Update on Swan Kids

We had a very busy month of October and it looks like November and December will be even busier…I guess that is life with 4 yungin’s.

Susie has some great news to share…she made the basketball team at school! She is very excited and of course her Mom is beyond excited!!! When she called me on the phone to tell me the good news I started shouting “Wahoo!!! Way to go Susie” She started laughing and said “Uh Mom…everyone can hear you!” So of course I had to shout even more just to embarrass her. I could hear a bunch of kids laughing in the background. It was great!

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So with this added on her schedule goes like this: school (of course), basketball each weekday for 1 and 1/2 hr., fencing on Mondays, YW on Wednesdays, and play practice 2-4 times a week. Busy girl. She asked me today if she could get a big calendar to put on her wall to keep track of it all. She is really enjoying the play they are in. It is Scrooge and she is Emily, the fiance of Fred, so she gets to wear a frilly pretty dress and hang onto a good lookin’ 15 year old boy’s arm…so she is a happy camper…can’t say the same for Daddy O who is not liking his little girl growing up! Susie has also taken on an important role at church. She has started playing the piano for YW, they haven’t had a pianist for a long time so they are happy to have Susie play for them. She does a great job. We haven’t had her in lessons since leaving Logan but I still have her practice 3 times a week and she has done great! She is such an amazing kid. She has grown up and matured so much this last year. We are very proud of her!

Becca is also pretty busy. She has chorus practice twice a week after school, they are getting ready for their Christmas Concert. She is also the newspaper editor for her school so she is staying after school sometimes for that. Then she has fencing on Mondays and art class on Fridays (she has done some great art, she is so talented) and Activity Days twice a month on Wednesday’s. Oh and also play practice 2-4 times a week. She is also in Scrooge and is playing the part of Richard and has to sing a trio…she is a little nervous about it but is doing awesome! Both she and Susie are wanting to try out for the next play the Theater is doing in the spring – Narnia. That is going to be a big one. Tryouts are in a couple of weeks so we will see how they do. Becca is still our crazy, nutso kid who keeps us laughing. She is a jokester and prankster too. She has gotten Jason more than once. Give her a couple more years and he is going to have a hard time keeping up with her…she is a smart one!!!

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Katie reached a milestone over the 3 week Fall break from school. She discovered that she loves to read! Yeah!!! I was getting worried about her. It was a fight to get her to read 20 min. a day. Her reading skills were right on but she just didn’t enjoy reading like Susie and Becca both did at this age and much earlier. But over the break something clicked and she fell in love with reading. Whenever we would go anywhere she made sure to have a book to read on the drive. I would find her on her bed reading, on the couch reading, on the floor reading. It was just so great. Way to go Katie!!! Katie started piano lessons, she has been begging for months now and we found a local teacher finally (still 15 min. away but closer than going to New Bern or Morehead City). She has a recital in December to get ready for. She is really enjoying it but not as much as she is enjoying fencing with Daddy! This kid has gone crazy for fencing. It has really motivated her to make good choices and get her stuff done so she can participate. We had a Primary Talent Night a week or so ago and for her talent she challenged her Daddy to a duel and she won. 🙂 She looks so cute in her uniform. Katie is counting down the days until her birthday (Nov. 19) and her baptism (Dec. 6).

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Xander is into Super Hero’s. He wants to be Spiderman for Halloween and has been planing it all month and wearing the costume as often as Mom will let him(which has been pretty often), practicing putting it on by himself. One day he asked if he could wear his Spiderman costume with his Batman mask and his Superman cape for Halloween! Xander still loves playing puppy. He also loves to play cowboy. He found some rope and so now he has a lasso to go along with his hat and he runs all over (outside) throwing that rope around and catching things (usually his puppy). He is so cute! He is going to start seeing a speach therapist in the next couple of weeks. He is still not able to say his C’s or K’s at all. We were in New Bern a couple of weeks ago and we drove by the Cow Cafe (fun little restaurant that is all decorated in dairy cows) and the kids asked if we could go get a ice cream. Xander got in on it too asking to go to the “tow tafe”. I told him as soon as he can say Cow Cafe right we will come and celebrate! So he kept trying to make the right sound and the girls were trying to get him to and they were having fun but after awhile he started to get frustrated and he cried out “I am never going to be able to say tow tafe right” Poor kid!

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