Long-range plans and goals

I guess an alternative title could have been "What our lives are like now." I love how my Jones soda really summed it up for me last week with this bottle cap advice. This is truly where we're at. As you know, the littles went to public school last year, and I went back to Grad school.

It has all gone swimmingly. The littles have done a great job with the transition. It was a strong move for all of us. While I miss the early days of homeschooling, I do not miss what it turned into for me. In the last year that I home schooled everyone, it became a huge source of failure and frustration for me. There are some things even I am not patient enough to muddle through. I thought I would miss it more, but I think we were all ready for a change. We moved forward and haven't looked back since.

I am 20 months away from obtaining my masters in nursing as a clinical nurse specialist. It is hard. It is stressful. But I also feel like this is exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm so excited about my options. I'm so excited about doors that are opening for me. Hopefully, I will have my dream job anytime between now and graduation. I've worked night shift weekends for the past 9 years because it met the needs of my family and supplied our family with a nice paycheck. I did this willingly. Now that I know there's an end in sight, I suddenly can't WAIT to be off weekends and specifically night shift, which I believe is slowly killing me. Cross your fingers and say a prayer for me that I will have a normal life soon!

She's serious about the environment

This is a public service announcement from the youngest bee. She wants to remind everyone to reduce, recycle, and reuse. She takes this serious.

So serious in fact, that's she's made her own Environment Club. She is the president, treasurer, and secretary of the club. She's in charge of production ideas as well as creative director.

She has made badges you can earn for activities such as recycling, reusing items, planting and working in the yard. She's advertising for new members and already has a pretty good following.

Oh, how I love this girl. Her passion. Her creativity. Her obsessive nature. I love it all. I truly think God gave me this child because he knew I would need to be entertained later in life.

Karate Kid

OK. So actually it's Taekwondo. But whatever.

Jus has been begging for Karate class since last year (around the time the bully appeared... a post for another day). She has been so patient while we've taken everyone else to and from soccer practice, to and from football practice, English tutoring, etc.

I feel like we often put our entire lives on hold for this soccer thing. I'm not saying I don't want them to play, but it's very expensive, involves a lot of traveling, and someone has practice every single night of the week. Add in games and we spend the time equivalent of a full time job every week on just soccer. And poor Justine gets drug along as the sibling cheerleader.

And she didn't want to play soccer. She wanted mixed martial arts.

And tonight, I delivered. Adorable, isn't she? Of course, as soon as I got home, I choked on a slew of phrases I never thought I'd have to say...

"Put your sister's nunchucks down. NOW."

"Now punch your brother."

"Show Daddy how you punched the nice man."

Street Soccer and a Magical Surprise

One of our favorite things to do is play street soccer at night. Our neighbors probably hate us; we get a little loud. We stay out a little too late. I'm a big fan of making magic. Magical memories. Street soccer for us is one of those things we do to make magical memories. The kids get to stay up late. We get to play with them. We live our lives in a way that we are running from one soccer practice to another; one activity to another. Jeff and I have to work long and hard hours to make all of this happen. But for a few hours, we can be silly and crazy and magical. And not worry about schedules and chores and cleaning up after this mass of people.

A few weeks ago, we enjoyed a brief interruption in the 100+ degree weather. The boys moved out a few chairs we had been storing in the garage. White trash? Perhaps. Mine was a recliner... yeah. That's right. A recliner in the drive way. It's OK, you can judge. I don't mind.

People would drive by and stare at us, but honestly, we're used to that. People stare at us no matter where we go. On this specific Friday, a familiar car drove by VERY slowly. As I approached the passenger side, the window slowly rolled down, and I saw a familiar face. Jordan's smile illuminated through the dark, and I think I started screaming. My parents and Jeff had flown Jordan in from Chicago for the weekend to surprise me. My dad drove all the way to Kansas city to pick her up. What a surprise. And this, my friends, is the best kind of surprise EVER.

I'm in a better place than I was last year, as far as missing her and dealing with it. I think because we chat or text or talk just about every single day. And I'm busy. I don't have time to spend much time feeling sorry for myself. But oh Lord, how I miss that girl on a daily basis. It literally was the best night ever. Poor Jordan. As used to this group as she can be, being away for months at a time makes the masses crazy. The kids were absolutely ALL over her. Two words: overwhelming and personal space. Oops. That's three. Once we finally got the kids settled and in bed, Jordan crawled in bed with us, and we chatted about her life until 2 am. It was the way life is supposed to be. Thank you to my mom and dad, Jeff and Jordan for making it happen. And this night was definitely magical.

Afraid to blog; Afraid to not blog

After a nearly year long hiatus from this blog, I have occasionally felt a yearning to return. In a way, I've been afraid to even type those letters into the address bar. Afraid my blog, which I loved so much, would be gone? A fear that it would bring me back to times that were bittersweet. This blog represents times of complete happiness and utter despair for me. Returning represents an embarrassment of my year long absence.

But I'm back.

I will hopefully find a few minutes here and there to document our lives in this strange forum. I'll need somewhere to document how I survive Jordan being in Egypt for a semester this winter. A place to focus my angst of having 4 teenagers soon. A place to document and photograph my muse, Justine. An arena to document my last 20 months of grad school and hopefully the beginning of career advancement. Who knows? I guess I'll give it a try.

More to follow soon.

Hugs.

I've been thinking...

After a year hiatus and at the pinnacle of business, I've been thinking I should start blogging again... You know, just to share the craziness of our lives! We'll see. I don't know if I have anything interesting left to say.

