I really don't want you to feel abandoned, I DO love you! I have 20 minutes before I have to get the girls in the car to go to a birthday party. I will write as much as I can in those 20 minutes. Let's hope my phone doesn't ring!

Sophie
Funniest kid ever! Talks constantly, seriously, CONSTANTLY! Even more than Katie -who has also always been a big talker. Yesterday morning Troy and I were trying to sleep in, Katie and Sophie were on the couch watching cartoons and arguing over space for their legs. Sophie started crying pretty hard and the next thing we heard her yell at Katie was, "Do I look happy? This is a sad face. I am really sad. I am not happy." We started laughing pretty hard.
Still in gymnastics, loves school, starting swim lessons this afternoon.

Molly
Cutest kid ever! Talking a lot, wants to do everything her sisters do. Eats everything in sight. Actually this very minute she just saw my bagel sitting next to me and starting climbing up the chair saying, "Wan bite, wan bite." Speaking of climbing, that's another gift of Molly's. She can climb up onto the high bar chairs in the nook, onto the desk chair then onto the desk, up on the edge of the tub to get to the bathroom counters, moves the stool from the bathroom to get up to the kitchen counters, you get the idea.

Katie
Sweetest kid ever! Playing soccer, getting excited about Kindergarten next fall, seems to be in a bit of a growth spurt, eating like a hound lately, loves school. She is very smart, logical, says things all the time where my reaction is "How do you know that?"

Abby
Busiest kid! I really didn't want to be one of those parents that fills the child's schedule with so many activities that they are busy all the time, but I just realized I've done just that. Abby is still in brownies, cheer, playing the piano, just finished Math Pentathlon, and we are starting swim lessons today. We need to cut back because going to everything is fine, but she doesn't have time to practice anything because she is always at something.
Math Pentathlon Tournament was this past weekend. It was fun. Abby did well for her first time and enjoyed it. She said she want to do it again next year. Not sure if you are familiar but they learn five math games then play each game one time at tournament to compete. She stayed after school every Monday to learn the games and practice.
She is doing really well in school, she is a VERY good reader.

Jen
I am playing on a women's soccer team. NO, I have never played soccer before. It is really fun though, pretty competitive. Still scrappin', reading, Cooking club, Moms club, painting the house, laundry, all the "normal" stuff. Trying to find more time for scrappin'. Slightly addicted to Facebook, spend more time there than here, sorry!

Troy
Work is still the same, very happy about MSU basketball. We had a big party last week for the opening games of the tournament. I made MSU jello jigglers, I took pictures and will post.

Spring Break
We went to San Antonio for three days. They have a nice zoo there and we also went to Sea World. We love Sea World, have been five times since we've been in Texas.

Summer
Troy and I are taking a trip in June for our 10 year anniversary. We are supposed to be booking it this week. We are either going to Turks and Caicos or Costa Rica. Jim and Peg will be coming down here for the week to watch the kids. We were considering coming up there instead but it is much cheaper for us to buy two tickets for them instead of six tickets for us. Plus our travel time from here is much shorter than it would be from Detroit.

20 minutes is up, no time to proof read!

LOVE YOU!

Everything is good here.

Hurricane Ike:
The only effect from the Hurricane that we experienced was Marcey, Rob, their three kids, and dog, were with us for 11 days. They came to escape just for the weekend, but a tree fell on their house and they had no electricity for a while. They went back as soon as the power was back on but were with us from September 11-22. It was fun though, the kids had a blast together. We didn't get even one drop of rain!

I've been painting Abby's room, finished up the polka dots on the wall today and put all the furniture back. I took some pictures that I am going to e-mail out. It's really cute.

Abby is doing well in first grade. We are at a new gymnastics place and she is doing cheer instead of gymnastics this year, we'll see how that goes. She is also doing Math Pentathlon and Brownie's, which is much more fun than Daisy's was last year.

Katie has pre-school, gymnastics, and soccer. Sophie is also in pre-school, she loves it and is so cute about it. I got them new bedding too and will probably paint their room next.

