Christmas Pneumonia Anyone?

Over the weekend I had some chest congestion...so I took some over the counter cold medicine which seemed to help. Monday night we have 3 hours of dance for the girls, so I sit there watching and waiting. All of a sudden during hour 3, I started to get really, really, really, cold, even with my coat on. I thought, "oh boy." So I quickly got the girls home after their classes, handed them over to my husband and I went to bed under 3 blankets. I was still cold. I did have a low grade fever. Sometime during the night the fever broke. I woke up the next morning with the worst chest pain ever. I went to the bathroom and started coughing up blood. I never did that before and that freaked me out. I called my doctor and he said to either make an appt. with them (it's an hour away close to where I grew up) or go to urgent care. I decided since there was an urgent care place close by, I would go there. My oxygen level was low, and my white blood count was high. My chest x-ray showed an "area of concern" so the doctor is treating me with clinical pneumonia. She said that if I didn't hear from the radiologist today, then they agreed with the diagnosis. She said often times it is tricky to tell the difference between the 2 just with her looking at it. I am on an antibiotic and an inflammatory med. I was amazed when I woke up how much better I felt. I of course pushed too hard today and of course now feel just plain awful.

Just what I need with a week til Christmas!! Oh my life!

Christmas Cookies

My sister, mom, and I got together yesterday to bake lots of Christmas cookies. We made peanut butter blossoms, chocolate chip, m&m, some jello cookies, oatmeal raisin, honey chocolate bits, snickerdoodles, sugar cookies, and rolled out sugar cookies. The kids had fun decorating the rolled out sugar cookies. Dad even had to get in the action to supervise the sprinkle and sugar placement! It was a fun day...the 3 younger cousins had fun playing together. Here are a couple of pics...they aren't the best as they are from my cell phone...

Travis my nephew decorating!

                                                              Mmmm...M&M Cookies

                                  Sprinkles much? LOL! They kids were having a good time!!

Pappy helping too!

Foster Parent Christmas Party

Every year the Foster Parent Association has a Christmas party...this year they had it a local country club. The asked everyone to dress up...which the girl's loved-Shawn-not so much :) Mrs. Claus read a Christmas Story...then the kids sang some Christmas carols. Santa came out and each family got to get a nice family picture with him in front of the huge Christmas tree. They printed the picture out right there and gave us a frame to go with. Such a neat memory. Aleah was so excited...she was screaming to "let's go-Santa's here". Since a professional took the pic with Santa-I won't post that picture-but here is a picture I took of the kids...

Christmas Tree

We went and picked out our Christmas Tree Saturday...it didn't take long to find "the perfect tree" however, it did take a long time to get a decent picture with the kids in front of the tree :)

Baby Shower

My husband's niece is having a baby in January, so we had the shower on Sunday. It was a fun time. They had it in a Mexican restaurant...the food was amazing and I almost had to be rolled out of the restaurant I ate so much. We had a delicious tortilla soup that I wish my family would eat, but I don't know if they would or not. Then we each got chicken or beef fajitas....it was soooo good!!! The cake was amazing as well...mmmmm....

I decided to make a baby quilt for her...(sorry...not the best pictures-taken with my cell phone).

Beautiful Fall Days

There have been some beautiful fall days here lately. Mornings are cold, and when the sun goes down it gets pretty chilly, but when the sun is bright and shining, it is wonderful. Sunday after the Christmas program practice at church for the kids, I decided to stop by a park for a little bit. The only issue was that I had forgotten a coat, so we only stayed about 45 minutes. I managed to capture a nice pic of the kids though...

Keeping Busy During the Storm

Hurricane Sandy hit our area at the beginning of the week...we lost power for about 12 hours overnight. Not so bad. Thankfully it was cooler too so our freezers weren't really affected. I would have hated to lose all of the meat we keep in our freezers.

The storm did give me free time (despite children that were not easily entertained)...so I fired up the ole sewing machine. First I took some reusable grocery bags I have had cut out for over a year, and finished them. I LOVE them...I can't wait to make more.

Then, my family is participating in Operation Christmas Child this year with our church. We fill a shoebox with both practical and fun things for a needy child. We decided to fill our box for a girl age 5-9. After purchasing some items, I decided that making a tote bag the little girl could keep all of her things together would be fun. So I went looking through my fabric stash and came up with the bag pictured below. We also got a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, washcloth, socks, pencils, a notebook, crayons, a fun pad, stickers, a jump rope, a recorder, and headbands...I'm hoping to find a couple of small little things extra tomorrow to add. It was so much fun!

Then after those projects I decided to work on another project I had cut out-a disappearing 9 patch. I had bought the fabric at the last quilt retreat-I don't know why. But the quilt is turning out cute. Here is a bad picture (lighting was terrible in the house with it raining so many days) of the layout I came up with. It is almost all sewn together. I have no idea what I'll do with it when it's done...but it was an easy top to work on.

Hate when that happens...

