Beautiful!!

We were at church the other night and were practicing for our Easter play when we all heard "thunk." I looked over and saw a boy seizing on the carpet. We all started gathering around him, trying to make sure that he didn't hit his head on the chairs. One man had his whole body braced between his feet so that the boy didn't move much. I just stood there with tears in my eyes. My son was on my right and my daughter was on my left, and I could see the concern on there face. My daughter wouldn't leave this boy until she was sure he was going to be OK. He did come out of the seizure and the paramedics came. Later that night I learned that this 13 year old boy has cancer. He had just been put on a new form of chemo and was having a reaction to it. I look at this boy and he is the same age as my oldest. I have nothing to complain about. I have thought about this boy every day since it happen and I just cant get him out of my head. I keep going back to my kids and am blessed to have such healthy children, but I know that can be taken away in a moment. I find that to often I don't take time to appreciate what has been given to me. My kids are not even my own, they are Gods and I am here only to take care of them and then send them off to do the same thing as I am doing, but hopefully better. Thank you God for my kids.

I was feeling down last week. I was tired of doing the same thing every day. There was nothing to look forward to (so I thought) and I was just being a big bum. I decided to pack up the kids and head to walmart. When I got there I stepped out of the car, I felt a cool breeze and I saw this......

And this..................

And I realized that I had nothing to complain about or to be bummed about, I only needed some fresh air and a change of scenery. I live in a beautiful city. The mountain is only about 20 minutes away. I love my town.

I had such a good night tonight. I was so bored today and just (again) tired of looking at my walls. LOL (I really need a good book to read) My mom decided to come over and stay and ended up doing so till about nine. It was nice to have company in the house and someone to talk to.

We talked a lot about the adoption. I think she is as excited as I am about it. I am so grateful to have support of my family. I will have my mom at the birth. She is really excited that she gets to be there. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Check this out!!

Ill post more later but check out my ticker. Its WAY down at the bottom of my blog, so scroll way down. I tried to put it on my side bar but it was to long and got cut off, so I have to put it way down here.

Can you believe the baby weighs more then a pound now? WOW!!

Not to much going on!!

Tonight we had Easter play practice at our church. I like to go and get the kids some ice cream after we are done. I do it because its fun to do with the kids, but also I do it so that there bedtime snack is done and we can go home, brush teeth and climb into bed. Its usually pretty late when we get home.

I got all the kids home and in bed and then realized I should put a fresh diaper on Skyler. He was already asleep and he seemed to sleep through the diaper change, but just as I was going to walk out the door I hear "luv you momma." Oh, that melted my heart. He is really slow to talk (compared to the other kids) so for me to hear him talk after three years of not much but babble is so fun. I kinda want him to stay little. He is my last and I'm having so much fun with him, but I am glad to be out of the baby stage.

Nothing new on the adoption front. I am still waiting to get hooked up with a local adoption agency and then we will see what happens.

Baby is still getting bigger and stronger. I can feel his movements every day now and they seem to be getting stronger. My energy is still increasing and I find myself more motivated every day to get stuff done that has been put off from being sick for so long.

I also just realized that I think I will have this baby before it gets to hot here. YIPPEE!!! I don't know what I am worried about, Ive been huge and pregnant in the 119 degree heat of Phoenix Arizona. OK, that was miserable.

I took a virtual tour of the hospital I will deliver at. I have never had such nice rooms for delivery. This hospital is top notch. They just built it. The bathrooms in the birthing suites have jacuzzi tubs with jets. WOW!! I wont be getting in them for the birth, but who knows afterwards.

My last birth with Skyler was the most pain free birth I have ever had. When I got to the hospital the nurse said I could have an epidural before they started to induce me. I was basically numb for a few hours before anything happened. The only problem I can see with this is that my labor with Skyler took over 22 hours. That was terrible. I am now wondering if it was because the early epidural. With all my other births I was not allowed to get the epidural until 3-4 centimeters. Oh the pain of getting to 3-4 cm. Its scary. With Matthew, I waited till I was 4 centimeters and then they started to put the epidural in, but it took them 45 minutes to get it in. By that time, I leaned back to lay back down and his head was coming out. From start to finish it was four hours. Its so unpredictable.

