About rugrats, minivans, The South, photography, farmer's markets, puberty, Army, snotty noses, blankies, movies, hugs, autism, make believe, homeschooling, sibling rivalry, car seats, weather, in-laws, scribbles, marriage, and somewhere in there, a stoned British reporter.

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Quarterly Random Spew

It's been a while since I've written anything on here, and so, true to form, I'm going to do a giant post full of randomness to catch anyone up that hasn't been reading along on Facebook or Twitter. (or to fill in details anyone might have missed.)

Our summer has been action packed, and not just in good ways. I'm in denial that it's August 1st. I see all the back to school stuff, and I stick my fingers in my ears yelling "La la laaa I can't hear youuuuu!" Thankfully, being homeschoolers, we get some say in when our school year starts. However, I don't get to control the fact that ballet starts up in full force in two (ack!) weeks. All three of the younger ones will be in classes, with Lindsay going twice a week, and Logan having extra rehearsals. Logan is going to be in the ballet company's Fall production, which this year, is Peter Pan. He's going to be a lost boy, and is having a blast because he gets to run around and wrestle and sword fight. Lindsay struggles a little with jealousy, as she did not make the ballet company this year. She's handling it with a ton of class, though. She is way cooler and more mature than I was at that age.

Speaking of Lindsay, she went away to summer camp for the first time. It was only a week long one, but it was really hard to leave her there. None of my kids have gone off somewhere on their own like that before. I know the baby birds will someday have to leave the nest. (Well, most of them, we'll see what happens with Logan.) I also know that they need practice flights, and this was just one of many for Lindsay. I know that this was a great and healthy thing. I KNOW it. It didn't make it any easier, though. She had a pretty good week, we all made it through, and she is already set on going again next year. By the way, she was not able to go the same week as all of her friends, so she went a different week, where she didn't know a soul. She said, and I quote, "That means I get to make new friends!" See? Way cooler than me.

Ryan had his own brand of excitement, too. He learned the hard way why you don't jump on a couch with the cushions off. If you have a couch nearby, feel under the cushions at the back, where the back of the couch meets the part with the springs. A lot of couches have a board of wood there. Ours does, and Ryan's bent knee met the corner of it with such force that it literally blew his knee right open. As in, I could almost see his kneecap, and he needed nine stitches and had an immobilizer and crutches for two weeks. Even with my four active kids and all of their injuries, I had never seen anything like that in my life. It looked like someone had done surgery on his knee and forgot to close it up. So, that was fun. He handles being incapacitated about as well as I do, which means he pushed the boundaries on what he should be doing with his knee all the time, and was in general a crabby and impatient person. He's healing, though. The stitches came out, and after small dramas here and there, the wound finally completely scabbed over for good about three and a half weeks after he first injured it. He still has a scab on one part, but he has full use of his knee again, with the strict instructions from the doctor that he is not to hit it or fall on it any time soon.

We went on vacation to Missouri to see my family. True to form, we had drama there, too, in the form of our van needing expensive repairs. Hooray for family members willing to help foot the bill as part of my birthday present! I can tell I'm an actual adult now, because I was genuinely excited about that. New motor mounts for the van for the win! Wooooo! The drama continued as we drove from Missouri to the hubby's house in Virginia, and ended up needing to spend the night in West Virginia because it turns out we needed new tires. For the first time, we spent the week at the hubby's house, and we didn't go anywhere. No beach, no Busch Gardens, we just sat at his house on our butts watching movies and being lazy. It was definitely needed.

While we were at the hubby's house we celebrated Hannah's birthday. Impossibly, that teeny baby that was in the NICU is now a fabulous SIX year old. She is reading a little bit, and learning other things crazy fast. She is full of spirit and personality and we love her to pieces. She had requested a firefly themed birthday (the bug, not the show), which took a lot of creativity on my part. They don't make firefly themes, it turns out, so we had to make it ourselves. I was pretty pleased with how it all came together. If you want to take a peek at the festivities and my awesome cake, go here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10455228@N00/sets/72157630847787072/

Also, if you want to take a peek at how awesomely gorgeous that six year old Hannah is, we did a photoshoot for her birthday, and you can see those pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10455228@N00/sets/72157630847441882/

I had a hard time getting any good "normal" shots, but like I told the hubby, I think that photoset shows the real Hannah perfectly.

We're home now, and after months of not hearing anything about our house, I had a certified letter in the mail from an appraiser wanting to set up a walk through of our house. Also, yesterday, our region voted "yes" to raise the sales tax to fund the road project that will tear down our house. The reality is starting to set in that this is really going to happen. The house is NOWHERE near ready for an appraiser to walk through it, and I'm having several small panic attacks throughout the day about how I'm going to get it all done. Guess I just have to suck it up and do it. . . . .right after I puke on my shoes.

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