Yep, it is April 15th and it is snowing! It has been snowing for two days now. It snows then melts and then snows again.

I am not going to complain because we really need the moisture this year.

 

 

This is what I spent my day doing. Joe needed these new karate packets printed off for his students tonight and he has not had the time to do so, so I said yesterday that I would do it for him today, not knowing that I was going to be up all night not feeling well. Anyway when you have 7 copies to print and times that by 20 pages a piece that is a lot of paper and ink and time because our printer does not hold that much paper at one time so I had to keep an eye on it so I could refill the paper. I hope he appreciates the hard work I put towards this task...LOL

This our niece Dez and nephew Kade just before Karate.

Right Nadia is the one and only child of ours that is participating. Carson just isn't ready to focus, Raven just isn't interested and Quynsie is thinking about trying it.

 

 

My birthday presents got here two days early. I am so excited to wear these.

Happy Birthday to ME!!!

 

We are against child abuse. After all, we did get our kids through foster care. No not everyone in foster care is there because of child abuse. There are many reasons for children to end up in foster care, but in our case, it was a little bit of child abuse and a whole lot more of other things. It is not my story to tell, nor do we feel that our kids are ready to hear the whole story. We have been giving them more information as they get older and are able to better understand and handle the situation, but they do not know or understand everything that went on in their short lives. We are not going to lie to them so when they do ask questions, we try to answer them to the best of our ability and a bit water downed. We have a lot of information from their file that we were able to get before finalizing their adoptions. Once the adoptions are finalized, their DCFS file is closed and not able to be reopened without hiring an attorney and having a reasonable explanation as to why we need it to be reopened.

There are days that we all feel tired, depressed, hurt, sad or alone. These feelings have come up often in our home the past few weeks and we keep telling our kids that if they turn to our Heavenly Father, he will be there to comfort them. They are not alone, if they are feeling alone or afraid, they can always kneel and pray. He is there to listen to our prayers. He is our father, there to guide us.

The past little while, I have really been missing my grandparents and my great-grandma a lot. They have never met my kids and my grandparents have never met Joe either. There has been so much going on in our lives the past few years, like amazing things that I seriously wish we could share with them. I was only 10 and 12/13 when my grandparents died, but my great grandma died just a few years ago. My memories are starting to fade of my grandparents, but I do remember eating my grandpa's pudding (it used to come in a can, not plastic cups), I also remember camping with them, I remember my grandma letting us take a squirt bottle downstairs and spray our grandpa awake and he would chase us up the stairs and we would just giggle.

When it comes to my great-grandma, I miss her like crazy and every memory is still pretty fresh. I was older so it is easier to remember things. I still love going to Beaver, but I miss her being there. Over the past few years, we have been remodeling her house and when we go down there, I have a hard time going into the house because she isn't there. I miss her homemade chicken noodle soup. I had her teach me how to make it before she passed away, but it's not the same. I loved making it with her. Before she passed, she promised us that she would send us a child and if she couldn't send it on her time, she would at least protect them. I have no doubt that my grandparents and great grandma played a big part in our kids lives. I am sure even though they went through some rough challenges, they were protected. I am sure they love our kids just as much as we do. My great grandma wanted nothing more than to meet our kids, but it just was not in the cards for us. God had other plans. I have made peace with that, but it is still hard.

We try to make an effort to tell our kids stories so that they know who these amazing people were and the part they played in our lives.

 

I have figured this out:

"This message

serves to prove

how our minds can

do amazing things!

Impressive things!

In the beginning

It was hard but

your mind is

reading it

automatically

without even

thinking about it,

be proud! Only

certain people can read this.

Please forward if

you can read this."