Happy Birthday!

He has a very special Birthday today...his very first! We are all missing him today, knowing it is his birthday, BUT, we are SO excited to be going to his Birthday party Saturday! We can't wait.

Check this out....

Please go check out what Mandy is doing. She is doing awesome things for these dogs! They now have a website http://searkdogadoption.weebly.com/ and it features dogs that are ready to be adopted. Please help these dogs out! There are many ways listed on the website that you can help out, and Mandy would be glad to talk to you about it. Please, spread the word to anyone you know, and help find these dogs homes!

sometimes it hits me.....

When we are at the dining table and we now have an empty seat and high chair. The kids will all be saying something, each voicing what they want, or repeating after one another....I miss the addition of one more voice. When we all pile in the car....there is room to spare. Now, that is not a bad thing...but I still notice. As I am fixing plates for everyone, I have to count again....now one is missing. As I wash the clothes, there are a lot less. And, I even miss the sweet little "good morning" that greated me oh so early in the mornings. I still find myself watching the clock somedays thinking it is time to go pick them up from daycare. When I click to this blog and look at my header....I just about cry everytime. They were my family. I am happy for the 4 children I have, and that is very much enough for me, but I still fill it.

I never had any plans or wishes to adopt them. I knew that wasn't in our future plans. I knew they wouldn't be here forever, but I still miss them.

I talked to "Ms. Jenny" their new mom today. She is planning Hunter a birthday party Saturday, and we are SO EXCITED to get to be going. The kids and I were talking at dinner tonight...Rachel has the countdown going until the day of his party. She said today she couldn't wait to see Amber. I was so glad to hear her say that. Jenny was telling me that Amber talks about us all the time, and she is just beside herself to get to help make Hunter's cupcakes. She was telling me that Hunter is a little wild man these days. He is crawling all over the house, talking up a storm, and even getting around in his walker. As I was telling the kids about that tonight, Noah about had tears in his eyes, and said he was sad that we missed seeing that. So then we talked about all the things we did see him do while he was here. They are doing well. I am so happy for that. Amber is pushing her buttons too...just as I knew she would, and even though Jenny has never had children, it sounds like she is handling it very well.

What do you set your thermostat on?

I am just curious. We used to always keep ours on 68 degrees. But now we TRY to put it on 65 (you know, to lower that outrageous energy/gas bill) , it may go up to 67 sometimes b/c I am always freezing. (this blubber on this body aint helping at all! LOL) I have a little space heater that I keep by my recliner, and I tell ya, lately, it has been hard to get up from that spot b/c I am so COLD!!! So, I was just curious if I am just being a wimp, or what everyone's normal house temperature is. And, I know it varies too...b/c when we lived in Warren, and our house was SO drafty and no insulation.....our heater never cut off, and it would take forever for it to reach the temperature it was set on. Just as horrible in the summer.

Feeling better

We have had a rough week with this little guy. He has been so sick! He is feeling better today, and his smile has returned! We are all glad to have our little playmate feeling better! Excuse the runny nose in this pic....he is so sick of me messing with his nose, I didn't want to mess up his mood to wipe it!

Can you believe he is almost 7 months old!?!?

Zachariah & Noah

Titaw's 90th Birthday

I haven't taken a chance to blog about this, but about 3 weekends ago, we traveled down to Monticello for Clay's grandpa's (aka Titaw to us) for his 90th birthday party. It was great! So many people were there, that room was FULL! He even had family fly in from California and all over for it. We love our Titaw, and were so proud to be there.

Baby Z was a popular little fellow. Everytime I looked around, someone new was holding him, and he was happy as could be.
Here Clay's mom is holding him

This is a pic of the great grandkids....We are missing 2...they had already left and I hate that b/c I was wanting a pic of all the great grandkids together. It had just been too wild with all the people there earlier.

Titaw with his 4 children

This is a photo of him as a young man. One of the grandkids had done a project of him back when he was in the war, and it was awesome! Noah is really into studying Wars in history right now, so he was so excited to get to look at this, b/c he has asked me several times about what it was like for him in the war.

I am just loving this family picture!! They are all so cute, and everyone's expressions on the kids cracks me up! Reminds me of some of our past photos! The blond headed girl is Clay's mom, and it reminds me a lot of some photos of Clay when he was little.

Z with another friend. He held him several times, it was so sweet!

