Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Every Christmas Eve we go to Davin's parents house and open gifts. The kids always get so much stuff. Alea got a new bike, helmet, clothes, and stuff for her American Girl dolls. E got a toy from Davin's sister's family and a stuffed animal and clothes from his parents. He isn't old enough to care about the paper or understand it all yet but he did like playing with the new toys.

The kids opened presents in age order so E got to open his present first each time. My nephew looked at me and said, 'this is the first time that my family hasn't had the youngest kid. Now your family has the youngest kid.' I said, 'I bet you didn't see that one coming, did you?' He looked at me and at the baby and said, 'NOPE!' I had to giggle at his reaction.

Santa spoiled Alea and E Christmas morning too. Alea got a sewing machine, clothes and some other fun crafty items. E got toys, stuffed animals, and clothes. 

After we opened gifts, E fell back to sleep. He slept pretty much all day. H has been having tummy issues today and pretty much just wants to sleep. I got to hold him and snuggle him a lot today. That was nice.

I made homemade spaghetti sauce a couple of days ago so today had homemade spaghetti, green beans, garlic bread, and salad. Yummy.

We had a couple of nice days. We have eaten pretty much none stop and just sat around like bumps on a pickle the rest of the time.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Train Ride

Last Saturday we went on a train ride on the Arkansas-Missouri railroad. The trip just went from Springdale to Fayetteville. We got to see Santa and Mrs. Clause. The ride was hosted by CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) so all of the people on the train were either foster children or foster families. It was a nice train ride. It was sad to see the group of about 9 year old boys and another group of teenage boys sitting together because they were obviously from a group home and didn't have a family to be there with. They all had fun but through my eyes it was sad. I have some cute photos from the train ride but I can't upload them on my iPad so I'll have to add them later.

What a difference a year makes

On our first snow day last week I was holding the baby and looking out at the snow with him. I was talking to him about his first snow and then we just enjoyed the view out the front window in silence. I looked at him and thought about how things have changed in one year. If someone had told me last December that this year I would have a baby or be a family of four I would have told them they were crazy. Now here I am snuggling to a baby (and typing with one finger) and am totally in love with this little guy. It made me think about how we got to this point and that took me to God. Even though foster care was in our long term plans I never saw it happening right now. God did. It is so amazing to be called and to see what your path looks like when you follow God's calling for your life. There is no way anyone who knows how I felt about having another child would question whether or not we were called to this journey.

And 5 makes 7

I just got the call that my district is out tomorrow. That makes 5 snow days and 7 days home with this storm. I haven't heard from Alea's district yet.

Day 6

We are on our sixth day at home. The roads are still terrible. They cancelled school today too. This is our fourth snow day (with a weekend in the middle). It is suppose to get to 36 degrees today so I think the thought is that some of this ice might melt and we will be back at it tomorrow. There has not been a single plow out on any road other than the main two or three in town. Last year was very rough without a single snow day so I am grateful for these days. It does seem strange that we still have a few weeks until Christmas though.

Milestones

Our little guy is rolling from his back to his belly and his belly to his back.
He tried rice cereal on Thanksgiving for the first time and loved it. I think he had had cereal or baby food before he came to us.
He loves the cereal so much and seemed to always want more that we started baby food on Saturday (we are snowed I so I figured we might as well try it out now while I had time). So far he has had squash. He makes funny faces but leans forward to get each bite if we don't move quickly enough for him.
E is pretty much ticklish everywhere. He smiles a lot and even belly laughs for us. He always smiles at Alea. He thinks she is pretty great.
He is able to bring toys to his mouth and chew on them now. Before be would just wave the toy around with his mouth open and hope that the toy would find his mouth. He is much happier now that he has that motor control.
He loves Mickey Mouse Club House...especially the Hot Dog song.

Blue Bear

At the first visit our little guy had with his mom after coming into care she sent him back to us with an adorable teal colored bear. E obviously loves this bear. We figured he either loved it so much because it came from her or because he had had it before he came into care. (When I visited with mom last week I asked her about the bear and she said it was his and that he had always had it.) We took it with us to our photo session that we had a week or two after E came to stay with us. We knew we would give mom some of the photos and thought that she would like to see her baby with the bear she gave him. The bear sits in the corner of his bed and we have only played with it a handful of times. It is a spot in his bed where he never really sees it since he just takes up such s small portion of the bed and doesn't roll around in bed. Last night however he was trying to put himself back to sleep after having only been asleep for a few minutes. Needless to say he wasn't happy about going back to sleep without help. I was watching him in the video monitor as he pitched a fit. He managed to scoot himself to the top of the bed. He was has rolling his head from side to side and throwing his arms around. All of a sudden it got quiet in the monitor so I looked at it again and he had his head turned hard to the side and was touching Blue Bear. He continued to contently rub Blue Bear's fur for about 20 minutes until he fell back to sleep. He was so peaceful and calm. I could tell he was really thinking while he rubbed the bear. It about broke my heart to see him rub that bear with a thoughtful look on his face.

A five day staycation

On Thursday school was cancelled due to freezing rain and snow. It rained first and then started snowing in the afternoon. I snowed most of the day on Friday. I don't think they have plowed much at all. They have cancelled school for tomorrow too since the roads are so awful. Since Alea is sick it is not all bad that we have another day off.

Sick

After Thanksgiving I got sick on Monday with a 24 hour bug. It was the sickest I had been in years. Davin got it too in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. Alea took a few days to get it but started with it last night. I think I had it the worst. Several people at Danica's for Thanksgiving ended up getting sick. I don't know what it is other than a 24 hour bug/flu.

I had bought my friend Becky tickets to a Christian Christmas concert.  We were suppose to go Monday night but had to skip it since I was so sick.

I am praying the baby doesn't get it too.