I am so thankful for the opportunity to be a mom to my 4 amazing kids. They have had to overcome so much in their short little lives that no one should have to witness. They have been a great example of how to overcome things and still be able to love and be loved. I love you Quynsie, Raven, Nadia and Carson more than you will ever know.

 

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT:

 

I understand that people get put in situation or put themselves in situations that cause harm to their children and DCF...S gets involved, but for crying out loud DO EVERYTHING in YOUR POWER to get them back. I also understand that sometimes, you just can't overcome whatever it is that caused DCFS to get involved and at that point, be grown up enough to have a conversation with your kids at the final visit letting them know that they are good enough and that they are loved and that they can do better. And whatever you do, DO NOT tell your kid that you wish they were never born. If the adoptive family is giving you the option of being apart of the kids lives, by all means be there. Don't promise things and then not follow through. If you are expecting me to text you I am not going to. I am not going to hunt you down and beg you to be apart of their lives.

 

With that all being said, I sure wished our kids birth mom could just see what she has done to these poor kids. The things she has said to them or not said to them (by actions), they replay in their minds over and over. It doesn't matter if it is true or not, that is the kids reality and the way they feel. The dialogue our kids have going through their heads about themselves is just horrible.

 

I am not telling you all of this for me to have to explain things, I just want everyone to know that choosing to have children is not a game. It is real life and serious. Everything you do they are watching you closely. They look up to you. They want to feel good enough for you. They just want to be loved by you.

 

This sucks. Joe's truck won't start so he took the van to work and my van needs new rear breaks. Just awesome. What a great start to the weekend. Oh and Carson has been up since I don't know when. He knocked on our door at 4:30 and has been going ever since.

 

So because dad had our van, I spent the day, coloring and cutting the kids hair and getting it ready for school. And then I unpacked a few more boxes out in my craft/laundry room. I can't wait until it is all put together and the only thing left is totes of material left.

 

 

After I cut his hair.

 

 

The back of her hair is completely red, but I only randomly put red through the top and sides. I also put more texture through the top of her hair because it is so thick and heavy. I wanted to allow the curly look to come out. All of our kids actually have naturally wavy/curly hair.

 

I am not sure I like hers yet. I might need to add some in certain places.

 

Quynsie loves hers. She has told me so many times today that I was starting to get annoyed...LOL

 

In between doing hair, I was folding laundry so I asked Quynsie of she could make me some hash-browns and this is what she brought me. I have never had an egg in the middle of my toast before. I have to admit that I loved it. In fact, I loved it more than French toast.

Thanks kiddo for taking care of your mommy while she was busy doing hair and laundry.

 

It has been a long almost 7 years since this stuff has been out of a box. I'm so excited that I finally have a place that they can call home. Introducing my Dale Jr collection!!!

 

Much to our kids surprise, they were shocked to see that I was not lying this whole time about my Jr. collection. I need to get more of his new stuff, but I sure do love my old stuff.

 

 

Last night Joe was late getting home from work to teach karate and Carson says with all of the confidence in the world. .. It's ok mom cause Nadia can teach it. I have seen her and she is pretty good at it.

What a sweet boy he can be.

 

Carson watching battlebots with his 2 dolls, 2 turtles and lightning McQueen.

 

Today we had a doctors appointment for Carson and Raven for their well child checks. While there, we discussed Raven hearing voices. This has been going on for about a year, but last night she finally told us that they were threatening her and making her do bad things. Our doctor wanted us to go up to Primary to the psychiatric unit to have her have an evaluation done, but our insurance does not cover psychiatric care at primary so we are stuck going some where else. I am not exactly excited about that because I just want the best of the best to help her.

Most people don't start hearing voices until they are between the ages of 16 to 21(if they even hear voices), but where our kids are dealing with trauma in their life, things tend to come out sooner than normal. They call it trauma based. We had been ignoring it for the past year because she had not really given us much information about it. She would just mention it here and there, but last night when she actually came out and told us what they were saying to her, we knew we could not ignore it anymore.

Joe's mom is schizophrenic so we are very mindful of the symptoms and what to watch for. I am not sure if she ever got the right kind of help when she was a kid, but I do know that she is getting it now.

When your daughter comes to you and says that they are hearing voices and they are threatening, you can't ignore it. You have to take it seriously until proven otherwise. Up to this point, we thought she was telling us things to get attention, but it has escalated to a different level and we don't think it is for attention anymore.

