more fall pictures of Ava Marie & Katy

I just love these pictures of the girls! I can not wait to scrapbook them. This is a blessed day! I needed a day like this, so much stress lately from Aidan's birth mom. I won't go into that right now. I need to concentrate on good things. Today everyone in our home is healthy, we have plenty to eat, we have beauty and warmth surrounding us, and we feel loved. God is good...I am thankful for all of this and more.

sunlight, fall colors and beautiful brown girls!

It was such a beautiful, bright, sunshiny kind of day. The girls had been in most of the morning doing schoolwork and I just grabbed my camera and said let's go outside to take some pictures. Of course my girls are so shy...not! Ava Marie and Katy both love to have their pictures taken!

And it is hard sometimes to get just the right amount of light and shadow when you are working with darker skin. Sometimes Katy's pictures turn out so dark you can not see her gorgeous features. I think today the light was just right!

He's back!

Aidan arrived back this afternoon safely. I invited his first mom to bring him here to the house, it was her first time in our home. Usually we meet in the parking lot of a local fast food place. Not just because I wanted to have a little anonymity, but mostly because it was right off of the highway and our home is about 15 minutes farther.

Anyhow, I figured it is time for her to come over here, I am not afraid she will act up as I was in the beginning. And I really feel she needs to know we trust her as I believe she trusts us.I also need her to feel comfortable, so when Aidan goes home to her for good, she will feel like she can call me or bring him here if she is in crisis or just needs time for herself.

So I did pretty well last night, only checked up on Aidan once, remembered he wasn't there and went back to what I was doing, no tears, so that is good. I still got up around 6:30am and had a little extra time to get ready for church.

Speaking of church, I am really trying to like our church since it took on it's new format. We were the Berean Christian Church and now we are part of a big mega church called Harvest Bible Chapel. I really like the Pastor and the 4 Pillars and the music. But some of it is taking me a long time to get used to. Before, we would go into the sanctuary together, sit as a family for the worship time, then announcements, and then they would call childrens church and the little ones would leave for the last part. Now we "check them in" to their various Sunday School rooms. I have to dash around to 5 different rooms including the nursery to drop off everyone, including Katy. Then I go into the sanctuary alone for the entire service. They do bring Katy and Mackenzie's classes into the sanctuary, but the kids all sit separate from their parents.

After the service I have to rush again to round them all up so the teachers don't have to wait with them too long. I am exhausted by the end of this, and I truly miss being with my children during church. I want to worship together! Does this sound unreasonable? Because of this, I am not sure where this is going to. I did a lot of church "hopping" during the summer and we just never found anything we really liked. Today Katy and Mackenzie sat with me for the worship and then Mackenzie followed her class back when they all left. Katy stayed with me and followed along really well for the service. She took great notes and we were able to discuss it later at lunch. In fact, she even got out her notes and went over some of the scriptures with her sisters. Maybe we'll try that again and see if that feels comfortable for all of us. Madyson Claire is happy to go to her class. They give out candy at the end...she'll do most anything for candy I am sorry to say.

We had lunch at Costco, Hot Dogs of course! We needed pull-ups for Ava Marie and a couple of other things. We had to walk around and have some of the taste tests and one of them was their Rotisserie Chicken Pot Pie. A really huge deep dish, savory chicken pie that you take home to cook. It tasted wonderful so I bought one to make for dinner tonight. It was definitely a hit! Very tasty and moist. Everyone had seconds and Randy ate with us also. And I still have half a pie for leftovers!

It's going to be a long night...

I woke up this morning pretty early. Even before Aidan was up. I wanted to be ready for him with a fresh bottle and I also wanted time to shower and dress before he got up. Aidan goes on a visit today with his first Mom. He has all day visits now on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. This has been going on for about a month and a half. But today his visit will not be over at 7pm tonight...this time he will spend the night with her.

I didn't think this would be so hard. But Aidan has been here with me for just under six months now. Tomorrow morning will be the first time in all that time that I will wake up without him. And I am feeling a little melancholy. We still do not know exactly how this will all work out. His first Mom is on her meds, she has completed all of the tasks that the agency has asked her to do. She is nice and appropriate when we meet with her to exchange Aidan for his visits. There is really no reason for me to even think that this will not progress to Aidan eventually returning home with his first mom. Except that he is her third child and she does not have custody of the other two. She has not been stable enough to even hold down a job in the last 10 years. History is the reason we really don't know how this will turn out.

