We had a family night lesson last week on building relationships with our extended family and as a result, I thought about how little contact I have had with many of you lately.  We all get busy, but we need to remember what is most important and each of you is among the top of my most important list!   I tried to post a couple weeks ago and the pictures kept messing up and so I am going to post sans pictures and try to get them up later.

Courtney is finishing up the 6th grade and preparing for Jr. High- I am not ready for that, but she is a great girl.   She continues to excel at school with a perfect 4.0 and at her three instruments- saxophone, viola and piano.   She also sings in the school chorus and is currently preparing for a performance as a River City Girl in The Music Man.  She also had a lead role in her school production of The Pied Piper.   Our ward has discovered her babysitting skills lately and she is called most every weekend night now for a job- she is such a sweet girls, she has also babysat for free many times for couples attending to callings, meetings or temple prep classes.  Her most exciting thing right now is that she goes next week to Camp KEEP, a week long camp at the beach- I don't know what we will do without her here, but she is very excited.  

Aubrey is loving third grade- she is in a combination class for the third year in a row, but she makes the best of it.   She also was in the school play and loves playing trenchball in the school intermurals.   Aubrey is a natural at the piano and works hard to do well.  She too has a perfect report card and was disappointed that her spelling grade was a 99% instead of 100 like everything else.  She is a sweet girl who's always ready to help out, especially with Caleb and is adored by everyone around her.

Elijah is at the end of first grade and trying to convince us that he is ready for 3rd grade, so should skip 2nd- he's doing great, but that is not in the cards for him!   He loves to read and he loves to play video games.  He plays basketball EVERY recess and played on a team this winter with Mark as his coach.  He started piano this year and works very hard to get every piece perfect.  He was also in The Pied Piper as a Rat!

Christian is still our little firecracker, the life of the party!  He will start Kindergarten in the fall and our district has just decided to go to all day this next year, so he will be in the first group of that.  He is very excited and Caleb is very sad that he will be gone all day.  He wants to play baseball ( not Tball), so I am looking for a team for him.  He works hard to make right choices and loves to be surrounded by friends.  He along with Aubrey and Elijah ran at a community track meet a couple weeks ago and they all did great.  We were especially proud of Christian who was adamant that he wanted to run the 400 so he could go all the way around the track.  That is a long way for such a little guy, but he fought through and ran the whole way!

Caleb is the darling of our family.  He is the sweetest little boy that gives hugs, kisses, and I love you's freely to the family.   He just moved into a big boy bed and is almost completely potty trained.  He loves nursery and we can hardly believe that he is already almost a Sunbeam!

Mark has had a great school year with building a collaboration between his seniors and the local university.   With his work through that, he has traveled to present at various conferences and has built friendships with key players at the University.  He recieved a statewide excellence in teaching award, for which we are very proud of him.

I am still serving as the Relief Society President and Girl Scout leader as well as committee chair for a few things at the school.  Mostly though, I just try to keep up with everyone else's activities!   I am trying to run a few races again and picking fun ones to do like the mud run I did in the fall.

We are VERY excited to see everyone is a short 6 weeks and look forward to building memories and even stronger relationships through that time together.  Love you all!