Surgery Update

Anna did great. She about back-handed the dentist at one point, but then she calmed down and they put in the caps. As for the front tooth I wanted out, they said, "It will eventually loosen up and fall out." They did say that with her permanent teeth coming in behind her baby teeth that there was major over crowding and that they will pull her bottom "eye" teeth at her next appointment to give her room. I hope they do. He also said that when she is about 13, she will need braces! ARG!! I knew that would happen. That is still 6-7 years away though, so for now I do not worry about it. I hope we will have a better income or insurance then so we can do it. Like I said...too far away to think about it right now. Gotta go. Take care all.

Oral Surgery

Ok, I know I promised you pictures from our bank field trip, but you will have to wait. Anna is having oral surgery today to get a few more caps. (Not that we don't have a whole mouth full already.) I am going to ask if they won't pull one of her front teeth, since the other is behind it and she will be pretty much out of it anyways. If not, I am dragging her along to dentist number two sometime soon to get it out. For some strange reason, they do not pull teeth anymore for there being some behind it, unless the back one is as high, or higher than the front one. It sucks. We better have some good dental coverage when this child gets older, she will probably need braces. UGH! I think it is mostly because of stupid things like that too. Anyhow, we are heading out the door soon, and we will bring home a very agitated, irritated, tired child...with at least two more caps. We will probably have another discussion with the dentist, as he assumes we are the bad parents for our daughter's teeth. I hate to differ with them, but in the case of her teeth, we took to the dentist one month after we got her and they scheduled her for the first one at that time. So, you see, this is an on-going problem. Well, I got to go. Take care all and I will try and get those pictures up later today. I will at the very least update you on the surgery. Have a good day. God bless.

Street Noise?!

How close are we to the major loop for our city? Well, when you look out the window, you see this...

See the sign for the exit? And of course the cars passing through on the busy loop. It is actually pretty funny to me. We had our blinds open today and Anna said, "Mom, I can see the street sign from here." It was too funny. I had never really noticed it before today and we have been here two months. LOL! Yes, I took that picture through our blinds. I didn't feel like raising them. Anyhow, thought I would share. We always here street noises all day and all night. We are also like 2 blocks from an ambulance dispatch, so we hear sirens a lot too.

I will update tomorrow on our bank field trip from today. It was fun and I learned alot. (Like I said, you have to wait till tomorrow.) Have a good day.

Evaluation and Nightmares

I had my yearly evaluation at work. Yes, my year hit LAST October, and yes it should have been done then, but there was a lazy assistant manager at the time and she never did hardly anybody's evaluations, so now they play catch up. I will still get my next evaluation in October this year, so it might be a good thing. It was a good evaluation. I only disagreed with one thing and that was my attendance. You can only possibly get a 4, and they gave me a 3. I have missed 1 day in a year and a half, and I was so sick that I barely got out of bed that day. I think I have been late 3 times. I always work overtime if asked, and I am always at work. I think according to the descriptions, I should have gotten a 4, but they didn't change it. Everything else was mostly 3s, which is exceeds expectations. I did get a few two's, but I am okay with those, because they were general things that everyone got 2's on. (Two is acceptable.) I did really well, and I will get a pay raise. Now granted it is only a $o.70 pay raise, it is a raise none the less. I do get another evaluation in October, so I will take it for now. No, that 70 cents does not make that much a of a difference. I still am not earning very much, but I do love my job and try to do it well. Oh I know what I got the two on....it was handling change well. I showed up to work one day last September and was told oh by the way you are starting in X department today. I was devastated. I loved where I was. I am liking my new department, but my heart is still over in the other department. Anyhow, I was pretty much okay with the evaluation. I think I did well and hopefully I will be able to keep doing well.



As for the nightmares, Anna had one last night. She never tells me what they are about, but the blood curtling scream she let out last night was enough to keep me up worried about her. She was petrified of something when I went in and was standing at the window in her bedroom screaming "Daddy! Daddy!" I went over picked her up, and she held onto me like she was afraid something was taking her away. She held tight. I don't think she has ever held me that tight. I just held her and rocked her for 15 minutes and then she was okay so I put her back to bed. I asked her what she dreamed about, but could never get it out of her. She used to have these type of night mares or night terrors regularly when we first got her, but then they dwindled away to almost nothing and have not had one in months. She has been talking alot about her birth mom, so I am wondering if this triggered something. She is adament that she wants to see her again and told her we would arrange a visit next time we head that direction. It will be a short one, because my plan is to arrange the visit as we are leaving town that day and heading home. I hope that the drive for 6 hours in between will help Anna to know that her bio-mom has no access to her and that we will continue to keep her safe. The last visit triggered months of continuous nightmares. We are hoping to avoid that this time and if it does happen again then it will be the last one for a long time. Well, it HAS been 2 and a half years since the last visit. We let her see her when Anna turned 4 and she is 6 yrs and 4 months. That is a long time. Anyhow, I really hope the two are not related.



OK! I better get moving. The lack of sleep caught up with me and I didn't get up as early as I need to. I get to wash my hair today, so I am excited. I straightened my hair two days ago. It is not too bad, except that my hair is naturally frizzy. I say that because it never lays down. It has always done what it wants and a perm usually is the easiest thing for me to do with it. I will get some decent pictures of it straight before I perm it again. I can only do straight so long. Here is a young picture of me with my frizzy hair.

(1st Grade Picture - Not too frizzy, but you can see it has a mind of its own)

(Younger Skinnier Me - Spring 2001-I worked hard to get my hair that straight)
See, I have always had it. OK, I gotta go. Have a good day. God bless you all.

Field Trips and Subtraction

On Monday we had a field trip to X-Fab. It is a microchip making place. They have large windows on the rooms where they make them. It was very informative and fun. Did you know that they make microchips in a "clean" room. They have to get all dressed up in a full protective suit and can't wear their outdoor shoes before going in the work area. I thought that was interesting. They even have their faces covered. Really cool. They gave all the kids a strip with microchips on it to take home. The kids had a great time and learned a lot. Our next field trip is Friday, when we go tour a bank. That should be a lot of fun.

On the note of subtraction, we started it two days ago and Anna took with it and ran. She loves subtraction. We are still struggling with counting and adding most times, but she loves to cross out some of the shapes and then count whats left. Why didn't we start with subtraction? LOL! This is where we hit in her math book and I didn't think she was ready because we are still having addition issues. I just thought it was funny that she finds it so easy and fun. Her daddy even gave her "extra" homework last night because her couldn't believe how quick she was working the problems. It was too funny to come home to 2 pages of homework completed. She gets 2 stickers on the chart for that one.

Alright, time to get moving. We have school today, I work, Anna has cheerleading and then I go back to work for our monthly work meeting. Have a great day and I will check in with you all at the very latest on Friday about the bank field trip. God bless.

Easter!!

Easter this year was great. We were busy, but we had fun and Anna was very happy with the day. Here are some pictures and the short version of what we did. This post is picture heavy, and that's your only warning. LOL!

Here is Anna on Saturday night dying Easter Eggs. She was able to do most of them by herself this year, once we ditched the flimsy wire and got her a spoon. It is, after all, only food coloring.

Here is the results of dying eggs, before the fun appliques.

Here are the results after the appliques. Aren't those stickers fun. We had funny face eggs. Anna had a great time applying the stickers. She loved the faces.

Here are Anna's Easter Goodies. I am so tired of buying candy, that we really mostly give her a small toy. The bottom thing is a baby doll bath tub that she has been eyeing for a year and a half at Wal-Mart. The Easter Bunny was good to her this year. LOL! She also got the second Gigi movie. she was content with that. There of course was candy, but most of it disappears before she gets to eat it.

A picture of Anna and myself before church. This was before her hat went on and before the sweater. Aren't we cute?! I know, I know cheesy grin from me. Anna is so cute though. LOL!