Just like Joe's mom, Raven hates the word "RESPONSIBILITY". Every time we tell either one of them to take responsibility for their actions and not blame others for their behavior, they both say, I hate that word. I want to obliterate it.

 

These poor kids have dealt with a lot in their short little lives. It just makes me sad. I hate not being able to help them take their fears away.

 

Joe and I have been going to this doctor for about 8 years now. They have seen us through our foster care and adoption stuff and today the nurse that was helping was a nurse that has also been there the entire time. She was like, I cannot believe how tall these kids are getting. I was like yeah your telling me. Raven is now 10 and Carson is almost 7. At the time we got them Carson was 3 and Raven was 6. It has been 3 1/2 years. Crazy!!!!

Going to this doctor we are used to him being called out to deliver a baby and today was no exception. Thankfully, I had made a stop and bought Carson a new dreamlite for bedtime and he brought it into the doctor office with him. Because we had to sit there for awhile, we were able to turn off the lights and he was the calmest little boy in the world. The nurses kept coming in to make sure we were ok because they are not used to our room being so quiet. I think we will take that thing with us every time we go to the doctor office. It worked wonders today.

 

In other news...

I think I new rear breaks on the van and Joe's truck is not starting. We think his is the starter. We know his truck is on its last leg, but what do you do when you don't want another car payment? You keep driving it into the ground. I think this weekend we are going to finally cave and possibly look for a car that gets good gas mileage so he can drive it to work and back and the truck will just sit here unless we need to haul things.

I hate being down to one car, but I think I might be able to survive tomorrow as long as Joe gets home at a decent time. He didn't get home until 8 tonight and he leaves at 6:30 in the morning. That is way to long for me to be without a car with 4 kids.

I hope I wake up without a headache tomorrow because Quynsie is begging me to color her hair and while I am at it, I might as well cut all of the kids' hair. Hair coloring and cutting is not my favorite thing in the world, but I did go to school for it so I am capable, I just would rather be doing taxes and using my other degree (accounting) than doing hair. I love doing cute things with my kids hair, but not the whole deal. At least it saves us money I guess.



Holy Hell!!!! Does it ever end? It looks like she is starting to split at the top of the cut. Her leg had blood on it this morning and so did the ace wrap that goes around it.

I know that it is a tough place to heal, but it has been a really long July. We have not been able to do the normal things we normally do in July, but we have made the most of it as much as we can.

 

Today Raven had her last private violin lesson until after school starts. The teacher is taking the next two weeks off so she can get ready for school to start as well. She is actually the orchestra teacher at the kids school. When I found out that she teaches private lessons, I jumped on it. I wanted Raven to have the best start at playing that we could give her. We wish we would have done the same for Quynsie, but what do you do?

Here are a couple of video's of her playing...

 

 

 

This boy slept the entire night. Well, I guess he got up and turned his light off, but he did not knock on our door and wake me up. Joe said that he heard him turn it off. I am so proud of him for being able to put himself back to bed. I needed the sleep so bad. We are not sure why he likes to sleep with his light on, but we let him because we don't want to fight him and if he actually sleeps then let him have it on.

 

 

It has been so nice having Joe come home at a decent time the past couple of days because things have gotten done around here. The back yard is finally cleaned up and we can plant grass. The only problem is that the pile of junk only moved to the side of our house until Saturday when we can take it to the dump, but it is all cut up and ready to be loaded up.

Joe also fixed our bathroom sink. I noticed this morning that it was leaking. And the kids and I have noticed a bird in our vents, but we could not pin point it until this morning. It was down by the kids room in the vent by the furnace. Joe had to take it apart to get the bird out. While in the process of doing that, he found a dead bird as well. I am hoping that the dead bird is the cause of the smell in this house that has been here since we moved in. We cleaned this house from top to bottom before moving in so we could not figure out the smell except that it had sat empty for a year before we bought it.

 

I took Raven to physical therapy this morning. Then we came home got lunch and ready to take Quynsie to her friends house in Orem. I agreed to this get together because we were going to PG for therapy anyway for Raven and Carson. Since we had about an hour before therapy after dropping Quynsie off so we went by Grandma Torri's house and she was not there so we took a chance and went up to her school where she teaches. Sure enough, my hunch was right. She was there so we went in and gave her our family pictures and the kids played in her classroom until it was time to go to therapy.