I want to blog

I want to blog. I have started several blog posts in my mind, but I have so much to say, it is too tiring to think about blogging. Make sense? I haven't really taken any pictures the last couple of weeks either. Shocker!?! Very rare for me. Last week, I really didn't do much of anything productive. I think I just crashed. Have you ever had an emotional/physical crash all at once? That is how I felt after the kids left. I felt like the biggest, heaviest weight was actually lifted off my shoulders. A strong sense of relief, but also mixed with a lot of emotions of guilt, sadness, defeat, numbness, elation, peace, fear, and joy (with the 4 children here) all rolled into one. How weird all those emotions feel at once.
I did a lot of laying around on the couch and sleeping late last week. At first, I blamed a lot of that on PMS. Then I started thinking about it, and realized it was probably just a reaction to pure exhaustion. The week before, I made the decision to ask our case worker to find a new home for 2 of our children. A decision that I swore going into this I would never do. Something that goes against everything in me...yet I did it. I gave up on them.....or I gave up on myself. I don't really believe that, I know I did the best I could, but at times, I do feel that way. If I could have just been stronger, not as selfish, kept my emotions together better....I could have handled it all. I could have been all that the 7 people in our house needed me to be. I am really good at beating up on myself. It makes me feel so defeated. In a way I feel that I did let the devil defeat me....but there really was so much more that went into that decision. There may be a day that we can have 6 children and handle them just fine. It was my naiveness....thinking well, we have room in our home, sure we can take them. There really were a lot of signs though that should have made me say no to that call to take them, but they told me they were in the office waiting for someone to take them, and then the excitement took over, and we said yes. And we did it for 4 months. Those 4 months though were turning into much longer, I could see. I just knew, it wasn't fair to anyone in our home to keep going on half crazy/ just getting through the day for that long of time. Every week I thought, "this is a new week, things will go smoother, I will get my act together better, I will get a schedule". The truth is, with appointments every week, trying to homeschool whenever I had a chance, and someone in this house being sick constantly, there was no possible way to make a schedule. No possible way to ever catch up and get ahead on anything. I sure do love them though. I didn't cry last week b/c I was just glad for the extra load off my shoulders. This week though, I have cried, several times. I do miss them alot.
All that going along while my hubby has been looking for a job. That is such a responsibility for a man, and he was worrying so much over helping me out so much, plus the worry of a job, was so much stress on him. I can now look at pics of him, and see the stress on his face. Bless his heart, he stuck it out for me. I love him so much for that.
Another thing that made me crash last week was the fact that Clay has found a job. I knew that starting this week a lot of things would change, and that made me tired thinking about it. He will still be doing weddings, but he now has a full time job at Baptist Hospital as a Cardiovasular Technician. He is so excited about this, and I am so happy for him that he has found something he is so excited about it. It also makes me really sad. I know I have complained about life 24/7 with my hubby. It was an adjustment. He is my best friend though, and ever since we moved from Warren, away from family and friends, he has been my #1 person....my company all through the day, and I tell ya, this week has been an adjustment with him gone. I really miss him. He has been home with me full time for 2 1/2 years I believe. He became so much help for me during that time. He is the reason I have been able to do all that I do. He helps me SO much. He cooked almost all of our meals and cleaned the kitchen. Stepped in when the kids wouldn't mind me and put his foot down. Helped pick up the den, stayed home with the kids so I could run errands, did most of the grocery shopping....and a much better cook than me. I have really gotten spoiled lately! So....when I am not blogging, it is more than likely b/c I am adjusting to all the changes in our life right now. I am grieving for our 2 children that are gone, and I am grieving for my best friend that is no longer here keeping me company during the day. I am trying to find balance through my day. Homeschool, doc appts, daddy visits, sick baby, clean house, cook all the meals again, a baby that is ready to be held everytime I want to eat, wash dishes, teach school....(funny how it seems he has just started being this clingy now that I have more I need to do...when I know it is just now I am more consious of it since I am busier).

Hunter

This top photo is priceless to me. I am crying looking at it right now. Right before they left, he learned out to CRAWL! It was not the get up on your knees crawl, but it was a get wherever you want to go kind of crawl. Do you see him reaching out and touch my hands?? So many times he would sit in the floor and whine at me, and I would clap my hand and say "come to me" and he would just keep looking at me all pitiful. This day, the day before they let, I said, "come to me", and reached out my hands and he CRAWLED to me, and when he got to me, he reached his little hand out to me and touched it. Aww...I was about in tears when it happened b/c I was SO PROUD of him, and also so blessed to have gotten to see that before he left.

Daycare is hard on this little boy. He was moved up to the 1 yr old class not long ago, and he barely gets a nap all day. This day, at just 6:00, 30 mins after I picked him up, he was OUT! Bless his heart.

cold/snow

It snowed briefly yesterday. The kids were running through the house squealing...SO EXCITED! Unfortunately, it didn't last long. They got ready and ran out, but it was SO cold, they didn't last long at all. I didn't notice just how silly Rachel looked in this top photo until I looked at this photo. She was running around with her hat covering her eyes like this until I showed her how to fold the bottom up.

I have been enjoying this the last couple of days!

Nature Center

Yesterday we went to the new Nature Center in downtown Little Rock. It is right beside the Museum of Discovery, so afterwards we went over there too. This Nature Center is so cool, and it is FREE! Our kids loved it. It is right along the river, in a neat setting. We have been getting out of the house a lot this week. I have been missing our 2 kids that left, but it has also been nice to fit back in a vehicle together again, and to be able to be on the go easily. It is not good for us to stay cooped up in this house all the time! Baby Z is very good at outings, I have no complaints with that!

You would have thought it was freezing in there, Rachel insisted on leaving her hood on the whole time!

The kids were fascinated with all the different animal furs they had.

Leah kept telling Clay to take a picture of this Turkey!

This stroller was one of our best purchases for him

Here they are watching the 10 min film they have....notice the hood is still on!

I think this boy is teething....he chews on anything he can get his hands on these days! (don't look too closely, you can see how dry my hands are!)

At the museum of Discovery....Noah loves to work this puzzle of Arkansas everytime we go

Amber's going away party

The kids wanted to throw Amber a going away party, so we did a small one for her...the kids wrote her notes and colored pictures, and then I just got her a Hanna Montana cup and cupcakes. They were all so excited. And, the party was in our pajamas too!

Christmas Eve

I am behind on blogging all our Christmas...trying to catch up. We had "santa" come on Christmas Eve this year b/c my family was all coming the next day, and I wanted to have time to get everything cleaned up. Leah had the idea (I think from Jon and Kate +8) to put everyone's name on a piece of paper and make the piles there.

She was so excited to get a Build A Bear Zebra she had been wanting

Star Wars....of course!
Lots of baby doll stuff

He got the same Zebra as Leah

Hannah Montana bathrobe and P.J.'s she wore that robe ALL the time

Look at what just 4 presents each x 6 kids can do!

I was loving these soft blocks...I am going to have to get some more of these for Z

She got a Little Pet shop black light diary....you can only read the words with this special light

playing Battleship with Daddy