What's Up?

Well, Jasmine is up! Way, way up north about 40 miles south of the Canadian border. They left Friday afternoon and only made it a couple of hours before the bus broke down. They were supposed to arrive in KY at their hotel about 9 p.m. but arrived at 5:30 a.m. and slept for a bit. They went on to Holland MI where they sang at Benjamin's Hope. Monday they were at Mackinac Island and today are at a camp.

Biking on Mackinac Island

On the ferry to the Island

Sunday was parent/child dedication at church, and Winter was dedicated. Hunter wasn't there, so Jessica went up with River (siblings usually go up too) and Winter, one in each arm. She was last, so Pastor took Winter and held her during closing prayer. Then he invited everyone to stay for the reception and said, "I'm taking this one with me, but I'll give her back." That was really nice of him. And Winter was a total angel. She had woken up,but she just looked up at him perfectly calm.  

 Praying for all the parents and babies

 River is thinking, "That man has my sissy."

 I love this picture of Pastor walking down the steps with Winter. It's like the verse where Jesus says, "Let the little children come to me..."

 The twins were there, but they were more interested in the food tables than pictures.

Yesterday Kayla and I went to inprocess for Teen Court. I think it will be a very good thing for her. She has a whole notebook of homework to do. She has to go to a life skills class that I will also attend with her. She has to appear in a court with a teen jury who will determine her community service hours and other things, she has to have an evaluation and she has to do both public apologies in court and written apologies. She will have a jail tour and has the option to go to the ME office. No dead bodies, but it is required if there are any drugs involved, which there is not so she does not have to do this step.

The good thing is that the lady will allow her to go on our short vacation and on to mission camp for five weeks, and that will count as 8 community service hours. Then she'll start her court things. Unfortunately both she and Kaleb are several hundred dollars short for camp.

Another good thing is that when I told the lady we had a completed homestudy to adopt a teen boy she didn't tell us we were crazy, ask why we'd want another one when we were going through this with one etc but said that we are doing a good thing giving another child a chance and dealing with the issues with the ones we have.

We have not yet gotten the final copy of the home study so have not inquired about any specific boys. I am afraid that most of them will not want to leave their counties, schools, and friends to start over in a new place though. We will see what happens.

Jasmine's tour finishes Sunday with a concert at our home church, although we are not the church that sponsors the choir. The kids are from many churches. Tuesday three of us pack up and leave for NC with the other three following on Friday. From there, Jasmine and I will go on to Elkhart, IN, Cincinnati, OH and Montgomery, AL and home. The others will drop the twins at camp at Merritt Island and then head home. I will be gone June 13 to July 1. 

I am going to be a mess because my hair is in serious need of a cut and perm but the lady who does it is out because of foot surgery. Her niece was going to do it but then had some weird stuff happen with stroke like symptoms and is now out too. I'm going to go for the scraggily look rather than have someone I don't know do it. I have quirky hair and am seriously afraid I'd greatly regret letting someone else do it.

What's up with you guys?

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

Good, bad and ugly. Kind of describes life around here right now. 

Good-- River went to her first pageant. It was in Orlando. She did well except for the event scheduled during her nap time!

Winter is doing well but has a medical issues that needs immediate care so is being referred to a specialist three hours away.

 The pageant was in Orlando, so they went to M&M world

I won a free dive and paid to take Tyler and Jessica with me. None of us have dove for over two years. We had a classroom session, testing in the pool and then out into the open water. I forgot my Sealife Camera, but the instructor took a video I should get in a few days.

Papa Rick watched the girls all day.

Today was the last day of school, and Jasmine left for her choir tour immediately following release. The bad is that the bus broke down just a couple of hours later, and they are still waiting for a new bus!

So that's most of the good. The bad is that a certain nameless child didn't believe her brother would turn her in for theft if she stole from him again. She did. He did. She lied to the police officer and said twin had taken the money and given it to her. She knows that even if that was true, it's still wrong to accept stolen money. But it wasn't true. She had also left campus to go to FOUR stores to spend the money. She had lied to us about having to go early for a before school band practice. And it was actually Tyler driving back that way after dropping the other two that saw her walking down the street loaded down with bags. 

The ugly is that the very next day even after filling out police forms and getting detention for leaving campus, she hit a boy square in the face and got out of school detention! We have a hearing Monday. I do not know what is going to happen about our family vacation or her mission camp.

I don't know what I am hoping happens. Obviously the thought of it has not slowed her down any. We are just trying to stay consistent and handle things calmly as they come. Hopefully in the long run this will be a learning experience.

