Hoosiers

Hello! Anyone still out there? Sorry if you are out there and have been checking for updates. Since discovering Facebook, I post little updates and info there. Feel free to look me up!

As we might have expected, the summer was a bit rough. We ended up changing our plans so we could get out of my parents' hair a little earlier. So on June 30/July 1, I drove with the girls and my neice Regan from Forsyth up to Granger. The 12 hour trip took 19 1/2 hours. Many stops were made for going to the potty. But we made it in one piece and were able to sleep in our own house. Our stuff was delivered on July 2. The girls enjoy discussing the old house and the new house. Like Carter lived next door at the old house and Aubrey lives next door at the new house. The girls LOVE Aubrey who is 11 years old and initially thought it was great to have three little girls living next door. I think she's over it now.

We are really enjoying our new house and our new situation. Since Notre Dame started, Mike has been really busy. He is teaching three sections (120 students) and is trying to be very accessible to his students. He has regular office hours in in his office and also has unofficial office hours at South Dining Hall during lunch on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. He's told the students where to find him and he's had several join him to ask questions. It sounds like now he has a couple of regulars who he loves to regale with his stories of the glory days (if you can call 2 years with Jerry Faust glory days).

We didn't realize when we bought the new house that it is less than 1/2 mile from the elementary school. So we have soccer fields and three playgrounds within easy walking distance. We have many wonderful neighbors, but the girls haven't made any great friends in the neighborhood yet. We've had a couple of play dates with a family with two daughters. They do not live in our neighborhood, but their house is a little over half a mile away, so we can walk there.

Addison and Lily have been attending The Bridges school 1 - 3:30p Monday, Wednesday and Friday since the beginning of September. And they LOVE it. They have made a few friends through school and we keep saying we are going to invite Kate over for a playdate, but we've had stomach flu and a cruddy cough going through our house, so it hasn't worked out yet. Kelsey and I take Addison and Lily to school and Mike picks them up. Kelsey also LOVES The Bridges. Most days it takes me a good 20 minutes to get her to leave the classroom with the guinea pig and leave the fun stepping stones that are outside. Finally the school administrators suggested that I bring Kelsey for Friday afternoons with the Parent's Day Out group from 12:30 - 3:30. The group is intended for 3-5 year olds, but they made an exception for Kelsey because the group isn't that big. Kelsey has been to PDO three times. The first time she was a bit reluctant, but the second day, when she saw her teacher, she went running to her and gave her a big hug.

I noticed in my last post that Kelsey was in the I want to do it "all to myself" stage. Thankfully she is over that and will allow Mike and I and her older sisters to do stuff for her. Kelsey continues to amaze us with how sharp she is. She remembers words to songs better than Mike and me. She loves playing with our iPhones and managed to reset Mike's ringer the other day. She also loves dramatic play. She will sit by herself with the princesses and palaces and conduct quite a drama with lots of talking back and forth between the princesses. She is able to spell her own name and ALWAYS recognizes the word "zoo." She is constantly practicing holding up the correct number of fingers. She can hold up 1, 2, 3, and 4 fingers properly. If there was one complaint about Kelsey...she's trying to stop napping. Fridays, naps are now out. And this weekend she went without a nap Friday, Saturday and Sunday, despite our best efforts on Sunday.

Addison read her first book the other day...The Bobbsey Twins, Freddie and Flossie and Snap. I've been encouraging both Lily and Addison to read the titles of books and then words within books. The other night, Addison read the title. Then continued on to read each page. She started off VERY quietly reading, then by the end had enough confidence to say the sentences loudly. The next night both Addison and Lily read the two Bobbsey Twins books that we have together.

Lily also read her first book the other day. It was Friday at school. Since Kelsey's class starts 30 minutes before Addison and Lily's, the three of us go to the school "library" after dropping Kelsey off. Lily picked a book to read "That's not My Snowman" and before I knew it, she read the whole book.

Addison and Lily both are getting good at reading signs while we are out and recognizing words all over the place. As Mike says "This makes Mommy very happy." We are also working on math concepts like measuring, sets, sorting, etc.

Addison has gotten out of the habit of wearing dress up clothes constantly. Until, that is, she got her Halloween costume, Silvermist (one of Tinkerbell's friends). She is quite tall and is wearing a size 6. She is almost three inches taller than Lily. Addison seems to be into winning these days. She wants to know who's picture is prettiest, who has the most marbles, who got there first, etc.

Addison is taking swimming lessons and has improved greatly in her swimming ability. Her lessons are at Notre Dame at the pool in the Rockne.

Lily loves being silly. She came out of my room the other day wearing one of my bras over her clothes. She can be quite friendly and is more likely than Addison to talk to other grown ups and children.

As for me, I am doing a bit more work these days. Some subcontracting on website projects for my friend Fritz Miller, contract work for ScreamFree, and website development for my dear husband (accounting102.com). Neither Mike or I have been exercising as much as we would like, but we do get out and run one or two times a week on average. Last night I spent a while working on taking down wallpaper. We have several rooms that need redecorating and I haven't even finished taking down the wallpaper in the first one yet.

That's it for me. Ta-Ta for now.