In an attempt....

to keep friends and husbands happy, and to finally break my silence, here I am. I knew it was bad when Rich called me a blogger yesterday. I replied that I hadn't posted in months, and he quipped back with yeah, since December 30th or something...Okay, gotta keep the fans happy.

Not much and yet everything is going on. Let's see if I can do a brief recap of the past little bit.

Trisha is doing well. She just got finished with her highschool musical endeavor. The show of Guys and Dolls was great, and she did a fabulous job being hit on the head with a sugar bottle. Her Cuban dancing was awesome. Looking forward to next year's production. She is finishing up her sophomore year. She now has a boyfriend, and they've been together for a few months. He seems like a nice guy, how can he not be, he's a Canadian citizen. Seriously, Caeman is a great kid, and they are VERY CUTE together. Apart from that, we celebrated Trisha's 16th birthday...where did time go? She is looking at getting a job and taking driver's ed this spring as well as participating in the school's 10 minute plays. Overall, she is doing great.

Simeon is keeping me busy. Homeschooling is going really well. Over the past month I have seen him take off with his desire to write. He often writes me apology and love notes. They are so cute, definitely make me giggle, but I must be strong and not let him sweet talk me out of anything. He continues to take gymnastics on Wednesdays and LOVES it. He is quite good, though he does lack in flexibility. His new passion is the wii fit. He loves that thing and since we are both so competitive, we keep trying to beat eachother's scores. Sim has quite the personality and is quite the instigator. He will say exactly the opposite of what I say to my sister to get a rise out of me or her. He knows how to "play" people and loves to make them laugh. Now I am in trouble with him....GIRLS! He loves the girls, has a gazillion girlfriends, and loves to get a rise out of me...So far, he says he's going to marry Grace, but he also must look good for girls such as Baylee and Shannon. Oie...1 sixteen year old is enough. We are fast approaching his Gotcha Day, he'll have been home 5 years mid April. It seems unbelievable to me! What happened to my little 10.5 month old baby? We are also getting ready to celebrate his 6th birthday at the end of May.

Naomi, well, she's a little doll. She LOVES to eat, and is no longer the teeny tiny peanut she was when she first came home. She enjoys Simeon tremendously, and when all else fails, a few silly faces or noises from Simeon can change her sorrow to laughter. She is definitely my social butterfly. While most babies will fuss and cry when being passed from arm to arm, she seems to thrive. If we are around other people, she refuses to nap, and has to be a part of the fun. It's not so bad, since she remains happy, she doesn't tend to get fussy at that point yet. On March 30th, she rolled over from front to back and back to front at the same time. She doesn't seem too keen on rolling over yet. There are many times when I look at her and think that she will be crawling before she is rolling around everywhere. We are working on sleeping through the night, and are getting very very close! Yeah, I think Rich and I are both looking forward to some solid sleep REAL SOON!

Rich, he continues to be my best friend and steadfast companion. I couldn't ask for a better partner on this journey. He's a great help with the kids, an awesome provider. We are part of a small group bible study and for the past few months we have been doing some FamilyLife couples studies. These have been great because they require a date everyweek. We were really bad about taking that time for ourselves. Now however, we really realize how much we need those times. So we have been having pretty much some weekly dates. It's so nice to get out together. Work continues to be busy for him.

Me...well...I'm just soaking it all in. I had been running since December, but after running 6 miles and taking a brief trip to Canada, I stopped. Rich and I do want to start running together outside, it just hasn't happened yet. I went out with some girlfriends last week and it was really fun. I want to try to do that more often. The best part was going out for supper alone first. It was so nice to sit down at a nice restaurant with a magazine and just read quietly! Yeah for Mommy time! I'm also wanting to do more for the country of Haiti. I've been in touch with an acquaintance who ships donations of various items to different missionaries in haiti, so I've started collecting some of those items to send to her. I am also looking to hosting a Haitian purse party. I will try to post more about my Haiti involvement in another blog post.

Right now, I had better go...I have Mom's group in an hour and have a bunch of stuff I need to do! Hopefully, my next post won't be so far away!