Emily Update

I'm going to try to catch everyone up on things that the kids have been doing lately...one kid each day. Here's what Emily has been up to the past couple of weeks:

She was in her first chess tournament a couple of weekends ago. She doesn't play chess alot, but she enjoys it so she wanted to give the tournament a try. The tournament was for kids in grades Kindergarten through 8th grade. She lost two rounds, tied two rounds, and won one round. She got called up to receive a participation ribbon in the below picture. She plans on working on her game and competing in another chess tournament in January.

She is in a new Girl Scout troop this year. This is her fifth year in Girl Scouts. She is a Junior. This new troop does a lot of neat things. So far, she has gone on a campout in a leader's backyard. She almost made it the whole night, but got homesick around 9:30 p.m. so I picked her up. The next weekend, they spent the night in the Pink Palace. While there, they saw an IMAX Show called "Born To Be Wild", a Planetarium Show, had a Scavenger Hunt, watched a Science Magic Show, and toured the museum. She stayed the whole night without getting homesick much, but she said she was a little scared because her troop slept in the exhibit room that had the human bones in it.

Emily is doing excellent in school. She is in a new school this year. She tried out for the school choir and made it. Her first performance is next week. She recently won $1.00 and a certificate for being the top reader in her class. This year, she switches classes between two teachers which took some getting used to. She had her first official school dance this past Friday. It was during school hours and very informal.

Last Saturday, Emily and I attended a seminar called "Secret Keeper Girl". I do a devotion with the girls before school each morning (see my current reading list). The author of our devotion book created this program for 8 to 12 year old girls and their moms that emphasizes modesty and true beauty. Emily got asked to participate in a skit on stage! She played a kazoo as one of two trumpet players. It was a lot of fun and she learned some great things!

Emily recently decided to become an acolyte at our church. Her first acolyte performance was last Sunday. She did a great job and didn't spill the offering plates during the doxology and prayer! I let out a sigh of relief and realized that I had been holding my breath during that whole section of the service. Everything with the candles went well also, thankfully!

Sarah's School Update

Now that a new school year started a couple of weeks ago for the older girls, I have started teaching Sarah again at home. She is doing the Abeka Pre-K 4-year-old curriculum. She is excited about learning how to read and writing cursive. Here is her writing paper from the first day. I wrote her name for her at the top of the page, but she was learning to write the lowercase i. She traced the first few on each line, but then she wrote a couple.

She is still trying to get the hang of holding her pencil properly and making sure she doesn't do loops, but we were both proud of her first attempts.

Recent Outings

We have been trying to get outdoors when the weather is cooler, as in less than 100 degrees.

At the park:

At the zoo:

Sewing Projects

Emily got a sewing machine for her birthday. Her first project was a quilt. She used this tutorial to make it. It took her a while to handsew the border around the edge, but she finally finished it.

She also made this cloth book for Luke:

She has already started her next project: a couple of drawstring bags.

Luke's 6 Month Pictures

We took Luke to get his 6 month pictures today. I was worried that he would cry like last time, but he did great! Here are some of my favorites:

Horse Camp -- Guest Blogger, Emily

Yesterday, I [Emily] went to a 5-hour horse camp!!! The camp is called Kimberlin Farms. They have about 36 horses, 2 rabbits, 9 mini ponies, 7 cats, and 12 dogs. The first thing we did was to get 3 horses and 2 minis in from the pastures. I gave my horse treat to this beautiful horse, but a mini saw the treat and followed me around trying to get one too [Unfortunately, I only had one]!

After that, we talked about stall cleaning. The instructer then gave each of us a stall to muck out [clean]. We then each groomed our own horse. I got a mini named Pedro. By now, it was lunchtime. We ate lunch in a small building surrounded by dogs. Next, we played a tough bareback games with teams of 2. Then we rode double bareback. I was in front, but in a very uncomfortable spot- the horse's withers. Then we fingerpainted the horses!! That was pretty fun, but we didn't have a lot of paint. Next we gave the horses a bath [to get the paint out!]. While they dried, we did a fun craft.

After that, we were going to play "Beauty Shop" with the horses [another girl and I were going to braid flowers into the horse's tail and mane], but Mom came and I didn't want to keep everyone waiting on me. I had an awesome time!!

Learning To Crawl

Luke is 6 months old today! Time is just going by way too fast. I took this video of him today: