The Booger's Baby Book

I've finally gotten to a good place when it comes to the Booger Bear.  No more bursting into tears every time I think about him and how much I miss him.  I still have the occassional night, just as I'm laying down to go to bed, when I think about cuddling up with my little boy and watching him sleep, and I do let myself have a good cry.  That's normal though, I'm sure.

Over the past few weeks, I've started working on a baby book for J.  It's more of a "memory photo book" with hundreds of pictures (Of course! :-) and lots of journaling with stories and telling all about his "firsts."  I called it, "My Year with Mimi," and all of the stories and captions are written straight to Booger.  Hopefully his dad will keep it and give it to him when he's older so he will know how much he was loved during his year with me and my family.  Even if his dad never gives it to him, at least I feel better having put it together for him. 
 
Next project (as soon as I finish with J's book)...  Memory book for Angel!

Why Can't God Just Email???

I am so torn on what to do about foster care, adopting, remaining Single Cat Lady, etc.  I find myself praying a lot these days.  I'm just having a really hard time understanding what the heck God is telling me to do!  Do I listen to the pull in my heart or the voice of reasoning in my head?  Seriously!!!  Why can't God just email?!?  It would make this much, much easier!

The OCD, highlighter-loving, list-making, rationally-thinking woman in me tells me to do a list of pros and cons of all of my options.  Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be working out very well for me.  When I find myself thinking of individual pros and cons, they each seem SO BIG that I want to base my decision off of the reaction that I'm having to that one thing! 

When I think of going back to fostering, my brain screams, "HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FREAKING MIND?!?  Are you taking your meds?  Is Bipolar Girl rearing her ugly head again?"  I was a physically and emotionally exhausted, nervous wreck!  I had a dozen different people and organizations telling me what to do on a daily basis.  I was treated like the hired help and had absolutely no rights when it came to protecting my kids.  When I really sit down and think about doing it again, my heart starts racing and I feel like I'm on the verge of an anxiety attack! 

On the other hand, I can feel my heart pulling me harder and harder towards going back to foster care.  It tells me that I'm a great mom...  That those kids need what I have to offer them for however long it might be...  It tells me that my baby will come along, and I won't have to give him or her back.  But in the meantime, I know that my heart will break over and over again every time I lose one of my kids.  I miss the Booger Bear every single day, and the thought of feeling this loss for every child who comes into and out of my life is inconceivable to me!  How many times can a heart break before it can no longer be put back together?

I know this is where faith comes in.  I know that I need to trust that God will pick me up and put me back together after every loss.  I need to trust that He will carry me through all of the craziness that seems to be my daily life in foster care and help calm me when I feel completely helpless when it comes to protecting my kids.  But having faith and trust is hard.  I think maybe that's what I need to pray for...  Stop trying to analyze the battle between my head and my heart and start praying that God "help me have faith and let me trust enough to let go of control."  Because when all is said and done, this is what I want, both for myself and for the little ones who need someone to give it to them...

The love and slobbery kisses of a 14-month-old...

A baby sleeping peacefully in his bed...

Sidewalk chalk and fun times...

and bubble baths!!!

It's the little things that matter.  Because those little things add up to something amazing!  And I want to be able to have them as many times as I can, for as long as I can.  Just let God handle the rest. 

(I think I just might have heard what He's been telling me all along...  :-)

That is SO Wrong!!!

So, apparently someone thought that the following would be

a great "motivational" poster to put in the

breakroom at work...

Seriously?!?

What part of a plethora of raw chicken legs is supposed to be "inspirational?!?"

All it "inspires" me to do is dry heave every time I pass by!!!

We spend an exorbitant amount of money on these ridiculous posters,

and this is the best they can come up with???

THAT IS SO WRONG!!!

A Little Disturbing, but She Has Great Taste!!!

My niece is at it again!  Five years old, going on 35...

The girls in my family have started a tradition.  Whenever a new Twilight movie comes out, we get together and go to see it (whether or not we've already seen it really doesn't matter.  You really can't get too much Twilight :-).  This past Saturday was Eclipse night, and Ka-Diva still didn't understand why she couldn't go with us.  "I'm a girl, too, you know!"

