New Beginnings

It's almost been a full year since I last posted...hmm this seems to be a trend with me :D Anyways, many things have happened within my family the last year or so and so much more is coming.

I stopped working for Domino's Pizza in October 2011. The store got shut down for a while and we were all offered our jobs back, but I felt like I need to be home with my children.
               Though I will admit part of me didn't want to go back because I couldn't stand most of my co-workers and the only thing that made working there bearable was working with my boss Peter but he was gone. : (
Matt and I had been talking for a while about me staying home, he told me it was my choice and whatever I wanted to do he would be fine with. I just didn't feel like it was the right time yet, until everything happened in October and I was like "Here's your sign". So I was home with Sarah, and Jordan when we had her, going to school and trying to really work on keeping the house clean. When Fall Quarter started coming to an end I really didn't want to go back to school. I enjoyed it, but I still felt like I was needed at home more then I needed to be going to school. Once again Matt and I talked about it, and like always he was supportive on whatever choice I made.
So I quit school.
And I am so glad I did. I have spent the last two or three months working on being a better mother, and homemaker and I'm not going to bed at night nearly in tears from fighting with Sarah or because the house is a mess. It less stressful for everyone and we don't look like a hurricane whipped through our house! : D
There is less fighting, less yelling and less mess around here and I couldn't be happier or more sure that I made the right choice staying home. Which brings me to the news that is coming up.

For those of you that didn't know, Sarah has a half-brother named Mikie. He is 6 months older than her and he has lived up by Seattle with his Mom. Sarah and I have only met him twice. Once when we they were about 4 months and 10 months, and then last year when Anna (his mother) brought him up to visit.
I don't know if I can express very well in this blog how I feel about this boy, but I will try. From the MOMENT I met him, I knew he was meant to be with my family. His mother is not a very good person, and an even worse mother. I won't go into all the details, but let's just say it's a miracle this child has survived as long as he has.
Shayne (Sarah's birth dad) just found out last week that Anna signed her rights as Mikie's mother away. I couldn't believe that she finally did it, and I could not be happier, because now Shayne and I are talking with Anna's cousin (who now has Mikie) about having Mikie come live down here, and live with me.

Now let me back up just a little bit. For the past month I have been DRIVEN to clean up my house and yard, I hate cleaning, and I will do it as little as I can, but frankly I have been hell-bent on cleaning everything. I can't even explain the feeling, it was like something was literally pushing me to do stuff and I didn't know why.
Now I know.
Everything has been falling into place. Quitting my job, school, cleaning, and even now the timing is perfect because tax returns are here and I will have enough money to get everything Mikie needs that he doesn't have (which practically means EVERYTHING). I know with ALL MY HEART this is the right thing to happen and I know that Mikie is my child, and that he belongs with me and my family.
My friend Maggie said it best "Just because a child isn't born into your family, doesn't mean that child isn't meant to be with you."
I have had "baby fever" for a while now, wanting another child, missing being pregnant and having a baby, but at the same time I know we can't have an infant right now. It's just NOT the best idea for our family. But this feeling wouldn't go away. As soon as I heard what was going on with Mikie, and that there was a chance he could be with us, that feeling went away. I knew that he was going to come home where he belongs.

I hope I have expressed to you what this means to me and my family. I have NEVER felt so sure and certain about anything in my life. Not even when I had Sarah, I knew I she was mine and I was keeping her. But I am even more sure NOW about Mikie. I do not pray, REALLY pray anymore. But I have prayed about this, and I have had the most calming feelings about what is going to happen.
I know God has been setting this up for us, to make it work. Even though it wasn't when I wanted it to happen, I wanted Mikie to come be with us years ago, but it just seemed impossible.
Now it's not.
I know with all my heart God has made this happen for me and my children to be home, safe and loved. Where they ALL belong.

Thanks for reading this, I know it's very different from my usual snippy self. : ) But I had to say what's on my mind.

The Month Of May.....

