Cougar of the week

In her middle school career, Sarah has been Student of the month in 6th grade, Cougar of the week in 7th and now in 8th grade. Way to go Sarah.

And the final curtain drops

Tonight was Sarah's last middle school chorus concert. It was nice and even better short. When she first started middle school a chorus concert would take 2 1/2 hours, tonight only about 50 minutes. The shorter time makes it much easier to get little sister to bed on time, or at least before she becomes too cranky. I really feel like the music teacher owes Kristen's kindergarten and 1st grade teacher an apology. I am sure that she had to be extremely cranky the morning after.
Back to Sarah however, she is so looking forward to moving on to high school and being done with the immature middle school behaviors. She has been promised that high school choir will be much better and that the kids should be more mature. She is just excited to be done with all of the drama and screwing around. i know she is also hoping that the picking on certain students ends also. She has always been raised to treat everyone kindly, but not everyone has been raised that way. Since Sarah doesn't dress in the current style (Mom and Dad won't let her) and she is involved in things like church and 4-H many of the city kids have made fun of her. It is hard to believe that in just a little over a month I will be the mother of a high schooler. That time always seemed so far away and it is coming up fast. Sarah, I am proud of howing you are growing up. Keep making good choices and don't worry about the peer pressure. Just do what you know is right.

Sparkie Awards

Last night was the final night of Awana for this year. As a second grader Kristen was finishing up the Sparkie program and next year she will move up to Truth and Training (T & T) club. Kristen's goal for the past three years, besides learning her verses was to do as well as Sarah did. Memorization comes easy for Sarah, but took Kristen a little while. Due to a change in director's she wasn't able to complete the same work that Sarah completed but she was able to do extra. I am so proud of her for learning her Bible verses and hiding God's word in her heart. She already loves it when she is in Church and hears a verse that she memorized.

6 Random thoughts about Me

On some of my favorite LSS blogs they are writing about 6 random things about themselves and then tagging people. This sounds like fun, so I thought I would give it a try and then tag some people. So here goes
1. Even though I have only been to Disney once; I have become a Disney addict. Love that company, everytime I go to the mall, I have to check out the Disney Store looking for great deals. I have already started dreaming of the day I get to go back.
2. Right now I am really into reading books about the Amish. Beverly Lewis has some really great books along with Wanda E Brunstetter and Cindy Woodsmall. Another favorite author is Janette Oake.
3. We have been having a girls weekend. Dad is gone for a conference from Thursday until Sunday. We have watched girl movies, eaten some of our favorite foods that Dad doesn't like, went to a scrapbooking class, and did some shopping. Of course we have managed to clean a little also.
4. I have secret aspirations of running away to Disney World when I retire. I wonder if they will hire a former at-risk teacher?
5. I have two cats, but would love to have a black lab. However they are a rather large dog and we live in town with a tiny yard. That wouldn't be fair to the dog. So I will be happy with my two cats. Cuddly Kitty and Crazy Sox.
6. I wish I had learned to play the piano better. I was only allowed a year and a half of lessons. My piano teacher had cancer and wasn't able to teach anymore. Then it was time for me to join band and I was given a choice of band or piano. Maybe when I get some free time, I will try to teach myself.
I am tagging Jessica, Susan, and Lisa.

Modern Sock Monkey

Since I posted about my great find the other day with the sock monkeys, I decided to dig up the girls sock monkeys. They are so cute with their clothes on them, but they are lacking that made with love quality. I did find another sock monkey in with the other animals. Not sure where this one came from. Saturday I am headed to my lss for a mommy and me class and will pick up the sock monkey paper. I can't wait to make this layout. Sould be oh so cute. I will post it when I get it done.

Girls Night

Kurt left today for South Dakota and a conference. He won't be home until Sunday night. The girls have been waiting for this night as it has become a tradition on the first night that Dad is gone to have a girls night. We traditionally order Chinese from Yen Chings, yummy, watch a movie or two and have a picnic on the living room floor. Tonight was no exception. The girls have been given gift cards for movie rentals so instead of watching one of our movies, we rented five movies for 2.00 and good for 5 nights. Wow. Kristen wanted Matilada. This is a very cute movie about a little girl who has horrible parents and her teacher. I would recommend this movie to all. After Kristen's movie Sarah wanted to watch Sky High. Have seen this movie a lot lately on the Disney Channel. It is a good show, but I am getting a little tired of watching it. We all love having these quiet nights at home with just the three of us. Okay, maybe it is the five of us as the cats both like to join us for these quiet times.

