September 11, 2009

I cannot believe that it is already almost the middle of September.....September 11th. Once a date that had no meaning, but now we all remember that day and what we were doing when we heard. Eight years ago today, Mike, Allison and I were in Destin, Florida vacationing with friends. Because we were at the beach, it was noon before we knew anything had happened. It was all over by then. I still remember the feeling of total disbelief and the following weeks of shock. I kept reading about the expectant mothers that lost their husbands....I was pregnant with Leah at the time. Those children will soon be turning eight too. Leah will be eight in January. My prayers go out the the families who lost loved ones on that terrible day.

On another note, Mike and I will celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary tomorrow. It seems like forever and yesterday at the same time. Time marches on. Labor day is now over, and the holiday season is fast approaching!! I am so used to time going by so fast, that I have even taken to speeding it up myself. Just the other day I told someone I would be 47 in November. I truly believed it at the time. Just yesterday, it dawned on me that I was wrong. Good that I am a year younger than I thought, and bad that I cannot remember how old I am!

The girls are already debating on what they are going to be for Halloween. Gone are the years of pretty little costumes, Leah says she wants to be a ninja, and Allison says she is going to be the Grim Reaper. We will see if that comes to pass, but I can guarantee you that I won't have any fairies or princesses unless I decide to dress Rachel as one. Let's see..... what was the lesson I learned from the last year's Halloween costumes.........oh yeah, don't pick something that needs white face paint because it is not as easy to put on as one would think, and don't purchase a wig for a kid to wear. The theory that we sacrifice comfort for fashion does not hold water for a seven year old, and the mommy will have to carry the wig through the neighborhood after it gets too itchy-which is approximately 10 minutes. The ninja and grim reaper seem like pretty good costumes when you realize they require nothing but the costume! No makeup, no wigs, no fake finger nails, no hair paint, etc......

I am still waiting to see what Rachel thinks about the gymnastics class. The teacher was sick two weeks ago, and Rachel was sick last weekend. Hopefully, everyone will be well and we can try it out again. Only two more weeks until the horseback riding starts again. Rachel is going to be so excited to get to do that again. She talks about the horses often and still remembers two of them by name. I just recently found out that the local Down syndrome organization will cover the cost of the horseback riding!! We paid last year, and it is not cheap, so we were so excited to hear that! The organization also sponsors the gymnastics class, so that is free as well. We are so blessed!

Allison recently had to make a relief map of a state out of homemade play dough and prepare a short report for her social studies class. She was assigned Texas-we thought that was cool since she was born there! Below are some pictures of her project. She cut out the state shape and painted it all by herself.

She was supposed to label all the larger cities, but we could not resist labelling the little town we lived in-Weatherford!