R&R Begins

Given our family dynamics at this time, we did not really make any big plans for our vacation. With 3 of our children ages 3 or under, that would just be crazy! The oddest part about this vacation was probably that Caleb & Baylee were not sick; they took care of that the week before.


Our vacation got off to a pretty lazy start. We were going to my mom's for our family picnic the day after the 4th, and she had other plans on the 4th, so there was no rush. And our family is not necessarily what you would call morning people.




We stopped for lunch and also stopped along the way to see Jared, our last foster child who is currently in a group home. And once we got to my hometown, we had to stop and get the groceries to make what I was bringing to the picnic.


Chris & I were not overly excited to drive out to watch the fireworks, so luckily my sisters volunteered to take the boys with them. They didn't take Amata, though, because they thought it would get too late for her...little did they know she would be waiting up for them to return!


Hopefully I won't overload your computer by sharing with you ALL of the pictures I took while at my moms....

...oh, wait, I forgot to take any pictures at my mom's! I had the camera with, but I guess you actually have to take it out if you want pictures.

The picnic is an annual event for my mom's side of the family. It is always nice to chat with my cousins & aunts & uncles. Of course, it gets harder and harder for everybody to make it every year, but we still had a good turn out. And the kids had a blast playing with everybody. (Baylee also enjoyed all of the attention she got as the youngest child there.)


After the picnic we just hung out at my moms. We had planned to leave the following day & stop in the Cities at the Zoo and the Mall of America, but the more we thought about it, that didn't sound like much fun on the Sunday of a holiday weekend, so we stayed an extra day at my mom's. It was nice to be able to just relax & hang out there. We played some ladder golf & watched a movie.


We left for the Cities on Monday morning. (Unfortunately, when we are traveling, Baylee & Caleb sometimes forget that our family is not what you would call morning people, which made for some pretty early days!)

Our First Foster Children

Our first foster care placement was a 7 year old girl & an 11 year old boy. When they were placed with us, their parents had already voluntarily signed the termination papers (because then they wouldn’t have to pay child support). However, because these children were Alaskan Natives, there was a tremendous amount of red tape involved, leaving them in foster care for 9 months with us, and that doesn’t include the previous time they spent in foster care before the termination papers were signed.

They were a great placement for us as first time foster parents, because we didn’t have to deal with the biological parents at all. These 2 children also had 3 half siblings. A sister that was over 18, so she was still with her biological parents and 2 brothers who were at different foster homes. Normally they really try to keep the children together, but for some reason that wasn't possible this time. Since we were not in on this case from the beginning, I'm really not sure why they were separated, but it may have had something to do with the other siblings being much older, and very difficult to find adoptive homes for.

Of course there were issues with the children at times, especially the boy, he had seen quite a bit in his 11 years on this earth. Their biological parents were both alcoholics. There were also allegations of possible sexual abuse, and even if they were not actually abused, they saw way too much! Since the parents were usually drunk, if not worse, the kids were left up to their own devises. When we got them, the boy was already on probation for burglary & vandalism, and so he had several hours of community service he had to complete. Luckily, since I work for the City, I was able to get them to let him work at the recycling center on the weekends to work off that time.

The little girl was not too difficult, she didn't seem to have many issues beyond those of a normal 7 year old girl. Hopefully she was young enough when she was removed from her parents care that she won't remember much of it. (I think she was barely 6 when she was first removed). The boy did have more issues. He would become angry pretty quickly, and while it doesn't make it okay, you can hardly blame him considering what he'd been through already.

Luckily, once the red tape was cleared and they were available to be adopted, a nice couple about 45 minutes away was found who were looking to adopt an older sibling group. We haven't heard from them directly since they left, but a few months later, the social worker said she had visited with them and the seemed to be doing great. I'm sure they will always have some issues to work through, but hopefully being adopted by a loving couple will help.

