7 Quick Takes (vol. 34)

#1 - I am coming to the end of a much needed week of rest combined with successful completion of various jobs. We worked for four weeks prior to this week, so essentially most of March, and it was a very busy time. Being off my feet and focusing entirely on my home and family has been much needed.

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#2 - One of the busy parts of the last month was preparing the cottage for a state inspection. We scrubbed and cleaned and examined parts of the cottage that have not been cleaned since I don't know when. True Spring cleaning. I am pleased to report that the inspector came on Tuesday and we passed very well. Such a relief. I feel one of the hard parts of Houseparenting for me is how much our actions, from house keeping to parenting, are always under inspection. It is nice to have praise and not being put down. It's far too easy for others to second-guess our actions, not having a full view of the day to day workings of this compilation of personalities and needs.

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#3 - In anticipating this week, Blueberry was making all sorts of plans. These included going to the bookstore to buy a new Clifford book, going out with Daddy on a date, buying a live animal, playing in the gym, etc. While the live animal has not happened, it was our pleasure to fulfill many of these wishes for her. After all, we refer to these weeks as our "fun weeks" and I am pleased that she embraces that idea. So often, depending on the season, her specific desires may or may not be fulfilled while we are working, so for her to know that she has these weeks to count on, is important. Tricky balance between not spoiling and providing fulfillment, but I think we are finding our way through that treacherous path pretty well.

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#4 - As I type this, I'm also watching Pride and Prejudice. It's been quite awhile since I've sat and watched this film through, and I am happy that it still is as satisfying to watch as ever. There is such grace and decorum in the expectations of that day. I sometimes wish I could pull more of those things into our lives today, as opposed to the flagrant disregard for boundaries and moral behavior so often seen today. Mind you, I type that and then look at the dresses they wear. Ankles be covered but bosoms fly free. I guess it's all really relative.

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#5 - I'm enjoying an evening of quiet solitude. Blueberry and Z are both asleep in bed and Chris is off at a hockey game with the boy's cottage. Such evenings are rarely come by for me, and I'm treasuring the solitude.

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#6 - I am counting down days until my parents arrive. 24 to be precise. They will truly fly by as 3 of them are our last days off this week, followed by three weeks of work. One of these weeks is a campus, week-long trip to Myrtle Beach. Am so looking forward to seeing the ocean, I can barely begin to explain it.

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#7 - One of the major projects I had to get done this week was to complete our taxes. Miserable business as always, but more so than usual as I have three separate states taxes to complete! So glad that's over with. And our refund should help pay off our new roof on our house in Springfield. Praise the Lord for that blessing!

Week One on the New Job

Monday was our first day official day on the job. We are now one week in. No kids, but lots of work has been done.

To begin with, we've had the usual training items (which for a houseparenting position encompasses a little bit of everything from menus, school schedules, using epi pens, picking up groceries and household supplies, appropriately recording medications, and documenting the lives of the children).

While trying to wrap our minds around the specific idiosyncrasies of the function of this particular campus (I've been watching a lot of Big Bang Theory lately--I think it's affecting my large word usage), we've also been pouring hours into cleaning up our cottage.

At this point, our apartment is looking quite nice. Not perfect, but comfortable and cozy. What I'm referring to is the rest of the cottage, where the children live and we spend the rest of our days while working. This used to be a boys cottage, and has been empty for the last half a year or so. The design of the cottage is great, but Harley Davidson helped finance the redecoration of it a number of years ago. And therefore, the decor is....Harley Davidson. Well, "was" Harley Davidson. After a week of hard work, it's much more girly and less motorcycley. Additionally, we had to get the Christmas decorations up as well.

One of the best experiences of this week was having nearly all the houseparents on campus come over one day and help clean the cottage from top to bottom, decorate, move furniture around, etc. Without this help, we would still be scrubbing the toilets at this point. It was such a blessing.

On top of all this, Baby Q decided to develop a nice case of croup, requiring me to hunt down the Urgent Care in town, fight with our old insurance, and have several very worried nights.

Additionally, we bought tickets to fly to Texas for our week off in December, so we can spend some time with some beloved family. Haven't told Blueberry yet that she's going to get to see the Cousins again, but as they've been a frequent topic of conversation since we saw them this summer, I imagine she'll be pretty pleased.

Oh yeah, and it was Thanksgiving this week. I nearly forgot that part. Bit of an unconventional Thanksgiving for us this year, but pleasant nonetheless.

One day of rest and Monday we get the first of our new childrens. Yay!

Catching Up from Summer

I am sitting on my couch, watching Kingdom (thanks Hillery!), and luxuriating in the bliss of not having an appointment to get taken care of. Oh yes, my "to do" list is still about a mile long, but I'm ignoring it. The deadline appointments are done with for at least a few days, and I'm trying to decompress instead. That and get my brain out of a gluten fog.

Let's start with that.

We're on our second off day after working 15 days in a row. I really am not a huge fan of double shifts. We've done them a few times, and I know some people who don't mind them, but I'm afraid I'm just not one of them. I think it's my introverted nature that starts screaming out to be left alone for awhile, and during the summer--particularly a summer with a baby--it is 24/7, or in this case, 24/15. During the school year it's not so rough because we get some down time during the week day (normally).

This particular double shift was even more intense than normal due to a combination of factors:

1. We have another new girl in the cottage. I've decided to call her Kanga--she's had some physical issues and is currently on crutches (and might be for quite awhile)--thus the nickname. 10 years old, she is fun and, so far, pretty easy to get along with. We'll see how it goes after the honeymoon period  wears off. Settling in new residents always takes a substantial amount of work just in balancing out all the rest of the residents in the cottage as they shift and shuffle in their social network, trying to settle themselves into new places.

2. Another factor in the shuffling of social layouts was that our Labrador moved to another house two days before Kanga moved in. Labrador was quite a strong factor in the house, to put it mildly. The removing of her influence has had a large impact on all the girls and even on us.

3. Clothes shopping. School started on day 14 of our shift, and as the girls were blessed with some money for shopping, and the consignment sale was in town, I had the fun responsibility of taking them shopping. This means shopping (on my own, thankfully) for a 6 month old, a two year old, a three year old (who I have decided to break with tradition and nickname Sweetie for this blog because that is, apparently, what Blueberry has settled on calling her), and a five year (nickname determined to be Gopher--have you seen the Youtube video?). All this followed by shopping with a ten year old in a wheelchair/crutches, two eleven year olds, and a 12 year old! I went one night and an additional morning to the consignment sale. Then I went out all day with two of the older girls. Followed the second day by two more girls. Followed by a third day with one more of the girls. And I'm still not fully done! I like clothes shopping in moderation, but enough is enough.