Christy has explained to her that Twilight is kind of a bigger girl thing, and that Ka-Diva might get scared.  K-D's solution last Saturday was to ask, "Well can I just read the book instead?  I promise I won't watch the movie!"  She proceeded to take one of the books off of the bookshelf and start to flip through it.  Christy said, "Well, it's just a 'words' book.  You wouldn't really like it."  Ka-Diva stopped dead in her tracks, eyes growing wide, and a mischievous grin spreading across her face...  "Ohhhh, Mommy, you are so wrong about that!!!" she giggled.

K-D turned the book around to show Christy a lovely little photo of the guys in the "wolf pack"...  All shirtless and buff...  With an insanely yummy Jacob leading the pack...

Bee-you-tee-full!  :-)  But not exactly what you want your 5-year-old to be drooling over...

The next day, Christy took Ka-Diva and Buddy to Toys-R-Us to let them spend some of their piggy bank money.  Apparently, K-D was very excited to see a big Twilight display set up right as they walked into the store.  "Mommy!" she gasped.  "Can I buy that?!?"  Christy was slightly disturbed, and yet, oddly proud of her young daughter's great taste as she stood in front of a life-sized stand-up cut-out of a shirtless Jacob.

Yep...  They're gonna have their hands full with this one when she hits the teen years!  :-)

What Happened in Vegas...

We did it!  Christy and I had our Vegas trip last week, and it was a blast (despite all of the appointments and "non-pleasurable" reasons that we were there :-).  I thought I'd do the "A-Z Thing" on what actually happened in Vegas since that's how we started our trip.  :-)

Avoided the perverts passing out naked girl cards on the strip.

Bellagio fountains - We cracked up watching the ducks who live there paddle madly when they realized the show was about to start.  "Swim, little ducky!  Swim for your life!"  I can only imagine their reactions the first time they experienced the "dancing fountains."  As Christy said, "What the FWACK?!?"  :-)

Chicago Brewing Co.  OMG!  It was SOOO good!  Christy used to live in Vegas, and as soon as she saw the place, she said that we had to go there (mostly because she wanted to taunt my brother-in-law because it was his favorite place to eat).  It was totally worth it!  Christy ate nearly an entire pizza by herself, and I got the absolute best pot roast I have ever had in my life.  I think Chris was highly disappointed in us though because we didn't get any beer.  :-)

Diaper rash...  Yes, you heard me.  Diaper rash.  Ok, so it was more a heat rash where my hugantor thighs were rubbing together, but it was highly unpleasant.  A direct result of my total lack of common sense when I decided to wear denim capris to walk the strip in the 103 degree weather.

Eclipse, baby!  That was one long, expensive trip to see a movie that we could have seen at home, but it was soooo worth it.  I mean, seriously...  Taylor Lautner...  He is yummy!  (Even if he is seriously close to being jail bait. ;-)  The funniest part of the whole movie was when Edward said, "Don't you own a shirt?" and a lady in the row behind us exclaimed, "Dear God, I hope not!"

Found a new way to help fund the "Buy a Baby Fund" as my nephew calls it...  Taking coins out of the fountains at the hotels on the strip...  Seriously!  People were throwing silver money in there, not just pennies!

Got a taxi to drive us back to the Luxor after walking most of the strip.  My excuse at the time was that my feet, leg, and ankle were killing me (which was true...  I had to ice the leg and ankle when we got back to the hotel).  But the real reason was that the "diaper rash" was freaking killing me, and I couldn't very well walk bow-legged two miles back to the car!  :-)

Hawaiian Marketplace Shopping Center on the strip.  We had a blast there!  (It didn't hurt that they had misters and fans everywhere either. :-)  Got some unique souvenirs and decided that we're doing a shopping shore excursion on our cruise because we had so much fun.

Ice cream at Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Company.  YUMMY!!!

Joked about jumping off the Stratosphere.

Kohl's, yes...  We went shopping at Kohl's.  Sure, we could just as easily have gone to Kohl's here in Texas, but we managed to do just as much damage at the Kohl's in Las Vegas.

Lost $15 on penny slots of all things!

MGM Grand Lion Habitat - Got a few pictures for my niece.  She's all about "big cats" and wants to be a vet when she grows up. 

Navigated our way through dozens of casinos and resorts in search of a souvenir shop with the perfect souvenir for my nephew, only to locate said perfect item in the Las Vegas Airport in the shop directly across from our gate.