Craigslist

I've been searching every week or so for a white dresser for Jaiden. She inherited her room with hodge podge furniture and her dresser is a plastic stackable bin. Poor thing.

I laughed so hard when I clicked on this one. I just had to share. Check it out. Maybe make them an offer they can't refuse.

.......5 DOLLARS....... KIDS Dresser.......

I especially love how only one drawer is missing...

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I choose to laugh

Our lives in the spring and fall revolve around soccer. It's kinda like being married to a farmer who's out plowing in the fields during harvest and seed time. I'm sure farmer's wives don't see their husbands much during "farm" time. I don't know. I just made that up. I've never even been to a farm.

But I do often refer to myself a soccer widow. I often refer to myself in the third person, but that's yet another story. Anyway, we are making the 30+ minute trip to the north side 4 days a week for 8 different practices, games all day on Saturday and a 3 hour trip to Kansas City every Sunday.

Tonight, we were basically stuck on the north side all evening; between dropping Jack off at soccer and taking Josh back for a soccer game, we had some time to spare and a hunger in our bellies. So we went to a hole in the wall Chinese food buffet. Luckily we were the ONLY people there.

Imagine my surprise when I looked over to see Jameson basically laying on the buffet. Instead of WALKING around to the other side to get what she wanted, she crawled underneath the glass awning meant to prevent people from contaminating the food, just so that she could reach those delicious little fried balls with sugar on them; you know the ones I'm talking about.

We all just burst out laughing. Because at this point, what else can you do? I could get all crazy and ballistic about it. I could give a lecture about public health policy and how many violations she just made. I could get down and beat myself up about failing as a mother. AGAIN.

Instead, I just laughed like a hysterical crazy person who needs to be committed.

I'm in love. I'm in love. And I don't care who knows it...

I should be writing a paper about the cytokine mediated inflammatory response in relation to the extracorporeal circulation of the cardiopulmonary bypass machine...

But instead I'm falling in love with photoshop.

206/365

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Japanese Fall Festival

I love the way the fall sun looks in the afternoon. The colors are so vivid and bright.
The Japanese Fall Festival is a fall traditional for our family.



LOVE this. Check out Justine's face. It cracks me up. Such a little geisha.



Jack and Jaiden look so much alike, it's almost impossible to know who is who. My little twins.



These two... you can definitely tell apart. Josh makes a great geisha girl, don't you think? He was almost too cool to get up there. Geez. That happened fast. He's come a long way in a few years, hasn't he?



Jack tried his hand at chop sticks. He was really good at it.



And Jaiden was a pro at catching fish by hand. She starting helping other people catch their fish too.



Jordan just loved being with her family during her last few weeks at home.



The Karate Kid Geisha Girl... he could kick you or make you tea.



The girls enjoyed their free face paint...



And I enjoyed the fact that they were happy with the free cheek paintings and didn't insist on the full face expensive ones.



We even had a little Ethiopian reunion with Ari the Great!



How shocking!



The kids had a great time on the stepping stones. The water was so green and beautiful. Jeff was quick to point out that it was because of "more green dye" that they add to the water. We almost fell in the water when we thought he was saying "Morgan died." (Morgan is our dog. And we found it weird Jeff would choose to tell us of his demise at a family outing...) Thank God, Morgan is alive and ruining my back yard as we speak.



I made everyone stay until after dusk because I wanted to see the torches lit throughout the garden.



It was beautiful.... even with the mosquitoes!



We fed the fish in the dark. When one of the fish jumped and made a splash, Jameson screamed and jumped in my lap. You would have thought JAWS was alive and well at the Japanese Gardens.



There's something so mesmerizing about the torches. All my little fire bugs had to play with the flames.



I don't know why... I just love cat tails. Is that what these are called?



Justine determined this was the best day of her life. She got a fish. And a face painting. It was even better than the beach. Really? (Insert questioning sarcastic mom voice here...) Really? It was pretty good, but maybe just shy of the beach.

I feel better now...

Jeff and I declared today as a homework free day. We packed up the kids and went to the Japanese Fall Festival instead. Granted, we were eaten alive by mosquitos, but we had a great time.

It was so nice to not be fighting with Jameson about homework or *everything* else for that matter. It was so nice to just be laughing and enjoying each other.

I emailed Jameson's counselor and teacher this morning. If you think I verbally vomited on you guys this morning, then I projectile vomited all over them.

When I wrongly said Jameson was being evaluated for special ed, the counselor corrected me by saying she was "being considered for a special ed evaluation...." Well exxxxxcuse me.

Jesus.

What else does the kid need to do to get a special ed eval? So she's being considered for an eval. Whatever the #$%& that means. So they have 30 days to decide whether the child who can barely read and is dyslexic will even qualify for an eval. Whatever.

But the teacher was awesome. We worked out a plan for her to send Jameson's spelling words home on Fridays instead of Mondays so we can work on a plan set up by the vision therapist (I'll get to that on another post). She said she was totally able to modify what she's doing in the classroom and that we would come up with a solution that would work for Jameson.

I feel so much better knowing that at least the teacher is on board. She even said she knew this was so tough for all of us and that it would be OK.

Now, this being said, does not excuse Jameson from the lying, hiding, fighting and overall BADNESS she has been displaying to us (well to me...), but hopefully when she feels less stress at school and during the post school homework period (I prefer to call it "torture with mom" time), her behavior will also improve.

It had better.

Or I will freak.