Anna hamming it up for the camera. Did I mention it was raining and cold and right after this picture she fell on a wet spot and got the back of her dress dirty before church?! I took a wet wash rag to it and rubbed it clean. No one even noticed the dirt. I know, the tights are cute too. She actually had sandals to wear with her Easter dress, but it was too cold. She wore the tights I bought for next year, so they are a bit big, but the other size is too small. She is growing too quick.

Here is a close up. Don't you love the hat? She has never worn an Easter hat before this year. She always tells me 'no.' I was so proud of her for wearing it and it looked so cute. We got lots of compliments at church today. I loved it. She enjoyed it and didn't even really want to take it off.

Here is a picture at home. I thought it was pretty cute and I love how you can see so much of her tights. They are kind of fun.

Here is a picture that Anna took of me. Not too bad, for a six year old. I had on a new outfit too. I never get new clothes, LOL! It was a nice treat.

After her third, yes I said third Easter Egg hunt. She went yesterday morning, with the others, then she hunted for eggs throughout the backyard, then we had a mini egg hunt with the soon to be cousins at her Grandparents house. The picture was just kind of fun and summed up the day.

As you can see, we were busy. We also had a nice dinner out at Anna's great-grandparents. All in all, I would say that Easter was a success. We had a good time and Anna did great. She did watch her new Gigi movie last night before bed. It was too cute. Well, I better get going. We have a VERY early field trip today. Have a great week all.

Field Trip Update

Alright, so I said I would post pictures from our last field trip and I am just now getting around to it. what can I say, I have been busy. I work, a lot! Last Wednesday, St. Patrick's Day, we had a field trip to the citibus station in town. The kids got a tour of the bus stations, then they put them on a bus and gave them a drive to their repair shop, and then we had a small tour of the city. It got long and boring while we were driving because we were stuck at the back and we couldn't hear all the neat facts the driver was saying. I wish we could have, it would have made it more interesting. Daddy came with us on this field trip as he had taken a vacation for the week of Spring Break! He is super smart to do that and I know Anna was excited to have Daddy come too. Here are some pictures from that day.

Daddy and Anna:

Anna on the Trolley Car:

We followed the trip by of course some outside time. We love having a backyard. I just wished we had more toys in the back. We would like a swing set and a small swimming pool. Anna keeps picking out the $300 ones at Target and Wal-Mart. I keep having to tell her we don't make that kind of money...LOL! Anna and I kicked around a soccer ball for about 45 minutes. It was a beautiful day. Here, of course are pictures of Anna kicking the ball around.

We finished out the week, then on Saturday, Anna went on an Easter Egg hunt with her grandparents and some of her soon to be cousins. They were having so much fun that she ditched me for a second hunt with our church in favor of playing with everyone and going out to eat. I was sad, but I got over it. She had a great time and didn't want to come home. LOL! That's what happens when she has a lot of fun.

After they got back, Anna decided she wanted to "graduate." Our caps and gowns have been sitting on the living room floor (part of my clean out) for a few days and she was mesmerized. She got so excited about it, that we let her keep one in her closet. Here she is modeling one of our high school (yes, that was a long, long time ago) cap and gown. She had so much fun.

An update on the closet clean out....I am done!! YIPPEE!! I need to take a car load to Goodwill and try and sell a few things, but we HAVE a coat closet by the front door now! I am so excited and so proud of the stuff I have been able to let go of. It feels so good and our house looks better because of it. I am very happy with myself. Alright, I better go for now. Tomorrow there will be a post about our Easter Sunday. It was fun. More to come. God bless.

Field trip, St. Patricks, Update

There is a field trip today!! We are going to the local Citibus terminal to learn about the buses and how they run and they are taking a trip on a bus. Most of these children have probably never even been on a bus, unless they rode the shuttle on 4th of July. It should be fun and informative. Anna is looking forward to riding on the bus and can't wait. I will post pictures later, if I can take some.

