Friday, May 29, 2009

Pictures

Here are a couple pictures of our Liam yesterday...


In the car right after officially becoming a part of our forever family!!! :)

After, we went north to get pictures taken, do a little shopping, and spend the day together.

He was POOPED! :)
Tuesday, May 26, 2009

A Month

Wow! I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last blog post! Where has the time gone????

A "quick" catch up -

My parents arrived May 13 for Olivia's dance recital on the 16th and 17th. She danced ballet to "Simple Gifts" played by a wonderful cellist, and tap to "Joy to the World." Braeden went around singing "Jeremiah was a bullfrog..." forever! Relatives from my dad's side of the family drove almost 2 1/2 hours each way to come watch her performance on Sunday! It was a long weekend, but she did great!

This past weekend we drove 2 1/2 hours to their area to visit while my dad was still here. I was also able to meet up with a friend from high school whom I recently reconnected with through facebook, and her two kids. We had a great time, and the two hours we were able to spend at the park flew by! I hope we'll get to see each other again soon! :)

Monday we left our hotel (you have to love being able to do the fitness room while grandma stays in the room with the kids - what a treat!) and drove my dad to the airport where he headed back to FL. My mom is staying and doing the first part of our summer vacation with us.

The end of the school year is fast approaching so things there have been crazy busy - lots of cleaning out, reorganizing, long field trips, etc. We have the rest of this week, a teacher institute day on Monday, then one hour on Tuesday and we're done!

After school Tuesday my mom and I will take Olivia north for her next three month doctor appointment. Then on Thursday we head out.

We are first going to Atlanta. When Olivia received her Make a Wish last October, she was given a World Passport which enabled us to get in free for a year to amusement parks around the country. I had originally thought of hitting them all the way down to FL, but then decided to just do Atlanta since there were four or five just in that area. I rented us a house outside the city (with free internet) at a very reasonable rate! We'll be there June 4-11. We can go to Six Flags, Six Flags White Water, the Aquarium, the Georgia Zoo, and a Wild Animal Park all free. I also want to take them to the Martin Luther King Center I think.

After Atlanta, we'll head to FL until around July 7. That's the great thing about not being married and being a teacher, no schedule to worry about. Plus, with none of my kids being foster kids anymore I don't have to have travel papers with specific dates and destinations (of course, I'm anal enough that I do need a plan, but still, I can do whatever and not let someone know!). :)

I'm hoping to get back into our craft mode once on summer vacation again, I miss that from last summer. I also bought Olivia an iPod shuffle so that hopefully we can start running together. I have to take advantage of the time with my parents, because once we're back home I can't just go running without the kids. :) I printed off a training program called From Couch to 5K in two months and someone made podcasts to go along with them and time out your intervals while you listen on the ipod. I can't wait to try them! I am HOPING to run a 5K in August - we'll see!!! :)

Weight wise, I am now down 41.6 lbs as of last night.! :) I am hoping for about 32 more and then want to see where my body is at that time. I don't want to just go by a specific weight as I think people are very different with bone structure, muscle, etc, so at that point we'll see... :) And while I KNOW this is NOT something to complain about, and it HAS been lots of fun, it's getting quite expensive to keep replacing clothes! I have NOTHING from pre healthy lifestyle that will fit. I have had to completely redo my whole wardrobe. I admit I'm becoming quite a shopper, but it's so not cheap. I can't just run north to the good thrift stores with work and the boys. Olivia would be fine, but the other two, good luck. :)

That's life in a nutshell. No calls for kids. No drastic changes. Pretty steady living. :)

OH - and Liam's adoption day is only TWO DAYS away!!!! :)
Saturday, May 02, 2009

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood...

What great weather we FINALLY have! Too bad I have lovely cramps today and can't enjoy it as much as I'd like. :( Oh well! We had a picnic lunch out on the front lawn (yea, they think I'm the coolest mom ever! OH what a simple picnic lunch can do!). After lunch there were a bunch of kids playing in the neighborhood and Braeden being the social butterfly that he's becoming stayed out to play basketball in our drive. He ended up attracting a neighborhood boy and two boys visiting their grandparents next door. They played ball, played sword fights, and just played. I finally had to call him in for "quiet/rest time." And he listens so well and came right in. He and Olivia are playing quietly in the basement while Liam naps. He was so funny. Crying and saying he didn't want a nap and then didn't hear a peep from him within about 3 minutes! :) I'm catching up on laundry and doing some more work on organization in the laundry/storage area, what joy! The next few weeks are going to be crazy so we are in for a quiet relaxing weekend...

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About Me

I am a single mom to four amazing kids; each of whom just happen to have been adopted. The first three were adopted through foster care, and we just completed an international adoption from Haiti. Our family has grown through adoption and I am all the more blessed to know each of my children. I worship a mighty God, teach Special Ed, love bargains, and am inspired by Pinterest... come along with us for the ride!


Olivia - 14

Olivia - 14

Braeden - 11

Braeden - 11

Liam - 9

Liam - 9

Macy - 5

Macy - 5

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What you should know about HIV

-HIV can NOT be spread through casual/household contact. HIV is not spread through hugging, kissing, shaking hands, sharing toys, sneezing, coughing, sharing food, sharing drinks, bathing, swimming or any other casual way. It has been proven that HIV and AIDS can only be spread through sexual contact, birth, breastfeeding and blood to blood contact (such as sharing needles). - HIV is now considered a chronic but manageable disease. With treatment, people who are HIV+ can live indefinitely without developing AIDS and can live long and full lives. - People who are HIV+ deserve to be treated with love, respect, support and acceptance as all people do. Additional information on transmission of HIV can be found on the Center for Disease Control website: http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources

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Orphan Crisis

• 147 million orphans in the world
• 50 million orphans in Africa 
• Every 14 seconds a child is orphaned by AIDS
• 16,000,000 have been orphaned by AIDS
• Every week, AIDS claims as many lives as American fatalities in the Vietnam War
• 854 million people do not have enough to eat
• Malnutrition is associated with the deaths of 5 million children under the age of five
• Every 2 seconds an orphan dies from malnutrition


Hence the title of my blog

Little Did I Know

Little did I know that the road would be so rocky
Little did I know that the trip would take so long
Little did I know that my heart could hurt so much
Little did I know that God is never wrong

Little did I know that love could be so powerful
Little did I know that a dream so far could go
Little did I know that God would place the right ones
Little did I know that my heart, so large, could grow

Little did I know that a dream has it’s own timing
Little did I know that this day would finally come
Little did I know that four souls would be sent to guide me
Little did I know that they would choose to call me mom

But God knew all along and He had a plan to follow
God knew all along that my dream would soon come true
God knew all along that we five should be together
God knew all along that I’d share it all with you