Troy is working a lot, he is coming to Michigan on Thursday for a recruiting event at MSU for Dell. He is going to stay for the game on Saturday and come home Sunday morning. He will be able to visit his Dad too, Jim had hip replacement surgery today.

Troy and I went to Baltimore September 17-20, he had a conference so all we had to pay for was my flight. Peg came down to watch the kids, and Marcey was here so that was helpful. It was really pretty there, and nice to sleep all night and eat a meal without 45 interruptions.

I've started running at 5:30 a.m. three days a week with my friends Beth and Kate. It seemed a little insane at first but I'm getting used to it and it's nice to have the workout out of the way before the day even really begins.

Gonna go download some pictures now of Abby's room and get to bed, I've been up since 5:30 a.m.

Still bummed I'm missing the shower this weekend,
Love and miss you all,
Jennifer

I'm not even going to try to "catch up" - that's way too overwhelming. Just gonna start current again...

The girls are really into musicals, they've been watching Hairspray with the neighbor kids a lot, so Beth suggested we take them to see Mama Mia. It was really fun. There were some adult themes, but it all went over their heads (for now). One woman felt the need to say to her friend on the way out "I can't believe those people brought their kids to see this movie." Whatever! There was no bad language or sex, don't judge me! Troy downloaded the soundtrack and I just burned a cd for Abby, she is in her room singing along with it right now.

We made some switcheroos with bedrooms again. Moved everything from the front bedroom to the back bedroom and everything from the back bedroom to the front bedroom (we did this about this time last year too!). This started because Sophie has been climbing out of her crib so it was time to move her. We moved Molly into the "baby" room, and took down the second crib in the guest room (back bedroom). We moved the queen bed from the back to the front bedroom and that is now Abby's room, but it will convert to the guest room anytime we have guests. We took down the bunk beds and now have two twin beds in the back bedroom for Katie and Sophie. Sophie lays right down and goes to sleep in the "big girl bed". The arrangement makes sense like this, for now!

Last week - July 14-17 - Abby had Art Camp. It was wonderful. Mrs. St. John, the art teacher at Cactus Ranch Elementary runs it and she is an absolutely phenomenal teacher. They did three projects, plus a t-shirt, there was an Art Parade to show off their work on Thursday. Abby asked if she could go again to the next session in August, not sure about that yet. We only have 5 weeks left of summer, I don' t think I want to fill what's left with more camps.

The week before that - July 7-11 - Abby and Katie had soccer camp. It is a British Soccer Camp. All the coaches are 18-23 years old and they come over from England for the summer. We were a host family, so one of them stayed with us for the week. He wasn't here that much really because there was a morning session so he was gone from 8am-1pm, came home and ate lunch, then slept all afternoon. Then we would take him to the soccer field for the evening session (that's when Abby and Katie went), from 4:30-8:30 p.m., then we would all get home at about 9pm, eat and go to bed. It's a great camp and the girls thought it was cool that we had a coach with us.

Abby and I also had our first Girl Scout Camp Out. It was Girl Scout night at the Dell Diamond (the Baseball field in town, I think it's triple A?). 10 of the 16 girls in our troop went to the game, then stayed the night in the park afterward. It's a really nice, family friendly park. There is a pool, rock climbing wall, bungy trampoline, playground, and lots of other stuff. The game ended about 10pm, we did the trampoline bungy thing, Abby climbed the rock wall, then we picked our spot in Center field to sleep and got our tarps and sleeping bags set up. At 11pm they served pizza and at midnight they started playing a movie on the jumbotron - Enchanted. Abby and Alanna were the last two in our troop still awake at 2:45 am! We were up at 6:30am, packed up our stuff, grabbed a donut and were home by 7:30 am. Abby ate, took a shower and was off to Art Camp! Then we all napped from 2:30-5pm later that day. I was wiped out all week from it!

I'm going on a scrappin' retreat next weekend (July 25-27). We leave Friday morning and will come home Sunday afternoon. There is going to be a massage therapist there, so excited about that - a little relief for the neck and shoulders while working!