Our Weekend

We had a wonderful weekend, it started with...

Last year for Christmas, Brooke & Lexy gave Mammaw & Grandpa Tom and Papa & Grammy one of these "Spoil Your Granddaughters Jars" that they made by themselves (see directions here)...


On Friday, Mammaw & Grandpa Tom brought their jar back to Brooke & Lexy filled to the top. They all (I had to work) went to the bank to cash in all the change and to the surprise of everyone, Brooke and Lexy ended up with $77 EACH!!! It was unbelievable that there was THAT much change in that jar! Mammaw & Grandpa Tom have said that if the girls put a new piece of fabric on the top of the jar and give it back to them for Christmas this year that they will fill it again...you can bet the girls are going to do that...Mike and I just may make one for us too :-)

On Saturday, I had to work most of the day but Mike and the girls met me in Olathe after work and took me to the buffet for dinner!

On Sunday, Brooke, her full wallet and I went for a Mommy & Me Retail Therapy Day together! We went to several stores, bought lots of neat stuff, ate a great lunch and had a wonderful silly time together...

Brooke bought a ton of clothes and even a pink Christmas tree and ornaments for her room with her money and still has quite a bit left...I've taught her well when it comes to bargain shopping :-)

Lexy spent a few dollars on a new snowglobe and a plastic candy cane but hasn't decided yet what she wants to spend all that money on!

AHHHHHH....retail therapy!

I decided that today was a good day to get my butt out of the house and do a little therapy...of the retail sort! I would have liked company but neither of my calls yielded a shopping/therapy partner so I sucked it up and did individual therapy :-)

My intention when starting out my therapy session was to cross off several of the gifts still on my "to buy" list since I won't be able to go shopping on Black Friday this year. Somewhere along the way, that intention went awry and I ended up with clothes. Some for me, some for Brooke (poor girl has outgrown almost all hers with the appearance of her girly curves) and a bag of skittles for Lexy. I did cross off a couple of the gifts on my list but not near as many as I wanted to. Oh well, now I have an excuse for another retail therapy day!!!

Exhausted

I am just plain tired, exhausted and run down both physically and mentally!

I knew that when we chose to stop fostering that it would be tough on me, this has been a huge part of my identity for eight years. But I wasn't ready for the overwhelming feelings it has brought on, especially when I hear of a little one coming into foster care that we would have taken. I feel that because we stopped fostering that we not only closed that door but that we closed the door to adopting again. One of the reasons we stopped fostering was to explore other avenues that we had been putting on the back burner but we can't really start exploring those things until we have some extra money for a home study, etc....and we won't have that extra money until I find a part time job...and those are not easy to come by right now. And I'm lonely not having anyone at home during the day to take care of and I'm overwhelmed with my to do lists and worried about money and not thrilled that I'll be closer to 40 than 30 by the end of the month!

Are YOU exhausted yet???

So I've decided to start working in small steps each day towards some of the goals that I want to accomplish b/c the big picture is too big and distant right now...

On Friday I e-mailed a local foster agency that has a seperate adoption unit to find out some information on them and if they had a need for possible adoptive parents for an infant or infant with sibling.

Over the weekend we had our garage sale on Sat. (Friday it rained) and made enough for car tags/taxes and a little extra for Brooke and I to have fun at a craft fair yesterday...one Christmas present down (retail therapy is good)!

I've started walking several times a week (thanks Robin & Shilah!) to help keep my mind in a better place and to hopefully shed a few of these very unwanted pounds.

I'm in the process of cleaning out all the foster paperwork (already 3 garbage bags full) in my cabinet...kind of a cleansing, getting myself ready for the next step activity.

I'm organizing my paperwork, desk, calendar, mind, etc. so that I'm looking ahead and focusing on what I do want and can quickly find information as to not miss an opportunity that puts me a step closer to a goal.

Since I missed doing Focus Friday, my goals for this week are...
1.) Take pictures and post the leftover garage sale items on Craigslist to get it out of my house and make some extra money.
2.) Continue to organize and walk.
3.) Spend some time looking for a part time job.
4.) Enjoy Mike's birthday and spend quality time with my family.

Happy Holidays!!!