I spend a lot of time praying about this. Asking God to watch over him while he is away from us. Asking for peace of mind and peace in my heart so I will be able to be happy for the first mom, and not devastated for me. I am a big girl, I know what it takes to keep care of another persons child while they get their life together, get better, become the mother that Aidan needs her to be. I ask God to give the first mom courage to keep going, and the wisdom to ask for the help she needs, and the strength to do the right things for him. I am blessed by being Aidan's other mom. My other children love him too. They pray with me, they like first mom, she is very nice to them. Aidan is already 10 months old, I just hope if he is going to return home, that it happens soon, so it won't be such a hard transition for him. First mom and I have discussed staying in touch if that should happen. We have also discussed her relinquishing him to me. I keep telling her she must make that decision with God's help. My knees are getting sore!

So today we had a fun breakfast of McDonald's breakfast sandwiches, grapes and orange juice. Randy joined us and then headed up to Lawrence for the weekend. The girls are outside playing and riding bicycles right now. I will be working on laundry and sewing.

We don't have any big plans for this weekend. Next weekend we have so many committments I don't know how we will keep them all. But for now I will have a relaxing weekend. I am trying to sew 3 skirts for each of my daughters. They have shown quite an interest in changing their wardrobe over to just skirts and dresses. I would love to accomodate them, I just need to get these skirts done and then we will have enough to get through a whole week in skirts and dresses. I will keep the pants just in case, since Katy and Madyson are always so clod, I cna't imagine how they will get by in a skirt on one of our really cold winter mornings. I will post pictures later of the skirts I actually get done.

Birthday donuts & hula hoops!

I am trying to cool off right now. It is so hot here today. It's supposed to get into the 90's and then be in the low 70's next weekend. I'll bet we will be well into Fall weather by October. I hope so, I don't enjoy warm weather in the fall. Too much layering when it is cold in the morning and then hot in the late afternoon.

Today we celebrated Madyson Claire's teachers birthday. Mr Bellamy was not in the classroom on Friday for his "real" birthday so we decided to go ahead and celebrate today instead. I am the Head Room Parent for that class, so I sent out an email and asked all the parents to have their children make cards for him. I went up to school a little while ago with some goodies for the kids to celebrate with. I got a football shaped donut for the teacher and a bunch of donut holes for the kids!

When I walked onto the school entry one of my friends, who works there, pulled me aside and said, " I have Madyson in the office." My Madyson? You've got to be kidding! You see my Madyson is always the good girl. She is quiet and never gets into any trouble...well not at school. Apparently she was playing Hula Hoop with one of her best friends, a little boy named Kashic, and it was her turn but he didn't want to give her the hula hoop, and recess was almost over, so she took it from him and knocked him over. Now she is tall, but barely weighs anything. Kashic is actually taller than her, but very thin also. He fell into the wall and has a cut above his eyebrow.

Oh I hate that they fought, and that she hurt someone. She is very caught up in things being fair right now. She works very hard to make sure everything is fair for everyone...but doesn't know how to handle it when others won't cooperate. Usually she is working with her own sisters, but once in a while friends bear the brunt of her philosophy in fairness! I am really hoping this little boy doesn't require stitches.

Madyson, you are so sweet...but so stubborn. Where does that come from? Being a middle child? Not being held for your first 4 months? She loves me to rock her, and I have heard great things about rocking a child, that it is a form of attachment therapy. We, Madyson Claire and I have rocked around the world a couple of times now. And I guess we are still not there, wherever there is. Wherever we have to go for this little bitty thing to feel whole. I love you Madyson Claire, I know you didn't mean to hurt anyone.

It's a lazy Saturday

And even though I have a list of things that need to be done,here I am on my computer hopping around from blog to blog. Have you ever noticed that when you read other people's blogs and they have a long list of things they have accomplished, that it makes you feel tired? Like you have been working hard too!? Is it just me?

It's a very sunny day outside and the girls were up around 8am this morning, so after a breakfast of waffles, bananas and orange juice I practically threw them out the door and said "Go play!" I have no idea when the weather will start to get cold again, so I want to take advantage of the opportunity to get them outdoors.

Well here it is about an hour later, and they are all in the basement playing dolls. Great! Ava Marie is crying right now because someone took something away from her...can you say NAP? I need to make them a quick lunch and get her down to sleep. And try to get the other girls to go back outside.

We don't have any other plans for today. I have some laundry, need to sweep out the garage, I really need to pick up my own room, so many clothes piling up on the floor...it is where I stack the things that they grow out of during the year. Then I try to take the time to organize the stacks and put them back into the tubs I keep in the basement.

