Summa time

I have officially fallen into the same downward rarely blogging pattern as some of my favorite bloggers.  Only I'm worse because when I do actually blog, I never put cute pictures in my posts- mostly because I can't figure out how to anymore and I don't have the time to really sit down and figure it out!
Oh well.  I'm busy with my family.  Which isn't a bad thing, right?!

My daughter will be five in two months.  Two months, you guys!  I've had a daughter for almost 5 years!  Our open adoption is going well at this point in time.   I keep telling her birth mom we will go back for a visit the next season or the next year, and before I knew it, it's been almost 5 years that she hasn't seen her baby girl.  I feel bad.  I would be so sad if it was me.  She asks politely every so often when we are planning to visit, but she never pressures me.  I want to go back in September for her birthday and have a birthday party with her birth family and visit the hospital she was born at.  Her birth mom has a new baby....6 month old baby girl who is absolutely beautiful and has the same eyes and smile  as Cami!  Their baby pictures look similar.  I want to go back and visit and get a picture of Cami with all of her sisters.  Her birth mom is doing well- I'm so proud of her and happy for her.  I would love for Cami to have a sister for her to grow up with on a daily basis in the same house, but what can I do?  (Well, I realize we can try to adopt another daughter, but I think we are at the stage in our lives where we are good with our family size.)  My daughter is so darn smart.  I realize everyone thinks their kid is brilliant, and you are not supposed to say it out loud because it's bad manners right?!  lol, but I think I can say it out loud since I had nothing to do with her DNA and how smart she turned out.   The things she says and is aware of at 4 years old continues to amaze me.  I am constantly asking her, "How did you know that?!"  and she just giggles.

Next month I will have a child in 10th, 7th, 4th and Pre-K.  What the heckie?!  How did that happen already?  I will lose my sh*t and become a blubbering mess a year from now when my baby is heading off to kindergarten!  So emotional!  For now I'll enjoy her last year before official school starts.  This summer has been so busy.  Lots of camps and Hawaii and my 2nd son made the Little League All Star team!  He was the new kid in town since we moved her last year and he made the team!  It was so fun and the coaches were amazing and the kids were great.  We lost last night to our old district which is so ironic.  We ended up 4th in the state!  That's cray cray!  4th!  We are a small district, and to field a team that good with a small pool of players is incredible!  :)   Another mom told me there are 118 little league All Star teams in my state, which gets narrowed down to 14 after all the district tournaments.  So then the 14 district teams play at the state tournament which is a double-elimination tournament.  We made it to the top 4!  Our old district won again tonight, so they play in the championship game tomorrow night!  Whoever would have thought I'd become such a crazy baseball mom?!  ;)  School starts back up in a week and a half.  I still have back-to-school stuff to do.....like get backpacks!  I tried to get them new Un.der Arm.our backpacks (their favorite) in June, and they didn't have any out yet!

I haven't blogged because I've been busy with my family, but also there hasn't been anything super interesting to report.  The BIL and I have made up lol so no drama there.  It's been nice actually.  I don't need the extra stress.  His daughter (technically their cousin, but in name only) still pretends my kids don't exist but I've given up my crusade to get everyone to acknowledge how truly wrong this is.  My kids don't care.  One day they finally told me they don't care at all if she ignores them or not.  Out of the mouths of babes.  Honest to a fault.  I was like, "What?!?!"  So as it turns out, I've been wasting so much energy on trying to get her to have a relationship with her cousins, and it was all for nothing.  At least my kids don't care and their feelings aren't hurt.   Speaking of cousins, my darling nephew is getting baptized next month and I'm going to be his Godmother!!  I'm so excited!  My brother is the Godfather to 3 of my kids.  The BIL is the Godfather to my 4th kid- ironic..... (and he is not the Godfather to the kid he and his wife and kid ignored.)  Today one of the in-law's relatives sent me a friend request on Facebook.... I just had to laugh because after the drama happened a few years ago, I found out she was talking smack about me.  I haven't accepted her request....

It is so hot here.  We are just trying to get thru the summer without melting away!  HA! Cami had her dance recital last month....it was a tap dance to Splish Splash....OMG it was so cute!  She did great and was so darling up there on stage!  She is really into gymnastics and is doing well.  Josh loves doing flips- front flips, backflips, roundoffs, cartwheels anywhere and everywhere including the baseball field (YIKES!) so he wants to take a boys' gymnastics/NIN.JA class when school starts.  These are the 3 things he keeps bugging me to let him do:  baseball club team (which he already does), boys' gymnastics class, and piano lessons!  He is an interesting kid!  Zack is a high schooler/ typical teenager who wants nothing to do with his parents.  Sigh... this too shall pass!  HA!  ;)

All 4 kids had a good school year considering it was our first year down here after we moved last summer.  Big changes for all of us and they handled it well.  Academically they did well (Jacob made the National Junior Honor Society and got straight A's all year! His school is really hard and an A is 94%.  A 93% is a B!!!)  Zack got inducted into Key Club - it's a service organization.  They all made really nice friends this year, and so did I!  :)  I asked them last month who wants to move back to our old town and none of them raised their hand!

Wishing everyone a great school year this fall, and to those who aren't in school or have kids in school at this time, sending wishes for the next season of life to be great!