4. Blueberry's birthday--my little girl turned 3! And, oh my goodness, was she excited to have a birthday party. Of course, I had to shake my head in amusement as my little introvert burst into tears upon playing a party game; she did enjoy just watching though. We went with My Little Pony theme as she loves them and, frankly, it made for fun party planning. More details to come at Blueberry Bits.

Birthday Cake pancakes on the morning of her birthday. Party wasn't until the day after. I love this picture just because of how Baby Q is determined to get into it in the background!

I finally did my rainbow cake I've been wanting to do. Was so pleased with how it turned out!

Rainbow cake view 2.

Twilight Sparkle and Pinky Pie and Doggie making friends.

4. This was immediately followed by Chris' birthday--for which a gluten free Boston Cream Pie had to be made (and of course consumed) and a good game of Ticket of Ride.

5. Our chef, who is normally the hero of the summer, producing at least an evening meal for us, more frequently an evening and lunch meal (at least during the weekday), has had an awful few weeks of it himself--resulting in us doing all the cooking. For every meal. While trying to do all of the above. And this shall continue until we know not when.

6.  Add into this a bout of Baby Q producing two more teeth (makes four now!), then getting sick with a fever and wanting to be held 24 hours a day, including only sleeping on top of me for multiple nights in a row, and my dumb mistake of eating an entire bowl of gluten filled spaghetti sauce (thought it was chili--how I managed to confuse them can be chalked up to sleep deprivation, a sleepy baby eating through my shirt to get to milk NOW, low blood sugar, and eight children all talking/crying at once).

For the record, I definitely still do not do well with gluten. I made the mistake Saturday and now I am still feeling it. Barely made it through the last few days of our shift and, five days later, I'm still dealing with tender joints; although, the extreme exhaustion, headaches, and painful skin, stomach ache, etc have at last subsided.

7. And did I mention I threw a baby shower today for a friend? Yeah...planned all that in the midst of the above. Sigh. I fully admit that a few things did not come to fruition as planned simply on just not having enough time. Or energy. Or hours in the day. Or hands.

Capris. Because I love them dearly.

Mustache theme. These were a hit--at least according to my husband! Love Pesto.

Baby shower cake--in a baby food jar!

Thus back to the "get my brain out of a gluten fog" luxuriating in watching Kingdom part of this story. Which only took me 8 hours to write because, hey, this is my life.

Saturday, May 7, 2013

Outside my window...is glorious sunshine. All over town yellow, pink, purple, and red flowers are blooming. Trees in seemingly every shade of green are gracing the sides of the road, distracting one from the purpose of driving! Its beautiful spring!

I am thinking...about how much I want to go disc golfing now--even though I know I'm going to be awful because its been so long since I played. We went out exploring yesterday, and discovered a new park area that has a fun tree house, assorted trails, a rock climbing rock, and a fabulous disc golf course that will push both my walking and my throwing skills to the limit! Very excited.

I am thankful for...friendship. Due to the nature of our job, I find myself often feeling like I live in a very small bubble. Being able to call on friends far away as well as developing new friendships here is life saving sometimes.

From the learning rooms...[or in our case--the learning brain]...Baby Q has discovered his hands and is finding that he can move things (like Daddy's thumb) into his mouth with his own hands. Little Miss Blueberry just continues to grow in words and ideas and play at a rapid and sometimes overwhelming pace. A few days ago it was a big discussion about going to Little Rock--or as she was calling it, Big Rock. Every rock along the way was "Look! It's big rock!" Full sentences, complete with subjects and verbs and the occasional preposition are flowing out of her mouth. And, oh my, there is much to discuss and share and talk about. All day long. From the minute she gets up until the minute she goes to bed. 

From the kitchen...comes GF chocolate chip cookies--which I haven't made in FOREVER. So tasty.

I am wearing...a brown skirt and a green, short-sleeve nursing top.

I am creating...castles in the air. We did some number crunching a few days ago, calculating our debt and how quickly we're getting it all paid off. We're on track to get the next part paid in full by August and after that we're getting down to the end (relatively speaking). Very exciting. I cannot wait to owe no penny to no man or company or government.

I am going...to go try out a cupcake place this afternoon that supposedly makes some gluten free cupcakes! Fingers crossed that (a) this rumor is true and (b) the cupcakes taste good. Not that I need gluten free cupcakes, but it would make me happy nonetheless.

In my mailbox recently.. .came several new nursing tops (I was getting desperate for some new ones). My favorite is this one:

 

I am reading.. .The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy again. Its been many years since I've read these books, primarily because the LOR movies irritated me so much with their destruction of several of my favorite parts and characters. However, we recently watched part I of the Hobbit that came out. I was pretty pleased with it, and inspired to read that book again. Of course, I can't just stop with The Hobbit, so here I am deep in the lore of the elves and hobbits and the green valleys of Rivendell. 

I am hoping...to return some phone calls today! We'll see how that turns out :)

I am hearing...Baby Q beginning to squeak as he wakes up from his nap. Blueberry is running back and forth between the couch and fridge with cries of, "Look at me! Look at me!" I run fast!" Which makes the process of typing this take forever as I'm stopping and starting regularly.

Around the house...is a large pile of laundry that I've been struggling to get put away. Well, admittedly, not really struggling. More like avoiding. I really do need to get it taken care of though, preferably today as I despise going back to work with my house messy.

One of my favorite things...is being asked for cuddles from my 2 and a half year old. She randomly came up to me today holding doggy, blanket, and asks in a very quiet, almost sad voice, "I need cuddle." So we cuddled and read some stories and life was sweet.

A few plans for the rest of the week: Well, we are back "on duty" starting tonight. Got a bunch of meetings and appointments to run the next few days. This weekend I hope to go out to a park or something with our girls. Apparently we're going to be down to just three, so that will be fun for some quality time with them.

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Waiting and Living

Well, between the nesting, the nausea, the bursts of energy followed by tiredness, all bundled up together with the bouts of contractions that seem like they're about to go somewhere and then just stop...I've decided Baby Q is a tease.

Its funny. With Blueberry, I was not actually ready for her to come when I went into labor. With Baby Q I'm pretty much begging him to come on out! A large part of that really has been this never ending stream of contractions; long enough and heavy enough to get my hopes up, and then dying off into nothingness. Again. And again. And again. For several weeks now. Bah!

