What I Have Been Up To

I have been meaning to blog for quite some time now. However, ever since last Thursday it seems like I have been running my "keester" off and haven't had five minutes to myself. So here is what we have been up to:

Last Thursday, I got a phone call from Health & Welfare. They were wondering if we would consider taking a seventeen year old girl with a six month old baby for a week to give her foster home a break. You have to understand, we haven't taken in any foster children since Logan and Natalie. Health & Welfare has been calling us lately because our foster care license actually expires within the next month or so and they need to come out to get us recertified. However, Bryon and I have been talking in great detail lately about whether or not we were actually going to renew it. It seems like whenever either Bryon or I feel like quitting foster care, the other one of us isn't ready to throw in the towel quite yet. However with the additions of Natalie and Logan we are finally feeling like our little family is complete and now would be an ideal time for us to quit that part of our lives for a season. So when this phone call came last week, it took us a little bit by surprise. We agreed that we could do it for a week. When the worker called me back that afternoon she informed me that there had been a slight change and they were only needing us for Thursday through Sunday. I said that would be fine and I would just wait until the first part of the week to hear back from them about the details. That is when the kicker came. They were talking about this Thursday, Valentine's Day. I just about fell through the floor. I had been working so hard on getting Sam's class party put together as well as my little Valentine celebration for my family that I had totally neglected the housework. Not to mention with this girl coming, I would have to rearrange the bedrooms in order to make room for her and her little baby. They sure don't believe in much notice! Luckily Bryon was home when they came to drop her off because I was in the middle of teaching piano lessons. While she was here, we let her sleep in Natalie's room with her baby and we put Natalie in Logan's room with Logan. I wasn't about ready to throw out the celebration that I had been planning for my family and so we proceeded with our Valentine Party. She helped clean up the dishes while I worked on homework with Sam and getting the other kids in bed. This foster girl had dropped out of high school and has since gotten her GED and is attending the local beauty college. So she attends school from 8:30 until 5:30. That means that I was responsible for watching her baby while she was gone to school.

Friday was a little interesting. I was late getting Logan from preschool because I have forgotten how long it takes to buckle an extra car seat in the car. When we got home from getting Logan from the school, Natalie's therapist from the Child Development Center was here waiting for us. Then my friend, Valerie came by for lunch. After she left, I started working on getting dinner put together so Bryon only had to put it in the oven. Bryon and Sam came home from school about 3:00. When they got home, I went to Church Distribution. My mom gave me some money to put towards a temple dress for Christmas. I have been looking but haven't found anything I am quite willing to settle on. Well today was my lucky day. I bought a new temple dress and a new slip. My friend, Brenda, bought me some cute white Sketchers (shoes). So I am all set! I was cutting it close and only had time to run home and grab my temple bag before it was time to meet up with the youth at the church. It was neat to go to the Rexburg temple to do Baptisms for the Dead. I wore my new dress and shoes. However, my new dress is a little big and I need to get it altered before I wear it much more. I spent most of the time we were there working in the dressing room. Towards the end, I was able to go and sit in the chapel and watch a few of the youth be baptized. I really like how you can watch the baptisms take place from the chapel. I really think it helps with keeping reverence. When I got home, Bryon had things under control. However, he needed to go back out to the school to move his office to a new room and so we put Natalie & Logan to bed and Sam, Conner, and I watched "Game Plan." Our foster girl had a bath and went to bed.

Saturday I was scheduled to work my volunteer shift at the temple. I really enjoyed my time there. I worked in what is called "Family File." I went to the various rooms to pick up the names for who the temple work was being done. I then took those names into the office where they were entered into the computer. Then I was responsible to stamp them each with the date. Then if it was a family name, I took those names back into the temple for the patrons to pick up and then I started my rounds all over again. I was supposed to work 9:00-11:00. However, we got busy right at the end of my shift and then I was trying to train three ladies and so I didn't get out of the temple until almost noon. On my way home, my friends Linda & Valerie called me and invited me to lunch with them. Little did we both know that we were on the same road with only one car between us! I ended up just going to lunch mostly to just visit because Bryon and I had plans to go to dinner later on that evening. After lunch, we went to Sally's Beauty Supply and Wal-Mart. One thing they mentioned at the temple when I was there on Friday was that they didn't have very good white rubber bands for the girls. So I bought white elastics and some crochet thread and I am going to crochet around some elastics to make hair scrunchies for the baptistry.

