Haircuts

Deidra and I got haircuts tonight. I donated 12" to Locks of Love and so I got my haircut for free. That surprised me, but I tried to make up for it by the tip I left the hairdresser.

Cuddle Bugs

Aren't they sweet? Emily loves her so much.

Devotions with the littles today..

We talked today about how God is alwyas going to help us through our problems. He doesn't promise that we will never have any, but he promises to help us through all of them. Emily asked me today if when they got older if that meant that they would get kicked out of the family. I immediately took her hands and hugged her and told her that although we all grow and age more and we may live in different places, our family starts with God and it's like the threads of their clothes..there's a line of thread that goes from God to Mommy and Daddy and then goes through all of our children and it binds us together. I told her that just as I don't live with my parents anymore, we still visit each other and we talk on the phone and so forth and I know that I can always call them if I have a problem and they are there for me. I told her that we would never kick her out of the family...she's always going to be one of us and we will always be there for her. She had a little incident the other day where she got mad at Josiah in the car. He was goofing around and wouldn't listen to me and there was a police officer in a car behind me that she saw. All of a sudden she shrieked "Josiah you better behave or we're going to get taken away." She was absolutely terrified. I immediately told her that if I did get pulled over, I would have gotten a ticket more than likely because of what he was doing (fooling with his seatbelt), that it wasn't something that they would get taken away for. I talked to her today about her birthmom and how she loved her in her own way, but for reasons that she doesn't understand right now that she was unable to take care of her the way that she deserves to be taken care of, but that she does love her enough to let her be part of a family (us) who can take care of her and will always love her. We talked about adoption again and I hugged each one of them and told them that I love being their Mommy and although they grew in someone else's tummies, that I would always be there for them and they would never have to worry about not being part of our family. That stemmed another conversation as Tracie and Josiah kept saying "well, we came out of your tummy." I know Josiah doesn't remember his birthmom, but we talked about her for a minute and I told him her name. He has no memory of her. Tracie acted surprised that she didn't come out of my tummy, but we talked about her birthmom and she was surprised that was whose tummy she came out of. She asked me then "what about Melina?" I told her "you were here when Mommy had Melina, where did Melina come from?" She then pointed to my stomach. All the littles say that they want to be babies again and have me feed them out of bottles. I have done that with Emma before and she responded positively to it. It was something that she asked to do and I figured that maybe she just needed to do that. I don't know...I may do that at some point during our attachment activities, but I'll save that for another post. I'm just glad that I'm able to talk with my children. Some of these talks aren't always easy...they're not difficult...they're just awkward sometimes...I don't want to give them more information than they're ready for. I just try to answer what they're asking and leave it at that. Thank you God, for my precious children...the ones that grew in my tummy and the ones that grew in my heart. I love them and want what is best for them. I pray too that you will help them to heal and not be afraid anymore of being taken away from anyone. And I pray in thanksgiving too to their birthmoms for giving them life and ask for your blessings over them too.

Day 4 of Summer Faith Adventure

We learned today that families stick together and pray for one another and help each other...we talked about sacrifices that we could make to help each other and that God is the happiest with us when we're thinking about others instead of ourselves. We made rice krispies to reiterate families stick together. We talked too about honoring and obeying our parents and how that not only makes parents happy, but it makes God happy too. We made family trees and we talked about how we could pray together for one another and that God puts us in families so that we can help one another and pray for each other so that we can help one another get to Heaven. We talked about how the Mommy is here to take good care of us and the Daddy is here to protect his family. We talked about how marriage is the start of the family and what happens in a wedding. This sparked some questions from Emma about her birth as she knew her birthmom wasn't married. We talked about God's will for us is to wait until after marriage to have kids. It led to a good discussion about their adoption and a good family talk and how they were safe here and that we would always be here for them. I really felt that they understood a lot of what we talked about and it felt good to be open with them about some things. I also wanted to tell them that although they grew in my heart, that I would always love them and be there to help them the best way that I could. I am so thankful to have them in my life. Thank you, God, for these precious children!

