We have a new Gamecock!!!

Brittanie wouldn't pose for me! This is the best I could get. She cut the back of the envelope and put it on the back cover of her binder. Yep, she's a little excited!

I haven't updated lately because there really hasn't been much to report....until now! Brittanie applied to the University of South Carolina, main campus, on July 22nd. They were taking so long to tell her whether she got in or not that we decided to apply to USC-Aiken as a back-up. She found out within a week that she was accepted to USC-Aiken. So we knew no matter what, she would be taking nursing classes next semester. Well yesterday Tom walked in with the mail and he was holding a big envelope from USC's main campus and the back of the envelope had a big Gamecock on it that said "YES!" She was so excited that she ripped open that envelope and quickly read the letter. Tom and I were just as happy as she was. She has wanted to be a student at USC for years. She didn't get in as a freshman because she needed two foreign languages and only had one. It would have been nice for her high school guidance counselor to tell her that. She didn't apply for fall semester of her sophomore year because Midlands Tech was cheaper and there were still prerequisites available to her at Tech. She has taken all of the prerequisites she can at Tech so she needs to start taking nursing classes in the spring. We were pretty sure she would get in because she needed a 2.5 GPA (she had a 3.6 her freshman year and should be higher this semester) and she needs to have at least a C average in her science class. She is taking chemistry this semester and has a 98 average. So we knew she met the requirements but it was nerve wracking that it took so long to get a definite answer! We are going out to celebrate tonight!

Katie got her first real report card yesterday. She has made the A Honor Roll!! The teacher always puts a comment on the back of the report cards. Katie's teacher's comment was "Katie does very well in school. She is a hard worker and is very knowledgeable in many areas. I am so glad she is in my class!" She is right that Katie is very knowledgeable in many areas. She asks ALOT of questions and her daddy is always eager to answer them and explain things to her.

October 8th was Grandparents Day at Katie's school. They were told to dress like their same sex grandparent. Katie wanted a cane and a shawl like some of the girls in her class were going to use. I told her that her grandparents weren't that old! Tom's mom is a nurse. So I dressed her like a nurse. She had a real stethoscope that my little sister, Jeannette, gave her. Tom's mom pinned her hospital name tag on her and even let Katie wear the nursing cap and RN pin she got when she graduated nursing school. I don't have a picture of her with the cap and name tag but here is a picture of her before she left to go to school that day:
Katie has been excited about Halloween. She loves going Trick or Treating. Brittanie takes her every year and they have a good time. Well she heard about the Cayce/West Columbia Jaycees Haunted House and asked Brittanie to take her. Brittanie doesn't like being scared so she refused. So she climbed up on her daddy's lap and tried to convince him to take her. After Tom found out that there is an age limit and if you take her child in their anyway, you have to sign a waiver acknowledging that you won't get a refund when your kid goes screaming out of there, he told her no!

Katie loved Connect Four. She has been playing for over a year now and is really good at it. Tom was playing a few games with her and only half way paying attention to what he was doing and she beat him 3 games in a row. That's when he decided to put down his laptop and give his full attention to the game and she still beat him one time after that point. He gives her tips on how to improve her game. She is really an analytical thinker.
As smart as Katie is, she still makes bonehead decisions! Saturday night after she got out of the bathtub, she decided that her bangs were too long and were bothering her. Instead of telling me so I could schedule an appointment with our hairdresser, she grabbed Brittanie's scissors out of the bathroom drawer and gave her bangs a trim herself. They look awful! Brittanie noticed it first on Sunday morning. I asked Katie three times if she cut her own bangs. She lied all three times. So I took away her TV for a week for lying and took away her Nintendo DS for a week for cutting her own hair. I also made her wear her hair like that for at least a week until I could get an appointment with our hair dresser to fix it. Hopefully she will think twice before doing that again!