Whoaw am I ever thankful!

At the beginning of January someone asked hub and I what were our "goals" for 2009. Hub quickly responded "we want to have a child in our home by the end of the year." At the time this seemed like a lofty goal given our fertility status. At that time we had just begun the foster process but we had no idea what that was going to realistically look like.

Fast forward just 11 months and we not only have one child in our home, but 3! Even more remarkable is that the girls were only suppose to stay with us a very short time and yet we still have them, almost 7 months now. The Psalms says that "children are a blessing from the Lord." We are so blessed to have experienced that blessing this year, not only with 1 child but 3. The countless hours we have poured ourselves into these children we have by far received so much more from them then we've given them.

This year has been by far the most crazy year of my life. It has been a roller coaster to say the least but it has been a thrill to ride. I am so thankful the Lord not only let me ride it, but he was sitting next the entire time. This year isn't even over and so much could still change before we enter the new year, but for now, we are enjoying every moment we can.

For a quick update on all our kids, their status' change all the time. Right now we are literally month-to-month with the girls. They could leave at anytime or they could be with us for quite some time. We'll have the baby for a while still. His adoption status is still unknown and we won't know for a while. We count every day we get with them such a joy and we trust the Lord will comfort us if/when they depart from our home.

My thankful list this year is virtually endless. I am astonished and blown away at what the Lord has let me experience this year.

I blame it on the fancy phone

I could come up with a multitude of excuses for why I haven't blogged in almost 2 months, but the real culprit is my phone. You see, I'd been using the same old phone I had 9 years ago! It was dated to say the least. Every 2 years I would get my free upgrade but in a matter of months, the new phone would die for one reason or another and I would resort back to the trusty proven dinosaur.

In October we were scheduled for yet another upgrade and this time I got the fancy phone that puts the world wide web at the touch of my hands at all times. I have opened my lap top 5 times in the last 2 months because everything I need is on my phone. The lap top is great but when you have 2 little sets of hands that love the lap top it makes it challenging to open it very often. So alas, my facebook status updates have become more frequent but my poor neglected blog is, well, neglected.

I am stealing a great idea from a friend and I'm going to start posting my facebook status updates on the blog once a month. I put a lot of Miss M's quotes on there so this way all of you non-facebookers, can laugh along with the rest of us.

Remembering

I can't believe it's Oct 1 already. This date marks the due date of another life we had the privilege of celebrating 8 months ago. I have such mixed emotions about this loss in our life. All of the "what if's" start coming to mind. "If" we had been able to maintain this pregnancy we would not have the 3 children we have right now. I'm looking at my living room and I see 3 precious living lives the Lord has entrusted us with. Like our pregnancies, we don't know how long we will be able to love and care for these love bugs but we celebrate everyday we have with them. I know that God does not hold any good thing from His children and I trust in that.

I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for the blessing children are. I am able to parent and experience those blessings even though my body rejects life. How awesome is that! God is good, all the time.

A Poop Story

I think every parent has a poop story. I can remember my mom sharing a poop story with us on more then one occasion. I guess I've been a parent long enough to finally have my own poop story, so here goes.

A couple days ago the girls were just not going down for a nap. It was a flat out battle and I did not win. Miss M was pretty mad at me for making her stay in her bed but eventually she calmed down enough to at least get some quiet time in. I could hear the girls talking to each other but I thought I'd at least take some quiet time over no time at all.

When I decided it was time for them to come out, I opened the door and was met by a horrific smell of feces! I looked right at Miss M and said, "where did you poop?!?" She started pointing to a few spots. I quickly assessed the situation and realized it was bad....bad bad. She had apparently pooped on her blanket but got it all over herself while she was at it. She took off her blanket and her MATTRESS COVER and proceeded to use the mattress as her toilet paper! There was poop smeared ALL OVER her mattress!

I not-so-calmly took her to the bathroom to clean her up. I then cleaned up the blanket. But what to do about the mattress? I called a few people for advise and finally turned to the world wide web for answers. A google search led me to another woman's blog who had a similar story only on the carpet. She suggested hydrogen peroxide as it is known to get out blood stains. I dowsed the mattress in it and let it sit for a while. Then I used our handy dandy small carpet cleaner and put enzyme killing pet cleaner in it. Between the 2 of them, it seemed to do the trick. The mattress doesn't have any odor nor stain. I hope you never encounter this type of poop story but if you do, I highly suggest hydrogen peroxide and an enzyme killer.

