defying gravity...

Welcome to Harper Werner!

2012-01-14T12:06:00.000-08:00

We got a dog! It didn't just happen, we actually got her in November. She is about 4 months old now and growing so fast! She is a Black Lab/ Collie mix, but we don't see any of the collie at all.

Harper is very sweet and mild. She does like to run and play, but she is just as happy curled up on someones lap and watching the girls play dolls or read. Katy is our main dog walker and Harper slept in her room the first month we had her. Well, she slept in her kennel, which Katy would carry upstairs to her room each night! Last month I decided that she should learn to sleep by herself. And she is doing great! We only had a few howls the first night, now she is a pro!

We signed Harper up for puppy training at our local Petco and we just finished today! Harper graduated and even got a little certificate. Her trainer Krystal was wonderful and taught us so much! Each of the girls has learned how to do all of the commands and especially how important the responsibility of an animal is.

We are happy that Harper is a part of our family and can't wait to see how much we can teach her and have fun with her!

Ava Marie's 4th Birthday

2012-01-07T12:37:00.000-08:00

I am really behind on this, Ava Marie's birthday was December 14th! But I am trying to get caught up, so please bear with me here. We had a really fun day with Ava. Oldest sister Katy dressed her and did her hair up.

She arrived at breakfast with these cool sunglasses on.

I'm 4 now....watch out!

Ava Marie chose Fritz's Restaurant down at Crown Center. It is a burger joint with all these model trains and train accessories. There is a track up near the ceiling that a train runs on, and it stops just over your table and dumps your food onto a ledge that comes down and slides your food onto your table. It is awesome to watch! Randy joined us for lunch there. Madyson Claire was not there as she was in school.
You call the order in on their phones.

I made a spice cake with fresh cream cheese frosting. Madyson said it was the best cake ever!

Ava got a musical instrument set with a drum, bells, marachas, a tambourine, it was so cute! All the girls loved it!

But the gift she wanted the most was an American Girl Bitty Baby doll. Madyson has the AA one, so Ava got the Asian doll. She asked for black hair, otherwise she didn't care. Madyson's doll is named "Bitty", so Ava Marie's doll needed her own name. She chose "America".

Happy Birthday to my precious girl! You are sweet and sassy. You like to do things on your own, but you are still Mommy's little girl. And even though I tell you every night to stay in your own bed for the night, I never send you away when you creep into my bed at 3 am. I love you!

Random Pictures of 2011

2012-01-06T20:31:00.000-08:00

Ava Marie saying grace at Sweet Tomatoes!

This is what we do when sisters are not getting along. Even on a hot summer day, we must sit quietly and hold hands until we can be sweet. It always starts out with someone crying and saying they just can't hold the other sisters hand for various reasons. But it usually ends with a whole lot of giggles and smiles!

I used this for our Christmas card picture. I just love the lighting!

Picking out our Pumpkins.

Friday and we are having a girls night!

2012-01-06T20:24:00.000-08:00

We usually save the girls night for Saturday night. We have Make-Your-Own-Salads at the Price Chopper, watch a movie in our PJ's and stay up a little later. We had to run errands tonight, including shopping at Office Max to pick up lots of things on my "Gearing up for Tax Season" list! It got late and I was trying to think of something I could put together fast...well that led me to decide that Chipotle was a better idea for us tonight!

Now the girls are sacked out on the couch watching a Disney movie and I am cleaning and organizing my office. And I just happened to load a bunch of new photos on my computer. So I am going to share a few from our Holidays!

I almost made it...

2011-12-16T19:34:00.000-08:00

I almost went through the entire 2011 without making a new post!

No, I did not do that on purpose exactly. It's just that when I do find the time to sit down at the computer I am either (1) working or (2) reading someone else's blog!

So I am all caught up with work and reading, thought I would dash off a quick post.

We are having a movie night, at least the girls are. I am baking and writing Christmas cards. I can't believe I haven't gotten mine out yet!

I sometimes don't even know why I bother with the card thing anymore. It seems like hardly anyone sends them anymore. I send out over 150 each year. And I only get about 20! Don't you think that anyone who gets a card from me should send me one? I mean it's only fair!

My Mom sends out about 35 and she gets a lot more than that! How is that fair?! I told her last year I was going to put an extra note in mine that said if you don't send me a card this year I will take you off my list! But my Mom said that would definitely NOT be in the Christmas spirit. Okay Mom, you're right.

But I love planning my cards and taking the picture and writing the letter. Not one of those braggy, my-kid-is-better-than-your-kid letters. I really work hard to make sure that my letter is warm and friendly with a little bit of news and a lot of sentiment.

Oh well, I guess as long as I enjoy sending them, I won't make a big deal about the ones I don't get. Maybe I'll share the ones I did get on here. That could be nice.

Welcome 2011

2011-01-01T09:01:00.000-08:00

I am so happy to be starting a new year! Not that 2010 was a bad year. I just get excited for something new! Like starting a new school year and getting to buy all those new pencils and clean fresh notebooks!

They represent new possibilities, a fresh start, unlimited beginnings!

But first we need to put 2010 to bed officially, so here is my Year in Review!

JANUARY 2010:

We continued to have lots of snow, Tax Season was underway and Ava Marie went back to Kids R Kids so Mommy could get down to work. Imagine trying to concentrate on taxes with this cute little face staring at you and imploring..."Come play with me!" That is the door to my office and I don't even try to get rid of the fingerprints!

FEBRUARY 2010:
Valentines Day was so much fun with the girls! We also attended our first Frog Princess Dance. This is supposed to be like a Daddy/Daughter Dance but they encourage any F.R.O.G.(Father, Relative or Godmother) to bring your special girl. I was one of only 2 Moms to be there, but everyone was very nice to us and Katy and Mackenzie had such a great time getting dressed up. We will definitely do this again!

MARCH 2010:
Still cold and very icy! One Sunday it snowed so much we couldn't even make it down the driveway to get to church. The girls decided to set up a special picnic up in one of their rooms. They dressed up and invited me to attend, with handwritten invitations and everything. I was crowned upon entering the room!

APRIL 2010:
Easter was nice and warm and we had a fun time at our church having an Easter Egg Hunt. The count down to the end of Tax Season was in full swing! And the girls were rehearsing day and night for Cinderella and also for their dance recital Genesis. Everything went off without a hitch.
This was Madyson Claire's first show and I was so proud of her. She really had a great time performing with her sisters. And when I saw Katy all dressed up in her ballgown for the Ball scene...I had tears in my eyes. What a beautiful young woman she is becoming.
The very next weekend was Genesis. Such a whirlwind of activity! But the girls all did wonderfully and Genesis was a great success! Thank goodness it was limited to only one performance!

MAY 2010:
On the 5th we were called by Admissions with a little boy! Aidan was a wonderful addition to our family! He was so cute and I was so ready to fill my arms with a little snuggle bunny! The girls were excited to finally have a boy in our midst and I had fun actually getting to buy new baby clothes! (I still think there are way more cute girls clothes!)
School ended and Katy bid farewell to Arbor Creek Elementary School forever. We would soon embark on our new adventure of homeschooling! And even though May was a bit chilly, we all knew that summer was just around the corner!
JUNE 2010:
Katy and Mackenzie had a full summer schedule with their Showtime Performance Group and that started with a big bang at the Jiggle Fest at Crown Center! We all had fun and in between performances the girls ran through the big childrens fountain.

We also had many campouts in the living room and the basement. Even Aidan participated! Our days were filled with play and a little learning. We stayed at home and rode bikes, ran through the sprinklers and walked up to our pool everyday. The girls also each had swimming lessons and they progressed really well. Katy and Mackenzie already swim like fish, but Madyson was still wearing a life vest and holding onto the side. After her lessons this year I am happy to report that she is swimming throughout the pool and keeping up with her older sisters. She still wears the life vest, but only on occasions.
June was also Madyson Claire's 6th birthday! We had a family party for her as she had requested we all go to MacDonalds for lunch and then we went to the movies to see Toy Story 3. I asked her if she wanted to invite anyone along and she said yes...she wanted Randy to come with her! He was honored!

JULY 2010:
We had a fun and patriotic 4th of July at home in our backyard! We made it an old fashioned 4th of July with hot dogs, watermelon, potato salad and then went to a park to watch the fireworks.

Katy turned 11 years old on July 23rd! We had a fun family party for her and she invited her best friend Alexa for a sleep over.

AUGUST 2010:
This month is my favorite because it is my birthday month! It started out wonderful and not too hot, but it turned into a very dry month and all of that beautiful green grass was gone in a matter of days!

Madyson Claire and Mackenzie started back to school at Arbor Creek in 1st and 2nd grade.

Katy and I started our homeschool adventure!! It was made extra wonderful by the cooler weather and we were able to do most of our school days in August outside on the patio!

SEPTEMBER 2010:
Aidan was thriving and starting to crawl. He smiled all the time and made lots of noises, calling out "Hey!" to the kids when they would walk into the room. I started to get really used to the idea of having a boy in the family!

School was keeping us very busy, along with all of the extracurricular activities the girls have.

OCTOBER 2010:
It was a really warm Fall, as you can see by the shorts the girls are wearing in the picture below. We went to Deanna Rose Farmstead several times, riding the wagon to the Pumpkin Patch. Aidan continued to spend more time with his birth family, we prepared ourselves for his return to them in the near future.

Mackenzie turned 8 years old on the 29th. We had a fun family lunch a few days before her birthday at Cheddars Restaurant and then we went over to the new American Girl Place so she could pick out her first American Girl Doll. She choose Kit. On her actual birthday, the Friday before Halloween, we had a party for her and 5 of her friends. Katy spent that day decorating and it was awesome!

NOVEMBER 2010:
Again it is unseasonably warm for this time of year.I took advantage of the beautiful weather to get these great pictures of the girls. My Mom flew in for Thanksgiving and we had a great week leading up to turkey day...until we got the news that Aidan would be leaving us for good on Thanksgiving Day. It was truly a sad day for us all...I have yet to recover fully.

I miss his little face, I miss his laugh and his hugs. I look for him everywhere, even knowing that I will probably never see him again. There will always be a place in my heart for our Aidan, I pray for his health and happiness. I pray that he will be a man of God.

DECEMBER 2010:
We spent December trying to pack as much fun into our vacation from school as possible. Mackenzie is lobbying to be homeschooled along with Katy next year, so I told her we would continue to do school during vacation and include her so we could see how she would do. And actually it has worked out great! Katy loves to have someone to work with besides me, and Mackenzie kept up with her really well.

We decided to take a short term placement for December. The agency told me the children would be here only until a few days before Christmas. Unfortunately that was not correct, so we had an extra 2 year old girl and a 2 month old boy. They were really adorable, but quite the handful. The little girl has Sickle Cell Anemia and ended up having a crisis only 4 days after arriving. She had to be hospitalized for 7 days and then came back home with us for another week. During that time, besides getting ready for Christmas, we all ended up getting sick, even Randy. So it was a very stressful time for all of us.

The kids ended up being moved to a relatives home about an hour before my Mom arrived for a ten day stay. I was ready to collapse, and it was so nice to have my Mom here to help me. Unfortunately, she ended up getting sick, but at least it only lasted a day and then she was back to her happy and energetic self.

We spent a quiet New Year's Eve at home snacking on or'derves and my Mom taught the girls to knit.

Today, New Year's Day, we watched the Rose Parade and then went to Crown Center to skate at the ice terrace, an outdoor skating rink. We stayed until 5:30pm and then walked over to Panera Bread for coffee, hot cocoa, soup and sandwiches. It was so pretty, we sat by the windows and admired the bright white lights on all of the trees.

Well, that is it for 2010! I am grateful for all of my blessings, and hopeful for another great year! I hope you are having a great start to your year also!

more fall pictures of Ava Marie & Katy

2010-11-16T11:17:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-11-16T11:04:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-10-24T20:50:00.000-07:00

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...

2010-10-23T09:31:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-09-20T11:53:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-18T10:36:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-23T08:58:00.000-07:00

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...

2010-05-24T17:23:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-05-21T14:25:00.001-07:00

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!

2010-05-15T15:33:00.000-07:00

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

2010-02-19T09:12:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-01T13:01:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-01T12:54:00.001-08:00

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

2010-01-01T12:43:00.000-08:00

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.

Happy New Year 2010!

2009-12-31T20:38:00.000-08:00

We had fun night here at party central! The girls and I dressed up in our fancy dresses, did hair, makeup and even wore high heels! I made a bunch of appetizers for dinner, mini calzones, mini quiches, crackers and brie, little ramkins with dip and carrots and cucumber spears in them. We toasted in the new year with apple juice in our champagne flutes. The girls especially loved that part!

We decided to do the countdown at 8:30 so I could put Ava Marie to bed. The girls finished watching the movie Babe and then were in bed by 9pm! I am here at my computer with a cup of tea and some extra time to just wander the blogs tonight! Bliss!

Happy New Year to you all!

Wednesday

2009-12-30T20:41:00.000-08:00

We woke up early this morning to see if the weather forecasters had been right or wrong about the weather. 2 of the main channels had said we would only get a trace of snow, but 1 channel was closer saying we would get about 2 inches. We did get 2 inches overnight, but then it proceeded to snow most of the day and so now we have about 4 more inches. It has been super cold so the snow from Christmas Eve and Day is still on the ground and now with todays snow...well I think this is how it must feel to live in Chicago or even Michigan! And we are supposed to get more over the weekend!

So Monday I put the remains of our Sunday turkey into a big soup pot and boiled it with a couple of carrots and celery and a half an onion. After about 4 hours I took out everything, put the stock back on the burner and added more turkey meat, sliced carrots and celery, diced onions and big fat egg noodles. I served it with a salad and rolls and it was so delicious! The broth is the best I have ever made! I froze about half. I am trying to have at least 10 quarts of various soups and stews stored in the outside freezer for tax season. If I can get more that would be great! It helps me get through my most busy time.

I have been trying to find more activities for the girls during this very cold and snowy season. Yesterday we went to a new kids place called Jumpin Jax, with lots of inflatables and jumping equipment. They ran, jumped, screamed, used the zip-line, screamed, totally went wild! It was awesome! And when we got home I barely got dinner in them and they were ready for bed! Thank you!

Did I mention they have a parents waiting area with 2 big leather sofas, a big-screen TV, WIFI and FREE Starbucks coffee? We went back today! Can you blame me?

All I Want For Christmas...

2009-12-28T12:05:00.000-08:00

I sure hope everyone else got their fondest desires for Christmas. I know I did! I had a wonderful day with all of my children and my Mother who arrived on the 16th from San Diego. She told us the minute she got here that she expected some snow...and boy did we deliver!

From Thursday to Sunday we got snow, snow and more snow!! I've lived in the midwest since 1999 and this is the biggest snowstorm I've seen. Of course this is exactly what I moved here for!

We had been waiting for a few days, as the forecast was for snow on Tuesday and we were sorely dissapointed. But we all decided it had been worth the wait! We got around 11 inches depending where the wind blew. It started out as freezing rain on Thursday afternoon, we had been home all afternoon cooking and baking for a party at my neighbor Karen's home. I made my Hot Artichoke and Spinach dip and Mom made her delicious Deviled Eggs. I also baked a few loaves of Pumpkin Spice Bread. About 5pm I had to get in the van and drive to the hospital to pick up Randy (He works at KU Med.) It had just turned over to snow and was coming down really heavy. I have never driven in that much snow! There were NO lines on the highway! Where there was normally 3 to 4 lanes of traffic, there would be only 2 cars side by side. It was really scary for me, but I just kept singing Christmas Carols and praying that the Lord wouldn't let me die on Christmas Eve...talk about your white knuckle driving!

It took me an hour to get to Randy, usually takes 30 minutes. And then it took us an hour to drive home, but I felt much better on the way home with Randy in the car with me. The girls cheered when we walked in the back door and I think I saw my Mom make the sign of the cross!! LOL! I told her as I was leaving, "They're all yours if I don't make it back!" You can imagine her relief!

We drove the 3 houses up the street to Karen's, my Mom originally said she wanted to walk but changed her mind, good choice Mom. It was warm and festive in the Griffin home and there was so much delicious food! We had the most wonderful brisket, and the bar-b-que baked beans were awesome! (A staple on any Kansas City table.) The girls performed one of their Christmas songs and then invited everyone to sing "Silent Night" with them. Karen sent us home with a huge bag of cookies which was completely gone by the next afternoon. Yummy peanut butter and these great peppermint shortbread.

The girls all went to bed around 9:30pm. They were ultra excited and kept reminding us that we had to go to bed too or else Santa wouldn't stop at our house! Yeah right! I was up until 1am and my Mom said she was up until 3:30am! Santa delivered a really nice keyboard for our family. I used to play the piano, so I am going to teach the girls to play. If any of them really seem to have a talent for it, then I will get them another teacher, but for now, I thought it would be fun to teach them myself.

Each of my daughters got a game for their Nintendo DS and a nightgown and a book. My Mother bought outfits for each of the girls that matched, and then she made additional matching outfits for their American Girl dolls. So cute and the girls really loved them! I got a new nightgown too! And the movie "Julie & Julia" which I just love! I am hoping to get Julia Child's Cookbook soon so I can try some of her delicious recipes myself.

The rest of the day and into the weekend we did a lot of cooking, mostly soups and a turkey on Sunday, and reading and watching the snow. The girls did go out to play in the snow and we took them to some great sledding hills that are just down the street from our home. They are perfect because they are to the side of the parking lot of our local Lowes store. Everyone drives up there, parks their cars and vans facing the hills and watches their kids slide down the hills from the comfort and warmth of their own vehicles! It is awesome! And to make it even better, there is a Starbucks in the same parking lot...what else could you need?!

We had to say goodbye to Grandma today. She is off to Atlanta to spend New Year's with my brother and his family. The girls and I are excited about our New Years Eve Girls Night Extravaganza! We are planning to dress up fancy, have only appetizers for dinner with sparkling cider and ring in the new year at about 9:30pm!! Oh I know, we're such party girls!

I have a headache...yuck!

2009-09-29T08:41:00.000-07:00

Yes I do! I can't stand to feel unwell. I am usually very healthy and don't have any complaints, but I woke up this morning with a headache and I even know why, I have a sinus infection and we are expecting rain on Thursday and so it makes my head ache! But that doesn't really help anything because it still hurts and there isn't really anything to make it feel better. So I just suffer because I have too much fluid in my face!

The little girls and I walked the big girls to school this morning, we left right on time so we didn't have to run/walk, instead we could just stroll and take our time and talk. I love to do this, because then I can spend just that much more time with my girls. We walked them past the school and then turned and went home in a round about way, I believe it was approximately 2 miles total. It is not that far to the school, just 10 minutes, but that is why I add to it by making the distance longer and getting a little more exercise.

When we came back home I put a pork roast in the crock pot. It is a really easy recipe with a can of whole berry cranberries, some orange juice, a little honey and seasonings. I will serve it over some wild rice with baby carrots. Ummm I am getting hungry already and I have 7 ours until I get to eat it! I'd better get to a project and take my mind off of food. I am finishing up some hand sewing that I will use to decorate the little girls room. I am making flower petals and leaves and they will be applied to the walls. This is a re-creation of the room Madyson had in our old house. It was my favorite. The walls are a light green and the flowers look like they are growing up the walls. I have also painted grass growing along the base of the walls. Also there will be lady bugs flying around the flowers and up on the walls, they leave a little trail which spells out things like "dream", "believe" and "love". And then there are also flowers that look like they are holding a ribbon with the little girls names hanging from them. It is really sweet and pretty and I will post pictures as I finish each project. I also have to hang a ladybug valance and reupholster the glider with this really cute ladybug fabric. I am hoping to finish up this week.

Mondays are for catching up

2009-09-28T09:25:00.000-07:00

I always start my Mondays trying to finish what I started on the weekend. Not too bad this weekend, just a little picking up and staightening around the house, a couple more loads of laundry, and still have to transfer the warmer clothes into the girls drawers.

Yesterday was gorgeous! Sunny and warm. After church we came home for a quick lunch and then headed to the Louisburg Apple Cider Fest at the Apple Cider Mill. It was the perfect day for it! My friend Wendy posted the idea on her Facebook page and so everyone we knew seemed to be there!

After that we were driving home and decided to stop at the Overland Park Arboretum (or something like that!) Any how, it is this great big botanical gardens and has lots of walking trails and a lake and flowers galore. We walked around for about an hour and then came to a Butterfly Garden. I thought I saw a hummingbird so we sat down in the grass for about 20 minutes trying to be quiet and patiently waiting for it to come back...and it did! In fact there were two of them. And I never knew how much noise they actually make. They do this little chirping thing to each other, really cute. We would have watched them longer except Ava got so excited when she saw them that she kept squealing and scaring them away!

We came home and the kids played outside for a while, again it was so nice I just kept letting them stay outside to enjoy the good weather. As much as I love the fall and the winter, I don't look forward to having the kids cooped up inside a lot! I made Spaghetti and Meat Sauce for dinner with garlic bread and a salad. After dinner the girls got in their PJ's and we watched the beginning of The Amazing Race. We decided to root for the guys that are roommates and one of them has Asberger Syndrome. They are funny and sweet and we all hope they win.

When the girls went to bed it was still pretty warm, especially upstairs. So I left all of the windows open in their rooms and mine. When I went to bed at about midnight I shut one window in each girls room because it was feeling a little chilly. But my room was still warm and the breeze coming in the window felt so good! Ava woke up at about 4am crying, so I went into her room to check on her, and her feet were icy cold! I closed her window and then went around closing all of the other girls windows and making sure they were covered up so they wouldn't be cold. But my room still felt perfect with both windows open! The upstairs is really big and my room is at the end of a very ong hallway, I guess the air doesn't circulate up there too well.

Well I've got to get those drawers done!

A crisp Saturday morning

2009-09-26T08:27:00.000-07:00

Well I have just come in from my front porch to sit down at my computer for a few minutes. We got up pretty early this morning, don't you know the girls always want to sleep in during the week but on the weekend they get up at the crack of dawn!

I made French Toast with cinnamon and after breakfast Katy and Mackenzie wanted to play in the front yard with Ava and Angie so they got them dressed and took them out there. I decided to go sit on the front porch to keep an eye on them. I brought out a cup of coffee and some hand sewing I am doing (something that I will be using for decorating the little girls bedroom, I'll show you more about that on a later post.) It is just a little crisp this morning. I was not wearing a jacket, but I sat in the sun and that kept me pretty warm. The girls all had jackets on. Katy handed everyone an umbrella and they proceeded to walk around the cul-de-sac singing songs from their new show "Oliver". It is cute, I just hope the neighbors enjoy it as much as I do.

I love our front porch, I always wanted one so I could sit out there and drink a cup of coffee or read a book. It stretches across the front of the house and is about six feet deep. It is held up by four stacked stone pillars that are detailed in Craftsmen style like our home. (It might also be referred to as Mission or Prairie Style.) I did not build this home like I did my other one, this one was a spec home, meaning the builder had built it with a lot of extras hoping to make a lot of money on it. It sat empty for a year and then I bought it, so I am the first owner. It has a lot of wood flooring, and the fireplace and surrounding shelving are all carved wood with leaves and other intricate designs. There is only 1 other house in my subdivision that looks like mine, but it is on another street and the porch is smaller. I am really lucky to have it the way it is. I just wish it extended to the side of the house, I think that would really be sweet. I have 2 chairs on one corner that rock and one long bench on the other side of the door in front of the dining room window. I need to make cushions for the bench, but I think I will wait until next spring.

I just dashed upstairs to put in another load of laundry. The girls are straightening their rooms and then I am going to help them take out the rest of their summer clothes. It is time to get rid of the shorts and no-sleeve shirts and make room for more pants and long sleeve shirts. This means a lot of sorting and making sure that things are clean before I store them away. Nothing worse than pulling something out in the Spring and finding it had food or dirt on it and now it is moldy or we have to throw it out! I learned that the hard way!

I also want to clean out my van. It is really filthy! Yuk! Mostly it has a lot of crushed cereal on the floor and in the seats because I give all of the girls their snacks in the car on the way to dance and theater and whatever else we have going on. I like to put a little cheerios, cheezits, mini marshmallows, pretzels and M&M's, etc. in a little snack baggie and hand them out. I hate to buy pre-packaged stuff like chips. In fact I also make cookies and brownies and fill snack baggies with them and put them in the freezer so we have all of our snacks ready for the week.

Well I'd better go check on the girls and see if they've made any progress. I can hear them arguing about who is doing more and complaining that Madyson is not helping...so what else is new. Wait til I go up there and remind them that they need to clean the bathrooms also! Oh they'll be so pleased!

Playing Indoors

2009-09-21T19:23:00.000-07:00

Today was a really rainy day. Katy, Mackenzie and Madyson still walked to school, it hadn't started raining yet, but soon after they arrived it really started to come down. I called my Mom at about 8:30 am which is when I usually call her, every morning! We talked for about 30 minutes and then I had to hang up because the lightening was getting so bad. I don't know if it is really true that you should not talk on the phone during lightening and thunder storms, but I didn't want to take a chance.

Angie and Ava Marie and I sat on the little couch and watched the storm, everytime we saw lightening I would wait a minute and then say, "Ka-Boom!" And then the girls would both yell, "KA-BOOM!" and start giggling. It was a lot of fun! Have I told you how much fun I am having with them here with me during the day? Ooodles! We play princess, color, take walks, watch Miss Spider, and then there are those wonderful 2 hour naps! And the girls sleep too!

The only thing that would be better would be if all of my girls could be home with me. But they have to go to school. That is why I am getting so excited for the time when I get to bring Katy home to Homeschool her! You see right now she and the other girls go to our nearby elementary school Arbor Creek. It is awesome! Great teachers, great staff, totally rockin Principal! BUT...the school district recently voted to send the 6th graders to the Middle School. This is the last year the elementary will have 6th Grade and then they will ship them off to be with the older kids! NOT my girls! I don't want anything to do with that!

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that the Middle School, which I can see from my backyard is not a good school. I am sure the teachers and staff are really top quality there too. But have you ever been to a middle school? Have you walked around and watched the kids during passing periods? Have you seen the sexual stuff and the smoking and the total disregard for any dignity that some of these girls (mostly the girls!) have for themselves? The teachers are told to treat these children like little adults, the kids are pretty much left to fend for themselves AND they are learning how to be adults from one another!! Yes, that is exactly what I said...tweens are looking at other tweens as their mature role models and so that is why they act like they do!

Well folks...not in my world! My daughters will learn to be young ladies and guess who is going to teach them how? That is right...I know I am an out of the box thinker on this one...but I would kind of like their adult role model to be ME!

So Katy is in 4th Grade this year and so next year will be her last year in the elementary school. Then I will keep her home for 6th-8th. I am not sure what we will do for High School, I haven't reached a decision on that yet. I am not opposed to sending her to the public high school, but I will definitely think through my options. There is an awesome Girls Catholic school just across the stateline in Missouri that I love! But it would be a bit of a drive, about 35 minutes each way.

I have been planning this for about 2 years, so I have read lots of books on the subject. I am planning on attending a Homeschool Conference in the Spring to get more information on curriculums. And I have a lot of friends who homeschool, so I won't be drifting out there all alone.

Katy really wants to be homeschooled, she actually wants me to do it now, in the 4th grade, but I am not ready yet and I know she is fine at the public school for now. Not that I wouldn't love to have her home with me now. We could have such a great time. Also, when she is homeschooled, she will have more time for Dance and Singing and even to try out Modeling which she really wants to try. She just turned 10 and she is 5 feet 1 inch already! I am 5'2", so she is about to pass me up! She was only 5' at the end of July and she gained that extra inch by the beginning of September. I am betting she makes it to 6 feet by the time she starts high school! She is really beautiful. Gosh I would have loved to be tall! Oh well, have to be content with that one...in fact I think I may be shrinking as I write this!

Baby Gone...

2009-09-15T07:37:00.000-07:00

Oh we are so sad here, that cute little baby is gone now. She was moved to her Grandmothers home...cuz she did such a great job with her crackhead daughter...let's give her a second chance with her medically fragile granddaughter! Can you spell B-I-T-T-E-R?! No not really, I am just sad for that baby, her life will be so limited.

The girls are taking it pretty well, I try to spin it for them with a really happy twist. I never let them see me cry or seem sad. They don't really need to be concerned and they have to learn that this too is part of life. People come and go in your life, even when you don't want them to. We try to look at it as a way to make a heartprint on another person. Sometimes our heartprint will be remembered, and sometimes, as with little babies, they won't remember us, but they will still be touched and so will we.

Last week Mackenzie was in a little local pageant called the Olathe Sweet Six. It is for 6 year old girls and is tied with our big celebration called Old Settlers which celebrates our cities pioneer roots and the people that originally settled our town. Olathe is over 150 years old and 3 of the Trails to the West the Oregon, the Californian and one more whose name escapes me, went through Olathe. There are several homesteads that are maintained and families and schoolchildren can visit them and see what it was like to live in the 1800's. My girls and I love the pioneer stories and old memorabilia. So we love to visit the homesteads and go to Old Settlers.

Anyhow, Mackenzie did not win, the girls wear their Sunday best and line up on stage and answer a few questions. Then they pick the one girl to be Miss Sweet Six and 2 Runners Up. Those 3 girls get to ride in a convertible car in the parade on Saturday morning! This is what Mackenzie imagined herself doing...and her hopes were dashed when she did not win. It was a little wierd as far as I am concerned. The point of the questions was to get to know the personality of the girls. There were 3 lady judges and they held the microphones and asked a couple of questions of certain girls. The problem was the Judge would look at the girl who walked up to her, and then think up a question, which were mostly yes or no questions!! And then the Judge would hold the microphone up to the girl so she could answer the question and immediately pull the microphone away, not allowing the girl to elaborate or really say much at all. The judges did a lot of talking! Towards the end one of the judges asked a girl a question that no one else was asked in the whole competition, and she just happened to allow her to keep talking. This little girl was the ONLY one to get a chance to elaborate, so she won! It was really wierd. They did give each girl a little prize bag with lots of candy in it. Anyhow, I don't really like pageants, Mackenzie brought the entry home from school and she really wanted to be in it. But we won't be doing that again.

Madyson said she wants to do it next year too...Mackenzie was incredulous..."If I can't win it you definitely won't because you are too shy!", she declared. But Madyson wasn't put off, "I don't want to win...I just want the candy!"

I am spending my days with the little girls now. Madyson was transferred into full day Kindergarten, she wanted it. I had visions of spending our day together and doing fun things like reading and learning and going for walks. She told me she was bored and didn't want to stay with me, she wanted to go to school with her sisters! So I called and they put her in full day, no problem. So I decided to take the little girls out of daycare for a little while. This is my really slow time, and I can still sit at my computer and get some work done if I have to. Mostly I work at night anyhow, so it just makes sense to save the $300 a WEEK!! Ouch! So far they are really having fun. Angie and Ava play really well together. And they both take 2 hour naps, so I still get some time to work or clean or take a nap also!

Well it's snack time, I think I'll go get that ready and then take the girls for a little walk before lunch.

Reading between the lines

2009-09-03T08:49:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I should have known that a six week old infant that sleeps through the night is not really a good thing! I mean, how can she do that right? Well, yesterday her caseworker came over with the "red book", that is the notebook that has all of her information in it. It also has copies of court documents, health history taken from Mom, and other pertinent things. You get used to reading these things after a while, and you know just where to look first for the most important things.

So after she left, and after I had raved to her about my little punkin sleeping through the night and wasn't I so lucky! I sat down to read through the red book and found out she was a preemie! She was born 1 month early at 36 weeks, so technically she is only 2 weeks old, which accounts for why she is so tiny. (I don't know her exact weight, but she is swimming in the newborn size sleepers!) I would guess she weighs in the 5 lb region.

As for being a good sleeper, I believe she is a little malnourished which is another reason that she is so small, eats 6 ounces when I feed her and is so lethargic! OMG!

So last night I put her on a schedule and woke her up every 3 hours for a 4 ounce feeding. She is much happier and alert this morning. She stayed awake after her 5 am feeding and smiled at me! Oh I am being sucked into her sweet little heart!

Ava Marie loves on her. I showed her how she can stroke the back of the babies head and kiss it and she just gets such a kick out of touching her hair. This morning I brought Ava and Angie down to breakfast and they both got so excited when they saw the baby is still here! I guess they are not too sure she is staying with us, but I hope she is!!

Katy gets to hold her the most out of all of my girls. She is so helpful. But Mackenzie informed me last night that she NEEDED to hold the baby or else she would never learn to be a good mother! I told her she has plenty of time and can also practice on her baby dolls, she did not like that suggestion and told me that she plans on having a baby really soon. She also told me that the youngest person to ever have a baby was 5 years old...I have no idea where she ever came up with that, but she was adamant that it was true and I told her I didn't know any married 5 year olds and she'd better get that thought out of her head right away! Boy, I just don't know where she comes up with these things!

I have a pretty slow day, I am trying to clear out more of the summer clothes and bring in long pants to be worn with short sleeved shirts for the fall. Our mornings have been cool, in the 50's and then the afternoons are in the high 70's to low 80's. Sweater weather! And I am also gathering more crock pot recipes. I need to start using it for as many dinners as possible again. It just makes sense for us.

A new baby!

2009-09-02T11:32:00.000-07:00

Yes, I got the call yesterday! It was so exciting! A little six week old girl. She is beautiful, really tiny, she barely fills a size Newborn. They called me at 12:45 in the afternoon, wanted to know if I was interested and I said...."Of course!!" The gal in admissions said they had court at 1:30pm and would call me as soon as they got out. They called back at 3pm and said that the SRS worker would deliver her to my home within the hour.

While I was waiting for them to call me back after court, I went to the basement to pull out some newborn and 0-3 months stuff. I keep all the clothes, shoes and accessories that my girls go through in the basement in bins that are marked with the size and season. As you can imagine, I have rows upon rows of these! I also have bins for dance shoes and clothes and for sports shoes and uniforms.

Unfortunately I had just pulled most of these same sizes for my friend Lorraine who just got a new placement 2 weeks ago. Uh, Lorraine...I'm gonna need some of those cute little clothes back...sorry.

I put the clothes in a drawer in my room since she will sleep in there for a little while. Then I brought the infant car seat/carrier up and washed the cover for that. I left the carseat in the living room right in the middle, so when the girls came home from school, I just waited for them to notice it. Katy was the first, she said, "Hey Mom, why is the baby carseat in the living room?" And I said, "Oh, is it? Ummmm, why would I have put that there?" And then she and Mackenzie squealed at the same time, "Oh they called us! We're getting a baby!" It is nice to know that my children feel the same way I do. It is such a thrill to get that call.

The SRS worker brought her and all of her stuff (blankets, clothing, diapers and formula.) somone was taking care of this child, she was very clean and peaceful. The girls and I fawned over her and the worker left pretty quickly.

We still had to go to Katy's dance lesson and Mackenzie Acting class, so I just put everyone in the van and we left. The baby basically slept through all of our errands. I took her out of the carseat while we were waiting at Mackenzie's class, but she only ate a little, and then she slept.

Since Katy has 2 dance classes on Tuesday night, I try to have a crockpot dinner or just pick up something quick. I hadn't made a plan for this night, so we got Chick-fil-a. I fed the baby a bottle while all of the girls ate. She is a great eater, about 5 ounces.

I put Angie and Ava to bed around 8pm. Then I read the bigger girls a couple of stories and had them in bed by 8:45pm. I made another bottle for the baby at 10:30pm and then took her up to my room. I figured she would wake up around 1 or 2 am for her next feeding. At 1am I decided to close my eyes for a few minutes and wait for her to cry. And you know what? She never woke up! I had set my alarm for 6am, and at 5am I got up to use the restroom and looked at the time. OMG! I was so worried that she wasn't breathing or something! Of course she was fine, but I have never had a six week old that slept through the night!! I am so lucky!! I can't believe it!

Now I don't know if we can expect a repeat performance tonight, but I am praying for it! As always, I have no idea how long we'll have her, I don't know enough about her case to even guess. But we will sure enjoy her while she is here!

1, 2, 3...

2009-08-07T08:48:00.000-07:00

We got up at our usual summer time wake up at 8:30am...oh how I am going to miss sleeping in when school starts next week! I got dressed and got the baby out of her crib. Angie is spending a couple of days with her "other" family. (The couple that wants to adopt her, keep your fingers crossed.) My daughter Mackenzie was already dressed and came downstairs with us.

I changed the baby and put her in this adorable little dress that her GodMother Tina got for her at a garage sale...for just 25 cents! What a steal! It is a Gap Kids, and it is a pale sage green sun dress with zoo animals appliqued around the hemline. Mackenzie and I were pointing out and naming the different animals and Ava was repeating the names in her sweet little voice. Then, she points to a cluster of flowers and says, "One...two...three." And yes, there were three flowers right where she was pointing!

Do I have a genius child or what!? And she is only 19 months old! We were so excited! Of course we tried to get her to repeat it for the other girls when they came down, but no, she just laughed at us everytime we tried.

I am in my office trying to get a really big return finished. It is a corporate return and after it is done I can finally do their personal return. Oh how I want the taxes to be done! Of course there will always be more.

After lunch I am going to take the girls over to look at a house that I've been eyeing. It is about 3 miles from where we live right now. But it is not in a subdivision like our home. It is in an area where there are lots of farms and land. It is so beautiful and sits on a parcel of land that is 9.82 acres and has another piece of land attached but can be sold separately that is 10 acres. I've always said that my next dream is to pick up about 20 acres just south of here...I just wasn't quite ready yet!

The farmhouse itself is about the same size as our home we are in right now. But the first floor has more rooms including a formal living room and the upstairs bedrooms are smaller on the farmhouse than ours right now. It isn't really a farmhouse, it is actually a Colonial, it's just that it sits on a farm and so I like to refer to it as The Farmhouse. The girls call it the Blue House.

I really can not afford to own 2 houses, and the market is not good enough to warrant selling the house I am in right now, but I like to dream. And if it is God's plan for us to live in a different house, then he will help us find a way. If not, I am happy in the home we have right now...I would just like a little more land, and some chickens, and beautiful trees, etc. I think I need to work more on the whole contentment thing!

Monday, Monday

2009-08-03T11:58:00.000-07:00

Oh I can not believe it is already August! This summer is going too too fast! I love August, since it is my Birthday month. But I am not ready for it yet. I feel like we have barely scratched the surface of summer.

And what happened to July? We got back from San Diego just in time to celebrate Madyson's 5th Birthday. Just a small family party since we had officially celebrated it in Disneyland with all of our extended family.

July 4th was a fun at home with our friend Lorraine and her daughter Olivia. We walked in the Arbor Creek Parade, had popsicles, swam in the pool and ate watermelon! I also made the cute 4th of July dessert on the front of Martha Stewart Living, including the Cookie Spoons! It was easy and delicious!

Katy celebrated her 10th Birthday with a big Party. We had 12 of her friends join us for dinner at Chicago Pizzeria, then we went to the movie "G-Force" and topped the night off with a Sleepover! Well, not so much a sleepover as an Up-All-Night-Over! But all of the girls were really well behaved and even the baby had a good time and she and I actually got a couple of hours sleep.

We did our school supply shopping, packed it all in the backpacks and we are ready for "Sneak a Peak" night. We already know Madyson's teacher because there is now only one half day teacher at our school. Katy and Mackenzie are still waiting for the postcard to tell them who their teacher is. That should arrive on the 8th.

We have a couple of friends over today, Kayla and Adriana are here for the day and a sleepover. Yes, I really don't think I have enough girls in my house already!! I needed to go out and find some more! They are really nice, Kayla is 6 and has been Mackenzie's best friend since we had her at the daycare she used to go to. Adriana is her big sister, she is 8 and she and Katy get along really well. Madyson hasn't really had a sleepover friend yet, maybe next year. But she plays with all of them and they all get along well, so it is nice to have them here. We are going to go swimming as soon as I finish with this post.

Angie is with her other family, the one's that are hoping to adopt her. She is staying with them for a week. The father is a teacher and wanted to have time with her before starting back to school. She just loves being with them.

I am looking forward to school starting so I can get myself back on a more predictable schedule. I hate it at the end of the day when you can't even remember if you got everything done or not. I will have Madyson with me in the mornings, she will start her day at 12:30pm. But we did a couple of trial days to make sure it would work, and I think it will be ok. She and I will probably run errands, do a little "homeschool work". And maybe have some playdates too.

Well it's time for the pool. And I have some new pictures to post. Maybe tonight!

Disneyland - Day 1

2009-06-19T22:58:00.000-07:00

We left San Diego at 1:30pm and drove North to Disneyland. Arriving at 3PM on the dot! It was a pleasant drive as all of the kids slept (Randy too!) And Mom and I chatted and the traffic again was not too bad. This is according to my Mom, not me.

We pulled into the front of the Disneyland Hotel and unloaded the bags and all of us, then Randy parked the car while we went in to the registration desk. Luckily, since we are staying at the Concierge Level, we went to a different line and got checked right in. We are in the Dreams Tower on the 10th Floor. The girls and I are in one room and Mom and Randy are in the adjoining room, kind of like a 2 bedroom suite. Our room is a bit bigger, which Randy can not get over, "Why do you get the bigger room?" Well, maybe because I am sharing my room with 4 little girls and there are only 2 people in yours!

My brother called us from the pool to see if we had arrived yet and ask when we would be down there. Randy called for our bags and as soon as they came the girls changed into their bathing suits. Then we decided to check out the Concierge Lounge and get some drinks and snacks for the pool.

The Concierge Lounge is on the 11th Floor and has all sorts of things to drink and eat during the day. They have a nice breakfast in the morning, snacks all day, happy hour fare and drinks, and a late evening dessert bar. It's a nice perk!

We then rode down the glass elevator (only for Concierge Guests.) to the lobby and walked over to the pool. We met up with my brother Damon, his wife Suzanne and daughters Courtney and Kaitlyn. Also, my cousin Sherrie who's daughter Tamara is the bride in tomorrows wedding. Since a lot of our family lives here in California, they are just driving over tomorrow for the wedding and not staying overnight. Others are staying at less expensive hotels. Since this is also our vacation, I wanted to do the whole thing up right! Plus I just love Disney and besides Katy, my other daughters have never been to Disneyland or Disney World.

The pool is awesome with a big slide for the bigger girls and a little one for Madyson. After swimming for a couple of hours we went back up to the room to shower and change for dinner. There is no special rehearsal dinner for us. Usually they invite the out of town guests to the rehearsal dinner, but not at this wedding. Oh well, no biggie. We loaded into the car and drove to In-and-Out Burger. Only 6 days left and we want to get in as much good California food as possible!

We arrived back at the hotel just in time to get some great seats in the Lounge for the nightly fire works over Cinderella's Castle. Mom and I had coffee and a few desserts (Yum-yum!) and then we all went back to the rooms to get to bed. Tomorrow morning the Magic Kingdom opens at 7am for our hotel's guests so we want to be ready. We are planning on getting up at 6am and having breakfast in the lounge at 6:30am. We'll see if we can accomplish this. I think we can!! Have a Magical night!

Stephen Birch Aquarium

2009-06-18T10:57:00.000-07:00

Standing outside the entrance, everyone was really excited to see the fish!

Okay, we haven't even gone in yet and Ava is already bored! Just kidding, she just isn't used to the time change yet and she is ready for her nap already.

I went scuba diving...no not really, this is just a really big fish tank!!

Fish, fish and more fish...

2009-06-17T07:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went to the Stephen Birch Aquarium in La Jolla. It was a lot of fun. As Madyson said, there were "...fish, and fish, and some more fish! Is that all they have here?" Yes, that is why they call it an aquarium and NOT a zoo. Madyson thought we were going to see some elephants too, even though we had told her many times there were no elephants there. We may go to the zoo tomorrow or next Monday.

We ate lunch at their outdoor area which overlooked the ocean which was quite beautiful yesterday. As expected, the clouds burned off and the sun was bright and the sky was blue. The girls and even Randy enjoyed looking at all of their exhibits. Especially the Giant Seahorses, the different species of Jelly Fish and towards the end, the brightly colored fish where we all looked for Nemo and Dori, and found them. Mackenzie assured us all that these were in fact the REAL Nemo and Dori that appeared in the Disnney movie. Apparently they have retired to La Jolla...not a bad life.

Afterward we drove to Mira Mesa, a suburb of San Diego that Randy's Dad lives in, we dropped Randy off so he could spend time with that side of the family and go out to dinner with them. Then we stopped at a Farmer's Market there that my friend Annette had a Pampered Chef booth at. We stayed and chatted with her for a little while, it got terribly hot out there and everyone needed to cool off and get a cold drink so we left to go over to one of the big box stores in the mall across the street. We also stopped in at the Dress Barn where they were holding a couple of dresses for me to try on and I found a great little black dress for the wedding.

We headed home at 4pm, which apparently is in the middle of rush hour traffic, yikes! It was awful and I just kept closing my eyes. My Mom said it wasn't bad at all! I also kept my mouth closed, my Mom does not like it when I mention things I do not like about California. But I will tell you I hate the traffic. Not that we don't have traffic in Kansas City too. But it is different. Here I felt our lives were actually in jeopardy. People drive so fast, even when there is only a fraction of an inch between cars and they seem so mad at the other cars that are slowing them down.

When we arrived at home we talked about what we wanted to eat for dinner. Originally we were going to have chinese food from our favorite restaurant, but we had promised Randy not to go there since he had to be gone with his Dad for dinner. We found out that Rubios Fish Tacos were only $1.25 on Tuesdays, so we decided to do that. Mom went over and bought 8 Fish Tacos and 2 Shrimp Burritos and we had a great traditional San Diego fast food feast, again. I know you may be thinking, fish tacos, yuk. But they are marvelous and everyone, including the baby ate all of their taco, and Katy had 2! They are kind of like a taco with a big fish stick in it, but not as crunchy. I think I might try making them at home.

It was a pretty quiet night. My had to run some errands, so while she was gone I took the girls into their room to change into their pj's and while we were in there we found a set of Paddington the Bear books, so I started to read from the first one and 2 of them, Mackenzie and Katy dropped off to sleep while I was reading. I finished the first chapter, tucked Madyson in and then put the baby to bed. By the time Mom got home I was in a comfy chair in the living room reading my book and we decided it was so quiet we were tired enough to go to bed too.

Tomorrow is the get together at my Mom's house. We are expecting about 45 people now, so it should be fun. Mom bought some ready made Lasagna's and we will do a cheese tray, veggie and chips and dip and a big salad. Should be very easy and give us lots of time to chit-chat with everyone. I also want a lot of pictures. I'll post them tomorrow. I don't know what we will do today during the day, I think the girls want to help Grandma in her garden and I will relax and maybe finish this book I am reading. I am so close to the end.