This is where my weekend got exciting. You see our foster girl's bedroom had a strange odor to it. I noticed it Friday. I wanted so badly to ignore it. However, Saturday it was still there and I noticed that she had slept with the window open. It all looked too suspicious for me to ignore it. So Saturday after my little shopping trip, my two friends came over to see if they could recognize the smell. Linda said it didn't smell like pot because pot has a sweet smell. So after going through her things and not finding anything there, we called on our neighbor who use to be a cop up on campus. He came over and smelled it and said that he agrees with us that he thinks something is going on but couldn't pin point the smell. We called the worker and told her of our concerns. Her reaction floored me. When she brought the foster girl here, she wanted to know our feedback on the situation. However, when we called to tell her of our concerns, she basically said that we shouldn't cause waves because the foster girl would be leaving in about 24 hours. I tend to disagree with her. Number one: this is my house, I have every right to know what is going on under my roof. Number two: I have four very young impressionable children. Number three: if she is doing something illegal I want to know. So this is when we took matters into our own hands. We called Bryon's friend who is a cop. He mentioned that the drug officer was on duty. So we called him. He came over and also "smelled" out the bedroom. He thought it was cigarette smoke or really bad marijuana. He told us he would be happy to come back at 8:00 and give her a really bad scare. We told him we would think about it and get back to him. He then stopped outside to have a snowball fight with Sam and Conner who were outside playing in the snow. The foster girl was going to go to Idaho Falls to help with hair and make up for a play. Bryon and I decided to go to dinner with some friends. We hired a sitter to come and watch Sam, Conner, Logan and Natalie. We took the foster baby with us. The first thing that Sam told our friends was that a cop had been to our house today. So I tried to give him a really good scare telling him he better not say one word about it to our foster girl. However in scaring him, I think I also scared the babysitter. We went to dinner with every intention of beating our foster girl home. We went to dinner at the Relay Station in St. Anthony. Dinner was delicious. Bryon had cod and I had prime rib. Our friend, Neil had ribs and his wife Brenda ordered a chicken fried steak. However upon seeing Bryon's cod decided she wanted cod so she got a to-go-box for her chicken fried steak and ordered cod. She also like my prime rib but that is where Neil drew the line and said she couldn't place any more orders! We all thought dinner was just great! We then headed home about 7:20. We were about halfway home when our sitter calls us to tell us our foster girl was home. We told her not to panick. We then asked her to get the kids shoes on so they could go to her house while we talked to our foster girl without the kids around. Neil and Brenda took the kids and the sitter to the sitter's house. By now the foster girl knew something was up. I confronted her if she was smoking. She told me she wasn't. She told me she would never do that around her baby or infront of my kids. I had to admire that. I really did believe her. Now comes my other frustration with Health & Welfare. They told me she had been going to church up where she was living. Which led me to believe she was with an L.D.S. foster home. However, my foster girl informed me the smoke I was smelling was from her previous foster home. I really did believe her. Bryon went to get the kids. We ended up talking while everyone was gone. She said she loved it here and wanted to stay until she turns 18. She said she would really help around the house. She likes Bryon and I. She really likes the kids and the kids adore her baby. I told her I would talk to Bryon and we would get back to her. After talking with Bryon we decided we aren't going to do it for several reasons. As a matter of fact this whole adoption experience has led Bryon and I to decide we definitely aren't going to renew our license. We just have four very young children who all need our attention. We just feel like we need to focus on our own family for now.

Sunday we all went to church. After church, we came home and had a light lunch. We then got our foster girl ready to leave. She was going to go home to her family for a week. After the week, she will be going to another foster home. Her family came and got her about 2:00. I then had a short nap while Bryon helped get our main meal of the day ready. We then ate. I had to be at the church at 5:00 to practice for New Beginnings. At 6:00 our stake was rebroadcasting the worldwide leadership. Our home teacher sent over his daughter so Bryon and I both could attend. I thought it was an excellent broadcast. With Monday being a holiday, Sam talked Bryon into sleeping with him and Conner slept in my bed with me.

Monday was President's Day. I ran a few errands in the morning. Bryon then left for Idaho Falls around noon. We promised the kids that we would take them to Alvin and the Chipmunks which is playing at the cheap movie. So Monday night for family home evening, we went to Alvin and the Chipmunks. My kids loved it. Conner wants the movie and Sam wants all of their old CD's.

Tuesdays are my run around like crazy (at least until 11:15) days. So after my normal Tuesday chauferring kids from one end of the town to the other, Linda came in to watch my kids while I went to get my hair cut and colored. After my hair appointment I had to go to the D.I. to get a suit coat that I needed for New Beginnings. Once Sam and Bryon got home from school, Linda and I went to check out Scrap-A-Doodle. They used to be across town (closer to Linda). Now they are right downtown so we went to check out their new store. I think we both were impressed because we both spent a fair amount of change there! Tonight at mutual we had New Beginnings. We did it in the form of a news broadcast. We had the girls come up with skits centered around the values for the commercials. It was adorable.

