Karyn, when I tell people how easily my skin breaks out in rash when I experiment with different creams, lotions, deodorants, shampoos, conditioners, etc., they always say "you have such sensitive skin" as if my skin was "delicate". Bottom line is I have lousy skin so most likely Prep H would also make me break out and not remove one single wrinkle, LOL! I know some say Prep H is good for puffy eyes, but I haven't tried it or personally know of anyone that has. Good one Hong, LOL!

Ok, portrait aside...I think there is a bigger problem. Why are you calling all the shots? Have you asked your siblings if they even want to be in the picture and what they think about who should be in it and what you are doing? Get on the phone and ask them... I would never just arrange to have a pic with me and my siblings without going over with them who would be in it, etc. I think it's the fact that you appear to be controlling everything and everyone that may be the real problem. "Your plan" really doesn't matter if it brings heartache to any one family, marriage or wife. It really doesn't matter how many photos you've gone through or how much better or easier the pic would look with just you six. If you are hurting someone, you need to rethink your options. And I gotta tell you from a traditional etiquette standpoint, not including spouses can be kind of harsh... they are either considered part of the family or they are not. I think it's naive to think you're not gonna ruffle some feathers. Although your idea may be best...you didn't allow others who should have had a say in it, vote, so now not only is it not the best idea but hardly anyone will be happy with it. Back to the drawing board...

lol, I picked her up from school yesterday and we went back to her class to get her backpack & binder. I asked, 'you have everything?' and she said yes. Later, after 5pm she tells me she forgot her spelling words in her desk. Well, Wednesday is the night they have to put spelling words in alphabetical order and write them three times each. She knew this but I wasn't thinking about it, we had been at the doctor's office & radiology all afternoon, but she brought it up. She said she guesses she can't do her spelling since school is out. My first thought was she did it on purpose and I wanted to call her on it. I didn't. I thought about it for a while and a couple miles down the road, I said that when we get home, she can call her friend that's in her class and ask for the spelling words. She claimed she didn't know her phone number but I told her I do. When we got home, I double checked her binder and the usual spelling list wasn't there but the spelling words were. I found a loophole... the teacher sends home an optional sheet on Fridays. It's an activity they can do over the weekend and at the bottom, it gives the next weeks spelling words so they can start practicing if they want. Well, of course she was bummed that I found that and proceeded to write them out three times each but not in ABC order. DH had her redo it in ABC order. Then we watched TV for a while. She had a great attitude. Her mom sent DH a text message an hour after she went to bed to have SD call her. He wrote back that she was in bed and if she wants, she can call in the morning before SD leaves for the bus. She called before any of us were up and wanted to talk to SD so I went and got her up. I heard SD telling her about going to the doctor and say her arm doesn't hurt anymore. She started to ask BM how she was doing and then abruptly says ok, I love you too. Bye. BM apparently didn't want to 'chat'. That is the FIRST time BM has called SD in a very long time, I can't remember the last time she called her. The doctor called me a few minutes ago to say the X ray shows no break. He said she probably pulled a muscle if she fell on her hands playing on the trampoline. There's not much to do for it, he said to apply heat and showed us how to stretch the muscle. It will resolve itself in a few days if she rests it. and I do agree that some lying... about school work or brushing teeth, etc. are common at her age. I don't know if it's normal or alarming, and I understand the lies she tells her mom to get mom's attention, but she is old enough to understand that there are consequences for those kinds of lies when mom gets CPS or the police involved. There could be great consequences for DH and me. I was more concerned with her lying about injuries, being hit, and things she complains to her mom about but doesn't tell us. We don't find out until BM calls DH to chew him out or now, until she calls CPS. SD never complained to us about having to eat foods she doesn't like and when she told DH about her arm, she only mentioned it once and he didn't see a reason to go to the doctor and she never complained to us about it again. And we don't know if SD complained to her mom or if her mom is the one that is asking her if she was seen by the doctor but I don't know why BM would put it on her daughter to get dad to take her to the doctor if SD isn't saying it hurts. I'm probably overly cynical of BM, but I'd say she knows SD fell on the trampoline and got hurt and didn't want to pay for a doctor visit so she