We go off duty again tonight. Its been a month of crazy shifts with lots of comings and goings. Our little Butterfly is being prepped to return to her mom--successfully this time, i hope. And Wednesday night we found out that our Squirrel is being reunited with some family as well...Today! Nothing like a bit of last minute packing up of a child to keep you busy in an already busy week.

As I write this, Squirrel and Blueberry are holding Doggie a funeral. They've built him a bier and are now crashing on the piano, playing him a song. He apparently died from losing all of his teeth. Sigh. Blueberry is going to be missing both these little girls quite a bit. Admittedly, I will too. Mind you, the lower numbers in the cottage, however temporary, will be a blessing during this transition period.

I finally got my sign off from the nurse practitioner at the health clinic in town--a sign off needed saying I'm still a good candidate for home birth. Not my favorite lady in the world. I about laughed in her face when I went in to see her the other day and she inquired about swelling of my ankles while closely observing my then very swollen ankles. I admit to a little bit of snarkiness when I told her that I've had minimum swelling this whole pregnancy, but having sat for THREE HOURS in the waiting room for the appointment, yes, my ankles had swollen! I just love government health care.

I think my biggest issue has been the carpal tunnel syndrome I've had in my wrists this pregnancy. Driving me crazy! I had some with Blueberry but its been much worse this time. Which is odd as the amount of time I'm on the computer now is far less than it was when I was pregnant with Blueberry.

Anyhoo...that's the general update. Soon and very soon....this little man has to come out!

Thanksgiving, Zoos, and Other Randomness

Two of our girls were home all day today and yesterday with sickness: one with the flu and the other with pneumonia of all things. I swear we've gone through more boxes of tissues and bottles of cough medicine in the last few weeks than I would have thought possible. Amazingly enough (say a prayer, knock on wood), other than a slight stuffiness and a few tired days, I've been the one person in the house to not wind up with a cough, major cold, strep, or anything else nasty that's been making its way through the cottage the last few weeks.

In that vein, Thanksgiving week wound up being a bit unexpected for us. We were planning to have three or four of our girls here with us (the rest were with family and/or visits with host families), but they wound up closing our cottage down for a few days and putting our girls in another cottage (less holiday pay the company has to worry about...). As it was, we wound up with Butterfly staying with us in the evenings (for stability purposes for her) but no girls otherwise! We did have two of the girls who were left over to play games on Thanksgiving day itself, but otherwise it was just the 3.5 of us.

It was nice as it actually gave us some extra days off to recover (and decorate for Christmas!). Our Thanksgiving meal we actually shared with a bunch of other people on campus who were here (other houseparents, residents, some relatives, etc), which gave us a sort of family feel. With the new director and some new staff on campus, I'm finding more and more the feeling of family being established here on campus--something I'm very grateful for.

Saturday we took Mama Bear with us to Little Rock and went to the zoo. That was a blast. We hadn't been in quite awhile, and Blueberry has grown up so much since the last time we went. She had a grand time with all the animals and has talked about it daily since then (the scary, loud monkeys; the tiger go "rawr"; "I saw cheetah/lizard/snake/turtle/fishie"; and of course "Giraffe poopies.").

 Scary Crazy Monkey

 My Russian Princess

 The notorious Giraffe

Her first "train" ride. Also went on a carousel for the first time!

She also enjoyed decorating for Christmas that night (busy day for her!) and took great pleasure in showing Butterfly all the decorations (and showing her how too look with her eyes and not with her hands...those two crack me up).

In other Blueberry news, she informed me last night that she wanted to sleep on the futon that is in her room and until now has been working as a temporary training bed for her. While she slept in "beds" on the floor in England and quite enjoyed it, when we got back here, she was clear about wanting to mostly still sleep in her crib. Since we have the futon (and have stuck a swimming noodle down the open side of it to prevent her from rolling out--great idea, thank you Pinterest!), we would offer her the choice of crib or bed, but she generally stuck with her crib as her choice. Last night was the first time she wanted the futon at night. She slept all night on it and then at nap time today she asked for it again. I think my baby just transitioned herself to a "big girl bed!"

We are now debating the merits of selling the futon and buying a toddler bed for the room. At some point we're going to need the crib again as a crib (it can actually be converted into a toddler bed), but the question is do we go ahead and do it now and keep the crib as a crib or do we wait a few months and deal with it as time requires. Ah the questions that come with having a baby!

 Baby Q continues to do well and is very lively. Freaked some of the girls out the other night as we were watching a movie and all of the sudden one of them realized she could actually see my stomach moving on its own. Highly entertaining.

Slowly all the pieces come together in preparation for his arrival. The biggest question for awhile was where were we even going to have him! I've been planning for a home birth from the beginning with him, but as we live on company property, we figured we needed to run it by the director for his okay. Well, he's okay with it conceptually, but the lawyer is not okay with it in terms of insurance companies and other craziness. So the long and short of it was that I suddenly found myself planning for a home birth but not being able to give birth at home!  In an overly dramatic, pregnant, hormonal moment I told Chris that I'd just go across the street to the gas station and give birth there....

Well my midwife actually came to the rescue... She works with two other midwives (there's always at least two of them at each birth) and the longest-practicing of the three happens to be the owner of two fully-furnished houses (she got married just a few years ago to a man who owned his own house--they're both in their early 60s, and I guess they just kind of switch between houses every week). So she is going to let us "borrow" one of her houses to give birth in...and it only happens to be about a 5-10 minute drive down the road. And being a midwife she's really excited about the prospect as she's never actually had a baby born in her own house before! Phew.

Outside my window...the sun is brilliantly shining. Looks like a lovely day out there. Just perfect for some housework :)

I am thinking...that we go off duty tomorrow and what all I need to get done before we do so.


I am thankful for...little voices and big girls voices in my life. And for days off where I get to spend time with just one little voice.


     The dynamics of the cottage with little Butterfly are quite interesting. Normally our apartments are  off limits to the big girls (with occasional exceptions, but those are specifically designated by us). However, Butterfly--at the age of two--doesn't fall under those rules (our choice). She and Blueberry play so much together, and she is with me so much that it would be impossible to keep the separation there. It's good for Blueberry as she's learning how to play and share with someone else--even if she might disagree with that statement. Although the delighted way she and Butterfly greeted each other this morning was encouraging to hear. While we do "pass down" Butterfly to the relief house parents when we go off duty, it's always a little weird just because of how much 1 on 1 interaction I do normally have with her. She finally does seem to be making true bonds with both Christopher and I which is nice, but is definitely going to be hard if the day comes for her to leave. Although that is true of most of our girls.


