Batteries.....

I think as Moms we forget to take the time out to do something fun just for us. It doesn't have to be anything grand. It could just be enjoying a cup of coffee by yourself or with friends. Or maybe just getting your nails done. A small activity to recharge your batteries. Yesterday I had a rare chance to hang out with some great friends. Our county was sponsoring a tour of local shops in the area to visit. The shops would offer special deals and sometimes games to play. Snacks and beverages completed the tour. While we girls all had a rare opportunity to get out,our locals shops got our business. Win. Win. To me the best part of the tour was checking out new places many of which I have never heard about. We all spent the day laughing and talking about making this an annual event. Although the tour was designed to help local businesses it was us it helped more.

Reconnect. Recharge.

22 years ago.....

22 year ago tonight I was sitting in a hospital room. I was scared and excited about the rest of my life as I looked into my first born daughter's blue eyes. I dreamed of her future and wondered what kind of person she would become. As I sit here looking at my grown up daughter, that night so many years ago,only seems like yesterday. I have watched as she has grown from a quiet reserved girl into a mature well spoken young woman. She has completed collage and now has her dream grown up job. So far. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of watching her in action at her new job. I was in awe of her poise and maturity. People much older than her were asking her for advise on how to do their jobs. I watched her point people in the right direction without batting an eye. Never once did her confidence quiver. It's a great feeling to know the life lessons you taught your children are paying off. I pray that she always has the confidence,poise, and maturity that she has now. That she never looses her ambition and drive. Most of all I pray she doesn't lose her zest for life......

Happy Birthday Cheerleader! May all of your dreams come true......

Nov 2 Shopping Saturday

I was thinking since Christmas is 52 days away,that I will post sales from online stores as well as brick and mortar stores that I hear about. I truly hate the fact that stores are pushing Christmas earlier and earlier each year. What I hate even more is how rude people get in the stores. Every year I tell myself I will get the shopping done by Dec 1 and just enjoy the holidays. It.Never. Happens. Anyhoo I thought if I do a post on sales at least once a week maybe one of us can find some great deals and finish shopping way before Christmas. We finish our shopping and wrapping early,you know what that means??? More time to enjoy the cookies!!

These are the only sales that I know that are going on this weekend.

Target~has 50% off all Halloween items. The costumes make great dress up clothes for the little ones on your list.

Vera Bradley online~http://www.verabradley.com/category/Sale/Online-Specials/947/pc/785.uts I'm not sure how long this sale is going on. Vera makes great gift  for the girls on your list. I have found the wristlets make excellent gifts for the tween and teenage girls. I often buy them on sale and have them ready to go for exchange gifts for my kids. Slip a gift card in it and it becomes a huge hit.

If you hear of any sales please feel free to leave a comment.

Day 28.....

My kids finally went back to school today after having 9 days off! I'm wondering why we get 9 days for Thanksgiving and only 3 days off for Easter break. It really doesn't make sense to me. I would think Easter would be the bigger holiday that people would travel on. We sent yesterday bringing down Christmas containers from the attic. Today we spent most of the day putting the stuff up. We put a Christmas tree in every room in the house. Our bathrooms get a small tabletop tree. We started doing that when our girls were little. I'm allergic to pine as well as Cinnamon and I wanted to make up for the fact we can't have a real one. This year I'm really rethinking all of those trees. My son can't wait for his tree in his room. I can't find the darn thing. He was almost in tears yesterday because I didn't know where it was. Today wasn't much better. When hubby brought down 3 of the trees he forgot things that go with them. The first tree we tried to put up was missing the pole that all the branches go in. I'm thinking that's kind of important to have. HA! The second tree was missing the tree stand. Ugh. I thought the little guy was going to break down crying AGAIN. I ended up putting the dining room tree up. I really didn't want to put that one up because that's where I have all the Christmas containers stored. I wasn't even half way done and Bubby decided he had enough of tree decorating. Sigh. They are calling for rain tomorrow so I'm hoping to get the rest of the stuff put up.

Oh,the starbucks ornament was a gift from my Mom. Think she knows me too well? I could have used the real drink(s) today. HA!

3 years and 1 month ago......

National Adoption Day. Every year the Saturday before Thanksgiving is set aside for finalizing adoptions. It is a day families have dreamed about for a long time. The feelings and emotions you feel this day is so hard to describe. A few years ago we finalized a month before National adoption day.

This is the little guy who changed our lives

Three years ago we got up just like we do every morning. Today was different. We got dressed and brushed our teeth. Only today was different. We ate breakfast and got in the car. But today was different. Instead of driving everyone to school we drove to a courthouse. We were meet there by our social worker, Hubby's parents,and sister. We sat down next to another family and waited for them to call our names. I couldn't help but look around at the other families. You could see nervous,excited and happy all at the same time.  Our social worker couldn't tell us what to expect because this was her first finalization too. We passed the time by taking photographs. (I discovered this later but I had the wrong setting on my camera. I can't enlarge my pictures any bigger than 4x6. I can't tell you how upset I was when I found that out. Grr.)

