September is half over already??

The first two weeks of September have gone by so fast. I’ll try to give you the “nutshell” version. The first week I went and got my fingerprinting done so I can do a tiny bit of substituting at the girls’ school this year. Shawn and I got to go to our ward’s sealing session on Friday night. We haven’t done one in awhile and by the end my knees were sore. I think I was a “daughter” every time I wasn’t part of the couple. It was great to be there though and to be with other members of our ward. On Saturday Shawn mowed the lawn and I did some weeding, then we used a couple of the girls’ free kids meal coupons and went to Chili’s for lunch. After lunch we went to the library and hit the used book sale. The girls were more interested in the “garage sale” type tables, but Shawn found a couple of hardbacks for his John Grisham collection and we got the game UpWords for a steal – all pieces there!

Shawn has started choir again, so we have been doing that on Sunday mornings before church. We tried to go to the seminary building the first week, but they had changed the locks over the summer, so we are meeting at the church instead. Felicity started attending the GATE program on Monday. They bus the kids to a different school in the district and it is a class with 4th through 6th grades, so she was pretty nervous being in a class with older kids/kids she didn’t know, but I think she’ll do fine. She was really excited about going. The girls also all started dance and tumbling classes this week. Evie and Lydia are taking a ballet and jazz combo class and Lissy decided to take hip-hop. Between the 3 girls, 2 classes each, we are at the dance studio 3 nights a week, so we’ll see if we can handle that. Thursday night ended up being very busy for us – the girls had 3 hours at the dance studio, I went to a visiting teaching convention and Shawn went to a parent meeting for GATE. Shawn brought us pizza between dance classes and we ate at a nearby park. I am so glad that Felicity is old enough to be left in charge for a little bit so Shawn and I could both attend the other meetings. Saturday we ran some errands and worked in Lissy’s new room. Shawn got the mirror attached to her dresser, rearranged and attached new knobs on the dresser and put some hooks up in her closet. Lissy and I worked on organizing her closet and put together some wire shelves to put in there. This week I also took the pantry/cupboard out of her room and moved it up to my scrap room and filled it with all of the girls’ art and craft supplies. I also finally turned one of my wall decorations (a black picket fence) into our new family home evening chart. I just turned it upside down, stamped on some tags and cut some vinyl monograms out for each member of the family. Oh, I also went and got the library orientation so I could substitute there this week. Shawn taught the lesson in Elder’s Quorum today, I gave the closing prayer in sacrament meeting (without crying, as Lydia pointed out) and led the singing in primary, and Shawn had a Court of honor and a music workshop to go to tonight, so it has been another wonderful and busy Sunday.

The next couple of weeks look slightly less busy, but it is really too soon to tell. That one blank day on the calendar will probably get filled in before I know it. I guess it is good to be so busy and accomplish so much. It means we’re healthy and blessed!

New family home evening chart

Wall grouping in living room/library

Lissy's dresser - all set up and fully functional