Waking up in San Diego

2009-06-16T07:20:00.000-07:00

We arrived in San Diego last night. It was a non-stop flight, thank goodness! The baby was awake the entire trip and did very well. We sat in two rows and passed her back and forth. The other girls were pretty good, not too much fighting. I even got to read my book for a few pages.

My Mother's wonderful friends Mary and Kathleen drove down in a car and a van to pick us up. We had the 7 of us, 10 bags plus carry ons, Ava's car seat and the umbrella stroller which I wish I had not brought. I should have just brought her regular stroller as the umbrella stroller is hard to push with just one hand. Oh well, it served it's purpose for in the airport and Mom has another nicer stroller, a Pergo, for our use here and we will bring that one to Disneyland.

Mom had planned a nice light supper of grilled cheese sandwiches and fruit. We landed at 6:05pm which is 8:05pm Midwest time so we knew our crew would be hungry but didn't want everyone to eat too heavy a meal. That works in theory, and was a very nice idea, but then you have to consider Randy's position. We are only here for 9 days...and there are a lot of different meals and restaurants that Randy wants to sample. So...he talked my Mom into going to In-and-Out Burger for our supper. Suffice to say it was not the light fare that we had planned. No one went to bed until well after Midnight central time!

We are all up and getting a groggy start. It is gray and overcast here, moist and cool. If you had never been here before you would think that it was going to be a rainy day or at least cold. But the sun will burn through the clouds in a couple of hours, and it will be sunny and warm until late afternoon when the clouds, called the Marine Layer, will roll back in off of the ocean and it will be cool and moist again. This is the California weather that I think of when people in Kansas say to me, "You moved here from California? Don't you miss the weather out there?" And I think, not in the least! I like to wake up to a sunny day from the very start. And if there are clouds...then I want rain! Real rain that drenches my lawn and plants. I love green, green grass, green trees, green bushes. Out here in San Diego it is too brown for me. Oh there are lovely palm trees, and flowering bushes that are pretty year round, but they would be so much prettier against a green backdrop rather than this brown color that is so predominant out here.

But I don't visit San Diego for the weather or the flowers. It is my family that draws me here, and that is enough. I love to see them and be near them, if only for a week or two. I can not wait to see some of my oldest and dearest friends. My Mother is planning a bar-b-que for Wednesday evening here at her house. We are expecting quite a few friends and their families. I am really looking forward to that!

Today we are going to La Jolla to visit the Scripps Aquarium, then downtown La Jolla to visit Jane's Fabrique which is an awesome fabric store that I used to go to all of the time!! I am looking for some unique fabric to make a few dresses for Me! Then, after lunch we will be going out to Mira Mesa to the Farmer's Market to my friend Annette Robino. She has a booth out there for her Pampered Chef business. Tonight we are having dinner at our favorite chinese restaurant, the Panda Inn. Oh how delicious! I am excited for that House Special Shrimp!

The girls are getting restless, they are playing with a giant doll house that my Mother sets up every time we come out here. Each time we visit she gets some new pieces for it and the kids love to play and use their imagination. But they are getting louder now, they are asking when we can leave to go to the Aquarium. I'll try to check back in and download pictures later.

Last Dress Rehearsal!

2009-06-11T19:59:00.001-07:00

The girls have been rehearsing for months and tonight was the last Dress Rehearsal for The Lion King. This is a full dance production, music and dance only, no words. We attended this last year when the Culture House had The Secret Garden. The girls loved it and that is when they started asking to take Ballet Lessons.

Katy is in Ballet 1, they are Chameleons and she is breathtaking on the stage. When she reaches her arms out and then lowers them they are so perfectly rounded. I don't think this girl could not look graceful even if she tried! I am so proud of her.

Mackenzie is in Beginning Ballet, they are the Lion Cubs and so they are in the production almost the entire show. Mackenzie has had to attend many more rehearsals than her sisters, so she has missed the most swimming so far this summer! She really gets into her character and she looks so cute in her little lion costume.

Madyson is in Creative Movement, she is a Baby Elephant! To say that their performance is too sweet and too cute is such an understatement. Their music is very jazzy and upbeat so you can't help moving along with them. And when they do "the Swim" it is sooo funny! Madyson does not like to wear the trunk on her costume, it is made of felt and she says it is itchy!

I will post pictures of all of them soon.

Other news, my Mom is flying out to see the show tomorrow. She loves to see the girls in their shows, she definitely gets the award for the supportive Grandmother. We will also be traveling back to San Diego with her for a little while. The girls are excited to be able to go back to the beach as they had such a great time when we were there 2 years ago. My cousin's daughter is going to be married at Disneyland while we are there (Obviously the main reason we are traveling out there!) so we will of course be spending a few days at Disneyland!!

I am looking forward to being out there, mostly to see all of my family and friends that don't ever seem to make it to Kansas...ever! But also to enjoy the girls enjoying the beach! They talk about the beach a lot, so I think it was quite the hit last time we were there. Mom and I made it really easy on everyone, we didn't try to do too much or stay too long. We would go down to La Jolla Shores in the morning, after breakfast, bring some snacks like grapes or cereal bars and apple juice and just let them play in the sand and in the waves for about 2 hours. Then we would pack them back up and go home and shower everyone off for lunch and then do something else for the rest of the day. Then the next day we would do something else in the morning and go down to the Shores at 2pm, and again only stay 1 or 2 hours. Now the girls are a little older, but Ava Marie is still only 18 months, so we don't want to get her too tired either.

Well, the girls are home from their rehearsal and I have to give them a little light snack before they go to bed. I've cut up a newly ripened peach and I'll serve it over some vanilla yogurt with a littlegranola and some blueberries. That should help them have sweet dreams. Good night.

It's Over..Tax Season is Officially Over...Yea!!!

2009-04-16T07:40:00.000-07:00

I was so excited to get up today! I knew I was taking a day off...a whole day to read, write on my blog, take a long shower!! Oh I am so happy that the official end of tax season is here. Of course, I am not really done, I have some folks and businesses on extension that have to be completed as quickly as possible. But the crunch of getting to all of those returns and the stress of trying to complete 6 months worth of work in 2.5 months is over.

Yesterday I pulled an all nighter, I am really trying NOT to do that anymore. I have finally come to the realization that I need my sleep! I used to get away with only 5 or 6 hours, but now I need 7 or 8 and if I don't get that for a few days I get sick. But I slept like a baby last night! And woke up with the best attitude!

I bought the 3rd book in the Twilight series and will start it in a few minutes! How delicious to just sit and read all day!! Oh this day is better than Christmas!

Tomorrow Katy and Mackenzie are off school and we will go out to lunch and maybe see a movie. On Saturday Katy has her 2nd soccer game of this season. I will try to remember to bring my camera to the game.

Sunny, Windy, Icy, Snowy...

2009-03-30T09:28:00.000-07:00

I have always said that if you like weather, any weather at all. Then Kansas City is the place for you! In the last 2 weeks we have had days with 81 degrees and sunny and a weekend like the last one with 26 degrees and 6 inches of snow! Today is about 60 and they are saying more snow on Wednesday! It is so weird!!

But I love weather, rain, snow, wind, or sun! I don't care as long as it isn't the same thing for too long. Which is why I live in the Midwest! In San Diego we used to get "Breaking News" on the television in which the newscasters would break in to your program to tell you that a storm was on the way. There would be this really intense music that made you think you should go to the hardware store and buy large pieces of plywood to put up over your windows and stop at the grocery store to stock up on canned goods! And then...when the (I'll use this term loosely) storm arrived, you'd get one half of an inch of rain!! I am not kidding folks...this is totally true! And the newscasters would sit on the air congratulating themselves for warning everyone and making sure everyone in their viewing area was safe from...what...drowning their big toes?! Talk about a let down!

Which is why, just after I moved here in 99, I watched as the news predicted a large storm in our area, with a Tornado Warning. I watched the whole thing play out on the television and from the window of my home. I watched because I didn't really believe them, even when they said you should be in your basement and NOT watching out of your window! OK, so I learned a valuable lesson...and I didn't get killed which is great because now I actually go ahead and go down to the basement and watch the television down there...yes, I can be taught.

Saturday was actually kind of fun. My friend and neighbor Karen was having a Baby Shower for one of our other neighbors, Amy who is having her 3rd boy. I was in charge of the games...yea for me! I like games at baby showers, I know not everyone does, but I am corny that way.

So the shower was at 10am which worked out perfect as it didn't start to snow until noon. We ended up with about 6 inches of snow. The girls played indoors, mostly in the basement. We had an extra girl, Mackenzie's best friend Kayla came over and spent the night on Friday. This was Mackenzie's first official sleepover. She was so excited and so was Kayla, they did not get a lot of sleep!

I had to send the nanny home early on Saturday because by 3pm the snow was really starting to pile up. So I stopped working for the day a little early and made a big pot of chili and a batch of corn bread muffins. It is so cozy and warm in our house and so wonderful to sit at our table with all of my children eating a cozy meal and watching the snow fall outside. I imagine this could be the last snow fall, at least measurable snow fall, for this season. Spring is ready to burst out here, some of our trees already have flowers on them.

As much as I love the winter and how it makes me feel, I also love the Spring. This year I am having a protion of our yard dug up for a vegetable garden. I am NOT going to try to do anything extraordinary! So don't worry, just a few vegatables. We are going to concentrate on tomatoes and cucumbers since we eat so much of those. We might add some lettuce, but I am not sure. I think the girls will really love to do this and it is something I have always wanted to do. I will let you know how it turns out.

Half way through!

2009-02-21T05:32:00.000-08:00

We are officially half way through Tax Season!! Yea for me! I just had a quick minute to get on here and write a few things.

The girls and Randy are all doing well. We had a bout with some kind of illness about 2 weeks ago, it went through the tribe and settled on me for some reason, so while everyone else was sick for a day or two, I had it for a week!

Our schedule is pretty light right now, no soccer or big musical productions. The girls still have dance every week, they are preparing for the year-end production in June of Lion King. We have that one week before we leave for Disneyland and San Diego.

Oh yah...we have a new little girl!! We call her Angie, at this time she is my foster daughter and I have no idea how the case will turn out. She is very sweet, shy and really sad. She is 22 months old and her mother only ever spoke to her in spanish...even though her mother is caucasian and 100% American. I can't really say anything more about that at this time. But it really has been hard on Angie. I speak a little bit of Spanish, just enough to make me dangerous. Angie doesn't speak at all, she is terribly delayed in speech and other areas. But she is picking up sign language so she can communicate her needs to us.

Angie loves to eat! She eats everything except salad, which she is getting more used to every day. She still drank from a bottle when she arrived, even took a bottle to bed (Don't get me started on that!) but I got her off the bottle right away and she is terrific with a cup!

The girls are loving having another little sister to love on. Ava Marie is not being pushed aside, so don't worry. In fact, she acts like she is the bigger sister to Angie, she gives her toys and offers her some of her snack. And one day, when Angie seemed a little overwhelmed and was standing in the middle of the kitchen crying, Ava came over and patted her on the back and then kissed her cheek. It was so precious! I love that my girls are learning to be kind and share with someone else. Of course Ava doesn't really understand, but the others do. And Madyson is also really rising to the occasion. She is now smack in the middle of the bunch, and she is really beginning to act more like a big girl. She used to whine and beg me to dress her in the morning, which, under the right (or should I say wrong) circumstances, I would sometimes do!! I know...I know it was wrong, but some days we are in quite a hurry and I will do anything to get out of this house on time! Or at least try to.

So there you have it. We are still alive and thriving. My business is booming, Thank you Lord! I just don't have a lot of time and will not until after the 15th of April or sometime around that date!

I will try to get on again and post some Valentine pictures. Have a great February!

I just want to say Thank You MLK...

2009-01-19T10:50:00.000-08:00

Just so you know, this will be a reflective post. We are having a great relaxing family day today. And last night, at dinner, I looked around the table at my family and started thinking about the man we were honoring today, and the man we are inaugurating tomorrow. And my eyes welled up with tears that these things are actually happening...in my lifetime.

It is not lost on me that my family would have been impossible 20 - 30 years ago. The idea that I, a single unmarried woman, would be able to adopt a child at all was completely out of the question. The idea of adopting Black children, another impossibility. And let's not even go into my baby, a child of both Black and Hispanic descent, again, probably never would have been born at all.

I watch my daughters, and I see that they are true sisters. They don't pay attention to the color of their skin or mine. Oh they see the color, and they love the differences, Katy is a deep dark chocolate brown. (I am a foodie by nature, so you'll have to excuse my use of food to describe my daughters, but this is my post, so get over it!) Madyson is a my latte coffee girl, she is almost as dark as Katy but with a little bit of cream in the mix. Mackenzie is my strawberry vanilla girl, her skin is so pale it is almost blue. Ava Marie is a coffee with cream, maybe a hazelnut? But my girls love this about each other, they love all of the colors, and their teachers love to watch all of the crayon colors they use to create a drawing of our family. How boring it would be to draw a family of 6 and only have to use a couple of crayons!

I am thankful to all who have made this possible. The men and women who had to suffer to make the world and our country in particular look at itself and right the wrongs we have made.

I am no PollyAnny, I know that we are still fighting racism and sexism and intolerance for those that are different in many ways. But like a journey that begins in darkness and ends in the bright sunlight...we are going the right direction.

So I say today...Thank you Martin Luther King, Jr. Thank you for all you did. Happy Birthday to you. From a house of love and laughter, where beautiful children with brown and white and coffee colored skin live together and call themselves sisters. And they believe that they can do or be anything...anything!!

The Baby Walked!

2009-01-03T18:28:00.001-08:00

Yes, you heard it here first! And I am not talking just a few baby steps...no she has been taking 2 or 3 little steps for a couple of weeks now. Today she walked all over the house! On the carpet, the hardwood floor, even out in the yard on the squishy grass, which I do not think she really liked. Now of course I will have to chase her around the house and keep her from getting into everything. Oh how I loved and will miss that little crawling baby!

It was so nice here today that we spent a lot of time outdoors. The kids even had their lunch outside on the patio. My Mother and my Aunt were here for their last afternoon with us, they left for the airport at 4:30pm. We had a nice last afternoon, then had some chili that I had started this morning, then Mom and I and the kids went for a walk around the neighborhood. All of the neighbors were out, some putting away their Christmas lights, lots of people washing cars. And some of the kids on the next block had set up a lemonade stand, very industrious!

Right now the kids are watching the movie Jumanji, Ava Marie is sleeping and the wind is howling outside. I think it has already dropped 20 degrees! I love the cold and the snow for Christmas, but then I just want it to be spring right away. It would be easier if there were another holiday. Not just President's Day, but some sort of present giving, snow covered, twinkling lights holiday in January. Someone should start one...OK, I can do that! How about the Snow Queen's Birthday...on January 31st...and everyone should give each other gifts wrapped in white gift wrap. And the gifts have to be typically white things, like underwear, socks, and sheets!! Okay, most people don't have only white underwear anymore...and I don't think I even own a set of white sheets. But it could be kind of interesting!

Well, I am thinking this is the last Saturday evening I will be sitting around relaxing with a cup of tea and the computer. Tax season starts right away for me. I am sitting here right now, putting off starting to work on W-2's and payroll taxes. It's not that I don't like tax season, I actually do. I find it really invigorating to get a file with lots of documents and information and organize it and use the information to create the tax return. It's just that it is also a lot like an avalanche...you are up on a mountain, enjoying a beautiful day in the snow, and the next thing you know, you are at the bottom of the mountain under a pile of it! That's the part I don't love so much!

Oh well...it pays the bills and keeps me in chocolate! Have a great Saturday evening.

A Few More Photos of the New Year's Eve Gala

2009-01-01T11:58:00.000-08:00

More dancing!

