My ex and I had decided to forgo birthday parties and take BD and a friend to an amusement or water park for her birthday instead. We have done this for that last few years becuase parties always turned to to be expensive disasters. For those of you that have read my previous blogs, you know how bad CS is draining us dry and how I am having such a hard time adjusting to having an extra 3 people (SK's) to drag with us anytime we want to do something extra. The extra cost, the working around everyones schedules including BM. It makes me want to pull my hair out but DH wants to include his kids as much as possible and I understand that. So I had to cancel my daughters birthday party this month becuase CS went went up after BM quit her job to have her new hubby's baby and be a stay at home mom. Theres no way we can afford to take her and a friend and all 3 sk's. We are so broke we are boucing car payments and havn't even been able to go grocery shopping in two weeks. I am about to bail, I have so had it with this. I don't know how to get us out of this mess. So my parents offered to pay to get everyone to the water park (it's like $22/person) so BD dosn't have to suffer, thank god for them!

I don't know how I am going to make it through this summer. SD (14) insists she is bisexual and BM is not having any of it. It goes against her beliefs as a southern baptist and she is forcing SD to go to bible studies and church camps all summer. Lots of tension going on in that house. DH doesn't like how BM is raising the kids and wants to take them 50%. We agreed that if we had them 50% we wouldn't pay child support.

I saw a post on here recently discussing whether to put the kids or the marriage first and why. There were so many great responses and I can't find it anymore. I wanted some others opinions the subject for a discussion I was having if any of you wouldn't mind posting your thoughts on the topic.

I haven't had to post on here for a while. Things have been surprisingly well lately. We made it on our lake trip with my family. All 3 SK's came with. They cut the trip short because of school obligations, but behaved most of the time and we all had fun. We didn't have them for the next 2 weeks so things have been smooth for a while now. So BM approached DH about taking the kids every other week again. I think he is starting to consider it. We had decided that is wasn't affordable for us after we pay her full child support. She refused to come down on child support even if she only had them half the time so we stuck with the every other weekend plan we have now. DH is going to call CS tomorrow to see what he can do if if is keeping the kids 50%. I don't think either should pay anything if they are both caring 50%.

to DH about his kids behavior and it felt good! We are going to this lake house with my family this weekend and he said he was a little nervous about spending the weekend with my family. I told him he would be fine, they love him. I was more worried about having the kids there all weekend becuase they just don't behave. He stopped, said they really arn't that bad, and left for work kinda mopey like I had hurt him. I knew he would be upset if I said something, but it has been bulding up and I had to let him know how much it is bothering me. He honeslty thinks it isn't that bad, I think he is trying to compensate for the fact that they are dealing with a lot of changes and that makes it ok to act out sometimes. The other night I had mentioned something about how badly SD13 treats SS6 and he just says, "I know, and I don't know what to do about it".

I let him know how upset I was that he goes out of his way to help BM at our expense whenever she needs it. He decided to take the night off from work to keep his kids so BM could take a class on short notice. I felt like Bm was taking advantage of him as she told him he would be the reason she loses her job if she can't get to the class. I was livid as it is not our resposiblity to care for the children on her time. She fought us bad for full custody of the kids and as I see it, if she wants it...let her have it. But she better be prepared to take care of them full-time.

BM insists on blaming DH for everything that goes worng in her life. He is on call for work every other week and cannot keep the kids. This is an agreement they have had since they seperated over a year ago. She insists on using him as a babysitter for her convienence. She has some class to be at for work one night this week and wants DH to keep the kids... He can't. He is on call this week, she knows this. She throws a temper tantrum and lays a major guilt trip telling him he will be the reason she loses her job. Mind you she is 7 months pregnant and about to quit her job anyway and married to a new guy that apparently wont help watch the kids either. What is with this woman! She already rapes us with child support and then throws a fit when she can't take care of the kids.

First of all has anyone ever noticed how weird the word bleach looks? K, maybe thats just me.... So some of you may have read my earlier blogs about how my life is so unpleasent when the SK's are with us, or how I can't stand SD13 and SS6's behavior.

Does anyone else feel in the way when the step kids are there? We have been keeping DH's 13 & 14 year old daughters and 6 year old son every other weekend since we moved in together about 3 months ago.

Anyone have advise on what to do with old pictures that have the ex in them? I scrapbook and have 1000's of pictures. Alot of them have my ex in them. I don't want to make my new husband uncomfortable, but alot of them are great pics with me or my daughter in them.

Summer's coming and it's the first one with my new hubby. We have his 3 kids, 6, 13 & 14 every other weekend. BM is actually suggesting that we switch to every other week for the summer (I'm sure this is for her benefit more than anything else). Of course we will still be paying her child support to care for the kids full-time and while she only has them half the time. So we will barely be able to afford to have them every other week. Don't you love how that works out.

My DH has 3 kids with his ex. 2 girls (13&14) and 1 boy (6). The 13 year old is constantly antagonizing 6 year old. She is very controling in the sense that she will take something from her brother and hold it away from him until he sits calmly to get it back. This upsets SS and as he's had to deal with this daily most of his life he gets very frustrated and will start hitting his sister. SD will continue to hold whatever it is away until he sits calmly and then gives it back. She starts the problem, then tries to control it by keeping the object away from SS untill he calms down. If SS hits or kicks her int he process, she will hit or kick back harder and blame it on he did it first. It's ridiculous to watch and it happens multiple times a day. Sometimes when my daughter is together with SK's, SD will do it to both of them.

I have one daughter(7), DH has 3, SS(6), SD's (13&14). DH had a vasectomy during his last marriage. We have talked about a reversal but they are horribly expensive, talking $5000-$10,000 and are NOT covered by insurance. My ex and I were never able to concieve either (my daughter is from a previous relationship).

So its spring break for the SK's and BM had to work, so DH took his week of vacation to spend time with them. Normally DH has them every other weekend and sometimes less since BM likes to throw temper tantrums over things she doesn't "agree" with and sometimes keeps the kids from coming for petty reasons.

Ok, we rearranged our Easter weekend to keep SK's for BM since she decided to get married on friday although it wasn't our weekend or holiday to keep them. We love any chance we get to spend with them so this wasn't a big deal, just the fact that we were doing her a favor.