I was talking to my friend a few weeks ago from High School, and just remembering how much fun we had. I loved my high school friends. We had a somewhat nebulous group and I liked that it was that way. Some of us were friends from elementary school who pretty much grew up together. Other girls were friends from Jr. High. At any rate, we were witty and intelligent girls, if I do say so myself. ;) I loved that we weren't any particular label/clique, etc.
We always had a great time. I don't remember girl drama. Just a lot of fun. Some of the best times were up at Megan's cabin in Mink Creek, ID. We loved cruising in their mustang convertible. Listening to oldies, John Denver, James Taylor, etc. We would hike Mt. Peaky, and eat our sack lunches at the top, visit the old cemetery, and pick huckleberries.
We'd sit on the roof of the house and make up "fantasies" for each other at night. I was pretty good at making them up. I remember one of them (for a friend) entailed a rope climb on the beach, something like Princess Bride I guess, and a candlelight picnic of some sort? Why didn't I write those down? That would be something for Jared to live up to. ;)
Another favorite memory is our sophomore year Inaugural Ball. We hatched the best plan, and I still can't think of it today without laughing out loud. It was FUN at its best. I feel for our dates who may or may not have been irritated/disgusted (but they seemed to like it, so ?).
We bought each of them an outfit from DI. Then we cooked up as much cheap food as we could. Buckets of spaghetti, oatmeal, etc. We had our dates dress in the DI outfit. We blindfolded them and led them out to a school soccer field. We then started dumping food on them. And the food fight of our lives began! It was sooooo messy and fun. We were all covered by the end.
There were many other fun friend memories with Lutisha, Laura, Sue, Rachel, Amy, Melissa, Jen, Ann, Kathleen and others. Some of the best:
--Climbing into the blue newspaper recycle bin in the church parking lot and reading the comics during sacrament meeting.
--Laura teaching me manners
--Laura and I mastering the pogo stick--over 600 bounces was the record I think! I can still do it really well! I can even pogo up the stairs.
--Laura and I finding new ways to torture boys--fingernails, shoulder pinches. I'm not sure why we were beating up on them, just that they deserved it. Something about getting my face pushed in the snow?
--Building THE best Barbie houses ever--complete with wheat fields and orange groves
--Doing backhandsprings whenever we could find a patch of open grass
--Elaborate outdoor forts with handcrafted brooms, and decorated stump chairs. Even a pine needle bed just like in the Boxcar Children.
--Sleepovers at the Adair's with virtually no adult supervision and no food. It was "bring your own box of cereal" at our house.
--Our Band, the "Blue Banner" The white Formica table was a great stage.
--lots of door bell ditching and prank calling. We had ingenious toilet papering methods as well. Although I do regret sprinkling the wheat, I didn't realize how much work that would be for them to weed out wheat grass all summer. I generally tried to steer clear of anything destructive.
--Amy, Melissa and I covering ourselves with Crisco and jumping on the trampoline
--Laura, Suzy and I dressing up like 11 year-old hookers (mom you had some awesome red patent heels) and walking to Rainbo to get candy
--Rollerblading in the parking garages downtown
--Lu and I building tree house forts complete with weaponry and pelting her older brother Vaughn (the bully) with rocks
--Drinking Herbal Tea and sitting on the porch with Kathleen, helping her de-stress :)
--Watching scary movies every year on Ann's Halloween Birthday--okay the truth is I hate scary movies, but it was fun to have a party.
--My camping birthday party where we stayed up all night talking and built the coolest forts, even wove walls of leaves into our "bathroom"
--Lu and I and Jesse building our Lean-to in Cedar, playing nightgames
--Lu and I fishing and trying to cook the trout in the microwave
--Swinging at Oakridge at night--so beautiful
--The newspaper bonfire we built in the back of Crestview (what were we thinking!)
--Riding the bus to the Galleria and rollerblading
--Going to the mall and doing the Woolworth picture booth
I've been a Beehive Advisor for the past six months, and seeing these girls makes me think a lot about that time in my life. I am a little amazed I survived Jr. High and High School when I look at all the crazy stuff we did. I can see now that in many instances, my judgment wasn't the greatest. In other ways we were very responsible. I always worked and was very dependable. I even had a paper route starting in the 5th grade and had to wake up as early as 4:30 am in bad weather. I earned all my own clothes--and even took my siblings on shopping sprees and to the mall. I worked hard in our yard at home without being asked, cleaned our house, babysat all the time, etc. I did well in school, with the exception of 7th grade--which was a bit of a challenging year.
So glad I had such good friends! I have such fun memories. I'm going to upload pictures to this post eventually. Just is so much work to scan.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
My Babies
I was tucking my kids in their beds tonight and we got to talking about what they were like when they were each babies. They loved hearing the stories, so I thought I'd write some out too.
Soren was born right at his due date or one day late depending on how you calculate. He was 9 lbs! He was much bigger than Simone and was also born in the caul like Monet. He was a great sleeper from day one. Never had his days and nights mixed up. He got harder later but early on he slept great.
Soren was adored by the whole family. The best part of the day was morning when we would all gather around and try to make him smile. He was so sweet and adorable. Everyone loved on him all the time.
Soren like my other kids hated the car and his carseat. He also only ever took a bottle a couple of times. He didn't like binkys very much either. He loved childrens music. Especially where the kids were singing the songs. So we would put my phone next to him in the carseat and he would stop crying when the music was on.
Monet was his 2nd mom and she loved to take care of him. He went through a phase where he cried a lot at night. I think that is pretty normal for babies that are a couple months old. It was like he'd get overstimulated around 5 pm. Monet would bounce and hold him for hours. I don't know how she had the patience but she just hated to hear him cry.
One time I was desperate to get some new clothes but it was hard to shop with him with the stroller and all. So I left him home with Jared but told Monet I'd pay her $10 if she got him to take a bottle. Guess who took a bottle! It was like the one and only time.
As Soren got older, he loved the swings at the park. He loved sorting things so much. In fact we moved when he was one year old and I let him sort the nails in the hardware box. He never put anything in his mouth and he loved to organize things and he was right beside me the whole time.
When he was little we brought paper cups to church and fuzzy pom pom balls and he would sort them into cups. People were amazed that he didn't try to eat them. He just loved to sort.
Soren was easy because he was so cautious like Monet was. If you said something was dangerous, he wouldn't do it. He loved church clothes and getting all dressed up. He still likes clothes and matches really well.
Soren is so cuddly and such a mamas boy. I love it! He is very attached to me.
Simone was the tiniest of my babies! She weighed only 7.5 lbs at birth. She was born 10 days early. But the first thing I noticed about her was her skinny little legs. They were soooo tiny. I felt like they were about as skinny as my finger. They are still really skinny. But she's got two skinny legged parents, so I guess we shouldn't be too surprised.
Simone was born at a very busy time. We were building a house, I was doing real estate, Jared was working a lot trying to get his company up and running, and the girls were in two different schools, both far away and I had them enrolled in way too many things. Poor Simone spent a lot of time in the car! It was not a good setup and if I could do things over again, I would change things. When she was about six months old, things fell apart with the house deal, I put real estate on the back burner, and we tried to scale back with the girls. It was hard, but I felt like I was savoring being a mom again, instead of being so stressed out.
Simone was super playful! She laughed all the time. She loved playing peek-a-boo and games. She was very smiley and her whole face would light up when she smiled. She liked to do little tricks and perform for us. She was a very determined little thing. She loved to climb and despite everything I tried, I could not keep her in her crib. And the highchair was essentially a decoration too. She refused to sit while she ate.
She was a fiesty little girl too. She let her needs be known! She didn't talk as early as Elise or Monet, but she could express tone. So even without enunciated words, I knew exactly what she was saying by her expression and tone of voice.
Simone didn't have a room when she was born. So she slept with me until she was ten months old. Just curled up under my arm. Miles would also end up in our bed every night, so I finally realized that I should just have her sleep in his room. She slept perfectly through the night from the first time she slept in her own bed, until the day she figured out how to jump out of the crib at eighteen months.
I have such great memories of my pregnancy with Miles! It was so much easier than the other three. I wasn't as sick, gained a lot less weight and just felt great overall.
Miles was born with two big sisters that helped their mom a ton! It was really easy to take care of him with those two helpers.
My best memories are of rocking him in the glider and holding him and just being sooo happy to be holding that sweet little baby. I think I enjoyed every second of it.
Elise took the bus to school, Monet went to preschool next door, and we just had a good thing going on! It was a good year.
Miles loved chocolate and avocados. In fact, chocolate was one of his first words. A friend of Jared's would bring these Xocai chocolates over to us and do trades with Jared. So Miles loved dark chocolate. He hated the Hershey's stuff. LOL.
I loved having a little blondie. Both the girls had dark hair when they were born. Miles was very fair and had those big blue eyes and really blonde hair.
Miles hardly ever opened his eyes for the first few weeks. And he didn't smile a ton. It took some coaxing. He makes up for it now! He is always laughing. He loved his bouncy chair and figured out how to rhythmically swing his foot so it would bounce. He had two big sisters who took such great care of him. They would run into his room when he woke up from naps and play in his crib with him.
Miles could fall asleep anywhere. His car seat, the highchair, standing up. If he was tired, he'd just go to sleep where ever that happened to be.
From the time he was a young baby, he HATED the mall. HATED it. We'd take the stroller into the mall, and he'd cry from the second we walked in. I don't quite know how he knew, but he did!
Miles had a raspy little voice that was so cute!
I loved Monet's name since elementary where I knew a girl named Monet. I thought it was pretty and original, and I'd always liked the artist Claude Monet and had some prints of his garden paintings in my room growing up.
Monet was such an easy going baby. She was easily soothed by her thumb and hardly cried at all. She was extremely cuddly! She didn't like laying her little head down on necklaces or jewelry. So she'd clear everything out before snuggling in. When she was a baby, she started sleeping for 15 hour stretches. But I worried that she wasn't gaining enough weight so I'd wake her up and feed her.
Monet loved the sling. I'd carry her around in there and she loved it. I think it was just being warm and held and safe that she liked.
Monet laughed so early! She was so smiley. At ten days old she was smiling. I have the pictures to prove it.
We loved her hair as it grew in. She has a lot of fine hair, and it is very straight. So it stuck up all over her head and we joked that she was a little punk. Now her hair is thick and she has these beautiful highlights. I am so glad that my kids got so much nicer hair than mine!
She was my one child that did NOT like water. She was very cautious. That was great in so many ways. She didn't run away from me in the stores, she was careful not to do anything that didn't look safe, even as a baby. Made things very easy for me!
She was my little shopping buddy. we had lots of fun going places while Elise was in preschool. Monet loved music and babies. She started talking really early. Her first word besides mama and dada was "Woogie" at 10 months old.
Monet had a pair of pink snowboots that she just loved. She wanted to wear them everywhere. But she'd often take her socks off and put her boots on her sweaty little feet. They were really stinky boots after awhile!
Monet was never really very into princesses. She liked Brother Bear and Nemo. At about age three she wanted to be a princess for Halloween. But that was it!
There were very few times that I remember Monet disobeying me or hitting or hurting any other kids. She was just really an easy kid. One time she bit open a bunch of Otter Pops and squirted them all over the floor so I came downstairs to a rainbow of colored juice all over the kitchen. And another time she colored red lipstick all over herself, the carpet, etc. But that was about it! She was usually so easy.
I love thinking about the time when we were brand new parents with our sweet baby Elise. We loved her name. I had thought of that name when I was in Russia, and just loved the simplicity and beauty of it.
I have so many great memories of bringing her home from the hospital. Walking around the little town of San Clemente with her in the Baby Bjorn. Going to get dessert at Fisherman's on the Pier. Buckets of clams and just even going to the post office. Everyone loved Elise's cute cheeks. She got lots of attention. There just aren't that many babies in that part of town.
We had such a tiny apartment we didn't have room for a crib in our 10' X 10' bedroom. We didn't even have room for a swing. But we got a cute little cradle and I ordered some bedding for it. She loved that cradle! She loved sleeping and was a great little napper.
I remember rocking her in the glider and feeding her before putting her to bed. And she was about six weeks old and she put her hand up and touched my face and smiled at me. It was so sweet and literally brought tears to my eyes.
I also remember seeing her smile when she was starting to get her mouthful of teeth and realizing how big she was getting!
Elise also hated the car, loved animals, loved being outside and preferred to be carried than to be in a car seat or stroller. She was not a fan of the stroller at first.
When we moved back to Utah, she and I trekked around the city in the jogger. I literally had nothing else to do than go on walks. Eventually we started visiting all the dogs in the neighborhood. That was our daily ritual. We'd bring them milkbones so they would like us. Some of her first spoken words were directed at the dogs. "HEEELLLOOOOO DOGGIE!"
Elise was a strong willed little creature. And I was a rookie mom and really didn't know how to be very strict. So I found myself waking up all night and bringing her drinks, tucking her back into bed, over and over and over. We had a nightly ritual down. We had to sing three songs: I am a Child of God, Follow the Prophet, and Tell Me the Stories of Jesus. Then we had to read Goodnight Moon, and a couple more stories. Then it was bedtime. As she got older, the ritual evolved. Jared became the one to tuck her in, while I was nursing Monet. He had to wrap her up in her blankie, carry her up the stairs, spin her around, and put her in the wrong room. Then, she'd say, "I'm in the wrong room!" and they would do it again. It was pretty cute.
It was also about that time when her humor started really developing. She loved to tease Jared about not having any hair. She loved the faces he'd make. Or he'd pretend to cry. I would just listen from the other room and it would make me happy to see this little girl who had such a fun daddy.
I put Elise in Gymnastics and Dance classes when she was three. It was hilarious. She just ran around the room looking in the mirror and bouncing her hair! Gymnastics was not succcessful either. She was so timid she didn't want the teachers to help her. But a few years later we tried gymnastics again and she was a natural!
Elise sent me a quote today from her mission and I'm editing this post 9 years later with pictures and the quote:
“How is it that a human being can love a child so deeply that you willingly give up a major portion of your freedom for it? How can mortal love be so strong that you voluntarily subject yourself to responsibility, vulnerability, anxiety, and heartache and just keep coming back for more of the same? What kind of mortal love can make you feel, once you have a child, that your life is never, ever your own again? Maternal love has to be divine. There is no other explanation for it. What mothers do is an essential element of Christ’s work. Knowing that should be enough to tell us the impact of such love will range between unbearable and transcendent, over and over again, until with the safety and salvation of the very last child on earth, we can [then] say with Jesus, ‘[Father!] I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do."
Soren
(I'm writing about him in 2020 because he wasn't born when I first wrote about the other kids and we have to include him too!)Soren was born right at his due date or one day late depending on how you calculate. He was 9 lbs! He was much bigger than Simone and was also born in the caul like Monet. He was a great sleeper from day one. Never had his days and nights mixed up. He got harder later but early on he slept great.
Soren was adored by the whole family. The best part of the day was morning when we would all gather around and try to make him smile. He was so sweet and adorable. Everyone loved on him all the time.
Soren like my other kids hated the car and his carseat. He also only ever took a bottle a couple of times. He didn't like binkys very much either. He loved childrens music. Especially where the kids were singing the songs. So we would put my phone next to him in the carseat and he would stop crying when the music was on.
Monet was his 2nd mom and she loved to take care of him. He went through a phase where he cried a lot at night. I think that is pretty normal for babies that are a couple months old. It was like he'd get overstimulated around 5 pm. Monet would bounce and hold him for hours. I don't know how she had the patience but she just hated to hear him cry.
One time I was desperate to get some new clothes but it was hard to shop with him with the stroller and all. So I left him home with Jared but told Monet I'd pay her $10 if she got him to take a bottle. Guess who took a bottle! It was like the one and only time.
As Soren got older, he loved the swings at the park. He loved sorting things so much. In fact we moved when he was one year old and I let him sort the nails in the hardware box. He never put anything in his mouth and he loved to organize things and he was right beside me the whole time.
When he was little we brought paper cups to church and fuzzy pom pom balls and he would sort them into cups. People were amazed that he didn't try to eat them. He just loved to sort.
Soren was easy because he was so cautious like Monet was. If you said something was dangerous, he wouldn't do it. He loved church clothes and getting all dressed up. He still likes clothes and matches really well.
Soren is so cuddly and such a mamas boy. I love it! He is very attached to me.
Simone
Simone was the tiniest of my babies! She weighed only 7.5 lbs at birth. She was born 10 days early. But the first thing I noticed about her was her skinny little legs. They were soooo tiny. I felt like they were about as skinny as my finger. They are still really skinny. But she's got two skinny legged parents, so I guess we shouldn't be too surprised.
Simone was born at a very busy time. We were building a house, I was doing real estate, Jared was working a lot trying to get his company up and running, and the girls were in two different schools, both far away and I had them enrolled in way too many things. Poor Simone spent a lot of time in the car! It was not a good setup and if I could do things over again, I would change things. When she was about six months old, things fell apart with the house deal, I put real estate on the back burner, and we tried to scale back with the girls. It was hard, but I felt like I was savoring being a mom again, instead of being so stressed out.
Simone was super playful! She laughed all the time. She loved playing peek-a-boo and games. She was very smiley and her whole face would light up when she smiled. She liked to do little tricks and perform for us. She was a very determined little thing. She loved to climb and despite everything I tried, I could not keep her in her crib. And the highchair was essentially a decoration too. She refused to sit while she ate.
She was a fiesty little girl too. She let her needs be known! She didn't talk as early as Elise or Monet, but she could express tone. So even without enunciated words, I knew exactly what she was saying by her expression and tone of voice.