Mackenzie & Katy being called out by Glinda, "Come out, come out, wherever you are...". They were so cute, they had rehearsed it where all of the children climbed up on their seats and stood up when they heard Glinda start singing. Then they crept toward the dance floor and then broke into song. Very nice.

Randy had to work and didn't arrive until after 8pm, he almost missed dinner, but our waiter brought him a plate as soon as he sat down, really good service!

Mackenzie loves dressing up and doing things she thinks are grown up.

We are so lucky to have friends and family to spend the evening with! Happy New Year to you and yours! May 2009 be filled with love, good health and prosperity for all of us!

We Danced All Night!

2009-01-01T11:47:00.000-08:00

Grandma dancing with Ava Marie!

The girls ready to celebrate midnight!

Happy New Year!! Of course, this was actually staged. We were on the dance floor at midnight and then redid this for the camera...what a bunch of hams!

They had a great silent auction and a live auction, and performances by different singers and dancers. Katy and Mackenzie got to reprise their roles as Munchkins and sing "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead". How fun!

At about 10:30pm they did a countdown and had a fun balloon drop for everyone. It was supposed to be so that families with young children could then leave and get home a little earlier. But everyone just stayed and danced on the big dancefloor and waited until the official midnight countdown! We stayed until 12:30am, and only left because they finally turned the lights up, I think the staff was ready to leave before any of us were!

New Year's Eve Gala at The Ritz Charles

2009-01-01T11:29:00.000-08:00

Our whole family attended the New Year's Eve Gala put on by The Culture House. It was wonderful! The theme was "The Golden Age of Hollywood" which is perfect for all of the talented kids and families there! This is our table setting, and the gold thing on the red napkin is a little chocolate Oscar! So clever!

All of the Werner girls were dressed in the beautiful Chiristmas dresses. Chocolate Brown with Pink Rose skirts. And the girls also wore their new full length capes that my mother Olivia made for them. They looked so cute!

Here is my mother Olivia on the right and my Aunt Marianne on the left. They flew out from California to spend the Holidays with us.

The girls and I in the lobby of the Ritz Charles. You probably can not see it fully, but even the baby has a matching cape...and yes, the American Girl dolls are also wearing matching capes!! My mother went all out this Christmas!

Pictures from Randy's Birthday

2009-01-01T11:20:00.001-08:00

Randy asked for a Carrot cake with Cream Cheese frosting. It turned out really well, very moist with fresh carrots and applesauce in the recipe.

He mistakenly thought that he was going to get the whole thing and kept teasing the little girls (and big girls too!) by saying, "This is my piece, where is yours?" To which they would scream and pretend to pout!

Obviously he told them he was going to share the cake, so now all is well and everyone is smiling again. Brothers can sure be annoying! (Not that little sisters can't be that way also!) It was a great birthday for Randy!

Randy's Birthday!

2008-12-28T06:49:00.000-08:00

I can not believe I have a 24 year old son! It only feels like a few years ago I gave birth to him, Lord knows I am still carrying around the baby fat! Not really though, I worked hard to lose weight after I had him. This is all new and I can not blame him for it...but you know I have to tease him all of the time.

But back to Randy. He was my first baby. The most gorgeous baby in the whole world! I always called him a "button baby". He had this big round head, so big in fact that I had to have an emergency C-Section after 9 hours in labor. It turned out that he was facing forward and his head just wouldn't fit through the birth canal. After he was born I found a littl bruise on the back of his head where it had been trying to push against my pelvic bone. Poor thing. But oh my, what a round head and then such a beautiful face!

I had imagined all through my prenancy that he would be black haired with brown eyes and a dark mediterranean skin color. His father, Randy Sr., had some Native American in his background and I just thought my little boy would look like him. But he didn't...he looked like me, with blue eyes, blonde hair and a golden complexion. Oh he was sooo cute!!

And smart...let me tell you, of course he had only child syndrome something fierce! Though he liked to share his toys and he was always very polite. He was very mature for his age. But I always wanted him to have a brother or a sister. And he wanted that too. He told me when he was 17 years old that he wished he would have had a sibling, that it was his one regret! (And he was only 17...regrets...hah! Let me tell you about regrets!! No, no, just kidding!)

I have been so lucky, he and I have been a great pair. When we moved to Kansas he was so good and so positive. Not a lot of teenagers would go along with moving 1700 miles away from their friends right before High School! But he was great about it. He understood the opportunity, and kept a really positive attitude, and he made new friends right away.

As a man, well I couldn't be prouder. Of course I would love for him to finish college, find a nice girl to settle down with, all of that. But I know he will find his way in his own time. He is gentle with the girls, loves to laugh with them and teach them things. He is mature and helps around the house quite a bit. I love to go to movies with him and then go get coffee and discuss the movie. Now...I don't know if he loves to do this also, but he does it...because he is a good son and he likes to make his Mother happy and he is definitely not selfish! He is kind of shy...I know you wouldn't think so, but in that way he is a lot like my daughter Madyson, who is also shy. But since they both live with me, they kind of can not be shy, because I am not shy and I make all of the people around me feel like they should not be shy...does that make sense? Someone told me that once, and I think it makes sense. So he kind of acts like he is not shy, but sometimes I see that he really is.

I still see him as the little blonde haired boy with the page-boy haircut, sitting in the back of my car singing at the top if his lungs some little song he just made up. Laughing at the wind in his hair and smiling a big smile! I love you Randy, Happy Birthday!

Christmas Day at Our House

2008-12-27T10:22:00.001-08:00

Madyson loved her Madame Alexander doll "Sara". Though she changed her name immediately to Addy Claire. I got this beautiful doll a few years ago, when Madyson was only 2, she looked just like her right down to the cute little pony tail poms!

Mackenzie announced in November that the only thing she really wanted was this Play Doh Ice Cream Set. Funny thing was I had already bought it on sale at WalMart in October. I wasn't sure who I was going to give it to, then I knew!! She was so excited, and went right down to the basement to play with it...all by herself. She was down there for half an hour and we had to call her up to eat breakfast.

These pictures posted out of order, this was actually supposed to be the first one. I took this just before going to bed on Christmas Eve.

And here are the girls just getting ready to tear into their first gifts. I always let them open their stocking gifts first. They can do that all at the same time. But we still like to have everyone take turns on the bigger stuff. I don't know...as I add more chilfren I will probably have to just let them open at the same time or we will be there until New Years!

Randy has an Ava Present on his lap! She just loves her big brother so much!

What a fun morning it was! After opening all our gifts, the girls started playing with their toys and reading their books. Randy looked after Ava Marie so I could start breakfast. I read on another blog that the Mom had each of her kids sign up for dishes they would make or help make for Christmas Day breakfast and dinner...all I can say is "WOW"! I can not wait until my girls can cook with me in the kitchen. Not that they can't help now...but let's get real...how much would be helping and how much would just be making a bigger mess! I am not real particular about a terrifically clean house...but I can't stand to cook in a dirty or messy kitchen. I like to spread out and kind of clean as I go.

But I figure it is probably a lot like teaching a child to feed themselves, you have to go through the really messy, food on the floor, bananas in their hair, spaghetti sauce dripping from every oriface kind of thing before they can actually get the food in their mouths and you can be sure they got a nutritious meal. And I will most likely have to let the girls get in the kitchen, "help" me pour things and serve things, and stir things and just look the other way when it becomes a big mess.

I can not say that Christmas Day at our house was relaxing...but it was fun, noisy, happy and just plain filled with love! Hope yours was too!

Christmas Eve Dinner

2008-12-27T10:08:00.001-08:00

As was the tradition at my Italian Grandmother's home (Nani), we always have Italian Sausages with onions and green peppers on Christmas Eve. We make sandwiches out of them, served on Hoagie style buns. Yum-yum! I like to make extra and then use the leftover sausages, veggies and even the drippings in my eggs the next morning...which is exactly what we did!

I put about 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil in the pan, then saute the onions and pepper for about 5 minutes, then add the sausages and turn them once. This dinner, which we have a couple of times per month takes about 30 minutes to make from start to plate!

After dinner we have a birthday cake for Jesus, and sing Happy Birthday. We also usually attend the candlelight service at our church. They have a special Children's Service at 3pm and 5pm, then about 7 other services at various times. We did not attend any of the services this year since the baby wasn't feeling well. I really miss it, at the end of the service our Pastor, Adam Hamilton darkens the whole sanctuary (which seats 3,000) and then they light the Purple Advent candle, and then several people light a candle from that one candle, and then they go out to us and we light our candles row by row, and soon the whole sanctuary is lit up with light...all the while we are singing Silent Night. It is so moving...I always cry and have a hard time holding my candle and drying my eyes at the same time! I must be there next year, I am really sad I missed it!

Let It Snow...

2008-12-25T10:36:00.000-08:00

I am cheating here. These pictures are not the idyllic snapshots of a snowy Christmas Day! No, they were taken a few weeks ago. And, alas, there is almost no snow on our lawn today. There was a bit yesterday, but then we had a day in the mid 30's and last night just wasn't cold enough to keep it! Darn!

So I am posting these pictures, and humming "Let it Snow, let it snow..." and hoping that the snow will return soon. "Why?", you ask. Because my Mother and my Aunt Marianne will be here on Saturday for a week and I have promised them beautiful snow!! And now I have to deliver!

This is the view from my office, the kids still love to play on the swingset, even in the snow!

They were outside building a snowman, who is now deceased...may he rest in peace. You see, if it would only snow again, then we could resurrect him, and I could teach my girls a wonderful lesson on the resurrection, which is really an Easter story, but, whatever! And we could have hot chocolate, and make snow angels...please snow, please snow, please snow. I'll let you know if it does.

Happy 1st Birthday Ava Marie!

2008-12-14T07:12:00.000-08:00

Today is Ava Marie's 1st Birthday! I am so happy to be celebrating this day with my cute little babies big day. Ava Marie was 4 days old when she came to live with our family.

I'll never forget the phone call at 6pm on a Friday night. The girls had just sat down to dinner and we were planning on watching a Christmas movie later that evening. The agency called and said, "We have a 4 day old baby girl...are you interested?" Boy, was I!! I told the girls to eat quickly and then loaded them in the van and we drove to Lawrence (which was halfway to Topeka, where Ava was born.) and met the social worker in a parking lot. Not exactly a romantic story, but I could have been anywhere...when she placed Ava Marie into my arms I was so excited I was trembling! She was asleep, so we gently put her into the van and I told the girls they needed to be really quiet on the way home. Yeah, right! They were way too excited and kept squealing every time she moved! But she slept all the way back to our house.

I carried her car seat into the house and placed it next to the Christmas Tree. Then I got the girls to bed as it was almost midnight by then! After they were settled I went back downstairs and lifted her out of the carrier, I remember standing next to the tree, looking at her little face in the glow of the little white lights. She was the best Christmas present I had ever received. Thank you Lord!

Hangin' with my Sisters

2008-12-11T12:56:00.000-08:00

Just another lazy Sunday in our jammies! All of the girls are in the childrens area drawing and reading.

Katy and Mackenzie are obsessed with writing letters to people. They write at least one letter a day to me and to each other! It's cute, but I have little bits of paper everywhere!

Katy is now passing this down to Ava, who is awed by the power of the crayon!

I think Katy is trying to persuade her to use the crayon to write with, rather than to eat!

Oh...now I get it!!

Home Sweet Home

2008-12-11T12:50:00.000-08:00

I like this photograph of our house, I was actually trying to get the clouds above it...they were pretty ominous that day. I love the sage green color, just wish I had more mature trees. I am going to plant more this spring. Or should I say, I am going to hire someone to plant more trees for me!

Shoes!!!

2008-12-11T12:45:00.000-08:00

This was the first day that Ava Marie wore shoes! She seemed to like them. The real reason I put them on was because it was very cold and I was trying to prevent her from taking off her socks!!

Love those cool pants too!

She's just too darn cute!

Katy's Ballet Pictures

2008-12-11T12:22:00.000-08:00

Katy also loves Ballet classes at The Culture House! She is so tall and lean, her body is perfect for ballet. She is in Ballet 1 with her dear friend Megan.

She was so cute when she posed for these pictures.

I told her that her arms were perfectly rounded!

A view from my office...

2008-12-11T12:13:00.000-08:00

This is basically the view from my office. I have 2 big picture windows that look out to the backyard. I can watch the girls play, the snow fall, the wind blowing...you get the picture...well, the mental picture.

For so many years I worked for someone else, stuck in cubicles or windowless offices. It was so important to me when I found this home that it had a great office with lots of light and windows. My favorite thing is that it looks out to the back yard and not the front yard. Because during tax season I am in my office at all hours...oh who are we kidding here...I am in my office to all hours all year long! But anyways, I like to have the blinds open so I can see the first hint of dawn in the wee hours of the morning, and it would be weird if my neighbors could see into my office when I was working...since I often wear my PJ's!

Ballet Class

2008-11-06T07:11:00.001-08:00

Mackenzie has her Ballet class on Wednesdays after school. She was originally in a Creative Movement class for 4-6 year olds. But most of the children in the class were only 4 and not always cooperative. Mackenzie really takes this seriously, she loves to dance! So I asked the school's director if she could move up to the Beginning Ballet class, it is for 7-10 year olds and she was almost 6. She said it would be too old for her, that she might not be able to keep up with them and might lose focus and disrupt the class! "Oh..no." I said, "You don't know how determined my daughter is. Just let her have a chance in the class, one time. See if she can dance like the rest of them."

So they let her dance with the older class for one night. And both the Director and the Teacher, Miss Laura said she is totally ready for this class!! They were really impressed with her focus and her attitude! That's my Mackenzie!

She also loves learning all of the words in French. She said she wants to be "en point", I told her she will have to wait a few years for that!

Mackenzie practices a lot! She wants me to put a mirror and a ballet barre in the basement so she can practice at home too! Maybe I will...

Oh yeah...these pictures were taken with my brand spanking new digital camera!!! I got a Canon PowerShot A590 IS yesterday! It is awesome! I love being able to take pictures and upload them right away. It is a lot easier than running the film up to WalMart every week or so, and cheaper too! But it takes so long for the picture to take, I will still have to use my Nikon 35mm for my best pictures of the baby, the digital keeps missing her smile!

Missing October

2008-11-03T10:06:00.000-08:00

Okay, have you ever looked up from your busy life and noticed that you are missing something? Well, apparently I am missing the whole month of October! Where did it go...I have no idea!

So here is my October Top 10!

1. Rehearsals for The Wizard for Oz are going great! Both Katy and Mackenzie are having a fun time and have pretty much mastered all the dance steps, already having the music memorized before they even auditioned for the show!

2. Ava Marie is still working on the walking skill! She cruises around all of our furniture, grabbing onto any legs or knees she can find. She can stand upright without holding onto anything, but I don't think she realizes that yet.

3. We took the picture for the Baptism Announcement. Aunt Leslie took the photograph as she is our resident professional! It is awesome, and I will post some of the proofs later.

4. I made Katy's Halloween costume this year. I was working on the costumes for Wizard of Oz, and I got to make a jacket for an Ozian. I loved the pattern, so I got it and some fabric and decided to make Katy's "Pretty Witch" costume. It went really well, and now I will be completing all of these jackets because I have this pattern memorized! Katy looked so beautiful! And Mackenzie or Madyson will probably wear this costume in the next year or two.

5. Mackenzie was Dorothy, Madyson was a Pink Princess and Ava Marie was a Daisy Flower for halloween.

6. We still have NOT been called with a new baby!! I am really getting anxious about this. But I just try to be patient and pray about it a lot!! God has a plan and He knows when the timing will be right! I just wish it was right now!!

7. I have been to the Children's dentist 7 times in the month of October!! I should have my own chair in their lobby, with a Starbucks coffee waiting for me!

