Emily's First Project

Emily had her first project due last Friday. In first grade, they have a project due each month (and a heck of a lot of homework in between). In September, they had to do a poster all about them. I printed out a few pictures that Emily had talked about and then asked her to pick some for her poster. She picked ALL OF THEM! LOL And made it work. She was thrilled with it and loved getting up in front of the class and talking about herself - go figure!

Sports Update

Emily is enjoying soccer this season. She still runs hot & cold with her attention during the games, but she is having fun so I am trying to relax a bit about when she starts wandering around the field.

The Saturday before last she had a great game and scored 3 goals!! I hope to get the pictures uploaded soon. Her next game is this Saturday at noon.

Tony's soccer team won yesterday. He is having fun playing this year and has commented that all of his cross country running is helping his soccer playing. He has energy to spare and when other kids are coming off winded, he is still ready to go!

His cross country is going well and he is enjoying it. He does better when it isn't so hot out as seen by his times on Saturday. He said that the heat took it out of him, plus there were a lot of hills. He only has a handful of matches left. This Saturday it appears that he is traveling out Andrea's way for a meet. He is at the Community Center in her town.

It sounds like Kristen is going to give tennis lessons a go and see if she likes it! I am glad that she is trying something and going to get active again!

Happy Birthday, Kristen

Thanks to all of those that came to Kristen's birthday celebration yesterday. She had a wonderful time and had a difficult time picking something to wear today ... and it is going to be 80 degrees. Can you imagine if it was cooler out and she had to pick from the sweaters and sweatshirts?

Click here to view pictures from the party!

Kristen's Birthday

We had a nice little celebration last night for Kristen's birthday. She loves cheesecake, so we took her to The Cheesecake Factory. (As a side note, they accept reservations for large parties only and they consider a large party 7 or more. It cracked me up to think that our family night out - party of 6 - was only 1 short of being a large party.) It was a nice dinner with fabulous desserts. You'll have to ask Tony about his "Tons of Fun Burger" experience and how that went for him.

We came home and opened presents and had a nice evening. We gave Kristen clothes, necklaces and a couple of books. She was distraught as the clothing was for the fall and it was going to be 80 degrees today. She wanted to wear something new.

For those interested in Kristen's wish list, I have some items that I will add and then distribute. It is mainly clothes and gift cards for more clothing that she is asking for. She is such a teenager. You should ask her sometime to describe her clothing rules. Like you can't wear sports shirts two days in a row, you can't repeat an outfit for at least 2 weeks, etc. There was some rule yesterday about wearing a shirt that was bigger on the top and skinny at the bottom based on how she was wearing her BANGS?!?! She's come a long way from the little girl that wouldn't comb her hair and then would pick a red top and a red pair of pants (no matter the shades of red) to wear!

Tony's Soccer Schedule

I have emailed out Tony's soccer schedule. If you have not received it and want a copy, please email me.

Welcome!

Thanks for the honest feedback on the other blog. I am going to try something else to see if this works for keeping you up to date on the kids. Vinnie's baby book blog will still be updated, but this place will allow us to let you know what is going on with the bigger 3 kids.

The big difference is this blog will email out the updates to the grandparents. It appears that is the feature liked the most on Vinnie's page, so I am giving this a try.

Let me know what you think!

p.s. Happy Birthday to Kristen!!

p.s.s. You can click on the Donato Kids at the bottom of the email that you receive to get to the blog if you want to see it there.