Do you have a poop story? Do share and we can commiserate!

Life in the fast lane.

Whew! Has it really been 2.5 weeks since I last posted? Sorry guys. It's getting late and I really need to get some sleep before the baby wakes up for the first shift so I'll give you the low down in bullet points.

-We LOVE being parents of a newborn! I think everything he does is so adorable...even the yucky things. So far things are going pretty well with him. He has had a few rough nights due to a little congestion but last night he seemed to do much better.
-Miss Z is finally sleeping through the night!!! The first 2 nights we had the baby she woke up several times. I thought I was going to go crazy with 2 kids waking up at different times. We experimented with a few things and were finally able to get her to sleep without waking up. Seriously PTL!
-The girls are doing really well adjusting to the new addition. MUCH better then I expected. Miss Z had a few hard moments the first couple days but she has been doing great the last week.
-We no longer have the 2-on-2 advantage. We, as parents, are out numbered. This poses some unique challenges but we're figuring it out as we go.
-Now for the sad news. We found out we were pregnant 2 weeks ago. Four days after celebrating all that the 2 pink lines meant, we found out we were no longer pregnant. I honestly thought that miscarriages would be easier after we had kids in our home, especially a baby. I can now say it is not. Just different. With our other loses, I grieved a dream. I didn't have anything tangible to grieve. After holding a newborn in my arms and watching Miss M and Miss Z grow and change, I know what I've lost. A child. I don't know if that makes sense at all. This pregnancy was a weird one on several accounts but primarily because it was so short. My doc is running a few more tests to see if anything has changed since February. I'm doing pretty well with it all right now. I had a few meltdowns when the bleeding began but the Lord has sustained me through yet another loss.
-We got many comments about how hard newborns are. We braced ourselves for the worst. So far he is way easier then the toddlers. He can't talk back, he can't get into everything, and he doesn't have years of baggage. Maybe it will get harder but for now, we can't complain. Going from no kids to 2 toddlers was a shock to the system, to say the least. Adding 1 more into the mix who sleeps a TON has been an adjustment but nothing like we experienced just 3 short months ago.
-It's really fun being a family of 5. I will be really really sad when we have to go down to a family of 3. Someone is always doing something silly or cute. There is never a dull moment and time seems to slip away into never never land.

That's it for now. I need to start writing down all the funny things Miss M has been saying lately. She has been cracking us up non-stop with the way she phrases things. I'll try and do a post of her latest comments soon.

The stork delivered!

We got our tiny Baby T!!!! He is so precious! I'll give more of an update later. Right now I'm going to enjoy holding him but wanted to give you a quick update.

We are adding another car seat!

Last weekend we bought a minivan. There is something wonderfully ironic about this picture. I'm 25, infertile, and yet I can't fit all our car seats in our semi-luxury sedan. So we lowered our debt, and got an amazing deal on a used Honda Odyssey.

I'm sure glad we decided to get it! This Friday we are getting an baby boy! Now I can't tell you how old he is or his name but let's just say he is really really really young and we'll call him Baby T for this blogs sake.

We've been almost this close to getting an infant before an then it fell through at the last minute. So while I am very confident we will get him on Friday, nothing is certain until we have him in our spiffy van. I'll let you know if it all works out Friday night.

We'll have gone from 0 kids to 3 in exactly 3 months if this works out. Crazy to say the least. We will love on these kids for as long as the Lord will allow us to. Miss Z and Miss M are still a temporary placement and we have no idea how long we'll have them. The verdict is still out on this baby's future but it looks like we'll have him for quite a while at the minimum.

Oh, quick update on Chase. He is doing MUCH better! We avoided surgery thanks to a speedy ENT doctor at the ER.

Strep can turn into what???

We've had quite an eventful few days. Thursday night Chase was not feeling well at all and called into work sick. By the next day he looked at me and said he was going to go to an urgent care doctor to get his throat looked at. Side Note: My husband doesn't go to doctors! Seriously, he has only been to a doc 1 other time in our 3 1/2 years of marriage...and that was a couple months ago with his staph infection. So when he told me he needed to see a doctor I knew he really wasn't feeling well.

