Three Birthdays.....

So this was a busy week... First came Autumn's birthday on the 24th...

She turned 8 - wow!! She wanted a Princess cake of course.. This was really hard to make. The cake did not turn out as flat and straight as I wanted but besides that it came out pretty cute. :)
We took some photos of her to make a collage for the hall... this one was my favorite. :)

Then came Thanksgiving two days later... and then Black Friday the next day.. and my mom's birthday the next day and Joey's the next. :)

He turned 9!! My baby... :( I forget how old he is sometimes - I still think of him as 6 or 7...

He was sooo excited to open gifts. He kept asking if it was time yet. :)
He wanted a computer cake... why? I have no clue.... There were so many more boyish cakes but this is the one he chose. Go figure. I do like how the mouse turned out though. ;)

I am glad he's the last birthday for a while... well a week until next Monday when it's Paul's... :)

Thanksgiving Madness....

Last night began our annual Black Friday shopping spree.

This year was extra special - Toys R Us opened at midnight!!! :) I was super excited. We got there at 9:15 to line up... we got a great spot - our car was parked right next to our spot in line so me and Bre got to stay warm in the back of the van for 3 hours while we waited.

It was definitely worth the wait.. I felt like we didn't have to rush as much - we made it to Walmart by 2am... and they actually were open 24 hours but just didn't let you get the deals until 5.. So we were able to walk around and look at where everything was at. Well, then the employees gave into the overpowering customers and started allowing people to put stuff in their carts and just wait in line to pay at 5... It was very odd - but definitely not as bad as years past.

4 stores and 11 hours after we started we were done. I fell asleep for about 3 hours before we headed over to my mom's to pick up our kids...

I actually went back to a couple of stores a few hours ago - as if I hadn't done enough shopping. By this time I looked pretty bad - my eyes were all bloodshot and I looked like I hadn't combed my hair in a week. :) And of course I had to run into someone from church... (Janie, tell Summer I wasn't being rude I just hate people seeing me like that) :)

So now after buying gifts for 14 children 3 times over.. ( I had to get my grandma's gifts and my mom's) I feel like we did pretty good. We got pretty much everything we set out for... and no one got hurt - luckily.. thank goodness the cops were there Mike. ;)

We're already looking forward to next year!

Strikes.....

Last week we went on a spur of the moment bowling trip with Beth and Louie and our kids... It's only like 1.50 a game after 8pm! I never knew that... very cheap and fun outing.

Kaia loved sitting at the board... she thought she was in charge. :)

Joey was loving it... even though he got alot of gutter balls he still tried his best. :)
Then came this.... Beth told me that Louie had gotten a green tea and he didn't like it... did I want it? I was really thirsty - we had just ordered nachos and wasn't paying attention and said yeah and took a drink... yeah, it wasn't green tea. It was a Long Island... yeah, I don't drink. No, it did not taste good. Yes, I was surprised.... to say the least. It tasted like rubbing alcohol. Not funy at all. Beth was like, "Couldn't you tell by the glass?" I guess I should've. :)

Something to check out....

My new favorite website is zenni optical.. You can buy glasses on there for sooo cheap. I got 3 pairs of glasses for 30.00.. with shipping!

It's amazing. I will never buy eyeglasses in a store again. And you all know how cheap I am so something like this is like Christmas to me. :) Of course you can't try them on but who cares.. they all look pretty much the same anyways.

Now I have an excuse to get the cheetah frames I always wanted. ;0)

Car trouble....

I hate cars... have I said that before? Well, I do... I hate how when you think you're finally gonna have some money to put into savings and then the cars overhear and decide to plot against you.

Last week it was my van - the battery died and we had to get a new one - not too bad actually.. under a hundred dollars...

This week was a little worse... Paul called me at 530 in the morning because he hit a dog on the freeway and was going to have to have his car towed.... 3 hours later and 200.00 later his car was towed to the dealership. Then they called this morning to give me the lovely estimate of 15 - 18 HUNDRED dollars to fix the damages...

Luckily our insurance will cover it as an accident but we still have to pay the 500 dollar deductible... I have to look at the bright side - at least he didn't hit a deer like he originally had thought. :)

Kids say the darndest things....

I made sloppy joes last night and Joey was like, "These are some good sloppy joes.."

Kaia nodded her head and said "This is a good sloppy Kaia" :0)

Creepy crawlies..

We are moving not a minute too soon. We have had some reptile problems lately... yep. Lizards. We've found a total of 5 so far... I think a mama came and had some babies... Well, we caught the mama in the bathroom a couple of weeks ago - it was about 6 inches long... yuck.

Then last week I went to lay Kaia in bed (she fell asleep in the car) and when Paul pulled back the blankets he saw a lizard curled up on her pillow.... I was completely grossed out.

Needless to say, she slept with us that night.

Now I can't step out of my bed without checking and have to look in the bathroom before I go in. ;)

here's looking at you.....

Okay... let's play a game... who can name all the kids by just seeing their eyes? My kids are in here too so.. and the twins are gonna be really hard - Bre who thinks she knows who's who should have a hard time... so get guessing. :)






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Craft project...

I saw this idea in my Family Fun magazine.. I 've been wanting to do it for a while now and realized I have a bookcase I never use - so I painted it - and voila! a brand new piece of furniture! :)

I think it came out pretty cute. The elastic strips help hold all the stuffed animals in and are easy cleanup and very organized... :)

Super cute!

More changes....

We will be apartment dwellers once again come next month. Since our home life has changed we decided rather than one of us get another job we will downsize and move into an apartment.