8. I am the Co-Head Room Parent in Mackenzie's Kindergarten class. So I was in charge of organizing the Fall (Halloween) Party for her class. It was so much fun! The kids got dressed in their costumes at the end of the day. Then the principal, who dressed as Cruella Duville, lead the whole school starting with the Kindergartners in a parade throughout the halls and into the Gymnasium and back out into the halls! It was so much fun to watch. Then the kids came back to have their party, we made Spider Trick-or-Treating bags, played Musical Chairs, ate lots of goodies and took a class picture! Lots of fun!

9. Our family attended a lot of Halloween parties this year. Many of our friends had some great parties, especially our friends Wendy and Louis Orlando, who had a family party at their nightclub Orlando's. WOW!! My girls loved dancing on their dancefloor, with all of the lights and the great music! Wendy had all of the kids out on the floor and played a lot of games with them, including Musical Chairs that Katy almost won!! And the food was terrific! We are so lucky to have such great friends and to be able to enjoy ourselves!

10. Mackenzie turned 6 at the end of October! She had a fun family party on her actual birthday. Mackenzie chose Hamburger Macaroni & Cheese as her birthday supper! I made her a Butter Yellow and Chocolate Marble cake with Pink Strawberry Icing and lots of pink and purple sprinkles on it! Then we had her Big Party on Saturday! We had 30 children in attendance including her sisters! WOW! What a fun day! Mackenzie really enjoyed her birthday and loved sharing all of the fun with her family and friends! Love you my little red froggy!

Well that was October in a nutshell! I promise I will be better at posting this month. There is lots to talk about!

We're just a bunch of Munchkins!

2008-09-15T08:12:00.000-07:00

Well, The Culture House posted the Cast List for the Wizard of Oz yesterday afternoon. We'd been having a lazy day, had to catch up on our playing and resting after our whirlwind Friday and Saturday.

Both Katy and Mackenzie have been cast as Munchkins! We are thrilled because the girls will have the same songs and dances to learn together and will be on stage together. Katy was happy to be called back to be an Oznian, but it really required more Tap Dancing than she was comfortable doing, so I am glad they decided to cast her as a Munchkin instead.

Madyson did not get a part, which I kind of figured. The Director spoke to me about it, I think she may have thought I would be mad if she didn't cast all of my girls. But I have no problem with her choices at all. Madyson really isn't ready yet, but she is only 4, and we will try again in the Spring when they do Peter Pan. The girls were talking about how they will have rehearsal now every Friday Night. And Madyson asked me where will she be, I told her she will be with Ava and I, and she said "Oh Goody!" So she isn't dissappointed either! She is such a good girl!

Katy's good friend Megan also was cast as a Featured Munchkin in the Lullabye League. I think this will be the best show ever! We are such Wizard of Oz fans!

Now I must turn my sights to next Monday, that is Mackenzie's official adoption day! My Mother and Aunt are flying out here for the big day! We go to court in the morning and then she is officially a Werner! Of course, I believe she has been my daughter since the day she arrived which was July 20, 2005. She was just 2 1/2 years old, freckle faced and talking a mile a minute! We were told that she would only be with us for 1 or 2 months, but I felt differently, I just knew in my heart that she was meant to be in our family. And while I followed all the rules and tried to be helpful to her birth family, it never felt right. Mackenzie says she knew I was her Mommy from the first time I kissed her...isn't that just so sweet?

One of my favorite things about adoption are those moments...when you feel like you are living in a Hallmark Card...and you just can't fathom how God knew you would be the perfect fit for this child even when no one else seemed to think it would work out! Thank you Lord for these moments! I am so awed by His power in my life! Thank you for these beautiful girls! My little Munchkins!

Life Imitates Art!

2008-09-13T05:08:00.000-07:00

Last night was a wild night! The girls had their auditions at the Culture House for The Wizard of Oz. I picked them up from school early so everyone could have a little quiet time and rehearse their songs before we went over to the auditions.

Auditions started at 4pm and we were in line by 3:30pm. Katy got number 34, Mackenzie #35 and Madyson #36. Everyone was in a great mood and I kept thinking that Madyson seemed excited about trying out. This is her first time and anyone who knows her knows that she is actually very shy. Because she is in this particular family, surrounded by extroverts, we kind of draw her out and really don't give her a chance to be shy! So auditioning in front of a room of strangers is really out of her element, but...she actually did it!

But wait, I am skipping the most exciting part! After registering and getting our numbers and getting the kids re-measured for costuming (I just don't get that one!) We went into the red studio to watch the auditions and wait for our turn. I was just sitting there watching a cute little girl, #9 sing and thinking how fun this is and how much my girls get from being a part of all of this. It was raining outside and it had started to rain pretty hard, we'd had storms all day. And then the Tornado Sirens went off!

How appropriate! A Tornado in the middle of The Wizard of Oz! As we all like to say out here...It can only happen in Kansas! They stopped the auditions and then herded all 200 of us into assorted interior rooms. We all ended up in the ladies restroom with about 35 others. It got real hot in there, real fast! We stayed in there for about an hour and a half and the line of storms kept on moving up hitting us with one warning after another. I called Randy who had heard the sirens also from our home, he rushed over to the daycare to pick up the baby, he said it poured and he could barely see out the car window, but they arrived safely home and I felt better knowing Ava was with him and that they could stay in our basement and be safe.

Finally the staff at the Culture House started up the auditions again. We were still under a Tornado Watch, so you aren't supposed to leave your safe place, so they took 10 kids at a time, let them sing and then took the next 10. While we were in the audition studio it began to rain again really hard. The directors had to have the kids stand directly in front of them, within about 1 foot in order to hear them over the rain. It was so wild!

We finished around 7:30pm and picked up some hamburgers and headed home to see Randy and Ava. We were all safely tucked into our cozy home by 8pm and though it is still raining, the threat of Tornados has subsided by now. But it made for an exciting evening!

The girls went to bed at 9pm, they have to get some sleep as callbacks are tomorrow (today Saturday.) and the names of those with a callback will be posted around 7am. I was up at 5am and wandered down to see if they were posted yet...but no, they were posted at exactly 6:54am.
Katy has a callback for an Oznian which she is thrilled about. Mackenzie has a callback for a Munchkin! Madyson did not get a callback, which does not mean she is not in the show, but I kind of doubt it. While she was very brave and did get up and walk in front of the directors, she barely made a sound when she sang "Happy Birthday" and there were so many cute little ones that really got up and sang their hearts out. I am very proud of Madyson whether she actually gets a part or not! She stretched out fo her little comfort zone and she will have plenty of opportunities to try out for other shows!

Well, time to get the troops out of bed and get some pancakes into them. We have ballet classes at 10am, callbacks at 11am and of course, there is always laundry to do!

Growing by leaps and bounds!

2008-09-10T13:16:00.000-07:00

I woke up yesterday morning to the incredible- fast growing baby! Yes, Ava Marie went to bed on Monday night wearing a size 9 month and woke up needing a size 12 month! How does that happen?! Oh I hear you, ha ha...you feed them...everyday...more than once a day! Yeah, I know that, but really...a whole size in one night?! I don't think any of my other children ever did that!

So...I had to go shopping on Tuesday for clothes for her. ( OK, so I love to shop, but not at the last minute! I like to PLAN it out, that is the best part of shopping for me! Did I mention I am an accountant...planning is my life!!) I had a couple of things, but not enough to finish out the week even. I went over to the Carters Outlet in the Great Mall of the Great Plains and dropped a couple of bucks for some really cute outfits. Now we can get through this week with a couple extra to spare. I also bought a couple of 18 month outfits well, 5 of them. I figure I have at least a week before I will need those!

Wicked weekend!

2008-09-07T14:26:00.000-07:00

I am up in my office writing this post and the girls are all directly below me in the basement. They are working on their audition songs for The Culture House. It is putting on The Wizard of Oz this fall and Katy, Mackenzie and Madyson all want to be in it.

Katy and Mackenzie are going to use "I'm Not That Girl" from the musical Wicked for their audition piece and Madyson is going to sing "Happy Birthday" for hers. (Mackenzie sang this same thing for her first audition and it works great because everyone knows the words to Happy Birthday...even if you are nervous!) The girls and I ran through it a couple of times and then they told me they wanted to sing the whole show of Wicked, so they are down there finishing it up right now! They are so cute! Mackenzie is Galinda, Katy is Elphaba, and Madyson has been told to do "All of the others!"

The baby is napping and so I folded laundry, started dinner, paid some bills online, and now wrote this...I'd say my weekend is now complete!

Illness be gone!

2008-09-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

Yuck!! Double Yuck!!! I am finally emerging from the fog of seven days of sickness in this household. It started out last Thursday evening when Mackenzie said her back hurt and she didn't feel well. She stayed home sick on Friday. Madyson and Katy went to school but the phone rang at 10am and off I went to pick up Madyson who had a temperature of 101. Both girls took really long naps on Friday afternoon which allowed me to continue working and as we started our weekend I thought (actually, I ASSUMED, which is a really bad idea!) that everyone would be fine for the weekend of fun activites I had planned.

Saturday morning we got up, ate our wonderful, fluffier-than-ever pancakes and drove off to Ballet class for Mackenzie and Madyson. Madyson only lasted about 15 minutes and then I watched her lay down on the floor and just stay there. Mackenzie really was fine. But we spent the rest of the day at home while Madyson mostly slept.

Sunday we all felt great and had a good day out at Church which met in downtown Kansas City for a special Comm-UNITY Service with another Methodist church in town. And then went to Crown Center for lunch and walked around the Irish Fest. On the way home Katy said her head hurt and by the time we arrived back home she had a temp of 101+.

Monday, the holiday we were just going to stay around home, swim in the pool one last time, and have Ice Cream for Dinner! Katy felt awful and really never came down from her room. By early evening she was feeling better and was up in her room reading to the other children before bed. I went to bed right after the kids as I had a bit of a sore throat and my back was hurting me.

Tuesday I got up still tired but excited to be getting back to our regular schedule. I got all of the kids up and we were sitting at the table for breakfast. Katy said she wasn't sure she really felt better...then she asked if she could go to the bathroom. She made it to the bathroom just in time! I took the others to school and came home feeling like I really needed a nap. I layed down for just a few minutes and realized I was really sick. My neck hurt like crazy and I could barely swallow. So I drove Katy and I to the doctors which is actually only a block away. Yep, we both had strep! Knew it!

I picked up the other kids and took them back too, just to be sure. Madyson had it too, but not Mackenzie or the baby, thank you Lord! We have been on our penicillin for 3 days now and I am finally feeling normal. Last night I actually slept for more than 1/2 hour! Wednesday night I didn' get more than 1 hours sleep the whole night...and that wasn't 1 full hour!

Oh I am so glad to be well again! I hope this is it for our family for this year!

Daily Routine

2008-08-30T12:59:00.000-07:00

Another school year has started and I already feel like I am running in a marathon race. Which is wild because if you ever saw me you would surely know that I have never "run" anything a day in my life!

We have just finished the second week and it isn't the schoolwork that has us all tired out, it is all the extra-curricular activities that for some reason have to start the same time as the school year. We start school the 2nd week of August here. It still seems strange to me, as I am from California originally and we didn't start school out there until after Labor day. It has something to do with having extra time to add snow days, or something Midwestern like that.

The good thing about that is that the girls get to start school in their summer clothes, and I can wait for the fall clothes to go on sale! I do a lot of clothes shopping in my basement. I have it all divided and all of the girls clothes go into plastic tubs that are labeled first with the size and season of the clothes (ie; 2T - Summer) and then under that I have a label with the child's name and year it was last worn, repeating this every time one of my girls wears the clothes in this particular tub. (ie; Madyson - 2006) I also let my friend Lorraine "shop" with us as her daughter Olivia is wearing the same clothes as Madyson wore and seems to be following the same seasonal "track" that Madyson did. This works out great for both of us as she returns the clothes in beautiful condition, often adding some new things that were gifts to Olivia. My little Ava Marie is next in line for these. And then Lorraine is expecting another baby girl so she will be next after Ava. As will our new baby Olivia Grace.

I spend the bulk of my clothing budget on shoes and jackets in the winter time. It is pretty cold here for about 8 months, off and on, and Katy is always cold, even in the summer. So I tend to buy new jackets, and I like to get each girl a nice big winter jacket, 2 - 3 lighter weight polar fleece and zip up jackets, and for Katy a quilted vest. Shoes are really hard to hand down. Katy's feet are long and narrow, she is already wearing a size 4 womans. Mackenzie is only wearing a 12 childrens and Madyson is wearing an 11 1/2 childrens. I think Madyson will pass Mackenzie in the next year.

So, back to our schedule and all of the extra-curricular activities. Here is a pretty typical day in the life of ....

5am - I am up pretty early so I can get in a quick shower and get dressed. Then I go downstairs, flip on my computer and make a cup of coffee while I am waiting for the computer to pop on. I sit down to open my emails and try to answer as many as I can. I usually have about an hour of this which also includes pouring the girls orange juice, setting out some fresh fruit and making the baby a bottle. Sometime between and 6 and 6:30 the baby will wake up and I will have to head back upstairs to get her.

6:30am - I get the baby up, bring her into my room to change her and give her the first bottle. This is our snuggle time. Sometimes I let her lay on my bed with pillows behind her and her legs draped over mine while I fold laundry. Most of the time I hold her and snuggle her neck. She always smells so good. Then we put on her clothes for the day, let the cats out of their room (they sleep in the laundry room that is next to my room. Oh yes, I have the best designed house in the world! My laundry room has a door to the hallway right next to the door to my bedroom. You can enter from the hallway, or you can go into my room, make a left into my master bathroom, keep on walking into my master closet, then turn left again and walk from the closet into my laundry room! It makes a perfect circle! Oh yeah! I love this house!!) move clothes from washer to dryer, put another load of laundry in to wash.

7am - We wake up the other girls, get them dressed in clothes that we pick the night before. I have little baskets on their dressers that have their clothes in them. In the morning there is no arguing about clothes, it is already decided the night before! And then their pajamas go into the baskets for the day. I have all their hair stuff in the linen closet, so I get that done upstairs before they go down to breakfast.

7:20am - Downstairs for breakfast, I make weekly menus that I put on the refrigerator, so again it is already decided what we are having and the girls don't whine about it (too much). I like them to have something different every day, so we always have OJ and a fresh fruit, then toast, cold cereal, yogurt parfaits, oatmeal, pancakes or waffles. I have a couple of other items I add sometimes, but usually we stick to these. Since I always make pancakes on Saturdays, I double or triple the recipe and freeze leftovers for during the week, same with the waffles.

7:40am - Brush teeth, pack the babies things in her diaper bag, another bottle for the road, and into the van by 8am.

8am - I drive over to the school to drop off Katy and Mackenzie. Then we stop at the bank to do a deposit, Madyson loves to go through the drive-thru here and watch as the little yellow cylinder with my deposit whooshes up in the clear pipe to the lady inside the bank. Then we drive to Madyson's school to drop her off. She attends Kids-R-Kids and really loves this place. In fact, Ava will be starting there this Tuesday, up until now I have been driving her to another care center that is run by a friend of mine, but it adds another 20 minutes to my drop-off and pick-up routine, so I decided to move her.

8:30am - Drop Ava Marie off at Kids Town Academy and drive to post office.

9am - Return home. Make second cup of coffee, take dry clothes out of dryer, move clothes from washer to dryer and put in yet another load of clothes into the washer.

9:15am - Sit down to work in my office. I won't go into my work day, except to say that I work in my office, surrounded by pictures of my children, steps away from my wonderful kitchen if I should need a snack, with a wall of windows that looks west over my backyard. Our swingset is right out my window, because during Tax Season, when I have to work all of the time, weekends included, I like to be able to watch the children outside playing and having fun. While I would like to be out there with them, it also serves to remind me of why I work so hard and even during Tax Season it lifts my spirits to see them swinging away in full joy! My children are my inspiration. I also love having this big wall of windows because I worked for more than 10 years in offices without any windows at all, which I think is actually a very cruel thing to do to a person. We are living organisms, just like trees and flowers, and we need to breathe fresh air and feel the sun and have lots of light!