Cell Phones

My husband & I have been licensed foster care providers for almost 6 years. We decided to become foster parents because we wanted to help kids who are less fortunate that us & needed a safe place to live. We also wanted our children, who may be just a tiny bit spoiled, to see that other children aren’t as fortunate so that they would appreciate what they have. That part hasn’t worked quite as well as I had hoped, but there’s still time, right?

The latest tragedy in the boys' lives is that they don’t have cell phones. Not only that, their parents don’t have cool phones for them to use, since we just have prepaid phones. Tyler informed me that ALL of his friends had their own cell phones (Tyler is 12, and we are more than happy to let him use one of our phones if he is going to a friends or to the park, but I am really not convinced he needs his own). Unfortunately for him, when you live in a small town, there is a good chance that your parents know your friends parents. So I asked him if Ashton had his own cell phone….nope he doesn’t. I asked if Jesse had his own, or if he just used his parents phone…he wasn’t sure.

But I did make him an offer. If he wanted, for Christmas & his birthday, I would be willing to get him a Tracfone & 1 year of service. He turned it down because their phone’s weren’t cool enough. I showed him another site that has pre-paid service in our area, and he did find a phone that he liked there…for almost $300.00, and that didn’t include the service! I told him to check Tracfone again once it got closer to Christmas!

Another New Word!

Well I'm back from vacation...the vacation was nice, but the coming back to work part, not so much.

Caleb learned another new word over our vacation...."poop"! And he does know what it means. Usually he will point to his diaper and say it if he has pooped. And actually, yesterday, he said it before he had actually pooped. Had we realized he meant he had to go, we could have run him up to the bathroom first!

I'm really trying hard not to be too offended, though. I am really happy that he is finally beginning to talk. He is also starting to babble a little bit which is great, since that is another step to actually talking. But seriously, would it have killed him to try mommy first??

Vacation

We are beginning our vacation tomorrow. Nothing big, just a few days at my mom's for our family picnic followed by a week at the camper. Tyler does have baseball games next week, but one of them is only about 15 minutes from our camper, anyway.


There is one MAJOR problem, though. I was watching what I thought was the finale of Hell's Kitchen last night, only to find out that was just part 1 of 2. The last episode is actually next week on, while we are at the camper that does not get FOX, and the night of Tyler's baseball game. I realize I can record it, but it's just not the same.

The other issue with our campsite is that there is no Internet service. Our cell phones don't work there either, for that matter. We have to drive about a half mile to get service. But that's not all bad, I guess, there won't be a temptation to be on the computer instead of playing with the boys...but it will mean no posts for the next week or so.

Have a great 4th!

Shopping

For the most part, I tend to be a bargain shopper. I LOVE the clearance aisles and consignment stores. I'd say about 90% of mine & the kids' clothes come from thrift stores. It gives us really large wardrobes, since I only pay a fraction of what they would cost new.


But my downfall is online shopping. For some reason, I am way more willing to buy something online than at the stores. When I'm at WalMart (say what you want about WalMart, I love shopping there), if something costs more than $2.00, I really debate whether I really need it. But when I'm at JCPenney's online outlet store....I buy stuff that I never would have bought at the store. My latest purchase was a pair of extremely large hoop earrings. They seriously almost touched my shoulder's....not what I normally wear at all. But they were ONLY $3.99. I know if I would have seen them for $4.00 at WalMart, I wouldn't have purchased them.

Those online stores know it, too. That's why they have a whole section labels "$9.99 and under" and Overstock.com will actually sort your search by the largest discount. How am I supposed to avoid purchasing with sales pitches like that?!

What is better...

than getting to play in your big brother's room? Especially since that is one of the rooms that is usually off limits to the babies.

Playing on their mini-bike does run a close second, though.

Shockingly, Amata was actually content to ride her bike. She is usually an instigator of things like this. (And, look, her outfit even matches, too!)

Camping

We decided to park our camper at a seasonal site this year, because we get bad enough gas mileage in the Suburban (the one vehicle we can all fit in) without towing a camper besides. When we went on vacation last year and towed the camper with Chris' pretty red truck we got a whopping 6 miles per gallon!