 

I need to put this out there again because it is something that has been bugging me.

 

Trying to manage relationships with our kids birth family is exhausting, so if you don't respond to my text messages more than 3 or 4 times in a row, I am not going to hunt you down. If you really care and want to be apart of their lives, then show it and respond. I go out of my way to send you pictures and updates through text and so therefore, show your appreciation by letting me know that you received that text. I am not required by law to stay in contact with you. I am also not required by law to allow you to be apart of the kids lives. We are doing that out of the kindness of our hearts, but I am done dealing with those who do not care to respond. I have more important things to worry about than wasting my time texting you for nothing.

 

With that being said, I am so thankful for those birth family members who do care enough to respond and want to build that relationship with Joe and I and the kids. It means the world not only to our kids, but to us as their parents. We only want what is best for them and we feel that having some kind of dialogue with the birth family will make things less awkward when the time does come for when the kids do want to meet them.

There is no way to build any kind of trusting relationship when it is only one sided.

I am also thankful for those family members who go out of their way to let us know how much they appreciate us and how much they love us and the kids. Even when it is a grandparent who is only one of the kids grandparent. They have been so amazing in letting all of the kids know that they are cared about and loved. They have never singled one kid over the other and that means the world to us.

Again, thank you to those who do care and let us know it.



11 years ago today my little nascar buddy came into this world. When we found out my sister was pregnant we were going through a rough family situation and Aiden held our family together in a sense. He was the bright light in our lives at the time. He has always been and always will be my little buddy. I love you so much Aiden. Happy birthday love aunt nana uncle Joe and your cousins.

 

This morning I gathered the kids and their money and we set off to go to the bank to set up bank accounts for the kids. We have had issues at home where Raven thinks she needs to pay people to be nice to her, so we decided that now was the time to get them bank accounts so that we don't have money just floating around here that she can pay people with. I know that this is coming with her insecurities and not feeling wanted and we are working on that in therapy.

 

In other news, there are no pictures for today. It has been a very frustrating and tiring day.

Carson has not slept in 3 weeks. He gets maybe 3 hours of sleep a night if we are lucky. After 3 weeks of this, he is frustrated and tired and so are we as parents. Because of everyone being so tired, the patience are really thin between everyone. I also think it intensifies his regular behaviors and makes them seem like they are 1000 times worse.

The trip to Walmart to get mouse traps went great.

We came home and I asked the kids to eat lunch and get ready to go to the school so we could fix Quynsie's schedule that was completely messed up.

Carson chose not to eat lunch and I knew that as soon as we got to the school he would tell me he was hungry so I went prepared with a snack.

Raven, Nadia, and Carson ended up pushing my buttons. They were rude, disrespectful and out of control.

We finally got home and I sent all of them to their own rooms just to give myself a minute to calm down and regroup. Good thing I took that minute because Carson became so out of control, I almost lost my composure. I ended up spending about 45 minutes trying to calm him down. I was sitting there holding him and patting his back and it dawned on me one of the techniques that I have not had to use for about a year just might work.

So I asked Quynsie to go get my lavender oil and my lotion and I got to work on rubbing his chest, arms and legs. Surprisingly, it worked. He calmed down enough for me to talk to him and figure out what the problems were. Thursday can't get here fast enough when we go back to the doctor and we can have a conversation about what the next step in this is going to be. I know that most of it is that we are not getting much sleep.

So here is to hoping for sleep because tomorrow is going to be another long day of appointments.



This is my (Brea) side of the family. We are missing 19 year old Liz and 14 year old Nate in this picture. Liz is in the military and Nate is at his moms house. I laugh seeing this picture because our 10 and 8 year olds are taller than the 11 year olds. We should have switched Raven and Ryleigh and Nadia and Trevor, but oh well. The two 11 year olds are step brothers and only 3 months apart. Ryleigh and Trevor (biological siblings) are only 10 months apart. Ryleigh is actually 3 months older than Raven. They are all going to the same school this year so it will be interesting to see if Raven and Ryleigh are in the same class and if Aiden and Trevor are in the same class. This will be Trevor and Ryleigh's first year at this school.

I love that the cousins are going to the same school because they will always have a friend. I loved going to school with my cousins. It is also nice that if either my sister or I cannot pick up kids, then the other one can or my mom does.

