busy busy busy!

life is busy. 9 kids have school 5 days a week. 1 kid has school 2 afternoons a week. sophie has therapy 2x a week Ben has therapy at a different 2x a week. add in dentist appointments, piano lessons, house hunting, dishes,grocery shopping, lunch making, sick kids(there is always one it seems), trips to Philly, the neverending mountain of laundry, cooking cooking cooking(because they always seem to be eating eating eating!!!)reading with the kids, getting them all to bed.....all this adds up to....BUSY! I am happy but busy. very very busy.

For Valentines day Eric brought me a dozen red roses. they are very beautiful. I coudlnt find a vase but I sent Jaeger to the basement to look for one. He came back with a BIG canning jar. It worked though! They are really pretty flowers. The girls were all giddy that Daddy brought me flowers. but suddenly their tune changed and they wanted to know why he didnt bring THEM flowers! that made me laugh. Natasha says he was supposed to bring chocolates too and when she grows up SHE will bring me chocolates. Thats my girl!!!

Yesterday was Eric's birthday. In the chaos and rush of having PT and dentist in the same day(each in different cities, and neither in the city we live in) we didnt get to do our yearly crazy surprise. But he chose dinner and cake. I always let the birthday person choose whats for dinner that day(plan ahead!) and what kind of cake they want. so he had his fish dinner and lemon cake and he was happy. the kids all made him cards and snowflakes. The kids get so excited about birthdays. We called my dad as it was his birthday too but he was out to dinner with my brother. We all sang happy birthday on his answering machine. Hope he liked that. the kids sure liked doing it.

Househunting is discouraging. the one house I really really liked is too far away and only has 3 bedrooms. thankfully our realtor is OUTSTANDING in her field and is a really nice person as well. We got our 15 passenger van stuck in a driveway and she helped us get it out. she was a good sport and lay right down on the ground to hook up the tow strap. she had ideas and found shovel and gravel/sand. she thought of everything. but as much fun as we have house hunting with her we have yet to find "it." you know, THE house. "the one" we want to live in forever. When we moved here we liked this house but werent in love by any means. there just were very few choices! Now it seems we are in the same position! but Eric is still pining to build. but we have yet to find a decent property in a good location for a decent price. the market is not "breaking open" yet so we still have no idea where we will be next year.

I am currently in hot pursuit of an evaluation for Andre. the school is fighting tooth and nail. I have acquired an attorney from a group who defends against just such injustice. The school is telling me the child has to be here 3 years before he can be evaluated. that is a load of bull. he needs help in the classroom! his teacher says it! I say it! they poopooh me. GRRRR. I wont roll over and play dead though. I am his mom and this is the first of many times I will have to go to the mat for him. I will do it. he is such a little love. I adore him so much.

so all this busy busy busy is why I dont have a lot of time left to write here! The kids are all great. doing well in school(with the exception of Andre who needs HELP! and Ben who is a bit of a slow learner but is doing more than we expected!) they are all very loving and turning into typical american kids.