Mikayla's First Week at her new school

Mikayla started her first week at her new school this week.  I had a meeting with her teacher today and she is doing very well.  Her teachers are impressed with her.  She has completed two weeks worth of assignments in just one week.  I told her if she keeps it up, she may have all her work done in March!  I asked Mikayla if she likes her new school and she said "yes." I said do you like it because you don't have to go to school everyday.  She said "I actually wish I could come here more."  That was good to hear.  I went back and forth for a couple of months before making this decision.  I wasn't real sure how it would all work out and if it was the right thing for her; but I am glad we chose to do it.  We no longer have to worry about insane amounts of homework and assignments she doesn't understand because she wasn't taught the material at school.  Her new teachers are very friendly and helpful and actually take the time to teach her and help her with her assignments.

Christmas

Christmas morning we opened gifts and John made Crepes for breakfast.  John has always wanted to try crepes and Teresa happened to give us a crepe mix and a crepe pan for Christmas so he put it to use.

The girls got clothes and shoes, things they were in need of.  Ashlee bought Mikayla some targets for target practice and a hat.  Mikayla bought Ashlee a new selfie stick.  John and the girls got me some clothes that are current with fashion trends trending now (my wardrobe is really out dated). My mom got me a bread machine for Christmas.  Hopefully I can finally make bread and have it turn out right! The girls bought John some headlamps to use at night when he is feeding along with some Carmel Milky Ways.  The girls and I got John a motion detector for our driveway.  Hopefully we can catch those dang theives that keep breaking into his truck!

We hosted Christmas Dinner at our home this year.  We had my Mom and Terry, Adam and his family, and Grandpa Billy and Kay over.  We shared a quick video about Christmas, enjoyed dinner and exchanged gifts.  It's always nice to get together with family, but it always seems like our time together is short.

Family Temple Trip

Ashlee has been asking for some time to go to the temple so she can take the names she has done family history work on and do baptisims.  Life has been crazy and we haven't had the time so a few weeks ago we decided we would make a trip in the month of December and since Mikayla turned 12 several months ago too, we could go to the temple as a family.
We were able to join in with a small group of youth from Jackson and do baptisms with them.  It was a nice, spitritual day, and being that it's December, we got to see the temple all decorated for Christmas.

Last Day at Ballico

Today marked the closing of another chapter in our lives and in a couple weeks we will open a new chapter.  Today was Mikayla's last day at Ballico School.  In a couple of weeks she will start a part school, part homeschooling, independent study program and we will see how that goes.  This wasn't something we were planning on having to do, but feel that this will be better for her.  She does well in school, but she and I are both frustrated with her teachers and we don't feel like she is being taught what she needs to be taught.

Last year Ashlee had the same teachers and she didn't have a good school year either.  Ashlee just had to "suck it up," deal with it, and get through it.   Unforunately for Mikayla though, she would have had the same two teachers next year too for 8th grade and we just felt that we needed to make the change before she got too far behind.

Weekend Trip to the Cabin

It seems like it's been forever since we have been anywhere. Teresa and Dan offered to let us use the cabin for the weekend so we decided to take them up on their offer.  A nice, quick, weekend trip away after working 6-7 days a week straight for months was needed very much.  We relaxed at the cabin and went for a little drive, picnic and hike.

Mikayla sewed a maxi skirt

For mutual this week Mikayla sewed a Maxi Skirt.  She did a good job, it turned out great.

Halloween

The girls are getting too old for Halloween in my opinion, but the church was having a combined ward activity so we decided to go, which meant they needed to have a costume.  Here is what they came up with their costumes....there are lots of homeless people around town anymore which is both sad, upsetting and somewhat disgusting because nothing is being done about it, so they decided to look like homeless people.  They came up with their own signs and even made a sign for John.

The church activity didn't turn out as we planned so we ended up taking the girls and Nicole trick or treating for a while before going home.

Ingrown Toe Nails

Mikayla has had both of her big toes bothering her with ingrown toe nails, so instead of hoping that they would get better on their own with Epsom Salt Soaks, we decided to just go get them taken care of and end her suffering.
She chose to have the one that bothering her the most taken care of permanently, while having the other one done using the non-permanent method.  Let's hope the non-permanent method works and she doesn't have to go thru it again.

Young Women's Evening of Excellence

Ashlee and mikayla shared their Personal Progress Projects at Evening of Excellence tonight.  Ashlee has spent the last year working on family history and sewing.  Mikayla completed one 10 hour volunteer project, went to girls camp, learned how to make jam and bread and completed some art projects.  These two girls work hard at everything they do.

Olivia, Mikayla, Ashlee, Savannah and Elle

Olivia, Hannah, Mikayla, Ashlee, Elle, Savannah, Nicole.  We have a very small group of young women in our ward.

Volleyball

Mikayla loves to play volleyball it's her favorite sport and she is really good at it.  She has a very strong arm, sometime too strong of an arm.  She can wack that ball right over the net.  She was one of two 7th graders that made it on to the A/Varsity team.

Last year she was awarded the Most Valuable Player on the team.  This year they had a different coach.  The kind of coach that believes everyone makes the team and that everyone is winner.  So it was kind of a frustrating year for her.  She didn't get to play as much as she would have liked to, but when she did get to play she did great.

She is number 22 in the pictures.  Several shots of her at vaious games throught the 2 month season.