Finally what seemed like an eternity they called our name. We were sworn in. I have to admit the court room was a lot smaller than I expected. The Judge told us that finalizing was his favorite part of being a Judge. I was the first one to take the stand. He asked us the names and ages of our kids. What we were changing our son's name to. Hubby took the stand and we both promised to love and care for Bubby as if he was a naturally born to us.(Can I just say,I hate that word. Naturally? Really as apposed to what? Time to update words. Geesh.) We of course said yes. Judge hit the gavel and Bubby became legally ours. We took some pictures with the Judge and some more outside the courthouse. We said our byes to my in laws and spent the day as a family.

Forever Family~Trust me. We really do not look like this anymore. HA!

We kept it simple. We went to a huge mall and had lunch. Shopped. We made Bubby a build a bear dog. We wanted him to have something to remember the day with. When you are 17 months you don't remember a lot. HA! We had a huge party that weekend. I can't tell you enough how thankful I am to our friends and family who celebrated the day with us. They have never looked at him as anything but our son. Not foster. Not adopted. But our son.

He just thought it was a day to get balloons,to us it was so much more.

As I think about the families celebrating today a big smile comes across my face. I know the feelings they are having. The excitement. The happiness. The I can't believe it's finally happening. I wish them luck. Most of all, I hope they have the day they always dreamed of.

I'm including a link in case anyone wants more info on adopting.
http://www.davethomasfoundation.org/free-adoption-resources/research-and-awareness/

National adoption month.....

As you may or may not beware the month of November is National Adoption month. The whole month is set aside to bring awareness to the many children waiting in foster care. This is something near and dear to my heart. Hubby and I adopted our son through foster care. I will be sharing more on our story on National adoption day. Please be sure to stop back on November 19. When we started our journey we had friends and family who either didn't understand or had questions. I can't help but wonder how many other people are interested in adopting but think they can't. I thought I would share some information I learned on our journey.

Truth is most people can adopt. It doesn't matter if you are married,single,LGBT, or if you are older. The ages and amount of available children for adoption vary from state to state. It actually can vary from county to county. There are basically two ways to adopt through foster care. One way is straight adoption or risk free. You would only consider a child who is legally free. Parental rights would already be terminated when the child is placed with you. I know a lot of people prefer this type because there is no wondering if/when the judge will terminate rights. The second type is foster to adopt or legal risk. In this type of adoption you are accepting a child into your home who the parents still have rights. You might not know when/if the judge will terminate rights. Hence legal risk. This is the type we did. I have to admit it's not for the faint of heart but it is doable. I went into the process with an open mind and heart. I gave myself permission to love like crazy and to accept things were out of my control. I'm a total control freak so that was the hardest part of the whole process for me. HA!

The first thing you have to do is look up your state and look for their Adoption/foster link. Here you should find the available agencies in your state. Here is a link. I emailed a bunch of agencies before I made a phone call. Some people recommend calling for faster results.

The next step would be your home study. Now I know what you are thinking. Burgmom, I don't own my house. Or I don't have a room just for the child. Or perhaps it's I don't make a lot of money. Here's the beauty part. You don't have to own your house or be wealthy. The child can share a room with other children as long as they are the same sex. I'm sure your next question is "how do I know how to deal with the child's issues"? That's where your parenting classes come into play. Yes, you will be required to take parenting classes. The classes aren't as hard as they sound. I found them very useful. (I was able to use some of the info for dealing with my one Bio daughter.) During this you will also be asked what type of child would you be willing to accept. BE HONEST. I can't stress this enough. I know of people who would say they would accept a lot of things, just to be placed with a child.

OK,so now you've done your home study and passed. What's next? This is where your social worker comes into play. She or He will look at the available children and try and make matches for you. Read the files. Ask questions. Be open. If you are unsure about a condition, do research. You might be surprised to learn something you never thought you could handle,you can.

Let's say you've now passed your home study and have been matched, now what? That depends on the child's situation. Legally free/not legally free or if the child has adjustment issues. Most of the time you will visit the child for a few weeks before they move the child in with you. Depending if the child is legally free or not determines how long until you finalize your adoption. I have found this varies from county to county.

The one thing to remember is every one's journey will be a different one. Yes, It can be a scary one but it is so rewarding. My journey is a memory I will always treasure. I would love to do it again. I just wanted to add. There are so many children in the system that all they ever wanted was for a family they can trust and love them. If you have room in your heart and home,please consider adopting from foster care.  If you have any questions or just want to talk about the process leave a comment or email. I would love to hear from you.

