With My Four Girls

May in Wyoming is turning out to be a nice month. We have been having lots of nice weather and the kids have enjoyed playing outside.

The best part is having ALL of my kids together for the first time ever! It has been so much fun visiting and interacting with each other. Tomorrow we are going to take pictures of all of us, so I'll try to get some on soon after. I always have good intentions of posting here but with 7 kids running around life gets in the way....(or maybe it should be--kids get in the way :)

Here's the last weeks 365 layouts.

Another week down, another week scrapped. (It's what I get done after 10:00pm and the kids are all asleep.) Spring is finally starting to get here--and we enjoyed a day at the park last week, and plan to go again tomorrow. Richard is in Mexico this week, enjoying a week at the beach with all of our pastor/missionaries. The rest of us are a bit jealous :) It is our semi-annual trip with the team.

We are enjoying getting to know people in the church here. The kids are sad that Awana ends this week, but they do continue for the summer with a kids group while the adults and teens are in Bible studies. That will be fun for them.

We are looking forward to having Lancy arrive on Friday afternoon. It's been 1 1/2 years since we have seen her, so it will be great to have her here.

Keep praying. God is faithful. He will work things out to His glory!

The bread was good. Wish you had come over to have some warm bread with honey!

Another Week Flies By

Janelle Starts Junior High

Janelle began junior high this week at the local public school. Actually, it is on the corner, just two houses down from Caleb's house. I had gone to talk to them last week to see what they could offer her as far as ELL classes. After talking, we decided that she would start this week and see how things go for the rest of the school year, which, of course, is only another month.

The school does an every other day schedule, and Janelle is taking a full day (ELL, English, literature, math and study hall), and a half day (ELL and PE). She has a locker, eats lunch there every other day, and today even went on a field trip--her PE class went bowling.

New!

I'm so excited about my new KitchenAid mixer! I sold my mixer to a friend in Bernal who really, really wanted to buy it from me. It was about 16 years old, though worked as good as the day I bought it. But....I really, really wanted the new, bigger one. This was my week. It was on sale at Macy's for the best price (I had checked out every store in town :)), I had an extra 10% off coupon, and it came with an $80 ice cream maker as a "freebie". I brought it home today, and am looking forward to using it tomorrow. The adults in the house are all hoping for home made bread tomorrow.

Feeling pretty good about getting this week posted before two more weeks have gone by!

Gotcha.....

.....while I got 6 kids through the bath and then served them coconut cream pie that I made this afternoon....and then sent them down to brush their teeth....this is what I found in the living room....

like father.....

like son.....

Smile.....

Make your own Countdown Clocks

School and ELL

I finally found a few minutes while Richard was here at the house this afternoon to run down to the junior high (on the corner, 2 houses down) to ask them about ELL classes for Janelle. I was so impressed with the three people I talked to and what I saw at the school. The head counselor was out of his office, so I wasn't able to talk directly to him, but the secretary was as nice as could be and will pass my info along. It looks like Janelle should be able to enter ELL classes (English for language learners) as soon as next week, and get a taste of it for the next month and a half before summer vacation. They are setting up things so that she can take an English assessment test next week and then hopefully get right into the classes. The school is huge, 930 students, and is full for this year as well as next, but since she would probably only take ELL classes and continue to homeschool, they think that they can get her in.

I arrived at the school at a hard time for them. As I was signing in as a visitor I noticed a few people enter the office just a few steps away. A minute later I heard a scream from a girl, and thought, "Someone just got in trouble." But the secretary, with tears in her eyes told me that they had just had to tell the girl that her father had been killed in a motorcycle accident. As I left the school about 15 minutes later, I saw that everyone in the office was having a hard time and had tears in their eyes. There were a lot of caring people there.

While at the school I asked who I needed to talk to to get speech therapy going for Taylor. They passed on my question to someone in the county office, and an hour later I got a call from a lady who is checking out for me where and when he will get speech. She was very helpful as well. Sounds like we should be able to get speech going pretty quickly. She asked if I would want ELL for Taylor, but I explained that we would continue to homeschool, and that he is caught up for his age, and that was no problem.

These two issues were two of the main reasons we felt like we needed to spend some time in the States, so I am thankful to be getting moving on these.

April 12 - 18