Are you wearing green today? We have green on all the way around, right down to Anna's hair bow. She has some green on her shirt, but doesn't really own an all green shirt. She of course has mostly pink. LOL! I did find one that had green on it and she has her hair in a pony tail, with a green hair bow, so that should count, shouldn't it? Happy St. Patrick's Day for those Irish folks. Who knows the story behind the green anyways? I just think it is a fun day to wear a certain color. LOL! I know there is more to it than that, there always is.

Closet cleaning update: I managed to get the coat closet cleaned out the way I wanted to. I still need to put the coats in the closet and buy some shoe racks, so we can also put our shoes in there. I guess I will have to buy an odor thingy too, because shoes cooped up in one closet become stinky. LOL! Right now they are under Anna's dresser and under my bed. I have half a mind to leave them there, but I REALLY want them in the closet. Our shoes were always in the closet.

Alright, I better get a move on it. I want to get some school done before we go on the trip. Yes, everyone else is on Spring Break, but we are working through it. We will take another break later as we have been off a lot lately from the move, Christmas, then funeral arrangements, so I didn't figure we needed another break. Hope you all have a good day and I will update you later. Take care.

Vote here

If you have a few minutes, please go and vote here:

http://modernmom.com/main/polls_video/1

for AMY B from KENNEBUNK . We are trying to get her to win. Her husband said that if she won, he would personally pay for her to have a massage at Disney World!! LOL! He is betting she doesn't and we are trying everything we can to help her win. All you have to do is click and vote for her, thats it. She needs our votes. Right now she is trailing, but I know we can help her win. She wants to prove her husband wrong. LOL! Go ahead. You know you want to. Thanks all.

Forgiveness Update

Alright, it is not going to be easy, and I know I need to do it. Something in my Bible hit me tonight and I am going to try hard to do this. It would give me a whole new outlook on life. I hope I can let it go a bit and live this way. With the risk of being snubbed for copyrighting, I am going to share what was in my Bible on forgiveness.

The first verse is in Ephesians 4:32

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

"Here is an exercise: Each morning when you wake up, check the fertile soil
of your heart to see if any bitter seed has taken root. That friends who
betrayed you, the boss who berated you, the husband who barely understands
you-bitter seeds will take root in every garden. Weeds are like that.

"Next do this: For every bitter root that's come up, apply the greatest
killer of all-forgiveness. To forgive is to cultivate a garden God will
delight
in, one filled with the flowers of kindness and tenderness." (Taken
from the Women of Faith Bible, Page 1455, Forgiveness Day 27.)

This was an eye opening verse for me. I know I can't do it alone, but I sure am going to try with help. It has been very hard to put that hurt and anger away. Now, it is fear. Fear of what will or more of fear of what can or may happen. This is all due to unforgiveness. It may never go away, but I do not want this fear dominating my life. I want to live life to the fullest and know that I was able to live up to my full potential.

Here is the second quote, again taken from the Women of Faith Bible, Forgiveness Day Day 30, Page 1472. (See I give credit, where credit is due.)

Colossians 3:12-13
As the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender
mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another.

"Evie was moving and I helped her clean the apartment. Unfortunately
her roommate had applied corkboard to the wall using the wrong adhesive and it
was impossible to remove. We picked, scraped, and scratched for hours.

"Well into the process, I said, "You'd probably like to kill Janet about
now." Evie replied, "No, not at all. After all Jesus has forgiven me, this
is nothing."

"Well, I knew that. Something about the way she said it though, I've
never forgotten. It's easier to forgive others when we put it in the context of
what God's given us."

Again, this struck a cord with me. I mean, how can we live our life with unforgiveness with an outlook like that. Wouldn't we all be a little easier to live with if we though that way. I am going to try. I will laminate these (I photocopied them) and keep them with me at all times. It is not going to be easy, but who said that everything was supposed to be easy when you have God. It just means we are forgiven, right? I am going to try and keep this new outlook on life. I know there is more than just me struggling with this in the world today, so I hope this can help someone else as well. It was just what I needed today. God bless you all and I will try to keep my chin up. I am learning so much in God's Word.

