New Job!

I was offered a new job this week as the choir director at North Cache 8th and 9th grade center. I'm really excited about it! It will be half-time in the mornings, and I will continue to teach band at Thomas Edison Charter in the afternoons. I think it will be fun to split my time between band and choir. A really great added benefit is that they can provide health insurance. Hallelujah! It will be hard to manage full-time work on top of my family, but I think we'll all just have to learn some important lessons about pitching in and helping. More home responsibilities will probably actually be good for the kids.

Emily's birthday and Mother's Day

We had a really nice weekend. Emily turned 14 yesterday. (Wow!) That means she is officially a Mia Maid at church, which I think she is excited about. She had a party at the park on Friday with her friends from school. (a few boys were invited, too, yikes!) But, I will say that it seems like she really has a nice group of friends. The girls spent the night at our house afterward. On Saturday we had 3 soccer games and a dance recital. Max is somewhat of a kamikaze on the soccer field--he'll throw his whole body into a kick and end up crashing at least 20 times per game. But, he's actually pretty effective with his strange tactics. Sam is also doing well. He likes to play goalie. Emily has really taken off with soccer this year. She is less stressed than usual and is tending to score at least one goal per game. It's really great to watch her play and have fun. Ginny was a darling little ballerina at her dance recital. What a cutie! The girls all wear black leotards, skirts, pink tights and ballet shoes and their hair in a bun--very traditional. She did a great job--I think her favorite part what flitting about on the stage after the recital was over. I wasn't up on the protocol about buying your dancer flowers, and she was pretty sad that she was the only dancer in her class who didn't get flowers so we made an emergency stop at Walmart to let her pick a small bouquet.

Sunday was Mother's Day. Ginny and Sam brought me really cute things they had made for me. They both sang me original songs in my honor, and kept bringing me cute notes and drawings all day. Both Max and Sam brought me little vases of flowers on Saturday. Also very cute. Trevor and Emily brought me a pretty little bamboo plant. Emily and I decided to make cherry cheesecake for our combined birthday/mother's Day treat. Yum! We went to visit Steve, Suzanne, and Gladys out in Smithfield in the afternoon, and Tutu and Papasan to deliver a flower and cards. We also stopped by my mother's and Nana's graves to sing our favorite song, "Today" and leave some flowers, too. It was cute at my mom's grave, Sam and Ginny both said they wanted some "alone time" with Grandma as we were leaving. The knelt individually by the grave and talked to Grandma--I don't know what they were saying, but it was very sweet.