They put him on an antibiotic and said it was strep. Great. Strep goes away pretty quickly with an antibiotic...or so we thought. Saturday morning, well really the middle of the night, he woke up in horrible pain. I look a look at his throat and said he should probably go to the ER. It was bad! I had never seen anything like it before! This was no longer Strep.

He went to a local ER who tested him for Strep and Mono, both came back negative. They didn't let him see the ER doctor and gave him another antibiotic and sent him home. Ugh! No answers.

So let's fast forward to this morning. He had been running a high fever for 4 days straight now. He woke up and said it was now effecting his breathing. I take a look at it and what do I see? I giant white puss pocket that is taking over half of his throat!!! I wish I was exaggerating. This time I take him to a different ER which was a good move. After the ER doc looked at it, he immediately called an ENT doc. Dr. S, the ENT doc, said it was on the verge of becoming an abscess. The only way to get rid of an abscess is surgery. He immediately placed hubby on a really strong antibiotic through the IV. He said if it doesn't get better or gets worse by tomorrow morning, he'll have to come in and do surgery.

His fever has broke, praise the Lord!, and he is feeling a lot better. The bulging puss pocket seems to be getting small, but definitely still there. We are praying we can avoid surgery! On our way out of the hospital this morning, they said this is really serious. If it gets to the point that it did this morning, don't bother driving him to the ER, just call an ambulance. This makes me even more frustrated with the first ER he went to as they would not let him see the ER doctor. If only we were into sewing....but we aren't. I'm just glad we went back in for a second opinion.

The moral of the story is: if you have a sore throat and think it may be strep, seek medical attention immediatly. If it goes untreated too long, it can develope into a deep infection that is called a really long word that I can't pronouce...this can then turn into an abscess which is really painful (so I hear) and will result in immidiate surgery. Oh, did I mention that you can also have perminent kidney damage? Minor side effect.

The Coaster Continues

I'm not going to go into a ton of detail here but I wanted to briefly catch you up on our week last week. We were offered an infant, accepted, but at the last minute we weren't able to take the baby. We continue to wait for the baby the Lord has for us. For one reason or another, most of our plans last week did not go as planned so we had to be majorly flexible.

We celebrated my youngest sisters birthday on Friday night. It's hard to believe my baby sister is already 21! I made homemade lasagna and ravioli in a cream sauce for our family get together. I have a pasta attachment to my Kitchen Aid and the past turned out great! That was the first 'high maintenance' meal I've made since we've had the girls.

Mom and sister and I saw Julie & Julia yesterday. I highly recommend it! It was hilarious and had a great story line. The only thing I would not recommend were the previews before the movie! Seriously! 4 out of 6 of them were trailers for horror films coming out soon. Really? Do you know what audience is attending Julie & Julia? Not people who will see horror films anytime soon. It was really strange.

My Bad

Tonight at dinner I totally forgot to pray. In the middle of dinner, Miss M said, "We forgot to pray! Jesus, Thank you for this food. I love you Jesus. Amen!" Thank you Miss M for remembering to pray!

Lord, thank you for allowing me to see how much Miss M is learning about You. Continue to teach her about how much You love her and desire an intimate relationship with her.

THIS makes the ENTIRE journey worth it!

Visiting the PoPo

For those of you who don't know, 'PoPo' refers to police officers or cops. My youngest sister affectionately refers to them by this name.

When we first got Miss M, every time we saw a Cop or police car, she would FREAK out. She frequently said, "Cops are bad. They will hurt me." We've been working with her quite a bit on this. We tell her that cops are nice and they are here to help us when we need them. Now when we see one she will look at us and ask, "Are cops bad? They won't hurt me?"

This morning on our walk I decided to give the local police dept a call. The Lt. on duty said we could come down and they would show us around. He was so sweet. He wasn't in his uniform when I called him this morning and all the officers were out so he changed just for us. They showed us the dispatch room with all the nifty computers. He then took us out and let the girls play in the cars. He let them turn on the lights and even the siren! Miss M LOVED this part of our visit. He let them sit on the motorcycle to which Miss M was simply giddy about. It was too precious.

As we were leaving Miss M said, "Cops are nice! They are here to help!" You got it sweetie!

This journey is quite the ride!

For those of you that have followed this blog for a while, you've probably picked up on the theme of our life...change and uncertainty. While at times this can be difficult it forces hubby and I to be completely dependent on the Lord for the next turn in the road. This is pretty ironic since we are both planners at heart.