Melina had to get in on the fun too...we gave her a bowl and a spoon and she wound up putting a fake lizard in her bowl and we told her that she was making lizard soup...she would giggle and carry it around in her bowl...



Emily helping with the cereal...



Josiah pours in the cereal...



Tracie helping to make the rice krispy treats...



Deidra helping to make rice krispy treats...



our morning started out with a little boy with a tummy ache and he fell asleep trying to eat his cereal...we prayed for him and he rested for a bit and then felt better. PTL!

God is the one in control...I get that now God!

God has been working with me today...I am not the one in control He is!

Tried to go to the Y today to get my workout in. THey didn't have room in the kids club today for all 4 of the kids. So, I just put Melina in there and I told the littles to play in the Kids Zone with Deidra. I wasn't on the treadmill 5 minutes and here come the kids into the cardio room. Deidra is complaining that they won't listen to her and Josiah keeps running away from her. He had been begging to play basketball and I thought he would have been having fun with that. I should have known better. I told them that they better listen to her or there were going to be problems and to go play for 15 minutes and I would be fast today. 5 minutes later, I see Deidra walk by to get a raquetball room and I knew what she was thinking. Smart girl! If she got them in the room, they couldn't get out and run from her. 5 minutes after that, here they all come into the cardio room again. Josiah had chucked the ball at Deidra's face. I was done. I gathered Melina from the kids club and we left. Get out to my car and the check engine light came on.

Ran home to make Deidra a doctor appt as I am sure she has swimmers ear. The kids were not super cooperative in the waiting room, but we made it. Finally got checked in and got back to the doctors waiting area. The kids played for a minute and then we got put in a room. Thankfully, the doctor was in right away and confirmed her swimmers ear and we got some meds called in and we were off.

Off to the dealership that is being revamped right now to see what's going on. Josiah immediately tries to start getting into their cookies. My Mom walks in and tells him no and that they need to sit down. He goes and tries to pull on the trailer hitches that they have on display and my Mom gets after him again. She finally tells them that if they don't listen to me, Deidra will go get her and she will deal with them. They sat relatively well, but needed a lot of redirection. I had to text the speech therapist and let her know that I was going to be late. Found out that it's some emissions code and it's safe to drive, some valve somewhere needs to be tightened or replaced but they couldn't get it in before we leave for AZ. Ran to Walmart and to Walgreens quickly for Deidra's meds and then home for speech.

Had to do VBS in stages. Oh well...at least we got it done...not a lot of pics though. I'm having a lot of fun doing this with them.

Day 3 of Summer Faith Adventure

We did day 3 of summer faith adventure today. We talked more about the roles of the bishop, priest, and deacons. We talked about holy orders. We were supposed to make pretzels, but everything I was trying to do today took a detour so we just bought the pre-made ones and popped them in the oven. If God taught me anything today it's that I can plan all I want, but He is the one in control. lol. We continued to talk about King David as well.

Emily with her pretzel...



Josiah with his pretzel...


Tracie ate her pretzel too, but she was doing speech when I took pictures so I didn't get a picture of her today.

Trying to eat with her fork...

I finally started to try and give her a fork to try to eat with. I wanted to see if she could do it herself...she is definitely trying...guess I should try her with a spoon first, but she wouldn't part with her fork. lol

Day 2 of Summer Faith Adventure

We did day 2 of summer faith adventure today. We prayed one of the luminous mysteries of the baptism in the jordan. We talked about how the stained glass windows in the church tell a story and then we made stained glass window cookies and our own stained glass windows that i hung up on the slider door. We also talked about baptism and confirmation. We also talked more about King David and Solomon. We also prayed for our families.

Tracie eating her cookie...



Emily showing me her stained glass window that she made...



Josiah helping to make the stain glass window cookies...

