An update on the kids....

Its been a while since I updated you all on the kids and what is going on here.

Patrick: Still struggling with school and the social aspects of life. He is a borderline autistic, ADHD and possibly dyslexic. We are working on various therapies involving art, textures, social situations, and role play to get him used to working outside of the house. We also have started him on some medication to try and help with the ADHD. I was very skeptical at first that it would actually help him, but his is amazing on it. This is a side of the kid that i have never seen before. He is questioning, concentrating and focusing on everything that he needs to. Amazing indeed.

Sean: Flying high and just moving along at a steady speed. This kid has the energy of about 5 kids. he loves to flip around and jump off things. We are talking about getting him involved in some sports and see what he can do to reign that energy into something constructive.

Veronica: completely potty trained and her vocabulary is growing wonderfully. She also is a budding artist. This last week she has been drawing people on everything, including her walls and herself. very cute indeed.

Nickle Pickle (nicholas): talking and walking. Climbing and scooching. He has about 50 words in his vocabulary and loves to tell you his opinion. He is healed from his surgery in october, but there may be another one in the near future and something didnt heal correctly. he is still pretty little. At 20 months he is still wearing a lot of 12 month clothes with room to spare. We bought him his first pair f shoes not too long ago and he is just into 5w.....

Tom- working hard and if I get this job will be working even harder every night.

Jobs and more Jobs

I've been looking into getting a job nights and weekends for the last couple of months. So about two weeks ago I started working at a gym in Grand Rapids. The greatest benefit to this is that I get a free membership and it is a 24 hour gym so I can go workout whenever I find the time to. I am also working from home for the gym which is another great benefit. I just put in 3-4 hours a day when the kids are napping.

Well with this in mind I decided ok this is going to work really well for the family, I am making money, spending time with the kids and Tom, so I am no longer going to apply anywhere else. I stopped reading papers, online advertisements, etc etc and was happy as could be. Well all the sudden Wed I got a phone call from Meijer for a position they wanted me to interview for. So today I went in for the interview and was told to expect a second interview late next week. This would be a full time position nights and weekends. I also have been getting emails lately for tutoring, painting murals, canvases, and various other odd jobs that I do. When I finally gave up looking is when jobs started coming to me.

I am excited by the prospects of all this but at the same time am worried that I might be stretching myself thin.....Being grown up is hard...

Lutheran Family and Child Services

I donated a painting the the Lutheran Family and Child Services building in Greenville, MI. Some of you out there knew that I was doing this, so I thought that I'd post a few pictures of it done. These dont show all the depth to the paint, but they at least give you an idea. This painting is a popular one for churches and religious groups, as I have now done it 3 times. Each time is a little different though. I had the kids with me for the painting and they managed to make it through the 7 hours it took to paint today and the 2 hours to draw it out last week Friday.

Patrick and Sean's Pictures of Yesterday

Patrick took this shot of the three other kids.

Patrick took this picture of the sky.

This was Sean's picture of the "pond" at the tennis courts.

Sean's Picture of Pickle going to get the bat and ball.

I think they both have an eye for pictures. As I have let them borrow the camera on walks this past winter their pictures have been getting better and better. They love to focus in on the small things such as berries on the tree or needles in the pine tree. Pretty exciting stuff and the greatest part of using the digital camera is that we are not wasting any film or money.

A warm February day

Yesterday temperatures reached near 60 and everyone felt it in their bones when they woke up. The sun was streaming in the windows, and for once the furnace didn't kick in the whole day. We played outside splashing in mudpuddles, climbing through melting snowbanks, found hidden treasures long forgotten way back in November when the first snows fell.

This was Nicholas' first time walking around outside and seeing what the world was all about from the level of 30 whole inches. He was amazed at the leaves blowing in the wind on the tree in our front yard that held to the belief that summer was going to last a few more months and refused to drop its brown leaves. Puddles were investigated thoroughly by splashing and jumping through them. A worm was thrown across the tennis courts. We also drew our first chalk drawings of the year on the driveway, only to have them wash away today.

Veronica loved the wind in her hair, fishing in the "pond" by the tennis courts, and sliding in the mud until she slid face first into the puddle and came up looking worse than a pig in a pig pen. She is learning all about shapes and colors so she would yell out what she found for the world to hear.

Patrick and Sean played baseball on the tennis courts. Originally the idea was to go to the baseball diamond out back, but the mud proved to difficult to get the stroller through. Amazingly the boys actually were able to throw the ball and hit the ball thrown to them. Something that could never be done just a few short months ago. The boys also got ahold of the camera and took pictures of their own.
I will post those in another blog.

Pictures frm the photo shoot again...

More Pictures...

Photo Shoot.... Say CHeese!!!!

Hmmm say cheese??? Yeah sure, let me fidget, poke my sister, take my brothers head off first, stick my tongue out...everyone else smile and look at the camera while one looks towars only God knows what. But somehow we managed to actually get a few nice shots. Let me know what you think, as I took them all on my own...I really think that I am insane somedays. These pictures and the ones in the next post took all of 10 mins to take, but it sure felt like an hour and a half.

Holland State Park-01st weekend in February

A blustery cold day at the beach, that is what last Saturday was. The wind howled through our ears and sand pelted our faces as we kicked up little chunks of icesand on the beach. The kids enjoyed seeing what happens to Lake Michigan in the winter as the waves freeze into awesome ice sculptures made by Mother Nature and Jack Frost themselves. After a whole ten minutes we resigned ourselves to the idea of a picnic. Just kidding, we really weren't planning one, but thought it would be a neat opprtunity to do pictures of the kids to go with the summer one of all of them sitting in front of Big Red. Holland State Park would have been truely amazing had it not been for the wind off the lake.

Here are pictures of Veronica out to the lake. Only minutes after leaving the warm truck. THe boys booked it out to the lake were atop the ice within the first 3 mins. There is a picture of Tom and the kids atop the "summit". Pickle was in the backpack on my back hiding behind my head to block the wind. And finally a picture of Big Red...