Feeling some stress....

Well, the summer is not going as planned as far as my daycare goes. I was pretty excited as the school year was coming to an end because I was going to have a full house all summer long (I lose three families every summer because the parents are teachers so my summers tend to be slow). That excitement has turned to worry and now stress....I'd say the problems with the economy have hit me. I have a handful of families who have either lost their job or have been laid off within the past week so I am now bringing in about 1/3 of what I was. Not good on the checkbook! I could easily take on more kids, but that would put me over the number of children I'm allowed to have once school starts back up because those three teacher's families will be back (not to mention that two of those three families have new babies!). It's sort of impossible to find families that need summer-only care. So we just need to get through the summer......I just keep telling myself that it will all work out. It just stinks to be so ahead of the game financially to being back to worrying about paying bills on time. It doesn't help that we now have braces to pay for and that Kiegan's sessions are no longer covered by insurance and are completely out-of-pocket! But this is life right??

Ok - I'm done with the "poor, poor me" crap! My Aunt Leslie called this morning to let me know that my Grandma's sister - Mary Ellen - passed away last night. This is my dad's side of the family and I have such great memories of Aunt Mary! Before my dad passed, we use to have game night on Saturday nights at my Dad/Grandma's house and Aunt Mary was such a hoot!! She hadn't been well for quite a few years due to Alzheimer's and Aunt Leslie said that she had really taken a turn for the worse here recently so as sad as it is that she has passed, it's also a blessing because she is no longer suffering.

Now that the stress of it all is over - I can talk about the situation with my mom! She recently had a procedure done in Blm. and on the way home she suddenly passed out (my step-dad was driving). So he took her straight to the Pontiac hospital and they decided to keep her overnight for observation. Not sure if many people REALLY know how I handle stuff like this since my dad died, but I don't really handle it well - yet I also don't let people know that I'm not handling well. I just keep to myself and push it all to the back of my head. I have this amazing ability to just ignore situations like this and go on as though everything's just fine or I just crack jokes about it to lighten the situation. Kind of odd....so I've been pretty stressed over this b/c my mom is SO NOT suppose to get sick....ever. While they had her in the hospital, they took some pictures of her heart and did a stress-test or something as well. They found a "cold spot" in her heart that is a possible sign of blockage. (I think I'm getting this all right.) So they let her go home, but wanted her to see a heart specialist who ended up wanting to do an angiogram to check for blockage. Well, that was done today and there was NO BLOCKAGE FOUND! Talk about RELIEF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm just not sure how I would do if something had been found to be wrong with her. She's my bestest friend.

Ok - onto happier stuff now - seriously Heather! This past weekend I took Lexi & Kiegan over to my friend, Shannon Vincent's house. Shannon is a VERY artistic person who is bothered by the fact that our schools are getting rid of art class and has taken it upon herself to provide some sort of art for kids in town. Her first class was on tye dye and Lexi & Kiegan loved it! They were each able to tye dye a shirt for themselves and I also found a couple of Maddie's shirts that were stained and they each took one to tye dye for her too. They look pretty awesome! I'm curious to find out what her next class is going to be about!!

Maddie also had her first Kindermusik class on Saturday - she did so great! There were probably 10 kids or so in the class and I'd say she was one of the youngest there. The whole class is based on dancing or moving to the music with meaning. The class started with an opening "Hello" song where we went around and sang hello to each child and did a different movement (tap your legs, clap your hands, etc.). The theme is "Zoo Train" so that day's class focused on elephants and we had to march like elephants and swing our trunks (arms) to the music. We also had to all walk in a circle and do certain movements, the instructor had boxes of musical instruments for the kids to use and at one point she put a blanket in the center of the room for the kids to sit on while she read a story. Maddie participated in every bit of it! The only problem I had with her was that she kept wanting to whip her musical instruments across the room. I'm excited for the next class though!

We also had Jake Dronenberg & Brianne Harris' wedding to go to Saturday night. We didn't make it to the wedding, but we went to the reception and waited and waited and waited which is not easy to do when you have an almost 18-month old with you! Travis was going to give the bridal party 15 more minutes to show up and then we were going to leave. Of course they showed up! So we stayed to eat....or should I say throw our food down our throats and then we headed home. Maddie had been patient long enough!

I think in a couple of weekends we are going camping at Jellystone Campground in Amboy with the Blaetz's. Of course I am having a very difficult time thinking that this is an ok thing to do given our current financial situation this summer, but I can't always convince others to see things my way! I know the kids will have a BLAST - they have so much there for them to do! Three pools, waterslides, paddle boats, fishing, crafts, etc. I'm just having a hard time with the fact that we are bringing our own camper to stay in yet we have to pay almost $60/night to camp there. Oh well....I can't be a Debbie Downer! LOL

I finally found the memory card for my camera and there were some great old pictures on there so I'll post some on here!

Good night all! It's 10:00 and I'm heading to bed....