Linda is 9!

My winter baby's birthday finally came! Linda is such a wonderful girl.  She is 9yrs. old now.

 

Let me tell you about my oldest girl...

 

Linda is very compassionate. Her friend got in trouble at school the other day. On the way home Linda was sad. I asked her what was wrong and she said, "I just don't want my friend to get in trouble."

 

Linda is creative. She is always choreographing dances, forming clubs, coming up with games, and writing songs. It just comes really naturally for her.

 

Linda likes to be in charge. Just ask her younger sisters. :) They usually don't mind though because she comes up of a lot of fun things to do.

 

Linda is girly and beautiful but she's also surprisingly strong. She can hold her own in wrestling matches with her brother Bruce.

 

Linda has developed a love for tennis. She has been doing an after school tennis class and a class with the city.

 

Linda's favorite place to go out to eat is Olive Garden. She loves the spaghetti and breadsticks.

 

She is truly special and we all love her very, very much. She has such a bright future ahead and I'm so blessed to be her mom.



Vice President Thompson

Linda decided to run for vice president at her school. She ran a great campaign.

She put up posters around the school and handed out stickers. She ran against 6 other kids.

 

It took a lot of courage for her to run and we are so proud of her! She did a great job on her speech in front of all of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders yesterday. Jane was able to be there because she is in a combo class with 3rd grade. I think I was more nervous than Linda was. It was so fun to watch her shine and to see all of the kids cheer for her. Bruce and Jane have been getting the word out to vote for their sister. Bruce rallied the 5th graders he knew and Jane got some votes for Linda in her combo class even thought she couldn't vote.
Here's Linda waiting to give her speech.

 Yesterday was election day.

I sat out in the car waiting for school to be over so that I could hear the election results from the kids. I could hear cheers coming from the school as the winners were announced but I wasn't close enough to hear the names. I was almost in tears because I was worried about Linda being sad if she didn't win, and because we've only been at this school a few months I was pretty sure her chance of winning wasn't that great. The kids got to the car and gave me the news, "Linda won!!" We were so excited! She did it! I am so proud of her. I can't think of anyone who deserves it more. Bruce was at lunch with all of the 5th graders during the announcement and he said they all put their hands up and cheered when they heard Linda's name. When Jane's class heard the announcement she was so excited and told everyone, "That's my sister!"

It made me so happy to know the kids were supporting and happy for each other.

 

Vice President Thompson

Fall

We've been enjoying Fall and the cooler weather. We went up to Bates Nut Farm before Halloween. It's always fun to go up and see the animals, do the hay maze and pick out pumpkins. We also had fun at our ward Halloween party and the school carnival. Claire had fun at her Kinder carnival day too.

Halloween Costumes - Check!

The kids got to dress up early this year to go to their school fall carnival.

 

Bruce is a Marine.

He decided this would be a good costume in case the other 5th graders didn't dress up. He could just take off his hat and untuck his shirt. Boys can wear camo for any occasion. He's always thinking. :)

Linda is a Mexican dancer.

Linda saw a Mexican dancer costume online and loved it. But we didn't have to buy it because Robert's coworker was nice enough to lend us this beautiful dress that her daughter used to dance in.

Jane picked an angel costume.

She looks so lovely.

Claire wanted to be a pumpkin again.

Good thing I bought her costume big last year!

We're ready for our ward party next weekend and Halloween the week after that!

More Speech

Well, all three of the girls are now in Speech. Linda is officially in Speech with an IEP and everything. She is constantly getting asked if she if from England. Sometimes she likes that and sometimes she doesn't. Her speech teacher said that correcting Linda's speech will be difficult because Linda's speech does not follow the normal patterns they see. We are going to have her start attending speech twice a week at school now. If we don't see improvement we will look in to a private speech therapist.

Jane has pretty typical speech problems, mostly the r sound. She will not get an IEP at this point. The speech teacher will work with her. She actually saw improvement just in Jane's first session with her, which leads us to believe that she may have just picked up on bad speech habits from the older kids. We're really hopeful her speech difficulties will be cleared up by the end of the year.

Claire will also be attending speech for her r and a couple of other sounds. She will not get an IEP either but will be worked with. I was surprised when helping in her Kinder class last week when an adult asked if we had moved here from England. (because of Claire's accent)

With all three girls in speech, working on a lot of the same things, Robert and I really hope that they will all catch on. What really makes me laugh inside is when Bruce corrects their speech. He speaks really well, but I think back on the 3yrs. of speech classes he had and how I used to have to translate what he was saying to everyone. Proof that speech can be fixed.

Family Update

Robert has gotten really in to working out now that the gym by our house has opened up. He goes twice a day, most days. He looks great and has dropped close to 25lbs. He continues working for the SBA and still hasn't gotten tired of his commute to Santa Ana. He is in Washington DC this week for meetings. He recently got licensed to coach competitive soccer here in SoCal. He had his wallet and keys stolen out of his gym locker so that was a bummer.

I'm still the YW's President in our ward and have been for over a year now. I have learned more than I ever imagined I could with this calling. This calling is very stressful but very rewarding at the same time. I've been enjoying working out as well. I'm trying to keep up with all the kids and their homework and different schedules.

Bruce continues to do well at school. All summer he said he didn't like school and didn't want to go back. Yesterday he told me he changed his mind and actually likes school now.(the new school) He said the teachers are really nice and that the kids don't use bad words like they did at his previous school. He just started up chess club again.

Linda started tennis class after school once a week. She has so much fun. She has made a really good friend at school which is a blessing to her. She is such a good missionary and always talks to her friends about Jesus and invites them to church and activity days. She is on the Green Team at school. She helps with recycling.

Jane just got transferred out of her 2nd grade class in to a 2nd/3rd grade combo class. She started this week and really likes her new teacher, Mr. Phillips. She still plays soccer. I got to go help in her class last week. It's fun watching her. She is very sure of herself and always follows directions.

Claire started out in afternoon Kindergarten but they asked for volunteers to go to morning because of the big class size and we volunteered. I'm so glad we did! It works out much better with her going in the mornings. She has a great teacher, Mrs. Shrom. Claire loves absolutely everything about school.

We have been so blessed. We love our neighborhood. We love our ward. We love the new school.
Heavenly Father has really taken such good care of us and guided us to where we needed to be.