Reflections

September is flying by all too quickly.  Matt as been in school six weeks, my kids have been in school three weeks, and we are already half-way through the month!

Audrey and Kellen are loving school!  This week Kellen has been learning about apples, and got do do an apple painting today.  They sang songs about apples, touched apples, talked about the color of apples and what they feel like.

Audrey has been learning about healthy habits and the five senses.  She got to bring home the "Mystery bag" this week.  The idea is to bring the bag home, and find something that has to do with the senses and also the letter "C".  She chose "carrots".  I had her come up with three clues about her carrots for the kids to try to guess what we put in the mystery bag.  The clues she decided on were: 1 - You can grow it in your garden; 2 - They are orange; 3 - You can eat it!

The kids have also been busy playing soccer.  Kellen does Soccer Tots, and has been a little disappointed that he doesn't get to kick a soccer ball as much as he would like (they play a lot of other games, too), but still enjoys the class. They change to a new activity about every five or six minutes to keep the kids engaged and interested.

Audrey hasn't been enjoying soccer quite as much as we had hoped.   In the beginning, she begged us to sign her up for soccer.  I'm not sure what idea she had in her head about what soccer involved, but she's not super interested.  (She takes after her mother, there.)  Most practices she spends sitting in the field picking grass, doing her own thing.  Most games she runs around behind the crowd of kids who are actively engaged in trying to kick the ball, but she has no interest in "getting in there" and getting to kick the ball.  As her mother, I think there are a few things going on.  One, I think she doesn't fully understand what she is supposed to be doing.  She doesn't "get" what soccer is, and doesn't seem to worried about learning it right now.  Second, I think she's intimidated by the kids are running around fighting over the ball.  She wants no part of it.  Matt was in the back yard the other day teaching her how to block the ball, and she was doing an amazing job!  She would actually make a really good goalie, but the problem is that there are no goalies for her age group. Everyone just crams together on the field and tries to put the ball in the goal.  Maybe she'll come around eventually, but if she doesn't like soccer, no biggie!

Audrey is really enjoying dance.  This is her third year of Tiny Toes dance, so she's basically reviewing everything she's learned the last two years, but it's good for her. She's building a good foundation for dance, and this year is one of the older girls rather than the youngest and the smallest.  Next year she'll be able to do Kinder Dance and do a combination of ballet and tap dance, which she is really excited about!

Speaking of dance, I am taking a dance class too!  Audrey's dance academy began offering adult hip hop classes this year, and I thought it sounded super fun.  I asked a friend from church if she would be interested in taking the class with me (she used to dance, though not hip hop).  Once we got schedules and kids and everything figured out, we both signed up and this will be our second week.  It's challenging but fun, and definitely a little out of my comfort zone.  Thankfully, it's a non-performing class (so there won't be a bunch of women on stage at the dance recital shaking our booties in front of all the little kids and horrified parents), so that makes it all the better!

As September barrels on, I am quickly approaching my 30th birthday.  This is something I have been thinking a lot about, because, to tell you the truth, I am a little nervous about turning 30.  I am a little nervous about getting older.  I am a little nervous about letting go of my youth.  But, I must say, I have had a pretty amazing decade of being a 20-something.    It started off a little rough in the beginning of 2004 when I had a little nervous break-down which took me several months to crawl out of, but once I was past that, things really started looking up!

Here's a list of major milestones/events from my 20s (I hope I don't forget anything!):

Started in Banking

Got engaged

Got Married

Bought my first car all by myself

Moved out of my Mom's house

Traveled to Europe

Had two babies

Bought my first house

Graduated from college

Lost two grandparents and an uncle

Traveled to Texas with my family and reconnected with a lot of family there (HUGE moment in my life)

Decided to become an at-home Mom (most difficult decision of them all)

That's a lot of big-deal stuff for one decade!  Kind of makes me wonder what the next decade of my life will bring me.  40 really freaks me out, but luckily I have ten years to think about that, and I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.  A couple of months ago I told my husband I wanted to do something really, really big for my 30th birthday, something really epic and unforgettable.  The problem is, I couldn't come up with anything big and epic!  Vegas?  Don't want to leave my kids, and they can't do much there.  Hawaii?  Don't want to leave my kids that long, nor do I want to take them on an airplane for a six-hour flight.  Europe?  Nope. Giant birthday bash at a rented all with dancing and DJ and music and tons of people?  That's not really me, and I don't know enough people to fill up a hall like that!

So, in the end, I don't need anything big and epic.  It will be a quiet day with a birthday cake and maybe a few gifts, but spent with my husband and my children, and spend in heart and spirit with all the other family members who can't be here because of distance, death, etc.

I know that I am truly, incredibly blessed and privileged.  My dad asked me what I wanted to my birthday this year, and really, I couldn't come up with anything!  A cheesy, cliche answer would be for a better, less scary world for my children to grow up in, but that's not going to happen any time soon.  That would really be my greatest wish.  Therefor, maybe the best thing you can do to celebrate my birthday with me is to be a good person, make good choices, and give back to make the world a better place for my kids.

I haven't taken a lot of pictures recently, but I'll post some when I have more!