End of 1st year of Middle School

Well, I wish I wrote in here more often, time is flying by. You have already completed your first year of Middle School. It was amazing. You both loved the freedom of middle school. Juliet you thrived in Choir and Theater. You were in the ensemble cast at the beginning of the year for the "Singing in the Rain," and then had a larger role as the narrator at the end of the year in a Greek play. You did great but don't want to continue in theater, and my heart breaks a little. LOL. You thrived in Choir. You made the honor choir and finished the year doing a duet with Faithe at the final performance. You have a great voice and did so great! You also tried out for cheer and made the team. You worked so hard on a back handspring before tryouts and did it! So proud of you! You are making friends and just loving life. You entered Young Women's this year and have loved it! You just finished girls' camp for the first time. It was stake girls' camp and you loved it! You bore a great testimony at camp and today in church of where you saw the Lord and I am so proud of you growing in your testimony. It is growing. 

Jace you loved middle school as well. You are learning responsibility and boundaries. You played your last year of EYSA football and flag football this year. You are great at it and a quick learner. I am excited to see how you do for middle school next year. I was able to coach your KYA basketball team again this year and it was fun. We had 3 of your friends on the team as well and it was a good year. You are living your best life playing with your friends in the neighborhood every day. You and Maddox and Easton started a lawn mowing business called JEM (your initials). I think you are learning responsibility and accountability a little at a time. Jace, you have learned to love choir also.You are good at it as well and made the honor choir. You have your first boys camping activity next week, can't wait to see how you do. 

I am proud of you both. You are confident in who you are, and though still learning, are doing great. I can't believe you are 12 already and entering 7th grade next year. 

I love you both so much!!!!

Love, MOM

The end of your Elementary Era

 Now we are ending the 5th grade and it is your last year in Elementary. Wowser. Middle school next year. 

You have both had a great year. Jace you played tackle football, KYA basketball, and 7v7 football. I coached your basketball team and I enjoyed it a lot. It was fun. You have had a good year in school and GT, you are super smart and love playing with your friends. You have a little neighborhood gang that always hangs out. It is fun. 

Juliet, you have had a great year also. You cheered and were able to do basketball with the YMCA. It was your first time and you did great. You have made some new friends this year and tried to distance yourself from the ones that seems to hurt you. I am proud of you for standing up for yourself and needing space. 

You are both super funny and fun to be around. I still see you as little people but you are growing up and I can't believe it is happening so fast. 

Jace is still obsessed with all things sports, esp football, and Juliet is Taylor Swift all the way. 

I can't believe next year you will be in different classes. After all this time, you have had the same teacher. I think you will love middle school and the freedom it gives you in classes and in between. I hope you will be kind to everyone and be leaders for good.

I love you both.  

Here are the pics I sent for your 5th grade slide show. 

Here are the pics that are too expensive to buy. :) lol 

10 Years Old

 

Well this has proven harder as the kids have gotten older and I have gotten busier. I can't believe tomorrow is your 10th birthday. It is crazy. You are both such different little creatures. 

We took some friends yesterday to lunch at Chuys, Airborne, and then ice cream at Sonic yesterday for your bday. I think you both had a great time. We were stuck home all this last week from a huge ice storm in Texas, so school was cancelled and I know you enjoyed getting out. 

You are both so big. 

Jace, you are all things football. Even more so now than prob any other post. You have a football in your hand at all times. You are either watching football nonstop, and I mean, You tube replays, watching it live, or playing it on the switch. You can't get enough. Your brain needs to be doing something. You are super smart. You are in Gifted and talented at school and so good at math. I hope you know that you are more than sports. You have many gifts the Lord has given you and I can't wait to see you use them for good. 

Juliet, you are quite the funny thing. You are also a chatter when you get started. :) You know what you like and don't like and are getting more brave to speak up. You aren't doing so many cartwheels these days, but you still love to play with dolls and play games. You finally started putting your earrings back in sometimes, and I am glad. :) You are a good sister and friend.

You guys are in the last couple of years of elementary. I can hardly believe it. I love that you still want me to come to lunch with you and I hope to be able to do some more things with your classes while I still can. 

I am proud of you both and love you both so much. 

Why is this so hard?

 Why is it getting harder and harder to keep up? The bigger kids are older now and with church calling that require my sundays, it because hard to do so many things. 

So it's been a year or more. Unbelieveable. Covid has come and gone. Well mostly. We endured home school and home church, which I loved the home church so much. You two finished 2nd and 3rd grade. 

This last year of 3rd grade just ended a few days ago. You both had a great year. 

Jace, you qualified for Gifted and Talented. Your mind is super fast and keeps up easily. Math is a no brainer for you and maybe with a little more challenging lessons, you will not be writing "Suck my balls" on your papers in class. :( Yes you did that this year. This is the first phone call I have received ever from a teacher and bad behavior. Not quite sure what you were thinking. 

Juliet, you have become quite the chatter this year. You are a big talker, and pretty funny also. You have made some cute friends this year and I hope to be able to let you spend time playing this summer. 