When we chose the camp site this year, we based it on 2 very important factors. One was of course the price. The other reason was...

It has a baby pool!

That means they can actually touch and we don't have to carry Amata & Caleb around the pool the whole time they're swimming. So Baylee and I can just sit on the side and watch them swim.

It is also close enough to the big pool that they can chat with the boys while they're swimming.

Caleb also found a friend at the pool.

Because anybody who will play catch with Caleb is his friend. I'd feel bad for the kid, as Caleb still needs to work on his aim a little, but, then again, we did bring the ball & fish the kid was playing with, so it's all fair.

Oh, the boys enjoyed the big pool, too, so that was a plus.

Fairness

I have been noticing that a lot of my posts are about & have pictures of my 3 youngest children.

I always try to be pretty fair with my kids...sometimes I try too hard. Like when I was shopping yesterday and found some great clearance sales on clothes for next year for the 3 babies. Even though Tyler & Cameron don't need any clothes, and I have tried to stop picking out their clothes (apparently, 10 & 12 year old boys have slightly different tastes in clothing than their 30 something mom) I still bought a t-shirt for each of them so they didn't feel left out.

For me,this is the hardest balance especially since I have some biological & some adopted children. I am always afraid one will think I like the other ones more, which is not the case at all. I think I may try to be too fair, though, because now Tyler seems to be of the opinion that everything between Cameron and him should be the same, even though they are over 2 years apart. Last night, he even thought he should get to stay up as late as he wanted because Cameron was at a sleep over so he would probably be up past mid-night - that would still be a no.

But as far as the blog goes, there are several reasons why there aren't as many posts & pictures of Tyler & Cameron. First, just from the age standpoint, children under 3 tend to do more cute/funny things than pre-teens do. But I think even a bigger reason is they don't like to have their picture taken as often. Cameron's not so bad...

...but getting decent pictures of Tyler is a challenge. Just look, it takes both Cameron & Amata to make Tyler look up to have his picture taken.

Snap!

Do you ever remember playing the card game "Snap"? It's a fun, easy game to play with kids. Amata has "Princess Snap" which is the same game, but instead of regular cards, these cards have princesses on them. She loves that game...because, hello, it has the word princess in it! And Amata is a princess...if you didn't know, just ask her, she'll tell you.

(Chris accidentally called Baylee princess once. Amata informed him that Baylee was not a princess, Amata was. So, to avoid conflict, we've been calling Baylee Precious, instead.)

The only problem with the snap game is that although Amata loves to look at all of the princess pictures, she doesn't really understand the concept of the game. When 2 of the same card are played back to back, the first person to yell "Snap" gets the pile of cards. We played it correctly the first couple of rounds, and then we tried to get her to do it. Tyler was helping her, but whenever it was time to yell it, Tyler would say, "Amata, yell snap" and she would say, "you did". After some more coxing, she did whisper "snap" a couple of times, but she obviously needs a little more practice.

In the end, even if she didn't quite get the concept of the game, good fun was had by all!

It's a Home Run

After starting their season with 2 very close losses, Tyler's baseball team seems to have found their groove, and have won the last 3. Tyler, himself, also seems to have improved his hitting quite a bit. Last year he was okay, but he struck out quite a bit This year I think he has only struck out twice. He's had several walks and a few hits.

In his last game he actually got a home-run! Okay, so maybe if they were actually "scoring" it like they do in the big leagues, they may not have actually recorded it as a home run, it may have been more of a double with a couple of defensive errors and a pretty impressive slide at home plate...but when you are 12 and you make it around to home plate on your hit...it's a home run!

Unfortunately, I have not pictures to share of this momentous event since I forgot to bring the camera!

I wasn't kidding about that arm

We we waiting for a table at Famous Dave's on Father's Day, so we sat on the grass to let the kids play for a while.




Caleb took this opportunity to show off his throwing abilities.

Not to worry, we have since gotten him a smaller glove. I don't know what we were thinking, obviously he has to have a glove to play baseball!

And of course after a hard day of baseball, a little back rub always helps a tired boy relax!