I've been looking forward to May because it means summer is getting closer, as well as Sarah and Matt's birthdays. Well....this month has started off with a bang, and an AWESOME bang at that. It is amazing how a simple thing like two people moving can make your life so incredibly.....BETTER!. Not to sound like a mean, bitter, or rude person.....oh screw it! I am SO EXCITED I can hardly stand it. For those of you who now think I've lost what's left of my mind I will explain. The roommates are GONE. WAAHHOOOOO!!! Sunday, May 1st, 2011 they officially left; left the keys, also all their trash and mess but whatever. I was annoyed at first that they were that rude, but honestly I'm so relived that they're gone I just don't care. I am so excited I can hardly stand it. Anyways so I've been working on getting our house clean, I've decided to start at one end of the house and just deep clean everything to the other end. I am now on Day 4 of cleaning just the kitchen and I'm just a few dishes away from being done. Matt's working on cleaning out the bedrooms and next on my list is the living room. I bought some gloves the other day and starting working on the flower bed out front yesterday; didn't get much done because I had dinner plans but I'm excited to get back to it. Matt has been working on getting grass in the backyard and it's coming in nicely! It's nice to have a grassy backyard instead of a dirt sandbox. As much as I really don't like to do work, (house cleaning and yard work) I have had a lot of fun doing both, it's a great sense of accomplishment.

On to the other good news. Matt had a job interview last week for a position he's been wanting for a while. He works out at Bybee Foods as a forklift driver for almost a year now but he's been a applying for a position as a mechanic which is what he knows and loves to do. And it's 99% that he got it! We are so excited. Matt's happy because he'll be doing something he likes and getting paid more. I'm happy because he'll be doing a job he enjoys and he will have a more "normal" schedule. Right now he works Tuesday through Saturday 11pm to 7 am. So I don't get to see him much during the week, with this new position he will be working 6am to 4pm Monday through Thursday. It will also be nice with him making more because we can get things fixed on the house and pay the mortgage without stressing about the money. Things will still be tight, but less stressful. I've been looking into getting a second job, but Matt's been telling me not to and now I'm excited because I won't have to. Between working at Domino's going to school two nights a week I don't get to spend as much time with Sarah as I would like, and if I had gotten a second job it would be even less.

I am so thankful for having such an amazing boyfriend who encourages and supports me to stay home with my daughter as much as I can.

We already have one person who is going to rent one of the rooms. He's a co-worker of Matt's from Bybee's and hopefully be moving in this month. I'm not looking forward to having more roommates, but for now it's more helpful with making sure we get the mortgage paid and being able to save up money to fix up the house. I told Oscar, Matt's cowoker, that we will get along just fine as long as he doesn't touch or move my stuff without asking me first. :)

Well that's pretty much all the news I have.

Please Read

Quick note tonight. A very dear friend of mine made this video. She has adopted 3 children from China and is very involved with Love Without Boundaries. This is the message I got from her and I promised to help by re-posting.

"I recently made a video for a Ford company contest to try to win $10,000 for baby formula for babies in China. There is a link where you can vote for my video and I wonder if you would take a few seconds and go vote…at least once. If you really want to help me, you can vote once a day until Dec. 31. A lot of baby formula could be bought with $10,000! Please go to this link (watch the video if you want or not), but JUST CLICK on LOVE IT. You can publish it to your page or skip that step! USE THIS LINK PLEASE

http://apps.facebook.com/globaltestdrive/showentry?entryurl=%2Fcontests%2Fshowentry%2F629689

THANKS SO MUCH, Suzanne"


Please help out, this is real.