...I had scheduled a meeting with Shawn's teacher-for 8:15 this morning...oiy...what was I thinking?!?! The volume on my alarm was way down and I didn't hear it until my son came in this morning at 7:45. Needless to say, it was a mad dash out the door in 20 minutes! I hate that feeling. We made it and now get to spend a day in comfy clothes at home for once in a long time! I should be cleaning...but I think I am going to snuggle up to Aleah and watch some cartoons with her this morning. My body is worn out today.

In other news...Tianna started Girl Scouts last night. She seemed to have fun...she said "at least we got to do a craft." I'm not 100% sure what that was to mean, but I took it as she was happy she got to do a craft! Ha!

Busy Busy

The last couple of days have been crazy busy as usual. My kids are involved in after school activities, which I enjoy, but sometimes it gets to be too much. Our schedule looks a little like this right now:

Monday-The girls have dance, Tianna has 2 classes, Aleah 1...right after each other. Shawn has Cub Scouts in between there. Shawn's Mobile Therapist comes for an hour right after school.

Tuesday-Football/Cheerleading practice. Shawn's TSS comes right after school and goes to practice with us.

Wednesday-Pioneer Clubs at Church. Starting next week, Tianna will have Girl Scouts every other Wednesday. MT again and TSS.

Thursday-Football/Cheerleading practice. TSS again.

Friday-our family has a Friday Night Movie Night together.

Saturday morning/afternoon-Football/Cheerleading.

Sunday-Church :)

Busy, Busy. Thankfully Cheerleading is over on Saturday and Football the following Saturday. I think we all need a little break!

Sometimes I question...

I know I just started back to blogging and all of my posts have been mostly negative, but today I am having a bad day and just need to vent.

If you have been reading my blog you understand the struggles my children and I have been having lately. This morning was no different. My son woke me up sometime around 6 (I tried to look at the clock, it just wasn't make sense this morning), freaking out because something was going on with his eye. I don't know...something about burning and he couldn't see and it hurt so bad. I think he has allergies and they are dry, but he wasn't hearing me about that. Finally after having to get quite upset with him, I got him to lay down a little bit more. Sometime in between that fun time, and the time my alarm finally went off...like 5 minutes later, I hear that the girls are awake in their room. I try to quickly get myself together so I can get upstairs to see what they are doing...it.was.horrible.

There was clothes everywhere. Doll hair everywhere. A beautiful dress that Aleah was going to wear for her Christmas Program had a huge hole cut in it. A brand new dress had pieces cut out of it. A shirt had pieces cut out of it. 2 pillows were sacrificed and defluffed. Tianna thought cutting out huge hunks of her hair would be awesome. Oh and to top it off? She peed her bed.again. I have no words. I am so upset that this is the point we are at. Tuesday cannot come soon enough to get help...I am so overwhelmed. I feel like a failure as a mother and I question why I wanted to do this. 

Raining...

I woke up to rain this morning...not children misbehaving, which was a nice change. My girls did not want to get up this morning. Apparently the 3 hours we are at dance on Monday nights wears them out :) I am thankful for that! My son was up and tried to get dressed today by himself...it's something we are working on...him picking out his own clothes to learn some responsibility and the want to take care ourselves. It's a challenge and hasn't been going well...but I am determined. Seasons throw him off...he wanted to wear shorts and a long sleeved shirt today. I try to be so patient because I know he just doesn't want to take the time. We are trying to get the clothes picked out at night, but sometimes, like last night, we get home too late and it just doesn't happen-we then pay for it the next morning.

My dear Tianna...it makes me so sad to see her struggle so bad. She wet the bed again last night. I've talked to the doctors and have both decided it is a control issue and she is doing it out of spite...but that doesn't make dealing with it any easier. My husband and I have decided she needs help outside of what we can give her, so she will be going for a Psych Eval next Tuesday so we can hopefully get some sort of wrap around services for her. I am both excited and nervous. She has so much anger bottled up inside of her and she refuses to talk to me. She is such a bright little girl, she just doesn't always think about what she is doing before she does it. We try so hard to encourage her in the things she wants to do...dance and Girl Scouts. But it seems like the more we give the more she can't handle it. I don't know what to do anymore, so I am hoping we can get some answers soon. As frustrating as the dear girl can be, when she smiles...oh my goodness. It will melt you for sure.

Aleah is learning to write her name in preschool. She is getting to be pretty good, in my opinion! I am amazed at how quick they pick things up! She absolutely loves school and wishes it was everyday like the big kids. She has already gone on 1 field trip to the Vet. Another one is coming up soon to an orchard. She also is going through a little funk of temper tantrums and crying for long periods of a time if she does not get what she wants. It for sure wears on me, but I'm trying to be strong and not give into her.

Well, I started cleaning out my room yesterday. I am trying to get a good load of nonsense for Goodwill. My house is getting overrun with junk and it's making me nuts. So de-cluttering is def. in store the next couple of days/weeks. I already got 1 bag of junk and 1 bag of donations out of my room which makes me feel good! I am hoping to get my room finished today so I can start the bathroom closet tomorrow when everyone is in school.

