Cuteness!

long time ~ no blog

It has been a long time since I've blogged. We have been so busy with "LIFE". Max is amazing! He fits in with our family so well. In the beginning he and Lily would fight a bit. Lily was very jealous at first having to share us with a little brother. But it has been a while now that they have been so very close. When Lily goes to pre-school during the week I have my "Max time". He is so sweet! He is such a lovable and happy child. We are so thankful and blessed. Max loves his big sisters and brother. He loves his room, his dog (I think he could care less about the cats :), his Mom & Dad, and his toys. And, this week we had our 6 month post placement visit. All went well, and we started to get the stir of thinking about maybe going back to China.

One of our hurdles ~ if you can really call it one ~ is that Max from day one does not do well riding in a car. His foster mother stated in a letter that we received on "gotcha day" that he didn't LIKE riding in a car. Well, we now know it's because he gets car sick ~ and pukes if we drive more than 10 minutes from home. So I give him 6.25 mg of Benedryl approx. 20 minutes before we leave the house if it's going to be a longer ride. I haven't found (nor looked real hard) for children's dramamine and the adult pills are so small you can't make a children's dose out of them. So I've stuck to Benedryl and it works ~ Benedryl helps with nausea because it's an antihistamine.

Lily started dance class in January. This is right up her alley! She LOVES it. She has her first recital in 2 weeks! She is growing so fast! Lily is one of the tallest children in her pre-school class. She wears size 6x and weighs 47lbs. She's going to be tall! Angela is amazed because she is only 5ft. 2 in. tall at 16 years old. She's pretty much done growing and she knows it. Angela didn't wear a 6 (and never wore a 6x) until she was 6 or 7 years old. Lily is 4!

Speaking of Angela ~ she's now a sophomore in high school. She's got her driving permit. And, she has a boyfriend.

Mark is going to be 20 years old in a couple of months ~ WOW...time flies. He bought his own truck this last year. He works part time and goes to college part time. He and Liz broke up after 3 or so years of dating. That was a bit sad ~ we miss seeing Liz, but get to once in a while since she lives in the neighborhood and everyone is still friends.

We've been blessed with Eric still working for a wonderful company that takes care of us. And, in 2009 I started working full time as a pediatric nurse on a surgical floor. I LOVE my job. Blogging has been low on the pole with so much demand on our time.

2009 was one of happy events and sad events. Our cat Chloe died on Christmas day. She was with us 11 years. I sobbed like a baby.

And, our relationship with Eric's parents has gone for the worse instead of better. Things became so toxic to our family peace ~ our family emotional harmony that we needed to take a step back. Toxic behavior directed at you and/or your family can suck the life out of your family emotional harmony. It has been very hurtful, and by no means anything that we ever wanted to happen. We've even gone to counseling to try to find a way to deal with the problem. To find a way to make things better. We did exactly what the counselor suggested, we would keep trying to get together, put hard feelings aside, try to talk things out in a sensitive, loving manner. But when there's one that feels all is to be their way or no way....then there's only so much you can do.

For over a year now I've been hoping to find the file of a little girl in Lily's SWI on the shared list or even an agencies individual list, but to no avail. It's practically impossible. No one agency will help us try to get the file and files fly off the shared list so fast ~ if she's on it she could be locked and disappear off of the list in seconds.

I wonder what is in store for this year.

• My Mom is thinking she would like to move south and be closer to her family. She's tired of the snow and cold. We would love to have her around more. She'll be here in April to go to the beach with us! If Mom moves down I won't have to work as many weekends too. :)
• We would love to adopt again.
• Construction to finish our basement starts in the end of March. We're adding a bedroom, a full bathroom, and a big TV/gameroom.
• Angela will get her license.
• Mark may transfer to another college.

For me I cannot wait to see the ocean in April. I'll sing Zak Brown's "Toes" the whole way to the beach....