Monica

It has been a while since I have blogged. If you remember back in 2012 I told of my dear friend that had been diagnosed with cancer. For a while I had a donation widget on the sidebar as the medical bills grew...

Well, my dear friend passed from this life into the arms of Jesus on February 13, 2014. She was 39 yrs old. She left behind a husband of 20 years and 4 children.

When the cancer came back in January, she asked if we could come to be with her. So we moved into her basement. She did not want Hospice, she wanted family to care for her. It was sad, and beautiful and painful and rewarding. She taught me so much about living in those days before dying.

My kids are really good kids. They packed in a moments notice, traveled and left their home life for almost a month. They slept on air mattresses and pallets on the floor. They left their toys, games and favorite blankets.

They never complained!

James took on shoveling their drive and walkway, Jackson took on taking out the trash and sweeping. Jordan took on caring for the babies and became the preschool teacher for 3 little ones. Her children showed me where everything was and hung in their with me teaching their curriculum that I was not familiar with, changing the way they normally do school, gave up their playroom and shared their toys. All the kids accepted a new menu as cooking for 9 children in someone else's kitchen is a challenge.

And finally, all the children surrounded my dear friend with love, kisses, songs and prayers. Everyday that she could, she would have the kids come into her room and cuddle, talk and spend precious time with each one. She and her husband did a beautiful job of explaining what would happen and her children were wonderful ambassadors of grace and peace at one of the largest funerals that I have ever attended.

She had asked Joshua to sing at her funeral and that little boy went to the front of the church, got up on the stage in front of 400+ people and sang!

Beautiful, beautiful, Jesus is beautiful
and Jesus makes beautiful things of my life
Carefully, touching me, causing my eyes to see
and Jesus makes beautiful
Things of my life.

I know she was smiling.

So, I wanted to document this.

My heart aches with missing her. She was my very dearest friend, my sister, my cheerleader. I am proud to have known her.

Happy Belated New Year!

Finally

We are back from vacation and I am finally able to blog again. I did not take my laptop this year, but used my K*ndal F*re HD. Google Chrome would not allow me to sign in as I was in a "foreign location". The only way to confirm that it was indeed me was to apply a secret code that they would give me over the phone... my home phone! Hmmmm. So, I have missed you all and was not able to do my days of thankfulness, but I am so thankful. This years vacation was by far the best family vacation ever!!

My mom, dad and brother went along with me and all 5 children this year. This was Joshua's first plane trip and family vacation and it was quite an adventure. Nassau was beautiful and although it rained more than it ever has in 20 years, it was still a wonderful and relaxing time.

Had to block out 2 ladies that were not very modestly dressed, but they were very sweet and fell in love with my children. 

School time

Homeschool is where the home is :)

Joshua watching the commercial fishing boats and cruise ships. 

A wonderful 4 weeks with family and friends.

The Build Up and The Fall

Good, "Clean" Fun

With all the rain we decided we needed some outside time.

Had to wash their feet just to get them into the  house to the tub.

My tub.... oh my goodness! but it was so much fun!

They clean up pretty good!

Our First Flex Week

This was a flex week for us and it went well. We had family here for mother's day weekend and enjoyed our time a great deal. Monday and Tuesday were great weather days and we enjoyed a camp fire and a lot of outdoors time. On Wednesday we had Entertaining Angels and had a nice crowd. They boys learned how to hang laundry on the line and James learned how to repair the mesh in the screen door.  We have watched a lot of Sch**l H*use R*ck and the kids like the songs that are some of my favorites too. It really brings back good memories.

Peace!

Happy May Day! & Belated Birthday Post

Happy May Day! As a child, my mother always cheerfully greeted me on May 1st with this. My mother greets everyone, everyday with a 'happy, it's-a-great/beautiful-day greeting', but she particularly likes May 1st. If I had planned ahead, we may have done a May Pole, but last night was rough.

I have not had internet since early Monday, so I missed doing a birthday post for Jackson. Monday, was his birthday.  He is 9 years old and the happiest boy...grinnin' and cheesin' from ear to ear for days! All he wanted was 1 matchb*x car for his birthday. He is the easiest kid to shop for because he is thrilled with anything you give him. Not only did he get 5 new matchb*x cars, but he got a much needed big boy bike! There is a lady at our church that shares a birth date with him. They call each other "Birthday Buddies". She is in her early 80's. He was telling her about a m*nster truck car that he wanted and asked her if she would like one too for her birthday. She told him that she didn't even know what that was. LOL!

So....


Happy Birthday, Kid!

Entertaining Angels & An Emergency Roadtrip

We had a personal needs distribution today and as always it was fun! We love the people that we serve and have developed great friendships with them. We have 1 couple that comes every month and they try to take more that their share. We now get a kick out chanting, "just one!" to them and they in turn, smack their lips and roll their eyes in mock fashion. We have a guy that gives a different celebrity name every time he comes. As he was leaving today, he informed me that next month he would T*m Cru*se. Too funny. We offer feminine hygiene and 1 of the men got a big kick out of telling us with a dramatic hand wave that he did not need any of those products. Good Day with many served.