Mornings

Mornings are not fun here in our house...I don't know what it is. Well, I am not a morning person, so I know that plays a big part in the struggle. My children are 9, 7, & 4. We have one big rule in our house...when you get up, if mommy or daddy are not awake, go down to our room. This rule has had to be made because often times, even though my alarm is set well before we need to get up, my children will get up, sneak around, take food into their rooms, pee in the their rooms, trash their rooms, throw things at each other, destroy the bathroom, run around like crazies...the list continues...

Every night before turning lights out for bed I very clearly say...if you get up before mommy, Get up, get dressed, come to my room. "Ok Mommy" is what I get everytime. Well, this morning, my alarm had not even gone off yet and I hear things falling from everywhere and see an inner tube in the hallway. I had the 4 year old in my bed sleeping, so I know she wasn't the guilty one. Which leaves the 2 older ones. When I ask my daughter why she didn't obey the rule, she said she was trying to but her brother was making her do this or that. Bologna!! You are your own person...please turn that sweet little brain of yours on!!!

I go upstairs to the girls room to find a box thrown down their steps with shoes all over the place...clothes everywhere...a disaster zone. Ugghhh...I hate mornings like this. I get so upset and frustrated, when it is such an easy concept...get up, get dressed, come down to my room. And to top off the awesome morning I had...my daughter was going to wear old jeans to school, and I told her that that wasn't going to work, so she takes them off and stands in front of me buck naked...when I say where are your underwear she claimed she didn't have any. Yep...she was going to go to school with no underwear on people. She had peed the bed and didn't tell me and thought she was going to get away with it. Oiy!

Now all 3 kids are at school...I think I am going to go take a nice hot bath...even though I should be cleaning and taking advantage of the time to get some things done! Eh....it'll be there when I get out of the tub!!

Beautiful Fall Day

Another Saturday filled with football and cheerleading...it's my life these days!

My son is playing his 2nd year of tackle football and LOVES it. It was a beautiful morning, although just a little crisp up on a hill at the field. The team lost 7-6 which does not make my son happy. It was a quiet ride on the way home.

Tianna had her football game she cheered at this afternoon. She actually was into it today. Miracles happen. God bless her. She knows every.single.cheer but yet, when it comes time to do it, she's just not into it. I think maybe next year she won't be cheering. We'll see.

The youngest, Aleah on the other hand, is practically jumping out of her skin to be able to get her hands on the pom poms. If they change the birth date cut off next year, she will be 1 unhappy little girl.

It is so fun to sit back and watch my kids in their activities. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed with who needs to be where, but they are happy and that makes it worth while.

Shawn is at a birthday party this afternoon, so the girls are enjoying watching some TV they want to watch. I really want to turn my sewing machine on...but my house is a disaster zone...such choices!

Frustration

It's been well over a year since I have posted anything on my poor little blog...where does time go?!? I find it interesting that today is the day I decide to start back into blogging...

As most of the people who read this blog know, I am a foster parent. My husband and I have been foster parents for 6 years. Through that time we have seen the ups and downs and been on a crazy roller coaster ride called Children & Youth Services.

Yesterday one of my foster parent friends posted an article that was on the local news about a young foster dad who was arrested for abusing one of his foster children. Of course this has caused a lot of outrage on how someone could do this, etc. etc. We have a group on Facebook of foster parents/adoptive parents from our agency where we can talk about anything...tough times, situations such as this, advice, and a laugh...this topic has been discussed a bunch on there. I am having such a hard time with people's reactions.

One of the commenter's on the article said who approves "these people" to be foster parents. Another one said "the state will give kids to anyone so they don't have to take care of them". Many of these comments have rubbed me the wrong way. I have been trying to bite my tongue to not comment on the website where the article is listed. This was just another realization that people are really clueless on what it takes to be a foster parents. I know not many people read my blog...but I just feel like I need to share...

We had to have FBI Clearances, Police Checks, Child Abuse Clearances, home study, mounds of paperwork, training on top of trainings, water testing, emergency exit plans, disaster plans, home visits, dr. clearances, and the list continues. The ironic part?! Birth parents can just have babies and take them home with no license, no checks, no trainings, nothing...all this to say, there are always bad apples on the tree. No matter how many checks or evaluations done...people can slip through the cracks.

But the other question is...what was done for the foster parent? Did they know they could ask for help if they were overwhelmed? Were they offered help? Did they request the children be removed if they were overwhelmed?

I am frustrated that in times such as these, the automatic reaction is to lump all foster parents together and act as though we are bad people and only in it for the money. As I said in our group page, we could lump birth parents together as bad parents. But we don't do that...we see the good in people and want them to succeed in getting their children back into their home if that is the best for the child.

Sorry that was a lot of blubbering...and probably didn't make any sense, I apologize. Maybe tomorrow I will blog about a happier topic :)