so if you've gotta go, you've gotta go through me

Last night we had our Evening of Excellence.  If I didn't have to do Evening of Excellence and New Beginnings my job would be so much easier.  But it was low-key and short, so not too bad I guess.  And it's good for the girls to take a minute and reflect on what they've been doing over the past year to improve themselves mentally, spiritually and physically.  Our theme was "Cultivating Personal Excellence," and each of the girls got up and took a couple of minutes telling us about something they're working on that is helping them cultivate personal excellence.  One of the Mia Maids ran the Wasatch Back, and one of my Laurels saved up enough money to go on a humanitarian aid trip to Peru.  I've got some pretty cool girls, I think.  We had dirt cakes for refreshments.  I am a huge fan of dirt cake.  It's just poor-man's trifle, really, but pudding is a glorious thing and I love it. 

Grant made the basketball team, yay!  So we will need to reschedule his ear surgery until after the season so he doesn't have to miss out on basketball or honor band.  Evidently they don't want you jumping around or blowing in a trumpet when you've got a patch on your eardrum.  FINE. 

Emmett has to come to choir now that he's 12, and he usually hates it, but last week he was actually excited about how he was starting to learn the parts, and he loves one of our Christmas songs.  There's hope for him yet!  All our kids are going to have to learn to sing, so they may as well get used to the idea. 

Ike keeps coming home and saying he has no homework, which makes me suspicious, but also his teacher is kind of an interesting lady we'll say, and so it is possible. 

Willa plays the knuckles song 24-7 and it's making me insane. 

John's knee has still not gotten better. 

fin

let's go with attache

Grant got up in the middle of the night with an earache, and yes, he is a teenager.  So I took him to the doctor and they vacuumed the big wad of wax out of his left ear, but not until we gave him some Versed.  He is kind of a pain on sedatives, so sure that he can walk when he can't.  You think you can do these things, Nemo, but you can't!  And it looks like he still has a hole in his eardrum, so they are going to do surgery to repair it.  I blame John for this--his family is the one with all the ear problems, in case I haven't mentioned it before.

That's all for now.