Twinkle Toes

Our oldest daughter turned 11 last month.  She is artistic, creative, and loves a good project!  She is such a help and joy to me.  She has been planting flowers in our front flower beds and also put together an attractive pot for our front porch.  Yesterday we found out that Twinkle Toes won second place in the entire state of Texas piano composition contest for her age category.  (I'm actually surprised someone beat her, her song is that good.)  She won a cash prize, but we haven't heard how much, yet.  I think she's spent it already : ).  And I think her song will be published.  We are very proud of Twinkle Toes and thankful to God for giving her this musical gift.  We are also thankful to my mom and dad who have paid for all her piano lessons, and my mom even takes her and practices with her!  And her piano teacher really worked with her, teaching her how to compose a piece of music- putting the parts together, etc.  We are very blessed!

In other news, Twinkle Toes has been wanting to go to school.  We told her if she got into the private college preparatory school near our home that we'd let her go.  (Her older brother is also going there next year.)  She took the Iowa Basic Skills Test as part of the admissions process and I'm happy to report she was above grade level on everything!  She is finishing up 5th grade right now, so they were looking to make sure she scored above 5.8 on all subjects.  Her language arts score was 6.5, indicating mid-sixth grade level (I absolutely hate teaching LAs and have worried that my kids were lagging behind.  This was a huge relief to me.)  Her math score was 7.7, so a little beyond mid-seventh grade level, and her reading comprehension score was 9.6!  Yeah!!!  I didn't mess my kids up by homeschooling them!  Seriously, this was such a huge relief to know that my two oldest children, who have been homeschooled 6 and 4 years, respectively, are above grade level on everything!  I have enjoyed my time homeschooling them and it wasn't an academically motivated decision, but I am SO GRATEFUL that they are beyond where they need to be.