Summer's Coming!

Today was 90 degrees, hot and humid. We got out the pool, and the kids had a blast cooling off in it. I spent a lot of time supervising them today. While doing that, I went through some old magazines to look for some new recipes to try. The water looks brown in the photo but it is just full of tree dirt and grass....

Tomorrow morning I am going for groceries. A friend volunteered to keep some of the kids while I go....so that means I'll only need 1 cart. Friday morning is Matt's visit with his mom. And then it's the holiday weekend!

I need to go fold wash....

Other Various Thoughts

This is the lovely mug my MOPS discussion group leader gave me that I had mentioned several weeks ago.

My "getting up at 5:00" has not been going very well for the last couple of weeks. I've been having a hard time dragging myself out of bed....but I will keep trying and plan to get back on schedule! I actually napped on Sunday afternoon, something I almost never do unless I am sick as (1) I then can't sleep at night and (2) I'm rarely tired enough to fall asleep. So I must be more worn out than I realized. I'm trying to get to bed earlier this week.

This morning my friend came to babysit while I went to the eye doctor for my "yearly" checkup. To be honest, it's probably been 2-1/2 - 3 years since I went. But I couldn't stretch my contacts any longer and ran out so I had to go. My eyes did change slightly but as it was very slight I opted not to bother with new glasses/lenses this time. My friend came a bit early so I had time to go to a local thrift store before my appointment. I was quite pleased to find a purse for me (a real one, not a diaper bag!), a pair of capris, 2 books, and a skirt and pair of shorts for Autumn.

On the schedule for Tuesday:

• put away the laundry that I washed today
• straighten up the house
• bake
• meet with Matt's caseworker for our monthly meeting

When Zach joined our family, I received a "text book" baby. I suddenly realized what type of babies all those books were written about. He did everything on schedule. He slept well. I could put him down drowsy and he'd go to sleep. I did little different with him in regards to sleeping than the others. But my older 3 would scream and be more wide awake then ever when put down while drowsy. In fact, I think I was even a tad disappointed because I enjoy rocking babies to sleep (despite what the books say!).

With Matt I am finding a similar situation. I may have mentioned that he fights sleep. In reality, perhaps he just fights falling to sleep the way I'd prefer! I've discovered that if I lay him in his crib with a nuk and burp cloth he goes to sleep on his own. STRANGE! :-) So, it's nice and I could get used to this! At the same time...it may quite well end when he's able to stand up... But I'll enjoy it while it lasts...and at the same time be a bit disappointed that I rarely get to rock him except when feeding him.... He is more content now then before he got his bottom 2 teeth. He enjoys playing with toys on the floor for longer. He still likes to be held quite a bit when awake, but not as much as a few weeks ago. He loves to be in the same room with the other kids...chewing on a few toys and watching them play. He also prefers to ride in the backpack carrier over the stroller. He's such a sweet baby!

I probably mentioned this a few weeks ago, but it bears repeating....his review hearing is coming up in a couple of weeks. Please pray for the caseworker as she decides what to ask for at the hearing. Pray also for his mom as she works to do what she needs to do to have him rejoin her. We'd absolutely love to have him stay with us....but with foster care it's kind of bitter-sweet. Our gain is her loss....And her gain is our loss. And I would love to see her succeed..... So anyway, I'm asking for prayers for all of us involved in this precious child's life.

Autumn's Birthday

A few snapshots from her birthday the other week

one of her gifts from us.

A gift from Grandma & Grandpa.

Cake time!

Strawberry Jelly

I uploaded pictures to our computer and found several photos to share with you all. I'm starting with the most recent ones and then I'll work backwards.

This past weekend was an "empty" weekend...meaning a weekend with no official plans. Saturday morning Randy, Josiah, Autumn, Janae, and Zach went to a local farm and picked 2 trays of strawberries. Saturday night I made jelly. Most folks around here make their strawberry using clear-gel. I use a recipe I got from my mom that uses strawberry gelatin. It takes a bit longer (I hear) but we really like the flavor.

