Yahoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't even begin to explain the growth, excitement, and relief that our family is experiencing today.

Jared has been working on the pre-requisites for dental school & studying for the DAT since 2005. He works full-time and of course, has his family on top of this. He has basically studied on his days off and 5 nights a week consistently until 1 or 2 every morning. He applied to dental school last year but did not get in. He has taken the DAT two times and did poorly both times, despite the countless hours of studying. I watched him do well on his practice tests when he took them untimed, but timed - his score would drop 5 points because he just didn't do well with the pressure of a timed test. This year, his application was so strong - but this test score was the one thing (BIG THING) he was lacking. He took it in June and was ready to quit his goal for dental school because he felt he had nothing left to give. But after a few days to clear his thoughts, he decided to try one last time to improve his DAT score for this application cycle (entering class Fall 2009). You have to wait 3 months inbetween test dates - so it was set for September 22nd. Because of the 2 hurricane evacuations, he missed out on 6 of his 8 planned tutoring sessions and then his test date was moved back until the office received power again. Yesterday, so many people fasted for him and I know my kids have prayed for him every day for a long time. Yesterday, Jared put the books away and tried to rest and rely on the Lord instead of relying on his own power. He knew the information, but needed help expressing it on the test without getting overwhelmed by the pressure.

All that to try to explain just how hard he has worked on this test. Going into the test, we both felt at ease, feeling really prepared for a score that was lower than he hoped. We were comfortable with the idea that dentistry may not be the right path for our family & that would be ok. Of course, we hoped that Jared would feel success after all of his work, but knew that if that did not happen - the Lord had a different plan for our family. So he got home at 4:30 and he had brought his academic average score from a 15 to a 19 in just 3 months, scoring a 20 on the perceptual & in the 95th percentile in one of the sections, not far behind that in many of the other sections. It was a real spiritual experience for our family as we felt the hand of the Lord in the final hour of his efforts. I know these scores don't mean anything to you, but to him - it means that he will most likely get into dental school for the Fall 2009 entering class!

We will keep you posted but for now... we get to enjoy having a normal life with Jared home more. Thank you all for everything!! Yahoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ode to Colby

On Friday night, Colby & I were watching a movie together and I just had one of those rewarding parenting moments hanging out & then snuggling & laughing with my favorite little man.

And then it reminded me of the journal he brought home at the end of last year from kindergarten & I thought you might get a kick out of this particular entry. When I was flipping through his journal & got to this page...


You can say that I was pretty grateful Jared's cousin was his teacher! If you can't read it, it says, "I am happy when I get to play with mom" & then it has a picture of us laying in the bed together - oh my lanta! I'm glad to know he enjoys snuggling with me as much as I do but goodness - I'm glad I didn't get CPS called on me!

Colby is into having an email address right now - he mostly plays chess with me, his uncles & grandpa. Today, I got a surprise email from him that was cute:

"hey mom. I am going to win the chess game. but you cold do a nether game. hey can you figurer out these peroblams. 6*46= 45*5= her is a easy one.
1000*10=.by. love
colbycade."

Love him!!

Webcast #1: CUBE CRAZE

I think I mentioned that my kids wanted to start broadcasting a webshow. A full show is a little ambitious, so I told them we could do occasional webcasts & I would post them on my blog. It turns out that Colby has inherited the same disease that my oldest brother Roice suffers from - OCRD, or Obsessive Compulsive Rubix Cube Disorder. See http://www.gravitation3d.com/roice/ to see just a glimpse of the extent my brother suffers! Anyway, Roice gave all of his nieces & nephews a Rubix Cube at our family's Disney trip this summer. Colby hasn't put the cube down since. But the universe is now in order because Colby can solve the cube entirely on his own. He has spent a lot of time with this & wanted to broadcast it for all to see.

Fashion Diva Starts School

Freckles

I'm procrastinating! I get the most done when I have tons of other things I'm SUPPOSED to be doing! But - I've really knocked out a lot of scrapbooking from this summer. I won't post them all here, but this page I particularly liked. Remember Halle's "Perfectly placed freckles"? Everyone in our families have discovered them this summer. My dad cannot remember Halle's name for the life of him... he always calls her Haleigh. But this summer, he's decided just to call her "Freckles" instead. She really is a beautiful little girl.

Modeling Job

Jared's cousin asked if Halle would model some clothes she is selling on Ebay. I thought Halle was so cute - I asked for the pics & made some scrapbook pages with them...