We started our parenting “Love and Logic” class last night. It’s a different approach than what we’ve been doing with our kids, but I think both Dee and I are excited about it. It’s worked well so far, we’ve had a few meltdowns but overall the kids are responding. They are going to get tired of our empathetic “oh bummer” pretty soon here. Trey already hangs his head down when he hears it, but supposedly that takes the punishment off of the parents and onto the action so we’ll see how it works.

We also have baby Zoe for an overnight last night. She did great, was only up once to eat and that wasn’t a big deal. She’s an easy baby to have around for sure, very sweet. Tonight we get to have Alice over for a sleepover, so Levi will be SO excited when he finds that out.

Off to order Scholastic books (yippee!)

I’m having issues with posting pictures on the new version of Blogger…working on that so bear with me!

BIG NEWS at our place…our baby is now a preschooler. Levi got on the bus today (he was a little scared) and went off to Wilkes. When he came back, he was so jazzed and wanted a little girl who was on the bus to come home with him. It was cute. He told us that he played with Playdoh, jumped on a trampoline and the best part was that he got to bring in some applesauce that we made yesterday and that was the class snack for the day. He got to tell the class about how he picked the apples for the applesauce. This should be a great year for Levi, we are so excited for him.

Carlos has been a bit cranky the last few days and that usually means “ear infection” so I took him into Dr. Margaret today and found out that yes, it’s an ear infection. 😦 He’s on some meds now, hoping it’ll clear up quickly.

Headed to playgroup tomorrow and then we have our foster parent dinner. It’ll be a tough one, it’s a goodbye dinner for little Julio. At one point, pre Trey, we thought that we’d be his adoptive family and he really has a special place in our hearts. I’m happy he’ll be going to his new family soon but it will be tough not to see him anymore.

Trey’s a hoot these days…he is so happy most the time (even though he’s cutting 4 molars) and is really starting to talk. My favorite thing he says now is “oh chill”and “touchdown” when we are watching football. It’s fun to see how quickly he’s picking up words.

What a success the Islandmoms Sale was…overall we raised $1800 (there were 15 sellers). Personally, I was happy to get rid of a lot of the clothes and make $300! I was completly beat afterwards, that was a lot to organize. The moms want to do another sale in the Spring so that’s something for the calendar.

Went to a couple garage sales this morning, my friend Holly’s daughter is raising money to build a school in Sri Lanka and started an organization, Bainbridge Kids Care. They raised $4,000 this weekend! Anyhow, you can check out what she’s doing here, its pretty amazing for a 6th grader: http://www.bainbridgekidscare.com/.

Another friend update, Mateo is out of the hospital and back home. Thanks all for your kind thoughts and prayers for him and his family. He has a long road to recovery but he’s surely a fighter.

We did our Sunday morning coffee with the boys at Bainbridge Bakers and then came home to watch the Seahawks game and I squeezed in a garage sale. It was fun to get out the boy’s football jersey’s again, they looked so cute. They all scream “touchdown” now and throw up their arms.

After the game and their naps, we took them into Walmart and let them pick out a Winnie the Pooh DVD (that was their reward for parting with their toys/clothes for the sale). On the way home, Carlos and Levi were talking back and forth for a few minutes (with Dee and I only getting about 1/3 of the conversation) and Carlos suddenly said some long sentence in gibberish and Levi chuckled and said, “oh my gosh, that wasn’t even a word” These boys are too funny sometimes.

We’re looking forward to a busy week…Levi starts preschool on Tuesday, Faith’s coming to play and we are having a goodbye dinner for Julio, who is going to his future family soon. Our niece, Emma’s birthday is on Wednesday and we are planning on going down to celebrate next weekend. Should be fun to hang out with Linda, Scott and the girls for the weekend.

Relief is on the way! The baby will be going to another foster home this afternoon, whew! I feel badly, of course, this is our first placement that’s failed. BUT…I have to think about my family here and this baby and her constant screaming is really working our last good nerves. After sleeping on it, I know that we’re done for awhile with receiving care. The only placement we would possibly take is a newborn, other than that, the answer is no.

Tonight was way more mellow without the screaming one…we had Mary and Alice for dinner and then Alice stayed overnight for a sleepover with the boys. We’ve promised them Fruity Pebbles and Yogurt for breakfast, what a treat that will be for them.

Still getting ready for the sale, what a lot of work. I think we’ll make some money, but man it’s whooping my booty!

So we got asked to do respite care for a 5 month old baby for 3 days. Didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, but now that she’s here I can see that saying yes was a HUGE mistake. I love babies, I mean really love baby time and all, but this one is really not a good match with our home. She’s crabby and has the HIGHEST pitched cry/scream that I have ever heard. I had asked about anything like this before taking the placement and was told she rarely did it, but now that she’s here she’s been doing this for 20 minutes out of every hour and it’s driving me mad. So, this is the first time I’ve called and said, “I’m done, when can she be moved?” Anyhow, this has put us all over the edge, we’re done with taking in extra babies for awhile (we’ve told them we would only take a short term newborn at this point). I’m all for foster parenting, but not at the expense of my family’s sanity.

Levi keeps seeing the school buses go by and can’t wait to go to school. He starts next Tuesday and he couldn’t be more excited. It’ll be a nice break, too, with the big kids in preschool and only the babies to play with for a couple of hours. I’m sure the nap schedule and all will have to be adjusted but it’ll all work itself out.

Almost done pricing things for the consignment sale…we have 6 bins of clothes and all the shoes to sell. Hope we get some money from all of it! I may be busy on Ebay after this sale…arrgh!

Looks like we’re going to have another little one for a couple of days…respite care (where she’s actually in another foster home but they need a couple of days care for whatever reason). Don’t know much about her, only that she’s 5 months old.

Still getting ready for the consignment sale…so far, besides the 67 pairs of shoes, I have 5 bins of clothes to sell. I’m pricing them fairly cheap and hoping to sell lots and make some money. We’ll see, fingers are crossed. It’s good, though, because we needed to go through their things and get rid of ones that they don’t wear or are too small or are out of season. Hoping this will help us get more organized. HA! Like that’ll ever happen.

Anyhow, took the wee beasties to Silverdale today to goof around and got a few necessities at Target, but nothing exciting. The kids had fun, though and now they are napping while I go through the last two tubs of clothes for the sale. We need more dresser space…

First off I have to say that the last month or so that Dee and I haven’t been sleeping well at all. It’s because we had this foam topper on the mattress and it was getting old and crumbly and we threw it away. Ever since then, it’s not been a comfy bed. So, a couple of days ago I got a new mattress topper at Costco (fancy with the memory foam on one side and pillow top on the other). The memory foam part has to expand for 24-72 hours but I put the pillow top part on the bed. Night before last we slept SOOOO well, felt so good in the morning and all. What a difference. So, last night we crawl into bed anticipating another blissful night’s sleep…uh, yeah…that didn’t happen. For some reason unknown to us, Trey decided to be up screaming and crying for the majority of the night. We were up comforting him, then up 10 minutes later changing a diaper, giving him teething gel and Tylenol…needless to say, we’re pooped today.

Going to take the kids to the park so they can run around and burn off some energy and take a nice, long nap. I have to finish getting L’s stuff together as well, she’s moving to another home today. She’s been really easy, but having 4 kids ages 3, 2, 1, and 1 is tough. We’ve found that adding a newborn or small baby is much easier all around and we really only said yes to this placement because the state really needed someone. Can’t complain that she’s been tough, though, because she’s slept and eaten and taken naps and really hasn’t fussed at all.

Off to the park!