From the learning rooms...[or in our case--the learning brain]...words continue to explode. It's almost impossible to keep up now. Lots of two word sentences: "I want" "Lale pancakes". But mostly still one word statements--just a lot of them. Her fear of flies is rather hysterical if somewhat frustrating. She woke up from a dead sleep yesterday afternoon because a fly was buzzing around and I had to go rescue her to frantic wails of "Fly! Fly! Fly!" We've tried to make bugs in general a nonchalant or interesting thing, and it's worked with some things, but she is definitely my daughter with a deep-seated, instinctual fear of spiders or pieces of lint that might be spiders (or flies). Fly's I don't fear, they just annoy me.

From the kitchen...comes Saturday morning pancakes. Since the big girls are all still asleep, I went ahead and made GF version for Blueberry, Butterfly, and myself. I'll work on round two of breakfast in a little while.

I am wearing...pjs as of yet. Need to go get dressed but enjoying a few minutes of quiet expression. Skirt and top most likely.

I am creating...ideas for gardens. The cottage as a whole needs some serious gardening work/look--it's just not very pretty on the outside. And our little backyard area definitely needs something. Thoughts are wandering through my brain, now to put them into action.


I am going...to be working very hard today! Saturday's always are hard days around here. Not bad, just so busy for us--even if we have a lazier day for the cottage as a whole. I always crash hard at night.

In my mailbox this week.. .not a whole lot. Been rather a pathetic week for mail. However, I did get an email from my dad saying he ordered Blueberry a book about the Lake District which should be coming soon--so I'll just look forward to that instead!


I am reading.. .The Secret Holocaust Diaries which are the diaries of Nonna Lisowskaja Bannister--a Russian woman who lived through the Holocaust. It's interesting because she is NOT Jewish but rather was conscripted into the work camps of Germany as a Russian child. The perspective and stories are at times just as brutal but at other times show a life of joy and a glimpse at the pre-war world of Russia that is absolutely fascinating.

I am hoping...to get a makeup trip to Austin scheduled soon. Have a phone call to make and arrangements to work out with our reliefs.


I am hearing...two little forks banging on the table as Blueberry and Butterfly eat their breakfast and make fine music. Other than that, the house is quiet. The big girls had a "sleep over" in the living room last night--birthday party celebration--and are all still sacked out on the floor. Peace.... 


OK, since I wrote the above, the two littles have now gotten up and are playing baby doll and tossing balls at each other. Not quite so peaceful any more, but happy. So that works for me.


Around the house...I need to tidy up and do some dishes. Also have a sack of clothes for Blueberry from the consignment sale I went to this week. Got some really cute items including a new bathing suit (complete with adorable coverup) and a raincoat that I'm praying she will fit into by our England trip in the fall. Any ways....digression of coats aside, i need to go through all the items, unsafety pin them all, and wash and store/hang up. In the cottage we have a busy day lined up as the girls are doing a grand clean-up/move rooms partially because they want to and partially because we're getting child number 9 on Wednesday of next week!


One of my favorite things...spending time with best friends on vacations! Last weekend we had a little get away to Eureka Springs with one of my best friends, her husband (also a good friend!) and their baby. Delightful. Lots of walking, game playing, cooking, sharing, and hot tubing.


A few plans for the rest of the week: get through today so I can go off duty tomorrow? :)

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What do I do?

My little family has grown again. In the last two days we have added a two year old (Butterfly) and a 13 year old (nickname as yet undetermined). We are now at 8 children--including our Blueberry. Two toddlers and six pre-teen/early teen girls. While I think these two new ones will settle in fine, the initial transition is always exhausting. And add into the craziness that all the girls have been home this week due to Spring Break at Blueberry has caught either croup or just a nasty, nasty cold, and I find myself sitting here in the mostly dark at 10:06 with sore, aching feet, watery eyes (evil pollen-induced allergies), blissfully enjoying the first few minutes of real quiet I feel like I've had in days.

Someone recently asked me what it is Chris and I do (as in jobs). Answering this question feels so complex sometimes.

The short answer is that we are paid to be parents to foster/orphan/at-risk kids who are needing a stable, secure, home.

But that's the short answer.

What is it we do? We get up in the morning and get little (and bigger) girls ready for school/day care/church/days at home. We cook. We clean. We give medications. We monitor chores. We harass girls into cleaning their rooms. We go on outings. We tutor. We bandage cut fingers and wounded hearts. We do laundry. We shop. We document interactions with children. We drive them to school/doctor's appointments/church/parks/outings... We play. We hold weeping children struggling to understand why their lives are so difficult. We discipline. We redirect. We record what we feed these children. We advocate. We answer hundreds of questions every day. We teach them to be independent. We teach them what security and interdependence of a family looks like. We get insulted and loved on. We get yelled at and sought after. We read stories. We do devotions. We pray. We lecture. We cuddle. We go on walks. We are mom and dad.

And in all of that we have to find the time to clean our own house, love on our child, pay bills, do laundry, maintain friendships, maintain our relationship, and do all the normal things that comprise a normal working families life.

There are days I look at this "job" and am amazed that I am being paid to do this. And then there are days when I look at this "job" and count off how I've earned every penny.

So what is that I do? I'm a parent. And I defy anyone to name a more challenging, exhausting, exhilarating, heart-wrenching, joy-bringing job in the world.

Quick Takes (vol. 26)

#1 - The last month has been crazy. Non stop sick, non stop shifting of people, and non stop irritants. This past week is the first week in awhile where I have felt positive about a lot of things in life. Not to say that life is all gloom and doom, but when your head hurts, you can barely swallow, you've got frustrating situations and people cropping up every day, it becomes really easy to be pessimistic.

While most of the pessimism-causing factors cannot be discussed here, I can share one particular aspect of it all. Monkey and Parrot are no longer with us but have been moved to a different situation. 34 days to pour into a child's life--I pray it was enough. Watching them leave was hard. Yes, life is simpler without three kids under the age of 5 running around in addition to 4 kids over the age of 5, but when you spend 24 hours a day loving, disciplining, nurturing, and caring for a child--you tend to get attached pretty quickly.

For the last few weeks we have, therefore, been back down to 5 girls (counting Blueberry). However, yesterday, we added a sixth child to our little family. Our newest addition is older--in fact only a few months younger than Mama Bear who is the oldest of all the girls. Haven't come up with a nickname for her yet--still feeling that one out. She will definitely provide a unique challenge--that much is for sure!

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#2 - Trips are coming together. We are formulating specific plans for a trip to England in the fall (yay!) where we will meet up with my parents as well as spend time with my British half. We have a potential trip in April to hang out with some friends in Eureka Springs (if we can pull that one together). And we are trying to figure out a good time for a trip down to Texas in the very near future. People we want to see, need to see, and simply must find a way to make it happen.

