Yucky Face

Justin after his feast of chocolate cake.

The other morning Justin came to my bedroom door that was open slightly and stood there yelling "Momma come out." When I said to him "Come in Justin" he hollered back "No- come out, I'm dirty". We went back in forth a few times with the same conversation since Logan was sleeping still; then I got up to see what he was talking about. It seems he got up, went into the kitchen, took the lid off the chocolate cake, helped himself to as much cake as he could eat; then he got a dish rag out of the drawer to bring to me to clean him up.

Logan after playing in the mud puddle.







The bicycle handle is blocking Logan- but look at his clothes!

Random pictures....

The day we took Logan home. Kids have their big sister/brother shirts on.

Olivia's Latest Catastrophe.......

Sorry it's been so long since the last post. Olivia has kept me quite busy. Almost two weeks ago Olivia had her biopsy done on her left thigh. Her neurologist felt like it was time to finally do it since we were putting it off for the past few years. Up until the stroke she was fairly controlled with meds alone. The surgery day was terrible for Olivia and for me! There was no real way to prepare her for surgery since she really doesn't understand any of it, but she knew something was going on when we got to the hospital and she was scared. Because she was so scared, she was acting out TERRIBLE. She was screaming and kicking at anyone who came near her and when no one was in the room but me, she would cry that she wanted to go home. We arrived at the hospital at 9:00 AM for a 10:30 surgery which she never got until 3:30 because of legal complications. Because she is in limbo in the courts and we have not adopted yet, they would not let me sign the paperwork for the surgery. The whole process was hell for me. I have raised her since she was two years old, we have spent literally over 30 days in the hospital with her but I CAN'T sign a paper for a biopsy. UGH! Anyway, surgery went well and we were home that night.

Fast forward two weeks to Memorial Day. Olivia has been healing well and the stitches are still in place. The steri strips fell off after a week which was our first hurdle because she tried to pick at them all the time. Yesterday I went to the store and Rick was home with all the kids. He called me in a panic that Olivia fell and ripped out ALL of her sutures! He was really upset because he couldn't get the bleeding to stop at first. I rushed home and he took her to Zeeland Hospital ER. They really didn't do anything because the wound was so bad. They put a dressing on it and told us to see our pediatrician in the morning. We went to see her and she took one look and wanted to call the surgeon for advice. Now we are going to see the surgeon tomorrow to see what to do with it. Luckily she has not complained of pain.

Happy Birthday Isaac!

Isaac turned 7 on Sunday and we had his party on Saturday. It was a nice sunny day. Luckily for everyone who attended that Rick was cooking meat for the Blessing Of the Bikes. We were going to have Italian sausages and sloppy joes, but instead we ate pulled pork, ribs and prime rib. I made baked beans and coleslaw as well. Everyone had a great time. Isaac got a lot of nice gifts, including two new nintendo ds games and money for a third new one.

A new blog.

I am starting a new blog about adoption. There's not much there yet, but I will be working on it. I wanted a place to celebrate our adoption this summer (hopefully) of the kids. You can see it when you click on "view my complete profile".

Picture Day

Two weeks ago we made the trip to Sears to have pictures taken of all the kids. We are so long overdue that it's embarrassing. This summer I hope to have Nicole take pics of the whole family. So here is the story of what happened BEFORE the pics were taken: I was pushing Olivia in the single stroller because she couldn't walk very good yet after the stroke, Isaac had Savanna by the hand and they were walking in between us. Rick was last with Justin and Logan in the double stroller. Isaac was in such a rush to get in the door that he decided it would be faster to push Savanna rather than drag her by the hand. She fell of course and he fell on top of her. We were LITERALLY entering the building to get the pics done. Poor Savanna was hurt, her face was all cut up and she had blood on her shirt. Poor Isaac felt really bad and he skinned his elbow plus put a hole in his jeans. Rick and I were upset at the time because why couldn't it have happened on the way out; but we laugh now because we will always remember that day. Here is Savanna with her "owee chin" and the final picture.

Enjoying Spring

We had some fun this weekend enjoying the nice weather. Dad and Dannette gave us this nice picnic table that used to belong to them and then Ma Brown. The kids are loving having the ice cream shop closest to us open for the season. Each night they are dirty, dirty, dirty after playing outside. Just look at Justin's face.