Summer break

Ah, summer break is finally here for Shawn! Which means a little more help around the house for me as long as I promise to give him a nap everyday... gotta love that man! June & July on the calendars are filling up fast which is slightly depressing because I thought summer break meant relaxing. Between the two of us we have lots of Army stuff going on, the kids have lots of appointments, & I have school. Yes, you read right, school. I thought I was done for the summer but the 1 class I was taking that was worth 1 credit, my paper wasnt good enough for her so she said I could re take her class during the summer in conjunction with another class. So, I am taking technically 2 classes. The 1 credit class is more of a build on what I had so not to hard, the other one I picked has 6 books, so I will be spending most of my summer reading books for school... I was so looking forward to read a stack of books that I am behind on, o well, such is life sometimes. We adjust fire and move forward.

On a very exciting note, only 3 more weeks to Disneyland. Shawn and I are bursting at the seems with excitement. I cant wait to see the reactions from the girls more so from D than Norah. Its a huge celebratory trip... Late Fathers Day, my Birthday, my Step Mom's Birthday (she and my Dad are coming with us!) and an early adoption celebration for D. Who in about 90 days will finally be ours legally and the world will be flooded with pictures of her that we have not been able to share. We are so anxious for it to be official. Once we adopt her her new name will be Malia D. Adams (we are making her current name her middle name) Shawn picked her name, after Obama's oldest daughter, it means Maria in Hawaiian. Two girls in 2 years, very exciting. Shawn insists that he wants all girls, but we will see what the future has in store for us. Right now we have two & two and its not so bad. C will be leaving soon to go live with a family member and as of right now M is staying for an unknown time.

I cant say its been un eventful since I last blogged, just busy every day something going on with 1 of us or 1 of the kids. We have managed to get into bed at 10pm every night so I cant complain to much. As I blog all 4 kids are napping and due to erupt, I mean wake up shortly. Then Shawn is going to be Mr wonderful and take his turn (once a week) making dinner, hes making sloppy joes from the Eating for Life book by Bill Phillips one of his favorite... well and ours too!!

Not the greatest picture taken with my sisters phone... but Friday night the 1st official day of Shawn's summer break we went swimming & Shawn lit a fire. Norah passed out in my arms from all the fun. 

Norah is growing up so fast. It so awesome to see!

 

Norah Patience Adams 4 months old

She is teething big time, this is her teether of choice.

She is in LOVE with Veggie Tales and Sesame Street, this one is her watching Sesame Street with sissy & C. We watch it on Monday & Thursdays!

Norah having her 1st temper tantrum. Nothing I did would make her happy, so she cried for almost 45 minutes straight before she wore herself out and took a long nap. Think it was her teeth.

Little Miss Happy & Alert. This Girl smiles all the time (minus the 1 temper tantrum above) She has her Daddy's disposition for the most part which for her is a blessing and for us awesome to have a happy baby girl all the time!

I could stare at this face sleeping all day long. I <3 her so much!

Hope everyone enjoys the rest of there week, for those on summer break too enjoy every minute of it! This weekend Shawn has drill and then 6 days of training in conjunction so I am a single Mom starting Friday-Friday... wish me luck.

What a week

Its been such a whirl wind of events.
Here is a run down of last week... Monday we got our 3rd foster kiddo, a 4 day old baby boy. I received 3 calls that day asking us to take 3 different baby boys. They like to try and keep the kids in neighboring zip codes if they can so we didnt get the 1st two but got the 3rd one. Shawn asked me why the heck I said yes to a newborn, they are to much work. I told him cant be picky and when the 3 calls I got were all for babies. I hate telling them no. We are licensed for 3 and have 3. As soon as D's adoption goes thru she wont count any more because she will legally be ours... I CAN NOT WAIT UNTIL THAT DAY. We are being told Aug/Sept so thats right around the corner. Apparently adoption cases slow down during the summer because judges are on vacation so they take a little longer. We have all the time in the world but it will be so re assuring when she is ours legally forever!! Anyway the new little guy is not time consuming, hes a week old now and I already have him on every 4 hours schedule. Last night he only woke up once. During the day he sleeps, he wakes I change his diaper and feed him and he goes back to sleep... pretty easy. Its the interruption of sleep that kills us. We keep arguing who it affects more but were dead locked. Shawn has to juggle 30 4th graders all day and I have to juggle 4 kids under the age of 3. We BOTH fall into bed every night. The other night we were soooooo deliriously tired we couldn't stop laughing at the DUMBEST things ever we had a serious case of the giggles. So delirious that Shawn even said "this is better than sex" you know he was tired, lol, what man says that?
4 day old baby meant we had to play bed shuffle. D moved into a twin mattress on the floor in her room, Norah into the crib, and the new little guy into the cradle.

