Cousins and updates on us

I watch 3 of my nieces about 4x a week. Their mom, Jim's sister - Susie, works for Jim at his office as his assistant, and has really been a help for him. So I help her out and watch her kids. They're really good girls -- easy to watch, really. Today for fun I braided (almost) all of the girls' hair (except for Lissy & Brittany). I have no knack for hair fixing at all, and fortunately, my girls don't usually want anything special done -- just brushing and a barrette. But I liked the braids I put in and couldn't help but take pictures of the girls, so humor me a little and check them out!
Lissy on floor, Michelle, Lori, Kira, Brynna, Kate


As to other news: Kate's doing better with school; she's had some anxiety issues and it was a struggle to even get her out of the car and to class. I started walking her to class about 2 weeks ago, and she's doing better now. I made a happy chart for her -- she gets to put a sticker on the day that she goes happily to school and when she has 5 in a row; I'll give her 50 cents to buy a treat. It seems to be helping -- she's walked to class without any problems for a week. I think she's getting used to school finally.

Brynna's doing well. She's careful about her outfits and hair for school - wants to look just right, but seems to always be happy about how she looks. (Compared to last year when she'd cry about how terrible she looked after looking in a mirror - "What??? You're freaking 5 years old -- you're too young for that!"). We've been growing her bangs out since this summer, and I really do like them parted on the side and held back with a barrette.

Kira enjoys having her cousin, Lori, come every day to play. Lori's about 7 months older than Kira -- they play really well together -- almost never argue or fight. Kira follows me everywhere in the mornings chattering my ear off till Brynna comes home from school or Lori comes over. She likes playing with her stuffed animals and makes believe with them all the time while narrating what they're doing to me or whoever else is around.

Lissy is walking everywhere now - I don't think she ever crawls anymore! She's still pretty unsteady, definitely toddling, but she keeps going. I finally figured out a schedule of naps for her between all the pickings up of the girls. She still gets 2 naps a day, but the 2nd one is maybe an hour -- she's sleeping through the night now, too, I'm happy to say. She's my mess maker -- empties cupboards, drawers, puts things in the toilet if someone forgets to shut the lid or bathroom door. She doesn't care about toys, except to throw them. She's learned how to climb up on the couch, and likes to throw things down behind it. If I can't find something, it's probably behind the couch. She's a cutie, though, and a happy baby.

Oh, and Jim's an assistant coach of our high school's freshman football team (as a side job) and he loves it. Really loves it. This is his favorite time of the year -- he told me he likes football season more than Christmas. Funny.

As for me, well, I've been spending way too much time on the computer -- I keep revising my playlist, and then listening to it every time I'm on the computer or near it - haha. And trying to keep the house clean is kind of a full-time job with 4 kids; well, 7 kids a lot of the time. Eh, just keeping busy with the kiddies.

Well, if you made it this far -- you're good. Sorry, there's nothing really interesting to blog about...