First Nine Weeks and One Year Post Placement

Everyone got their first 9 weeks report cards. Lynlea has straight A's for her first 9 weeks in college! Chance had 5 A's, One B and One C. Drew had straight A's and Nicholas is doing great in school.
Lori, my social worker, and I met last week for our one year post placement report.
Nicholas is now wearing 2T from wearing an 18 months size when he came home and has gained 10 pounds. His English is great! Here are a few cute pictures of the boys.

update-

School has begun here in Arkansas. Nicholas is having a great start to a new year. He is going 4 days a week 8-3. Mondays he spends with my parents-he loves this.
Chance started 6th grade- shirts have to be tucked in and belts worn each day. So far, he is doing ok. He is back on his ADHD meds- a patch this time. It is working really well as he hates swallowing pills. His handwriting is a huge problem. He is not doing well in Math, because of this. I am trying to help him. Drew likes his new teachers. He is in the gifted and talented program at school. I am so very proud of my little Aspergian. He is so smart. I got his Stanford acheivement test scores. He only missed 2 problems in Math and 4 in reading on the entire test! Sadly, he came to me the other evenging and told me that no one would play with him at school. I wanted to cry. At home, he and Chance have a few mutual friends that come and play at our house. He said they don't even want to play with him. I hugged him and told him to remember he always has Me. Don't know how much of a consolation that was.
Lynlea started school at the local Community college and she is doing great so far. She is working 40 hours per week and going to school 9 hours per week.
As for me, I went and registered for school and then found out I did not qualify for a pell grant, because I already had a degree. Also, the local community college does not participate in the federal student loan program. So, I withdrew. Still working at my same job-praying for a financial miracle.

Profound words....

What a profound short little paragraph
"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
~~~~ Dr. Adrian Rogers
Ironically Dr. Rogers died in 2005 yet these words seem to describe our country today. He was the minister at Bellvue Baptist Church-one of the largest Churches in Memphis, TN

Hot Summer!

If I didn't mention before, I gave up our home phone and internet to save money. It is really killing me not having the internet at home. Our A/c has been out the past three weekends. I have had it repaired twice already and it went out late Thursday night and I haven't been able to get the repairman back out. So, we are staying with my parents for the weekend.

We have had a pretty uneventful summer, as the kids would say booring.
We went to our family reunion at Lake Tenkiller over Memorial Day weekend. The kids had a great time as usual. The day we left to go, our Sheltie Tiger had a stroke or something. We took him to the vet before we left and the vet said to keep him quiet and gave him Valium. The vet said we could take him with us, so we did. Bad thing was he could not walk, he was paralyzed, so we had to take him outside and lay him on the ground for him to potty. Most people, I guess, would have put their pet to sleep, but I kept the faith and kept praying and hoping he would get better. He made it through the weekend and once we got home he slowing began to get to his feet and walk a few steps. It took almost two weeks before he could walk completely on his own. Now, he is walking, running and back to his old self and has had no more "spells".
The Kids- The boys have spent the summer with my Mom. They have literally been driving her crazy.
Chance was having attitude problems, but has improved over the summer. He has been off his ADHD meds and is extremely hyper. He has been eating like crazy and drinking almost a gallon of milk within a few days.
Drew is drew. He is obsessed with video games and the computer. I don't know if I have mentioned his diet before, but he does not eat most meats and only eats chicken nuggets, hates eggs and is allergic to peanut butter. Here is a list of what he will eat...
pancakes
orange rolls
Grilled Cheese sandwiches
pizza
Macaroni and cheese
Dinosaur Chicken nuggets
Pasta with tomatoe sauce
Vanilla Ice Cream
He will drink milk but not pediasure
Drew says he is a vegitarian but does not eat any vegetables-except what he gets in the tomato sauce.

Nicholas is doing great. He fits right in with our family. He appears to have forgotton his Russian. When I speak Russian to him he scrunches up his nose and says"What?" He is a very busy little boy. He loves playing with any toys. He is always happy, with a huge smile on his face. He will eat anything. He drinks two cans of Pedia Sure a day. He has not been getting therapy over the summer,it will start back when he goes back to school in the fall.

Lynlea- she is working full time.

Our second trip of the summer was to visit my Brother whom I have not been very close to. He is my parent's biological child and was out of the house when I was born. He is 20 years older than me. They have a cabin at Lake Texoma on the Oklahoma side. We left on a Friday morning and came back on Sunday. It was a really short trip, but the kids had a blast. They rode jet skis, drove the golf carts, and Chance drove the boat. We hope we get to go back again soon. Chance wants to move there permanently. I wouldn't mind that myself.

As for me, I am still trying to analyze my financial situation. I have applied for Financial aid and am going to try to go back to school part time. I am going to try to become an RN. An accountant and RN-odd combination. We will see how far I get. My mom will have to keep the boys while I am in class. I will have to work all day and go to class at night or Sat. So wish me luck. It will probably take me forever as I can probably only take a class or maybe two at a time.

Nicholas

This is Nicholas first trip to our family reunion at Lake Tenkiller in Oklahoma.