Getting there and Forgiveness

I have one closet cleared out to a reasonable amount of stuff, only 3 more to go. This will be a long tedious process with working and all, but I feel like we will make it, eventually. Next closet is technically a coat closet and I want it to be one again. It has the most stuff in it and I am determined to clear it out.

As for forgiveness...the Bible and God says to forgive everyone, but I am having a hard time forgiving and letting go of one thing. My husband knows what it is as does my immediate family, but they don't know how hard of a time I am having forgiving and letting go. How do you forgive someone or a lot of someones of something so horrible, that it literally affects the rest of your life?! It will follow me where ever I go. It is the reason we are where we are at and I feel like I need to be ready to run from this at any given moment, if they decide to come back and haunt me, which they can and they have so much power, that they do it frequently with many people who have been there. It is a wall that stands there between me and God and I want it gone, but I can't let it go. It is always there and will always be there. How do you forgive someone of this? Please, I need verses, stories, support, prayer, anything. This is eating at me. I need to get past this, I really do, but it will always be there. I am constantly bitter about this one thing. I don't want to be this way, but I am only human. Anyone got any good verses? Would it help to write them a letter and say that I know they were wrong, and they know they were wrong, but I forgive them anyway? This is a hard time in my life. Myself and my family are having a very hard time getting over this one hurt. Please, do not send me the fact that I need to forgive, or that I am over reacting. I am looking for practical advice. How do you not live every day in fear of something? No hate mail or comments are required, as they will be deleted. If you stayed with me thus far, thanks for listening. I am having one of those hard days. Thanks all.

Cleaning Out!!

I am on a cleaning out and clearing out rampage. It is going to take me weeks to get it all done, what with school and working full-time, but I am on a nice starting roll. I am determined to get our extra "stuff" down to one closet. You know the stuff I am talking about...the baby books, the baby keepsakes, the things you had growing up, like medals, papers, etc. We have two and a half over flowing closets of this "stuff." I want it down to one and I want to be able to use our coat closet for once as an actual coat closet. I want to put the shoes in there and the coats and get them off the couch and from under the beds and dressers. There is too much of this "stuff." I have sold things online that I never imagined would sell. I have gone through like six boxes and have them down to two, but these will probably still be pared down more. I have trashed, shredded, sold, gave away, and reorganized, and I still have a long ways to go. I am thinking I can have it all done by May 1st. Thats my goal. That is still a long way off, but I want my house to look like a house, not a dump heap, which it looks like now, because the closet contents ended up on the living room floor. LOL!! We just have too much junk and it is time to let some of it go and quick.

On a side note, we are trying to determine what to do with school. We will finish with the Kindergarten curriculum before the end of the traditional school year. Do we leave it at that, or do we keep adding on to keep us busy. I would just buy the first grade material now, but I am waiting till July 17th when Mardel does their big education sale. I will get the 20% off, plus my discount of 15% off. I would be crazy not to wait for that, especially since her first grade Language Arts will be $92. Add to that, Math, Science, and Social Studies, and it gets VERY expensive. Anyhow, what would you do? Would you call it a year, or keep the kids busy till the traditional school year is up? Let me know.

Life and Death

Well, Tuesday night, Jeremy's Grandmother passed away. This would be the reason you haven't seen a post from me since Tuesday. She was a spry woman until about two weeks ago when she had a stroke. This was hard on Anna and she had a lot of questions. What 6 year old wouldn't. It was her only living Great-Grandmother and though she was not as spry in her older age, she still had an impact on Anna's life. She passed on at the age of 89 years. There was a viewing of the body Thursday night in which Anna could not understand how she could be in heaven and we could still see her on earth. She is not old enough to fully understand the spiritual as in God takes our spirit on. She wants to be able to see it. We explained it the best we could and she then just wanted to be held so she could see Grandma's face. She then proceeded to ask a hundred questions about why her eyes were closed and why her hands were like that and who painted her fingernails. (We had been to the nursing home Monday to see her and she did not have polish on her nails then.) The list goes on. She was trying to fully comprehend everything.