Overzealously stalked the local trash collectors.  I have to admit, we were almost paparazzi-like in our quest to obtain a photo of a real, live Las Vegas trash truck for my nephew.  I am pleased to say that we were triumphant in our endeavor!  :-)

Pretended not to hear the obnoxious honeymooning couple waiting in line behind us at the Southwest Airlines "A" Group boarding line.  (Giggle, giggle...  "We just got married today!"  "I love you."  "I love you more."  "No, I love you more."  Kiss, kiss.  GACK!!!)  That's lovely, sweetheart.  I'm super happy for you.  But you're not getting ahead of us in this line.  We want the good seats!!!  Trust me when I say that you will be wanting separate seats soon enough.  Might as well get in the habit now.

Questioned how it was possible to get lost in our own state when we managed to get around in Las Vegas with no problems.  Yes, we somehow managed to take the "scenic route" coming home from the airport.  It took us longer to get home from Dallas Love than it did to fly from El Paso to Dallas!

Resisted the urge to throw things at my sister every night when she fell asleep within two minutes of her head hitting the pillow as I tossed and turned and fought insomnia.

So You Think You Can Dance? - Yes, we ventured back to the hotel in time to watch our show.  You have to have priorities, you know!

Titanic exhibit at the Luxor.  It is unreal the things that survived 2 1/2 miles down on the ocean floor for decades.  Unbroken china, paper bills inside of leather wallets, jewelry, perfume bottles that still hold the scents, wine bottles still corked with wine inside, personal belongings that could be traced to their owners, rows of plates still neatly stacked where their crates dissolved around them...  Christy and I spent a good hour in there.  We started questioning our decision to go to the exhibit a few months before our own upcoming cruise though.  Fortunately, I don't think there's much chance of us encountering a giant iceberg in the middle of the Caribbean sea though.  :-)

Utterly embarrassing display of excessively poor driving skills as Christy first opts out of purchasing additional rental car insurance, only to nearly wreck us upon executing the first left turn after leaving the rental car lot.  Christy has a left-turning deficiency.  A fact that my niece and nephew could attest to at the tender age of two years old.  "Mommy's not a very good driver, huh?"  (giggles)  "Yeah..."

Very diligently attempted to take photos of every room that we entered per the direct order of Ka-Diva.  My niece was totally bummed that her mommy and I were taking a "girl trip" without her, and insisted that we take a picture of every single room that we entered so she wouldn't miss a thing.

Watched Christy win 18 times her money and then promptly lose it all within thirty seconds.  Granted, this was also on penny slots, but it just sounds so good to say that she won 18 times her initial investment, doesn't it?  :-)

X-treme sign twirling exhibition...  Okay, so it wasn't so much an "exhibition" as it was one of those poor suckers who has to stand on a street corner holding up a sign marketing a business in a nearby shopping center.  This guy, however, took his job to the extreme, and it was one of the most impressive things we saw in Las Vegas.  It was clear the kid was in color guard because he spun his sign like he was spinning a rifle in a Drum Corps International competition.  Over the head!  Behind the back!  Tosses!  His tricks put the Harlem Globetrotters to shame.  I desperately wish I had thought to take video.

Yummy quesadillas at some Mexican food restaurant in one of the hotels on the strip that I totally can't even remember because by the time we found something without a line we were exhausted and really didn't care what we ate as long as we could sit down for an extended period of time in the air conditioning and stuff our faces.  (Run-on sentence, I know...  But that was kind of our mental state at the time :-)

Zoom in, take picture, turn off camera, turn on camera, review picture, turn off camera, turn on camera, REPEAT… We had absolutely no luck with our cameras on this trip!  You know it's bad when my "zoom in, power on and off" approach was the only one that seemed to be working.  I do believe I will be camera-shopping before the cruise.

Be Careful What You Ask For...

As I left the office yesterday, I noticed some serious dark and ominous looking clouds heading my way.  I prayed, "Please, God, just let the rain hold off for 15 minutes!"  (I really wanted to make it home before it started to pour.)

God proved once again that He answers prayers, and that He does have a sense of humor...  It didn't rain until exactly 15 minutes after my fervent prayer.  Unfortunately, it took me 16 minutes to get home.

I guess I should have been more specific in my request.  :D