On another note, my very dear friend had to go to the ER tonight so 2 of my children and I drove to her town about an hour away to offer support if needed. She has 4 small children that call me Auntie De ~Smile~ Waiting...

Spelling Bee A-No-Go

Today was supposed to be the spelling bee, but with the weather forecast, the coordinator sent out an e-mail saying that it may be cancelled if the storm was as bad as predicted. It was not, but some families, including ours, decided not to go out. Actually, the kids were not that disappointed. I think no one really wanted to go out. Next year.

On a sad note, the little girl that I have been doing emergency respite for is losing her placement. The foster parent has asked for her to be moved and this weekend, she was placed in a residential facility. She had only been in that home since just before Christmas and has spent 3-4 of those weekends at my home. My kids are upset and were crying that she could not stay here. I just don't have the room.  big sigh....

Tomorrow is the church Valentine party.

Saturday School

I mentioned that we were trying to do a bit of catch up. For the last 2 weekends, we have ended up having some school on Saturday. For the most part, the kids don't mind and if I am able to get some laundry or other business done while down there, I don't mind so much either.

I have been doing some respite care on the weekends since just after Christmas. The honeymoon is long over and we are in the midst of lots of redirection. It is so very hard for her because she goes from the foster home during the week to my house on the weekends and the rules and expectations are vastly different. Unfortunately we are not in a position to work together to make things more seamless.

The spelling bee is next week. Ready or not...here it comes.

Update

So much going on that I have been to busy to document.

Entertaining Angels is going strong and getting bigger and bigger. In January we served 30 families and had 6 or 7 new families sign up. We had to come use a new system of distribution this last month as it was just us working. It actually seemed to work pretty good as we did not use "runners" but just laid everything out on the table. We still ran out of things fairly quickly. By 12:17 pm we were down to just a few bars of soap and a couple of toothbrushes. It had been like that for 3 months.... running out of things within the first 15 minutes. I am in talks right now the treasurer of the church to see what kind of budget we can work with. We now have 397 people that have been serviced by this ministry!

We have been working hard to finish units this last month. There are 10 units per course and we still have a few children in their 3rd or 4th unit in 1 or more classes. We are fast approaching our mid-year mark and trying to increase their speed a bit. Mostly I like them to go a a slow pace to be sure that they understand what they are doing, but I think they are capable of going a bit faster. We have just gotten into the habit of snail pacing. Time to shift gears a bit.

Speaking of mid-year...it is time for progress reports cards. I think grades are due by Thursday. So much to do.

Jordan was invited to her first homecoming prom! OH MY GOODNESS!!!!  The search for a dress was on with me looking for a vintage, Victorian style with a high neck, long sleeves and a non-clinging bodice  LOL! let's just say that they don't sell those kind of dresses in the mall. Jordan tends to be modest....mostly, but the choices of clothes on the market now days makes it difficult not to compromise in some areas. The prom is being held at one of the private schools in this town that have the strictest dress code (i.e. girls only wear dresses and skirts, boys ties, no tennis shoes for anyone...) We finally found a dress that is perfect for her and purchased it off the rack, no alterations needed!  Next was shoes, pantyhose, and undergarments. She found the shoes...adorable. The rest is still in the works. The dress has to be approved before she can attend. We are taking the dress over to the school today (Tuesday). One of the other mothers told me that they will be taking a picture of the dress because in the past some girls have gotten a dress approved and then shown up in a different dress. Ha! kids....

The Valentine bowling party is coming up. We have not decided if we are going to be able to make it.

Funny story: We had a long day of running errands, shopping and other business. My mom was with me and we were trying to decide what to do about dinner as it was late and we had not planned very well. Jordan mentioned wanting a shake and my mom whispered to me:

The Nana: "Let's let them have ice cream for dinner."
Me: "Oh yea let's just let them have stomach aches!"
The Nana: "They don't mind having stomachs aches. They want one!"
Kids from back seat: "We want a stomach ache!"
Joshua, "I want a stomach ache!"

And so...they did!

Christmas Pic Attempt 1

We tried to take Christmas pictures this last week, but I just could not get the lighting right.

The Crew

Malfunctioning Christmas lights

The Indoor Outdoor Purchase

I was able to purchase an outdoor basketball hoop system for the kids for a very reasonable price. I am usually able to assemble furniture, toys and most "some assembly required" items, but this thing....well. The instructions are in Chinese and the pictures with no English words don't look much like any of the parts in the box.

Big Sigh!

So the huge box has been sitting in my living room for almost 2 weeks now.

Monday... Oy Vey!!

