First Day of School

Jade didn't actually start school on Tuesday, but she is a link leader. A link leader helped the new students including the 9th graders to find their way around the school. She had to be at school at 7 to welcome them. She had an awesome day and was really hyper all night on Tuesday and had lots to say. Today was her official first day. She said it was not bad, but in Choir she found out her choir group is singing the national anthem for the MN Twins game next Monday. So I am going to the twins game to watch her. She is also in Tennis this fall and has been really enjoying it, especially now that she is getting good. She has a game Thursday at Cretin. She has a full load of AP (advance placement) and honor classes this year. Choir will be her easier class. She now gets more mail then we do, with all the college sending things. She thinks she got her college narrow down to 3 of them, but that isn't for sure...only one is in MN. So we will have to wait to see what she decides. She is thinking Major in toxicology and minor in philosophy. It is amazing how much she has grown up over the summer. She definitely is a teenage that is very comfortable in her place. We moved everything that was in her room, that was ours out(she had a book shelve that I had my books, scrapbooks on. all my stuff is off of it). She is more confident then she was before and more at ease.
Miss Monika, all ready for 2nd grade. The outfit that she is wearing, she picked out when she was shopping with my mom. She loves her teacher so far and is happy. She is to have an average of 30-40 minutes homework a day now, she has had some reading homework with write sentences about the part that she has read. She remains in Dyno gymnastics and trains 4 hours a week. I don't like the fact one of the days is in the middle of day on Saturday, especially since my parents live out of town and that doesn't allow us to go up. She along with her sisters will also start swimming. They have bothering us about swimming and we got a really good deal this fall and saved 54 dollars on it....They are excited about that since they have been off lessons for 1 and 1/2 years.....


Katie has the same teacher as she did last year, We love this teacher as he was able to figure out how to teach her and help her retain information which is huge. She is in first grade and loving it. She also is a child that needs a pretty strict routine otherwise she gets "lost" and need a lot more cueing and correcting. The outfit that she picked out with my mom, is a warmer outfit, so she couldn't wear hers on the first day. Katie is no longer in Dyno gymnastics but will remain in recreational. We signed her up for Saturday mornings since Monika will be doing gymnastics that day too.
The youngest is now in Kindergarten. She has been so excited to start until Monday night at bedtime, she informs me that she isn't ready for kindergarten, when I asked her why not, she stated "I don't know how to count to 100", I told her that is what she is going to learn in Kindergarten, she got a big smile and said ok, then I am ready for kindergarten. The outfit is the one she picked while shopping with my mom. Jenny continues to enjoy chinese dancing and will start up next Monday.


They are all ready to go.....
The boy is my nephew Steven. He comes over before and after school. He is in 1st grade and is the average size kid. He is only 6 weeks younger then Monika, but size wise he is really talk.
I continue to do a lot praying for guidance with our journey to adopt Erin. We have been going back and forth about calling her Erin or Daphne. Originally we were calling her by her file name "Daphne", but after reading a dear friend of mine's blog (thank you Jean M.), we decided we needed to call her the name we plan on naming her. So we now call her Erin. Jade likes Daphne better and still calls her that. I also talked to a fellow blog friend (Thank you Vickie) who adopted an 13 yr old girl and is in the process of adopting her two bio brothers..one is older and one is younger. She gave me some very encouraging news, advice and information, so that help me feel more confident again. We have decided to have our adoption agency that we used for Monika, Katie and Jenny to do our homestudy since the agency that has Erin's file is out of state. I was a little dishearten that their part they do is a couple of thousand dollars more, so we have to raise a little bit more money, but continue to be as positive as I can be and know that my faith in God will make what is suppose to happen happen. I am looking forward to the garage sale and pray that we won't get rained out at all. So many people have come forward with donations and I am so grateful and thankful for that.