updates and craziness

I haven't been a very good blogger lately, I know.

But I've been busy!

Charlize is loving preschool.

She is making friends (Emma, in particular!), learning new songs, and learning how to behave in a group.

She had a meltdown last week during playground time but hasn't had any issues since then.

It's a little crazy in the mornings around here.

Rayce is not a morning person.

At all.

Getting him up usually involves dragging him off the bed and hiding all the pillows and blankets.

Getting him dressed and ready usually involves threats of various severity, from being grounded from the TV to writing his teacher a note to say he wasn't dressed so I'm sorry he had to go to school in his PJ's.

Some days I end up dressing him myself because I'm just sick of yelling.

Then getting him to get his socks and shoes on and brush his teeth and get his backpack ready....

let me say again that mornings are crazy.

I'm not used to having to have all of us up, dressed, fed, and ready to GO in the mornings.

But I have to be showered and dressed, and all 3 kids have to be dressed, hair fixed (girls hair takes about 15 minutes just to get it wet, brushed, and put up in pony tails), fed (Rayce and Charlize are not good morning eaters, it's a struggle to get them to eat more than a few bites, but I don't want them to go hungry), 2 backpacks and snacks together....

Ugh.

I don't like mornings.

But, somehow we've done it, every morning for the last 2 weeks.

Yay!!

I've been trying to get things done around the house but usually not much actually gets done, or stays done.

By the time Liliya and I get home from dropping Charlize off, my sister drops Melissa off, I try to spend a little time with Liliya (counting, coloring, cutting paper, or just playing), I get a thing or two done around here in between meeting Melissa's demands, then it's time to go pick Charlize up again, have lunch, and put the kids down for naps (and sometimes put myself down for one as well!)!

By the time naptime is done, Rayce will be home any minute, then it's homework, dinner, bath, and bed.

The days are flying by.

I feel like I have no time at all.

It's crazy.

We're just beginning our new modified visitation schedule with Holden and Dante. This is our first week.

I'll have them every other weekend now.

The week following a visitation weekend, I'll have them Thursday from 315-7, and the week following a non-visitation weekend, I'll have them Monday from 315-7, to spread out the visits more regularly.

I do miss them, already.

But this is just the way it has to be, for the time being, so I can get stuff done and *enjoy* all the kids more and have more than half a day per week to slow down a little bit. Now I get two whole days every other weekend to slow down.

I think it will work out well, even though I do miss them. We'll all get used to the new and different schedule within a few weeks.

Other than all that...

I've got two photoshoots coming up in the next couple weeks, I'm excited :o)

That's all, folks!!

Melissa needs something or other, and it's naptime for my girly girls and laundry time for Mama!!