We're ok

After my last post, many are wondering how we are doing. We are doing ok. We still miss the girls, but we have been able to talk to them on the phone a few times and that has helped. The first week was the hardest. They didn't call that week like they had told us they would, so we weren't sure if their mom was upset with us or if we would ever get to talk to them. But now that we have talked to them a couple times, that worry is gone. We still feel their absence and John and I are still being thrown for a loop when we are out and trying to count 7 kids to make sure we have everyone. You only get  to 4 and then you freak out for a second until you remember. That will probably take awhile to get used to. Little things are still catching us off guard. Thankfully, the last time I talked to their mother, she let us know that she talked to the staff at the place she's at and they said that because we are the girls' DHS approved foster family, we have permission to come get them anytime we want. We can pick them up and take them out and visit and then bring them back. So we have a plan to go up there on the 15th and take the girls to Chuck E Cheese. The youngest one turns 2 on the 14th, so it will be a birthday celebration. The Chuck E Cheese in that city has gluten free pizza and cupcakes, so we'll all be able to enjoy ourselves. We are very much looking forward to seeing them again.

It's been two weeks now since they left. We took a little break from school, but we are back at it full swing now. We got the yard under control and cleaned up. It's been a little messy because John had a big project going on over the summer. We bought a swingset awhile back that had a lot of rotten wood. We got a really good price on it, but John had to rebuild a lot of it to make sure the frame was sturdy. This required buying wood from the store, planing it down to the right size, rounding the corners, staining it, and then drilling the holes for the hardware on each piece he rebuilt. It took A LOT of time! But he wanted to do it this way because he wanted to use this as a project to teach the boys woodworking skills. I must say it worked. They all know a lot more than they did at the beginning of the summer. They got to the point where John could say, "While I'm at work today, I want you to take apart the slide, clean it, sand all the wood down, and then stain it. If you get that done, I'll attach the slide to the playset when I get home." And they'd do it! So it's been slow going, as the children are always our priority and the playground only gets worked on if there is available time. But it's finally up and they have been having fun playing on it. The only things left to do are to fix up the fort that goes on top of the monkey bars and attach the big twisty slide to it, as well as build the roof for the main section. Here are some pics:

Oh yeah....lookin' fine.

Taking the slide apart---daddy homework assignment

Ta-da!!

No need to go to the zoo to see monkeys....

The other thing that really needed to get done was giving the garden some TLC and doing some canning. As I said, the children are the priority, so there hasn't been a lot of free time for things that take hours and hours to get done (like homemade spaghetti sauce). So we froze a lot of stuff and planned to deal with it as we could. After many hours in the kitchen, I'm finally caught up. I have my homemade bone broth stocked up again, a year's worth of homemade spaghetti sauce (we eat spaghetti once a week), lots of strawberry jam from our very first year of having berries (made with honey instead of sugar), salsa, lots of frozen peppers and okra, dried peppers, and homemade chili powders. John also pickled some okra and made half of that spaghetti sauce. I'm working on getting some of the pumpkins pureed now, but thankfully they will keep for awhile. So that's what I have been up to. 

These are only a few of our peppers. Our peppers went nuts this year, which was exciting for us because we've never had a good crop before.

We froze this goodness back in June and finally made it into jam last week.

This is only some of it!

I've also been working on taking the continuing education courses necessary for our foster care license renewal, as well as for my group exercise fitness certification (still teaching Zumba through it all). That stuff can take up a lot of time, so now that I know how busy life can be with extra kids around, I decided that I'll knock out what I can when I don't have extra kids here (especially while we were on the school break).

I have been absolutely exhausted since the girls left. I was really tired while they were here, but even more so after they left and that surprised me. I thought I'd be less tired after they left. I do think a good amount of my exhaustion was related to constantly pouring myself out for them and their mother. I have done some research and talked to some others and I think that has lead to adrenal fatigue. I totally fit the symptoms. So I am taking some natural supplements to help correct that and they are already making a difference. I am also working on getting lots of rest.

John is harvesting now. Things have been going smoothly for the most part, so that's always nice. We're still praying the price of corn goes up. That's the crop he has this year and the corn prices are really low right now. The boys have been taking turns going to work with him on Saturdays. They just love that. What boy wouldn't love riding in the combine? This one certainly enjoys it. :)

Selfie by Nathanael

Micah taking a moisture level reading for dad on some harvested corn.

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Over the summer, we had Micah officially tested for dyslexia. I have had suspicions for several months, but wasn't completely sure. I have been praying about what I was seeing in him because I didn't know what it was. Dyslexia is so much more than I ever realized, and he had many of the symptoms. There were things I had seen and taken note of, but had not realized were all related and that they pointed to dyslexia -things like difficulty learning to tie shoes, continually writing capital letters in the middle of words (beyond second grade), and lots of ear infections as a child. I wouldn't have put those things all together. He has the classic letter and number reversal issue too. But God is faithful and he began putting certain people and events in my path that opened my eyes. He even brought us a wonderful lady who was willing to test him at a discount because the testing is out of our price range. The diagnosis is moderate to severe dyslexia. I already knew it before we had the official results, but actually hearing it from a professional still hurt my heart. And it's nice knowing that yes, this is what we are dealing with. So now I can tailor my teaching to fit his needs better. This lady also does dyslexia tutoring, but never once pushed her services on me. She truly just wanted to help us. She was such a Godsend. She highly recommended a special reading and spelling program that I could do at home with Micah. She said it was set up for people without dyslexia training to use at home on their own. I think she automatically knew that as a homeschooler, I was going to want to help him myself. Lol! But she told me that most teachers are not taught about dyslexia. It is not a part of the education courses at most US colleges. So I'm not any less prepared to help him through this than a certified teacher. In fact, I know more than many of them do because of the amount of research I've done and the number of workshops I have attended. That was nice to hear. She is part of a movement to make a course in dyslexia a part of every college's teacher education program, as one in five people have dyslexia. Sadly, many go undiagnosed and just think they are stupid their entire lives. Each level of the program she told me about comes with a training dvd. So right now I am working on getting through the training so we can start the program. I have read so many wonderful testimonials online about this program on a variety of websites, so I am excited to use it. It's supposed to be one of the best and it is what is used in many dyslexia tutoring centers. We actually watched some trial lessons online when I was trying to figure out what I was going to do and Micah asked me to please use this one because he liked the trial lessons. He keeps asking me if I'm doing the training yet, because he's eager to get started! So it's a journey as I try to figure out the best way to help him, but God is so faithful and He knows the needs of my child. Just as he did for another special needs learner of mine, God has been showing me what to do and how to do it. He did, after all, create Micah and therefore knows him and his needs better than I do!

So that's the update for now. We are back in the "pot" for foster placements now, but who knows when the next child or children will come. I'll let everyone know when we have new friends again.

Sorry I didn't post a lot of photos this summer. I can't put anything with the girls' faces online and most of my pictures from the summer have them in them.

Ok, back to my training dvds.......