All that to say, I got a call from our caseworker today saying that the visit this weekend has been postponed until 2 weeks from now! I'm SOOOO relieved! I was really anxious about what this visit would do to them. Hubby will be back by then and will be able to help out with the aftermath of the visit.

Another HUGE exciting update is that Miss M went THE ENTIRE day without a meltdown! This is seriously amazing! She woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 6:25 this morning. By 10Am I realized we hadn't had a meltdown yet so I told her "Wow Miss M! We haven't had to do a think-about-it-time this morning! Great job listening to mommy!" To which she replied, "Oh I know." Smarty pants!

Single Parenting

Hubby is out of town for 2 weeks so I'm trying my hand at this single parenting thing....and I don't like it very much. Today is only day 2 and while it hasn't been quite as hard as I thought, it sure isn't fun or easy!

Two weeks ago the girls had a weekend visit with their bio family and it took a full week to get them back to 'normal'. I just found out today that they are getting another one this weekend. They weren't suppose to get another one for a long time but a few things did not go as planned so here we go again. I'm really not looking forward to the aftermath that these poor things endure with another transition like this. It is so hard on them since they can't communicate their feelings...well I take that back...they communicate through meltdowns and defiance.

Last time we had one of these hub and I were able to distract ourselves while they were away. This time, I don't have hub to distract me from missing them. While it is sort of nice to have the quiet house and time for me to nap, my protective mothering comes out and I don't want them leave to an emotionally unsafe place. It would be one thing to have them visit my mom or a friend for the weekend....its another thing to place them in arms that you dont' necessarily trust.

It's a good thing they are in the Lords hands even when I'm not there to protect them. Lord, protect their hearts during this transition and uncertainty.

We do have good news for the week! Miss M is almost fully potty trained!!! She has done such a good job at telling me when she has to go. We've had very few accidents this week. I hope she can keep up the good work when she is with her family this weekend.

A Rough Week

We were at the doctors 4 times this week! I went initially because Miss M had a bad rash. While I was there I asked that the doc to check out her throat because her voice was a little horse. She hadn't mentioned a sore throat and acted completely healthy, so too my surprise, the doc said she had strep!

The next day Chase went in because his nose was really red and swollen. Turns out he had a staph infection! Miss Z and I ended up getting staph the next day. Chase had to go back on Friday so the doctor could work on his nose again.

Needless to say, Chase and I spent all day Saturday sanitizing our apartment. We are all on strong antibiotics and no longer contagious which is great.

On a good note, Miss M used the potty 3 times today! We are majorly focusing on potty training this week. I've never potty trained a toddler so if you have any tips, pass them along!

Another Year

Friday, July 10th was the first year anniversary of our first babies due date. Last year when this date came around, it was rough. I was very emotional. This year I was more reflective on what the Lord has brought out of this loss. I was sad wondering what life would be like with a one year old running around but grateful that the Lord has led us to where we are right now.

Convo's with Miss M

Miss M got a doll from one of our friends that she has been obsessed with for the last 24 hours. I must say, she is doing a pretty good job as a mother. She rocks her, makes sure she has enough sleep, feeds her... I decided to ask her a few questions about her new baby doll and here's what I got.

What's your babies name? Baby

Is Baby a boy or girl? Girl

How old is Baby? 2 months

What does baby eat? Baby apple sauce

Do you love your baby? Yes!

After the questionnaire, she came up to me and said, "I want you to hold Baby in your tummy?"

Me: Tummy? How does that work?

Miss M: I mean on your lap.

Miss M: Baby wants Oatmeal. Tie It! (as she hands me a bib for her baby)


She is really starting to parrot us, most of the time that is a good thing :) The other day I was looking for a piece to my immersion blender. She asked what I was doing and I told her "Mommy can't find a part that I need to finish making dinner."

Miss M quietly watched me search through all the cupboards. When I found it she announced, "Good job Mommy! Good job finding it!"

What a Sceen!

So picture this: Miss M opened up our wedding album and found a page with both Chase and I on it. She layed prostrate hugging the album and said the following for about 10 minutes:

I love Chase. I love Chase. I Love Chase. I lUv Chase! I love Chase. I love Chase. I lUv Chase! I love Chase. I love Mommy! I love Chase......

I didn't know there were so many different ways to say I love Chase! And at least I got one I love mommy in there! Too precious. I only wish I had the video camera out. But alas, it was packed away and it would have taken me 10 minutes to get it out and start recording.

