Paintball

M's friend P had a paintball adventure for her birthday party.  I can't even tell which one is M except for knowing her shoes.   She's the one on the far left with green pants and green boots.

I'm so grateful for M's friend P.  She's a smart, motivated, kind kid who lives in our neighborhood.

Life can be so lonely and it is rare to find such a friend and literally a miracle for her to live so close.

initiative

M is a go-get-er.  She works on things privately and surprises us with a finished project.  She stayed on top of the Faith in God program and had it done 8 months early.  When the announcement was made that she would start Young Women's 6 months early we just said "Good thing!"

We learned that the personal progress program will be changing at the end of this year so she's going to get that done in a year, or 6 months.  She brings her book to me and asks me to sign off activities every week.  I ask her if she really read the scriptures or did the journaling.  So far she is able to tell me all about it. 

I'm glad she has such a super power for sneaky goodness.

better living through communication

M has lived in G's wake her whole life.  Things we explained and walked him through, we let her experience with less guidance.  Some things are effortless for her but in other ways she is a normal kid going on to the tweens.  So there are some new things and we need to spend more effort helping her navigate. 

She had a math project due that she couldn't do via the scheduled route because it was only offered while she was at band.  The written option she refused to do, dissolving into resistance.  Eventually she emailed the teacher who gave her options.  She also let me know that it was a technology problem, not a knowledge problem with the written option. 

Communication is hard, but improves our lives and gives us opportunities to get help.

Piano piano

M played Pat a Pan for the choir tonight at the Lighthouse event.  I'm so pleased that she is able to do the work to achieve these goals of mine.  She's gotten good enough that she is able to serve and see how fun it is to be an accompanist.  She played 3 songs for the primary program too.

I'm really pleased with her piano teacher and how she is pushed constantly and also how she rises to the challenge.  I often cannot believe it's my little girl doing all this.  At the same time, when she's doing all this it's hard to remember she's only 11.

She has her first band concert tomorrow.  I'm so excited for that experience.  She's so awesome!  And yet today when the children were playing "Guess what I'm humming."  she kept humming tunes the others wouldn't know because they were her band tunes.  And she also hummed the tune for "ABC" which is also the tune for 3 other songs at least,  and told the children they were wrong when they guessed any of the other tunes...

She does serve and volunteer a lot.  She likes to be tricky too.  Basically she is awesome but is still developing.

Governor M

At our homeschool group M won the election for Governor by one vote.  She ran as a democrat against a republican candidate that promised more lego play time and video game play time.  Nice!

Today I reminded her of kind generous women I knew on both sides of the aisle. 

Her motto was "Keep Calm, climb trees and vote for M!"

Magical Advice

M is trying to learn "Pat a Pan" on piano for the choir.

Tonight lP told her "Don't just run through it, actually practice

the parts you don't know."  M yelled back "I've been taking

piano for 5 years, I don't need your magical advice!"

Tonight we went to a friends house because the mother of this friend is having a class over the next 4 weeks about peer relations and emotional health.  There are 13 girls ages 10-14 and they talked about Fitting in vs. Belonging.  It was pretty great.

Classes

 M is in an astronomy class at the homeschool co-op and got to create this model of a star with a giant rice crispy treat and lots of candy.  Then she ate it.  She did share a lot of the candy with her siblings.

 M loves going to band.  I'm so glad that is working out well.  It's wonderful for her to go off and have these adventures of independence.  This is a mural in the hall at her school.  So fun.