Happy birthday Bobby!

Happy birthday to my love... the champion of our family.

the hardest worker of our family

the most adventurous one of our family

the one who hates having his picture taken...believe it or not.

the one who has the most patience in our family

I love you, my dear. Have a great birthday!!

In a blogging rut...

I've been in a blogging rut for a couple months now. Finding it hard to find the time, motivation, and drive to keep up. At the risk of sounding whiny, no one even reads what I'm writing, so that's a big part of it.

So...I'll get out of the blogging rut soon. Thanks for hanging in there.

First day 11-12

Tuesday was the girls' first day--yes, I know this is 4 days late. I've been busy and so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open.

Oh my word...how can she be 7??

And this sweetheart...almost 10!! She will pass me in height this school year, and you'll hear about it, I'm sure, in great detail.

Macy and her teacher, Mrs. Gustusfon. Macy was head over heels with excitement that she doesn't have a "real" desk, but a table with a computer on it. 

Kaylee, Jessica and Macy

Macy and Paige

Kaylin and her teacher, Mrs. Jacobsen. Not sure her teacher could be any sweeter. Had a class picnic before the year started, and has called to make sure all the kids had a good couple days of school.

Kaylin and Hannah

Working Girls (but not that kind)

Macy has her first official job. She has been recruited by our next door neighbor--a big burly concrete worker who has a ton of flowers--to water his flowers every morning for him. His wife won't do it, and he's tired of being late to work because he's watering the flowers. So he asked her to water them every morning, before the sun gets hot, for $10 a day. She is seriously seeing dollar signs in her head, and has done the math a million times to see how long it will take her to save for the iPod touch (30 days) that I won't buy her.

We'll see how it goes. He even offered Kaylin $2 a day to come help, but it is Macy's gig. She's been asking for a savings account, so when she gets her first weekly paycheck, I'll take her to the bank and start an account.

I started back today too. The first day is an accomplish nothing day, but I did make some to-do lists for tomorrow! I have ANOTHER student teacher, so I'll only be teaching the first two weeks, then picking back up in early November.

Back from camp!

Macy has returned from her first ever church camp. I was up there some to help, so she wasn't entirely alone. She would have been fine without me, I'm positive. She's pretty independent.

One of the things I did up at camp was take massive amounts of pictures and upload to a private Facebook page for parents to check. From what I've heard, it eased quite a few parents minds to be able to see their kid while they were at camp, and to see them having a great time.

Here's Macy at lunch on Monday. There's a really good group of girls her age at our church...Hannah, Maquel, Paige, Becca, Makyala, Desi. I'm so pleased she has such a good group of friends at church. I never had that, and feel I missed out on a lot.

We had to cancel all of the outdoor activities due to the heat wave we are in, and had to move inside. Here's some of the giggly girls watching Kung Fu Panda.

This is to show you the awesome water slide at camp. The owners of the camp bought it from a community pool in Iowa and brought it down on flatbeds. It was incredible, and such a hit with all the kids. It was pretty fun; I was "forced" to try it by Macy.

Here's Macy coming off the water slide. She went down it, oh, 500 times or so.

And you don't know these people--well, I guess you could know Dustin and his daughter Maquel--but I am in love with this picture--because I took it and how awesome it is--and if it wasn't weird, I would frame it.

She also learned to shoot a BB gun. Didn't want to at first, but we made all the kids try it at least once, and she ended up doing it twice. She's always been afraid of noise, and was worried it would be too loud. Once she figured out it wasn't loud, she was all set.

And then she returned home this afternoon. Full of stories, full of inspiration, full of God's word, full of crankiness from going on no sleep.

She's already talking about "next year", and Kaylin's already talking about "in 2 years." So thankful for our church family and the leadership that worked hard all year to pull this together.

Off to camp!

Macy left this afternoon for church camp for 4 days. Let me tell you, she was beyond excited. Here is she with her friend Paige and Becca right before they left. BTW, Paige and Becca are both on their tip-toes trying to be as tall as Macy. That's why they are laughing. :)

She won't be alone long, though. I'll be going up tomorrow to help for a couple days. I'll make sure to stay out of her way, though. :)

We had probably a 20 minute discussion last night about taking stuffed animals or the pillow pet. She was worried the others would make fun of her. She ended up NOT taking any stuffed animals or the pillow pet. I had suggested she hide her stuffed animal inside her sleeping bag, but no go. I also told her others would be bringing their pillow pets, but no go.

So today everyone was meeting to leave. Paige told Macy her stuffed animal was hidden inside her sleeping bag. Ha! Score one for Mom.

THEN...everyone was loaded onto the bus. I saw Macy frantically waving me over. She mouthed to me through the bus window: "bring my pillow pet when you come up tomorrow" Ha! Score two for Mom.

Good news, bad news

Yesterday Kaylin met with her orthopedic surgeon. We've been with the same doctor since she was 1.5 years old, and it's been so nice to have him remember us, remember her condition, remember what is going on.

We did the usual x-rays. Kaylin used to smile when they'd x-ray her hips, but not anymore. She now realizes they aren't really taking her picture. The same x-ray tech was there, "move your biscuits over a little"--super sweet lady.

Then we waited over an hour in the same small exam room. Ever been in a super small exam room with 2 kids, with no toys or TV? Not fun. It was all I could to keep them from climbing the walls. They read a couple baby books and generally annoyed me and each other.

The surgeon came in and met with us about the x-rays. Long story short, it was good news, bad news. The hip itself, in the socket where he fixed it a long 6 years ago, is healing nicely with cartilage forming around it like it's supposed to. It doesn't seem to cause her pain or restrict her range of motion. He was pleased with that. He's not pleased with the the way the top of the bone is forming around the top of the ball socket. It appears to be curving up instead of laying flat. He showed me on the x-rays where over the last 4 years, it has made that progression. He said several times "no surgery, but..."

So we wait another 2 years to see what that bone will do. He's not a rush into anything doctor, which I appreciate. We'll wait 2 years to see if it has flattened out or still continuing to curve. I'm guessing at that time, some sort of decision will have to be made. I couldn't get a sense of what that decision was going to be--surgery? Meds? No idea.  I'm praying it will not be surgery and another spica cast. The spica cast was hard enough to handle when she was 1.5 years old; cannot imagine her being 9 in one.

So...we wait.