Day 1 of Summer Faith Adventure

We had a good first day of homeschool VBS today. We said the first decade of the Joyful mysteries...the Anunciation and learned more about that. We talked about baptism. We learned about King David. We made kings and crowns cookies...they had a hard time with carving. Emmy made a crown in her dough and Tracie just wanted to do a heart. Josiah wound up eating all of his dough before it could be carved out. Oh well. They had fun anyway. We talked about the pope and they got to make miter hats too. We also played "I am a child of God." I really enjoyed the day with them and I did learn that I could homeschool if I ever needed to afterall. :-) It went surprisingly well.

A very messy Tracie...



Emily carving a crown into her dough...



Josiah's picture that he colored of John baptising Jesus...



Tracie and her miter hat...



Josiah tasting the batter...



Emily helping to make keys and crowns cookies...

Melina feeding her baby!

She totally makes me smile. She got the bottle and then went and got the baby, sat down and started feeding her baby. So sweet! Melina sure does take good care of her babies!

Helping to put groceries away...

Melina surprises me all of the time with the things that she tries to help us do. A lot of times when we ask the littles to do something, she is the first one to go scampering off to try and do it. We brought the groceries in today and she was immediately trying to "help." She amazes me!

she loves to shut the doors for us...this one made me laugh as she was literally trying to close Andy in the door...



what's in here that is for me?...



she noticed her milk in the bag and dragged it towards the refrigerator...

Emily Loves Her Baby Sister

Ok, so Emily was supposed to be in time out. But Melina went and laid her head in her lap and it was just too precious not to take a picture. Emmy loves her baby sister and Melina loves her too!

My business vision...

We have been selling on ebay for almost as long as we've been married. We'll be married for 13 years this year. We both enjoy it a lot. However, we really enjoy the thrift store hunts of finding things to resell as well as our garage sale finds. We got watching Storage Wars and American Pickers as well and our imaginations are going crazy. We were having our first garage sale ever last year and the wheels started to turn in my head. I'd love to have a resale store. Andy and I talked a little bit and could see ourselves doing that. The only thing is that we don't want to incur debt...it's all cash to pay for everything. My father-in-law built me clothing racks when he was down as we wanted to try to have garage sales more often. We just had a spur of the moment garage sale on the 4th of July as we wanted to try to get rid of some stuff to make room for my Mother-in-Law's stuff when she moves here in the next little bit. We had those clothing racks FULL of clothes and that was only about half the clothes that we had to sell. My Grandma used to love to buy stuff and wash it up and clean it and resell it. They would pair together with her sisters and have HUGE garage sales 3-4 times a year. When I'm out sometimes, I talk to her and doing this makes me feel closer to her too. But, my wheels are turning a little more as we talk about starting our next little branch of our business. I'd love to have a place that my whole family could work and have my kids close to me as we go about our work. We were watching The Cupcake Girls last night (never watched the show before last night) and I love that their whole family works together. I have a vision...I'm not ready to share it all quite yet...but I ran it by Andy today and he's on board with my idea. So, we'll get ready to grow out our next branch and see where this takes us. I'm excited. We're talking about starting it in August. God, use me and my family to fill Your Holy Will please. You know my heart and I am a giver. I have this vision and I want to do Your Work. Please use me and my family and help us to fulfill this dream together.

Busy day...

We had church this morning, which I spent out in the vestibule with Melina and 5 other Moms with their babies. We are slowly starting to get to know each other as the babies are all aroudn the same age and don't sit for long. They gotta move aroudn you know. On the way home, we stopped to get our newspapers so that we could get our coupons and then we stopped at McDonald's to get breakfast. After we ate, Andy and I talked about somethign that I have been thinking about for awhile. I have a vision that I see in my head for a business...but that's a whole other post. Anyway, we put Melina down for her morning nap and left the littles downstairs to play. Andy and Deidra went up to her room to clean her carpets and get her room picked up so that her room is ready for her to bunk with Grandma Hoffman in a few days and then I worked on switching out the littles closets since they switched rooms a few months ago (yes, that's right...I said a few). So, now their clothes are in the proper rooms. Now, I'm working on getting our laundry done and I think I'm going to wash our bedding today too if I have time. I also need to clean the upstairs bathrooms and vacuum the floors up there. Then, we have to plan our meals for the week and look for coupons so that we can go get the groceries for the week.

