Yes I realize I've sorely neglected my blog. It's bad enough to get nagged by my husband but sheesh, Internet friends that I've never met in real life make a point of mentioning I need a new entry, I get the point already!!!
Summer is almost here. The kids are so excited. I however am a teensy bit terrified. Five children, long summer days, no.breaks.whatsoever. Why oh why would that make me nervous? *smile*
Some things that will make it easier, the twins have gained some GREAT language skills. They're still very delayed, they'll go to early intervention next year with the same teachers they had winter semester, so that's all good. Having them hit their third birthday and still not having any real language skills was very hard emotionally for me. It's frustrating for me, for them, for everyone. Greg had resorted to banging his head on the ground out of sheer frustration from no being able to tell me what he wanted. It was a difficult period and we're not out of the woods yet. Conversations about food are OK, like color, yummy, and such. Trains are always good for a conversation. Family, siblings all that is good but if you go to far out of that realm, they easily lose you.
Also, when I say conversation, I mean repeat the same half dozen sentences over and over again.
Harder stuff for summer, we're tackling the potty! We have a very sordid history of potty training so I'll save the enthusiasm. I don't know how ready they are but for my own sanity, *I* need them to use the potty. Heaven knows our budget could sure use the boost of not buying diapers.
The biggest news around here, the absolute biggest news, my mom
*wait for it*
My mom bought a house and moved to Pocatello.
Yes, forty years after leaving she's come back. My brother Malcolm wants to know how I twisted her arm, which I find just hysterical since she made the decision before she ever even told me!!!
OK, backtrack. In March she came out for Kate's baptism. She also went house hunting. I made a joke the week before about buying the neighbors house and she looked it up on the Internet and said it was to expensive, she'd have to hunt when she came out.
My jaw hit the floor.
For my entire life she's swore up and down she'd never live in Idaho again. NEVER. That's all I've heard. But she's been lonely and she realized while visiting Malcolm in Japan that the distance has put a huge wedge in her relationship with her grandchildren. She also realized after having close friendships during her mission, she was lonely in Vermont. So she came out and bought a house.
My older brother will be moved out here eventually but there's a lot of red tape to cut through first. He's in the system in Vermont, and all his information has to be approved by Idaho health and welfare to get him in the Idaho system. Then they can decide how to best place him and there's probably a waiting list for a group home or group/supervised apartment.
Really it was a leap of faith.
Mom's Vermont house needs to sell fast so she pay off the mortgage on the Idaho house. There's one lady that keeps coming back but has serious misgivings about the basement and sump pump (it was built next to a lake). *eye roll* Buy it or not but it is what it is, a house with a sump pump.
I'm still working. Kent's still working. We're all working except the kids who think they have some kind of special exemption from chores. Uh, yeah, it's going to be a long summer if that's what they think cause they are wrong!
We're working on our garden, building a built up bed for raspberries, since the one's we planted a few years ago left our yard for greener pastures in the neighbor's yard who apparently is much better at watering.
Traitors.
We're also down a pine tree, it died so we have a whole new corner of the yard to try to build another garden spot. The grapes are all growing, the established vine came back of course and the two new vines are both coming back. The three year old saplings survived the winter and I've spent the past two weeks plucking off flowers, much to children's dismay. I keep explaining, we want the little trees to grow roots not fruit but they still don't understand.
We're going to be replacing the apricot with something not as finicky. It's required way to much maintenance and it attracts earwigs. *shudder* The Cherry out front has been so much nicer, aphids are quickly taken care of with diluted dish detergent and if we wrap the tree, there's plenty of cherries for us and the birds.
I think I started off with dealing with kids during the summer. Swim lessons should help. Although Ean's already announced he doesn't know how to swim so he can't have swim lessons! He's decided since this morning maybe it won't be so bad. The twins will have lessons too although the expense of five kiddos in lessons, yuck!
We're also doing the weekly movie. Can't beat the price and it's a nice treat during the hot summer months. My mom will go with us too. Of course we have summer lunches starting January first. That will help the kids burn off steam as well.
I need to take out stock in sunscreen this summer. I've already bought a good $30 worth of sunscreen for those red headed boys that just fry. It'll be a battle for sure.
So there you go, a blog entry. I don't want anymore complaints ya'all. *sticks out tongue*