I am a little sad.. I like having my own house but the apartment is really cute. The house thing just wasn't working out like we had hoped... I think it's just not God's timing right now..

So for the next couple of weeks I should stay busy - downsizing, packing, organizing... busy work. :)

As each day/week goes by it's getting easier not thinking about the kids.. I just have to get my computer to stop flashing all the photos when it goes into sleep mode.. ;)

And I should be posting more - got to get the creative juices flowing. :)

Photo Booth...

My mom finally got her computers from the charter school she's in.. the kids are really loving the photo booth.... :)

Scary...

Pick me up...

I thought I'd be nice and give the kids hot chocolate for dessert tonight... I had bought some called Mocha Capachino flavored. It was the Swiss Miss one on sale for like 50 cents so I got it for the kids. Paul was like, "Don't give the kids that - it has coffee in it." I told him he was crazy - it was just hot chocolate flavored to taste like it.

Joey was like " My eyes are wide awake now.. that hot chocolate woke me up!"

That's when Paul came over and showed me the ingredients on the box... Coffee. I had no idea they put real coffee in hot chocolate. So now our kids are probably going to be up until 3 am. :)

End of our journey...

I've been prolonging posting this for a while now... but I think I can finally post this without being as angry as I've been...

We are no longer foster parents - it's a long story and one I don't think I will explain all the way but on Friday morning because of the investigation with the teens we had.. even though it all came out unfounded there was a concern that I spank Kaia. At the time I didn't know you weren't allowed to spank your own children. It didn't seem like a big deal to me but I guess it was.. so they decided to remove all the kids and we had two options - go through retraining and possibly be decertified or decertify ourselves.

I knew there was a possibility of this happening and had been asking God for a sign to tell me what to do and when I got this call it was pretty clear.. so we stepped down and let them come and take the kids. It was the hardest day ever. Paul of course was at work so I had to get all the stuff packed and deal with all the crying and trying to explain to the youngest what was going on.

It was so surreal and I think I was in shock for a few days - I think it's really just starting to sink in. Me and Paul still are in disbelief over it.. I mean, is it really over? What now?

It's like you know that you're supposed to do something and then it's all over... so quickly... without time to prepare... and you're left feeling empty...

I told my small group it's like there's been a death in the family - that's how I feel - like I'm in the grieving process. It's like nothing I can describe.

I just hope I understand why soon - that I can see the reason for all of this.. I know there has to be a reason.. God has a plan - I just don't know what it is.

So for now I will just pour myself into my kids and wait to see what's next...

Here's the last pics of the last foster birthday we had this past Tuesday...
The elephant cake I searched the internet for...
The elephant gifts all of us got for her...
And the special elephant necklace I bought online for her that I hope she will keep and remember us by...

Zoo day..

San Diego Zoo has a whole month free entrance for all kid tickets. Of course we jumped at the chance to go for free. :) So we totally took advantage of the offer and brought 16 kids with us. :) Even my grandparents went with us.

I had my school kids ditch school. The 1st grader was like, "Isn't it Monday? Don't we have to go to school?" I told her would she rather go to the zoo or school? :)

It was really fun - we made sure we saw all the major animals - lion, tiger, bear, elephant, monkey, etc. We didn't realize until we left that we forgot to see the giraffes. :) Oh well, next time...
My dad and Paul were in charge of the map and where we were going... this was pretty much what they did the whole day.... :)
They had a lot more photo op things then the last time we went. This is Jesse (tall) and Joey (short) ... they look so cute. :)
We saw our famous birds... :) Grandpa said they sound just like all of us.
We saw some really interesting animals.. like this one who was very interested in its own poop. It was so gross...
And these meerkats.. Paul of course got this pic.. he would be the one to notice this. Aaaah the birds and the bees come alive at the zoo. ;) Luckily none of the kids noticed this - but at a different time one of my kids said a monkey was grinding - luckily none of the kids asked what that meant.
There were so many kids there I don't think I got enough photos of everyone.. but they all had a great time. No one really complained about walking either. :) It seemed like all they did was eat snacks the entire day. My kids must've ate like 4 sandwiches a piece.
The boys were sooo excited to see all the animals. They all did pretty well too waiting patiently to go to the next section. I hate when kids just look and run to the next. I think Paul was the biggest impatient one. :)
Joey's favorites of course were the birds and Kaia loved the hippos.. I know, funny huh? I would've thought it would've been something cuter - but nope - it was a big old hippo.
We even took an animal home with us.. little monkey boy Malachai. :)

Afterwards we went to Spaghetti Factory - all 23 of us. The kids did really well. Mom was so happy - the waiter said they were the best behaved he'd seen in a while. :)

Vegas Pics...

We had so much fun on our trip to Vegas.. Paul didn't feel like we relaxed that much.. probably because I had a huge itinerary that I wanted to get through. :) This is our only pic we got together of us.. it's really hard to find someone to take your picture.. especially if they don't know how to use it.. it's kinda blurry.

When we first got there around five we checked in at the Luxor.. I had never stayed there before so I was excited to see the hotel. Just to let you know - the elevator is terrible for those with motion sickness. I hated going on it.. because the hotel's at an angle the elevator moves at an angle. It was really nauseating. This pic is a view from our floor down to the lobby area... made me a bit dizzy.

So then we met up with one of Paul's old classmates from Okinawa - Patrick and his wife Erica. He works at the Bellagio so we always try to meet up with him when we come out. What's weird is that Paul's whole graduating class still keeps in touch with each other ... anyways, they took us to a Japanese restaurant off the strip in the city. Paul was in heaven. He ordered waaay too much food.

