January and February stand for GO UPWARD! GO!

It's another Upward season at Dickson Academy and we have had many "PE" days around here making up new cheers and chants, learning new moves, practicing herkies, and trying to learn how to do cartwheels (which is a challenge considering I never learned and can't actually teach them how!). This is my third year as Director of the Upward Cheerleading Program at our church and we enjoy it a lot!

Boo is in her fifth year of cheering for Upward and through circumstances beyond our control, ended up with her mom for a coach. Poor kid, as if she doesn't spend enough time with me as it is!

Kadoodle is in her third year cheering with Upward and has been with the same coach all three years. She is going to be so disappointed next year as her coach is retiring from coaching to become Assistant Director of the program.

Nayners is still not allowed to cheer for one more year, but has learned as many cheers and chants as her sisters.

We have also spent a great deal of time during this season teaching ourselves new techniques and learning new ways to promote our program. We had a great first game on January 5 and a fabulous Awards Night on February 28. The girls made new friends and Kadoodle discovered one of her friends from Kindergarten is also homeschooled now and HB joined us cheering as well! Mommy made a new friend too and is eagerly awaiting what our program will bring next year.

Here's something interesting I have discovered these months. My kids are NOT under-socialized. If anything, we are busier than we were before. We are active in the WALK ministry at church, giving them an hour or more of music instruction each week. Boo is active in 4H, learning a lot and practicing with her friends there 2 hours a week. They are all active in AWANA, supplementing our Bible instruction. They are in Sunday School. They each just auditioned for our Spring Musical with our WALK ministry and will be working with the music and drama directors on that over the coming weeks as well. They have new friends, have strengthened existing friendships, and have grown closer to the adult mentors in their lives. No, they are definitely not under-socialized.