Busy Days...But Blessed

The calendar for May looked very crowded and I seem to just keep adding more and more to it all the time.  So I counted up how many appointments we have this month.  Over 30!  So I got out last months calendar and counted up the appointments we had... 28 appointments!  We are so busy.  I know I keep saying this over and over...that I am tired.  Now I can see why!  This is not counting the times we needed to go to town to get groceries, out to celebrate with family or to just purchase something we needed.  Add to all that running our normal life and all that needs to be done and I can see why I am tired.  I really try hard to get into bed before 9:00 p.m. as my body really needs that much sleep.  I am up around 6:00 a.m. every day.

I must admit I am not as tired as I was when we first started back into foster care.  Praise God our life is feeling more normal and doable.  Antonio only has a few more treatments on his toe.  We have been taking him to the doctors every four days to get some stubborn granulated tissue burned back and under control.   

Elizabeth's broken foot should be healed up in a few weeks and hopefully she will be off her crutches.  She is supposed to get her cast off and a special boot this week that we can take off for showering!  That should make life much easier.  I guess it is not a walking boot though.  So she will still be on crutches.  

The littlest boys behaviors are getting better. They are maturing a lot and know what is expected of them.  Tim and I even had a date out totally alone last night.  It was our first in three months.  The only people allowed to baby sit foster children (in our county) are people who have went thru a huge amount of expense and trouble.  (Including training, finger printing and background checks)  So we have absolutely no one to watch the toddlers for us if we want time out and alone except for another foster family.  All the foster families we know are just as busy as we are.  DFCS held an "appreciation night" for foster parents. They watched the kids and sent us out to eat. (I had to bring my own food because of my food sensitivities)  But we went anyways just to have that time out alone.  We appreciated it so much.  Our own children stayed home and had movie night and we took the toddlers to the play time that was hosted by a local church and DFCS.  It was really nice. 

My very helpful girl! She is great with the toddlers and helping me to get things done around the house.

Even though life is busy and was so overwhelming.  It is slowly getting easier and stabilizing.  God is so very good to us.  Always.  We could not have walked this walk and survived over the last three months without Him helping us every step of the way.  Thank you Lord.

Another thing that is very time consuming is I have delved into the realm of potty training "B" which is something I have not done in YEARS!  We started last Friday.  We have been working hard at it a week and he is making wonderful progress.  He will be 3 years old in September and was showing great interest in it so we decided it was time.

When the boys came they had no appropreate self calming skills.   If I put them to bed for a nap or at night they would poke their eyes repeatitively, bang their heads or hit thier heads with their hands or fists till they fell asleep, while they cried.  So for the last three months I have either rocked them to sleep for every sleep time or taken them in on my bed with me till they fell asleep and moved them to their own beds.  We always play baby praise music to them while I help them get to sleep.  After three months of doing this they seem to have mostly forgotten the old behaviors.  Tim and I started a new bed time routine with them over the last week.  I read to them and put on the baby praise music in their own room and just put them to bed. They are doing very well at getting themselves to sleep on their own now with very minimal self stemming and very little fussing.  Praise God!  I am still cuddling them and laying down with them at nap times though.  I think they still need this time with me for bonding reasons.   Putting the toddlers to bed at night in this manor is helping Tim get uninterrupted better quality sleep and he is starting to feel better.  Also it is giving me about an hour in the evening to get some house work done.   I feel I am so far behind on all of my out door type things.  The goats hooves need trimming.  I have not gotten in a garden but still want to put in a few tomato and pepper plants.  I won't even mention all that needs done in my flower beds...all I can say it has so many tall weeds in them that it looks like the "Munsters" live here!  I know in my heart these are all small things in the great scheme of things and our children are way more important.  It will all get done eventually.

We did have a few visitors on our porch for a few days.  Little bats.  So cute!

This was the last meal William made and ate before starting his diabetic diet to try to control his hypoglycemia.  He was diagnosed a few weeks ago and told to go onto medication.  But we are going to try to contol it with diet first.

We did make it to home school bowling day and "B" got to bowl for the first time.  They all had a great time!

There was even a friend of ours there that helped Elizabeth be able to participate.  Thank you "J"!

 My right hand man!  He is such a huge help on these outings and every day.

  
I feel so blessed every day.  So happy to be here and able to do what I do in Gods strength.   Life here is a joint family effort for sure.  The children are happy and life is so good.  I don't want to miss a moment.

Deuteronomy 31:6  Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.

 

May the Lord God in heaven be with you now and always.  May He guide your every decision and make a way for you thru the hard things you are going thru. 

Blessings,
susan