Said goodbye

to a really great person today.  It's sad that you don't see people often enough and it takes losing one before you make any efforts to get together.  Cathy was a beautiful person, inside and out.  She was an awesome mom and incredibly vivacious person.  Her laugh will be with me forever.  After the graveside ceremony her kids, nieces, nephews, etc. released balloons with their messages on them as her song, by Elton John, played.  And they asked us to give a round of applause for her after the song.  It was how she would have wanted it.  She wouldn't have wanted everyone to be so sad. She would have wanted everyone to 'rock on'.
She will very much be missed and I will never forget how much she made me think as these years with cancer progressed.  Her outlook was never less than amazing!

Cell Phone Photos

I asked Jaemin to finish unloading the dryer tonight. We're trying to start him in on some small chores, so I unload most, but leave a handful of clothes for him to unload. I did mine, asked him to unload his and went to the bedroom to fold clothes. He was taking FOREVER. He finally comes running in telling me that he found his soccer socks, complete with shin guards, in the dryer and they're warm. Yep.....he had them on. He was in the laundry room putting them on. It might help to stay warm if you would ever wear a shirt around the house. Not Jaemin. If he's at home he does not want to wear a shirt.


So, I had to take a picture of him with his socks on. I figured my phone was faster, but I rarely use it to take pictures. He asked to see his picture in true kid fashion and I scroll over to find other pictures. I had forgotten I took a picture of him at my grandma's on Easter in his bunny glasses. Then, I found several selfies I'm pretty sure Kaelin took on Easter. The bedspread looks like my grandma's, so I guess her and her cousin were bored? Girls, girls!

April is over!

The month pretty much flew by.  Started it out staying at home with Cole after his surgery, then shuttling him around until he could drive.  He's now driving on his own and back in school for a couple of full weeks.  And, though, he's again not driving because his car's in the shop, he will get it back soon.  Hopefully.  A guy we knew thought he could fix it fairly cheap.   Brian and his dad took the head apart and found a rocker arm  shaft stripped, so the rocker arm was hitting the top of the cylinder head and making all that racket.  Luckily they found it without driving it around so we hopefully didn't make things worse.  We may know tomorrow or Friday if it's just what we thought.  I can do $200.  Not happily after all the other things in that car, but better than $1000+ for a new head in a $2000 car.  But, really do you fix  the car or replace it?  We've put so much into it that if we found another one for what we could afford we'd probably end up putting at least what we have back into that one too.  Maybe we won't have to find out.

The school year is winding down and I'm praying Cole can keep his grades up.  He's been enjoying his freedoms with his friends, but they will come to a screaching halt if a C creeps back in.  He knows the rules and hopefully that taste of running and fun will encourage him.  We'll see.

I've been fighting Kaelin lately.  Usually it's Brian fighting her on clothes and I take her side, but not on this.  I just do not agree with girls wearing leggings when their rear ends aren't covered up.  Leave something to the imagination.  Why would a guy be interested in something every other guy can see just right out there in the open.  She went as far this time as to just put her jeans on over them after I told her her shirt was too short and to change.  She apparently thinks I'm that stupid.  I now have all of her leggings and big brother is watching her at school for me.  If she gets caught in her lies, she'll realize she really can't hide things.

Jaemin had his OT And ST evaluation after speech yesterday.  He will most likely not qualify to stay in speech the entire year.  We redid a sensory eval too since it's been 3 years.  The school is not required to provide support for sensory disorder, but the OT said they've begun to do it on their own for kids with more severe sensory.  She thinks there's a chance he may qualify between some of his delays and this.  That would be great for when he enters Kindergarten and maybe I won't have so many fears and reservations about him going.  Jaemin is SO, SO smart.  He reads so well and quickly.  He just needs emotional/social help.

Busy Weekend

Chelsi had 1st Communion for church this weekend and Chase graduates from 8th Grade this year, so we combined their parties like we did Cole and Kaelin.  We lucked out and decided to do their parties the day before 1st Communion instead of after because Jaemin was supposed to have a soccer game (canceled now with all the rain).  It couldn't have worked out better.  The weather was perfect.  We could have everyone in the garage for eating and the kids ran crazy outside.  I shredded up 4 beef roasts and then we made a dish of orange and yellow peppers, onions, jalepenos and sauted cabbage to top the barbeque shredded beef.  It was very good.  We had tons of desserts by the time great grandma and grandma brought some along with the cake and peanutbutter bars we made.  I was stressed running all day yesterday and most of Friday night, but it was really good and the two kids had a great time.

The good weekend ended after today with Cole's car breaking down and Brian listened to it and said the noise is bad and we think it's basically done at 108,000 miles.  That stinks.  We really don't need to be spending money on a car when we have all these medical bills.  But, Cole can't get a job without a car.  No transit here.

Pictures from Chelsi's day.  She was beautiful. See my grandma kinda photobombing right behind her.  :)

Easter 2014

We got to church this morning just in time to actually get a seat even if our family was divided into two benches.  Better than standing.  Jaemin wasn't too bad through either.  Yesterday, Kaelin and I ran to the bakery to get special donuts for everyone.  That's our Easter treat.  We don't normally do that sort of thing.  We dropped off a gift card to Subway for the family of a friend who is gravely ill.   We got quite a lot done yesterday.  After all that we went to my mom's for a really quick Easter hunt for the kids, then to Brian's mom's for dinner and hunt.  Today was church and then my grandma's for lunch and hunt.  It's always nice to see my aunts, uncles and cousins that I don't see all that often.  It's fun to see my cousins' kids playing with my kids and they really have fun together.  The oldest doesn't allow pictures anymore, so there are very few.  I wish he would let me do more.  The youngest four don't mind so much.  Here's all the great pictures.

Flippin Fun

Not much time to post, but have to sow what my baby girl did last night.  She's in her fifth year at gymnastics, but because we only have time for and can afford one session a year, it's really only her fifth session.  I was chatting with a girl ay work and looked down and realized that just like that she got it.  She did a round off into a back handspring with only spotting.  She had no idea she was doing it on her own until I showed her the video.  My little premie.  She's smart and talented.

Soccer

We signed Jaemin up for soccer.  He's never done an organized sport and in our town, it's pretty laid back.  This was perfect.  We needed him to just learn to be part of a team.  He does try, I said try, to listen to his coach.  He's very literal when he does listen, which is good.  He tried for awhile and then just got bored.  I'm hoping he'll build on it each week.  He does love seeing himself kick in a picture I got, so I'm hoping that incentive for him to not quit half way through next week's game.  :)

We shall see.

Jaemin resting as usual.