July, already?

I just realized how far behind I am on this blog! Yikes :) We had a great weekend celebrating the 4th of July with family. We videotaped but I don't think we remembered to take any pictures! Lynn and Dean spoiled us with dinner and a great birthday party for Camille on Friday night--Happy Birthday, Camille! On Saturday, we were spoiled again with a BBQ at Minnie and Papa's house. Great food ALL WEEKEND LONG. Thank you all for having us over.

I got to work Sunday through Tuesday--actually, it feels like all I've done is work from Sun-Tue (13 hours Sun, 8 hours Mon and 15 hours yesterday) so I haven't gotten much else done. I have today off (and Friday) so I can't complain. I am on call this weekend though so we will be sticking close to Columbia. Luckily, I have the best husband in the world and he's been taking care of the girls and all the other activities.

Jocelyn's last night of summer dance class was on Monday. We have enrolled her for the school year as well, but she gets a break for now. Livi's geneticist called last week and said that she should come in for some repeat testing to check her heart for abnormalities in the blood vessels surrounding it. She was tested 2 years ago and it was all fine, but since then, they have seen 4 kids at the hospital with the duplication and 2/4 have a dilated aorta. He wants to follow up again just to make sure nothing has changed in the past 2 years. While we hate to have to think about something being wrong, I truly feel this is a routine check at this point. I haven't seen any signs or symptoms to suggest that Livi is having problems with her heart. Better safe than sorry though...

I received a call from Livi's teacher at summer school last week. It was a great call and she said that Livi is doing a wonderful job at school. She feels that if Olivia will spend an hour in the AM and an hour in the PM with her during the school year to learn reading and math that she will be doing quite well with her peers. Many of you know that the question of Livi's school status is a big unknown at this point. When Jocelyn was starting Kindergarten, we transferred out of our home school district and into another. Usually, the second child receives an automatic transfer, but because of Livi's needs, it is uncertain whether or not she will get it. The school Josie attends does not have as many options for special needs as our home school. We spoke with the principal at Josie's school and after the conversation, we were pretty certain that our home district would be the school that Olivia would attend. We lucked out that the summer school teacher Livi has now just happens to be the special ed teacher at Josie's school. Livi and the teacher have really hit it off and are doing very well together. The teacher meets with the principal next week and feels that Livi will be fine attending Josie's school. While I know we are taking a bit of a risk enrolling her in a school that doesn't have as much support, it is very important for Livi's success that she has a good relationship with her teacher. When Olivia doesn't really like her teacher, there are a lot of behavior problems and Livi won't cooperate. With this teacher, she is already demonstrating skills leaps and bounds ahead of where she was a month ago. Her teacher said that Livi is the peer model in the class right now and is much smarter than what her evaluations have demonstrated. We are hopeful that this will be a good situation and that the girls will get to attend the same school.

Swimming lessons are tonight. Jocelyn is really getting to be a very graceful swimmer. I don't know that she'll be a fast swimmer, but she sure looks good doing it. She is also a bit of a natural for dance class. We need to work on her timing, but she's certainly a showman and could probably teach a class on shaking her bottom and facial expression :)