Happy New Year! (A little late!)

2009 has officially been here for seven days. I had originally planned our calendar for school to be back into school by now, but I ended up going to my folks' for New Year's Eve with four of the kids. That means my prep work for January didn't get done since we were out of town, so we moved it back a week. This means the kids now will get out of school May 14, instead of May 7, and we will get to start January with everything ready to go.

We had a great New Year's! Jeff and Morgan went to Winter Retreat down at Sagmount, so the rest of us headed north. I cherish those times when I get to stay with Mom and Dad, and it isn't packed full of activities! We did go out to my sister's on New Year's Day so I could see Arron's new room. Carmen and Rusty did a great job on that room! One of these days I will kidnap her and have her help me figure out how to paint my music room. (There's your only warning, Carmen, so start thinking about it!)

Ben and I had an appointment today with the school district about speech therapy for him. Yay! He qualified. I think that sounds bad, because, in effect, I'm saying yay there's something wrong. But, really I just mean yay! We'll be able to get help. We meet with the speech pathologist Jan 16 to set a schedule. She did tell me it will probably be twice a week, thirty minute sessions. I'm glad we are only about five minutes from the school!

Morgan turns 16 in FIVE days! WOW! I'm so not ready to have a child that can drive. Sometimes I feel like his childhood has flown past me, how did we ever get to this point? We are having a big party for him at the church gym on the 23rd. We were going to do it this Saturday, but too much was going on. We finally settled on a Friday night, and this is when Pastor Phil said we could use the gym. I'm excited for him. He is happier now than I think he has ever been. If for no other reason, I'm so glad we left our old church just to see the change in my boys! Grace is so good for them. Anyway, I digress. He is supposed to be going tomorrow to test for his permit. Pray for him, I know he is nervous about it! Pray for us as we teach him how to drive. Yikes!

I have gone on a diet again. I hate being fat. I said it. I hate it! I am trying to follow weight watchers plan, and have joined a weight loss competition. Pray for me to stick to it. It's so easy to get stuck in my desk chair and work on school, scrapbook, play my instruments, mess around on the computer, and not move. I have to start being more mindful of how much I am or am not moving. This just started up again Monday, today Morgan hands me a candy bar and says "I love you". I said, "Do you want me knock your head off?" Jeff told him offering me chocolate when I'm trying to lose weight is not a good idea. I guess you had to be there, but when it happened it was really funny.

That's about it for now, hopefully I'll get some kind of pictures up here by Friday night.