Ebony and Ivory

Ebony and Ivory live together in perfect harmony. Or so says a song that I remember from my childhood. While somedays I wouldn't always agree, today they made beautiful music together especially with the help of a certain 8 year old girl that I know. Kristen has been taking piano lessons for almost a year now. After 2 earlier starts that ended up being stopped for many different reasons. Today was her first piano recital and she did a great job even if she did trip and fall on the way to the piano. She played two pieces. One was a duet with her piano teacher's daughter. I will have to admit that part of me missed hearing Sarah play also. I have long had a dream that the two girls would play a duet together. Hoping that maybe that will take place next year. Anyway this was Kristen's day to shine, without being in the shadow of her older sister. Kristen takes piano from a different teacher than what Sarah did, so no one can compare the two. She looked so grown up as she introduced herself and the names of her pieces. Currently she aspires to become one of the pianist for the church during the summer service at camp. I am sure that she will be playing at church before we know it.

Found: My old monkey.

I recently saw the cutest new scrapbooking paper and embellishments. It had sock monkeys on it. I wanted to buy some, but knew that they only way I would probably be able to use it, would be if I could find my old sock monkey that my Grandma Steinhagen had made for me many years ago. I thought that the monkey was gone for ever. Well today, my mom wanted us to come down and help move things out of her basement so that she could have some work done and what did I find? Not only my monkey, but also my brother's and my sister's elephant. Mom couldn't understand at first why I grabbed them out of the toybox and took them upstairs. Thankfully I had my camera with me and was able to take a few pictures. Now, lets just hope that the store still has the paper in stock next weekend when I get down there. Of course I need to look for a picture of my Grandmother also. I so can't wait to tell the story of my sock monkey. I may even dig out my daughter's sock animals and take a picture showing the old and the new. The girls sock animals were to cute to play with much, but my old monkey was well loved and made with love not mass produced. Can't wait to get this early childhood memory recorded.

Sarah's confirmation

Now that I am able to use the photo editing program that came with my computer, I took the time today to create an announcement for Sarah's upcoming confirmation. I am so excited to be able to do things like this even if it did take me 6 tries to get it right. I can't believe that my first born will be getting confirmed in less than a month.

A Digital Layout

I took a digital scrapbooking class yesterday. Actually it was part two, I had taken the first part the week before. Even though the instructor used a different program than what I have, I was able to follow along and created my first digital page. It is not super elaborate but I am happy with the results. Now the only question is now that I have a digital layout what should I do with it?

luxery in a hotel

Yes, I know, how weird can I be. I took a picture of the shower head in the hotel I was staying at. I am sent to Des Moines for a conference held at the Embassy Suites. Since it was a two day conference I get to stay at the hotel in a room all to my self. Let me tell you the suites are luxery. Two rooms and a mini kitchen all for little old me. But the best part was the wonderful shower massage. I could so see having a shower massage at home, I could come home from a stressful day, jump into the shower and let the water pressure beat and relax my stiff and sore neck muscles away. The only problem is that I probably wouldn't get out until the water turned ice cold.

More white stuff

Today, April 3rd and Tomorrow April 4th, I am in Des Moines for the annual Alternative Educator's Conference. I left home this morning at 4:30 so that I would be here in plenty of time to register and check in before 8:00. No such luck, due to several minor issues I didn't get registered until 9:00 and missed the first part of the opening keynote address. The speaker was really good, so I wish I could have heard all of the speech. Any way after sitting in meetings all day, I came out around 4:00 to get the car and head for a scrapbooking store and am greeted with a not so pleasant site. Yep, it had turned white out again. This makes 6 months with snow. I just had to let everyone know that even though the calendar says April, the weather still says Winter. Please spring come soon.