Saturday we also cleaned up the flower beds somewhat and did a bunch of laundry.

Sunday we enjoyed a baptism service at church and relaxing at home the rest of the day.

Friday

is here. This morning I need to take Matt to the clinic for immunizations and a well-child check-up. His birth mom usually comes so I'll be spending time with her.

Yesterday we were at home...other than a quick trip to the post office, bank, & notary to get Randy's CDL license stuff taken care of. I actually washed the kitchen curtains! Now I need to get them back up sometime.

We have no plans this weekend so I'm hoping to work on odds and ends around here.


**Update**
Matt is 19 lb., 13 oz. and 28-3/4"l at 5-1/2 months of age. This pediatrician recommends NOT using the pacifier (the last one we saw recommended using it constantly). She suggested I start him on solids (which I have known I could do but was holding out for when I get WIC checks for the stuff...not that it's that expensive, so I really should just go buy a box of rice cereal). I got to spend nearly 2 hours with the boys' mom as the appointment/waiting took quite a while today. He got 2 immunizations + 1 oral one.

**Update #2**
Mark is sick. He woke up from his nap in a puddle of vomit. Then he spiked a fever of 102.7. Hopefully he feels better in the morning! It's probably a viral thing that I heard is going around....

Dental Work....

...is in the near future. Our kids are genetically predisposed to have bad teeth! Today I took the 3 oldest to the dentist. Josiah has multiple teeth showing through the gums and the baby teeth aren't budging very quickly. He's also missing one permanent tooth and has 2 cavities. Autumn's jaw is small and there is no room for the permanent teeth to come in. And she has 3 cavities. Janae's teeth were fine! So we're looking at a couple of appointments to get teeth fixed, an appointment for Josiah & Autumn to get impressions/x-rays etc. done and then an appointment for me to come in for a consultation to decide what we're going to do about all this. Fun, fun! And the next time they're scheduled for cleaning Zach gets to go too! We're going to go in groups of 2 then instead of trying to do all 4 at once.

We had a fun time this morning with our foster/adopt play group. There were 8 ladies and 21 children here this time. Always fun and loud and crazy. :-)

Well, I believe baby is asleep across my lap so I need to get him to bed and go put the dishes into the dishwasher. Goodnight!

Final Post about our weekend (I think)

After Hershey Gardens we went to "The Hershey Story". It's a museum about Milton Hershey and his life and the town and what not. It was very interesting! Then we went to the Hershey Outlets and spent some $$. :-) We both needed sunglasses. I found a new backpack for Autumn. Randy found some new flip flops. I was thrilled to find adorable skirts for Autumn that were past her knees (necessary for school) but also very cute! I also found some other clothes for some of the kids...and on sale and/or clearance. Wonderful!

Then we left Hershey. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant in Grantville. We split a pretzel sandwich and each had a bowl of soup.Then we headed over to Cabella's. We enjoyed perusing the items but didn't buy anything. We were due to be at a "Resource Parent Appreciation Banquet" by 4:30 and still had some time so we went to Lowe's and found a fire pit for the back yard. We tried it out Sunday night and it was great! Hot dogs, Mountain Pies, and Toasted Marshmallows from the comfort of our backyard. Anyway, I needed formula for Baby and so we tried 2 different stores but neither would take WIC checks so we had to let that go for the time being. I looked for shorts/capris at another store but wasn't willing to pay the price for ones I didn't really like anyway. We ended up getting frappucinos at the in-store Starbucks.

We ended the evening with the aforementioned banquet. We had a great time hanging out with other resource (foster) parents and also had a delicious meal. It was fun to be able to talk to them without simultaneously supervising lots of kids.

Afterwards we collected our children. We had a wonderful time alone...and yet it was wonderful to be back with them again. Sunday we went to church and just hung out for the day around the house. Autumn went to a friend's house for the afternoon.

