Congradulations

Here they are, the H,I,J,K girls on graduation night. These are a wonderful group of girls who have grown up together.
Here is Karre with the proof that high school really is over.

We celebrated with lots of family, friends, and food. It was so nice to give Karre a whole weekend in the spotlight. She is a great kid and deserved the attention.

Karre was so excited because her siblings gave her the Hello Kitty balloon that she has wanted since she was about ten years old. She also got some Hello Kitty duct tape and of course cash, too.

Essential Or Not?

If you live in Minnesota you likely know that the government will shut down the end of June unless the knot heads (all of them) who are supposed to have come up with a budget do so before that time.

I had a conversation this morning that tells me that no one knows if PCA s will be considered essential workers or not. Well, for me they are essential especially since it is summertime and there are four kids running around here who have sufficient special needs and this mom can not deal with all of those needs alone for very long. I know Dad would pitch in, but he has a job, too. I also know that my PCAs would help out, but this is their job and they need this income as well. Several of them are counting on paying for tuition and books in a couple of months with their earnings from the summer months.

So lets just get this budget thing figured out now and avoid this shut down altogether. This is stress I do not need right now.

Like Every Other Day

"Can`t you just knock the nonsense off for one last day of school, and be normal"?

That is what karre screamed at Hanna this morning because as usual she HAS to be a pain about everything since she knows school is ending and yes, we are celebrating Karre`s graduation this weekend. She just can not behave for any of this.

She left her lunch box at school or on the bus yesterday so she was mad because she had to take the spare one this morning. You have a choice take this lunch box or skip lunch. Take your pick either one is fine with me, just stop screaming about it and move on.

She left her backpack on the floor in the dining room so Rene` picked it up. She had been told MANY times to put it away or lose it and guess what she decided to do, leave it on the floor. She figured if she screamed loud enough and long enough she would get it back, not happening here.

She missed the bus because she was screaming and throwing things and wiping snot all over the place. Rene` will take her to school when she gets her act together.

The last day of school is no different then all of the rest of them around here, loud, crazy, chaos, oh yeah!

In A Baggie

Tomorrow will be the last day of the school year and lets just say that it will be just fine with me. Paul is ending kindergarten like of the rest of the kids do, celebrating everything and anything. He has been very over the top with the out of line behavior and certainly needs some calm down time soon.

Today they were taking a trip to the park so they were supposed to bring a bag lunch. Paul insisted that his teacher had told him to bring his lunch in a baggie, yeah the clear plastic bags that you put things in the freezer in. We tried to talk him into taking a brown paper bag, but he was having none of that. As Trevor and I were driving downtown to run an errand we saw his class hiking to the park. They were all carrying lunches in brown paper bags except Paul. He was letting everyone know what he was having for lunch.

It is the first Wednesday of the month so the tornado sirens will be going off soon,while the kindergarten kids are at the park where it is really, really loud, that will make my super hyper little guy even crazier.

Wishes in Flight

All students at our high school are required to do a "senior project"which includes writing a paper, doing a physical project, and presenting about what they have done. Karre chose to do her`s to raise awareness about traumatic brain injuries and the fact that most of them are preventable. In Minnesota there are 100,000 people living with TBIs so 100,000 origami cranes were made to represent these people. The top photo is what the cranes look like as they are displayed and the bottom is Molly checking out a pile of cranes in our living room.

Wear your seat belts, do not text or talk on the phone while driving, wear a helmet when biking or playing sports, avoid domestic violence, and stay out of wars and you have a great chance of not being a person who will be living with a TBI.

For those who are living with such injuries these cranes bring wishes for a better tomorrow.

Is It Christmas Or July?

This morning Hanna went to school wearing neon green shorts and and bright red, long sleeved bowling shirt. Lauren did no better with the clothes choices. She left wearing shorts and and very summery t-shirt. It is really cool so I am wearing a sweatshirt and have closed the windows.

So I have one who likes to wear Christmas colors that really do not match and the other seems to think it is the middle of July. (She will be cold because she always is).

The boys seem to be able to get it together when it comes to finding things to wear. They just take whatever is hanging together and put it on. They do not have any crazy ideas about fashion.

Sometimes you just have to let them do really dumb stuff and shake your head in amazement at the craziness.

Little Boys

Yesterday was one crazy day around here. When I left to take Hanna to get adjustments made on her orthotics all was well on the home front.

Lauren and the dog were laying in the hammock. She isn`t going to get into much trouble there.

Allen was happily swinging and singing.

Paul and Andrew were loading dandelions into Paul`s dump truck. They both had yellow stuff all over themselves and every now and then Andrew had to be told to take them out of his mouth, but they were little boys playing hard.

Rene` and Angie had things under control and Dad was going to be home shortly so I left for a half hour. When I came home all of the peacefulness was gone. Paul was screaming his head off because he had just walked under the swing and got smacked on the side of the face with Allen`s foot. He needed his mom, a little time to rock, some ice, and a warm washcloth to clean up the blood coming from his lip. He is fine, just a shoe print on the side of the face.

Everyone made it through dinner, showers, and schoolwork before we had the next round of little boy trouble. Andrew was running and fell on his face, biting the inside of his lip. I was holding while his mom was trying to get it to stop bleeding and we could not get it to stop as he had a rather nasty chunk out of the lip so Rene` and Angie took him to Urgent Care to get that fixed.

We had enough little boy action, blood, and trauma for a few days.