Another day...

The thunder storms have passed for now so I can continue the short and sweet update. I think I covered Ally. Jackson has been doing very well in 2nd grade. He is so sweet and tenderhearted. I feel bad for him sometimes because he's right in the middle of the family but he's so much younger than the other boys. I know he adores his big brothers and wants to be one of the big boys, but he's still so little to them. Poor Jack is stuck with the sisters. He loves his sisters too, don't get me wrong. Ally is his partner in crime, and Julia is HIS baby. Jack smothers Julia. The novelty of the baby, who is not such a baby anymore, has never worn off for Jack. Julia is everything to him. He did a collage at school with pictures of things he has in his life and he put a picture of a house and a sporty red car (Daddy's Charger) and a baby girl...Julia. No other family members, just Julia. It's cute. At least Julia has learned to tell him to "please go away" when he hugs and loves her too much.

While we are on the subject of Julia....she is the cutest thing ever. That's my mommy opinion. She's so dang smart and although I don't think Rich and I are dumb, she's really smart, and I'm not sure where that came from. She knows several of her ABCs. In fact when I was helping Ally with her letters with flashcards I had to tell Julia to be quiet because she would say some of the letters before Ally would. She recognizes her numbers up to 6 and knows most of her colors. My other kids were just starting to talk at 2 years old. Rich is hoping Julia will be our retirement. He's just kidding of course.

The big boys are both doing well. Jeremy has seemed excited to be studying the New Testament in seminary. He likes to know facts, he memorized the 12 apostles and won a prize in class. We have actually been doing really well with our family scripture study. We just finished the Book of Mormon that we started a year ago. We slacked over the summer, but we got back on track when school started. I feel that keeping their spiritual life as strong as we can really helps them figure out who they are and stand up for what's right. Jeremy and Gage are both great boys. Gage is still so naive and I'm trying to enjoy it since he turns 14 in February and that's about when Jeremy started being more concerned about his looks and friends and girls. The boy spends almost more time on his hair than I do. That's sad. One day he'll look back and laugh. Rich and I kind of get a chuckle out of it now. He is such a good, funny kid...he's just so concerned about being cool to his friends. I know it's a hard age, I hated being a teenager...probably because I cared too much about what other people thought about me...people who didn't really matter. I still probably care too much about what people think, but I just don't let it get to me as much.

Well that is my quick update, I hope you enjoyed it...