Progress Report

Warning! This is an update mostly for our family and may induce severe boredom to anyone else. Once the camera recharges I will post pics and that is a lot more fun!

Eliora is doing great in school. The workload is a little crazy and she is worn out at the end of certain days after school, swimming, and gymnastics but in a good way. This morning she went in with her writing assigment. A history paragraph consisting of a min. of 7 sentences that must have a topic sentence (highlighted) and a 'clincher' sentence at the end (reflecting the topic sentence). The paragraph was taken from a history paragraph that she had to read and pull the key words out of. They then use the key words to write their own paragraph. They get points for indentation, spelling, punctuation, and all that regular stuff but they must also have a because clause, a ly word in the middle of a sentence, strong verbs (there are words such as like, good etc. that are banned), a who which clause, a prepositional phrase to start a sentence, a ing word to start a sentence.....I forgot what else. There were about ten in all and squeezing them all into a nonfiction paragraph was a little tricky. They get extra points for using their vocabulary words anywhere and all the different grammer points had to be underlined and highlighted. This had to be turned in with the initial outline, rough draft, checklist, and finished copy. I guess eventually there will be harder and more areas for grammer points and the writing will get longer. She also has a spelling test and history test today and a book report that must be presented next week. She is memorizing her latin words and her poem (also to be presented in class) plus her math, grammer worksheets, and I know not what. The interaction of her presenting with her class and having things like 'movie' days of Fridays are a lot of fun and we love the teachers and staff at Midland Classical.

Audrey is also having a crazy workload this year. We jumped her up a grade in math since it's a strong subject but she also has her reading, grammar, writing, history etc plus her dyslexia class and her projects (to replace presentations). One of her main projects this year is her new camera and keeping up and figuring out how to blog the pictures once a week. Her blog is www.blackwolf24.blogspot.com if anyone wants to comment. Although I don't let her post everyday she gets on every morning before we wake up and changes out the background colors and the 'live' fish at the top. In a few years the kid will be more computer saavy than I am and able to crop and organize all our family pics. She is also in swimming and wants to sign up for another triathlon or try her hand at a 5K once we get back from vacation.

Sadie and Abby are happy, crazy, and fun. Sadie lost a front tooth and the other is so loose that it's sideways. We call her snaggletooth and she likes making crazy faces. She is hoping to keep her loose tooth till Halloween so she can make a jack o lantern in her image. They are both in gym and swimming (these are all at the same place) and spend their days asking over and over if they can play instead of doing schoolwork or chores.

Hannah is two. Anyone that has ever had a two year old probably knows what that means. She is starting to say sentences although we can't always understand them and is fiercly independent. If we want her to get a diaper we just suggest that Abby could get it and off she runs. She wants to buckle her own seatbelt, put on her own shoes, get herself dressed, put on her own diaper, and get herself out of the car. She has a funny little run where she swings her arms in an exaggerated way to get anywhere and spends a great deal of time on her new bike, hovercraft thing (I have no idea what it is - it came from grandparents). She loves carrying around dolls and taking care of them and tries to copy everything her sisters do.

 Well, that about sums us up right now. China is looming and the visa fiasco is causing more stress than it should have (our passports and applications got put on the wrong UPS truck) but I think everything will work out. Our washer broke last week and soaked the clothes I keep in bags in storage (the ones the girls are going to grow into) which is giving me a good opportunity to wash everything and go through it all. Ben is keeping up with work and Elder Quorum duties and met with his advisor at UT a bit ago to finally publish his thesis. I am just staying afloat of it all!