Amber in India

Hello. my mom just asked me what we were doing to stay busy while oliver is gone. here is what i told her:

• i just put j & j in their rooms for throwing tomatoes at each other in the house.
• mckay just asked me if he could open a lemonade stand. i think he wants a xbox... but that will never happen in this house.
• natalya just ate almost a whole tub of frozen cool whip. she still wants to change her clothes every ten mintues, but is getting better. she is so smart, and i think she is bored all the time. she makes so many messes that i dont know what to do with her. yesterday alone, she smeared toothpaste ALL OVER the bathroom counters and mirror, threw all of the house keys (about 50) all over the living room, and threw about 10 temper tantrums. any suggestions on how to entertain her? reading and play-doh aren't cutting it anymore.
• ryan just let me rock him in the rocker for 30 minutes. he goes "duh duh duh duh duh duh" and thinks he is talking. he may be our cutest kid. he loves to read books with me, and loves to cuddle, until he decides he is finished.
• joel broke his glasses last week, so i had the lenses put in new frames that i thought were blue, but they are in fact purple.
• i took all 5 kids to dinner by myself on friday, and they were good.
• jared and joel won their little league game yesterday, and both had several hits and 2 runs.
• jared told me his tooth hurt on friday, and i looked at it, and it looks bad. i took him in on saturday morning, and he might need a root canal. that kid has the worst teeth. he went in to the dentist 5 months ago, and had no cavities, but the time before that he had 6. the dentist thought that one of his old fillings fell out, and that it just rotted from there. good thing my other kids don't have bad teeth, or the dentist might think i never make them brush their teeth.
• i just bought a million paper mache christmas ornaments.
• i cleaned the house all night last night so i wouldn't have to do it on sunday. i have decided that i am a crazy lady when i try to get the kids to clean, and so i'm going to just do it myself for awhile until i can get a hold of myself. peace in the home might be worth more than kids that can clean. and they can clean (they do chores every day), just not as well as i can.
• now the kids are watching veggie tales, which I have decided is sunday viewing material. shhh.

by the way, the first picture is of stoned street kids that i saw on the train tour that i took the other day. i had arranged it for my father in law go on, but since they went to leh a day early, i went with a friend who hadn't been. we also took 2 boys from the branch, and they delivered about 50 church hygiene kits that they assembled to the group that helps to get these kids off the street. the kids were getting high sniffing right in front of us. so sad. amber