Like these weird pancake type appetizers with octopus inside.. I wanted to try the breading and when I peeled off some I could literally see the suction cups of the octopus inside. Yuck! I ate salmon and rice - nice normal food. :) I was excited to get Japanese sweet bread afterwards though... yum.

Afterwards I was determined to stay out until 4am.. so we went to a Deuling Piano bar.. it was really fun and entertaining.. then we walked the strip - saw the Dancing Waters of course. Paul started to get tired around 130am... boring.. :) So we headed back but I made myself stay up and watch t.v. until 330. :)

We went shopping the following day.. Paul loved this hat - I think it made him look like a rice paddy farmer. :) That evening we went to see KA - my first vegas show I ever went to.. I know right? It was really good and impressed us both.

Then more shopping and off to see the gardens at the Bellagio.. I always have to go there and take a look.. This year was really cool - my favorite was these trees that rained water...
But this tree was cool too. I think I stayed up too late the night before because pretty soon after this I fell asleep around 2am..
The next morning our last day there we met up with Paul's sister - Ann who lives in Vegas. Paul hasn't seen her in over ten years so he was really nervous.. he still saw her as a ten year old. :) She was really happy to see him though and hopefully will come out and visit for the holidays.

Then we headed back - we had to be home for a foster meeting at 6.. and got a call from the principal that the boy we have got suspended until Monday for exposing himself at school.. Welcome home - back to reality. :)

Rest and Relaxation almost here...

Only 2 more days until me and Paul go on a getaway ALONE... :) No kids, no appointments, no school, no nothing but relaxing and being together... fun, fun fun. We haven't gone away in two years so I am really excited about it.

We had to split all the kids up though.. that's the only drawback.. it's weird having them all over the place. Joey is at his dad's, Kaia's at my mom's and the other 3 are at another foster parents house... I'm just hoping they can behave while we're gone.

I've already had a suspension for one of them this week and a principal's office visit for another one.. and some drama from a dad for the third one. I am definitely in need of a break. :)

So tomorrow's plan is to wash every piece of laundry and packing bags for all of them and getting all the loose ends tied up before we go. The crazy thing is that I have an IEP meeting for Joey before we can leave on Monday... so hopefully we'll be able to leave sometime in the afternoon. :)

I'm sure I'll have lots of pics and stories when I get back! :)

Friday school....

Every Friday is "School Day" at my mom's house. I go over there and do Science and History with the kids as a group. My mom needs a bit of a break teaching 7 kids this year.. 3 kindergartners, a 1st, two 3rds and a 4th grader.

I separate them into big kids (jesse, dayzch, steph, autumn and joey ) and the little kids (Micaylah, Maliyah, and Eden). It works much better that way. :) But somehow the three youngest - Kaia, Brayden and Ryland get lumped in with the little kids as well. They want to "do school" too. :)

So this Friday the little kids learned about Family Trees in Social Studies. They painted their own trees and made apples on them to represent each member of their immediate family. It would have been too big to try to do extended family. :)

Kaia was really excited to paint her own tree. :)

The boys were also really into the painting. Brayden was so careful to outline the entire outside of the tree...
While Ryland went to town with his green paint in the middle of his tree. :) They are so eager to be big and do school with the rest of them... hopefully that excitement stays in them til they graduate. :)

Chicken eggs....

We were learning about birds the other day and talking about how humans have eggs too... which led to "You have chicken eggs inside of you?"

"No, they are different and need a daddy to make them into a baby."

"What does the daddy do?"

"He puts sperm in the egg to make it into a baby."

"Oh so is dad going to use some sperm to make a new baby?"

"No, daddy is all out of sperm - so I can't have any more babies."

"Bobby has a lot of sperm because they have a lot of kids."

I couldn't help but laugh. Thankfully the conversation stopped there. :)

Family Updates...

This week has flown by.. there has been so much going on with the kids I don't even know where to start. I will just say this - each of the three we have right now are so in need of prayer individually. They are all going through alot.

The 8 year old we are dealing with the principal's office almost on a daily basis. Home life is rough too... his ADHD is sooo bad. I've never actually seen what a real ADHD kid is like - they name so many this that when you really see it firsthand you realize how bad it is.

The 6 year old is dealing with some abandonment issues and just adjustment in general. She is so savvy to the system it's sad.

The 4 year old is going through alot with her dad. There are some things going on which I am uncomfortable with... we just need prayer for the truth to be seen.

Joey's school issues are escalating right now. We have an IEP meeting next week so there has been a lot of pre meetings, emails, etc... I feel like I am doing school 24/7 now. With Joey's school and then all the homework of the kids too. :) I'm making the parents do the hard stuff at visitations now though... which makes it easier on me.

The good news is though - me and Paul are going to go on a much needed vacation in a few weeks... alone. We probably won't know what to do with ourselves. :) Well, that's our updates..

Eden's 6th bday...

Eden's Birthday was like last Wednesday and I don't know how I forgot to post these pics.. :( Anyways... she was so excited to get dressed up - in a crown and everything. :)
But then of course she went back to her normal happy Eden self. :)
She looks like she's drowning in gifts. She was most excited to have the attention all on her .
She chose a Banana Split cake. It was really hard to put together. It took me forever to serve all the kids. They had to wait in line and the poor kids at the end of the 16 kid line got a bit restless.

