The School Year Is In Full Swing

It's September, and that means one thing: BIRTHDAY FEST has begun! I'm quite proud to say that I kick off the annual parade of September birthdays on September 9th, followed by my friends Laura, Layne, Sarah, and Karen, and Ryan. My sister-in-law, Dawn, and my mother-in-law also celebrate September birthdays. I guess September is just a popular month to be born......... :)

So, I'm officially 26. I'll be honest in saying I don't feel either old or young.......I'm just 26. Dain turns the big 3-0 this March, and I'm more concerned with giving him a hard time about that!

Bailey is almost 3 months old now. She's got what I lovingly call "wild woman hair.' All the smoothing and combing in the world won't keep the hair on top of her head flat. They generally are sticking straight up! I think it gives her character, and lets be honest. If she's anything like her mother, she won't be known for being perfectly neat and groomed with flawless hair. She was baptized the last weekend in August, and Uncle Shane (Hammerschmidt) and Aunt Kelly (Ballard) are acting as God Parents. The weather was great and we had a nice time with all of our family at our house afterwards. She had a bad cold with a cough this past week that had us a little on edge, but the doctor reassured us that her lungs sounded fine. The last day or so she has sounded much better.

Kale is doing great. He is such a good big brother--watching him kiss her and talk nice to her just melts my heart! He is learning a lot at his "school" and spends a lot of time asking what letter things begin with. Last night he was watching "Pretty Woman" with me during the half-time of the KU football game. The scene where Julia Roberts is trying to buy new clothes was on. In the scene, one of the store clerks says something like, "Our clothes are very expensive." "You don't belong here." Kale watched that and looked very seriously at me and said, "They are not being very nice." "They should say, could you please leave?" Moments like that make me wish I had cameras mounted all over my house so I could catch him in action.

Last weekend I took the kids to the Hutch High/Rockhurst football game. Despite the fact that the Salthawks ended up losing by a touchdown, I was VERY impressed. They should have a very successful year. After the game, my nephew Kaden came to spend the night. He is so cute, I just want to kiss his chubby little cheeks non-stop! He did a great job, and didn't even cry when he woke up the next morning in a strange house. Kale and Kaden played and played-- their two favorites are races between the front door and back door and wrestling on the floor. Dear little Kaden gets left in the dust during the races (he is only about 1 1/2 compared to Kale at 3 1/2) nonetheless, he keeps chasing after Kale with a smile on his face. On the flip side, Kaden does usually dominate the wrestling matches!

Dain's in full swing coaching football. His 5th grade team looks to be pretty good if they can avoid injuries :) I've starting helping with running club at my school, and tutoring will start in a couple of weeks as well. Things are good as we roll along towards October. I can't believe it's almost time to start getting Halloween costumes ready! I'm still coming up with ideas for the kiddos, so if you've got a good one, let me know!

God Bless you all!