SCHOOL ZONE

September 6, 2013

The Jackson School Kids~

Brooke is going to Busy Bee's Preschool this year, we ended knowing one of her teachers since her daughter dances with our girls at dance, they are both members of our church in our stake in the Bonney Lake ward which is comforting to know.  Brooke goes twice a week for 2.5 hours each day and they do gymnastics once a week which Brooklynne loves!  When Matt asked Brooke if she was wanting her back to school fathers blessing she said, "but dad you don't have the glue, let me go get it." The things little kids say..we had a little cackle, Brooke was referring to the concentrated olive oil that's for blessing the sick and afflicted through the priesthood power. We explained that even though she is given a blessing from her Heavenly Father through dad as the priesthood holder that a back to school fathers blessing didn't call for the oil, or glue as she had called it :) so cute! Then today, we watched Vaughn a little friend of hers from church that in her preschool class for a bit before preschool since his mom was having her ultra sound to find out what their family will be having were a boy or a girl baby.  I asked him what he was hoping for a brother or a sister and he said a brother, then Brooke with her giving heart said..."well, if it's not a boy you can borrow one of ours because I have three brothers." So quick to offer up one of her brothers to borrow, at least she didn't offer him to have one of hers...

Then there's our big 1st grader, no more cut up weeks with only going Mon, Tues and every other Wed...it's full time school for this little man this year! It impresses me the wheels that roll through Josh's head, they are constantly spinning...he is such a mechanical thinker. When he came in to the laundry room as I was taking clothes out of the dryer yesterday, he was observing the inside of the dryer and started to explain to me his concept and hypothesis of why everything was the way it was with the vents and such inside the dryer with hot air and cold air and on and on and I have no idea or have honestly never thought of why it was the way it was so I had no answers but he was confident that his ideas were accurate.  Then just a few min ago, he was rambling something off on how and why the fishes body and mouth is the way it is with his gills and fins ect he's all about the mechanics of structure and function of things, always building and constructing. Very Grandpa Glen like, it just makes me wonder if his middle name of "Glen" is the inventor in him? Miss you Grandpa Glen- but reminded of you daily through our Joshie.

Spencer is a 3rd grader this year.  Back in my time 3rd grade was the year when the cursive writing was the big thing to learn, I'm not quite certain if they even teach it anymore...the cursive and memorizing the multiplication facts are what I remember.  Spencer is book smart so I have no worries with him in the 3rd grade, I'm sure he will excel to great heights.  He had a good baseball season during the summer and starts up flag football here soon which he is excited about since many of his friends in his class have signed up for it as well.  Spencer is our sporty boy in dress, all about comfort and the sporty look not to mention he loves to play and participate in all kinds of sports as well, he is very coordinated and has talked about wanting to do gymnastics as well which after football we can talk about, possibly on Tuesdays since there is the new Lake Tapps Gymnastics right next to the girls dance studio when all three girls have classes.  Gymnastics has triggered his interest ever since he saw that guys actually do gymnastics (not just girls) in the summer Olympics. Spencer is continuing his piano lessons this year on Mondays as well as Ellie who has decided to give it a try. 

Ellie's now in Middle School. In full swing, she is seeming to like her new school and not being in elementary school any more.  Didn't see it coming that the mornings are a bit rough as far as getting out of bed for her since she has always been our one that doesn't require too much sleep to function at her best and to pop out of bed like a "jack in the box" in the morns. Jarom and Bre have grown so much over the summer that Ellie just looks so little to me now but I guess she is only a little "sixlet" as they refer to the 6th graders.  She gets lockers now for her school books/belongings and another for PE which is novelty, she was so happy that she could just walk in the school where ever she wanted with out a teacher and not in a single file line anymore.  Poor Ellie (along with the majority of our kids) ended up with the flu bug the first week of school, the aches, fevers, major headache and stomach ache, Ellie got sick the worst as always as she generally gets hit the best with the bug and has a longer re-cooperation time as well, luckily she just missed half of Friday and was sick through the weekend so she didn't have to miss anymore school. Ellie already has a favorite teacher Mrs. Humphries (which is a mystery to her since she had the jitters when she found out that she was going to be one of her teachers since so many of the other students who had her in the past had warned Ellie that she was so mean.) Ellie says she is so friendly and helpful and she loves to write in her class. Ellie was a little "potty mouth struck" when she got an ear full on the bus with the high schoolers, as expected I knew it would be a shock to her with the language...time to tune them out, set a good example and once she gets a phone when she turns 12 she can listen to her earphones...a good time to listen to her scripture reading maybe?

At the top of the school Bre is now an 8th grader.  No anxiety or jitters for her this year, just back to the ole' routine. Bre seems to be confident and likes her schedule and getting back to her love of dance after taking the summer off.  She's doing Valley Wolf Pack Cheer and has been busy with it during the summer and will be until mid Oct which limits some of her dance classes she is taking until Cheer is over. Bre has made alot of new friends with cheer but she has missed her dance friends and the studio so it was nice to see everyone again after the summer months. It has been fun to see Bre become into her own as a young woman with her own sense of style, she is really growing up, she's into clothes, accessories and make up- all the things that teenagers discover. It's funny when your daughter tries to give you pointers on how to apply your make-up, just get it on and go is my motto, if my make-up is not on in two minutes I don't have time for it :) Far too many schedules to juggle this year, we hit them all with preschool, elementary school, middle school and now high school~ yes, Bre will be joining Jarom in high school next year.

So here he is, our 1st high schooler...a FRESHMAN!  Jarom was happy that he got the classes he signed up for on his schedule. He has figured out Sumner high school with minimal complications (being a lot bigger than the middle school.) His classes are all back and forth across campus so he gets a good work out in sprinting from class to class so he won't be late.  His plan is to go into computer programming with a Bachelors degree in CIT (computer information technology) so he's taking his share of computer classes and the plan right now which may change is to do running start at Pierce College his junior and senior year so he will have an associates degree and HS diploma when he graduates high school, then head off on to his mission.  With high school comes early morning seminary so we started that (I say we since we both get to head out at 5:45 am me to drive him to seminary.) It actually hasn't been as bad as I anticipated so far, early morning functioning speaking. Jarom was surprised that upon going to his first day of seminary he had about six girls in his class from the other wards/middle school that are mormon that he didn't realize were LDS before, a few are in his classes at school. We asked him if any were good looking and he said "yeh, all of them are" which was kind of funny for him since he has always said before that none of the girls from his middle school were cute. Jarom and Matt are both really into the whole fantasy football and have been watching their teams and players closely this season so far. Still a Seahawk and Husky fan of course.  Working towards his Eagle and he plans to do track in the Spring. 

There we have it...back to school for the 2013-2014 year...make it a good one kids!!! Now maybe our home can get a little attention, cleaned and organized :)