Split Games

The kids had their games at the same time today and so Andy brought the little to their t-ball game and Mommy and Melina took Deidra to her volleyball game. Deidra's team won their game. Her coach was really glad to see her since she missed the last game due to her strep throat. She was greated with a "Yeah, you made it!" and a big hug from her coach and high fives from her teammates. Only about 6 of the 9 made it to the game! They won both games that they played. Now, Thursday night she'll start the tournament. If they win Thursday, they play Friday. If they win Friday, they play Saturday. We're supposed to leave for Phoenix on Saturday morning, so this may delay things, but we're trying to see if she can play with her team on Saturday. A lot will depend on game time as we already reserved our room in Las Cruces, NM for Saturday night. We tried to go see the end of the littles t-ball game, but they were walking to the car when we met them by the field. They lost their game, but they were good sports and all tried very hard.

Melina and the letter B

Daddy got her a beach ball and she absolutely loves it. She bounces it and runs after it. So cute!



the bathing beauty...

I cook with you, Momma!

My little sweetheart had to cook with Momma while I was making dinner.

Our coupon run!

Target:
Shelf cost: $44.30
Coupons/Discounts: $32.75
Total Out of Pocket: $11.55 (74% savings)

CVS:
Shelf Cost: $9.98
Coupons/Discounts: $8.98
Tax: $0.08
Total Out of Pocket: $1.08 (89% savings)

Walgreens (2 combined transactions):
Shelf Cost: $33.91
Coupons/Discounts: $23.28
Tax: $0.49
Total Out of Pocket: $7.12 (80% savings)

Credit goes to my hubby who planned out our trip and found the coupons. :-)

Melina has strep now...

Melina started being fussy at night a few nights ago, but she wasn't acting that way during the day, so we just thought that maybe she was having night terrors as she didn't have any other symptoms. Last night, she was up every few minutes crying and she had a bit of a runny nose. I'm thinking that she's teething as she has a runny nose, a diaper rash, and she's had some diarrhea on and off. Throughout the day, she's been fussy as well. I was trying to get some stuff done before I started dinner and she wouldn't let me do anything without crying and reaching for me. She had another poopy diaper and her diaper rash was really red and so I got her changed and more Desitin on. Was going to put dinner in the oven really quick and she just started screaming. Gave her some tylenol, some teething stuff, held her for a little bit and she cried and cried for almost a half an hour before she really started screaming. I figured I better bring her in. I called and they asked how quick I could get there. Andy was almost home so they gave me an appt 20 minutes later. Good thing we don't live far. She said that her ears looked fine, her glands in the neck were a little swollen. She said she was going to swab her throat, but she didn't think it looked really red or anything, but since sister had strep she wanted to be on the safe side. She looked at the diaper rash and agreed that it looked pretty bad and red and thought maybe that's why she was so fussy. She said she was going to call in a script that would have to be compounded and gave me two pharmacies that do that...ours was already closed so she let me know where the other one was and then she said that her strep test came back positive. I had her call that one in to our regular pharmacy and I headed to get the diaper rash script. Got there and found out that their lab has to make it, that's not something they can just do in a few minutes and that it would take 24-48 hours. I left praying that they can get it done sooner rather than later. I don't like to see my baby girl hurting. Lord, please give us a healthy streak. It seems like we are sick with something all of the time.