And now we're back to life. Randy's out on the road. I was doing laundry and running errands today. Tonight I enjoyed attending a "Women and Girls" banquet with my mom & her church. Now I need to get to bed. Tomorrow's another day....

And now we pause....

...for an update on the home front.

Zach is now riding 2-wheeler. Yes, it is insane! Yes, he's a wild man! Yes, he's to young (I read that the average age is 6). Crazy! I have never, ever, had a child ride "2-Wheeler" this young. He will be 3 in June. He's lovin' it! And the falls haven't phased him a bit. He just hops back on and keeps going.

Matt now has 2 teeth.

Mark (my mild-mannered child) is now capable of throwing extended length temper tantrums. As in, through most of our local discount grocery store because I put the animal crackers in the cart instead of in his hands.

Janae had a wonderful, fun time this morning visiting Kindergarten. She loves Miss Brown already!

Josiah, Autumn, and Janae get to go to the dentist Thursday afternoon. Josiah's mouth is rather a mess of teeth (several permanent teeth are showing through the gums as the baby teeth have not fallen out yet). I "see" orthodontics in the near future....

Autumn....well, there really isn't anything to update about her at the moment...other then the fact that it certainly appears that we're headed for adolescence on a high-speed train and she just turned 8. :-)

Back to the rest of our weekend in the next post.

Hershey Gardens

We started Saturday with a leisurely breakfast buffet in the Circular Dining Room of the Hotel Hershey. The room was surrounded by large glass windows. Along the sides and tops of each window were stained glass designed to look like an arbor with vines and flowers. This theme continued onto the ceiling which was painted to look like arbors, vines, and flowers against the sky. I did not take a picture of this as I felt awkward whipping out my camera in such an elegant place! Everything on the buffet was absolutely scrumptious!


After that, we went to the Hershey Gardens.

Hershey Park from the Rose Garden.

In the Children's Garden:

Me with the Dancing Pig

the Japanese Garden:

Tall, Tall Trees

Weeping Birch

A glimpse of our Hotel from the Hershey Gardens.

The rest of our day coming in the next installment...

Opulent 24 Hours

The Hotel Hershey

Is "Opulent" the word I'm looking for? Randy and I had a lovely 27 hours away. The children went to 4 different homes and we actually went away overnight! We went to the town of Hershey, PA and stayed at the luxurious Hotel Hershey. We have never, ever stayed in such a place! We normally stay at budget type motels. Nevertheless, it was absolutely beautiful and splendid!

The Gardens. The circular part of the building is "The Circular Dining Room" where we ate a delicious buffet breakfast.

Friday afternoon we dropped the children off and drove to Hershey. We ate supper at Applebees. It was delicious, but honestly I think my meal would've fed all the kids...and perhaps me as well! Then we checked into our hotel. In the evening we explored the resort--walking through the lovely gardens and checking out the Shoppes.

Our Room

The view from our room. It had just stormed. We could see Hershey Park quite well, although it's not showing up well in this photo.

Us on the 2nd floor terrace. It was quite windy all weekend.

Scenes from the terrace:The first floor terrace.

Lovely flowers adorned the railings.

As we wondered through the (expensive) shoppes, we found one simply called "sweets" which sold lots of candy and the most delicious looking cupcakes. Randy tried a carrot one. As I couldn't decide, I tried 3 "taster" sized ones--S'mores, Chocolate, and Chocolate w/Peanut Butter Icing. They were the most wonderful bought cupcakes I have ever had...and did not taste bought at all! :-)

Absolutely scrumptious!

So this doesn't get to long....I'll post about Saturday in the next post!

Ascension Day

Today is Ascension Day (a Christian holiday commemorating Christ's ascension to heaven and his promise to return). Our kids had off school. We went to the park with some aunts and cousins and Grammy. While the boys (supposedly) napped at Grammy's house, I took Autumn to the mall to get her pictures taken and use her Buildabear gift card. Then we came home and Josiah mowed our yard and the neighbor's yard. I just realized I neglected to give them their piano lessons. These days it seems we only get a lesson in about every other week instead of weekly as I aim for.