Simone didn't have a room when she was born. So she slept with me until she was ten months old. Just curled up under my arm. Miles would also end up in our bed every night, so I finally realized that I should just have her sleep in his room. She slept perfectly through the night from the first time she slept in her own bed, until the day she figured out how to jump out of the crib at eighteen months.
Miles
I have such great memories of my pregnancy with Miles! It was so much easier than the other three. I wasn't as sick, gained a lot less weight and just felt great overall.
Miles was born with two big sisters that helped their mom a ton! It was really easy to take care of him with those two helpers.
My best memories are of rocking him in the glider and holding him and just being sooo happy to be holding that sweet little baby. I think I enjoyed every second of it.
Elise took the bus to school, Monet went to preschool next door, and we just had a good thing going on! It was a good year.
Miles loved chocolate and avocados. In fact, chocolate was one of his first words. A friend of Jared's would bring these Xocai chocolates over to us and do trades with Jared. So Miles loved dark chocolate. He hated the Hershey's stuff. LOL.
I loved having a little blondie. Both the girls had dark hair when they were born. Miles was very fair and had those big blue eyes and really blonde hair.
Miles hardly ever opened his eyes for the first few weeks. And he didn't smile a ton. It took some coaxing. He makes up for it now! He is always laughing. He loved his bouncy chair and figured out how to rhythmically swing his foot so it would bounce. He had two big sisters who took such great care of him. They would run into his room when he woke up from naps and play in his crib with him.
Miles could fall asleep anywhere. His car seat, the highchair, standing up. If he was tired, he'd just go to sleep where ever that happened to be.
From the time he was a young baby, he HATED the mall. HATED it. We'd take the stroller into the mall, and he'd cry from the second we walked in. I don't quite know how he knew, but he did!
Miles had a raspy little voice that was so cute!
Monet
I loved Monet's name since elementary where I knew a girl named Monet. I thought it was pretty and original, and I'd always liked the artist Claude Monet and had some prints of his garden paintings in my room growing up.
Monet was such an easy going baby. She was easily soothed by her thumb and hardly cried at all. She was extremely cuddly! She didn't like laying her little head down on necklaces or jewelry. So she'd clear everything out before snuggling in. When she was a baby, she started sleeping for 15 hour stretches. But I worried that she wasn't gaining enough weight so I'd wake her up and feed her.
Monet loved the sling. I'd carry her around in there and she loved it. I think it was just being warm and held and safe that she liked.
Monet laughed so early! She was so smiley. At ten days old she was smiling. I have the pictures to prove it.
We loved her hair as it grew in. She has a lot of fine hair, and it is very straight. So it stuck up all over her head and we joked that she was a little punk. Now her hair is thick and she has these beautiful highlights. I am so glad that my kids got so much nicer hair than mine!
She was my one child that did NOT like water. She was very cautious. That was great in so many ways. She didn't run away from me in the stores, she was careful not to do anything that didn't look safe, even as a baby. Made things very easy for me!
She was my little shopping buddy. we had lots of fun going places while Elise was in preschool. Monet loved music and babies. She started talking really early. Her first word besides mama and dada was "Woogie" at 10 months old.
Monet had a pair of pink snowboots that she just loved. She wanted to wear them everywhere. But she'd often take her socks off and put her boots on her sweaty little feet. They were really stinky boots after awhile!
Monet was never really very into princesses. She liked Brother Bear and Nemo. At about age three she wanted to be a princess for Halloween. But that was it!
There were very few times that I remember Monet disobeying me or hitting or hurting any other kids. She was just really an easy kid. One time she bit open a bunch of Otter Pops and squirted them all over the floor so I came downstairs to a rainbow of colored juice all over the kitchen. And another time she colored red lipstick all over herself, the carpet, etc. But that was about it! She was usually so easy.
Elise
I love thinking about the time when we were brand new parents with our sweet baby Elise. We loved her name. I had thought of that name when I was in Russia, and just loved the simplicity and beauty of it.
I have so many great memories of bringing her home from the hospital. Walking around the little town of San Clemente with her in the Baby Bjorn. Going to get dessert at Fisherman's on the Pier. Buckets of clams and just even going to the post office. Everyone loved Elise's cute cheeks. She got lots of attention. There just aren't that many babies in that part of town.
We had such a tiny apartment we didn't have room for a crib in our 10' X 10' bedroom. We didn't even have room for a swing. But we got a cute little cradle and I ordered some bedding for it. She loved that cradle! She loved sleeping and was a great little napper.
