adding exercise into my week. Matt and I have discovered that tennis is really fun and a great workout. We're still not good, but we're definitely better than when we started. I guess Matt caught the exercise and losing weight bug too, because now he has signed up with loseit.com as well! Matt and Kian are currently at Boy Scout camp, hiking in the heat of a Missouri summer. I got a text from them last night that Kian was covered in hives, but the Benadryl was taking effect. We don't know the trigger but it has happened before. Matt is enjoying the summer break. He gets to be Mr. Mom when I am at work. He and Kian started a little business together to pay for Scout Camp. They baked cookies, brownies, muffins, cinnamon rolls and donuts. They were all amazing and delicious. Kian earned his Webelos badge and Arrow of Light for Cub Scouts and has now moved on to the world of Boy Scouting. He lives and breathes computers. It's what he is always thinking about. It is hard to get his mind onto anything else. He likes to download programs from the Internet which he can then install onto his own computer. He plays some computer games but enjoys making games as well. When our Internet bill came to us $80 more than normal we realized he was downloading too many things! He now comes with me more often to the library where he can download without a limit. He has asked me some suspicious questions, however. Like if I can get him the administrator password for the public computers at the library and if he can copy the files that the library uses. I told him he better be very careful or he will get busted and lose his library card. He said the blue screen of death came up only once for him on the library computers and it just rebooted. I don't know how to keep up with him. He checked out a book on A+ certification the other night and I told him that after he studied it, I would pay for him to take the test! Miss Abby spends her time reading the Warriors books which are about various clans of cats. She is all about cats at the moment. She plays with Barbie's and dolls for a significant part of her day. She loves to knit using the loom from Grandma. She spends so much time playing alone that I wonder about her but when we were at a public event the other mitt, she joined several girls in the game they were playing without any problem. Ella is playful and silly as ever. She and Felicity are BFF much of he time. They dance and make up games. They dress up and color. Ella is the only one of the kids who chose to continue doing math during the summer. She enjoys it and is good at it. Felicity is growing so much! She loves to sing the do re mi song from the Sound of Music over and over. She can speak more clearly now which makes it easier for us to understand her. She is learning every day. She still has the bright red curls on her head. Klaus is a total menace! This stage is so hard because it's like he enters a room looking around to see what he can pull down and break. He is just so curious about everything and we have to be so careful! He is 18 months now so gets to go to the nursery at church. He says uh-oh but not much more yet. We are glad around here when he finally goes to sleep at night. We can then tidy up he house for a few hours.