On Friday we had a nice lunch provided by the officiating Pastor's church. It was really good and we had leftovers last night as well. We had try to prepare Anna for the funeral (all the kids went except for the baby) the best we could. It was a beautiful sentimental overview of her life and I learned alot about her that I never knew. Grandma was a great painter, although not famous, she played piano, she always had enough of everything at her house for ALL the grandkids to have their own, she and Grandpa were never apart until his passing in 2000, and the list goes on. She loved to sing classic hymns and she could tell you stories of her life as if they happened yesterday. I used to love and listen to her stories. I held up okay for the funeral as did Jeremy. Anna broke down for a while and really understood then that Grandma was not coming back. Tiffany had sent a beautiful letter with memories of Grandma that were just precious. It was a nice funeral and people all remembered the good in her. The ladies who did the music did a very good job.

After that, we went to the cemetery. Anna wanted to leave two flowers there, one for Grandma and one for Grandpa, so we let her put them on the casket after they finished the ceremony there. It was bitterly cold outside, but everything just seemed so nice. Late last night we went back up to the grave site and the flowers over her grave looked beautiful. Anna wanted a purple rose, so I let her have one. She understood that it was Grandma's flowers. She was also fine with the fact that Grandma has passed on and her physical body is buried in the ground next to Grandpa's.

It has been a difficult week for all and especially for the all the kids. I didn't think Anna would have to experience death this young, but she has handled it all extremely well. I praise God that Grandma was a Christian and that it gives us peace to know that she is walking hand-in-hand with her husband again and playing the piano again. She was an amazing lady from what I have heard.

Anyhow, thats all for today. Will resume regualr posts tomorrow. God bless.

Like Mother; Like Daughter

Ok, I was dead set that Graciela looked like her mother, so I dug up some of my sister's baby pictures. Here is one of each:

Tashia as a baby:

Graciela:

I know you can see the similarities too. You have to remember that we have WAY better cameras now and that the pictures I have of my sister were scanned into the computer, so not ideal, but you get the idea. Anyhow, I was dying to put some pictures up here before I send my sister back her baby pictures. (It'll probably be about two more weeks Tashia.) Hope you all enjoyed. I know I did. I think Graciela looks just like her mommy. If nothing else we can always guarantee that she is a mommy's girl. She will take mommy over anyone. I can't wait to see her again and my sister too. I really enjoyed my visit there.

Update on Life

Still no news on my mother. We are trying to get her rent paid for March still and yes, I know its the 3rd. Not sure what else to do. I work for an 8 hour day tomorrow. I went back full time, but not sure if I mentioned that already or not. Oh yeah and the full-time is temporary, unless it works out. I am doing it to try and help with my mother's bills as well as keep up with ours. Time will tell if it is worth it or not.

Today is my mother-in-laws birthday. She is...shhhhh! I can't tell that. She is keeping busy though I am sure. Anna picked her out a gift and made her pink cupcakes. Ummm, not so sure about the cupcakes, but I am sure someone will eat some. They are strawberry and she said, "Grammy will like them." Not sure she will even want to eat one, but okay. Anna is still very fond of pink. She also picked out a gift with a pink flower on it and the card has a pink bow on it. Go figure. I hope Grammy understands that it was picked out with love from a 6 year old.

My husbands grandmother (Dad's side) is not doing well. She had a stroke not last week, but the week before. She is not eating or drinking and really they are just keeping her comfortable until she passes. Her breathing is really shallow and labored. She goes lengths of time where she doesn't take a breath, and then she gasps. It is really kind of sad and scary to watch, but she is ready to go be with Jesus in heaven. I took Anna up to see her today and Anna asked a few questions and then she was fine. She asked to see her, thats the only reason I took her. She is on morphine, to ease the pain, so hopefully she will pass soon and go meet Jesus and end her life here on earth to begin a new one. It will be hard, but she will not be struggling anymore and she will not be hurting. Prayers for the family on this one as well. It is going to hit a few of them really hard, but I know she is ready.

I guess thats all right now. We need to make a second batch of cupcakes to make sure there is some that others will like too. Hope you all have a good week and I will keep you posted. God bless.