told SD to tell dad her arm hurts so he can make sure it wasn't hurt too bad. SD told him a couple of days after coming back from BM's, after she got off the phone with her. BM might have reminded her to ask dad. DH looked at it, and didn't think it was broken and considering SD had gone to cross country and was swinging her arms around earlier, concluded it wasn't too serious. SD never told him she fell down on the trampoline. I'm sure she didn't want to get mom in trouble, although we don't know exactly what happened so it could be an innocent **stuff happens with kids** accident or it could be she was not being supervised and got hurt. We don't know that and we already know BM isn't going to tell us if she did anything wrong. But, when SD came home this last weekend, she did tell DH that she collided with her sister on the trampoline and cut her lip. She said her teeth went into her sister's leg. That was on Sunday and on Monday, she didn't call BM but she did call BM on Tuesday and after she got off the phone, she again told DH that her arm hurt. On Wednesday is when CPS went to the school so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how coincidental it all is. I'll admit that I am pessimistic when it comes to BM. But, I've never been wrong about her actions.. not yet anyways. I have been surprised that she has done some things I've predicted because I honestly was fooled at first and she presented herself as a GREAT mother. But, maybe because of my 'control freak'ness, I noticed little details that went unnoticed by my DH about her. I mean, she did things that I found odd being a mother myself. I went through custody issues with my son's father and we would fight over who gets him more, not who has to take him. She was always asking him to take SD on her weekends but if he ever offered to let her make up the time, she said she was busy. She never asked to makeup the time either. Then, when she refused to help her daughter do a school project, that pretty much sealed my opinion of her... she actually told my husband that if I want to do 'mom' things (like bake cookies, which I guess really upset her) that I can help her with her school project too. Hearing her say that shattered my image of her being a wonderful mom because I can't imagine saying or doing that to my own child. It's been downhill since then and she has aspired to new lows as a mother, in my opinion. The only one I did not see coming was her moving away and giving us custody, that blindsided me because we had just spent several months (and thousands in lawyers) to fight for custody and she fought it so fiercely, I never imagined anything would cause her to give up her daughter so easily. Maybe that is why SD was so affected too, she saw how fiercely her mom fought to keep her, only to be discarded two weeks later for a stranger. (so, yes I have had a hard time not resenting and hating BM for doing that and I need to learn how to let that go, but it's hard)

Thanks so much everyone for your input. I guess one of the reasons I don't want to leave is because I have been in love with this boy since I was 13 years old. He was who I turned to when my parents split, when my dad remarried and all of the sudden I had these 4 step-siblings, when I went through all these growing pains throughout the years. He has been my shoulder to cry on, my rock, etc. And it's not like I haven't dated around. Ha. I've had boyfriends since the 7th grade. And my first year in college I definitely had my party, go out and just meet guys and date and everything phase, and while it was fun, I always felt like there was something missing, and that feeling went away when my BF and I got together. Trust me you guys, I hear all of this from my mom, and while I can see that all of you have a point, I'm going to go with my heart and gut for now. ulrilke1 - I definitely can hear you about the main concern being the baby (I'm going to stick with anonymity from now on). And I have talked to my BF about that - because not only is my concern her getting attached to me...but me getting attached to her. I am a kid freak. I'm studying to be an occupational therapist and I want to specialize in pediatrics. I've nannied, interned in hospital nursuries, etc etc. I LOOOOOVE kids. That's why we've actually went ahead and waited for so long. The few times I have interacted with her have been very short, non-committal, the way his friends act around her. Now we're talking about taking it to a more serious level. sweeby - trust me, I have had those thoughts about whether or not a relationship could truly form between the baby and I because of BM since day one, and I'm very open about them with my BF. From what he has said and what little I have seen, the baby seems very very advanced for her age, and she's eerily good at reading people. The first time I ever met her, she just sat so still and stared at me, which threw me off because I'm used to happy, cuddly babies, or crying ones. The next time, she assessed me for a few minutes, then was happy to let me hold her and gave me her cheek to kiss before I left, and its been that way since. My BF said he is hopeful that her apparent intelligence and ability to read