D getting into her big girl bed for the 1st time. Daddy and I took turns sleeping with her until she fell asleep for the 1st few nights. Now we only stay a few minutes and let her cry the rest out. Last night she only cried for maybe 15 min. Shes adjusting pretty well.

Norah loves the crib, she sleeps soundly every night. She sleeps just like Daddy... you could have a marching band come thru our room and neither one would wake up, lol.

Tuesday was a pretty regular calm day. But Wednesday was the bomb in the middle of my week. Some things changed with C's case that I had to re arrange the kids preschool schedule so they now go on Wednesdays. This was there 1st Wednesday. I dropped them off, grabbed a small mocha frappe from Mc Donalds, went home to sit with Norah (my sister hung out with the babies so I didnt have to load/unload 4 kids) for 10 min. Then I got a phone call from C's preschool saying he had blisters on his mouth, that I needed to come get him cause there was an outbreak of hand, foot & mouth disease recently. Ok, 1st I thought he licks his lips a ton and gets red irritated around his mouth thats probably all it was. Then I thought what the heck a disease... that I had never heard of in my life, it sounded grouse, he better not have it. So, I went to pick him up and yes he had blisters around and in his mouth. Awesome I thought. Luckily, I was taking the new baby, M to the dr for a well check so I called them back and they were gracious enough to squeeze in C too.  I went ahead and chanced leaving D at preschool, besides she was on the playground, I had walked right past her and she didnt even see me, she was having the time of her little 1 year old life, it was so stinking adorable. Dr visit went well for M, hes healthy and fine. C however did have the virus, which has no medicine to help it and highly contagious to babies.... um awesome, NOT. I took him home stripped him down to a diaper, quarantined him in his room with some toys & a portable dvd player and then got to work de germing the house. They said its passed by touch.... well that narrows it down. I was dusting, vacuuming, bleach water washing toys, scrubbing bathrooms on my hands and knees. Thank goodness my sister was over. Granted she was over because I was supposed to do a homework athon that day... didnt happen. Shawn brought home dinner from Mc Donalds and I called my Mom for back up reinforcements! That was by far one of the longest days ever. Thur was spent playing catch up and wrapping up all the cleaning as well as diving into TONS of laundry. I am a slight germ afobe you could say. More precautionary, 1 sick kid is one sick kid to many.

This was Norah on Wednesday during all the madness, thank goodness. We are truly blessed to have such beautiful, well behaved girls!

I really can not wait until Summer I know I sound like a broken record but I dont know how much longer I can keep running like a machine. Summer means my team mate of a husband will be home and we can go thru the days together. Its always more fun when hes around anyway.

Mothers Day weekend was awesome I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. It feels so sureal that we have gone from 2 to 4 for sure as a family and who knows what the future holds but this Mothers Day 4 kids were in the house. Friday night my Dad & Step Mom are took the girls (Norah's 1st sleepover) Shawn watched the boys while I wrapped up the last of my homework (whoo hoo!)  Saturday I had a full schedule of errands; drop/pick up suburban for an over due oil change, lunch and fabric shopping with my Mom, pick up the girls, then home for a well deserved/needed nap followed by some swimming. Sunday I was briefly interviewed at church about being a foster Mom. Our licensing company was present and we had several families sign up as being interested in becoming a foster family it was worth it! Currently there are 12,000 foster kids in the AZ system and only 3,000 foster homes. May is foster awareness month. So, if you know a foster family, give them a giant hug and tell them thanks for having such big hearts. It surely takes, patience and a big heart to do this. I love it and dont see us throwing in the towel any time soon.