Next up is our 4 year olds birthday - I'm gonna kill my dad because he is always "reminding" her that her birthday is coming.... She's one of those kids who will talk about something every day until you're ready to strangle them. So whenever she starts I just have to cut her off and say "We're not talking about birthdays today.." Dad thinks it's hilarious. :)

Castle park....

We finally used our free passes to Castle Park from the summer reading program at the library. :) Kaia looks bored in this picture.. but she's actually mad that she couldn't go on the bumper cars. ;)

It was alot of fun - but I have to say Castle Park is trying to become something they're not. An amusement park.... they now charge everyone an admission price. 8.00 even if you aren't riding the rides. What a rip off - they are the farthest thing from an amusement park, c'mon. :) Half the rides were being manned by one person who was in charge of three different rides. So you'd have to wait forever for them to give rides to people on one ride before they'd come and turn on our ride. It was ridiculous. Okay, now that I got that out of my system I can show you some really cute pics of all the kids....
Kaia loved having the control of driving this motorcycle - she thought she was hot stuff. :)
I love this picture of Maliyah - she looks so cute!
Ryland was quite the rider - he wanted to go on everything...
Brayden on the other hand was not into it.. after his first ride he wasn't having it anymore. This is the only other ride he went on and cried the entire time. Mean old Bre made him get on. How sad!
The kids all loved this ride - they went on it at least 3 times. They all can't wait to drive I guess. We will all be scared when Steph drives though - she's crazy. :)
Mom was having a heart attack when they went on this ride... She was afraid they would fly off. Autumn loved it though. :)
Who's that handsome hunk? :) He's purposely trying to make a muscle.. he's such a dork!
It was a really fun day... besides our 5 yr. old grabbing a strangers drink and drinking it and our 6 yr. old screaming that she wanted to get off one of the rides... it was pretty much without fault. :) But what would life be like without a bit of drama.. right?

New look....

Micaylah and Maliyah got these glasses at some restaurant they went to and wore them around the house all day for 2 straight days. Maliyah was so serious when she wore hers. :)

Blended family...

Everyone's always asking me.. "Now, how many do you have now?" "Do you still have so and so...?"

So I thought I would put this feature on here - "Our Blended Family" so that everyone can see who is here and all that....

Because for some reason our family changes often. Normally when you do foster care they tend to stay longer. But we've had 12 kids already in the matter of 9 months we've done it. So now there's no confusion.. :)

Full circle...

Last Wednesday I got a call for a little girl who is six years old.. I was agreeing to take her when the worker was explaining her history and name.. and I realized I recognized her name. I wonder if this is the same girl my mom had???

And very weird, but yes, it was. My mom had her when she was 20 months old and only for a week while her foster parents were out of town. But we remembered her because she smeared her poop all over the wall and tried eating it. Yeah, gross...

Thankfully she's past that stage. :) The crazy thing is that she looks the same as she did as a baby. She fits in pretty well with us too. She's been in and out of foster care since 11 months old so she's very familiar with the system.. which is sad.

But I just thought it was crazy how God brought her back into our lives after all this time. I'm sure there is a reason.. :)

Joey's first game....

Joey had his first soccer game in a real league today.. We've always done city leagues but this is the first time through AYSO.. It went pretty well. They lost 3 - 6 but they still had fun.

It was really hot out there and Joey was not feeling well so he had to sit out for part of the game.

My number 4! :) Go 4!!

His famous sticking out of the tongue.. he does this whenever he's concentrating...

Paul was excited to be a part of the game - he was the flag holder.. guy.. i don't know the official name of it but he got to call when the ball was out of bounds.

Hopefully next week won't be so hot!

Old friends....

Symmie called me last week and said they were coming down for the weekend and I could meet up with her and have breakfast.. so of course I jumped at the chance - come on now, food and no kids??? I'm there. :) Mimi's Cafe by the way is great for breakfast... I just want to say that I let Clyde take this picture and I wasn't ready so that's why I look so gross. :)

I wanted to post a picture of Jerry and Symmie when they were younger to compare.. but I couldn't find it. And I accidentally changed this to B&W.. sorry. I have so many memories that involve the Simmons ... we practically lived at each other's houses. :) I still remember me and Jerry doing some Bible study thing we had to do together for some reason.. anyways, he told me he wanted to be a pastor and I was like, "Whatever...." j/k. No really, I thought it was kinda weird.. but here he is 15 years later and a pastor of our old church.. So crazy. :)

Fishing...

Paul and Louie had been kinda talking about going fishing with the boys on Labor Day.. and then somehow it turned into a night fishing trip.. and then somehow it turned into a family thing...

Actually I asked to tag along and brought the girls and Jesse, Joey and our little guy and headed along to Big Bear lake to do some night fishing. We were already tired by the time we got there.. it was almost 11pm... but the kids were wide awake. :)

It was really cold - about 45 degrees and we were ill prepared. I mean I brought jackets and hats but I really should have brought gloves too.. all I heard from the boys were - "My hand is frozen to the fishing pole!" "My hands hurt.." :) Beth and Louie set up the back of their jeep though so around 12:30 I went in there with the girls and they all passed out watching a movie... and so did I..

I did wake up to see that they caught a fish - but didn't take a pic cause it was too cold and I was too lazy to get my camera. :) Joey had a blast - he stayed out there all night fishing... even though at about 2 am you could hear tons of coyotes howling.. creepy.