Wednesday was a I-would-forget-my-head-if-it-weren't-attached day. I cannot tell you how many weeks Natalie has had therapy at 9:00 every Wednesday morning. I did have everyone dressed and ready for the day. I was downstairs working on getting some pictures ordered online from Wal-Mart. Once I placed my order, I was going to run some errands. We were just getting ready to go and Natalie's therapist showed up. So we did therapy instead of running errands. After therapy we did run to the bank. We then came home for a bit before we had to go get Logan from school. We then went to the school to get Logan. We came home and had lunch. I had just laid the kids down for a nap and was working on organizing my pictures on the computer when my good friend, Brenda called. She wanted to come over and for me to show her how to make scrunchies for the temple. She had just barely gotten here and Logan's therapist showed up. I seriously didn't remember seeing her on my schedule. However, upon checking my day planner, I realized I did have her scheduled but had just forgotten about her coming. She worked downstairs with Logan while Brenda and I worked on scrunchies upstairs. I had two piano lessons. Linda called for me to fill in as a sub for Bunco. Bryon agreed to watch the kids and hold down the fort at home so I could go. Bunco was a blast. I ended up winning the "basket". It is just a drawing. I won some money, a little candle, a notepad, and some pens. Tonight was the lunar eclipse which we got to see.

Today has been run like a mad woman day. I feel like I have ran all day long. Again I was up at the crack of dawn trying to organize my pictures and order some online. I had an appointment at 10:30. This meant that we were a little late in picking Conner up from school. It is a good thing that Bryon is there to get there if I am late in showing up. However I was only about five minutes late today! We then went to Wal-Mart. We finished at Wal-Mart and came home just in time for me to hurry and feed them lunch. Logan had a therapy appointment at 1:00. Our ward has started a babysitting co-op (a great idea if you ask me). I decided to take advantage and send Conner and Natalie's to someone's house so I could be alone with Logan in therapy. So once we finished with lunch, I took Conner and Natalie's to the sitters and Logan and I went to therapy. After therapy we went and picked up my contacts that I ordered well over a month ago and had forgotten all about. We then went and picked up Conner and Natalie. We made it home in time for me to teach my one piano lesson. I taught my one lesson and then ran to Porter's while Bryon helped Sam finish his homework and watch the other three kids. I was home about 4:30. I then loaded up all four kids and we went to the library. After the library, Sam wanted to go to Porter's. He has been saving his allowance up for a puppet that he saw there. He bought a cop puppet. I think it looks alot like Sam. I will have to take his picture with it and post it for you to see. Tonight was Bryon's night to work at the temple in the laundry. I must say that after running all day, I was really thinking that I could use Bryon's help tonight in helping me get everything done. However, the night has gone smoothly and I am amazed at what I was able to accomplish. I know without a doubt it was because my Heavenly Father was helping me because we are trying to do His will. So we got home from the library and Porters and we had dinner. I then got Logan in bed. He didn't get a nap today and so he desperatly needed to get to bed. I then got in my dress. I needed to go get my temple recommend signed. The neighbor girl came over to watch the kids while I was gone. When I got home, I got Conner in the tub and washed some dishes (Not in the tub with Conner but in the kitchen sink). Then I went and washed Conner and went back and finished cleaning up dinner. You have to know cleaning up dinner is unusual for me because it is something that Bryon does every night. I then got Conner out of the tub and Natalie in bed. Sam got his reading done and it was time for bed. I came down and started blogging to unwind. I then took a break and went upstairs to clean the bathroom. Now I am going to finish this long post.

I have come up with some ideas you can look forward to seeing on my blog (thanks to another friends blog). I will be doing "Pass the Torch Tuesdays." On "Pass the Torch Tuesdays," I will take a moment to pause and share something our children did while we caught them being good. In a world full of filth and good being called evil I have a great deal of anxiety about raising kids with strong morals and personal convictions. I want them to be strong enough to stand on their own feet and not be tossed with the trends and pressure of the masses. I know how strong that pressure is and it’s especially hard for teens and young adults. Worse, is that too often when they do stand strong they receive nothing but ridicule and contempt. So it is my hope with "Pass the Toch Tuesdays" that I hope to show them that it is okay to be different and stand up for what they believe. I was going to start "Pass the Torch Tuesdays" this past Tuesday. However, as you can tell we have been extremly busy. Also my kids have been fighting constantly lately. I would really have to dig deep to find something noteworthy to praise them with. However, I have been on the lookout and look forward to sharing what I have found on Tuesday. Also I am going to start "Wordless Wednesdays". On "Wordless Wednesday's" I will simply post a picture that I took during the week or possibly pictures of memory lane. So check back to see what I have come up with!