Friday I need to take Matt to see his mom. I enjoy spending that hour by myself (or occasionally with Janae). I usually go to the snack bar and get a bagel w/cream cheese and a cup of coffee or coke or something and look at magazines...just relaxing.

Well, I need to go load the dishwasher and get to bed. Matt was up late last night so it was a short night.

Enjoy your weekend!

I hear a baby....

...he went to bed early tonight, so I didn't rush myself as I thought he'd be up again before he settled. He's been rather fussy recently but he is getting teeth. I've dug out the backpack and sometimes carry him around in that while I do some stuff.

Tonight when all the kids were in bed I caught up on our family scrapbook...which is good because there are several hundred pictures uploaded waiting to be printed. I'm down to 3 pages though so I need to buy another book. I was scrapbooking the pictures of all that snow we had in January...right now I'm ready for warmer weather. Maybe I should've saved them to do in July. :-)

Tomorrow is another day with no plans other than getting the house in order, doing laundry, and dishes. The older kids do have activities at church in the evening. But after that things go crazy! Doctors and Dentists and Eye Doctors and Visits and Banquets and on and on! All things that need done and really no big deal...except I end up needing so many babysitters. Oh well, it always works out.

Books....and other random info.

I checked out some new books from our church library:

1. "All Right Now" by Timothy J. Geddert. I really, really appreciated this book! The subtitle is Finding Consensus on Ethical Questions.
2. "Tsunami!: from a few that survived" by Harvey Yoder. I don't know that one can "enjoy" a book about a tragedy....but this was a good book also.
3. "Father: A Look Into the Heart of God" by Geri Keller. This book discussed Father God. I appreciated this one as well.

Our foster care reevaluation went well. I don't foresee any difficulties in getting approved for another year. Speaking of foster care, our little one has his 6-month review hearing approaching in June. We would appreciate prayers on behalf of all of us involved (birthmom, us, caseworkers, etc.). Specifically pray for wisdom and that God's will would be done.

Well, I never did fold that laundry from earlier so I should go do that. Of course, I'm also desiring to work on some scrapbooking...hmm...tough choice. ;-)

Oh yes, and if anyone can tell me how to insert real smiley faces instead of sideways ones, I'd appreciate it!

I've been messing around with a new picture for the blog header...and am giving up for tonight. I can't remember how I normally do it. If I import from my pictures, it only shows a part of it (even if I put shrink to 600 pixels wide). So I've been trying emailing myself various sizes and seeing how that works...and it does, but then the picture is grainy....I'll try again another time!

Monday

Saturday we celebrated Autumn's birthday....pancakes, "dippy" eggs, and scrapple for breakfast. BBQ Chicken, Baked Potatoes, Cake & Ice Cream, etc. for supper. Sunday we spent time with my family at my mom's. Randy & the older 4 kids enjoyed watching the Make-A-Wish Truck Convoy. I stayed at the house with the 2 littlest boys.

This afternoon was our foster parent reevaluation. The end of this week through next week is busy, but the first 3 days of this week are fairly empty which is lovely! Off to fold some laundry....

Happy Birthday!

Happy 8th Birthday, Autumn!

lettuce

Our lettuce is ready. Twice this week we cut some for supper. It is delicious and not at all bitter (I expected it would be). I like to serve it with sliced hard boiled eggs, snibbled (okay, spell check says that is not a word, but that's what I call it!) up bacon, and homemade dressing (sugar, miracle whip, lemon juice & milk). Of course, I forgot to take a picture....

Yesterday at our final MOPS meeting of the year our Discussion Group Leader gave those of us at our table a gift--a lovely mug filled with chocolates! I did take a picture of that...but it's still on the camera.