3:30pm - Drive to pick up Katy and Mackenzie. They get out at 3:40pm, most of the parents line up in front of the school around 3:15, but I get a little repreive here. I purchased one of our schools 2 front row parking spaces at our little fundraiser auction last year. I have my own parking space...right in the front...with my name on it! It is quite the luxury! It affords me at least 15 minutes of extra work time each day, which works out to 1 hour and 15 minutes every week, which equals 45 hours each school year. Not to mention the wild perk of not having to fight the crowds at open house, kindergarten round up, Sneak-A Peek back to school night, Kindergarten Musical, 3rd Grade Musical, etc, etc. Of course this does not always work out, sometimes...just a few, people who are not me have parked in my space!! This makes me very angry and since I have waited until the last minute to arrive, causes us to be late and stressed from trying to find another parking space. BUT...I have rectified this recently. If I arrive and someone has parked in MY space, I simply park right behind them, right up behind the back of their car, so there is no way for them to get out until I come back to my car, which is often way after the event has ended!! Sometimes, like on the first day of school, I just park my own self on a bench in the front of the school and watch the person as they try to figure out where I am and how they are going to get out of there. They are usually mortified that they have been caught, but you know...I paid good money, quite a bit of good money for that spot...and they should be ashamed of themselves. Oh well, it doesn't happen too often.

4pm - Home to have a snack and get ready for the next activity. If we have time, the girls start homework right away. If not, then we change, jump back into the car and off to soccer practice, Ballet class, or whatever. Katy has Soccer on Mondays, Ballet on Tuesdays & Thursdays. We don't have anything on Wednesdays right now, but soon will have Brownies and Daisies every other week and Fridays we often have something to attend like a concert or movie or dinner with friends. Typically, during the week we are done by 5:30pm.

5:30pm - Pick up Ava Marie.

6pm - Pick up Madyson.

6:30pm - Home to cook supper or serve it if I was smart and made something in the crock pot. We are slow eaters, I talk a lot and so do my girls. I like to relax at dinner, talk about our day, ask them questions about their friends and what was the best thing that happened to them. My daughters are also very good eaters, though you wouldn't know it to look at their skinny selves! So there is a lot of eating going on between talking.

7:30pm - I take Madyson and Mackenzie up to take their baths in my big bath. The baby likes to play on the floor with their pajamas and towels. I wash Mackenzie's hair most every night. Madyson's only needs to be done every 2 - 3 weeks. Katy reads at the table for 30 minutes.

8pm - Katy comes up to take her bath and I do a bath for the baby in her little pink baby bathtub.

8:15pm - Settle down on Mom's bed for reading. I like to read to the girls, we are reading Little House on the Prairie right now, we just finished Little House in the Big Woods. The girls listen and relax. Madyson sometimes walks around a little, maybe going through a book of her own, she isn't really ready to sit quietly and listen that long. Ava is actually a great listener, she will stare at the book, even if there are no pictures. I think she will become a wonderful reader some day.

8:45pm - Tuck the kids in bed and lights out. Katy and Mackenzie share a room, they have a bunk bed. Madyson has a bed in the room next door along with Ava's crib. But Madyson doesn't ever like to sleep there. She sleeps most every night on the floor in her sister's room. I have ordered a trundle to go under the bottom bunk for her, I hate that she always sleeps on the floor, but she absolutely won't sleep in her own room! Oh well, I am going to take her bed out of there and put in another crib for Olivia Grace.

9pm - I am back to work in my office until around 12 midnight - 1am. Depending how much I have to get done and whether or not Top Chef or Jon & Kate Plus Eight is on!

It's not the actual activites we do each day that makes me so tired, because Lord knows I am not kicking any of those soccer balls! I think it is all of the driving around I do. I spend at least 3 hours a day in the car! And the weekends aren't much better as that is when the little girls have their ballet and Katy has her actual soccer games, and then on Sunday we have church and then Childrens Choir. Oh well, years ago I tried to cut back on all of the extra-curricular stuff, but I just started to fill the days back up again with new activities. I think we are just one of those go-go families!

Dreaming of relaxing!

2008-08-17T10:22:00.000-07:00

Ohh to have a relaxing weekend! I am dreaming of it, but then if I really wanted to relax on the weekends or at night for that matter, I wouldn't have all of these children. I don't really like peace and quiet anyway...it's very overrated!

Yesterday we ran errands. We started out at Church, I had to attend the Baptism class because all of the girls are going to be baptized in November. I know it seems like I've waited a long time, but after Katy and Madyson's adoption, when I originally planned to baptize them, we were still in the middle of Mackenzie's adoption and she would have felt so left out if we went ahead without her. And since Ava Marie's adoption is right around the corner now, I just wanted to have them all done on the same day.

After that we stopped by WalMart to drop off the girls new fall jackets. Every year I pick them up these wonderful polar fleece jackets at Dick's Sporting Goods. They come in a variety of colors and so I pick a new color each year for all of them to wear. Last year it was a light blue aqua, this year it is a dark pink. And since Macvkenzie and Madyson wear the same size I have their names embroidered on them so we know which is which. And Katy's too just because it looks so pretty. I think when people see them, they think the kids are on some kind of team. Of course they are...they are part of Team Werner!

Then we went to Costco to pick up diapers and wipes and have hot dogs for lunch. We love Costco hot dogs! And I picked up 4 new winter sleepers for Ava. They are adorable, one has little pink monkeys all over it with pink bows in the hair, so sweet!

After that we went home and the girls all played, Ava napped and I cooked as we were having my dear friend Lorraine and her daughter Olivia over for dinner. Lorraine and I worked together when I still worked in an office. (The old days...when I commuted 40 minutes each way to work. Now my commute lasts 1-2 minutes...depending if the cats are laying in the way or not! Oh, I am so lucky!!)

I made Bar-B-Que Chicken with roasted potatoes and veggies. I was going to pick up a pie, but I forgot...so we didn't eat dessert. But we talked and the kids played and played and we watched the Olympics! Go Dara Torres!! If they call her old one more time....she's only old compared to those Chinese Gymnasts!

It was a fun night! And today we are planning on going to a big party at a park in Leawood. They'll have lots of things for the kids to do, then tonight they have a Jazz Concert in their amphitheater. I am bringing deli sandwiches, potatoe salad, sliced watermelon, lemon bar cookies and grapes. I am planning on running these children into the ground tonight! I want them good and tired! This is our last weekend without Childrens Choir which practices at our church on Sunday evenings from next Sunday through Christmas weekend. So it is the last weekend I can truly just do whatever I want to!

Kindergarten News

2008-08-16T14:18:00.000-07:00

Mackenzie started Kindergarten yesterday! She has been soooooo excited all summer long. Telling anyone who will listen that she is going into Kindergarten and will be attending the same "big girl" school as her older sister!

Then, yesterday morning, she was scared and acting not at all like herself. She told me at breakfast that she might want to wait another week to start Kindergarten. "But you have to start with all of the other kids, honey." I told her. "Oh..." she gulped and then the tears started. She is afraid of the teacher, she might get lost, no one will like her...and some more that I couldn't understand because by now she is sobbing into my shoulder.

All of the sisters plus Mommy gave her a group hug. We have this special way we all stand and hold each others hands while linking arms, this is how we pray at night and sing a song. So we did this and prayed for a good day for Mackenzie and then all hugged again and then it was time to wash off the tears and take that First Day of School picture on the front porch with our new backpacks. And then off to drop off the little ones first so I could walk Mackenzie into her room and take pictures at her desk. (Pictures will follow. I still have a regular 35mm, no digital...I know, I am really old fashioned, but it takes phenomenal pictures and I don't trust those digital ones!)

She sat down next to a cute little girl named Dayna, and they posed for me and then for Dayna's Mother. Katy stood next to me and asked me if I would walk her to her class also. So we kind of stood around with the other parents and then waved to Mackenzie and walked out. Mackenzie was fine by then and waved us off as if she didn't know why we were all standing around staring at her. (That is the Mackenzie I know and love!!)

Out in the hallway were lots of parents trying to get one last glimpse of their new little Kindergartner. In fact there were quite a lot of crying mothers. I kind of snickered to Katy about it. Oh, I know it is hard to see your children grow up and away from you...but give me a break. You won't see me crying at the school while other Mothers watch! (These words will come back to haunt me...keep reading!) I even joked with one of my neighbors who was crying a lot! "Oh, you'll get used to it. Go shopping, do stuff you can't do when the kids are not around...soon you'll be glad to have them all in school!" As am I...right?!

So at 3:30pm I drove back up to the school and walked up to the front area where the kids come out. I knew Katy would know where to meet me, but I wasn't sure how the Kindergartners came out, or where, or even when. Then I saw the line of Kindergarten teachers with their students following behind them. They come out from the side of the building and walk around to the front, following in single file. The teachers are all smiles and happy to be leading their little charges out to their waiting parents.

But the kids...well, most of them looked like they were suffering from shell shock. I couldn't see Mackenzie at first, but when I finally found her, she looked so small and so young standing there with all of the others. She kept looking for me and didn't recognize me at first, then when she saw me her face lit up and at the same time dropped! I gulped, oh no...you are not going to cry...Don't Cry!...I commanded myself. Then Mackenzie started to cry and then I started to cry. I blinked my eyes a hundred times to stop the tears, a small amount of water got out...but no one seemed to notice, Thank God! I picked Mackenzie up and Katy grabbed her hand and kept asking, "Did you have a great day? I saw you at recess, did you see me wave? Is your teacher nice?"

We walked over to the car, waving at friends and past teachers but did not stop to talk to anyone, I was on a mission....to get into my car before the tears really started to spill. It didn't help that Mackenzie was still holding onto me for dear life! Maybe she thought I might tell her to go back into the school again, today. Maybe she was just tired and overwhelmed, I'm still not sure what she was crying about. But I knew I was having a hard time keeping it together.

As we drove home Katy seemed to notice I was sniffling, she asked me if I was crying, I said it's just my allergies...and she bought that, yes! After we arrived home, the girls got their folders out of their backpacks to give to me. I sat down to read them and Mackenzie pulled out a poem from her teacher, it was all about how she would take care of our children while they were with her, love them as her own, send them back to us safe and sound, etc. And then Mackenzie handed me a drawing of herself that she had done at school, "So you can look at me if you miss me while I am at school." She said brightly! And the tears poured from my eyes....I grabbed her up and hugged her and let myself cry in her hair. The girls looked a little worried at first, so I told them they were happy tears and they both hugged me.

Sorry I laughed at you Amy. I guess I am just as much of a crying Mommie as you were. I bet we all are...it just takes different things to turn the waterworks on!

Back on the list!!

2008-08-14T08:48:00.000-07:00

Ok, I should start this post by saying that I celebrated my birthday on Tuesday. I had a great time. Took most of the day off of work. Katy and Mackenzie were still out of school so they were home with me and Randy didn't start back to school until this morning, so the four of us went out to lunch at one our favorite lunch spots, Mi Ranchita! Oh how I love their Espinaca dip and their fresh chips!

I also did my big grocery shopping trip to Walmart. I have put together my weekly menus through the end of August, so I bought everything I'll need for the next 3 weeks. Of course we'll still need to go back to the store each week for milk, bread and bananas, etc. But the gist of it is purchased and put away! I love to grocery shop, I just don't love to put it away!

I picked up Madyson and Ava at 5pm and then we went to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner. It is my favorite all time restaurant and their service is great. And it was my birthday! The girls all gave me some beautiful hand made cards and a necklace and bracelet that they made out of their beads. So cute! Randy gave me a book called "Screenwriting for Dummies" because I am always coming up with ideas for movies and plays. He really wants me to write them down and get one completed so I will know that I have done something I talk about all the time! I told him I would start this week! But I haven't started yet...I will....I just have to squeeze out another hour in my day!

So...that brings me to the list. As a Foster/Adoptive mother, I get to call KVC, the agency where my kiddos all come from when I want to be considered for another child. I had been thinking about calling them when Ava turned 1 or so. But that would mean I wouldn't get another child until the middle of tax season, so......I have been thinking of calling sooner. And then one of my best friends who also has an adoptive daughter from the same agency, called to tell me she had just called to be on the list! I thought about it for another day....and then another....and then yesterday I called and went back on the list! So I should get a call in the next few months!! It's kind of like being pregnant! Except I don't really gain weight, no morning sickness and I know it will be a girl!!

I am hoping they will call me soon, I am praying about it and I know God will let it happen when He is ready. It is so exciting when you are waiting for another child. I called last year right around this time, and it took until December to get Ava Marie, but she was totally worth the wait!! The girls are really excited too, Randy is happy for us, he said he knew there would be more sisters for him. It's kind of funny, because he acts really cool when people ask him how he likes having 4 sisters, says it's fine as long as they are Mom's responsibility and not his. But he spends a LOT of time with us! He really dotes on Madyson, and Ava responds to him so well! He has taught her to wave and clap her hands. I think deep down he loves them a lot and is really happy to have siblings after all of these years. It is my one and only regret that Randy did not get the chance to have a sibling while he was growing up. He would have loved a brother and at the time I had no idea about fostering and adoption. I am so glad God opened my eyes to this now though!! It's never too late to design your own life!!

And still more summer pictures!

2008-08-10T00:04:00.000-07:00

These were those beautiful Lilly Pulitzer dresses. The girls wore them to Starlight for High School Musical.
Madysons hair has now been combed, AGAIN, and braided. If we didn't swim twice a day everyday, this would last for about 2-3 weeks!

All the girls here for Katy's birthday sleepover.

Our family celebration on her actual birthdate. Her cake is chocolate and butter yellow marble with milk-chocolate frosting and we served it with fresh strawberry ice cream. My children also get to ask for their favorite dinner, Katy asked for spaghetti with meat sauce, green beans and garlic bread!

Madyson's Hair Au Natural

2008-08-09T23:57:00.000-07:00

This was the day I paid $60 to have her hair combed out. It really looks cute, but will not stay this bouncy and pretty. After she sleeps on it, it will become all matted and stuck to her head. It is the curliest, kinkiest hair. But she loved "wearing it long like mommy's".

You can tell she is so pleased with herself! I told her, "You are a really beautiful girl." And she said, "Oh, I know that Mommy!"

More pictures from summer!

2008-08-09T23:49:00.001-07:00

Madyson and Ava Marie sharing a book.

Ava and Phoebe sharing a blanket!

Grandma gets to feed the pretty baby! "No really grandma, you eat it first!"

Random pictures from the summer!

2008-08-09T23:37:00.000-07:00

Madyson will do anything for sweets!

This is from our Annual Arbor Creek 4th of July Parade. The baby is asleep in her carrier in the wagon. The beautiful woman with the visor is my Mother, Olivia.

After the parade all of the kids got popsicles.

Ava Marie showing her patriotic spirit!

Mackenzie painting herself red with the popsicle.

Katy's sweet smile!

It's HOT, HOT, HOT!

2008-08-06T14:58:00.001-07:00

So we've been spending as much time in the pool as possible! Katy swims like a fish, and Mackenzie and Madyson are right behind her. Mackenzie has to get out for sunscreen every half an hour or she will burn. She is so very fair! I keep SPF 50 on her, and I use SPF 35 on Katy and Madyson. I only have to reapply on them every hour. Did you know that black skin burns? I didn't before I got the girls, in fact I didn't even use sunscreen on Katy the first year she lived with me. Then one night she was getting in the bath and I saw her tan lines from her bathing suit. I was shocked! I felt like an idiot! So now I am really careful with all of my children and I always warn new parents with bi-racial or AA children, in case they don't know.

