October 20th

As the seasons (sports, that is) change, so do the days of our lives...
We are now officially done with softball. Fast Pitch awards were Tuesday night with a dinner banquet. Alyssa received the Arrow Award which is for the athletes that have a great attitude on and off the field, show sportmanship, work hard at practice and never give up. I am so proud of her for this award. She played every position this season except for pitcher and did each one with a smile on her face. She always said, "Mom I don't care where they put me as long as I can play." She is alreadly talking about working on pitching so she can do that next season. She loves fast pitch.

Our swimming season is reving up now. We will have our first home meet this coming weekend. It is basically just a team meet to help new swimmers learn how swim meets run. For me it means spending a couple days this week getting timers and concessions ready, planning a parent social and a parent meeting and then serving as a starter and official at the meet. Amy, Delaney and Taylor will swim at this meet. Haylee has a volleyball tournament in town so she will not be able to compete. She isn't quite ready yet any way. She has only made about 6 practices.

Haylee's volleyball team has been doing quite well. She was disappointed at the beginnig of the season when she was placed on the "c" team. But after the first game she was bumped up to the B team. She does very well and has led the team in kills in a match. Her team has only lost 4 matches out of about 8 games. She says it is now her favorite sport. I have a feeling that swimming competitively for her is coming to an end. We'll have to see.

Alyssa has one football game left to cheer at and I am hoping to watch her the whole time this week. She only cheers for home games and they only have 4. The first one I got to watch for 15 minutes before heading to coach soccer. I compeletly missed the second game and only got to stay for a quarter of the last one before I had to get back to work.

Amy is doing very well at her new school and is working hard on reaching reading goals. They have a certain amount of points they earn each month to get a prize and she has already met hers for October. In the success maker computer program they do at her school she is already doing 7th grade reading and almost finished with 6th grade math. She is frustrated with some in her class who aren't even at grade level yet. She has been working hard at swimming so far this season as well. Last year she really wanted to quit about 3/4 through the season. I told her she had to finish the season, but didn't have to swim after that. She ended up swimming the summer season and getting the most improved award.

Delaney is adjusting to life at a new school. She got to go to a overnight birthday party for one of her new friends. She is starting to make new friends, but constantly wants to do stuff with her "old" friends. Academically she is doing very well. She has made all her reading goals and is at the 4th grade level in both math and reading on the success maker program. She is swimming and some days loves it and some days doesn't want to be there. She is a very good swimming and placed in the top 10 in almost everything at state this summer.

Taylor, we could write a comic strip about her. Her latest thing was taking a toy gun to school that one of Haylee's friends left at our house. Grandpa Mike picked her up from school that day and had the teacher fill him in. When they got to my work Taylor told Grandpa he didn't have to come in and as she patted his hand said, "Now we don't have to tell my mom about this." She did this the same day her cousin, Wyatt took a jack knife to school. I knew having them in the same class would cause some problems!
Tony has been working since August on remodeling our upstairs bathroom. For over a month he was just tearing out walls and radiators, but we could use the toliet. Last week he took that out. So now we have 6 girls and one man using one bathroom. Might not be so bad if 2 of those girls weren't teenagers and it didn't happen to be the upstairs bathroom where all the bedrooms are. He is off from his bug cleaning job this week so I am hoping he makes some massive progress.

I think that is enough for now. I am hoping to add some pictures soon, but can't seem to find my camera. Maybe that is at school as well??