This week one minute it was Monday and now here we are at Friday already. I have been dreading this weekend all week... drill. My unit is deployed now and there are 18 redhead step children left and we are being thrown into another unit which will mean a 1 hour commute each way for me instead of 30 minutes. I am not looking forward to the drive at all. I will be working on finding a new more permanent unit instead. Shawn will be home with all 4 kids. Sometimes I wish we had cameras in the house so I could see what his days are like and he could totally see what mine are like, lol!

This is pretty much the kind of mood Norah is in every day. She wakes up grinning from ear to ear at Shawn and I every morning (she gets that from Daddy)

D wearing my swim hat (she put it on) and cleaning the tub with her washcloth lol, this girl cracks me up daily. I LOVE HER!

C was at a visit yesterday and the babies were sleeping so D and I sat down to color together... I colored, she spread the crayons all over the front room.

Enjoy your weekend everyone... this is what I wish I was going to be doing!

Brain break

Taking a break from my home to blog today! I have been going to college off and on for 12 years now, you would think I have had enough. I thought I had when I got my BA in October of 2010, I swore I was done I had obtained my goal. BUT, we got pregnant and I wanted to stay home with our beautiful baby girl so my choices were get a job or go back to school (the Army pays me to go to school, well technically the VA pays me) So, I chose school, figured I would go ahead and get a Masters degree. I became a working stay at home Mom who works from home. What a blessing to pull in an income that is more than some people who work 40 hours a week. Sometimes I really have to pinch myself, we are blessed in so many ways. Being a full time Mom and a full time college student is no joke though. Im currently just taking classes to bring up my GPA to be able to get into an MA program. Since I never thought I was going to go any further with school I basically just did the bare minimum to get my BA. No one asks you or really cares what your GPA was on an application/resume they just want a copy of your degree. So I worked hard enough to just obtain that degree. Sorta bitting me in the butt now but no worries I am just taking life one day at a time and try not to sweat the small stuff.

So we made it through another weekend with no Shawn. Sometimes I feel like he doesnt help a whole lot and I cant blame him he works 50 hours a week and wants to relax when hes home. But then he goes away for drill leaving me as a single parent for 3 days and I miss him terribly because I realize how much he DOES help. We have a ton of systems and a great routine in place but you cant always be prepared for everything. This weekends teachable moments are as follows:
Friday nights we put the kids to bed at 8:30 instead of 9pm so that we can settle in to watch Dateline together. So I am working on putting the kids to bed, the girls are so set in there schedules they are a snap. But C struggles with going to sleep sometimes... he doesnt want to (insert his pouty lip and whining) So hes freaking out on me when I said its bed time. I tell him hey we dont act like that, the girls didnt they are already sleeping, we all go to sleep EVERY night. I usually say this to him every other night. Not working so the genius that I am... I say hey C you wanna stay up and play then, he says yes (insert INSTANTLY shuts off the pouting and crying) So I say ok bud but I am going to bed cause thats what adults and kids do every night. So goodnight and have fun playing, see you in the morning. I then proceed to shut down the house turning all the lights off as if I was going to bed. I stood down the hall where he couldnt see me and in the pitch black he starts whaling like hes injured or something, tripping over toys to try and move to possible light. I was trying not to laugh because what did he think I was really going to let him play. Shawn and I have a strict rule of no giving in, we say something we follow thru. So I turn on the lights and say whats wrong bud I thought you wanted to play, he replies No bed please. LOL!! So I took him up stairs and he quietly went to bed!