I remember rocking her in the glider and feeding her before putting her to bed. And she was about six weeks old and she put her hand up and touched my face and smiled at me. It was so sweet and literally brought tears to my eyes.
I also remember seeing her smile when she was starting to get her mouthful of teeth and realizing how big she was getting!
Elise also hated the car, loved animals, loved being outside and preferred to be carried than to be in a car seat or stroller. She was not a fan of the stroller at first.
When we moved back to Utah, she and I trekked around the city in the jogger. I literally had nothing else to do than go on walks. Eventually we started visiting all the dogs in the neighborhood. That was our daily ritual. We'd bring them milkbones so they would like us. Some of her first spoken words were directed at the dogs. "HEEELLLOOOOO DOGGIE!"
Elise was a strong willed little creature. And I was a rookie mom and really didn't know how to be very strict. So I found myself waking up all night and bringing her drinks, tucking her back into bed, over and over and over. We had a nightly ritual down. We had to sing three songs: I am a Child of God, Follow the Prophet, and Tell Me the Stories of Jesus. Then we had to read Goodnight Moon, and a couple more stories. Then it was bedtime. As she got older, the ritual evolved. Jared became the one to tuck her in, while I was nursing Monet. He had to wrap her up in her blankie, carry her up the stairs, spin her around, and put her in the wrong room. Then, she'd say, "I'm in the wrong room!" and they would do it again. It was pretty cute.
It was also about that time when her humor started really developing. She loved to tease Jared about not having any hair. She loved the faces he'd make. Or he'd pretend to cry. I would just listen from the other room and it would make me happy to see this little girl who had such a fun daddy.
I put Elise in Gymnastics and Dance classes when she was three. It was hilarious. She just ran around the room looking in the mirror and bouncing her hair! Gymnastics was not succcessful either. She was so timid she didn't want the teachers to help her. But a few years later we tried gymnastics again and she was a natural!
Elise sent me a quote today from her mission and I'm editing this post 9 years later with pictures and the quote:
“How is it that a human being can love a child so deeply that you willingly give up a major portion of your freedom for it? How can mortal love be so strong that you voluntarily subject yourself to responsibility, vulnerability, anxiety, and heartache and just keep coming back for more of the same? What kind of mortal love can make you feel, once you have a child, that your life is never, ever your own again? Maternal love has to be divine. There is no other explanation for it. What mothers do is an essential element of Christ’s work. Knowing that should be enough to tell us the impact of such love will range between unbearable and transcendent, over and over again, until with the safety and salvation of the very last child on earth, we can [then] say with Jesus, ‘[Father!] I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do."
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Monet is NINE
Monet had her ninth birthday last week! We celebrated with the family by going to the Hale Theater production of Hairspray. It was a cute show.
Monet had some of her best girlfriends over for a party on Saturday night. We had fun making these shirts. They were so easy and not messy at all. They had smores, decorated shirts, played sardines and other games, and colored some notebooks.
Monet's had a great year! Here are some of the things she's been doing:
1. Activity Days--she loves activity days and really looks forward to it.
2. Got baptized last June
3. Memorized her 13 Articles of Faith
4. Earned her yellow belt in Karate and took 1rst in her division in Forms at the Karate tournament.
5. Asked to have her own room. We turned the guest room into a room for her this month for her birthday. She loves having her own space. She loves this desk (thanks Angela!) and the crafts she works on there.
6. She is full of ideas on selling things. She did a great job at our glow booth last fourth of July and purchased an iTouch with the money she saved up.
7. She has all kinds of unique things that she is selling at her class store
8. She has a fantastic teacher this year who really helps her to improve in her public speaking. She was the designated class "newscaster" for a month. She also worked hard and earned a part in her third grade play.
9. Straight A's! I have yet to see anything other than an A on her report cards.
10. She's currently reading the Little House on the Prairie series
11. Monet did AMAZING at basketball. She got lots of steals, could wrestle the ball away from even the strongest, biggest girls on the team, and scored tons of shots, despite being one of the smallest on the team.
12. She is such a great big sister to Simone and Miles. She plays "school" with them and even taught Simone to write her name. (which we now find on every surface you can imagine)
13. She makes the sweetest cards for all of us and shows her love for the family daily.
14. In the doorway to her new room holds a pullup bar. And Monet has been practicing for a couple of weeks and she did NINE pull-ups. She is inspiring her mother, who can do ZERO pull-ups (despite holding the flexed arm hang for two minutes in my younger days).
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