2011... what are we looking forward to?

What will happen in 2011? What are we looking forward to?

Well, in homeschooling, we have a world's fair and a spelling bee, as well as just finishing up everything we've started. In the fall we'll have Michael in 10th grade, Benjamin in 7th grade, Emilie in 6th grade, Nathanael in 3rd grade, Samuel in 2nd grade, Timothy possibly in Kindergarten and Christopher and Liberty learning whatever they want to. Lots of reading will take place, but hey, this IS our house and that's quite normal.

Michael will be turning 15 and looking at a drivers permit. He will most likely get taller than me this year. (Shush, you don't have to say that isn't saying much...) He'll probably go to Youth Conference as well as Scout Camp. He will most likely get his Life in Scouting. He may even decide to go to his first Church dance.

Benjamin will become a teenager, so we'll have two of them. He may hit a good growth spurt and he will also go to his first Scout Camp. He has already earned some of his Scouting stuff but hasn't received any, so whenever the first Court of Honor is here we'll get onto that.

Emilie will turn 11. She's growing into a talented young lady. We just need to get her to focus. We will probably start ballet again soon, as well as piano with older brothers and possibly younger brothers if everything works out. She is disappointed to not be in Young Women's yet, but she still enjoys Activity Days with the other girls and I think she'll enjoy the year with them.

Nathanael will have a BIG year. In March, he will turn 8 years old. This means he will be baptized, most likely in early April. This also means he gets to start Cub Scouts. (and our family will constantly have Cub Scouts in the house until Christopher turns 11... in 2019). He is very excited. It seems this ward has an active, if small, Cub Scout program.

Samuel turns 6 in two weeks. He doesn't have any big plans for the year other than reading the Harry Potter series. That's pretty big by itself. He is pretty proud of himself and excited for any adventure our family is involved in.

Timothy turns 5 at the end of the year, and may start Kindergarten homeschooling or he may not. It doesn't change anything in how we do things around here. His vocabulary is expanding daily and that means so his Christopher's. His writing is improving but all he writes is his name so far. He is learning to spell other words and that is also a great sign for reading readiness.

Christopher WILL be out of diapers this year (one in diapers, whatever shall we do?) and he turns 3 in March, the day after Nathanael turns 8 in fact. His vocabulary is exploding, he knows colors, shapes, and a whole lot of letters and numbers.

Liberty is already walking, her big event this year will probably be words other than Mom and moving her head yes and no. She'll probably start running, too. I may need to get one of those baby leashes... lol... I said that with Emilie too.

Another exciting thing this year is the temple in Kansas City being completed. They are far ahead of schedule and it's amazing to think it might be done before next January!

We would like to take a trip West to see family and friends, either to California or Utah. We'll see how it works out. Hopefully our house in Texas sells this year, and we'll buy the one here in Texas.

We'd like to keep the blog up to date and update our family website to reflect at least our current family size and family pictures, though facebook has been nice to keep up with family and friends.

So, not sure if there is anything else in the works, but that's what we're thinking and hoping for this year! What about you?