Fun Summer and Now Back To School!

Things have been pretty quiet over the summer. As Anna would say, "Aahhh faster". She says this when something is over quickly - like summer vacation. The girls have enjoyed bike rides on the trail, swimming, fishing, local fairs, picnics, and collecting eggs from our chickens. The girls have really enjoyed helping in the gardens this year. Anna actually loves pulling weeds. There was a stretch of time when we were pulling weeds everyday for weeks and weeks. We had a few weeks off from pulling weeds. Today she told Phil, "All the time, no pull weeds, can I go pull weeds?"  Uhh, yea go pull weeds. The both pulled weeds for about 45 minutes. Anna had a pile of weeds in no time that was huge. She will have dirt on her from head to toe and Mia won't have any dirt on her. She doesn't pick as fast but she is the neatest one.
We have also enjoyed several camp fires at night in our own back yard including smores and watching a meteor shower. The girls weren't too keen on scary stories but once they got the hang of them and could reason that the stories are not real they started to enjoy them. I started out by telling them nursery rhyme stories (The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks, Little Red Riding Hood). Then we got into a little more scary stories. We have corn fields on all sides so the sounds of the wind blowing through the fields are scary all on their own, now add coyotes howling a little ways from the house and things get real interesting. We told the girls not to make any sound and just listen, Anna looks over at Phil and asks him if he is sleeping. I told her that he was not asleep because he wasn't snoring. A few seconds later and he is snoring up a storm. She runs over and pinches his nose and whispers to him, "The coyotes will hear you, you have to be quiet." They have really grown tall and Mia has really gained much needed weight. We are still working on putting weight on Anna. She has two things against her, a high metabolism and she doesn't absorb all the protein that she eats. She can eat at one meal as much as Phil and I do combined. I kid you not - the child can eat and eat and a few moments after a meal she will ask when she can have a snack. We are even asking the school to add another snack or additional main course at lunch just to keep her from being so hungry.

Both girls are back to school and adjusting. Anna received 5 green stars this week and Mia is also doing well in class. We didn't get called once for behavior this week. I think that may be a record. We have requested IEP's for each one and are hoping that they can start testing the girls for mental and cognitive developmental delays. We also think they may both have a learning disability. When I went back through all of Mia's early years I read that she did not talk until she was three and that she did have cognitive delays. They had the younger children doing everything for her because "the younger children were aware of her limitations". Nice. No wonder she lets Anna do everything for her and Anna even makes simple decisions for her. Mia's teacher is working on making her more independent at school and we have always worked on this at home. Sounds good on paper but in reality she needs a lot of reminders until she gets it down. Both girls will still need extensive English classes (one on one). They have come a long way since coming home and we are all able to relax more now. We have all got into our routines and things aren't as stressful.

Watching the bobber - what patience!

Too intense to sit in the chair after catching 7 fish! Awesome!

Untangling my line for the second time - Ugh.

I caught 4 fish my first time ever!

New Kitten!

The neighbor stopped by and asked us if we had lost a kitten. He had a 5 week old, orange and white kitten in his hands but not for long. Anna came right up to him and asked if she could have her! He said he had about 12 kittens that were not weened as of yet and we were welcomed to have this one. She has long hair and is really playful. Are plans were to bring home two kittens at the same time so they could both have one but it didn't work that way. We had a contact who had seven kittens and would be available at the end of June. Now we only needed one more kitten from them instead of two.
The girls are given 5 minutes each to hold the kitten and then the kitten gets 15 - 20 to play by herself! We actually set a timer so everyone is happy, including the kitten!

Sorry to say the kitten is no longer with us. We are not sure just what happened to her but we let her outside to play with the girls like we do everyday and we havn't seen her since. Maybe we will wait another year before trying it again.

On a good day when they like each other!!

First little kitten!

One girl is usually mad when the other one has the kitten!