Just a little update about some things…
Mariah is back from camp and had a great time. We lost her purse, but they found it at the camp, so all is well. She has a horrible time remembering that thing… She is now on her stint with no big sister to help with kid watching, house work, etc. I am finding she isn’t quite as helpful as Cybil was… She missed her dad-asked where he was when she came home and was disappointed that he wouldn’t be home for a whole other day! :) VERY sweet!
Cybil is now at camp, right in the middle of her two weeks-she won’t be back until next Saturday still! She forgot her bible for camp though-got everything else she needed, but left that on her bed. Hmmm. She was great during her week without Mariah, very helpful with NO complaining. Way to go!
I am working on getting haircuts for everyone. Just Cybil left for the girls, and Joe and Myron for the boys, but I can do those at home myself. I am considering getting some highlights next week too. We got all the kids’ suits and dresses for the big wedding, shoes, nail polish, some earrings…oh boy what a process! :-) Only two more weeks until the big day! I found a top that will have to work. I limited myself on what colors I could get it-with everyone wearing either black, white or lapis (a purple shade), I didn’t think I should wear anything too different; I am sure we’ll take some family pictures. Which I am not super excited about at all-I will be a very FULL 35+ weeks pregnant. I don’t do “cute” pregnant.
Next weekend is Brian’s 20 year class reunion, and yes we are going. I know a few of his friends from high school, so I am hoping it won’t be too bad for me. I am not the most social/strike up a conversation person, so it could be a long night!
Pregnancy-wise I am doing pretty good. I do get some TERRIBLE pains around my ribs. I got them with the other boys too. I am at the end of 32 weeks I think, so about 6 left to go! So far it hasn’t been too horrible of a summer to be pregnant.
Way back in April/beginning May I talked about the home school conference and some of the workshops I went to, and then needed to do some things about what I learned. Well, we started that. Two weeks ago we took J down to the Intl. adoption clinic at the U of M to start some evaluations. The good news: they don’t think it’s FASD or even much RAD (more on that later). Some of the words we are learning about are sensory processing/deprivation/integration, sensation/auditory filtering, and possible cognitive disability. We are just beginning, so don’t ask me what they all mean right now, waiting for my first book to read to arrive. We have a few occupation therapy exercises we are suppose to have him do. We will be seeing a development psychologist at some point soon, and then a neuropsychologist who will do the cognitive testing. It will take awhile as many of these departments have long waiting lists. But we are doing all this so we can better understand how J thinks and then be better able to parent him. I don’t want to expect too much out of him, but I also don’t want to underestimate him either.
We continue to do some school-math and spelling and reading mainly, takes up an hour or less a day but helps keep them just a little busy. J is catching up on reading, H, G & C on math.
Brian continues to work like crazy whenever the weather cooperates. It is so weird to go back and forth from him here all the time (go away!) to not so often (when are you coming home?!).

these cuties may just steal the show!

no more sippy

I'm finally taking the plunge and taking Henry's sippy cups away. Well, not the cup; just the lid. Isn't it funny how with each kid you get a little more and more lenient? I seem to remember for some reason the other kids being done with those cups by 2. Henry's almost 3! We'll see how this goes-he is very demanding and loud. The best few days we have also been in a regular battle about wearing shorts. He just seems to think he has to have pants. Pants when it is 90-some degrees just doesn't work!

Don't know if I mentioned this, but all 7 of the kids and Brian are in his brother's wedding at the beginning of July. The girls have their dresses, C & M needed theirs altered some. Just got the boys suits today to try on. They are pretty cute!

It's been a long time since writing.
Nothing exciting is going on, so not much to say I guess. Life is just life, moving along. Kids are done with the main jist of school; they are just keeping up with math and spelling for now. Mariah is getting ready to go to camp for one week, Cybil for two after that.
Well, actually a whole boatload of crap is going on that I would love to write and VENT about, but I don't know if this is the place for that stuff. Not sure that some people would want to read about what really goes on here on an almost daily basis.I may need to start a whole other, possibly anonymous blog for that. Wow is all I can say about that stuff.