Kaia tried it for about 5 minutes and then was over it. She thought the fish was going to appear magically and when it didn't she was done with fishing for the night. I don't think she's an outdoorsy person. Because when she said she had to go to the bathroom and I told her she had to go in a bush she was like, "No mommy, later. " :) I did have to take the little girl we have to pee in the bushes and it was not an experience I want to repeat. She had pee on the back leg of her pants.. it was gross. She's not too coordinated so it was a big task to ask of her.. :)

Doesn't Jesse look like one of those stranded survivor type people? hahahah...

Anyways, it was alot of fun.. but cold. :) I wanted to do some more fishing but had to watch the girls. :) By the time we got home it was 4:30 am.. me and Paul were like, "What were we thinking???" I thought the kids would sleep in late but Kaia was up by 8:30! So I'm still a bit sleepy. :)

Eating issues...

The little boy we have has a definite food issue.. I would call it hoarding but it is a bit different. He doesn't hide food for later or keep food from meals..

The issue is when everyone is asleep he goes into our snack cupboards and gets junk food and eats it.. Pop Tarts, cookies, marshmallows, etc. He is on ADHD medication so sugar is not a good combo for him. So I started leaving fruits and cereal out on the counter for him when he goes to search for food and started locking the snack cupboard.

That's when I realized he's not doing it out of hunger.. because instead of eating the fruits he would open the freezer and get popsicles, or one time it was a bag of chocolate baking chips.

It's not like he doesn't get sweets/junk either. At three oclock everyday we have a snack - one of the above mentioned foods and after dinner at about 730 too...

I know there are some deeper issues going on here but it is still so frustrating to deal with. It also makes me nervous knowing he's roaming the house at night. We are awaiting approval for his counseling sessions to begin.. I know this will probably help alot... but until then..

Anyone got any ideas?????

Still shopping...

When we started looking for a house we thought it would be simple once we found one.. you know, like okay - we like this one, let's buy it.. :)

Yeah, well it does not work like that. We made our 3rd offer last week and we may be outbid.. never know. We actually have 2 offers out right now on 2 different homes. :) One of the ones we bid on ended up having like 30 offers... crazy!

And it doesn't count all the ones we liked but didn't qualify for an FHA or the ones that we went to bid on but were already taken within 24 hours.. it's definitely a crazy market right now. Actually 3 offers isn't alot compared to some people at our church who put over 15 offers and finally got one.

Hopefully something turns up soon.. I want to try and get a house before November.. :) We will see!!! :)

Got a twitch....

My eye won't stop twitching.. I tried everything.. closing it, rubbing it.. it's going on two days now..

Maybe I'm going blind... :) The worst part is when you are talking with someone and you feel like they can totally see it. Does this ever happen to anyone else? It's really annoying.

No more teens...

I think we just experienced the craziest moment of our foster parenting... the two teen girls we had were caught ditching school on Thursday and a very long story short - they called the cops and wanted to leave our home. It was insane to say the least.

They made false allegations against us and even though the cops said that they weren't going to file a report against us it was enough for us to agree never to take any children remotely close to teen age.

I feel for them because they were placed in a safe house for now and possibly in a group home but it was their choice. I explained numerous times to them how their actions were going to affect them but of course they felt they knew best.

Paul and I both felt as if we'd been slapped in the face - after all we'd done to help them this was the thanks we got. It was crazy. I am just glad it's all over (I hope at least) and that we can learn from this mistake and move on..

Kaia's birthday....

Our baby turned 3 yesterday.. Paul was on the verge of tears the whole day. :)

She had a butterfly party. She had originally wanted a Dora party but the dollar store had all this cute butterfly stuff and she is easily persuaded when it's pink so... butterflies it was! I found this cute idea to make butterfly cupcakes and they turned out pretty cute.

All the girls at the party got tiaras to wear. They all looked so cute.
She was sooo excited about all her gifts. When I brought them out to put on the table for later she was like "MY PRESENTS!!!" I told her not to touch and she asked if she could just "feel them" and then she lovingly stroked the paper and took a big sniff of the paper.. it was so funny.

She was trying so hard not to get too over excited when she opened them. This is her holding back the laughter face. :)
Breanna and mom both got her the same Kai Lan set... she was like, "I have 2 Kai Lan's!"
She chose this cupcake because it had the most sprinkles... but then once she ate the topping she switched to the adult's chocolate cake instead. (Just like her daddy - a lover of chocolate)
Beth and Louie got her this cute Barbie cell phone and sunglass set and we didn't even realize it came with a Barbie wig.. the kids had fun trying it on and acting crazy, like little miss Eden here.

Now that this is all over with I won't have to hear Kaia ask every day if it's her birthday yet. :)

First Camping Trip...

I survived my first camping trip.. :) I know - it's crazy that I've never been camping before, and the only reason I went this time was because there was a bathroom. :) I thought it was important though to let my kids experience camping. They loved the tents!

Mike and Breanna were going to San Onofre to camp and invited us. At the time we only had 3 kids so we said yes.. and by the time we went we had doubled in size to six kids... so we had to borrow a few tents from Beth and Louie but it was still alot of fun. At least I thought so.. Paul was really uncomfortable on the air mattress we bought but I thought it was fine.

The kids loved it. It was crazy weather though. When we woke up in the morning it rained for about an hour.. I said Mike and Bre bring the rain with them wherever they go now. :) Anyways, we rushed all the kids down to the beach when it stopped because I was afraid they would only have a little bit of time before it rained again.. Well, by the time it warmed up I remembered to put sunscreen on the kids but by that time they were burned all ready.. But besides coming home burned we had alot of fun.

The kids loved burying each other in the sand. I feel like that's all I did, bury people - one after another.

