Inventory

I found a little program online that reads a 5 minute devotion to the kids. We've been doing it since yesterday. They're too busy fighting with one another and trying to stand up to pay total attention, but they are getting bits and pieces of it. I figure as long as they're getting something out of it that's positive, it's a good thing. :-)

Anyway, today they talked about taking a personal inventory of your life over the past year and figuring out what was pleasing to God and what was worthwhile and making it a goal to do more of those things in the new year. Lord, I pray that you will help my childen to be more loving, kind, obedient, and well-behaved. I pray that you will come into their hearts and help them to learn to be more like you. I also pray that you will help Andy and I continue to show patience, compassion, kindness and love in our journey as parents. Amen.

Meekness in spirit

Lord, I pray for my children and that you will give them meekness in their young little spirits. I pray that each of my children will grow in the likeness of Christ. With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love.

I lift each of my children up to You, Lord, and I pray that you will help them to love one another and be kind to one another.

One thing I really need to get back to is daily prayer...

I found some daily devotionals that I'm purchasing...one for preschoolers and one for family. We're going to start doing the preschool one before school and the family devotional after dinner. When I was laying in bed after my Dad and I's argument, God started speaking to me and prayer is something I definitely need to start doing more of. God will help me through...I just need to start devoting everything to Him. I was saying a daily rosary most days as well before I found out that I was pregnant and I feel that Mary is leading me back to that as well. I'm going to start praying daily for my role as a mother and I need to start praying for my children more often.

Good Christmas, Bad Ending

We had a wonderful Christmas, but unfortunately my Dad said some pretty horrible things to me at the end of Christmas that left me pretty upset. We just spoke again yesterday since Christmas and Andy and I explained ourselves. My Dad doesn't feel that he said anything wrong, but he felt that it was his right to have a say. Totally didn't get anything that we said. I prayed about it and just quit arguing and God gave me peace. God's plans aren't always what our parents plans for us are and I can come to accept that. I'm over it and moving forward. We did have a wonderful Christmas though and Sunday's church service on the feast of the Holy Family was beautiful.

Baby T did so well in speech today...

I had asked earlier this week to see about getting some articulation added in Baby T's speech. She chops her words so badly that most people can not understand her and even me at times struggles with understanding what she's saying and I'm with her all day. I know she's kind of young to do this, but something has got to give. I'm really wondering if a lot of her temper tantrums aren't due to the fact that she feels misunderstood, although I know a lot of it is behavioral as well. Anyway, they said they would work on it and make it a part of her goals but that it may take her longer to catch up in speech. I said that was fine, something has got to happen.

She sat down with the therapist today and they were going to work on k and g sounds, but she thought maybe b and f would be easier so they started on those. She chops the ends of her words off as well and so they were working on that as well. The therapist spent I don't know how long trying to get her to say "bite." Towards the end of the session, she was trying to tell the therapist something and said "bite" perfectly and without any prompting at all. The therapist was jumping for joy and I was just smiling away in the kitchen. Mommy is so proud of her!

So proud of Josiah!

We picked up some alphabet flash cards today and he went through them and told me probably about half of his letters. There were a couple that he didn't know the letter name, but he could tell me the sound that it made instead. That blew me away! He is SO smart! He's getting some letters mixed up like he calls the M a W and a S he says Z for. He calls the L a 1 and stuff like that, so some he doens't know but he's making common mistakes. He blew me away today and I am just SO proud of him! Now bad for a 3-year-old little boy!

