Happenings

I am so behind with this little blogging gig.

We are well into school, we have had 6 weeks of Classical Conversations and will have this Monday off for a Fall Break.  Other stuff will still get done around here though, no school outside the house can equal more school here.
Emily is working hard on memorizing all of the CC content, she is thinking about testing for Memory Master in the Spring, which would require repeating all memory work to three people with no mistakes.  She is taking piano lessons and started band at school.  Soccer was her sport of choice this Fall.  Her good friend was playing and she really wanted to try it as well.  Trying soccer in Ames for the first time at age 10 is no joke.  People love their soccer around here and have been playing since age 3 or 4 (not an exageration).  She really loves it.  Her rule following and natural bent for not being aggressive doesn't exactly work in her favor, but she tries hard and has a blast, and we are enjoying watching her do something she loves.  She often has soccer four times a week if she has two games scheduled so we have spent a bunch of time on the soccer field. Dallas and Noelle have made good friends of other siblings and they have a couple nice climbing trees and a playground near.

Dallas is still a Lego building machine.  He can build any type of vehicle and often whips out a prototype after we have seen or learned about an auto or airplane. Getting school done is a challenge for him as he would rather be doing something else like drawing or building.  He is reading better each day, but still doesn't love it. He has already had two colds this Fall.  He is still our kid that feels all the feels and does so to the extreme.  His fits are intense when he feels wronged! On the flip side he loves BIG! His favorite food right now are homemade Jimmy Johns roast beef sandwiches and broccoli cheese soup.  Dallas is playing flag football through an Upwards League that our church hosts.  He is a great passer and often plays quarterback and his receivers get touchdowns.  He is still working on catching well "all the time".  Robert says he can, but he likes to add so much flair to his catching, like jumping, spinning, falling, and leaping that it makes it much harder for him to catch.  If he simply catches it without all the other stuff he does well.

Noelle is still living the musical life. She talks and sings and hums constantly.  Always with the words, words, words.  She is an hummer eater. She dances around, and now adds cheering to her repitorie.  She has been participating in Upwards Cheer leading this Fall.  She really likes the practice and and wearing the uniform. I think the games are a little boring until they get to half-time and get to perform their dance.  They always cheer for the 1:00 pm game so often she does not know many of the players so paying attention is out the window.  There is a lot of picking grass! She still loves digging for worms, playing in the sandbox and jumping on the trampoline.  Jumping in the pool was her favorite in August.
I noticed a lot of hair clumps around her bed the last bit of summer, it took me a while to figure out she was pulling it out.  Having three girls with longish hair in the house does make for some tumble weeds of hair on the carpet especially if we are lazy with the vaccum. At one point in early September i realized her hair was really thin on one side and kind of put it all together.  People- parenting is hard! and don't google hair pulling! We headed to the doctor to rule out some issues like low thyroid (she had to have blood taken and all of McFarland Clinic knew about it!) Thyroid checked out normal, so we were sent to a dermatologist. Scalp was deemed healthy.  He said it was not likely a stress/anxiety issue because of her age. He prescribed a special shampoo, and made sure Noelle new it was only for her and super special (make her feel good). I stratagized with my hair stylist.  I ordered her a satin pillow, got some detangler spray and she has been wearing mittens to bed on her hands for the last 25 days.  I think we have turned the corner! She is/was defiantly doing it in her sleep - we had never witnessed it during the day.  I watched her one night when she was sick and sleeping restlessly and she was rubbing her hair a ton with her mittens on.  I wonder if she had a scalp thing this summer from a lake or pool and it became itchy.  She told me she doesn't like the clumps of hair at night so she pulls them out.

Seriously parenting is hard.