Hi everyone!! Wow – It has been a long time since I’ve posted here, and I see a lot of new "faces" I’ve been so busy at both work and at home, it's almost impossible for me to even post much less read everyone else's stuff....so I apologize that lately I only come for advice and don't offer any.

A lot of big things have happened in the past two weeks. BM’s recently “broken” cell phone fell into our possession and nothing has been deleted. To the professionals we’ve spoken with in the past week about it, they all say that it is fair game as she knowingly gave the phone to her kids, and knew they were taking it to our house – whether or not she thought the phone was broken and wouldn’t turn on, she had made no effort to delete information in her phone while she had it (Which included sexted photos) and there was no lock code.

There have been times where DH and I joke that it'd be really interesting (for our own curiosity, not necessarily any good reason) to see what goes on in BM's phone. We know she has over 12,000 texts going in and out each month on her phone bill.

BM got a new phone last week. She gave her broken version to SD6...

When we picked SD and SS up yesterday, the first thing SD6 did was to show us "her" phone that mommy gave her. We didn't think much of it at first because she made a point to say it is broken and doesn't turn on, that it's just a play phone.

This is not step-related so I apologize, but I need some un-biased/uninvolved advice. When I first moved here, I of course met my husband’s best friend (really more like a brother-type) and his girlfriend – I’ll call them B and H. H is kind of a brash, loud, energetic girl who likes to tell dirty jokes. She and I didn’t necessarily hit it off at first, but I was desperate for a friend since I had come to live in a new place with DH, and it was easy for the four of us to hang out and do things together, especially because her daughter and SS are the same ages.