We have had a rough day today which actually probably started late last night with a real fire (drill) emergency.

When James loaded the dishwasher last night, a plastic lid to a storage bowel was loaded incorrectly. As the drying cycle came around, the lid had fallen onto the heating element and started melting which caused a major burning smell. I was on the couch and even though the detectors did not go off I quickly got the kids up to leave the house thinking it was electrical. As we walked through the kitchen to leave we could smell it was coming from the dishwasher. We opened the dishwasher to stop the cycle and found the melting lid. Whew.... glad that is all it was. I had never had that happen before so I was a bit nervous.

They all did a great job of getting out of bed and getting out of the house in less than 1 minute.

Of course the kids were a bit nervous to go back to sleep so I let everyone sleep in this morning for an extra hour. That seemed to throw every one off their schedule and school was not very productive today. Oh well... we will catch up this week.

9th grade finally started today. She had delayed her start due to many family emergencies last week. She is off to a great start, but the rest of the kiddos....oh my. Lots of weeping and tears today.

Praying for a better tomorrow.

Adoption Party Success!!

We had a wonderful party! It kinda turned into a backyard camping party as we had the pop-up and RV open, I put up the screen house with the picnic table inside. We had about a dozen camp chairs set up under the awning and a great big 'ole fire in the pit. We hired a hot dog vendor who works downtown on the corner to bring his cart and set it up in the driveway. It was a HIT!

There were about 13 kids running around, we had great music and fantastic fellowship.

I am so pleased and blesses with the building of my family.

4 Cans of Black Olives

Someone donated a case of canned goods to us and there were several cans of black olives included. We tried a can and the children did not like them, so I separated the cans out with the intention of seeing if someone at church would be able to use them. Well, last week my 3 1/2 year old started playing with them and he has played with those cans more than I have ever seen him play with any toy. He stacks them and rolls them and spins them. He puts them in and out of a bag, a box and the back of his truck.

Ahhh.... cheap entertainment. ~Smile~

Friday Field Trip

Not free in any since of the word, but priceless just the same. We are at The [Certain} House on a beautiful lake that is full of wildlife and slow moving pontoon boats. We had a very relaxing drive and are just sitting around watching the birds and listening to our favorites old songs. Sometimes 7yr old Jeanna will say, "That's my jam!" and we all bust out laughing. She is such a different child on the days that she is home vs. school days, and just a blossoming flower on vacations. Ever since that first year when we went to Nassau and she had to go to respite care, she makes sure to let it be know that she is expecting to go on family vacation.

This Last Week...

was a doozey. Preschool's speech got changed to Monday which really threw us off and I had to go to the bank (which I avoid usually) so we did not have our normal Monday morning start.

Tuesday I got another check in the mail (Ha!) and had to go back to the bank. I also had to get another TB test because my last reading did not get done. We had to shop for Entertaining Angels which was fun because when the kids got to the store, the staff there had free bags waiting for them and was so happy to be a part of the ministry.

Wednesday was a blast! We had 3 new families to sign up for personal needs and they were all referrals from other families so people are telling others. We ran out of most things within the first 15 minutes of being open. We probably could be "bigger" but the space we are working in is pretty small, so it would be hard to service more people right now. Afterward, I took the 3 big kids out for dine in lunch and ended up seeing one of the boys case worker that helped with their adoption.

Thursday I got a chance to escape on my own for almost 2 hours. I went to have my TB test read, got drive-thru breakfast, parked and read for almost an hour, KID FREE!!! I actually don't feel like I don't get "away" from my kids as much as others think I need to "get away". We had another home visit Thursday to finish up our Home study. This one is the longest, most emotional, and somewhat traumatic adoption of them all. Worker visits are triggering all kinds of fear in 2 of my kids every time she comes and that does not include the 2 that are being adopted. One of my older kids admitted that worker visits make them feel like they might get "taken" from our family. Sniff!

Friday night I have 2 extra kids in the house, 1 of which we found out at drop off does not sleep through the night. LOL! Jordan is babysitting him so I gave her a grin and mouthed, "ha ha" wink!

Peace to you all!

Fire and Snow

On Monday I let James build a small fire in the fire pit right after lunch just because. It was a chilly day and as the kids were standing around the fire pit, it began to snow lightly and then it started sleeting. Good thing we had a fire.

Free Toys Tuesday

I meant to write this 2 days ago, but got busy. We were cleaning our food cabinet and found that I had lots of bags of dried beans. Lots! I am not skilled enough to cook them and will have my mom cook a batch for me from time to time. I decided to make some bean bags to surprise the kids so I used an old pair of tights, got a big box and cut some holes in it, wrote point values by the holes and set it up in the dining room. The next morning they got up and started a rousing game of bean bag toss, keeping score and taking turns. I never said a word and they just played together for almost an hour. Good math, good fun.....Free!