The twins did not attend school the last day and a half. So summer is off to a weak start. We did make sure to have a family time last night and tonight despite all that is going on.

I will keep you updated.

Celebrating

Late Sunday afternoon a few of us went to the bay to celebrate Mother's Day and the twin's birthday (a day early). To be honest I wasn't really in a celebrating mood. The situation with morning church and other continuous behaviors has somewhat robbed me of the desire to go all out. So it was low key. We took the jet ski out for the first time this season.

Tyler had to work, Jessica wasn't up to it and the other family that usually joins us had other commitments.

I was hoping we'd have a 9th child by now, but the whole process is going very slowly. Our caseworker is moving soon, so I hope he finishes our home study before he goes. When we finished classes before Thanksgiving and they said it would be at least March before we were certified, I thought surely they were mistaken. They weren't.

With the issues with the twins, we have to be careful not to get a child with the same issues or too close in age. That takes out one of our top choices. Our first choice just went off the list, so he must have gotten a home. That's good news for him, but we had really wanted to find out more about him. He looked like a good match.

Hopefully we will have good news to share soon about the home study.

The twins on their birthday:

Huh

Today Rick and the three youngest kids and I were in church together. 

The pastor preached on families. At the end he addressed the mothers, then the fathers, then the kids. He talked right to the kids about honor, respect and obedience. When he closed in prayer, Jasmine and I slipped out to go to the shop.

As soon as we left, the twins started acting up. At our church we close with a song. Everyone stands and sings and those who want to make spiritual decisions can go to the front and pray or talk to someone. The twins refused to stand. Rick lifted them to their feet, and they sat right back down.

If we had not already planned something, they would have both gone to bed way early since they were clearly too tired to stand. But I find it ironic they did this bit of defiance immediately following a clear challenge to live God's way by being respectful and obedient and showing honor.

Tomorrow I will post about the afternoon's activity.

The Girls

 I went over to J's house to help out with the girls. I sent her to do errands while I stayed with the baby. It's much easier to do errands if you aren't dealing with two children in car seats.

I also went with Jessica to book babies at the library because you really need one parent per child for it. It involves a lot of moving around and songs with actions and motions. So part of the time I worked with River. and part of the time I held Winter.

Then on Thursday we went to the mall and played in the toddler play area and rode on the the little animals you can rent. I have video of that on a phone, but it's not on my computer so I can't share it.
I will work on that later.

Life is Crazy.

Truly it is. There are just not enough hours in the day. Between keeping up with the shop and dealing with issues, I am not getting much else done.

But I am calm about what we are going through with the twins. It started when Kaleb was supposed to be selling candy bars for band and decided he could keep the money. And spend it all on sweets. He got a taste of having big bucks and it has escalated. But we have enlisted appropriate help, both the school SRO and the local sheriff. And since Kayla willingly covers for him and accepts part of the money, she was talked to too. She seems to realize the seriousness, but to him it is merely a game.

I am hoping that the five weeks at a very regimented, closely supervised mission camp this summer will make a difference.

Here are some general updates.

Rick got a new job a few months ago. God really opened the door and he walked right into a job that is closer to home and pays better. So that has been a big blessing.

Tyler is busy with the shop. He is becoming an expert garage sale shopper. He sniffs out the best deals. He also can buy bits and pieces and assemble things. He sells the geeky stuff--action heroes, Marvel, Ninja turtles etc. I have the dolls, stuffed animals cute stuff.

We are really full. After I took the pictures below, we packed a bunch of it to sell at a church sale tomorrow. It's a different group of shoppers so we took some of the things that aren't selling at the shop.

Jessica took Winter to her two-week appointment today. There is a concern, so she is being referred to a pediatric endocrinologist. I wonder if she'll get the one Jasmine has? We were sent over an hour away, but the dr was worth it.

We had a get together for those who hadn't met Winter to meet her. River got some presents too.

And River had her modeling debut at a local boutique

Adam came over to meet River and brought his whole crew. I think they are going to be joining us in NC this summer.

Jasmine is really, really, really stress about school. We only have four weeks left, and it looks like she'll be taking algebra for the third time next year and repeating English 2 and possibly one other class. She is really looking forward to to choir tour which leaves about three hours after school ends!! Then we leave for NC/IN and OH a day after she gets home. Crazy summer!

The twins turn 12 next week. They leave for camp the day after NC. Unfortunately they are very short on money and will have to drop to the Florida team. They are even very short on it.

Kaleb was there, you can see his hand in the picture, but I didn't get one of just him.

Anyway, this is a brief update, and it's taken me three days to write it!