Sarah's Trips To The Hospital

So Wednesday's night I was taking Sarah to the store and my night started out with running out of gas. Yay. Cold is not fun. Mom and Dad came to my rescue and brought me some gas to get to the gas station. Thank you for that. Afterwards Sarah and I went to WalMart, I was at the self check out trying to pay for my stuff and keep Sarah from climbing out the the cart. I turned back to the cart just in time to see Sarah flip head over heels out of the basket of the cart and smash into the floor. I dropped everything and snatched her up: Sarah is screaming and I started crying. After talking with a manager who took an incident report, Sarah's birth father, Shayne, and I took to the ER. The entire visit took about an hour. The doctor came in, and since Sarah was in a good mood and moving around immediately assumed she was fine. He checked her neck and said since she was so young he didn't want to do any x-rays, gave me a list of things to keep an eye out for and said to take her home and let her sleep. Sarah was right back to her normal self so I wasn't too worried about her. Then Friday night I was playing with her in her room and I noticed that her right collarbone looked kinda funny, like it was sticking out a bit, and slightly swollen. I wrapped her up in warm clothes and drove her back to the ER. This time the doctor had an x-ray done and told me that Sarah did fracture her collarbone. He said it might have happened anytime she was playing and had fallen down, but he guessed it was from her fall. Since Sarah is so young and it doesn't seem to be bothering her the doctor said it will heal itself on it's own within 6 weeks or so. As we left the hospital Sarah waved to everyone with a grin and the doctor pointed her out to all the nurses saying "There goes my broken collarbone baby" Took Sarah home and put her to bed. This was around 8pm
2pm Sarah woke Matt and me up with screaming, we went in there and found her crying on her bed, covered in vomit. We cleaned her up and took her back to the hospital since the doctor from her first visit said if she vomited to bring her back.
My poor baby girl threw up again at the hospital and the nurse gave her some meds for nausea. This visit took about 3 hours and in the end the doctor told me the vomiting was most likely from her having the flu last week and not from her fall. I felt a bit stupid rushing her back in there, but at the same time I rather be told she's fine then not take her in a have something really wrong with her.
We saw the second doctor in passing and he was like "Hey! It's my broken collarbone baby!"
Thankfully Sarah does not seem to be in pain, she's moving her arm and neck just fine. It's only if you touch the spot she gets squirmy and pushes your hand away.
My princess is a tough trooper and I am so proud of her.
So there's the story of how Sarah got her first broken bone :)

1 Year

So I'm not dead.
Nor did I fall off the face of the planet.
Or get abducted by aliens.
Or even just get lost.
I'm just freakin' lazy and didn't feel like writing in this bloggy thingy. But now I is back and gots lots to say.
Aren't you just so excited?

In my last post I wrote that my reduction surgery was approved. Yay me.
March 3rd (lol I think) I got drugged up, cut up and stitched up. It was the weirdest feeling afterward let me tell ya, it was like instantly I just felt better about myself. I was no longer the freaky girl with the monster-boobs-that-could-knock-you-head-off-your-head-if-she-swung-around-fast-enough. My back pain was gone, along with about 6 pounds.
Crazy.
I think it was the hardest for Sarah. She was used to having a lot of soft padding to snuggle up with and for the first few days she would lay her head on my chest, then look up to make sure it was me. She'd even pat around with the confused look on her face. We both had a lot to get used to. I actually felt FLAT. Something I never thought I would ever feel. My parents were a BIG help in taking care of Sarah and helping me get around after the surgery. Now I am very happy with what I've got! :)

I just recently moved to Richland (for those of you who don't live in or know the Tri-City area, it's about 15 minutes from where I used to live with my parents). It's been a hard adjustment for Sarah, she's used to seeing her grandparent's everyday and now she sees them about once a week. But my princess is a trooper and I'm so proud of her.

Sarah started walking about 7 weeks ago. It makes me sad cause it just shows how quickly she's growing, but I'm also excited with how well she is doing. She says "Momma" very well, she calls her grandpa "Bampa" and I'm starting to think she uses the same word for Grandma as well. She gets the cutest confused face with I call my mom "Bamma". She doesn't quite understand the word "ma" can be used for someone other then me.
Sarah also has her own words for her babydoll, when she wants to eat, wants a book or if she wants her bottle. She LOVES to look at books and has quite the collection of balls. Another word she uses often.
May 17th was Sarah's 1st birthday and that weekend she had her first birthday party. It was a lot of fun to put together, but now I'm exhausted lol.
Sarah has started to get more teeth to add to the two she got at Thanksgiving. She got her top right canine tooth, then the top right middle.
I informed her she look like a dork.
Now the left side canine and middle teeth have nearly come all the way through, along with another bottom one.
I'm not sure who I feel more sorry for. Her for teething, or me for no sleep ;)