 

Not much happened today. We went grocery shopping, done laundry, girls went to Grammies and Papa's. Carson stayed home and helped dad and I move things around in my craft room so I can finally start unpacking things. I needed my table set up and a shelf put in there so that I had a place to put things. I can't wait to get it all unpacked and functioning. It also doubles as the laundry room so it would be nice to be able to walk in there and not trip over boxes. Maybe one day when the kids all move out, we will use it for what it is actually meant to be, a sunroom, but until then, I needed my own space where I can go and scrapbook and stuff and still see kids outback playing. I can't wait to start using my stuff again. I have never really had my stuff completely unpacked before because every time, I would start to unpack it, we would either move, or we got kids and had to pack it all up to make room for them. Joe teases me and says that every time we move, more stuff gets unpacked, which is true. I have moved so many times in my life that I don't ever feel secure enough to unpack everything. I think now we are finally settled in a place permanently and I can finally unpack completely. Yes, I still have that fear of needing to repack it all, but that is something I have to work on.

Then we went to dinner at my brothers house.

While heading to our nephew/cousin's birthday party, this was the scene we saw on Highway 6. A semi was coming out of the canyon down that steep hill and the car turned in front of it and got seriously T-boned. Then somehow another car hit a police car t-boning it as well. Just before coming up on this accident, I had gotten after Raven for not sitting in her seat properly. She was turned sideways with her knees against the door looking out the window. When we saw the accident, I explained why I get after them to sit in their seats properly. I hope they now understand the importance of safety in the car.

 

 

We went to Nickel Mania for a birthday party. I can't believe my nephew is 11. He is the only biological nephew I have on my side of the family so before my sister got remarried and we had kids, he was one spoiled rotten boy and he knows it. He will always be my little NASCAR buddy. Love you Aiden!!!

 

This was similar to our afternoon after the party. Everything we asked the kids to do, they were either arguing, having a tantrum, complaining, being mouthy or getting off track by doing other things. It was so bad that I finally lost my cool. I am tired of when I ask the kids to fold their laundry they say, "But I did my laundry yesterday" or Quynsie will say "Well it looks like mom has it under control so I am out of here". I am tired of the fighting over who swept and mopped the floor the last time. I am tired of Nadia and her knock down drug out tantrums. I am tired of Raven acting like she doesn't know how to do things just to try to get out of doing them. I am tired of Carson telling me no and I am not doing that and I am not listening to you. The girls just cannot figure out how to help one another and serve others.

Joe just looks at me and is like take a deep breath and I am like, you are not here all day everyday including half of every other Saturday so you don't understand why I am so frustrated. I try to keep it all in so I am not yelling at the kids all of the time, but at some point, it just boils out and today was that day. Everyone got a piece of my mind.

Being a mom is hard. It doesn't matter if you are a working mom or a stay at home mom (I have been both) it is hard work. I don't want my kids to hate me, but I also am not going to let them think they can get away with certain behavior either.

I am the first to admit that I am not perfect and I make mistakes with parenting decisions. I am not always right, but gosh dang it, I do have my kids best interest at heart and in mind when I make decisions. A parenting decision does not always work for each child so we use different techniques with our kids and if one does not work for one, then we try something else but our kids think that we are being unfair and that they should all be disciplined the same way or get the same privileges.

Example:

Nadia thinks that she should be able to stay up as late as Raven and Quynsie, but the fact of the matter is that she is younger and she is not going to get to do the same things as her older sisters just like Carson is not going to be able to do the same things as she does.

LIFE ISN'T FAIR!!!



HAPPY PIONEER DAY!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoying a nice night around the fire pit roasting hotdogs and marshmallows.

Dad had to work today so it didn't feel like a real holiday, but we made the best of it.

Here in Utah we celebrate Pioneer Day as part of Utah's birthday and part of our heritage.



 

Raven and Carson both had Dr. appointments today. Raven for her stitches and Carson for a med check. Our appointment was at 9:00am and we sat there for about 20 minutes when they finally told us that he was delivering a baby and we could either see one of the other doctors or nurse practitioner or we could sit and wait. I chose to sit and wait because I had already had enough with other doctors. I wanted to see the man that I knew and trusted and who has been our family doctor for about 8 years now. I am so thankful for a doctor who is so caring and personable. Had I not been able to text his personal phone 10 days ago, I would have not known how to make an appointment with his office without going through the call center. I now know how to talk to his office directly. An amazing man he is.