Yesterdays moment was with our darling 1 year old daughter. Every once in a blue moon shes not in the mood to nap and can be heard on the baby monitor playing or even crying. Well yesterdays cry at one point turned into some serious whaling. I thought man shes tired shes gotta work thru this. It was not subsiding so I decided to go in and possibly rub or back or something to help her to sleep. At which time I came around the corner to her laying on her wet pillow. I was baffled as to how it got wet until I continued to take note of the surroundings. She had no diaper on, she had taken it off. Peed on her pillow and mattress, and pieces of poop were on the floor, all over the mattress and even under the crib. The thoughts in my head were you have got to be kidding me. I immediately took pictures to share this I cant believe this is happening moment with Shawn followed by clean up. I ditched the pillow and sheet because they were NOT going in my washing machine and I was not going to try and pick her mess off of them. There was no point in putting a diaper on her for only a few minutes I started the bath while cleaning up. As I am getting ready to put her in the tub she pees on the carpet in front of the tub. The genius who built this house with carpet in the bathroom is not a genius but an idiot and obviously doesnt have kids. Ripping up that carpet and putting heated tiles down is on my project list.

Needless to say it was a LONG weekend and we were all so happy to see Daddy when he walked thru the door last night. Me more than the kids I think. :-)

The week was a typical one, chores, keeping up with the kids, getting them to and from preschool, me attempting to keep up with my homework. I drink at least one cup of coffee a day and am at TWO small mocha frapps from Mc Donalds a week now to keep up. Some day I will win the lotto and I dont want fancy things just a maid, a part time Nanny, a part time Chef, and a lawn maintenance gardner guy!! Sometimes I climb into bed at night questioning my sanity and also wondering how the heck I continue to do it all. I am still not sure. My Sister usually comes over once a week and helps with the kids so that I can get some homework done and when the kids arent here its like a marathon to clean up the house. Week after week I do it. At times with 4 kids... I wonder how Octo Mom and the Duggars do it, I would love to observe there homes taking notes on what to do and what not to do. We have talked abut having 6 kids, no way am I going to give birth to 6 but thru adoption. Are we crazy?

The girls are a joy to watch grow. Miss D is going to be moving into her room upstairs this week into a twin bed (insert slight sniffles here) I cant believe shes such a big girl now. Norah will be moving out of the cradle and into the crib in our room. I have put a ton of sweat and hard work into the girls room to make it perfectly dreamy! The only thing its missing is the perfect white bunk bed, of course the one I want is insanely priced (Pottery Barn Kids) so I am in the process of saving up for it!! For now since it is slightly early to put D in a big girl bed we will just put a twin mattress on a boxspring on the floor. We will ofcourse baby gate her in her room, with a baby monitor and anything at her level will be cleared so she cant get into anything but a few toys. Here are some pictures of the girls room that has been a year in the works.

Top: framed posters Shawn bought me from ballet performances he took me to. Paper lanterns that we had as decorations for Norah's baby shower.

Bottom left: A cute sign I found at Ross, it had an ugly black ribbon thought that I replaced with some pink plaid ribbon I had. 

Bottom right: a wreath I made of fabric scraps, ribbon and toile. Its hanging on there door.

To the right of the ballet posters is this adorably cute wall decal.

This is the view to the right of the decal, as well as the view when you walk into the room.

I made the netting, the kid table is from Target and the chairs from Ikea. The white shelves are from Ikea too (love that place!) 

These are sewing hoops with material attached that I had laying around. I bought the little mirrors at Michaels and glued all the rhinestones on and ribbon too. They came out really cute for a cheap splash of color on the wall.

These are ballet prints I bought on a trip to England in 1997, they hung in my room all through high school and are now hanging in my girls room!

Dried roses from Shawn over the years hanging above the girls closet. Cute ceramic birds & a bunch of pictures of the girls, and champagne bottle we opened to celebrate a week of Norah's birth.

I couldnt be happier with the way there room turned out, they are going to have so many fun memories in it, together.

Some pictures of Norah from the week.

Happy Norah!

Some how I managed to do one tiny project this week. I made these fabric flowers to turn into hair pieces for the girls. They are all the rage and I keep buying them from various vendors but they are slightly pricy so I decided to try my hand at them to save money and have every color combo under the sun right at our finger tips lol! They came out great.

We got a 4 day old baby boy yesterday. This post is already long, so stay tuned for next weeks and all the stories. Thats 4 kids under the age of two now. We might be bordering crazy. So far its not so bad.