I had to put this pic up of the little boy we have right now. He would stand like this pretty much for every wave that came - he looked so cute. Like "Come and Get me!" :)

I kept meaning to get a better picture of our campsite but I forgot so here's a not so good pic. It doesn't look like much but it was really close to the beach - I took this picture from right in front of the water. The only bad thing was that it was right by the train tracks so at like 2 in the morning the train came rushing by and it was really loud. The kids were all so tired though that none of them woke up.

All in all I really enjoyed myself - alot more than I ever expected. Even the no taking a shower didn't bother me too much - probably because it was only for one night. I would definitely camp again - as long as there is a bathroom nearby of course. :)

A lesson learned...

The past two days I have spent in court surrounded by tearful parents, crying kids and the smell of unwashed bodies... it's really gross. Most of them are coming from jail or shelters or the streets... you get to hear a million of the same stories told in a hundred different ways and the frustration of working with the system which is so messed up.

For example... the teens that I have went on Monday to court and their 3 aunts and an uncle were there - all willing to take them with them to live. They lead successful lives and have good jobs and yet here they are stuck in the system. Waiting on paperwork and red tape. It's frustrating.

My job is just to keep them busy until they can go home.. which hopefully will be soon. I wish it were soon like as in this week but realistically it won't be for a few weeks or more. I just pray it's soon. This teen stuff is not easy and will definitely not be repeated, at least not until my own kids are at that age. :)

Open wide....

Just a crazy random pic of Maliyah. She has such big eyes.. but when she poses like this they look huge! :)

Feeling full...

So our home is back to being full again. It's been so weird just having 3 kids for the past month now. And then last night we got a call for two sisters, 14 and 15 yrs. old. We normally don't take that old but something just felt like we should. I'm glad we did though, they are great girls and I don't think they will be with us long. They have a court date on Monday - please pray that they are able to go with their uncle. He has a good house, job and the means to support them. I really feel for them and want them to be able to go home soon...

Then tonight we got a call for a 7 yr. old boy. Joey was so excited.. he has missed having someone to play with. :) He seems like a pretty good kid - although he's on meds for ADHD... so pray for our craziness these next few days.

I have court on Monday and Tuesday morning for the 2 different sets and alot of upcoming appointments and school enrollments to do... so things are back to how I like it... busy. :)

Hiding the business...

Kaia is just about there in the potty training department.... She has peeing down. She rarely pees her pants now.. but the poop department is not that great. She has only gone in the toilet a handful of times.

Well her newest thing is to hide and poop. Her favorite spot is her bedroom closet. She will go in there, close the closet and do her business. Gross right? Well, it can get grosser.

The little girl we have came running over saying that Kaia pooped.. I ran to her room and opened the closet to find Kaia with her pants and underwear off and squatting over a pile of nastiness on the carpet.. like a dog.. she pooped on the carpet like a dog... it was di sgust ing!

Needless to say she got the spanking of her life which didn't matter because the next week I was folding clothes and I heard the little girl say "Kaia, why are you in the closet?" And Kaia yelling "Leave me alone!"

I ran down the hall and opened the closet.. luckily I caught her in time and she made it in the toilet - but the point was that she was going to do it again! That little monster! These are the things I am going to tell all the boys she likes one day. I have to get my revenge somehow.

"You know she used to poop in the closet?" I will tell them all.. :) Makes me feel better already.

Spur of the moment trip...

We were headed to our weekly beach trip today but then decided to do something a little different.

We headed to a wildlife reserve in Irvine... it featured 5 ponds and a bunch of birds - Joey loves birds so he was sooo excited.

All the kids brought their binoculars...

It was a lot of walking... after about 20 minutes Kaia looked like this...

So Paul had to do his dad duty and carry her for a while.. but after about 2 miles he couldn't carry her anymore. :)
There was a lot of spider webs all over the place... this tree looked like it was covered in snow.. but it was actually all webby.. yuck! Joey thought it was cool.
This was Joey's favorite bird we saw...
It was so weird though that this place was in the middle of city buildings... you would sometimes forget they were there... until you heard a car honk or something. :) All in all it was a fun day and getting exercise from walking 5 miles wasn't too bad either..

Swimming....

We do not have a pool this summer... :( We thought we would save ours from last year because it was still good and we're cheap.. but of course when we blew it up it had a hole in it so we've been using my mom's.

She has the biggest ones of the blow up ones but in reality she needs two. It's really sad when all the kids (anywhere from 9 to 14 of them) try to get in at once. There's no where to go. They are just all bumping into each other and trying to swim but not being able to because it's basically standing room only.

All you hear are shouts of "Excuse me! I'm trying to swim here!" "Move over!" "Mom! Tell her to quit kicking me!" and so on.

Most of them have given up now and wait for the first batch of kids to get tired of swimming and then they have the whole pool to themselves. :)

Time sucker...

Paul is on Facebook now and I don't get it.. I mean, I use his now and then but I really don't care for it. I'm not really into it - the communicating part anyways.. now the games.. that's another story. :) I am addicted to this typing one they have and Bejewled Blitz and just started Restaurant City...

All complete wastes of time... "Time Suckers" Cathy calls them. :)

I mean who cares if you have 4 tables in your restaurant or 3 cows on your farm.... they all mean nothing. :) But when I'm bored I'm really into it.. I know, sad isn't it? I mean I may have real life food to cook or clothes to fold or bathrooms to clean but it's more fun to do it on the computer. :)

Okay, gotta go and plant some more corn on my farm. ;)

The greatest show on earth....