He was the one that took the stitches out personally, he didn't just put the butterfly stitches on, he glued them on. They are to stay on there for 14 days. She is not to knock her leg on anything, no climbing trees, no running around, not jumping on the trampoline no soaking (tub or swimming), and no rough housing. She is to keep it wrapped with the ace wrap at all times unless taking a shower. I am so much happier with the way it turned out this time. I don't think she is going to have that bad of a scar.

This afternoon while coming back from dropping Quynsie off at a really good friends house to earn some money, Carson said flying cars were popular in the 1980s. Um I don't remember flying cars in my childhood.

Oh boy!!!! Why do little sisters think they have to do everything the older sisters are doing? Nadia got to go to her friends house on Tuesday all day and today Raven was at her friends house (Yes it is a mutual friend in the ward that is right between both Raven and Nadia's age) but because Nadia goes to her friends house all of the time by herself I felt that Raven deserved to go play without her younger sister tagging along this time. Nadia just about lost it. Yes, this friend is someone who likes playing with both girls and this family has a little boy that is 4 that Carson likes to go play with as well, but sometimes, the kids need their own space away from home.

I keep having people ask me about how Raven is doing in therapy...

I need to be better about updating on those things.

We are finally getting somewhere. We switched different counseling centers all together and she has been opening up a lot more not just with her therapist, but us as her parents. I feel so bad that she has been holding it all in for the past 3 years but it was not from the lack of trying. She just had to get to rock bottom and make the choice. We tell her all of the time that she can choose to be miserable and alone for the rest of her life, or she can choose to lighten the load and get it off her chest. This past weekend she had a huge meltdown about some cat that she used to have and she says it was the only thing that she had that loved her back and let her hold onto. Breaks my heart every time I would hear her say that. We keep reminding her that all we want is for her to be happy, healthy and a contributing member of society. So on Tuesday when she had therapy her therapist had her give the cat a goodbye funeral and let her say whatever it was that she wanted to say and now it is time to make new memories and break down her wall and let us in to love her, comfort her and be there for her. She has had a different personality and glow about her since then. She hasn't used a nasty tone while talking to me and she has been so much nicer to her siblings especially her brother.

So that is where we are at this point. She is a great kid and it has been so hard to break down her walls. I can't say as I blame her. She lacks confidence and has a low self esteem because she has always felt abandoned and rejected. She has felt unloved and unwanted. She doesn't know how to deal with the fact that she is so wanted more than anything. We love her so much. We will do anything for her and her siblings. We longed to be parents for so long and I know eventually she will come to realize how much she is loved and wanted, but until then, we just have to keep telling her over and over.

From what I am understanding from the kids, they were never told anything positive about her birth dad Travis. We have been building a great relationship with him since Christmas and I have to say, that this man LOVES his daughter. He wants to be a part of her life so bad and he is being so patient and allowing us to gradually introduce that to Raven. We don't want to rush things because there is always that chance of disappointment and as parents we tend to want to protect our kids from that kind of stuff.

I have made several attempts to make contact with birth mom in the last couple of months along with her parents, but to this day I have not heard anything from them. I am done trying. I have records of these attempts and our kids will always know that we made the effort, but at some point, you just put it behind you and move on. We are at that point, we are ready to move on and close that door. We will always have a special place in our hearts for their birth mom, but at this point, she is not showing us that she is in a better healthier place, and so at this point, we are leaving it in God's hands and whatever he has in store for us, he will lead and guide us.

As for Nadia and Carson's birth dad, Nadia wants nothing to do with him. She always says that "he never came to visits and that makes me sad. He didn't care enough about us when he had a chance so I don't want anything to do with him now".

 It is sad for an 8 year old to feel that way, but the truth is, she does feel that way. Carson doesn't know anything different than Joe and I being his parents. He has memories, but only from what his sisters have told him. He doesn't actually remember what they look like and one day we were going through our scrapbook and there was a picture of her with all of the kids and I asked him who it was, his response was I don't know. He remembers living with Aunt Nina, but not his birth mom. We have told him her name many times, but every time you ask him what it is, he will say I don't remember. I don't have any pictures of Carson and Nadia's birth dad because he never showed up to visits, so it is hard to show and remind him of who he is. And I am not sure now is the time to be bringing it up. He is in a good place right now and I would like to keep it that way for now.



