A Glimpse into my Life.

I know I keep swearing that I'll stop getting behind so I don't have to play catch up, but life has other plans for me right now so since the kidlet crew are playing together I'm stealing a few moments. This update is going to be done in bullet point style otherwise it'll be a novel. Also, no pictures on this one, otherwise it'd be even longer before it is updated.

• We pulled Rynie out of school after only a month of Kindergarten. We found out two weeks into the school year he was being beaten up by other Kindergarteners and the teacher knew about it and was 'observing the situation to know how to proceed further.' We didn't find out about any of this at first either. Every day we'd ask Rynie how school was and he'd tell us it was fine, but the day school started he became a different child. He is normally a very sweet, thoughtful little man and he was so volatile. He'd go from calm to furious so quickly, he was fighting with his sister and teaching her to hit and pinch. It was not a pretty sight. After two weeks of this we found out from Rynie that he was being pinched, having things thrown at him, whacked with a rubber stick, his fingers were being bent backwards, and he was being used as a human punching bag. We asked his teacher if he was instigating the beating in any way and she told us that he wasn't. His class was the most aggressive group of boys she'd ever taught, and he wasn't. We talked to the school to try and resolve things but although he wasn't the one being beaten after that, he was still having behavioral issues. We pulled him out of school and started homeschooling him.
  
• I spent the better part of a month juicing apples because none of the varieties were ripe at the same time. Thankfully we had room in the freezer to hold it all so we could mix the juice for syrup and jelly. I also ended up doing some peach jam too. We are really enjoying all the fruity goodness in this cold weather.
  
• My Mom came back into town at the beginning of November because my brother's wife had a little girl. She is a sweet thing with big blue eyes and a shock of dark hair. It's been an adjustment for Jake and Shannon, but I know they are enjoying the experience.
• Right after Mom came into town, she found out from her doctor that she'd need to have surgery and was under no fly restrictions for the next 8 weeks. Everything went well with her surgery and she got out the day before Thanksgiving. She was under lifting restrictions, and couldn't lift more than 5 lbs for the first 2 weeks, then 10 lbs for the next 6 weeks, and then 14 lbs. She wasn't allowed to pick up kids, do any housework, or anything of that sort.
  
• My dad came into town the day before Thanksgiving, after having his flight delayed because of snow and other issues. His mid day flight ended up not getting in for another 6 or so hours.
  
• I made Thanksgiving dinner. Shannon came to help with washing and chopping vegetables, and helping to make the pies and a few dishes. I can now say I have cooked a Thanksgiving meal pretty much on my own! :) I was even kind to Jake and saved him some of the left overs so he could have what he was used to since it was their year to go to eat with Shannon's family.
  
• We had lots of cousins come over to visit while my parents were in town, including doing dinners with a lot of them. I am becoming very proficient at preparing meals for 20-30 people at a time.
• My Dad came back into town right before Christmas and he and my Mom were here until the middle of January.
  
• Jake, Shannon, and the Troll doll (Their daughter whose hair reminded me of a troll doll) came over on Christmas Eve and had dinner with us and spent the night. We had ten people in our house for Christmas. It was a lot of fun opening presents all together.
• My Grandma came up to surprise us on the 26th of December. We had no idea, it was a shock. She's almost 80 and doesn't like to travel in Winter, but decided since people were coming up from New Mexico that she'd hitch a ride with my Aunt Kristal and come on up. It was one of the best surprises. The ironic thing was we'd just sent her Christmas presents down to New Mexico so she had to wait to open them.
• Grandma ended up getting snowed in up here until after New Year's. It was so much fun to make Taquitos, fudge, and all sorts of yummy things with her.
• We spent New Year's Eve with some family friends. It was so much fun to see the little babies and spend an evening eating Huevos Rancheros and Taquitos, and chatting.
• We did family pictures right after the New Year. One more year's dorkiness captures digitally forever. There were some good ones, but I must say, we are a goofy bunch.
• The bunny was attacked by some varmint so we are bunny-less now. We buried the bunny, talked about the Plan of Salvation, talked about how we miss those that die, but we can remember them and how much we love them.
• We all got the nastiest colds we've had in a while. While we had the cold stuff going on, I got food poisoning. Oh Grand. :P
• I've had company 3 times since my Mom left town.
• My cousin Jeremy was hurt on the job, and ended up with Compartment's Syndrome. He had to have emergency surgery and his leg was left splayed open and packed with sponge things so the extra pressure and fluid could drain out of his leg so we tried to help where we could.
• Hubby's uncle who is Catholic needed help with music for Mass and enlisted the help of my Brother in law Tyler and myself. It was a very interesting experience. :) Tyler played the violin, I sang, and his Uncle played both the guitar and the mandolin. There was also another guitar and an electric piano. There was some beautiful music for us to do
• A friend and I are starting up a home based business! We've been working on products for it since before Christmas and slowly but surely we are getting stock built up and things ready to go. I'm not quite sure when we'll be opening up our store, but it'll definitely be online and lots of fun. Once we come up with a name for our store and finish working on product pricing, I'll post more about it here.
• In all this madness, the kidlets have grown like weeds, and it's almost time to switch out their clothes again. I'm in the process of making more clothes for them so that hopefully our budget doesn't get killed since we need to buy some school stuff.
  
• Little Dutch has cut two teeth with eight more right behind it. He is rocking, scooting, crawling and busy everywhere. He is also trying to stand on his own, has successfully figured out the stairs and is generally into everything! I love it!
• We are in The Netherlands right now visiting my parents. Since we've been here everyone has been sick. My Dad picked up something in his travels, and ended up sharing with us. We spent the first two and a half weeks of our trip slogging through the sickness since Shannon and Baby B came with us. Once they went home, we took a few sick days and are now feeling human again.