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#3 - In Blueberry news. Oh where to begin?! Well, for starters, I have to proudly announce that my clever little girl went potty in her little toilet today. Who knew I would care so much about that! But I do. We bought her a training potty last week as she has begun to show some signs that got us thinking she might be at a good point for starting potty training. For the last few days she's just sat on it, diaper on (generally when I've been going to the bathroom because she will not be stopped from coming with me). She showed her true genes by her immediately bringing a book in with her to read. And then today, I stuck her on it (sans diaper), and she went! And I was so pleased. So we'll see how it goes in the long run. But either way, that was happy.

And then a few hours later she introduced her baby doll to going potty. Of course baby doll wouldn't sit on the seat very well, so her legs wound up sticking through the hole in the seat, but Blueberry was determined to see her through the process.

She also continues on with her love of cleaning. There is an empty spray bottle in one of kitchen cupboards, and she will frequently get it out along with one of my kitchen towels and clean off the front of the fridge and the stove (one of the chores the older girls does in the cottage). Blue also loves to dust and will walk to the laundry room door, look up to where the duster is hung, and demand "dust! dust!" persistently until you hand her the duster and let her walk around dusting everything. Sometimes I think she does just as good a job as the girl whose actual chore it is.

In truth, she wants to do whatever we or the big girls are doing. When it is homework time, she will stand up on a chair at our huge dining room table and color away for quite awhile while they work on their homework. When it is time for chores, unless I've taken her away to get ready for bed, she is generally underfoot, wanting to help everyone. She mommy's her dolls, and as the cottage was recently given a toy kitchen, has been enjoying "cooking" food daily.

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#4 - Other Blueberry news--her word explosion continues. She is beginning to piece together sentence (albeit, sometimes half-spoken, half-signed sentences they are!). "Baby walk" (when pushing her baby doll in a stroller). "Lala 'nack", followed by frantic signing for "please". Her attempts at her name have come out as Lala and 'nack (snack) is one of her favorite words currently. Although "oof" (food) is also being used more frequently. Apparently she is slightly dyslexic with this whole backward food thing "oof" for food and "oosh" for shoes. She also loves "walk" (as she very much wants to go on frequent walks), "Bible" and "Book" are rather interchangeable. And in general she is just mimicking sounds of words constantly--unless it's a word that she apparently doesn't care to learn or be bothered with because then she just says garbled syllables of her own devise and expects you to be satisfied with that.

She will have whole conversations (or read entire books) of which we have no idea what she is actually saying, but she is quite a conversationalist when she wants to be. Of course when she sees anyone she doesn't know well, she'll freeze us, stare at them, not say word, and its hard to even coax a smile out of her. One of the women who works in the administrative office is currently attempting to bribe her favor with suckers. It appears to be working--slowly.

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#5 - I was pleased to get our taxes done yesterday (not pleased about the whole "taxes must be paid" thing; however, that's a totally different conversation) and get a refund check on its way to us. I was even more pleased to look at our budget and with a charming 20% discount being offered by the hospital, we realized that we can take care of yet another of our large bills this month. That's the second one we'll have paid off in the last six months. And then by the next six months we should get the third "smaller" one done. $15,000 in one year! If we continue to save and budget (which we plan on doing--after all, we're used to living under a tight budget and even with a little more wiggle room built in, we're trying to continue that careful living method), we foresee getting all my student loans and all Chris' student loans squared away in the few years which would leave us with the house to pay off--which could actually happen in a decent amount of time! All in all, a very encouraging status to be looking at. Both Chris and I have a dream--to be out of debt completely. And we want to do so as fast as we can. God willing, it's going to happen soon(ish).

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#6 - A few weeks ago we took a trip to Little Rock for the first time since we've moved here. Went to the local Whole Foods (yay for living near to one!) and even more exciting--went to the local Gluten Free (and soy free and a lot of dairy free) bakery! Yummy. Their bread is some of the best gluten free bread I have ever had. Totally indulged in a number of tasty treats--worth every delicious morsel. Fortunately they are an hour away, so it's not something we'll be indulging in that often. But I do foresee regular trips to the Dempsey Bakery when we are in Little Rock. Oh, and they serve lunch--so that's an added excuse :)

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#7 - And just because--two of my favorite pictures from Valentine's Day.

Daybook January 21

Outside my window...it is dark and cold. I can't really complain though as we've had really not that many truly cold days here at all, and even though I still groan on the days I wake up and it's 40 or less outside and not getting any warmer, those days are much farther apart.

I am thinking...of a dear friend and how much I miss her and wish I could be with her right now.

I am thankful for...doors that I can close.

From the learning rooms...[or in our case--the learning brain]...words continue to explode. Even words that we don't even know when she learned them all of the sudden just produce themselves. "Hot!" "Adie" (blanket or water--depends on what's indicating she wants). She is mastering the fine art of climbing chairs.

From the kitchen...comes not enough GF bread. Desperately need to make some.

I am wearing...jeans and a long sleeve shirt. Need to get ready for bed. Much more comfortable.

I am creating...nothing. At least that's what it feels like some days this week. Surviving is more like it--just existing. Not living.

I am going...to take a bath as soon as I can get my hyperactive Blueberry to go to sleep.

In my mailbox this week...not much, to be honest. Slow mail week.

I am reading.. . book three of the Night Angel trilogy. And my latest Living Without magazine.

I am hoping...for three relatively non-sick days off starting Monday. I need three normal days with no major stress, enough time to get my feathers unruffled, my daughter's nose cleared up, and some much-needed quality time with my husband.

I am hearing...Blueberry rustling around on the floor. "My ball!" Now she's reading to the dog. anyone getting the impression that she is far to awake for 9:10 at night, especially when she's usually been asleep for about 2 hours at this point. Oh, now she just stole my water bottle. I guess mine is better than hers. Of course. She is awake but obviously overly-tired, but sleep is definitely not coming easy to her tonight. So I blog, she colors, tortures the dog, throws the ball, and dances to the lullabies on Pandora (isn't the whole point of lullabies to put you to sleep?), while Mommy gets her thoughts out here because out they must come.

Around the house...things are a mess. This week has been interminable. I'm exhausted. I'm frustrated with various other adults who should be helpful to us are, frankly, aren't. I'm tired of questions. Tired of snotty noses. Tired in general. Tired of other people telling us how we should be handling situations when they go home at 4:30 and don't have to be the ones living the situations. I'm tired of not having clean clothes--and going through 2 or 3 outfits a day because mine are gross. The floor needs mopping. The chaos needs to be put away. And I need clean sheets on my bed.

