March was lovely and now it's over! I accompanied nearly 30 music students in Ogden once Salt Lake several times, and locally numerous times.  It's one of my most favorite things to do and I love every minute!  Of course with work, teaching, family, and church there is not much time left for things like blogging.  Here are some other March highlights:

Eva played with the district orchestra--it was beautiful, of course.  She also earned a Superior rating from Federation judges for her solo violin work.  Last Friday she went to the state science fair and had a great time. She spent the day with friends--her friend's mom drove and chaperoned Eva that day.  They went to City Creek, the new mall in Salt Lake, and she was singled out among throngs of people and a group of friends by a talent director for a modelling agency.  She was wearing her medallion that day and the lady made sure to mention several times that they wanted to work with her and her standards.  She was flattered but she is not interested.  Whew!  Of course I know she's beautiful and a great worker but I'm scared of that industry!!  She said something to the effect of: "How can I do modelling while I'm practicing violin and piano and teaching and I want to run track?!  And I have school!"  Exactly right!  I love that girl!!

Ethan is loving scouts.  I subbed in his Sunday School class and was impressed that he tries to answer nearly every question and knows most all the answers.  It's clear he loves the gospel and thinks about it more than I had realized.  Eva tells me that her friends in that class say he is always like that.  It's neat to witness his testimony.  This Sunday he gets to speak in Sacrament Meeting.  He is my most thorough worker--and I look forward to when he gets a new zone because I know the deep clean will be done well on that part of the house that week.  For Nathan's birthday Ethan gave Nathan a set of coupons for chores.  He didn't think it was fair that Nathan wouldn't get a day off chores for his birthday.  Of course, I said Nathan could have a day off but then he wouldn't earn money that day.  Ethan also finished up his early morning advanced math class--he's loved it and he's looking forward to Junior High.  I'm excited to see what clubs/sports he decides to do.  He's thinking he wants to try to be the mascot when he's an eighth grader--he'd be great at that!!

Ivy and I were in charge of achievement days one day this month.  I wanted to change it because I was so busy but then realized that we were asked to plan it on Ivy's last day with this group of girls.  So we muscled through it.  She wanted to bake bread.  We borrowed some small bread pans and made bread dough with the girls and then gave them a small loaf of their own.  Then we made placemats for nursery snack time.  Ivy loves cooking and baking.  She looks forward to her night every week and volunteers to help in the kitchen all the time.  She still checks out cookbooks when we go to the library.  She's been growing her hair to donate and it's past ready but she's working on earning enough money to pay for her hair cut.  Maybe this week....

Nathan had an IEP this month.  He actually didn't qualify for special ed services in speech, writing, or reading.  It was shocking to everyone at the meeting.  However, he did qualify for math because he wasn't paying attention to the adding/subtraction signs that day.  No one is concerned about his math but since he qualified for that if we send him for minimal math help he can still receive services for the other.  And the speech therapist qualified him for conversational speech, since that is not yet perfect.  I was surprised at how nervous I was at the thought of receiving no services.  It's definitely bittersweet.  The past few months Nathan has made stunning advances at speech--the professor is literally giddy.  I have never seen him this excited for Nathan!  He mastered rhyming, syllables, sounds in words, most 3-syllable words and is working on 4-syllable words.  He is still working hard on retelling stories, describing things, etc.  This is very difficult for him but we have seen some progress--Nathan has told us a couple of stories in the last month or so.  His reading level as also taken a big leap.  His dibels fluency went from 37 words a minute to 51 words a minute.  It's still nearly a year behind where he should be but it's a huge jump!  His classroom reading aide and his teacher both noticed marked improvement.  I believe that his mind is developing and preparing for his baptism and consequent gift of the Holy Ghost which can only enhance this great growth!

Nathan also went to cub scouts for the first time!  The night before he put is shirt on and Ethan helped him make it perfect with the scarf and the scarf slide.  It was so cute!  Don't tell Ethan I described anything he's said or done as cute.  Let's keep that between us.  I couldn't believe how excited Nathan was--I hadn't realized how much he was looking forward to it.  He's working on saving money for day camp!

This week Nathan will finish reading the Book of Mormon!  He turned eight in March and will be baptized this Saturday.  It's weird that my baby will be baptized.  Every one of the kids has read the Book of Mormon before their baptism.  It has been easy for none of them and sometimes feels hardest on me but we have done it and it feels great that Nathan will finish.  There have been many times when it seemed it would be impossible but he's done it!!  This week we will need to read 2 chapters a day to do it and it's a bit more reading for spring break but when I gathered the kids this morning there was not a single word of complaint. They all know what it means to finish it and the older three are more than supportive of Nathan and willing to help.  It's a heavenly thing to witness this kind of support and love!

Aahhh, spring break!  We are spring cleaning and I LOOOVE it!!  The kids don't love it so much.

OK.  Maybe they hate it.

I don't care.

It's impossible for me to deep clean with work and piano and we are past due.  A clean house is marvelous!