Now that Sarah has learned to walk she is ALWAYS on the go. She listening fairly well and understands what rooms she's not aloud to go in and when I tell her to stay inside if the door is open. She'll squat down right at the very edge of the doorway and wait.
She always gives me a reason to laugh everyday.

This has become Sarah's favorite way to sit, no matter where she is; in her car seat, shopping cart, stroller, couch or highchair, she always turns so she can prop her feet up. Not quite sure where she learned that one.


It still amazes me how quickly time goes by when you have a child, how quickly they grow up and how quickly they learn.
I've said it before and I'll say it many times. Everyday I am reminded of how lucky I am to have my daughter.
She is my life.

Surgery

I heard from the doctor's office today. My insurance approved my surgery! This Thursday (2/11/10) I have a post-op appointment where the doctor will explain everything he's going to do and all that stuff. THAT DAY I will make an appointment to have the surgery. They said it's looking like the beginning of March. Leaving the office today I almost cried, I still can't quite believe this is really, right within my reach. I can only think of ONE time I have ever been more happy and thankful. I will post more when I know more. Wish me luck! :D

Happy Tiddings and a Little "Helper"

IT LIIIIIIVVVVVVEEEEESSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My computer is alive once again. Thanks to my friend Matt! It was a lot of hard work, and completely touch and for a while, and I was worried I would never see my computer lit up ever again!......
*sighs* oh who am I kidding?
Okay so I sorta had the power cord plugged in wrong. So sue me. How was I supposed to know that it was a D/C thingy and could go only one way. When my dad heard about it, he just rolled his eyes and gave me the look of "I don't know you".
And how does he think I feel? Hahaha, for about 5 months I was computer-less because I am computer-dumb. Oh well. It's fixed now and working....fairly well. Anyways, other happy news. I had my doctors appointment on the 25th, and still crossing fingers, but it's looking like by March-ish I can have my surgery.
*does little dance* Woot.
I can actually be comfortable for the first time in about 9 years and hold my baby more. I can't wait. :D
Sarah is now standing up in her crib, with her little head just peaking over the edge. She thinks she is hilarious. She likes to stand up to everything, and still finds things that aren't stable, but now she has figured out how to rock herself and the object, without falling.
Sarah is also learning how to do household chores. The pictures below will explain.

Sarah likes to........

Clean the bathroom

Help me with the laundry






Help Grandma do dishes

And Grandpa's personal favorite.....

Fire Safety. Checking all the wiring in the house, and making sure it's all pulled out of the wall.

Oh yes....there is never a dull moment in this house now. IT can move. Sarah's new favorite things to do are screech as loud as she can, then laugh like crazy, making clicking sounds (learned that from Grandma) and watch Stargate.
I am not kidding.
I'm trying to get her to at least notice when Whinnie-the-Pooh is on, or something, but she doesn't even blink. Stargate? She's got a front row seat. Lol, I don't know if I should be proud or worried!

Sarah is very determined and if she wants it, come hell or highwater she will do whatever it take to get her grubby little hands on it. If it's the TV...

(this toy is actually in the middle of being cleaned, so the seat is not there. She decided to just poke her head up to get closer! I had WTP on, but all she wanted was the freakin' buttons!)

Or her favorite toy, Grandpa's weights.


At the end of each day I am exhausted and feel like I've been chasing after a two year old instead of a 8 month old. So I know when two years comes around........I'm screwed. :D
But everyday is a blessing and I wouldn't trade a moment of it. She loves to snuggle and give kisses, which is beyond slobbery, but I love it.
I love my princess, she truly is a miracle in my life and I am so grateful she is mine.