Hello everyone! Life has been super busy! I really would love to keep everyone updated with this blog, so I am going to once again 'have a go' at this!
The girls are all doing great, Camrynn just started 7th grade, and so far is loving it! She was quite nervous the first day, but did very well thanks to the 7th grade orientation that her school offers. They have the 7th graders start school one day earlier than the 8th and 9th graders in order for them to feel a bit more comfortable with finding their classes, lunchroom and lockers. They run through a normal day but on a little less time than normal. This obviously makes for a easier transition for these little 7th graders being thrown in with the sharks! I wish they would have done something like that for us when I was going into Jr. High! I still can't believe I have a child in Middle School! I seriously am feeling so old. I remember taking Cam to her first day of kindergarten and I cried like she was leaving me forever. I didn't cry dropping her off this time but I was SOOO sick to my stomach and nervous for her! I worried about if she would remember where her classrooms were, if she could find her locker and actually open it, and if she could find someone to eat lunch with. Of course, just as expected, she did awesome and had a fabulous day with the exception of going to the wrong reading class and her nor the teacher realizing it until 20 minutes into the class! WOOPS!
As for Sydnee, she just had a special birthday in June which also means a special day for our faith. She turned eight! Sydnee was baptized by her dad on August 20th. She had been waiting for that special day for a long time now. Her birthday was in June which means that she could have been baptized earlier but with Aaron's crazy work schedule this was the first chance we had to do it. Even with the short notice and the lack of time we were given to prepare, it turned out FABULOUS! Sydnee looked beautiful in her white summer dress with her hair all done up, her jewelry on and her nails painted! For those of you who know Sydnee, to see her all dressed up and "girlied out", is a special event in itself! Syd, is very much NOT into the whole frilly thing, she would much rather be in jean shorts (showing off all the bumps and bruises up and down her shins from riding her bike and playing soccer), a t-shirt, a pair of converse and her hair pulled into a pony-tail! Even though the dress came off and the good ol' comfies went on the minute we walked in the house it was ALL worth it.... I love seeing her look so dolled up and secretly I think she likes it too! (But not too long, as she has a look to keep by!) Either way either in a dress or her jeans she is still my beautiful little girl and I wouldn't change her for the world. We had invited many close friends and family and I think ALL of them showed to both the church and our home afterwards for dinner! We had a FULL room at the church and a crowded backyard! I don't think we would have been able to squeeze in many more people! There were great talks on the meaning of being baptized, beautiful prayers and of course a wonderful baptism and confirmation performed by Aaron. Thank you all for the help and time spent with our family during this special occasion!
Now as for Berklee's good news.... she now wears BIG GIRL PANTIES!!! Yeah!! At the beginning of August I thought it might be time to start doing the potty thing, so I went online for any tips (being that it has been 6+ years since I did this last) and I found this thing called the Potty Watch. Fabulous, I thought, I'll give it a try. Well in fact it was fabulous! It is a little watch that your child wears that is shaped like a toilet and it sings a lullaby every 15, 30, 60, or 90 minutes to remind the child (and mom) to sit on the potty. It really worked! Bird knew every time it would go off she needed to try to go. At first we started at 15 and then that seemed a bit too often so then we went to 30 minutes which worked really well for the first couple of days and then we moved to 60 minutes and "ta-da"! Done! She was so quick and easy to train! My best friend Heidi thinks she is going to pass her son, Kash, (who just turned 2) on to me until HE is potty-trained. NOT! So about kids growing up too quickly Berklee makes it especially hard on Aaron and I because we know she is our last baby so everything she accomplishes we know will be the last time we, as parents, will experience it. So now instead of just smiling as we did with the other girls, we now want to smile AND cry at the same time! I think I have finally figured out why there are families out there with 10-11-12-13 kids... they just don't want it to be the "last time".
As much as I love to see my kids grow and make another big move in their lives, I still can't help but be a little saddened as well.....
Cara