You want to buy your own things then you go above and beyond your regular chores. Regular chores at our house is just part of being apart of a family but you go above and beyond then there are rewards for that. For example We pay her phone bill for babysitting for us occasionally. Chores around here are simple. You don't like the school supplies I buy earn the money and pay for it yourself.

 

The bottom right picture was right after she fell on her butt trying to move this big log. Yes dad I laughed at her like you laughed at me on Saturday when I crotched myself.

 

 

This is an extra seat for those times when we have friends or family over for a random roast.

 

 

 

 

This picture just kills me!!!! Constipated maybe? 

 

 

Des doing Nadia's hair.

 

 

Tomorrow is the day that we hopefully can be rid of the stitches for good. I am going to make sure she is extremely careful for the next 10 days as well to give it time to fully heal and make sure that it doesn't pop back open. I am taking her to our family doctor who I fully trust. He is amazing and I regret not taking her there in the first place, but he does not do after hours so we did not have much choice in the matter.



I have to say that I am finally getting used to this boy in glasses.

It was so hard to get used to at first, but now that he wears them all day long, it is easier to get used to them. He is such a handsome little fella and I am so thankful that he is ours.

 

Today has been a bit challenging in. Ok, lets tell it how it really is, it has been a day filled with entitlement and spoiled rotten attitude by Quynsie.

She has fully admitted tonight the reason that she acts entitled is because she used to get whatever she wanted when she wanted it and if it was something that someone else had, she didn't want it and it wasn't good enough, she needs something bigger and better and she would get her way and get something different.

Well, here we don't roll like that. You are not going to just get what you want just because you want it. You have to work hard for the extra things in life. Yes, we as parents will buy the needed things like shoes, clothes, food, basic school supplies and such. but if you want a specific backpack that we cannot afford, then you are going to have to work and do extra things around here to earn the money to get it.

Sometimes I think we made the mistake by letting her have a phone at 11 because that has made things worse as far as entitlement goes. If she is grounded from it, she will have a serious attitude until she gets it back, so we have made changes in that area. We no longer take the phone away completely, we have put parental controls on her phone and I can control it from my own phone. Up until today, she got 3 hours a day to play games, surf the net, watch movies, youtube, texting and whatever else. Once that 3 hours was over, all of the apps except calling would automatically lock. Well, I took her amount of time down to

 1 1/2 hours during the week and 2 on weekends and all of her apps are locked except texting and calling. If her 1 1/2 hours are up, she will no longer be able to text either. We have also told her that if she wants to continue on the entitled behavior, we would take the phone away completely and she would not get one until she is 16 and able to work and pay for it herself.

We even have told her that she is pretty lucky for the things that we do buy because we have friends whose kids are her same age and they make them buy their own shoes, clothes, video games among other things.

Quynsie has worked this summer and has earned close to $80 and she has nothing left. She has spent it on a pair of pants (awesome) and junk food (against my advice), but she has to learn from her mistakes.

While talking to her tonight her dad told her that for every hour she spends cutting up branches from the trees we tore out over the weekend she gets $5. She has to work a solid hour, not 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there. If I find that she is not working consistently in that hour, the hour does not count. We shall see how that goes.

 

In other news, Raven was finally able to give her cat braxis (a cat from her birth family) a funeral. She accomplished this at therapy today. She has been stuck on this cat the entire time she has been with us and we are finally getting to the bottom of it. She feels like the cat has been the only thing that really cared about her and now she is starting to feel those same feelings for us, but she just did not know how to let go of the cat and let us into her heart and world.

PROGRESS PEOPLE PROGRESS!!!!

 

Nadia spent the day at her best friends house. They have been friends for almost 3 years now. This is a true friendship that I hope lasts for years to come.

 

Joe and I were offered a new calling in our Church and I had to decline. I have never declined a calling before in my life. They wanted us to teach nursery. UMMMM NO!!!! I have my own nursery at home with children that have their own issues and the last thing I want to do is go to church on Sunday and deal with other peoples snot nose, poopy diaper, tantrum throwing kids. I am past the little kid stage at this point. It does not even appeal to me anymore. I need something where I can interact with other adults.

It took me 14 years to come to grips with the fact that I was never going to have a newborn and that I was going to miss out on all of the important firsts. I am happy to say that I am past that and have come to terms with it and am at peace with it to the point, I don't want to deal with it every Sunday. Yes, I love holding babies and love to babysit occasionally, but not on a regular basis.