First Attachment Therapy Appt for Josiah

Andy and I met with a new therapist for Josiah today. This one is a psychologist who is going to help us with some of the problems going on in our home regarding Josiah’s behaviors. I found her on an attachment site for kids who have reactive attachment disorder. She met with us for about 45 minutes and gathered information on Josiah’s life thus far and what has been going on that made us seek her. We told her all that we’ve been through and different stuff that we have tried. She had him in a room where he could play with a video monitor on him the whole time. I told her about my fears with the safety stuff going on in the home, how aggressive he is, how the behavior therapy that we tried doesn’t work (she wasn’t surprised, she said the traditional stuff doesn’t work with these kids and it’s not a problem with the parenting and these kids can be charmers so people don’t necessarily see what we see as they’re not in the home). With his poor cause and effect thinking, he blames us for being mean to him when we have to discipline rather than seeing that his behavior got him there. No sooner did we discuss this as I always fear that he’s going to say the wrong thing to the wrong person and we’re going to be in trouble for something we didn’t even do, than he knocked at the door, the therapist went and got the door and he said he had to go potty (nevermind that Andy had just taken him). He wanted Mommy to take him though as Daddy hurts his arm when he says that he has to go to the bathroom. The therapist saw right through it and said that she thought it was interesting that we just had talked about that. She wanted Andy to take him to the bathroom. She documented that in her notes as she said that if we had any problems in the future, that someone would have it documented somewhere that he does this stuff. She told me to calm down as she could see that I was fearful. She was on our side. We talked about a lot of stuff and then she called Josiah in to talk to her. She looked at his hands and his face for signs of what she thought we were dealing with and confirmed it. He has fetal alcohol effects and that is why he has such a hard time with emotional regulation, making poor choices, and with his cause and effect thinking. She said that she also thinks that he has the reactive attachment disorder, but we can’t work on the attachment until we get him to learn to regulate himself. I am so glad that we finally found a therapist who supports us and doesn’t think we’re crazy and is understanding. She also told us that there’s a difference in someone who studies it and someone who has lived/is living it and she understands as her family fostered 50 kids when she was growing up. We’re going to start seeing her once a month for an hour as she only works out of the Dallas office for one week out of the month. I’m just relieved to know that someone understands. When she talked to Josiah, she let him know that she knew what was going on and that he had some problem areas to work on. She called him out on it in a sing song sort of way. She gave Andy and I each some homework to work on with him each day. His number one rule to understand right now is that his #1 rule of being a man is that you never hurt a girl and Andy has to back me up when Josiah disrespects me to let him know that he is to listen to Mommy and not to hurt me or be disrespectful. Josiah is to understand that Daddy is the top dog and that Josiah is not the one in control. We’re going to make some changes to his room so that the door locks from the hallway and that when we send him to his room, he has a place to throw a fit and scream and do whatever, but we’ll have to make some changes to the door (putting a peephole in) and making sure that he can’t break the window. We go back in one month to tweak some things and for her to find out how things have been going. He had to leave one bad behavior behind in her office when we left…he got to throw a wacky bug up on her ceiling to stay there…he chose to leave behind some of his mad feelings. We have a lot of work to do, but I feel better about things than I have in awhile. Please pray for our family during all of this.

A reminder of God's promise...

We got the tiniest amount of rain just now, but with it came a beautiful rainbow. God gives us His love here in TX...I've seen more rainbows than I ever have living here. Love them!

4th of July Parade

Deidra rode on the Carlisle float with Grandma. They got 2nd place for best float!



us watching the parade...

Mommy's little firecrackers...

Melina...



Tracie...



Emily...



Josiah showing off his muscle...



Josiah...


I wish that I had one of Deidra but she spent the night with Grandma last night and is doing so again tonight. I did put one up of her in the 4th of July parade though. :-)

Beating the heat!

Start at the bottom to see Melina's progression with the spray park as this was her first time going. We had to beat the 100 degree heat somehow. :-) They all had fun!

I ran out of space on the camera card, so I had to get a quick pic of the 5 of them together with my last picture...



Melina got brave and started doing it by herself...



the littles highlight of the trip..."Mom look, it's spraying up our butts!"



Melina going through the mister tunnel for the first time...



Josiah letting the fountain dump on him...



Tracie and Emily having fun!



Deidra was introducing Melina to the water and Melina wasn't too sure of what to think...she was crying a bit at first so we just went slow...

4th of July Photo Shoot

Little Melina...not very cooperative...but oh so cute...



Momma's firecrackers...



Melina...



Emily...



Tracie...



Josiah...



Deidra...