One of my favorite things...having friends to talk to.

A few plans for the rest of the week:sitting and doing absolutely nothing. And finding a babysitter. I need a date with my husband--sans all children, including my own. Or I may lose my mind.

Here is picture (or more) for thought I am sharing...





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There Was a [Youngish!] Woman Who Lived in a Shoe...

My Mum asked me the other day if I felt like the old woman who lived in a shoe and had so many children she didn't know what to do....today the answer to that question is an unequivocal, "yes!" And the sad thing is that technically we only spent most of the day time dealing with three of the children, but it was enough.

It all began with us coming off of a lovely weekend that we spent with some friends who drove down here for the sole purpose of hanging out with us. We had much fun, played many games, but sadly spent a number of late nights consoling Blueberry who had a cold and was having a rough time sleeping. So we came on shift a little bit on the tired side.

Well, that was highly unfortunately as our Monkey also had a severe cold and cough. Very severe. The nursing staff finally decided to set up a doctor appointment with her today when we had to go and get her early from daycare Monday because of how poorly Monkey was feeling. (think coughing so hard she's been throwing up).

Well poor little two and a half year old Monkey has had a slew of doctor's appointments the last few weeks--many of which included shots, stabs, or sucking out of the ears (disgusting!). She was not thrilled to see another doctor and screamed her way through much of the visit--basically any time any nurse or doctor came near to her to do anything--weigh her, measure her, take her blood pressure, check her lungs, you name it.

Final results was that she has RSV--oh yay. A highly contagious disease, particularly for Blueberry. Of course Monkey can't go to daycare for the rest of the week, and she has to be isolated in her room from the rest of the cottage (you try explaining to a two year old the concept of isolation!) to try to minimize the possibility of passing it on. The primary problem with this is that she is (a) two and a half and very high needs and (b) my own kid is not to thrilled with mommy have to spend a lot of time caring for another "baby" and so they spent the day taking turns demanding mommy's attention and (c) I'm of course getting coughed, snotted, and vomited on all day long, so spending time with my own kid is tricky when I'm trying to not make her sick!

I foresee a lot of showers, hand washing (my poor, already dried out hands), and extra laundry in my short future.

Oh, and of course I still have 5 other children who need me as well--fortunately they are in preschool/school for most of the day. Otherwise I really don't know what I would do!

It is now almost time for 4 of them to come back from church service. The two babies are in bed, sleeping (thank you Lord for small mercies!) and I'm watching our oldest (Mama Bear) play Plants vs. Zombies (love that game!). She stayed home from service to help me by watching Blueberry while I got Monkey to bed. She's very good with Blueberry and revels in helping, so it worked out well--and frankly I would not have been able to handle the two by myself tonight.

Back to my shoe...I mean dinner. Hope your week is going less overwhelming than mine.

7 Quick Takes (vol. 25)

#1 - Happy 2012 to all! I hope your new years eve celebration was better than mine. Mine consisted of sending the girls to bed at 8:30 and crashing early myself. I'm getting old. I hate to admit it, but its the truth.

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#2 - I feel that my first post of 2012 should be full of wit and intelligence--deep thoughts, you know. So allow me to pontificate on Kung Fu Panda 2 which I finally saw for the first time and absolutely loved. Good story, draws you in with some great comedy--both verbal and physical. Finally a sequel that actually worked, with more to come apparently. I read somewhere they have a story arc of 6 total movies? That would be great if they'd pull it off.

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#3 - In cottage news, I'm exhausted. Well, recovering from exhaustion. We're in the middle of our three off days, and they didn't come a day too soon. We got two new children in the cottage--a 2.5 year old and a 4 year old (soon to be 5). For the sake of this blog, the little one I shall call Monkey (because she is a monkey and climbs on everything). The older girl I think I have settled on calling--Parrot. She is very intelligent, picks up on new ideas and concepts quickly, flits around the house quickly, and talks nonstop if you let her!

All in all, they are both beautiful little girls, bright, sweet, and desperately in need of some stable home life. Monkey is, well, two and a half in all respects. "Mine" is her favorite word, and she doesn't take "no" for an answer with much grace. Pretty well behaved though for the most part--fortunately. Picking her up has been a bit of a shock to the system as I'm used to teeny, tiny Blueberry. And fortunately she and Blueberry are getting along pretty well. A few "mine" squabbles here and there, but for the most part, they do well together.

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#4 - Christmas was nice. Busy, but nice. I finally really am beginning to feel at home here, and a large part of that is definitely due to the onslaught of guests who came over Christmas. Having friends and family around really helped me feel like this is still us--just a new location. I don't know if that makes sense, but there you have it.

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#5 - And while Christmas was nice--I'm definitely ready to get the decorations down. Hopefully can get that accomplished this upcoming shift. In between myriads of doctor appointments that Monkey and Parrot have (all the newbies on campus have a lot of appointments initially). I was just really settling down into our house, and I'm ready to finish that acclimation for ourselves. I'm surprised it's taken me this long, to be honest--but we're getting there in the end.

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#6 - Tonight was another big step to the acclimation process--at least it was for me. We found and explored the Asian market in town. Didn't even know there was one (had actually looked it up and hadn't found information on one) until I happened to meet a Thai lady and her daughter who were part of a church Christmas party for our kids here on campus. She told me about the market. I found green papaya and pretty much every other necessary ingredient to Thai food. Score! Such a relief.

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#7 - Talking about doctor's appointments, finally got Blueberry in for her 15 month appointment (ok, ok, a little late). A bit frustrated. She is perfectly healthy in all aspects except her weight, and that is still painfully slow to go up--to the point where they are calling it "failure to thrive". Which I find a little odd as in all other respects she is definitely thriving. She's developing normally in terms of motor skills and verbal skills, she sleeps well (did I mention that she's FINALLY sleeping 12 hours through the night on a consistent basis with no waking up? Yes, there has been much rejoicing at this development. Not to get myself to bed earlier to take full advantage of these full nights of sleep...), her eyes are clear, she's constantly active, and rarely sick.

In looking up what the phrase actually means, the only thing that matches their definition is just the fact that she is not putting on weight quickly. Of course their recommendations all included things like giving her Carnation and Pediasure--all of which have dairy in them. So we're having to try some other methods to get her to put some weight on a little faster than she is. So far (thank you Hillery), we're attempting the no liquids with her meals (or too close to a meal) trick, which does seem to be helping a little bit to get her to eat more. Tried making a shake the other day with coconut milk and fruit...we'll see if she gets into those--didn't drink much of it. I thought it tasted good, but sadly, I'm not the one needing to gain weight.

