Sick kids and husband

Well, there hasn't been much to say here lately because the only thing I've been doing is making chicken soup, and going to the store for Kleenex and cough syrup. Megan, Chris, and Grace are pretty much over it. Lawson is on the mend. Billy has been sick for at least a week. Chloe's started Friday. They have had sore throats, coughs, runny noses, headaches, body aches, nausea, you name it! So far I haven't gotten it and I don't plan to. I hate being sick. So, we are lying low this week. I've used this time to do my spring cleaning and decluttering. Billy is coming home today from being out of town since Thursday. I miss him. I have a big pot of homemade Beef Stew simming on the stovetop waiting for him to get here. I've never made beef stew before but it looks and smells delicious! I am almost finished decluttering the office/classroom. I only have the kids arts and crafts drawers to go through and I really don't want to. I have them clean them out regularly but they still get so messy. And if I throw away so much as a broken crayon they will find out about it. For some reason the arts and crafts stash is their absolute favorite possessions. It is my least favorite. Well, that's all folks. Hopefully the excitement and activity will pick up here soon. We have a couple of good field trips coming up and the kids start archery lessons in a couple of weeks so I'll have some pictures of something interesting soon. Have a great week!

Happy New Year!

A year in review... January: Billy and I began six weeks of training required to be licensed for foster care. February: Billy and I celebrated our 19th anniversary. March: I celebrated my 37th birthday and my brother, Sam, and his fiance (now wife) came for a visit. Exactly one week later I saw a picture of an 11-year-old boy that I knew would be mine forever. April: Finished up all the requirements for our foster care licence and went to additional training to be upgraded to therapuetic foster care. We met with Chris' adoption committee. This committee was comprised of about ten people and they interrogated us for a couple of hours before telling us that they approved of the plan for us to adopt Chris. May: We celebrated Billy's 40th birthday. We FINALLY got to meet Chris for the first time and spend the day with him. Megan got a new car, a 2004 Toyota Camry. June: The kids got to meet Chris for the first time. We got to visit him a couple of times. Megan graduated from high school and we had a party for her at church. July: We got to have two visits with Chris in our house for a few days each. Megan quit working at Bojangles. August: Megan started her new job at Northside Christian Academy. Chris moved in with us permanently and started public school here. We bought a 2011 Ford Econoline 350 12-passenger van. My parents came for a visit. September: October: We celebrated Lawson's 12th birthday, Megan's 19th birthday, and Grace's 11th birthday. We also went camping with a great group of friends, 7 families in all. November: We celebrated Chris' 12th birthday. December: Christmas! Today I continued with my spring cleaning. I went through all of our photo albums and threw out the ones of people we don't know, pictures of friends houses and animals that they don't have anymore, etc. I scrubed every square inch of the foyer. Billy, Lawson, and Chris still have the cold. Billy and Megan will return to their regular work schedule tomorrow and Chris will return to school. I've enjoyed having them around the last couple of weeks and I will miss them when they go back. That's all for now. Thank you for reading. I would love to have comments but please leave your name. Otherwise, it just says "anonymous." I have no idea who left the comment that said they love us, but I would like to know! LOL

Not Much Going On Around Here

So, there is really not much going on around here. We have enjoyed about two weeks off our usual schedule. Billy and Megan had to work some of those days but not many. Billy only worked one day last week and three days the week before that. This week he goes back to work on Wednesday. Megan had all of last week off. She goes back to work tomorrow but then has Tuesday off. School resumes for Chris and my homeschoolers on Wednesday. I am ready to get back to our normal schedule (except Chris going to school, I hate that.) Grace and I are so ready to begin spring cleaning. We always take down the Christmas decorations on New Year's Eve and that always puts me in the cleaning and decluttering mood. Grace takes after me in this. I love the feeling of space in our house and I hate useless clutter. I get a lot of satisfaction dropping off a vanload of stuff at Goodwill. I am a minimalist and I like it that way. Well, that is really all to report today. I am planning on deleting my Facebook account on Tuesday so this blog, email, mail, and phone will be the only ways to get my attention. Well, the doorbell works, too. Oh, and I don't know what is the problem with the comments, but they aren't working. Try anyway.