On one hand I want the labor to be long so that I get to spend lots of time with the adoptive parents, but on the other hand, long labors are tiring for everyone. We will just have to play it by ear.

Nothing interesting to say so.........

I thought I would take a blast back three years and take you all through (partly through) my last pregnancy three years ago.

I conceived Skyler while married to my second husband Rodney. It was a very planned pregnancy but my marriage went really wrong and I ended up leaving him. My blessings came when I was able to move in with my kids Auntie and Uncle. They were an enormous support for me and my kids and we became one happy family. I will be forever grateful to them for allowing me and my kids to share there beautiful home with them until I could get back on my feet. I lived with them from 3 months pregnant until Skyler was two years old.

Here are a few pictures along the way starting with a picture of me before I got pregnant.

I was at a fairly comfortable weight here. I certainly wasn't as skinny as I was before I had any kids but I was happy.
This is a picture of me near the end of my pregnancy. The man in the picture is the kids Uncle and the little boy is there cousin.

Of course this is me in the hospital. I look really big and tired. LOL But I was very happy.
This is the day or the day after we came home from the hospital. He was so tiny.

Here he is in a cute little outfit. The problem is that he was the chubbiest baby I have ever had so basically he looks like a stuffed turkey. He cant really put his arms down in this jacket. LOL

Now Skyler is three years old. He is not as chubby, well except his cheeks. I would be sad if he didn't have those chubby cheeks. He is such a joy. I love every day with him.

almost 23 weeks?

I really don't know what day of the week I actually turn 23 weeks. I wish I knew. It used to be that I switched weeks on Sundays, then it turned to Thursdays. I think I will keep it at that. I'm going to say that I'm 23 weeks.

Today was a good day. All three older kids got there new glasses. I was hoping they would all have there fathers eyes, but it turns out that two of them keep having there prescriptions upped, and then Victoria now needs reading glasses. Ugggg!!! They all think its cool right now but they will soon find out that it is such a handicap to have bad eyes.

We went to the park today and even though it was a bit chilly and windy we still had fun. After that we went to the kids Aunt's house to have dinner. We made tacos and home made salsa and cherry cobbler. I am so stuffed.

I am feeling horrible today. I periodically get really bad allergy attacks that just really wipe me out. My nose wont stop running and I sneeze all the time and my head is pounding. I hate taking any medication while pregnant but I did get some Tylenol sinus approved by my OB so I took some today. I hate doing that but I am miserable. These attacks usually pass within a couple days.

I am starting to notice my growing belly more. When I go into public restrooms I accidentally hit my tummy with the stall door because I am not used to compensating for a growing belly. This is the fun part of pregnancy, when your belly starts to grow and people actually start noticing that I'm not just FAT, I'm pregnant. LOL

I have also been noticing that something strange is poking me in my upper right side, kinda high on my belly. Its right under my ribs and it is just a funny feeling. I can almost push it down. For a while I thought that it couldn't possibly be the baby because I didn't think he could reach that high yet, and my mind started to wonder to things it could be, but now I think that it has to be the baby. I don't think any of my children have stretched themselves up there before. LOL It doesn't hurt, but its just uncomfortable. Silly boy.

I was watching the "biggest looser" tonight. I liked all of it except the parts that they showed that girl throwing up. Usually they blur that stuff out but they showed all of it. I about lost my tacos. So nasty....but I was thinking that I wished I looked like those girls. I know they have a lot of weight to loose but I have more. I cant wait till baby boy is here and I can start putting my body back where it belongs. I am looking forward to expressing my milk because it will help me loose 500 calories a day just by doing that. Not to mention all the little babies I am going to help by donating my milk. I am excited.

Well I have to go to bed. My eyes are burning and my head is pounding. I am hoping I wake up to a better feeling day.

My aspiring rock star!!!!

