Now that it's September...

...I'm finally getting around to posting about what we did in August (and then what we've done so far this month)!

August is a big birthday month (always has been in my family).  My niece turned 4, my mom's birthday was next, my younger sister's next, mine is after that and Oscar's is on the 28th.  BIG birthday month around here.

Oscar has been taking karate since March.  In August he got his first belt (yellow).  He still needs to work on his kata, so the instructor gave him a provisional belt (white stripe through the yellow) until he can do it on his own without prompting.

I went on FMLA leave (intermittent) on September 1st.  Why you ask?  Mondays: I take Mayerly, Diana and Oscar to speech therapy;  Tuesdays:  I take Oscar and Diana to vision therapy;  every other Thursday I take Oscar and Diana to auditory processing therapy;  Fridays:  I take Oscar and Diana to speech therapy.  So far, so good.  We don't have much time in the evenings for other activities.  We kept Oscar in karate on Monday and Wednesdays so he gets some exercise and time with boys (only girls at home, and at school right now).

The new schools seem to be going well so far.  There are 3 students (yeah, that's not a typo) in Oscar and Diana's school - including Oscar and Diana.  The other student is a girl about Diana's age.  They each have an individualized curriculum suited to where they are in each subject and a lot on one-on-one help.  They also get extra therapy for their areas of weakness at this school.  So far, it has been a very positive thing and we are seeing some scholastic improvements already.

Mayerly and Claudia's school has an ESL program (through December only).  Mayerly is participating in Title 1 Reading (small groups that get extra help with reading) too.  They were both in Spanish until ESL started, but something had to give and unfortunately it was Spanish - for now.  It was so funny after Claudia's first Spanish class, she was trying to impress me by telling me all the colors in Spanish.  She doesn't remember that less than two years ago she only knew how to say them in Spanish.

In August we also refinanced our house to a 30 year loan to help the 'ole budget.  We are followers of Dave Ramsey and had originally planned to have our house paid off within the next 3 years (we had a 10 year loan).  We have managed to stay debt free except for our house payment.  However, with all the therapies that insurance won't pay for and the special education/private school tuition, we have had to do some serious adjusting with the finances in order to keep from borrowing money to pay for everything.  We're dropping our phone land line soon and will only have cell phones. We probably don't/won't eat out much (if at all) or do much of anything extra from now on either.  We never have had cable or satellite TV and our cars are paid for.  I buy all the kids clothes off eBay or from consignment/thrift shops.  I hope this doesn't sound all whiny and depressing, because it isn't meant to; we don't expect things to be this tight forever.  Gotta do what you gotta do, right?

Tim started a new job last week.  He wasn't looking, they came to him and offered him more money and better benefits, so it was kinda a no-brainer to take it.  They even have overtime opportunities, which is much better than taking a second job (which we were considering before this job came along).  He isn't liking the commute too much though compared to his old job (the old job was here in town, the new one is across the state line in Kansas).  It puts all the responsibility of running the kids to all their therapies on me now too, since he isn't close enough to do some of it anymore.  We are surviving the change though.

I'm starting to sell the kids outgrown clothes on eBay too as a little side business.  I listed 3 "test items" last weekend and have bids on two of them - they end tomorrow.  We'll see how it goes, hopefully I'll make enough money to make it worth the effort.

That's it.  It's just plain crazy around here, but we kinda knew it would be.  :-)

First Day of School - Oscar and Diana August 30, 2010

We lost our phone (land line) service, and thus internet service, sometime either last Sunday night or Monday morning.  We got it back on Saturday afternoon (way to be on top of things AT&T).  Evidently, there was some utility service work done up the street from us that was the culprit.  Still don't know why it takes a week to fix it...

Anyway, I'm finally getting to post our second "first day of school" - Oscar and Diana's.

Officially a teenager...

We decided to go with numbers instead of 13 candles.