P.S. If you have made it to the end of my wordy post here is a photo listing of waiting children.

mixed bag of emotions

This past Friday my bil's widow got remarried. We knew she was going to get married, we just didn't know when. She has been engaged for almost two years and kept changing her mind. She would say she's moving from Alaska to Minnesota and change her mind a week before she was suppose to move. We kind of stopped paying attention after a while. According to my Mil she was suppose to get married last weekend but backed out of it. I knew some day we would get to this point. She would remarry and my nieces Firefly and Ladybug would have a new dad. I guess I just wasn't ready for it yet. Now don't get me wrong, I am so happy that they have someone else to call Dad. It just means (to me)that my bil is really gone. He is not coming back. Ever. It hurts. I know, I know, he's been gone for almost 4 years and Yes I know he's not coming back. The marriage just makes it more final. It hurts to know that the next family portrait will be with the new husband. It hurts to know the girls will be calling the new husband,Dad. I'm afraid my sister in law will no longer view us as family. I'm afraid if any of us speak against her she will cut off contact. I mean what if the new husband doesn't want our family in his life. I'm afraid my nieces will no longer need us. I am angry that my bil died. Angry that the family structure changed. Most of all I feel so guilty for having all of these emotions at the same time. See, I told you it was a mixed bag of emotions.........

Thoughts?

Last camping trip of the season

Every Janurary we sit down with our camping club(5 families that share our love of camping) and we plan out all of our camping trips for the year. We try to plan around Proms,homecoming dances,soccer games, and cheerleading. Trust me when I say it's tough sometimes. Did I mention we have a total of 11 kids not including two girls who are over18? Case in point was our last trip of the season. One by one our friends couldn't make it. It was down to my family and our really good friends. I have to admit both of us were considering canceling the trip too. They were calling for rain for the weekend and we were so tired of camping in the rain. Once my daughters heard their daughter wasn't going my girls really didn't want to go. Foo spent the weekend with Hubby's parents. Our friends had no kids for the weekend and we only had two. It felt so weird to be without all the kids on a Halloween weekend.

I finally got around to taking the pictures from our camping trip off my memory card and thought I would share them. As I'm sorting thru them I realize I took very few pictures of us actually camping. Ugh. It had rained on Friday before we got to the campground so we decided to eat out once we got there. Saturday we decided to go hiking on the  Appalachian Trail. Yep you read that right. and no we weren't planning to hike across several states. The other hikers who were actually prepared to hike on a trail kept telling us that the look out point was ONLY a mile up the trail. They lied! After walking a mile and a half   100 miles another group of hikers informed us the look out point was at least another mile. Did I mention my 4 year old was hiking too? We turned around and called it a day. 

Tornado at the top of a stream. I had no desire to hike to the top of that.

Another photo of the stream

Loved this little pond

That bench kept calling my name

The View looking down the trail                                                                      

We left the trail and headed back to the campground. They had a Halloween parade and campsite trick or treating for the kids. My son was so excited for the candy begging giving that he wanted to stop after 5 campsites. Most kids want to go to every site. Not mine. HAHA! All the poor boy wanted to do was eat his candy. I can't say I blame him. I was pretty much thinking the same thing. HA! I love Halloween theme weekends. They usually have so much for the kids to do.  After Trick or treat they had a costume contest/dance. Crafts for the little kids. Bonfire and hot cider. Does it get any better? How many more days until our next camping trip?

About me....

I figured if you were reading my blog that I would tell you a little about me. I started blogging 3 years ago. The one year anniversary of my brother in law's death was coming up and I wanted a place to write down some thoughts. Our whole family was still grieving his loss and I wanted to just vent. Big time.

I am a stay at home Mom to four kids and two really crazy dogs. I think I could start a blog just on those two dogs. I have one very understanding husband who has to deal with all of us. Poor guy. Some most days I don't know how he does it. Hubby is also a cancer survivor. He was diagnosed with non- Hodgkin's 7 years ago.

The daughters:
Cheerleader is 19. She started her second year in collage. Dating a really nice guy, Copper.
Tornado is 17. She is a senior in high school this year and dreams of being a nurse.
Foo Foo is 16. She is in her second year of high school and thinking of being in the peace corp.
Son:
Bubby is now 4. He is a spitfire most of the time and I wouldn't have it any other way. We also deal with his food issues and processing disorders.

We camp as much as time allows us. Weekend trips you find us local. Our week trip is spent traveling farther away. I think so far my favorite trip has been to Tennessee. When the girls were younger we went more often. We've learned the older they get, the less they want to go. All three of them work. I think this coming spring we might take a break from camping due to their schedules. I will really miss it but it too crazy with all the different work schedules.

In addition to camping and my crazy family my other loves are photography, Sewing, anything mac/apple and anything Vera bradley or coach.

I would really love to hear about everyone else so feel free to leave a comment about yourself too.
*The pumpkin photo is to remind me that it really is fall despite the white stuff on the ground.*