Christmas Fun

Christmas was a busy time for our family...we celebrated Christmas Eve with 2 of my aunts and their families. Here is a picture of all of the kids in front of the tree... Christmas Day we got up and opened gifts and then quickly got ready to go to Bill's sister's house for a couple of hours. We then went to my sister's house to spend a couple of hours with my side of the family. The rest of the pictures are from the morning when the kids opened their gifts from Santa.

Cookie Time!

The other day the family made cookies and I made some cinnamon rolls...yummy!

(the cinnamon rolls before going into the oven...yummy!)

Preschool Christmas Program

T's Christmas program was today at her preschool. It was a nice time of the kids singing songs followed by her teacher reading a story. The kids surprised the parents by making cookies on Tuesday as refreshments for today.

Mrs. Stetler, T, & Mrs. Bressler

Tooth Fairy & Christmas Projects

Things sure are getting exciting here with Christmas fastly approaching! Our son has been complaining that his tooth has been loose for the last several weeks. Well, finally it came out...

In the midst of trying to remember that the Tooth Fairy needed to come, I have been working on Christmas projects galore! Below is a picture of what the teachers will be getting this year...

Dollar Fabric!!!

Before I moved to my house 3 years ago my husband and I would pass a fabric store going into town and he would always ask me...are you sure you don't want to go in there and look? From the road looking in it all looked like big huge rolls of clothing material (which typically that is usually all they have)...not good ole quilt fabric. However, since my sister and I joined the local quilt guild, we have gotten on an email list from them stating their deals. The first time we went in they had cotton fabric for $3.99/yard. That's a great deal. Then after some more sales it was $1.99/yard. Well, yesterday I got an email saying that their Christmas material was $1.00/yard. Can you even believe it? Is there anything better? Well...sadly yes...having more money to splurge would be delightful...but I did manage to find a couple of dollars and bought what you see below (except for the blue/white stripe material...that is for my sister). Oh Fabric Mart...how I love thee! Oh yeah...and I can't wait for your new shipment in January...maybe I'll have more money by then...maybe!

Yippy!

I just got the email from the caseworker that the judge indeed terminated the rights of all the parties involved in our littlest girls case! This is very exciting! We now have to wait 30 days to see if anyone appeals the decision, although the agency feels pretty strongly that they won't. Hopefully in the next couple of months we can officially make her apart of our family!

Oh Christmas Tree

A tradition at Christmas for our family is to go to a local tree farm where they have Santa, cookies, hot chocolate, and a wagon ride out to the tree fields. This year was a little different for our family as my husband is now walking with a cane which is difficult in snow and hills. Our littlest one this year is able to walk but refused to and threw herself on the ground and refused to get up all while screaming at the top of her lungs. It was just another episode of the family circus.

Walker to Cane

Well, since my husband fell off a roof at the end of August, life has sure been crazy. He has had intense therapy to regain use of his right hand after surgery to have a plate inserted. The biggest battle has been his foot. The doctor told him that the bone that he broke is the on the list of bones not to break. The main reason is because the blood flow often dies and there is nothing the doctor can do about. Well, the doctor originally told him that he had a 20% chance of it dying, then at the next apt. he was told 80% and then at the last apt. he was told it pretty much died. So there is a lot of uncertainty of what's going to happen...I think he is worried about what this means for his job...if he'll ever be able to get back up on the steel. For one who loves his job...this is very upsetting. We've been taking it one day at a time...not much more we can do than that right now. Anyway...today he graduated from a walker to a cane. He is walking on cloud nine right now! He knows he needs to keep moving to keep the blood flow from depleting anymore. Below are a couple of pictures I've taken of him and the kids since this has all happened.

"New" Sewing Machine

Last year my mom used my sewing machine and found that it was quite dirty with a lot of lint in many hidden places that I would have never guessed exsisted. She took it upon herself to clean it out...she removed many screws and dropped some here and there. Needless to say everything did not get put back the way it needed to be...parts were left over...parts dropped in the bottom never to be found again. I was told it would be more expensive to go and get the machine fixed than to purchase a new one. However, with my husband's current situation...you know falling off a roof and all, and not working, money is an issue for us now. So I have been looking and looking on Craigslist trying to find anything that might work for what I need a machine for. Finally I found one. I went to look at it last night and decided to buy it. I think I may regret the decision in a couple of days/weeks/months, but it is what it is. It's a machine that runs, as of today. So hopefully I can now get some of my Christmas projects done. The machine is the bottom of bottom...the basic model you can get. It only has 2 stitches...straight & zig zag! Luckily, I think that's all I need right now. I think it will be a good machine for the girls to start learning how to sew on...we'll see!

While I have been searching high and low for a machine...my sister got me started on a quilt called Grandmother's Flower Garden. I have gotten one patch completely finished...it takes much longer than I thought to even get one patch done...but at least it has kept me busy while waiting for a machine to come along. I actually have the second flower almost finished since taking the picture of the first. I had told my sister that I thought it would be cute for each of the girls to have a flower quilt for their beds. Yeah, that's probably not going to happen. We'll just work on getting the first one done!

Education Week

So today and tomorrow, Shawn's school is celebrating American Education Week. This morning I got to go in and sit for about a 1/2 hour to observe Shawn's morning routine at school...whoops, not school...Kindergarten as Shawn prefers it to be called. What a treat this was! At the end of last year through the help of Shawn's preschool we have discovered that Shawn has some learning disabilities...what they are exactly, we haven't figured out quite yet. What the school did know was that he was going to need some help come the fall. Well, in May we met for an IEP meeting with his new teacher, the speech therapist, psychologist, and learning support teacher. It was established amongst other things that there would be a teacher aid in the classroom for Shawn and another kid in his class.


(Here is a picture of Shawn not wanting to get on the bus initially the first day of school.)


We met with the teacher last week for parent/teacher conferences. I was sort of nervous, but excited at the same time. My husband and I knew that we saw a difference in him just in the short amount of time he was in school, already. He started to recognize some letters, could write his name, could count past 5, recognize some numbers, the list continues. It has been very exciting to watch him learn and be excited about it. Don't get me wrong, as the teacher and learning support teacher both said, he still is behind, but he has made progress since the beginning of the year, and that is HUGE!


It can be very frustrating and upsetting when you stop and think about what Shawn has lost in the first 2 years of his life from general neglect. I get so upset to think that maybe he could be farther ahead if only the agency would have had the case earlier. Where could Shawn be now? But I will stop thinking of the what ifs...there is no point. Shawn is a bright and happy little boy. We will continue to encourage and love on him more than he can think possible.



(The picture to the right is one of favorites of Shawn-it is on the porch of my pappy's cabin)

Adoption

Last week we had the awesome privilege of adopting one of the foster children that we had in our home for almost 3 years now. Tianna Marie officially became a member of the family on November 9, 2009.

"T" is a sweet little girl. She came into our home when she was 18 months old. The day we picked her up at the agency she looked at me and said "Mommy"...I knew we were going to have a special bond right away :) T is in preschool two days a week and LOVES it! She is so smart! She has already taken to writing the first 3 letters of her "new name." We are so excited to watch her grow and learn more and more everyday.

Brand New

So...here we go again...I've started another blog. Hopefully I can keep this updated better than the last one I attempted to do.