What a day….started with getting the big boys off to school, then Trey, Dee and I met Godma Ann for coffee and some nice down time chatting with her.
I picked up the boys from school and we headed toward Silverdale, stopped in for a bite to eat with the foster parent crew (Terry, Mary Jones and Carolyn) and ran into an ex boyfriend. Interesting.
We next ran to speech, Carlos is working on his “g” sounds and has pretty much nailed the “k” sounds at this point. If only we could get him to say “because” instead of “peecaw” I’d be happy. I know it’s being worked on, he just says peecaw a LOT. Anyhow, I was shocked to find out that the Holiday party sponsored by Harrison Pediatric Rehab (nice visual, huh? Babies in rehab! but it’s really the speech place) was today. Holy cow. The night I’ve been looking forward to for weeks, and I didn’t even get to really get super psyched for it because I was a week off in my mind.
After speech, the boys were done. I was going to run some errands but figured we needed to slow down. We took a break and I parked the car at the waterfront park so that I could read while the boys took a nap, and they fell right asleep.
It’s Alice’s birthday today! Can’t believe our girl is 5 years old. She celebrated at Chuck E. Cheese. The perfect place for a bunch of 4-5 year olds to run around and play games. It was a small crowd there, too so the kids had a ball and didn’t have to wait for games. They stopped for about 2 bites of pizza before they jumped back up to play. We hated to leave early, but had already signed up for the Harrison thing and they had bought gifts and all for the boys.
The Harrison Christmas party was sweet. We dropped the boys off and then got a chance to go to the Santa Shop and pick out two presents for each boy. While we got a 3 hour break the boys got to make gingerbread houses and go to the Santa Shop and pick out things for eachother. Dee and I got to have a bite to eat, uninterrupted, and do a little shopping without distraction and even had a chance to look at washing machines. Exciting, I know, we know how to have a good time. That hasn’t happened in ages. We picked up the candy-filled and exhausted boys, the wrapped presents and headed home.
You would think that was nearing the end of our day. Not so much. I heard muffled crying from the backseat, and immediately thought that Levi was just so tired he couldn’t function. I asked him what was wrong, he said “well, there’s a rock in my nose and I can’t get it out” A rock? In your nose? What the hell!??!?! Yeah, I pulled over, and there certainly was a rock in his nose that I couldn’t see how we were going to get out. Looked like we’d be heading back to the ER. Here I’m thinking, first off WHY…secondly, we were just at the hospital for the party, why couldn’t you have put the rock in your nose while we were there? Got everyone home and unloaded, I was just about to take Levi over to our saviour Margaret’s to see if she could help, when he said it was out. Good news, it just came out. He couldn’t produce the rock, so I’m wondering…guess time will tell.
Tomorrow’s another day, mellow, no plans, and I’m great with that.

I don’t mind the rain, but I do mind 1 1/2 feet of water in my basement and our stuff down there getting ruined. Dee has been working a ton and digging a trench and getting a pump going. It’s hard to see the water level rising and rising and nothing you can do about it. You can really tell how high it was in the second picture (the table you see is a regular size table!) We were lucky that our landlord came and unplugged an old drain and the water level started to drop quickly. Thank God. It’s almost drained now, the rain has stopped and now the clean up and assessment starts. We know we lost the kid’s bounce house, a bunch of Dee’s tools and possibly the washer, hot water tank and furnace. Not a good day for the Field-Bennett family. Carlos didn’t nap so he was down in the basement while we were cleaning and he said “this is lucky, now we have a swimming pool in our basement”. Leave it to Carlos to find the positive, at the very least it gave Dee and I something to smile about. Now, if I could only get my toes to defrost! Think positive thoughts about what we can salvage and for the furnace, water heater and washer/dryer to still be working. It would be tough to have to move out of the house for awhile this time of year. Trying to stay positive on this gray, wet day! At least we are all healthy!

Have you ever tried to get 3 toddlers to pose for a picture AFTER they just saw Santa Claus and the first snow of the season!? Yeah, we tried that last night…enjoy the pics. I think we got one for the Christmas card, though, and that was the goal. Thirty pictures taken, lots of frustration and all for that one keeper. Totally worth it and I think they had fun driving us mad as well. After the Christmas pics, we got the tree up and the ornaments on. It looks great!

Had a rough go of it at church today, if anyone has suggestions (I’m at the point of having Trey in the nursery with a portable DVD player and a pacifier!) on how we can keep Trey from melting down would be much appreciated. He did pull it together for the last 5 minutes just in time to belt out a hymn. He doesn’t know any of the words or even the tune but he sings LOUD and PROUD. Go Trey!

Today I held a 3 month old baby boy with some very serious medical issues. To say that it was humbling would be an understatement. He was sweet, looked like a newborn and his long term prognosis isn’t good. But I have hope, especially this time of year, that he will overcome what’s been dealt to him. Say a special prayer for baby V.

The first picture is what I saw when I looked out my window this morning…seems that Abbie was drinking a latte! She had found a coffee cup, most likely thrown out of my car and into the yard by one of the children, and pulled the top off so she could lick out all that was left. It was pretty cute.

We went to the foster parent Christmas party today and the boys LOVED what Santa brought them. Trey got a Lightning McQueen that plays a bunch of sounds and he can drive around, Carlos got a set of Home Depot tools and a tool belt to use when he’s helping Mama Dee and Levi got a cool Playmobil pirate set with a jail and a rowboat. They couldn’t wait to get home to play with them and spent hours checking out their cool new toys. This year the Foster Parent Group paid for a latte truck to come and we each got a free latte. Nice treat! Also, we won a $20 gift card to the Evil Empire so that’ll be fun to do some free shopping.

The drive home took FOREVER…it was snowing while we were at the meeting and we left around 2:30 to get home. The roads weren’t icy, just slushy and nobody seemed to realize that you can drive in the slush, they all were riding their brakes the whole time. Frustrating for sure, but we made it home to only a very light dusting of snow at our place.

We’ve been taking out the Christmas bins and our tree is up. Tomorrow we’ll decorate. Carlos fits in the tree box, it’s funny since its just his size. It’s fun to bring out all the decorations and the boys are excited about the change in decor. Levi’s even asking where things came from so it’s neat to be able to tell the stories behind some of the decorations.

Now, if only those Christmas cards would write themselves….