Okay, lunch now. Leftover pizza, apples and oranges and milk. Maybe some cookies for after.

Summer fun

I was on a really cool blog this morning, Little Did I Know , and I have to say that Lisa has inspired me. She is always taking her kids to some really cool place, even if they aren't leaving town, they seem to find all this great stuff to do.

Of course they live near a really great city. But I am inspired to find more really cool stuff to do in Kansas City. We have a Science Center, hundreds of parks, pools, etc. I just need to force myself to pack the kids up and drive! I have become such a homebody!

So Lisa, I am going to take a cue from you! I am going to start actively taking my kids to a new place in our city every week! After all, there are only 5 weeks of summer left and we have a lot to live up to!!

What a fun day...

Aidan woke up at 5:30am for a bottle and some cuddling. I laid him back down around 6am and decided I could use another hour of sleep, but then Ava woke up and called for me until I ran down the hall to get her. I didn't want her to wake up the other girls. It was only 6:15am so I laid her down in my bed and we both dozed for another hour, then Aidan was fussy so I took both of them downstairs with me and made my coffee.

The other girls didn't get up until after 8:30am. I just love summer! I sat down at my computer and made our summer weekly schedules and our weekly menus for the next 3 weeks. I like to have a schedule so the girls know what is coming up during the day, we don't have to stick to it totally, but it helps me plan and make sure I don't forget anything. I post the schedules and the menus on the refrigerator so the kids can see them and not have to constantly ask, "What's for dinner?" a million times!

We were going to go to the park today, and tomorrow we were supposed to go to the library to get registered for their summer reading program. Since our subdivisions pool is closed until Saturday I did n;t have swimming on our list of things to do. We took Aidan to his Dr appointment and then we went to the library where each girl got one book from a reading list I made for them and then got to choose one book on their own. Then we went to the park to play for a little while. I sat in the car with Aidan, firstly because it is really stinkin hot! And secondly because I have really bad allergies and it was windy and that is a bad combination for me.

While I was in the car I got an email from our homeowners association, they have decided to open the pool as of tomorrow!!! Yay!! I am so happy! The girls were so excited when I told them, though it will be really cold when we go, I don't care, I love to swim and the chlorine helps keep my allergies at bay!

We came home and I made Potstickers with Stirfry Veggies and white rice for dinner. Then the girls all went back outside and I let them put the sprinklers on. I sat outside with them for a little while but my eyes were getting pretty itchy, my neighbor stopped by and asked me if there was anything wrong.

I am going to get the girls settled into bed around 9pm tonight and then Randy is going to stay here while I go to WalMart to get the grocery shopping done. It's hard to take them all with me now. We have to push 3 carts! One with Aidan in the basket, one with Ava Marie in the seat and then a third one so we can fit all of the groceries in it. Katy and I can push the carts, but neither Madyson nor Mackenzie can see over the top yet! And let's face it, it is just easier to go on your own!

Gotta go and check out the new Bachlorette show!!

The end of another school year!

We have come to the end of another school year! The kids are excited for summer to be here! Me too!! The Kindergartners had their last day yesterday, Madyson missed it because she was sick, so I took her up today a little early so she could visit with her teacher and say goodbye.

Then we stood in the hallway that goes all the way around the school past all of the other grades and watched as the 6th and 5th graders paraded around several times, high-fiving and hugging all of their younger friends and siblings, then they ran out the front door of the school through a human tunnel made by all of their parents. It was very exciting and moving, so many happy and bittersweet tears! I am happy for their progression, but I am sad that most will be thrown into Middle School and many will lose their way while they are there. I hate middle schools!!

Afterward we went to the park where one of the moms had organized a big picnic for the girls and their friends. They had a fun time and the moms had fun talking to each other about our plans for the summer. Many of our friends will be going on lots of vacations this year. Not us! We are staying put this year, "Camp Werner" I keep telling the girls. We will try to take a long weekend in Branson and go to Silver Dollar City. I am also planning to take them to Chicago in October/November for Mackenzie's 8th birthday. (The Werner Girls official trek to American Girl Place for our first official doll.) I make them wait until they are 8 years old for a real one! Until then they play with a Target version. (They don't really know the difference until right before they turn 8...I swear!)

The girls are being really sweet right now, raking up the cut grass and bagging it for me. They want to set up the slip and slide and get this summer party started!! Tonight we are going to a graduation party for one of our church friends son. I am looking forward to a fun evening with everyone.

Aidan is doing great!! He is eating so much, and smiling and giggling a lot. We are really enjoying him. Hoping he gets to stay a long time....like forever! But you never know.