Wow! I've had a few suggestions that I start blogging again and I attempted to open a new blog and that didn't work which led me to stumble upon this old blog of mine. I didn't even know it was still active! I read the last post that was a year and a half ago and I couldn't believe it. So much has happened since then. I realized that I do want to keep blogging. What a great journal of our lives for our kids. One thing that stuck out to me was that we had just started the adoption process and I was dreaming of a 12-passenger van. Well, we have had our boy for almost five months now and the 12-passenger van for a couple of weeks less than that. So, yes, I will blog again. So much has happened since then that it would be pointless to try to fill in the blanks so I will start with today. It is two days after Christmas and we are still relaxing and enjoying time off from our regular schedule. Billy had to go into the office today for the only time this week. He had five days off, had to work today, will have the next five days off and then he will resume his regular schedule. Megan is currently a preschool teacher at a local private Christian school and is off this whole week. She goes back on Monday, has Tuesday off, and will resume her regular schedule on Wednesday. Our newest addition, Chris, is still attending public school. We will have the option of homeschooling him once the adoption is finalized in late spring/early summer. He will go back to school on Wednesday of next week. The three homeschoolers will also resume studies on that day. I started spring cleaning today by taking the van to Auto Bell to have it cleaned. That thing is too tall to fit through our local automatic car wash and it is just too hard to wash by hand. I can't fit it into our garage to vacuum it out and it's too hard to fit into the small space at the local car wash. So, I chose to spend $15 for a good cleaning inside and out. And it was well worth it! I love spring cleaning time and I always get in the mood the day after Christmas. It's funny because yesterday Grace and I were driving to the grocery store and she said, "I'm in the mood for spring cleaning." That's my girl! Megan's boyfriend, Kevin, is over right now to watch a movie. He is such a sweet guy and fun to have around. Well, that's all for now, I seem to have lost my glass of tea and, well, I want some tea.

A year, or so, in review

I seem to be a yearly blogger. I am hoping to get back into it but not promising anything. Over the past year and a half we have been very busy. Billy came back from deployment in July, 2010. We spent a few weeks in Texas and Billy and I even went on a get-a-way for just the two of us. In August we began our sixth year of homeschooling. Billy was promoted to Master Sergeant in February. The beginning of April the kids and I went to Texas where we spent two months renovating our home down there that we affectionately refer to as the Cabbage. We then moved to Charlotte, North Carolina in June were we have been for the last two and a half months. We love it here. We have joined a great church and made many new friends. We have now began our seventh year homeschooling. Megan is in her senior year of highschool. Lawson is in fifth grade. Grace is in fourth grade. And Chloe is in second grade. We have also began our adoption quest. First we contacted the Children's Home Society, the ones who will be doing our home study. Our first responsibilities were to obtain criminal background checks for Billy and me from the counties that we have lived in for the past five years, and a certified copy of our marriage license. We have received the marriage license and the background check from Lake County, Illinois and now we are just waiting for the background check from Texas. Our next step is to take a 30 hour training course. We are looking to eventually replace our family vehicle, a well-loved Chevy Venture, with a twelve passenger van. Not that we plan on filling every seatbelt but because when we travel we never seem to have enough room for luggage. I have started making my own laundry detergent. It works very well and only costs a dollar a month to do laundry for six people! You just can't beat that deal! I am considering other money-saving strategies such as couponing, etc. and would welcome any suggestions or ideas.

Preoccupied

I'm sorry I haven't blogged in a few days. But I've been preoccupied. Billy finally arrived home. He left Afghanistan on Sunday November 29. He flew by helicopter to Bahgram. He stayed in Bahgram for a couple of days and then flew to Kuwait. He stayed there for a while and then flew to Germany. There plane malfunctioned and they were layed over for two days while they waited for another plane to arrive from the US. Then they flew to Ireland where Billy called me Friday morning and told me he was getting on a plane headed for Atlanta, Georgia. I received a text message late Friday night saying that he arrived in Atlanta. Finally I was able to call him on his cell phone! I called him to get all the details. I wound up staying up all night Friday night because I knew I had to leave for the airport early and I was afraid of oversleeping. So I stayed up and made more banana bread and zuchinni bread, cleaned the house, shampooed the carpets, anything I could think of to stay awake. I left for O'Hare International Airport in Chicago at 5am on Saturday. I arrived at the airport around 5:45am. I thought I was way too early because his flight didn't arrive until 7:12 am. I went inside and found a restroom. Then I found out where I was supposed to go to get a gate pass so that I could go all the way up to the gate to get him like you could before 9/11. I bought a bottle of water and found a seat by gate 18. I took out my homeschooling magazine that I had brought along and read one article and then his plane arrived. I call that perfect timing. Anyway, we have been enjoying having him home. Right now he is asleep because he stayed up all night playing the new Wii that we just bought for the kids. He is so cute. I just sit and stare at him when he is asleep (and occasionally throw small toys at him hoping he will wake up. LOL) So, we are in the midst of a winter storm right now so this should make for a good blog next time I'm on.

Chores and a Movie

Today we worked on chores in anticipation of Daddy coming home next week. We cleaned the sinks, toilets, doorknobs, trashcans, vacuumed downstairs, dusted, mopped the kitchen and downstairs bathroom, cleaned the garage, cleaned inside the van and the truck, washed the van and the truck, and swept the porch and the patio. I also aired up the tires on both vehicles. I cleaned out my purse and wallet. We celebrated by going up to the navy base to watch a free movie. Harry Potter was absolute torture and we left before it was over. Megan and Grace were the ones that wanted to see it and they were bored. We came home and I made Carne Asada. It was very, very good! All in all it was a good day, very productive. Now I'm going to sit back and enjoy a cup of coffee and work on my Mom's afghan I'm crocheting.