I have been wanting to go to the circus since last year.. Kaia was a little too little so we decided to wait till this year to go. I bought the tickets months ago and last night was the big event. :) It was well worth the wait. I had alot of fun and so did the kids. We took our little foster girl and Jesse with us too. We got pretty good seats - and with my new camera :) we got some good pics too.

They had this area before the circus started where you could try on some circus outfits.. Here's Ringmaster Jesse..

Ringmaster Joey..

And little cha cha girl Kaia.. :)

Kaia was entranced by the whole thing... she didn't move for about the first 40 minutes or so.. but after that she did get up alot.. but all in all she did much better than I expected..
These tigers were crazy.. They kept growling and pawing the air. I was just waiting for someone to get mauled. This guy was crazy - he let the tiger jump over him.. I think the tiger was just after his tenders.. :)
And this was the scariest clown on the planet.. This is the reason why I had a clown phobia when I was younger.. clowns like these. Seriously - can't you just imagine him coming after you with a knife???? Scary...

Comment please....

So Paul posted this to his Facebook and was saying he was going to get all these comments and I said I bet I could get more comments.. so please leave a comment about our cute little Kaia.. :)

By the way Paul finds this video hilarious... he laughs everytime.

Getting cash for our clunker....

We did it.. we took advantage of some free money. :) Have you heard of the "Cash for Clunkers" program? Well, we thought it had to be too good to be true, or rather some kinda catch to it... you know.. well after about a week of researching Paul decided to check it out. And I mean he researched, to the point of me hating hearing about it. I was like, "Just go and get it done already, I don't want to talk about it anymore."

So he set out yesterday morning and proceeded to spend about 7 hours at the Jeep dealer to buy himself a brand new 2009 Jeep Patriot. It actually looks a lot like Beth and Louie's only smaller. I said there car had a baby and we bought it. :)

Our trade in was a clunker.. for real too. It had over 100,000 miles on it and the air didn't work, the door barely closed and last time we tried to trade it in they were gonna give us 750.00 for it. That'll give you an idea of how bad it was. :) So instead we got 7,000.00 in trade in money for it.. Yeah baby. :)

Paul had some buyers remorse though afterwards... having two car payments now and feeling like he didn't get everything on the car that he wanted... but I just told him be grateful he had air and wasn't sweating all the way home and not having to put fluids in it once a week because of the leak it had... :)

I'm just glad the car shopping is done - I hate dealerships and all the lies they tell. It's at the top of my pet peeves. They all say the same thing... oh, this is the best we can do... and then when you stand up to leave - miracles happen and somehow they can do better. We did that about 3 times while we were there. Why anyone would want to sell cars is beyond me.. sorry Jeff. :)

My day of food...

So yesterday was the big day..... I officially became an old lady. :) That's what all the kids were calling me - whatever.

I call it my day of food because from start to finish it was filled with food. Beginning in the morning where I came out to find this on the table.. I have loved this cereal since I was little - I know, it's weird but whatever. My mom used to call it cat food cereal - it does, really look like cat food. I never buy it though because it's never on sale and I'm not about to spend 4.50 on a box of cereal... :)

And of course I had roses on the table too... they were bee you tee full. :)

Joey made me a couple of his torn paper creations that he just learned how to make. They were so cute.. A toucan and a duck. :)
Then we headed to lunch at Nikko Burgers - one of my favorite restaurants/fast foods.. love their zucchini. :) I knew we were going to a big dinner so I just had a light lunch of a huge BLT and lg. order of zucchini.. :) And then we got my cake (with whipped cream frosting..) and headed over to my parents. Do you notice how Paul didn't put 30 on the cake? That's why I love him. :) He knew I would've killed him. :)
Then we went to dinner at Ooka. It was soooo good. I love the salmon. :) I went for Paul's birthday and wanted to go back since then... yummy. Bre and Mike went with us and a couple from our small group Mike and Lisa and their son Karvin.

This is a really bad pic of Karvin - but I wanted to capture his intense focus on the chef.. He never looked away ... it was so cute.

After I ate pretty much my entire meal we went back to my parents and I had a bit more cake. :) I probably gained about 10 pounds today alone but it was worth it. Oh yeah, and the best gift of all was the camera Paul got for me.. I will have to dedicate an entire post to it because it's so nice. I haven't gotten it all situated yet but once I learn how to use it the pics on here will be much better. :)

Goodbye twenties...

Today is my last day of the twenties... :( People are trying to rush my last day too. I've already had two friends of mine call and wish me a happy birthday - they thought it was today... I told them I am dragging out my twenties as long as possible. I have been dreading this day for two years...

I don't know why really... it just seems so old. I think cause I remember when my mom turned 30 - I was 12 - and it seemed like she was so old. :) So it just stuck with me... Plus, I really enjoyed my twenties.

Paul wanted to throw me a big 30 bash but I said no way.. :) I am just gonna have a small party at my parents with all the kids.. nothing special. Perfect. Mom said that she wasn't about to do anything mean to me on my birthday if I agreed not to do anything mean to her on her 50th...
Which is right around the corner.....

So tomorrow if you call me and I'm crying you'll know why.. I'm twenty ten. :(

Camping Trip....

Last Friday Paul and Joey went on their first overnight camping trip with Beth and Louie and their kids.. I decided to opt out because I wasn't about to pee in the middle of the desert and look after two whiny girls. So I let the boys go and do their thing. :)

Joey loved it. He said it was so much fun.. even though Louie thought they were being invaded by aliens at one point. :) The moon looked orange and Louie swore it was an invasion. He totally freaked the kids out.