You both made the UIL teams at school, at did great. Just making the team is an accomplishment. I was proud of you both. Juliet, you and your friend Brooklyn made up a dance and did the school talent show. It was cute, and very brave. Very Jayda like. :) 

Jace, you played your first season of tackle football last fall. You are great at it and just love it. This coming year you with both be at the same games. Jace will be playing and Juliet will be cheering. I love it. Scarlet is going to join also. How fun to see all of you at the same time! I won't get to do that too often. 

I have noticed lately Juliet, how much you look like Halle did at your age. It is quite canny. I am so grateful you two get a long so well still. You are very different, but still respectful and loving to one another. Always wondering where the other is. Juliet you have gotten to where you started to fix your own hair sometimes. I like to see you being independant. Now if you will just independantly pick up your stuff from all over the house! haha. 

You are both good swimmers and love to play games. Jace you can't play enough sports or video games and must be monitored with the electronics and time spent....Juliet you like to draw and create and play. You still love gymanstics and I hope to find a way to get you in somewhere. 

Love you both dearly! 

WHAT?

 Has it really been almost two years since I wrote in here? Covid put a big fat wrench in time.  During Spring Break, 2020 Covid surged and schools shut down. Life was changed. We didn't have school for weeks. Then the school put together whatever they could to finish the year. There was a lot of staying home, and a lot of deep breathing. When school started again, you all started online. It was interesting. We had all 9 kids trying to do school on the same internet and in all corners of the house. I had to be creative some days and use different seats..yoga balls, rocking chairs, whatever I could find. It didnt work long. You both did well though, including doing pe in our dining area and hallways. :O) (Ryder did Choir in the toy room) haha. 2020 Finished in a blur. We sold our house and moved to a rental. That was a crammed few months. We moved back over to the Linton's in January of 2021.  In February you were both Baptized. It was a beautiful service. We even were allowed to zoom it, so that was good. We had your first birthday party with friends also. It was fun. In March, We went to the Outer Banks for Spring Break and met up with our friends from New York and Angie and her friends. We had a good time. The year has zoomed by. You are both in Mrs. Hammond's class this year and love it. She is a great teacher. Here we are almost to Christmas, and the end of the year again. Juliet you are flipping cartwheels everywhere and want to be in gynnmastics so bad. Jace played tackle football and really enjoyed it. We had Mike and Christine living in our neighborhood April to August, then he had to go back to Washington, and Angie moved here and stayed. It has been fun to have them near. 

I will try harder to keep up. I am sad I missed so much. You two are growing super fast. 

End of 2019

Well twinsies. You are ending your 6th year. I can't believe it. The universe is taunting me. A girl in our ward had twins , a boy and a girl, and the other day at walmart I saw 3 sets of twins in one trip. It makes me so sad. I love babies!!!

But you two are something else. Juliet you started losing your front teeth first. Oh my goodness... you came home from school that day with only one front tooth and read us a christmas book, it was the cutest thing ever! Jace you just couldn't wait for your teeth to fall out. One of the front ones finally did.

Juliet, you are just now getting into Junie B Jones a little bit. Jace, I can't get you to read really. You do well on A-Z online, but I need to find you a book you really like.

You are both doing well in school and have friends. Apparently all the girls like Jace and its funny.

I hope that you two will continue to grow in wisdom and will start to recognize the spirit. I love you both so much.

Today at church Brother Kassalis made a quick comment about thinking to himself how many spiritual pushups he could do and invited us to think about that for ourselves and Jace, *we were on the 3rd row, blurted out "like 100 !"

Haha. Well, you are not lacking confidence. I love you both .

Disney and Texas

Well, here we are, in our new home in Texas. We moved here this summer, since Dad received a new job. Its been a rough transition, but we know Heavenly Father has put us here for a reason. I am so grateful for you two and your easy personalities. Although you miss your friends in Idaho, school was easy. Jace, you couldn't wait to get there..because you are so social...I could see it on your face when we went to meet the teacher. You were dying to make best friends with your table neighbor...so anxious to be social and play. It was adorable. Juliet you were a little reserved and nervous, but when the girls asked you if you were scared to meet your new teacher, you said, "Why? She is just a person." Haha. You both have done well in your new class. You are in Mrs. Kobler's 1st grade and she seems like a great teacher. You have experienced eating lunch at school now and already complain about the grossness.... haha. Its good for you. Yesterday you guys all got on a kick of writing Christmas wish lists. You can thank your sister Sienna for that. Juliet, you wrote the cutest list for your wishes. I can't even....

The list is so sweet. One of them is another wish. One is a kiss, one is a hug. You were reading the list and I kissed you, not knowing that was on the list. You were just so cute reading....you stopped and marked off the kiss from your list. Oh my heart.....so sweet. 

#6 is a phone, although you were reading it and said a fan, several times, then later realized it was a phone. :) haha. You are so cute and sweet. You are doing well in 1st grade. 

Jace, you are just a bundle of energy that keeps going. Although the last few days you've been a litlle angrier, but it is because you are tired. You just finally hit a wall I think. 

You guys are still so much fun and I love that I still see you concerne for the other, like "Where is Juliet?" I hope you are BFFs forever. I love you. 

We stopped at Disney on the way to Texas. You two loved it. It was your first time, and a trip to Universal Studios and see Harry Potter Wizarding world. You loved them both. It was fun to see the magic on your face!