A hermit crab habitat from Grandma Schoemig, now we just need to get him some crabs to go in it...

blue mp3 player from Mom and Dad

Skateboard from Grandma and Grandpa Verhulst

...ER bills will be going to their house...

I'll post about what went on in August soon.  Right now I'm about to crash in the middle of typing this because I was up until 3a.m. loading pictures and music onto his mp3 ;-).

Mayerly & Claudia's First Day of School August 26, 2010

Happy 10th B-day Diana

10 candles

We got her a purple MP3 player

Me giving a short lesson on how to work her new gadget

I think she's getting the hang of it

So Far, in July...

On Independence Day we went to Tim's aunt's house in Raymore for a huge cookout with his dad's side of the family.  Tim's dad is the oldest of ten kids, so when I say huge I'm not exaggerating.  We left a little early so we could be closer to home for fireworks.  We went to the one in Sugar Creek which is just about 5 minutes from our house.  It was small, but pretty nice - until it started to rain on us... really, rain on the 4th of July???

Summer school ended on July 9th.  The girls are now home all day with a babysitter (the same one who watched them after school since I had to go back to work full time in January).  I hope they don't scare her off before the end of the summer...

On the 10th we left home at 7:00 am and drove to St. Louis for the CHI Reunion.  I left my camera in the car so I don't have any pictures from the actual reunion.  We had a good time meeting some of the other families (Duewels, Bakers, Armstrongs, Willetts - and I know I'm going to forget to mention others we met).  We also saw some of the families that we have known for awhile like the Sinclairs, Bonds, Stottsberrys  and Rimas.  We were especially glad to Meet Julie E. in person!

After the reunion picnic was over, we went to America's Incredible Pizza Co. with our friends from Illinois who are thinking about adopting again (they are now considering Ethiopia instead of Colombia for their adoption due to the long wait time for Colombia) and came as our guests to the reunion.  Our kids had a great time with their daughter.  I actually got a couple of pictures before my camera battery conked out.

It's kinda dark, but you can see Claudia to the right, Diana to the left and Mayerly's leg to the far right.

This one is of Oscar on the indoor go-cart track - again kinda dark.

The day after the reunion we went swimming at the hotel pool after breakfast and before we left to go back home.

Tim throwing Mayerly

Tim throwing Claudia

Diana in mid-jump by the poolhouse

more pool fun...

Oscar's back since he wouldn't let me take his picture when he was looking at me... hehe!

At 8:00 Monday morning after we came home, I took Oscar, Diana and Mayerly in for their lingual frenectomies (tongue tie oral surgery).  It wasn't as bad as I expected.  We opted for laughing gas before the shot (don't think any of them even know they got a shot in their tongue...).  The oral surgeon then cut the frenum with a laser.  It wasn't as gross as I figured it would be, I even watched (and I can't usually deal with that kind of stuff very well).  Not much blood because the laser cauterizes as it cuts.  We were out of there by 10:00 after all three surgeries.  Now we have to do tongue exercises after every meal.  Oscar still can't get his tongue out much past his lips because it was stuck to the bottom of his mouth for so long, but he should get there with time and exercise.  Speech therapy is now a weekly thing for these 3 ***update, Oscar and Diana are now doing speech therapy twice a week - so if you are still keeping score, we're up to 9 therapy sessions per week***.

This past Saturday Tim took the kids to an air show in Olathe/Gardner, KS so I could be left in peace to fill out paperwork for the upcoming school year (we're sending them all to private schools this year).  Below are pictures...

Picnic at the Rima's Farm

Yesterday we went to the second annual picnic at Gerry & Teresa Rima's dairy farm in El Dorado Springs, MO.  They are super nice folks and have adopted nine children from Colombia and one from the U.S.  Above is a picture we took right as the sky opened up and started to pour down rain on us (broke up the party really quickly).  The Rima kids are all wearing green shirts (Teresa and Gerry aren't in the picture though).  Our kids really liked going to the picnic again this year and we all had a good time in spite of the unfortunate weather towards the end.