Part of my problem is how do you get an active 17 month old to eat more if she doesn't want to? We try to feed her healthy meals and snacks, and frankly, she eats quite a bit, just not a lot at one time. And she just doesn't put on weight. It makes me wonder if there's something else underlying all of this--inability to absorb food is one of the common things I've found mentioned, and which her doctor did mention. Problem is, she's not showing any of those symptoms either (other than the slow weight gain symptom).

Sigh. Very frustrating. And in truth, scary. I want the best for my kid, and the very phrase that she's not thriving is frightening. But at the same time, as I stated earlier, I'm having a hard time accepting that phrase when I look at the rest of her development.

We do our best and that's all we can do, I guess.

7 Quick Takes (vol. 23)

#1 - Well the Christmas season is getting into full swing on campus here. The inside of our cottage is decorated, the first Christmas party for the kids is tonight (I had my own first Christmas party yesterday--the ladies on campus all got together). Still need to decorate the outside of our cottage, but the Christmas spirit is in the air. Started on our Jesse tree last night. I think I'm going to enjoy this advent concept. Well based in Scripture but with the fun of putting Christmas decorations on the tree--what's not to love?

I will admit, I was saddened last night as we started talking about Christmas and the advent season. I began by asking them what Christmas is about. They all made the connection to Christ--but they all made it with Christ's resurrections or even Revelations! It took them awhile to come up with the answer of the birth of Christ. The basics--that is what we teach.

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#2 - On other cottage news, we're getting a new girl in a few weeks! We've been comfortable with our four girlies so far, but we're excited to have the challenge of taking on some new blood.

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#3 - Bad week for sleep. Lots of restlessness. Not entirely sure why, but it seems to be contagious throughout the cottage. We had a good prayer time before bed last night with the girls, and that seems to have settled Blueberry down at least and the other girls. I'm still not sleeping well though. Sigh. I have a sneaking suspicious it's dairy.....sad.

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#4 - It's December 2 and I already feel like I'm behind. No Christmas presents planned yet and need to get a Christmas card out. Sigh. Is it possible to ever catch up? Just curious.

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#5 - Progress continues on the house. Bit by sometimes painful bit, it comes together. With a sigh of relief and comfort with each portion that does get completed. It's amazing how much a few decorations and pictures can make living quarters, home.

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#6 - Have you seen this video? It makes me happy.

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#7 - Just because....Blueberry and her ever present Doggy.

Dabyook - November 15

Outside my window...it is lightening, thundering, and bucketing rain.

I am thinking...of plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Not entirely sure on what those plans will be. But they are being considered!

I am thankful for...our new home and job. Every job and place has bad points, but when I consider the good in comparison to the bad here, I am blessed.

From the learning rooms...[or in our case--the learning brain]...comes so much. Every day she learns new words and concepts and skills. Lately she's been climbing on top of everything she can manage to get a leg up onto (and with lots of attempts to climb even if she can't quite reach). The plaintive cry comes shortly after she accomplishes her climbing goal: "Mama. Mama" Until she gets my attention. And then it changes to "Dow" "Dow." (down).

From the kitchen...comes birthday pancakes and birthday cakes. Two of our girls have birthdays this week, so that's taken up a lot of time. I saw this pin on Pinterest awhile ago for birthday pancakes and decided to give it a try.

Source: howsweeteats.com via Hanna on Pinterest

My cake that I made for our two birthday girls this week. They wanted a vanilla and chocolate, cookies and cream ice-cream football cake. If you are familiar with my non-skills in cake-decorating, you will understand my pride in this cake. I think I did a pretty darn, good job!




I am wearing...jeans, socks, long sleeve shirt. Messy hair. Need pj's.

I am creating...scrapbook pages again! Posts to come.

I am going...to bed soon.

In my mailbox today.. .three pay checks. Two from here and one from editing (yay!)

I am reading.. . Jasper Ford's The Big Over Easy. I do so enjoy these books.

I am hoping...to decide between wanting a Kindle Fire or if I really want to save up and get an IPad2. At this point, I actually think the Kindle Fire might give me want I'm looking for (at a much cheaper price). Input welcome!

I am hearing...blissful silence. And rain.

Around the house...things are still coming together. We ordered some new bookshelves and they should be here tomorrow. Very excited about this as I should be able to get a lot of this last pile of stuff properly put away once they are situated. Sometimes I wonder if I have to many books. And I'll weed some out. And then realize that the rest I want.

One of my favorite things...story time with my big girls. Most evenings (well, we attempt most evenings) we have devotions and then a chapter or two out of a book before the girls go to bed. Definitely one of my (and I think their) favorite times of day.

A few plans for the rest of the week: chapel, work meeting, parent/teacher conference--all tomorrow. Plus a birthday day. Thursday a second birthday day and preparation to go off of work on Friday morning. Three beautiful days to myself. Almost. Me and Blueberry any ways.

Here is picture (or more) for thought I am sharing...

Chris with one of "our" girls.


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Meet My Girls

We are obviously limited on what we can share/say about the four young ladies who we currently claim as "ours"; however, I can still introduce you to some degree to them. In getting to know them, Chris and I have both come up with an animal nickname for each of them, so here they are:

Mama Bear--Mama Bear is the oldest of the girls. She is our only middle schooler and is diving headlong into puberty. This has led to a number of fun conversations with her that I've never expected to have for quite a few years with my own daughter. Talk about on-the-spot training. We call her Mama Bear because she is very much the protector/boss of her siblings who also are here (not with us). She can display that "mom" attitude towards some of the other girls as well--which can be both good and bad depending on if she's just bossing or actually protecting and helping them. She is the one pretty much all the girls follow. Vivacious and fun, behaviorally she is the most solid of them all--which is god for us given her leadership role she has. Some typical teenage behavior stuff, but hey, what girl doesn't go through that. She and Chris have hit if off really well, excellent as she definitely needs some solid male relationships in her life.

