Just trying something

So it's been something like 9 months since I last posted and I'm starting to feel guilty for not writing in a journal or recording anything about my life for that whole time.  I gave up blogging when it didn't allow me to add any more pictures and when I realized that no one seemed to care about me giving it up.  It hurt my feelings to see that most people that I want to read it, don't or never tell me that they do.  BUT  I am missing  it and feeling the need to repent and record!  Thus I am making this initial attempt to write something to see if it will let me add some pics.  I have too much to catch up on that I don't know where to start.  I guess I'll just post everything that I can remember in a very short nutshell:

 We moved from VA to Gallipolis, OH in June.  We have been here about 6 months now and feel like it is a great place to raise our family.  We love everything about living here, except for our ward.  It is a very dysfunctional branch that somehow has the title of ward.  I have been "coddled" in the church my whole life, so coming here and seeing the great need is very overwhelming.  I was called as the Primary president the 3rd week we were here!  Grace is going to be one year old in a few days and has been growing really fast!  She is a wonderful baby:  she eats and sleeps very well, she is happy and cute and seems to be on a good pace for learning new things.  She started crawling a little later than a lot of babies (7 months) but went from learning it one day to being a pro the next!  She has taken her first steps to walking within the last week and looks like she'll be walking at 12 months.  I just successfully added a pic that I took of Grace this morning in the bath.  She is a cutie and looks a lot like Kaylie at the same age.  We can't believe she's almost one and how fast the time flies!

Kaylie turned 8 and was baptized in September.  She is a daily reminder of how quickly time goes by with little ones!  We are so proud of her and all that she does.  She is really mature and grown up for her age and it is fun to see her learn new skills.  She loves to cook and has learned several meals that she can make all by herself (which we both love!).  She is in the 3rd grade and doing extremely well in school.  We signed her up for a soccer league this year and she excelled and loved it!  It was fun for the whole family, but I'm glad that it is done for now.

Carter is now 6 years old and in 1st grade.  He is a very sweet boy and is LOVING coloring lately.  He colored at least 75 pictures of Halloween and had them ALL OVER the house (he used tape, glue, pins, and whatever else he could find to display his art work.).  When Halloween was over he moved on to coloring turkeys and now he's really enjoying the vast array of things to color for Christmas.  He is doing well in school and wants to play baseball in the spring, although he make change that to soccer since he and Kaylie always play outside and love it.

Lily started preschool in September and absolutely LOVES it!  She is 4 and finally growing out of her terrible 2's and 3's, although she still has bouts of bad behavior coloring on the walls and peeing in the vents.  She is doing a lot better at talking and has improved a lot since she started school, but not enough to not really worry.  We had an IEP for her during parent teacher conferences and she has a lot of work to do with her expressive language before we'll feel comfortable passing her on to kindergarten!  I really wouldn't mind doing that, except that she'd then be in the same grade as Abigail!

Abigail is now 3 and really acts like it too.  We always hear about the "terrible two's" but in our house it's the terrifying three's!!  She is a really sweet girl when she wants to be and has the most adorable habit of wanting to cuddle, which most of my kids haven't wanted to do once they can move.  She loves to read with anyone who'll read with her and really enjoys going to the story time at the local library.  She also likes to cook with me and is obsessed with carrying Grace around.  She is a fun addition to our home, and she's really looking forward to being able to join her older siblings on the bus next year for preschool!

Well, there are only a million other things to write about but for now I'm just super happy it let me put pics on here and that I can feel like I wrote something about our year.  I will try to blog more often, for my own memory's sake, so long as my satellite internet connection holds on!