people will benefit her as she grows, and that she will be able to see through her moms histrionics. In addition to that, at BMs house, its her, her mother, stepfather, sister, and brother. From what I can tell, it's the BMs mother who does the majority of the care. In fact, the BMs mom has said she rarely leaves the BM alone with the baby, she prefers to leave the BMs YOUNGER sister with them, and that if the BM ever tried to leave, she wouldn't be leaving with the baby. Essentially, the hope my BF and I have is that with a good support system around the baby, we can cushion the detrimental effects of the BM. Both my BFs and the BMs moms are very involved with the baby, and from what everyone can see, she is happy and doing well, which is a blessing. We're taking it a day at a time. stepmomof4 - I have been doing EXACTLY that. Every time she has IM'd me, i keep a record. Any time she has messaged me, I've kept a record. And thankfully, any interaction between the two of us (and it has been minimal) has been in public places with plenty of witnesses. And it's sad to say, but it's true - she really did tear his life apart. He had all of these friends and he was in a band, and one by one she pushed them out of his life. She made his relationships with his mother and sister very unstable, and he fears that if they hadn't have broken up when they did, he and his mom wouldn't have made it. We honestly think she has either antisocial or borderline personality disorder. Shes one of those people who just plays up emotion to this big level, but when you really look, its very clearly an act. It's as if she acts out emotions because she can't feel them. The two times I have ever had interaction with her are as follows: I had been with my boyfriend for almost two months. I was in his place of work just studying for my finals because I had about a week of break before I had to take them. The night before, we had been at one of his friends houses, and he accidentally left his phone. The friend called me from it when we got home, letting us know he'd bring the phone by later. So I'm sitting and studying when I hear a "Uh oh..." from one of my BFs coworkers. BM comes storming through the door, guns blazing. She was SCREAMING "I have been calling you ALL morning, YOUR CHILD is sick. Blah Blah Blah. Oh (she gestured to me) but I can see that when she's around you just don't care." he kept going on and on and finally a police officer who was eating there forced her to leave. And on her way out she looks right at me and goes "Oh, and he's already cheating on you. I slept with him last week" and I just didn't even grace that with a response, which made her even more angry. The second time was over this past summer. She asked my BF and I to sit down with her to "clear the air" about the past. For the first of three hours we were there, it was her talking about things that I didn't need to be involved in, such as the baby's insurance coverage, yadda yadda. Then it just was her talking about how she didn't want my BF anymore, I shouldn't feel threatened about their attempt at friendship for the baby's sake, she hoped we could be civil to each other. I walked away from that feeling pretty good, like we had all had a chance to clear the slate. That night, I dropped off my boyfriend at work (he had left his original place of work to take a job somewhere else...then the BM got a job at the same place. vomit.) and she asked him where his car was. He responded with "oh, _________ drove me to work. She has my car." She flipped out, thinking we had driven from my house to his, and that he was going to have to drive me home. When he corrected her, saying that my car was at his place, I was just using his car around town to save gas, instead of a rational, "I'm sorry, my mistake" she was snide and snotty and rude, and that was the start of the downhill relationship, leading to the restraining order. So, sorry this is so long everyone. I just feel like all of you really know what's up and can help me in ways people that haven't gone through this can't - like just answer my questions and talk about my concerns...one of which is court coming up. The first date was very simple. The judge read over the case, said any threats or mean comments made in the texts were not aimed towards the BM and that he should enjoy his parenting time as stated in their parenting plan, the end. Now, we're going back to court to not only decide if the order will become permanent, but some other custody things. This time I apparently will be called to talk about the incident that propagated the order, as well as my past interactions with BM, to prove that she gives just as good as she gets, and the order should go both ways, if that. The only reason my BF is even fighting the order is because he'd have to report it to any jobs or other college programs, and even if dropped, he plans to maintain it in that the grandmothers will to the transferring of the child, and he will not have any contact with her. Any advice on people that have been in this situation? I'm so sorry at how long this is, it's just I feel like I have people who will actually understand that I can really tell things to. Thanks