Family Update - April 24

It's been a while - we've been busy.  I don't even remember the last time I updated, but March 24 is the last time I SAW an update ... has it been that long.  My dayplanner is also strangely silent as to what we have been doing.

Seems I'm back to burning the candle at both ends - some days it's all I can do to stay awake and the day passes in jerks and pulls (as I find myself constantly dozing off and waking up).  I find myself nibbling on things just to stay awake.

As it turned out - LaRue's MRI was scheduled shortly after my March post for March 29.  We pulled together and off we went.  She had to be sedated for it, so no nursing after 11am.  She was just getting to the "frantic" point when it was her turn to go - so we did alright.  I was worried about the resurgence of her cold, but they suctioned her really well after she was sedated and she did fine.  The called us the next day to say we should take her in to her doctor because the MRI had picked up ear infections ... but she had just finished a round of antibiotics two or three weeks previous.  So on April 1, she started her 4th round since being born.  Of course that isn't what the MRI was for ... but it was nice of them to give us a heads up on it.  She weighed 14.4 pounds.

Vannan worked hard on the dresses she was making for Easter, and with a LOT of help from Aunt Cindy, Judy, and Aunt Rhoda - she finished on time.  You can tell she's a beginner, but she seems to have a talent for it, so she should improve rapidly.  We had a great Easter day - we ended up with 19 kids hunting roughly 600 eggs.  Amazing.  With all the prize eggs - my kids still didn't find any of them - but they did get quite a bit of candy and chocolate.   They had tons of fun though.  And Vannan watched Aunt Rhoda make some special bags for her boys and repeated it for Joel, Shianne, Miya, and Marriana, herself, and Kendra.

We have started "boarding school" for Karen's kids.  Paul is "demanding" - and has been slightly more challenging than the others.  Partly due to his start and partly because Karen is so sore.  She's been trying to get her house back under control.  Bethie has been out of sorts.  So I offered to take the kids for school for a month or so while Karen gets things settled.  It's been interesting - challenging, but not bad.  This week, I only had them 2 days.  Next week they will come on Tuesday and leave on Friday.  That's a lot of kids when Rhoda has her 2 extra also!   Last week was doubly challenging because we were trying to keep the tummy bug away from Paul.

Joel's bunny, Strawberry Milk, had 10 babies on the 15th - my nephew, Joshua's, first birthday.  There are 9 of them now, and looks like 6 of them will be Calico Harlequin Rabbits.  The other 6 are ready to sell.  Know anyone who wants a beautiful Harlequin Rabbit?  Otherwise, we'll have to eat them, and Vannan has made very sure that they are very tame - so she's gotten very attached to them.

On the 19th, we took LaRue in for her 6 month check up.  She's 26 inches and 15.1 pounds.  Ears were clear.  I've forgotten what Kendra's official weight was, but she's 5 foot and 1/2 inch.  50% exactly.  The doctor was happy with both of them - no glaringly obvious problems or surprise concerns that we needed to pursue.

It's been HOT and MUGGY around here.  Air conditioners in full run mode every afternoon.  But we've had to run the heater several nights.  Nights have dropped to below 50 and days hit above 80.  Frogs are out singing every night.

Rhoda and I are trying to work out our schedule - we aren't sure if it is working since she's had to spend so much time taking care of details for her wreck.  We are looking at finallizing our orders for school books and getting them ordered.  The Alpha Omega order has to be done in the next few days because it is 20% off this month.  I'll make some special HomeSchool posts up to explain what we plan to do and how we are working together.  It has especially been great for the little ones - our Kindergarteners.

Rhoda has a new Suburban now.  Black - seats 9 and all of the bells and whistles that Rhoda needed to have "school on wheels" when she needs to.  Still, she would rather have had her old car not been hit or all the headaches to go with this.

Pray for some decisions that  have been weighing on all of us - hard to put them into words.  Maybe I should say - pray for wisdom to make the decisions happen.  Pray for Dad - he's not been sleeping well, and taking care of all of us is not easy - he's got a lot of back work for his shop, and details to handle that he never had to before.  He's not complaining - but we all know that life can be overwhelming at times.  We could really use an extra "farm hand" around here to help us clear about a dozen projects that nobody seems to have time for.   Pray for Kendra to be able to focus on her school work and get her goals finished for the year.  It is slowly dawning on her that she is "almost adult age".  Pray for Vannan, who sometimes forgets that she is still mostly a child and does not have to carry the weight of the world on her little shoulders.  Pray for the little ones to be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit working on their character as they grow, and us parents who are setting the examples for them.   And pray for our 2 little Compassion girls.  I'll have to introduce you to them.  With Tim out of work (yes, keep praying for a miracle income for Tim), they have increasingly been weighing heavy on my heart.

And I'm considering closing comments on the blog - recently, the only comments that I have received have been spam and links to awful websites.  I do screen them - but it's time consuming to translate these things because most of them are not in English.  Weird.  95% of the comments I get on my posts are via Facebook. I share my account there with Joel and Vannan.  Its a cheap way to unwind with a game as well as keeping up with great friends and distant family.  And many of the others comment directly to me via my email - because I know them very well.   So, is there anyone out there who really wants to comment once in a while?