The Recital

Ria did well in her dance Recital. I think one of the things she was most excited about was receiving a flower afterward. We did give her a flower last year and she seemed to expect that was a part of it (and so does Kat now!). She was SO excited and pleased that she received not 1, but TWO roses. We couldn't locate a purple one, which was her special request, but she was just tickled to received 2! :) Ria was definitely a good line leader for the Tap and pretty good for Ballet. For the dances she was placed on opposite ends of the stage because, I guess, they could count on her most to do the steps she was supposed to do. We could tell she was checking the teachers who were off-stage and that was pretty funny. During one of the dances Ria was doing what she was supposed to do, but the rest of her line was not... so she ended up totally away from the rest of the group. The audience laughed and she looked pleasantly surprised. Ria definitely loved being on stage again this year! She's been talking about it a lot and VERY much looking forward to performing again next year.

Additionally, (I'm pretty sure I already told you) since her piano teacher told her she's going to do a Piano Recital she has had a renewed focus and desire to work on her piano practice. Well, today she told me she was going to play "Red Drum" instead of "Ten Little Indians". It's totally fine with me because Mary Kay told her she could choose her recital pieces. But now she has to memorize Red Drum... I think she did that, for the most part, already today! Can you believe her? She's just amazing to me.

OTHER NEWS

Jess
Still working LONG and hard in all his roles. He's also been helping me in important ways when he is home. I'd been having some tremendous difficulties getting Ria to focus on school and Jess stepped in a couple weeks ago and things have been improving dramatically, yet still bit by bit. He's being Daddy-teacher! I've read about other homeschool families and it seems Daddies most often take a stand-back-and-watch position. I'm so grateful that Jess is willing and able, in such a productive way, to take an active part in our homeschool!

Jess works Wed. through Sun., though Sundays he's off in the morning to go to Church with us. It's a pleasure to have him home on Mondays and Tuesdays, but having him gone from about 8am until 9:30pm or later is really rough much of the time.

This past Tuesday he made it possible for us to go to the temple together as a family. Every month I feel such a renewed gratitude for him support of my Spiritual Life!

Jess agreed to start having "Couple's Prayer" each night and he also reads his Bible out loud to me almost every night. I think I've mentioned this, but I'm just so thankful and... really... joyful over it, I can't brag on him and my God enough over it! I know Father has been working on his heart. Jessie's prayers are amazing! And when he has prayed over the anxiety and other problems I've been experiencing I've always felt a greater peace than when I was praying for myself. I know Heavenly Father is creating miracles in our lives (SO OFTEN!!!) and I know Jessie is recognizing them more, too! What an awesome blessing and even miracle, in itself!

Jess also makes our garden happen. It's been ridiculously difficult to get any work done the times I have tried to do it on my own, so it waits until Jessie's weekend. So, our garends are still not all planted out (one box is untouched as far as seeds being put in the ground while the other is almost completely planted now), but I'm going to pick my first BIG zucchini today! We'll have a BUNCH of yellow-crookedneck sqaush ready soon! I'm so excited! We have eaten quite a few raspberries and I even made some raspberry frozen yogurt (out of my homemade yogurt)! The girls LOVE the berries and enjoyed the "ice cream". What fun! I would like to get some blueberries from the Spring Hill Nursery that I got my raspberry plants from. No moolah for it right now, but I may be able to scrape some together next month? I DO hope so!

Me and SCD
So, I've been plugging along with the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. It's difficult still. Even though I have more variety of things that I can eat, it's still very difficult for me to NOT be able to eat everything I fix for my kiddos. I'm pretty sure I'm through the worst of the "die off" period. Lots of the peeps on SCD go through such a period, but MAN, I had no idea it was SO difficult and even traumatic!

How "die off" was rough: anxiety became much worse, my chest hurt a lot and often, diarrhea was basically non-stop (it had been regular, but not every hour on the hour previous to SCD), I was more exhausted than when preggie!, my "fuse" was shorter than ever, head aches, cold/flu symptoms, and generally feeling BAD. Currently anxiety is much much decreased. I still have had troubling thoughts, but not in the overwhelming-can't-do-anything sort of way I was having. My chest hurts less often. I have not had diarrhea at all in at least 3 days! Energy levels are improving. Fewer head aches when I drink enough water. Cold/flu is basically gone.

I'm in the Pecan Bread Stage 2 of implementing the diet. I'm most excited about adding in nut butter and nut milks. :) I also successfully added in eggs recently, which will broaden my food preparation horizons!

So, it seems good.

Ria
She's fighting less. As I implement "Bible Character Studies" more regularly, she seems to understand why the way she was behaving was wrong. She's totally NOT doing all her work independently and happily, but there is a lot less fussing and fighting about it! Currently her favorite classes are Math (MUS) and piano practice.

Can you believe she's almost through the Laura Ingalls Wilder books? She's read more of the series than me! I definitely want to read more of them, but am currently reading ahead books that I would like her to read before too long.

Kat
Did I tell you she's starting Dance this summer? She is SO excited! She's already been talking about going on stage a getting a flower! :) Isn't that so cute?

Kat is progressing slowly (but wonderfully) through Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. She also enjoys numbers, though she's still not identifying them correctly on a regular basis... except for #s 1 and 2, maybe.

Kitty Kat loves playing with Tea, but Tea doesn't enjoy or tolerate her well, much of the time. Every once in a while Tea will enjoy Kat and I feel hopeful that they will be good friends like Ria and Kat are almost all of the time.

My middle daughter does not enjoy hanging out outside as much as Ria. I think Kat doesn't tolerate heat terribly well. In this way she's definitely more like me. I suppose she must needs be like me in some ways since she's SO much her Daddy's daughter in most ways. It's kinda funny, too, cause Ria is more like Jess in heat tolerance and more like me in personaily (among other things)!

Tea
Almost 8 months old. Can you believe it? She's cruising confidently now. She crawls like a Speedy Gonzales on all 4s! ^_^ She loves to play Peek-A-Boo. She has started to prefer having her LONG bangs in FRONT of her eyes (a-la-Ria... do you remember?). Tea has been pulling her hair out of it's clips and ties to get it in front of her face. I think she has too adorable a face to hide behind her hair. I guess she doesn't agree. Who knows!

Tea is still a happy girl, but she DEFINITELY wants attention when she wants it! She does NOT like it one bit when I can't make time for her right when she wants to be with Mama. Thus, she can be pretty fussy sometimes. She also does not sleep more than 7-10 minutes without me with her. This is definitely reminiscent of both of her older sisters! I think my babies just become this way after about 5 or 6 months.... It's exhausting for me to have no time alone. I NEED my temple time to be completely off duty!!! I'm so grateful Jess is so willing to make the trip so I can nurse my nursling right before and right after my work/time off! ^_^