They rode quads all night...

And of course stayed in a tent. Paul bought sleeping bags just for this occasion - although he says they are gonna go camping all the time.. we'll see if that happens though.

Louie trying to pretend he knows how to cook.

I would like to go with them one day - as long as there are public restrooms nearby. :)

Water balloons gone bad....

Jeff and Jenna came over to visit on Monday at my mom's house... it was all fun until Louie decided to fill up water balloons and throw them at us from the roof..

It quickly turned chaotic as the hose got turned on and all the kids got involved.. pretty soon everyone was wet. Jenna was like, "Wow - I didn't know we were going to be at a wedding again" Hahahha... Bre's wedding...get it? It was the last time we saw them. :) Aaaaaahhh... you had to be there.. Anyways... If you don't want to get offended don't look at this next photo....







Louie got so wet he came out in just his underwear and proceeded to turn them into a thong in front of all of us adults and children.. the kids will be scarred for life. Paul and Jeff were a little too into it though. :) I don't know how Beth handles him.. seriously.

Prayer for grandpa...

Just a quick prayer request to put out there... my grandpa got a scan done and they found spots on his pancreas.. he goes in for a biopsy soon so we will know more then. They think it may be cancer. But please pray for him and my mom who is taking this pretty hard.

My boys....

Kaia loves her boys... :) Every time I say we're going to Grandma's house she says "And my boys?" That's what she calls them. Not Brayden not Ryland but "my boys"

"Jesse's being mean to my boys"
"My boy fell down"
"Come on my boys"

It's so cute. They probably don't think so though. :)

Queen for a day....

Eden made Kaia this crown and put this blanket on her. She wore her princess heels and strutted around my mom's house for about an hour in this getup. :) I thought she was bossy before - but with this on she became a whole 'nother child. She really did think she was a queen. :)

Poor Brayden and Ryland - they didn't stand a chance with the queen around.

Lizard....

The other day Paul called for me to look in the closet.. I looked inside and saw this.. yes, it's a lizard. Yuk! We have a door that goes out to the backyard in our room and it must've come in through there.

When I told Paul to get it he made up some excuse about having to go get a battery for his car and instead had Joey and our 9 yr. old come in with a box and get it out. What a chicken! :)

Joey loved every minute of it though. :)

Happy 3rd and 4th...

Since Joey was gonna be at his dad's for the Fourth of July we decided to go on the 3rd and head out to Rubidoux... Martha told us about this firework show they put on every year out there so we packed up the kids and headed out..

It was waaaaay more crowded than I expected.. we ended up not sitting in the park and instead sat in front of some business buildings next to the park. It was perfect.. not too crowded at all - and alot safer. I wish I had taken a picture of how the park looked - it was literally wall to wall people.. insanity! I was just waiting for a fight to break out. :) There were alot of cops there just in case though.. It was really nice though, we just sat out in the grass and relaxed until the fireworks started. The boys had their games so they didn't whine or complain one bit for the 1 1/2 we waited. :)

The next day on the 4th we headed out to Beth and Louie's.. it was nice - more fun for us adults I think.. :) We played Guittar Hero... me and Paul stink at it. :) Breanna was really good though - I think she practices in her spare time.

Pool... (Do you notice how Louie has to be in every photo???)

And then shot off a bunch of fireworks - the kids loved it. Fireworks are legal out there so it was alot of fun.
I wish I got a picture of her doing the sparklers...but I was so busy lighting them for all the kids I didn't get a chance... :( Oh well, next year. :)

Letting go...

Our boys - the 9 and 1 yr. old brothers are going to leave. And it is not because they want to, but because I have asked to have them moved... it was a tough decision to make. Paul was not dealing well with the younger one - to the point where it was affecting our marriage. He is a very whiny child, seriously.. more whiny than Kaia - and that's pretty bad. :) Anyways, after our beach trip yesterday where he cried nearly the entire time.. and both of us were about to beat each other in front of a beachload of people.. we had a long discussion that night and decided that it's not worth ruining our marriage for this.

I feel so bad.. we are their third home.. how many more will they go to? And what's crazy is that it was always the older one who they wanted out - and here we are the complete opposite.

I know this is right but I still feel so bad. But now we know - our age group, what we can and can't handle... I guess we are definitely older kid parents. :)

Contentment...

This is the picture of my house... well, almost my house. I really loved this home - we put in an offer that day and were outbid the following week...

Now it's really hard for me to look at anything else. Nothing else compares - everything is ugly compared to this... :( Paul keeps telling me that obviously God didn't want us to have it and think about how much better the house that He wants for us will be when we find it... Yeah, it's easy to say but not easy to think about when I start looking at homes..

We went to look at another one today just to get my mind off of this one and it was ugly.. terrible.. really bad. So I think I will just take a break from house hunting for now. I'm fine in our rental - I really like it, and am content to stay here forever if that's what it takes.

The advantages to reading...

The summer reading program at the library is here again!! :0)

I love going to all the little events they have - it gives us something to do during the long summer days. :) This past Monday was the Balloon lady - Joey got picked to go up and help. I thought she was a bit boring but the kids seemed to like it.. I was worried that the 9 yr. old we have would be bored out of his mind but it was all he could talk about to his social worker the next day. :)
He also got this cool hat she made for him. He was really excited.

Kaia did much better this time too compared to last year. :) I am gonna try to take some of my sisters and brothers with me to the next one - a K9 exhibition. Fun stuff! I'm sure there will be more posts about this to come....