Turtle--The next oldest is Turtle. Where Mama Bear and Chris have hit it off, Turtle and I have also formed a tight bond. Turtle is one who has taken us by surprise. We were told that she is very reserved and doesn't open up quickly to people. So not what we've seen. She doesn't open up quickly or much, but she has opened up to us for sure. Turtle can be fun and bouncy and silly. Definitely the actor/writer/artistic one of the group; always wanting to play act. She can also be quiet and pensive and moody. If poked, like a turtle, she will draw into her shell and only come out with patience and encouragement. We also call her Turtle just due to her general movement--especially when it comes to chores. Slow. Slow. Slow. Definitely a good strain of passive aggressive behavior running through her bones :)

Busy Bee--Always moving is the best description for this beautiful little one. Fantastic if I need help folding laundry (especially Charlotte laundry!) or doing other chores, as she is always looking for something to do. Can drive you insane if we're doing something, and she's ready to move on to a different activity (five minutes later!). And her movements include emotionally as well as physical activity. Sunny and cheer to upset and crying can happen in the span of 2 seconds. Fortunately, as we're getting to know her, we're discovering exactly how bright of a child she is (possibly the intellectually brightest of the bunch; although, it's easy to miss that fact if you're not watching her closely) and are encouraging her to utilize those brains in how she acts and behaves rather than just caving into whatever emotion is running through her little body at the time.

Siamese Cat--Our last one we have come to see as a cat. Swishes her own tail to her own beat. Can be lovely and cuddly and charming when she wants to be. And will bite your ankles when she's mad at you. Cat has given me a run for my money, but she can be a darling at the same time. The youngest of the girls, she definitely is trying to grow up very quickly, especially to match the oldest two. Which can definitely lead to some interesting times.

So that's a brief summary of four new ones. They are lovely, charming, squirreley young ladies. Some of the experiences some of them have had and things they have seen are ones that no kid should ever know exist. And while that definitely can lead to some interesting behaviors at times and conversations, they are still fantastic and I feel very honored to get to mommy them.

Almost a month?

I cannot believe it has been nearly four weeks since I posted last. The time has just flown by. Sadly, I cannot report that my house is completely unpacked and we are settled. I can, however, report that it improves daily--albeit slowly.

So what have we been doing the last 3.5 weeks?

Week 1 -- Training week. This whole first week we bounced back and forth between training sessions, shadowing other Houseparents, unpacking enough to get at least a functioning household, hanging out with our girls at the cottage they were staying at, and attempting to cook some meals so I could eat. Our chef on campus is fantastic; however, as he is somewhat limited to the ingredients he can use as a lot of what he has to utilize is donated, taking on the challenge of cooking for food-complex people is double difficult. He enjoys a challenge, however, and has been doing his best. But we're helping out as much as possible by communicating a lot with him and bringing meals for me to eat as necessary.

We have met most of the staff who work here. I think we see some good friend potential in several of them. I'll be glad when we actually have time to develop relationships!

Our training was, unfortunately, not as helpful as we would have like; however, it gave us enough to be going on with. We were supposed to have had 2 days off at the end of that first week, but we wound up using that weekend to prepare for the girls coming back on Monday. We knew if we didn't, we were going to wind up hurting ourselves in the long run. However, not having those two days to just work on our house was frustrating because it meant that we really didn't get any time to focus solely on setting up our own house until we had been here nearly 2 weeks.

Our cottage is requiring a lot of TLC. Cupboards have been scrubbed, dozens of bags of trash have gone out, oodles of maintenance requests have been written up, and I still feel like we have a long way to go. However bit by bit it comes together.

Week 2 - Monday the girls came home. This whole week was interesting as we were working on relationship building, boundary setting, limit pushing (on their end), and trust establishment. All in all, I think it's coming together well. More about our girls later. In general observations though, we have a fun cottage to be working with.

The thing that made this first week particularly difficult to work was the continued training sessions we had to attend. It meant shipping the girls off to another cottage (or three) for about half the days. And poor Blueberry had more babysitting between this week and the few previous ones than she has had her entire first year of life.

Tuesday of this week was her birthday. Mommy had a hard time this day as it was one of our few all day training days, and she couldn't be in that session. Between the realization that my baby is now 1 (and most definitely a Toddler), not being able to celebrate properly (although we did have cake and the girls were infinitely amused by watching Blueberry get chocolate smashed all over face), and having to be separated from her most of the day--I had a bit of a rough day. But I survived. And am even more thankful that we had a birthday party for her before moving. Once again Chris' birthday disappeared in the rush of insanity. Poor boy. Need to have a proper celebration for him next year.


This week also involved a lot of hurried changes in the cottage. We had put in a few requests for improvements to our part of the cottage, and it all came together this week. A team was in and what these volunteer teams do is work around the campus in the mornings/early afternoons and then in the later afternoon/evenings they hang out with the kids. Well, by the end of the week we had a chain-link fence up around "our part" of the cottage yard so we can let Calista run free again in the backyard. All of the rooms in our part of the cottage are painted (yay!) and look so much nicer than the stark white on white that they were. I had one evening to pick out paint colors, so I will confess to sticking basically with what our home was in Missouri. I knew I liked the colors and it was simpler and faster to decide that way. Deeper blue in our bedroom and our living room/ kitchen are actually a brown (already painted, and we decided to not change it), but if anyone ever comes to visit who has seen our old house, they will recognize much of the general color scheme in the rest of the rooms.

Week 3 - The first three days of our third week we had off! We work on a 6/3 schedule, so our off days rotate regularly. It's an interesting schedule, actually, as it allows for us to work with our girls all days of the week (just not every week), and also gives us days off in the middle of the week for getting our own work done as well as occasional weekends. 6 days is definitely long to work, but having 3 days off is fantastic. Unfortunately, we did great the first day off and then all three of us were sick to some degree or another the last two days off which really limited how much work we got done on our apartments.

While we were off, the girls started school. We came back to work on a Wednesday morning, so they had already had two days to get settled into their school routine (it's an interesting system. We establish how the cottage works, but then on our off days, we have "Relief Houseparents" (RHPs) who come in and are supposed to continue running the cottage as we have established. The success of that is really dependent on the RHPs themselves as well as how well we have worked to set up systems for them to work within).

This week was definitely a little rougher than the first week. The girls had gotten comfortable enough to really start pushing limits. Plus the change of school starting was another factor in everything. But I think we came out positively in the end. And several of the girls have really bonded with us which is fun.

We did get to explore the town a little bit. As employees here we have an automatic annual free pass to the local botanical gardens--beautiful. Took the girls there one day. Beautiful gardens. Quite large and includes waterfalls, caves, rocks, as well as regular gardens. Will enjoy exploring more as the weather cools off (it has been so hot here).

Sunday was our first Sunday at "our" church (the one the girls have already been going to). Will fully admit that it's not the kind of church we would have chosen to attend if it was just us, but rather than providing another change and point of instability in their lives, we will continue to attend this one at least for now. It's a nice enough church, just not our style.

As I type this we are now on the tail end of our second three days off. We have successfully managed to get a lot more done this time around as well as getting a lot of sleep and down time--both of which were desperately needed.

More to come...