I am going to probably post more later but I had to post this video of Chelsea singing. She really does have a nice voice but she refuses to take any tips or pointers from me because Im mom. I really could help her, I have been trained by opera singers and have had music lessons and singing lessons all my life....but I realize that I am just "mom" and so I have stepped back and allowed her to take her own lead and learn things on her own. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to share her progress. This song she is singing is a band called Evanescence. I have looked them up on "Focus on the Family's" plugged in and they seem to be ok and claim to be Christians. Oh and by the way, any parents out there with children that want secular CD's or movies or anything like that, Plugged in online is a great place to go to get a great review on if it would be what you would want your kids to listen to. I love it and go there quite often.

Adoption Updates!!!

Not to much to update. I did get a call from the agency last week. She was just telling me that she met with Rebekah and B and was telling me how excited they were. I like hearing how excited they are. She said she would call me some time next week(which is this week). I guess she is trying to get me hooked up with a local adoption agency before she comes out to see me so that the process can get started. I have no idea what the process is but I am ready to get started.

She did call me yesterday. She was asking questions that I never thought applied. The first one was if I was legally married when I conceived the baby. The answer is absolutely no but she still needs confirmation. I emailed her the divorce decree today. The next question is if I am a native American with papers. I actually do have Cherokee Indian in me but I have never been a registered Indian. My three older kids are, and I even have there Indian cards but it is not from my side. So, I guess the next step in this process is that the case worker will fly out to see me and spend almost an entire day with me going through orientation and whatever else is needed. She is willing to meet with me at my house so that I don't have to worry about the little ones. They can just run around like normal. I couldn't imagine meeting at a restaurant or something like that. We wouldn't get anything done.

I got another comment from someone out there...but this time they did not leave the comment anonymously. She invited me to read her blog which I did (thank you). Again I read that she was a very young teenager that felt forced into the decision to give away her baby. So sad. That is not a situation for anyone to have to endure. I fully believe that you will regret your decision if it wasn't your choice in the first place. I cant say that I know all that played into the situation, and who is to say it was the best for this girl at the time, but regardless, years and years later, she is sad and misses her baby. I'm so sorry for that.I am in a different place. I have four children of my own. I am not saying it will be easy. I'm not trying to be naive about the whole thing, but I don't feel like I am giving away my baby. I am allowing two wonderful people be the parents of the baby, that doesn't take away the fact that I am his mom. In fact, this little guy is so lucky, he has two moms, just Rebekah will be his full time mom, and I am what is called a birth mom. He will also have something that I could never offer him, a wonderful Father. I have no doubt in my mind that B will be a great dad, and it is a bonus that he likes to fish because I LOVE LOVE LOVE to fish and now my little boy will be a fisherman to. YIPPEE!!! I believe that Rebekah and B will be an extension of me, that we will always be part of each others lives. We do live far away which I think will put a nice distance between us and give them there privacy and I will get to enjoy watching baby boy grow, and he will always know of me and the kids. Its not the perfect situation. If it were perfect then I would have been married before I conceived. But for me, this is the best situation now because you cant turn back time. It is what it is.

I don't know if I will offend people by what I say. I cant help how I feel. I am learning more and more about the process and I am just enjoying my time to get to know R and B and I think it will end up being wonderful and happy and such a miracle to be part of.

I'm feeling OK. I can feel baby boy moving still some each day. I'm up and around a lot so I think I miss a lot of his movements. A few pregnancy discomforts are starting to set it...the kind that only happen when you start getting bigger. Oh Joy!! LOL I cant wait for the really big kicks from little guy, the kind you can see from the outside that look like your stomach has an alien in it. So cool!!!

And to my cousin: You are just so sweet, and Im just taking the time right now to say that I love you and miss you deeply. Keep taking things one day at a time (as you probably are), ask for God to give you the desire to work until you dont have to, ask him to give you his love for your job because clearly you dont have it as many of us dont. If we only had a little of his love for things we dont care for, our hearts would be full. I do love you.