It's A Boy!

Yes, you heard it right folks! We have a new little baby boy! Pictures will follow when I can release them. We have had 5 month old baby Aidan for 2 weeks. He is adorable and all the girls are in love...including me!

Aidan was born 2 1/2 months premature, so he is really little. He has only just hit 10 pounds. But he is very alert and doing exceptionally well. I wasn't really thinking boy, as you know I have always felt that I was more prepared to parent girls, even though I did a pretty good job with my son Randy. But being a single Mom to a very sporty guy was hard at times...not for me, but for him. But then they called me with this cute little guy and something just made me say "Yes!".

He did have to spend his first night with us in a pretty pink sleeper! But the next morning my Mom and I went to Target and picked up a lot of blue stuff! He is still in newborn sizes, but he's gaining and I think he will grow pretty fast now.

As usual we have no idea how long we will have him. I am pretty confident he will be here for at least a few months. And then the rest is up to God. But I love his name and his beautiful eyes.

I'll update again later, lots to tell about in other areas also!!

We're well into tax season

and things are going really well. This is the first year that I've allowed the girls to do a show during the Spring. Katy, Mackenzie and Madyson all auditioned for Cinderella and they all got a part! It isn't easy to run them back and forth to lessons, rehearsals and all and keep up with all of my business clients, but it is manageable. I just have to stay really, really organized and not slack off for anything! Which I admit isn't always easy.

Since it is Friday I took a few hours this morning to get caught up on some of my chores that needed to be done. We were out until 8:30pm last night while Katy and Mackenzie had rehearsals for Showtime which is a touring variety show they are in. Really cute! They are showcasing The Wizard of Oz, WICKED! and The Wiz. These are big favorites in our house so we couldn't miss the opportunity. I am always amazed at the awesome theater and dance opportunities that our city has to offer. I mean, who would have thought there would be this much in the middle of the country! I'll bet people on the West and East coast would be truly amazed, and also be awed by the amount of talent out here!

One of the girls we know has just been cast as the daughter of Katherine Zeta Jones and the granddaughter of Angela Lansbury in A Little Night Music on Broadway! She was right here in KC, taking classes, doing shows and just soaking it all up like my girls and she was asked to audition for the part in New York. It just goes to show you that you do not have to move across the country, give up everything you know and hang around LA or New York to be recognized in the acting community. Most would be better off staying in school, getting an education, working on their art and getting as much experience in local shows as they can.

Did I mention it is snowing...again!? Yes, and I still like it, but I have to admit I am ready for it to be warm again. I have had to wash the girls winter coats so many times this year. In fact, Madyson's zipper on her coat broke and we had to find another one in our stash to get her through the rest of the winter. Fortunately I had one that still fit her, it doesn't have a hood, but she has a nice hat.

So I'd better get back to work, since it is around 11am now. Numbers, numbers, numbers.

Sledding on New Years Eve Day

We love to go sledding when there is enough snow and lately there has been so much, every couple of days we get another 2 inches, and it is so cold that it just stays. We're really lucky that there is a great hill down the road to the side of the Lowes store. I just park in the lot and the girls climb the hill and sled down!

I took this picture from the warmth of my car! That is Katy and her friend in the lower left corner on their way down.

I think it was around 16 degrees, and if you factor in the windchill, maybe about 5 degrees! But the sun was shining and the girls have so much fun here.

Another picture from my car. Madyson and Ava are in the car with me watching a movie, they are too smart to be out in this cold air.

I told Mackenzie to wait a minute so I could get a picture of her red cheeks...please hurry up mom!

I had to ask Katy to keep her teeth from chattering for this one! Then it was back in the car and back home quickly to warm up and get ready for our party!

More pics from New Years Eve

We all got dressed up in our fancy dresses! Above from Left: Katy, Alexa (friend), Mackenzie, Madyson and Ava Marie.

I did eye makeup and blush and lipstick on everyone. Even Ava wanted to try some.

Mackenzie takes the business of beauty very seriously!

All of my beautiful girls.

I did all appetizers so it would feel like a real party!

Pics from last nights festivites

Madyson helping herself to some crackers and Brie.

Mackenzie was trying not to take too much!

The girls kept toasting each other with their apple juice. They loved drinking out of these champagne flutes.

Ava Marie crashed right when we were sitting down to eat. I let her sleep about 20 minutes and then woke her back up...I didn;t want her to miss too much!

We got into pj's and watched a bit of the movie Babe. Ava Marie was so tired, so we paused the movie and did a quick countdown! It is about 8:30 here.