 



This was this morning when she woke up.

 

This was taken at dinner time. Not as puffy and swollen, but sure is more red and purple looking.

Raven's leg is looking so good.

 

Quynsie had her friend over today and I let them walk to the gas station for the first time. I have never allowed that in the past, but I am trying to trust her and allow her to do more things that kids her age are doing.

 

I love Quynsie's friend Alina. She is so willing to play with the younger kids and include them. I was upstairs when I heard a bunch of screaming and laughing so I went to investigate and I found them all having a pillow fight. I am not sure why Raven is on the floor, but she has covered herself up with a pillow...LOL

Quynsie and Alina have a big huge thing in common among other little things, but they are both adopted and were adopted about the same time.

Also according to Alina, I am the best Mac and Cheese maker in the world.

 

There is freedom in letting down your wall and letting love in. ~Heather Forbes~

 

I just told Raven this a couple of hours ago. She has put up this wall lately and won't let her dad and I in. She allows others to comfort her but not her parents. I think she is afraid that since life has settled down a bit she doesn't want to get attached to us because if she does we will go away and hurt her just like others have in her past so she clings to others that she isn't so attached to to give her the comfort she is looking for. Please don't take it personal if we say no we will comfort her or whatever. We just found out between yesterday and today this is how she is feeling so we are going to take some extra steps in making sure she knows what it feels like to be comforted by a mom and dad and letting her guard down with us.

 

Travis,

At this time Joe and I have decided to take a step back and re-evaluate how we want to go about contact with Raven and you.

I want you to know that I will still stay in contact with you, but until we figure out the direction we want to go, we are going to put a stop to letting Raven email. She has always been distant with us as her parents, but she has really put up some walls in the past couple of weeks and has pushed her dad and I away. She is not allowing us to comfort her, love her, be there for her among other things. The one good thing is that she is now able to voice her thoughts and feelings. In fact she has gotten such an attitude that she is yelling at us more than not. Trust me, I am thankful that we are making some kind of progress even if it is yelling at us because it is better than her sitting there saying nothing. She is afraid that if she puts those walls down and lets us in then we are going to hurt her just like everyone else has in her life.

I honestly think we are finally making some sort of progress. I don't care that she is yelling at us, at least she is getting her feelings out and letting us know what she is feeling so that we can help her.

Just like I said above, please don't take offense to this, we just want her to know what it feels like to be loved, cared for, and comforted by a mom and dad who are so madly in love with her and want what is best for her. We want her to feel secure with us as her parents and be able to come to us for comfort and advise.

I have full confidence that we are going to make great progress in the next few weeks and we will keep you posted. By no means are we wanting to shut you out completely because you have done nothing wrong, its just another step towards forming healthy relationships with everyone involved.

This was taken when it first happened. She was in a lot of pain.

Once we got her calmed down and some of the swelling down, we got ready for church and actually made it on time.

 

This picture was taken after church. The swelling has gone down, but she has a huge shiner. The picture does not do it any justice. It is bright blue. I wouldn't be surprised if she wakes up tomorrow morning and her eye is swollen partially shut.

I know that Carson has not learned his lesson about running in the house, but that is probably because he has such a hard head that it didn't even bother him. I am pretty sure Nadia will soon forget as well and will be running in the house once again before we know it.

 

Today was our turn for family dinner so since we finished our fire pit this afternoon, we decided that we would go out and roast marshmallows after we ate dinner.

I do believe that this is going to become one of our favorite family nights at our house.

Now to get the mess cleaned up and get it ready for sod (most likely next spring).

 

I am really happy with the results of round 2. I feel bad that she had to go through it again, but at the same time, I am thankful that we had a second chance because the stitch job was done so much better. I am glad I took the risk.

Here is the before everyone showed up for dinner pictures...







We still have a huge mess, but we will get that cleaned up during the week I am sure. I at least want to save as much wood as we can so that we have it for the fire pit, but I don't want to keep all of the little branches. They will just give the snakes a place to hide and I HATE snakes!!!


We found these at Walmart. I was actually surprised to find Nadia's name. I would expect to see Joe and Carson and possibly Raven and my name, but my name is never spelled correctly. I would never expect to see Quynsie's with the odd spelling either. But to see Nadia's was the highlight of her day.