I ordered the girls school backpacks from Pottery Barn this year. They came today and they are really cute. Katy's is light blue with light green trim and her name across the front. And Mackenzie's is pink with lavendar trim and her name on the front. I did not order one for Madyson who promptly threw a fit and started crying because her backpack didn't come with the others. So I told her that hers was on "special order" and that gives me time to order one for her too. I hadn't really thought it would be that big of a deal to her, but apparently it is!

It's hard to believe that school will start next week. Katy starts on Thursday with a half day, she will be in 3rd grade. She is excited because on Friday we can go online and see who her teacher is. Then on Monday the 11th our school hosts Sneak-A-Peek, which is the annual first look and introduction for the kids to their teachers. We will bring our school supplies in that evening, and a gift for the teacher, a plant or something for her/his room. Mackenzie starts Kindergarten on Friday at the same school. (Madyson is actually going back to her pre-school on Monday so she technically starts first.)

Mackenzie is extra excited because the Kindergartners at our school are having an Ice Cream Social on Sunday so the kids will have a chance to see each other one last time before school starts. She gets to go with me while her sisters stay home, which is a real thrill for her! And she keeps trying on clothes because she wants to be sure to look really cute at the party!

If it's Tuesday, it must be...

2008-07-22T19:38:00.000-07:00

I had planned on keeping up with my blogging every day. But then the days start to carry me away and the next thing I know a couple of days have passed and I am behind. Oh well, no guilt here. I will just give you the quick version, or at least my idea of the quick version of what has been going on in our household in the last few days.

Friday we had a sleepover for Katy's 9th birthday, it wasn't actually her birthday yet, but we have more things going on this coming weekend, and her actual birthday is on Wednesday (Yes, that is tomorrow!) so that wouldn't work well. Anyhow, we only invited a couple of her friends so it would be more low-key. See, with this many children, you have to be really careful about the whole birthday thing, or you can get over your head! Katy's first birthday with me was her 6th, but since she had never actually had a birthday party before that, I really went all out! We had a Hawaiian Luau in our backyard. For her 7th birthday, we had her entire class plus all of my frineds children to Pump It Up for a big party there. And last year, for her 8th birthday, I hired a Limosine to pick up Katy and 14 of her little friends (including her sisters) and go to Shear Madness for a Makeover/Modeling party! Add to that Madyson's and Mackenzie's parties and you have a woman spending too much money!

So I made a new rule. You get an actual birthday party, when you turn an EVEN number, like 4, 6, 8, etc. And in the ODD years, you get a family party with one or two friends, and your favorite dinner of course! So this was an ODD year for Katy, hence the small intimate sleepover. Of course you add a couple of friends to the crowd I already have in my home and we always seem to be having a party!!

It was a fun night, and wouldn't have been much trouble at all except that I had gotten this big idea about putting this new Texture Softener from Just For Me in Madyson's hair that day. And I needed to take her to a salon and have them wash her hair and comb it out before I could put the stuff in her hair. Her hair is so curly and tight, and she has so much of it. You can spend an hour combing through one small section and then let it go and immediately try to comb through it again and it will have intertwined before you can do it! So we arrived at 2pm and for 3 hours they had 3 women combing out her hair! They never even got to the wash! And then I had to go because Katy's friends were coming over at 6pm. So Madyson wore her hair out...just out there! She looked like Macey Gray with this sort of Afro sticking out all over. Actually it was kind of cute in that natural-hippie-style kind of look!

So Saturday morning I got up early because one of the little girls had to go early and I wanted to get the pancakes done so she could eat before they left. And then I drove one of the other girls home and then went over to KVC to give a little pep talk at one of their MAPP classes. This is the class you have to take in order to be a foster or adoptive parent. I love to meet the newbies! They always have such fun questions, like...how long did it take you to get your first child, did you know you were going to get to adopt her, what if you don't get along with the birthparents, you know, those light-hearted questions that don't require you to think too much! But really, they were a wonderful group of people and I am proud they are all stepping into the role of foster parents, we need more people to do that!!

Then I stopped in at the mall to pick up a birthday present for the girl who's party we were attending that day, I found a really cute top at The Limited Too and could not resist buying another one for Katy! That girl has way too many clothes, but I can't help it, she is sooooo beautiful! And then I headed home to give the kids a quick lunch before heading over to Monique's 11th birthday at Skate World! No, I did not have time to do Madyson's hair before we left, so it was still in her little Afro-girl style! And she looked so cute out there on her skates. She and Mackenzie wore matching outfits...what else is new!? After skating we followed Lisa (Monique's Mom) over to her place for a swim. And even though I asked Madyson not to get her hair wet, she jumped in and soaked it! $60 down the drain!!( That is what I paid for the combing out!)

So Sunday morning bright and early I got Madyson up to finish, or should I say re-start her hair! You know, AA hair is really easy most of the time. You only wash it every 2 -3 weeks and if it is in braids you only need to keep it moisturized. But the actual act of taking the braids out, washing it, combing it and re-braiding takes 3 - 4 hours! And I have 2 girls with this kind of hair! Madyson really enjoyed the pampering. The bigger girls helped me, and even though I have never used this product before...I think it turned out really well. It is NOT a straightener! It just helped loosen her curls a little, so I could divide her hair and really comb it well. Then I put it back up into 6 braids. It really looks great. I will post pictures in a few days.

We relaxed the rest of the day. (Read relax as :I only did 4 loads of laundry, woo-hoo!) Then Lisa cam over with Monique and Trey for dinner, I made 2-foot long deli sandwiches, which the kids loved. And then we went to Starlight to see High School Musical. I had already seen it on Thursday night, I have season tickets. It was so hot during the first half...I was really considering trying to talk everyone into leaving! For intermission I got the girls Frozen Lemonades and I got a diet coke, wow! That really hit the spot. And the night just seemed to cool down automatically during the 2nd half. I'm so glad we stayed. The girls all looked adorable. They were wearing their matching Lilly Pulitzer dresses that we found at Costco! My Mother originally bought them for the girls to wear to Mackenzie's adoption party, but since this has not happened yet, I didn't want them to grow out of them before they got a chance to wear them! Really cute!!

Monday brought us back to the old grindstone. I have a lot on my plate as far as work goes, and I am trying to get as caught up as I can as I have taken on a new client that is pretty big and will probably take up at least one day a week. I am anticipating this, so I want to be prepared and not let it make me farther behind. But I am also spending a lot of time on blogs and websites that pertain to frugal living. I like to learn new ways to do things, in a more frugal manner. I clip coupons, bake bread, re-use plastic bags, just like everyone else. But I want to do more, so I can figure ways to save money, so I can afford all of those expensive dance lessons for the girls!!

And that brings us to Tuesday! Which was another awesome day! Not too hot today, so the girls got to be outside a lot. And my housekeeper came today,she usually comes on Mondays. And I know what you are thinking....how can I be thinking of being frugal and saving 50 cents on a bag of bread and then I have a housekeeper!

Well I will tell you...I need to have a housekeeper. First of all, I am single and the sole earner for this family. I get paid to do accounting, not cleaning. So if I am cleaning my own home, I am not getting paid during that time. My company motto is "So you can do what you do best!" And I "account" best! Also, since I hired Fatima, my housekeeper, my children are never sick! That tells you how great a housekeeper I wasn't! And I just love the way my house smells when she is done!

Well I am yawning and I still have one more set of payroll returns to finish tonight. Sweet dreams!

She's not heavy, she's my sister!

2008-07-17T12:05:00.000-07:00

We all got up early this morning to take the two youngest girls to WIC to get them weighed and measured this morning. Ava Marie, who just turned 7 months is 18 lbs, 13 oz and 26 3/8 inches tall! That is a big, short baby!! Since her heritage is AA and some South American (Not sure which country.) she is apt to be a little on the short side. Of course I do not mind that at all as I am only 5'2" myself. And especially because I seem to be raising so many Amazon Women...Madyson Claire, who just turned 4 years old is 38 lbs and 42 3/8 inches tall! She is in the 92 % range for her height and only 1 inch shorter than Mackenzie who is 5 1/2. We are not surprised by that either since Katy, my almost 9 year old was in the 96% range in height when we went for her last physical.

The doctor told me to make sure you have her(Katy's) respect now...because she is going to pass you up before she is 10. Yes, you heard it, Katy is only 4 inches shorter than I...but I'm louder! So it looks like I will have 2 short ones and 2 tall ones so far...we'll just have to see how Olivia Grace turns out.

We had our breakfast in the car, good old cereal in a bag and juice in our Starbucks cups. I am so glad I learned that cereal in a bag trick from "Jon and Kate plus Eight" that is a life saver when we have to be out really early. And then we were supposed to stop by a friends for a visit but she has two down with strep...so no way we could stop there! We went to Costco instead to get diapers and wipes and of course, we had to do the tasting round! My girls get so excited when I tell them we are going to Costco...just for the food!! They always start yelling "Do we get to taste stuff??!" Although they didn't really have a lot out today, mostly things we had already tried before, nothing you wanted to figure out how to get seconds for. Oh you know you've done that...walked around the store for another 30 minutes and then headed back to try it one more time, hoping that the lady giving out the samples doesn't point at you and say, "Hey! You already had this sample, Lady! " I always blame it on the kids, I say, "Oh kids, we've already had this one...oh OK, you can try it one more time since you loved it so much and yes, maybe we will buy it." And then you shrug your shoulders at the people around you and act like you just can't say no to your children. Well, this works fine, except when your always-point-out-the-obvious 9 year old has to go and blurt out, "Mom, we didn't want to try it again, you did!" At the top of her lungs so even the people in the parking lot can hear her!!

Now we are back home, the baby is napping, the girls are off to the pool with Randy and I am ready to get back to work...well after I finish this post, and put in another load of laundry, and get a glass of water...ok, back to work now.

Recession or Depression?!

2008-07-15T09:49:00.000-07:00

Is anyone else out there getting a little worried that we are NOT in a recession...rather we are going into a depression? I like to keep my posts on the upbeat side, but I listened to NPR yesterday all about the Indymac bank closing and everyone lined up outside to try to get their money out, and then on the news last night and even on Nightline. And I have to say it worried me.

I do fairly well, as I am in the numbers business, and as my father said to me when I was trying to decide what to study in school "Whether people have a lot of money or a little, they don't want the government to have it, so they are always looking for a good accountant!" So I don't really worry about not having enough clients or not having work do to. But if my clients businesses aren't doing well...and if they could not get their money out of a bank...you do the math!

I have been saying that I think we were going into a depression since January, right about the time our government was trying to figure out whether we might be going into a recession. So I have been working on living more frugally. This was way before gas prices started going out of control. I have been working on little things that can save our family money, like recycling boxes and food containers so my girls can use them for art projects rather than buying all new things to paint and tape and create with. My older daughter just loves Petshop animals, she has quite a few (from last year when I was still spending freely...) and so she is creating a "Petshop World" for them using cereal boxes, formula cans, egg cartons, etc. It is really fun for her and the littler girls are doing the same thing. It keeps them busy for hours and the only thing new is the scotch tape and staples and the paint if they use that. I get a lot of catalogs, so they cut up the catalogs for "wall paper" for the little apartments and houses for the animals.

That is just one thing. I also try to save on my grocery bills by shopping at Aldi's, sticking to my list, cooking basic food, and not using pre-prepared stuff as much as possible. You know I used to buy Walmart brand pancakes. They are only $1.50 for 12 pancakes, that is just 12 cents per pancake. My girls eat 2 each on Saturday mornings, so that means it costs us only .75 cents for their breakfast. BUT...I found that by making my own pancakes from scratch (I have a great easy recipe from Martha Stewart Living) I can save even more! I double her recipe and get 24 pancakes for only .50 cents, which means each pancake only costs me .02 cents!! Now thats the way to save money!

Of course you may be saying to yourself, "I'd rather spend the 10 cents for convenience." But then I have to say, look at the bigger picture...if you had pancakes every Saturday morning for the whole year, then you would save $32.76 [(.75 X 52 = 39.00) -(.12 X 52 = 6.24)] Well, I warned you I am an accountant. I think of things like that. And since my daughters are very active in sports and theater and dance, and that costs a LOT! I can use the savings to put toward their classes.

Just a little something to think about.

The trouble with noses

2008-07-13T09:25:00.000-07:00

The baby has a cold. Her poor little nose is running all day and night and she is pretty miserable, well for her she is. Luckily Ava is the most happy baby in the world and rarely fusses or cries, so a little fussing and crying isn't really too bad.

She is also teething which also makes for a little fussing...and drooling...and a runny nose. Poor Ava, she's not having a good week. But she still looks so cute! She will be 7 months exactly tomorrow. She is sitting up when you set her that way but is not able to get to the sitting position on her own yet. She is doing the army crawl and can get herself pretty much anywhere she pleases. She sometimes follows my voice into the kitchen, but I don't like her to crawl on the wood floor, I don't want her to hurt those cute little knees or elbows! So I am constantly picking her up and placing her back on her blanket. She thinks this is a game now...and giggles when I come get her and scold her for leaving the designated area. She obviously is not taking me seriously...just like all of my other children.

I thought I would have a pretty relaxing day yesterday...did a couple loads of laundry (I have to do 2 loads a day to just keep up with this crowd!) Started cutting out some dresses for the girls, this will be the first set to include a dress for Ava. Yes it's a matchy-matchy and while a lot of people don't like that kind of thing, I do! I don't have a lot of matching clothes for them, mostly because Katy's clothes come from the junior dept., Mackenzie and Madyson still wear some toddler stuff, and then Ava's in the infant section. So I usually have to make something and, you know I have all-the-time-in-the-world for that kind of stuff! But I really enjoy sewing, so I try to make time for it every couple of months or so.

Anyhow, I didn't have to make dinner because we were going to a neighbors sweet sixteen party and when I called to RSVP I was asked how many of us would be attending "so I can tell the caterer"...this of course was music to my ears! WOW! I won't have to cook on Saturday night...Yea for me! Or so I thought...turns out people now have ice cream and cake CATERED! Yes, really! So by the time we left the party we were all famished and the girls were hopped up on sugar, so I called my son Randy who was not at the party (Can you imagine that my 23 year old son didn't want to attend a Sweet Sixteen party for our neighbors daughter?) and told him what had happened and we picked him up and went to the Cheesecake Factory! Well...we were all dressed up!

It was very nice, the girls were relatively well behaved considering they were now coming down from their sugar high, the baby was happy because there was lots to look at and Randy and I had a nice conversation without too many interruptions. We always order cheesecake and bring it home to eat later. We like to enjoy the dinner without having to worry about "saving room" for dessert. Of course we don't usually order dessert anywhere else except the Cheesecake Factory, which is my favorite restaurant. Can you believe we have 2 of them in Kansas City? And you probably thought there was nothing here in the Midwest except cows and tractors! Well we have a lot of those too, but we also like to eat out a lot. The restaurants here are always very crowded. I remember back when I lived in California, we usually had to wait 15-20 minutes to get seated on a Friday or Saturday night. But here it is not unusual to wait 2-2 1/2 hours for a table...on a Tuesday! Maybe we just need more restaurants!

More pictures of the Tea Party

2008-07-11T18:09:00.000-07:00

Madyson loved the apple juice "tea"

That last candle was a doozy!

Her Royal Tea Party!

2008-07-11T17:58:00.000-07:00

My daughter Madyson Claire turned 4 the other day! She wanted to have a Princess Tea Party so we invited about 8 little girls and their Moms, (and even one Dad!) and they had such a great time! Madyson is my #3 daughter and she has to wait for the bigger girls to get all of the good stuff first! It was fun to see her feeling special and she really milked the birthday thing!