By looking at the changes in the blog can you tell that my favorite holiday is coming??!!! I couldn't wait to make the blog look festive (and figure out how to do some of the things I have seen on other blogs!).

Thanksgiving was very uneventful and relaxing for us. We visited Papa and Grammy for the day and after lots of talking, game playing, tv watching and snacking we shared a GREAT thanksgiving meal. We had turkey, dressing, corn, green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, fruit salad, deviled eggs, etc. For dessert we had pumpkin pie, crustless pumpkin pie (that was yummy papa!) and lemon merinque pie that was made especially for Mike! On our way home we enjoyed the christmas lights that were already glowing in the night...Lexy thought these were really great so we know we'll have to do that again a few more times this season! By the time we made it home we had two sleeping girls that then did not want to go to bed until late.

Robin, Christina and I got up at the butt crack of dawn on "black friday" to roam with the idiots! Robin and I have made a tradition of this and we really enjoy watching everyone waiting in line and going crazy for that got-to-have item while we just have fun and get some shopping done. We were gone from 5am to about 3pm...by the end of the day, between the three of us, we had totally filled up every available space in my van! We went to 3 different Wal-Marts, Toys R Us, Target, K-Mart, and Lowe's and had a much deserved lunch at Red Robins.

This morning we went to visit Santa and Mrs. Claus. Lexy was SO excited to see them! Santa asked Brooke if she had a boyfriend and she told him no.

So then Santa asked Lexy if she had a boyfriend and was very surprised (and even asked Brooke to make sure) when Lexy said yes!!!! They all got a laugh out of that!

Brooke asked for some cowboy boots and Lexy asked for Tumbles the fur real dog.

Our weekend and more

We prepared for family fun on Friday by renting 5 movies and loading up on snacks and keep-the-tummy warm meals. On Saturday we stayed in our jammies all day watching our movies, snacking and staying warm and cozy!

On Sunday I went with mom (mamaw) to do some Christmas shopping without the girls. Oh how I forgot what a shopping day with her was like!! Seven hours later we returned home and I was SO wore out!!!

In other news...

Brooke woke up at about 4am this morning running fever after complaining of a tummy ache yesterday evening. She'll be going to the doctor today to hopefully get meds (probably strep throat as she is SO prone to that). We want her to get well really quick - she has play practice tomorrow night!

Pray that the rest of us don't get the sickies!!!!

Our Weekend

We had a busy weekend.

For our family day (Sat.) we took the girls to a tiny tots carnival were Lexy got to get lots of goodies, hear a story, jump on the moonwalk, see a fire engine and pet neat animals. Then Brooke, Lexy and I (daddy was on call so had to stay home, I'm sure he wasn't terribly upset!) went shopping in Olathe. We spent over an hour in bumper to bumper traffic b/c of road work just to get to Old Navy! We visited Old Navy, Target, and the Olathe Mall. Lexy was tickled pink when we finally found the coveted SOCK MONKEY that we've been looking for ever since she saw Mr. Magoriums Wonder Emporium. She has not put that thing down since we bought it!!! And no, the sock monkey did not replace Lovey like I had hoped, now Lexy walks around with sock monkey, lovey head and lovey blanket (did I tell you Lovey broke in half about 2 wks ago?) Brooke made out like a bandit with tons of clothes and shoes that she just couldn't live without! We then met daddy for dinner and spent the evening at home.

Today for Cleaning day my project was to work on getting the baby stuff back downstairs and attempt to organize it, it's not done but I did make a dent! I had started packing up the baby stuff on Friday but was in tears by the end so I had to wait until today to work on it again. Mike reminded me that by putting everything back downstairs we are bound to get another call about a baby soon, that just seems to be how it happens!

Retail Therapy

Today was, to say the least, a very emotional day for me. After explaining for what seemed to be the thousandth time to a caring friend or relative that "no, the twins won't be a part of our family" I was ready to lock myself in a rubber room and never come out! Instead I took Brooke to Wal-Mart after Mike got home and did a little retail therapy, nothing major but it did help a little.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day, between my allergies acting up and all the crying my throat hurts, my nose doesn't know whether to stay stopped up or run for the door and my eyes are so swollen that I look like I've been thru hell...oh maybe I have...