Oh, and today I was watching Paula Deen who always makes yummy desserts that Miss M comments on. She asked me what her name was and then said 'I love Paula!'

Blueberries and More

Has it really been 1o days since my last post? I guess the date on the last post doesn't lie. Sorry it's been so long. Here's what's been going on.

This past Monday we went blueberry picking! If you live near East Texas and you haven't been blueberry picking, it's a must! Well that is of course if you actually like blueberries. We went to Echo Springs Blueberry Farm and had a blast!....well let me re-phrase that, once we actually arrived we had a blast. The ride to and from were pretty miserable. I thought the girls would sleep but no such luck. Miss M tried to get out of her car seat constantly because she wanted me to hold her. I was stopping the car every 15-20 minutes to buckle her back in. Ugh.

Miss M picked a lot of blueberries but only 5 made it into the bucket. The rest ended up in her mouth. Which is a great healthy snack...but blueberries are full of fiber.... Need I go further with that thought? For the next 2 days her bottom was stained a greenish/blueish color...I almost took a picture but thought that might be a little too gross.

We've officially had the girls one month. The time has flown by so fast and we continue to adjust. Miss Z is sleeping through the night just great but Miss M still wakes up with night terrors. I've spent the last couple nights sleeping on her floor. It's so sad, she wakes up every 30-60 minutes and yells "Mommy." If I'm in the room I quickly assure her I'm there and she goes back to sleep. If I'm not there she starts screaming until I come.

The only thing I miss since taking the girls is date nights! Seriously. In order for anyone to watch our girls for us, they have to have current CPR and be background checked by MCH. So far my mom is the only who meets those qualifications. She has been so sweet to watch the girls when we have an event but we have yet to have a date.

Oatmeal+Toddlers

Oh how I wish I could post some pics of the girls on here. They are on their 3rd bowl, each!, of oatmeal. They can't get enough of this stuff. They'd rather have oatmeal than Cheerios...I don't think I have normal toddlers in my home. Miss Z has gotten 2 bowls in her mouth and the other bowl she is wearing...and it is so stinkin cute!

We've already had a big morning in our home. Miss M finally used the toilet for the first time, it was very exciting. She got to wear her big girl undies until she wet them...now it's back to the diaper until she tinkles in the toilet again.

....ok so I just gave Miss Z her 4th bowl of oatmeal!....This little thing can EAT!

We are still getting adjusted to this thing called parenting. It's been hard to jump into it like we have but the Lord has given us the strength and patience we need. We keep learning as much as we can about child development and how trauma, neglect, and abuse, play a role in their development. This has helped us with compassion when we have a 3 hour meltdown!!! Or when she damages our home on purpose....They are nasty meltdowns. These meltdowns make me so sad because I know she is just acting out of fear from rough past. If you and I had gone through everything these little girls have gone through we'd have nasty meltdowns too!

We have had the girls 3 weeks now and I've already made 3 trips to the doctor. Miss Z's ear infection hasn't gone away even though we have finished her antibiotics so it's onto even stronger antibiotics...ugh. Miss M has a horrible diaper rash that started spreading to her legs. Turns out its a bacterial infection, which means more antibiotics. Can you tell I'm not a fan of antibiotics?

Miss M is now calling me mommy and she calls hubby by his first name. She started off calling me Liz, then it turned to momma Liz, and now its mommy.

We are able to get through several books with Miss M. We read 'You are Special' by Max Lucado a lot so she frequently asks us "I am special?" to which we reply, "Oh Miss M, you are so special. You are special to us but you are even more special to God."

Oh another improvement is that Miss M stayed in children's church the entire time this past week! We were so grateful for that!

Okay so those are some of the updates. It's a little harder to blog with everything that is going on right now but I'll do my best to do at least a once a week post with updates. So much more happens in a week with them around!

We have a winner!

Thanks for posting your highlights of the year! They were really fun and encouraging to read. I took all your comments and put them in bowl, closed my eyes, and grabbed one. Our winner of either the Starbucks or Sonic gift card is..... my sister, Grace!

Can family be apart of the prize winnings?? lol My highlight was definitely WILDWOOD! I learned so much in that little town and met some of the greatest people there. Spiritually I grew a lot and became even more confident in Christ! Woohoo!

Grace works at Starbucks so we'll see what she chooses!