I probably will not be blogging again until next week...but you never know! :-)

Tomorrow our lovely Autumn has a birthday! She will be 8 years old which means...no more booster seat. Very exciting to only have 4 car seats and booster seats in the van! She is so excited!

A Lovely Spring Morning Today!

It is simply beautiful out! I will have a hard time getting anything done unless it clouds up and rains. :-) Anyway, yesterday my friend & I had a nice visit. And her daughter got to hold my son...they do resemble each other! This time, though, we didn't take pictures. I don't like to always be snapping pictures when we're together...I like to just let them be kids. Weird quirk I guess!

Today is our final MOPS meeting. We do have a picnic in a couple of weeks. My house will get cleaned while I am gone. Yeah! This afternoon I am babysitting...and tackling laundry. I put the laundry on hold yesterday in an attempt to get baking done. And I was ever so glad. I was not in the mood to bake, but once I started, I figured I might as well make a bunch of stuff while the kitchen was all messed up and the oven on. Tandy Cakes, Shoofly Cakes, Autumn's Birthday Cake, and Cupcakes for her to take to school for her birthday snack.

Zach was "testing the boundaries" more than normal yesterday. Part of it, of course, if just being 2! Nevertheless, he really does need to obey parental authority so he learns that the world does NOT revolve around him...or any other 1 person for that matter. :-) Yesterday's big issue was the water hose. It is fun to turn on the water and wash your feet...and the van...and the driveway...and fill up the toy bin in the garage.... "NO TURNING ON THE OUTSIDE SPIGOT UNLESS MOMMY SAYS YOU CAN" was the repeated lesson. Hopefully it doesn't take all summer to learn this. :-) Of course, if we did not have city water I might not have cared as much!

Only a few more weeks of school. I am so excited to have the kids home again. I'm tired of packing lunches. And I'm ready for less structure. On the other hand, I'm sure that by August I will be saying the need the structure of school again. But right now, it is time for a break!

Baby slept all night last night...and everyone else did also. I do think they sleep better now that they can play outside. Josiah, Autumn, & a neighbor went fishing in the little creek near our place last evening. No catches though.

Well, time to start another day....

Toddlers and other stuff

"A child between 18 and 36 months of age is a sheer delight, but he can also be utterly maddening. He is inquisitive, short-tempered, demanding, cuddly, innocent, and dangerous at the same time. I find it fascinating to watch him run through his day, seeking opportunities to crush things, flush things, kill things, spill things, fall off things, eat horrible things--and think up ways to rattle his mother."~Dr. James Dobson, "Parenting Isn't For Cowards"

In other news....today I babysat my niece. Janae enjoyed having a friend all day long to play with! It was another lovely "summer" day...without the humidity! I'm so excited for tomorrow. The plan is for my friend and 2 of her children to come play in the morning. Her daughter is also our sons' biological sister. It will be fun to catch up with her again. We've been getting together about 2-3 times a year since we got Zach. I'm not sure what will happen once the children start school....I'm never sure if I should try to keep them connected or simply keep track of them and they can connect as adults. I've heard that for siblings to really feel connected they should be meeting 2-3 times a month. Of course, that was in relation to siblings who had a relationship before coming into the system. Their sister is Janae's age and the girls enjoy playing together.

And now it's time for bed. We'll have to wait and see what tomorrow holds..... Oh yes, and sometime I need to get those April Foster Care Reports submitted....

New Mug

I recently purchased this mug...just for me! I currently have 2 "spiritual" goals. Yes, I know this is not January or New Year's, but I believe in goals whenever you want.

Spiritual Goals:

1. More time being thankful, less time complaining
2. Regular time alone to study the Word and pray for my family and various needs.

Health/Physical Goal - just 1. Remember to eat!

This mug is a reminder to me. I believe there are other mugs similar to this for sale..."love" etc. Perhaps I'll build a collection of mugs that inspire me. What a way to start my day but with an inspiring mug of tea and time alone with God!