Tired of being judged...

by people who I think would be on my side. My Mom had e-mailed me yesterday to let me know that it was the feast day of the Immaculate Conception and that it was a holy day of obligation. She said mass was at 12 and at 7 pm. Well, Baby T had speech at noon and we have therapy in Dallas after school and with traffic we didn't make it back on time. I've still been feeling pretty miserable...sick with some allergy/cold stuff this weekend that carried over, and tired and nauseated from being pregnant. So, I just decided to turn on EWTN before I took Little E to school and we watched mass and said a rosary. I told MOm that we weren't making mass because of what was going on. She told me "sorry, but that doesn't count." I instantly got tears in my eyes. I get so hurt by my family sometimes. I feel like saying "why don't you come walk in my shoes for a week and deal with all that I have going on, all the things that get dumped on me to deal with, the last minute stuff that comes up, and being tired and nauseated on top of it all?" I called Andy and vented and I sat down and it was like God told me "don't worry about it, give your feelings to Me, I know your heart and what your intentions are." I instantly felt better. The comment from my Mom still stings, but I know that only God can truly judge me and it's not like I blew off Mass just because I felt like doing something else more fun...I was taking care of my kids and my family. It brought me back to Father's sermon a couple weeks back...he was talking about how some have gone to confession saying that they are guilty of not praying enough and Father asked them waht they were doing...they said that they had this going on with their kids, trying to take care of the house, their husbands, sick family members and so on. He said that God understands this and that we just need to say little prayers throughout the day or make what we're doing our prayer to God. I knew that God understood my heart and I did make the effort to watch on tv and to make time for prayer with the kids. I also told her that our old priest had told me that if there was an honest reason that we couldn't make it to Mass and we made the effort to watch Mass on tv, that it still counted. She wrote me back and said "well the rules are changing all the time, we're told one thing at once and one thing at another, but who am I to argue with a priest?" I just feel like nobody truly understands how busy my weeks are and that I'm trying my best to get in everything that needs to be done, but God keeps telling me..."I know the intentions of your heart." So, I have to trust that I'm doing ok.

Disappointed....

The night of our homestudy, Deidra asked if she could be asked her questions before the caseworker talked to us so that she could go play with her friends. The caseworker said that was fine and talked to Deidra and then Deidra went to her friend's house. She was over there for a little bit and then came home. We were still talking to the caseworker. The caseworker left and about 10 minutes later there was a knock at the door. I thought it was the caseworker saying she forgot something, but I found Deidra's friend, her brother, and their Mom. Their Mom asked if she could talk to me privately and so I went out on the porch. Their Mom said that her daughter's cell phone was missing and the brother had said that Deidra had been playing with it. I called Deidra out and checked her pockets and found the phone. Deidra said that she forgot it was in there and their MOm said that stealing wasn't cool with her. I honestly didn't know what to think. Deidra burst into tears and ran in the house and I told Deidra she was grounded. Their Mom kept saying "I didn't want to come over here and accuse of her anything and it's ok." I told her that Deidra's never done anything like this before and I didn't know the whole story, but that it would be dealt with. Deidra told her that she forgot that she had put it in her pocket when they got called to play the Wii and then when she came home she realized she still had it and she was going to give it back to her friend at school in the morning. Their Mom said that she had told them to put it up and then the brother said that Deidra had gone back in there to get it because she wanted to play with it. They left and Andy and I talked with Deidra and she just wouldn't talk. She wrote to us a little bit, but wouldn't talk about much. She's grounded for a week, we're going to have her write a letter of apology, and I think when she does start playing with her friends again, it's going to be supervised here for awhile. She's got some friends who have some behaviors that I don't like and I think it's time to nip it in the bud now or she won't be playing with them any longer. I know that no kids are perfect, but I want her to be the best that she can be and I've been seeing some things lately with some of her behaviors that I think are the result of hanging around with certain people. How they deal with their kids is one thing, but I really want Deidra to understand the difference between right/wrong and what is unacceptable behavior. She's a good kid, I really don't know if she took the cell phone intentionally or if what she said is true that she put it in her pocket and forgot that it was there when she came home. But regardless, their Mom told them to put it up, she should have listened and with all that happened, I want this to be a learning experience for her.

Homestudy update

Our caseworker came out on Monday night and did our homestudy update. Really not much has changed since we just adopted Josiah in June, but we had to do it anyway. I don't know why I get nervous, but everything went well. She also did a session of adoption prep with the girls, one more prep session to do this week and then we're done with that part of it. I just have to sign some waivers and do another crim check and our part should be done. We also have to wait for one more reference to come in and then wait for her to type up our homestudy update and get it to CPS.