Thanksgiving 2011

For Thanksgiving, we decided to go to New Orleans to be with family since we live closer know, 11 hours vs. 25 hours. The kids had a great time. They got to spend lots of time with their cousins. Besides regular family we usually see, we also got to see the Frederick Family (met Emile for the first time and fell in love) the Saldana family and Terry and Allie LeSieur. We took the kids to Cafe Dumonde, Prejeans, Drago's and Audubon Park just to name a few.

We had an experience hitting a deer on the way back from Granny's house. Mike managed to not hit it head on but we had damage on the Toyota Tundra on the front bumper and side. It was $5,000 of damage. Alice was the most scared but overall we were just thankful that we weren't hurt. On the way back to Oklahoma, we also hit bumped in the back while exiting the interstate. Lots of excitement. Anderson enjoying beignets at Cafe Du Monde

Rose playing at Audubon Park

Our visit to Drago's restaurant

Anita and Alice, the twins....

Here are the kids playing duck duck goose with their cousins

Chris

We did get to see Christopher before we left Arizona. Alice cried when we left because she was sad that we wouldn't see him for a long time. Here are some pictures.

Eaux K in OKC

It has been a while since I have written and when I think about writing I am overwhelmed at trying to catch up so I'm not going to catch up. This is better than nothing right? Well we are now living in Oklahoma, Daddy got a promotion and we are happy to be closer to Louisiana and back in the South. Rose and Alice are enjoying their new school. Anderson is in Pre K and Roman is staying home with Mommy because Preschool was full. We went to Parkhurst Pumpkin Patch this weekend and we took ya'll to Pops to eat lunch. We are excited for the holidays and we are definitely in the spirit. Random: Alice has lost four teeth, Rose has lost two. Anderson has bald spots from rocking and rubbing his head on his bed, Roman still puts his shoes on the wrong feet and can't button his own pants, urgh! Anderson has just learned how to snap and loves to show us all the time, see picture below. We love you all, our family has never been closer and happier.

Visit with Christopher (Tag)

We had such a great time with Christopher and as always I am reminded of why we decided he would be better off with another family. We love him dearly, he is so sweet, good, hilarious, etc. but this situation is so much better than if he did live with us. I want to be the best mother I can to our four kids and I feel that if we had him right now, I would lack a whole lot at that. Anyway, I do miss him already, he fits right in and is so drawn to me and hugs me and reaches for me, too cute. The first day we had him we went to the splash pad and to the park and then got happy meals. The second day we went to the mall and played in the play area, had lunch, then went to a different mall and played in that play area, and then went home and went to the park. We did so much and the visit was everything I needed it to be and the kids had such a great time visiting with him. They were ok when he left. I was worried that they would be upset. He left this morning and I took the kids out to lunch and to Walmart and we just hung out at home and we had such a great day. They got a box from Granny with clothes and Easter treats. Then we had a nice St Patricks Day Dinner and I gave them a green donut and made them Shamrock Milkshakes. The day couldn't have been any better. I love our kids, we are so blessed, xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Well Hello!

Disneyland was a blast. The kids loved seeing all of the characters. Rose was the only one ready and willing to go on any ride. Everyone loved the tea cups the best and also the carousel was a big hit. Five days was a little too much for them, they were quite overwhelmed the last couple of days and behaviors started erupting mostly in Rose and Roman.

It turns out that Rose's leg was not fractured but that she has juvenile rhematoid arthritis. Her knee continued to be swollen she got her cast off so I took her to multiple follow up appointments and then to a Rhematologist who determined she has JRA so she had a procedure done to remove the fluid and inject a steroid to stop the swelling. She still has pain in different joints several times a week so we will have to monitor everything and continue to follow up with the rhematologist as well as the eye doctor. We are hoping she will grow out of it.

In October, Dad and Paula came to visit in AZ. We went bowling, cooked out a couple of times, went swimming at their hotel, the Legado, and had some good quality time with them. In November we visited Oklahoma to scout the area because Mike has a job interview with Cox there and we may have a prospect come up soon to move there. We had a great time, everyone there was really friendly and it reminds me of Louisiana.

In December we went to New Orleans for Christmas and New Years. It was nice to visit family and see tons of friends but as always, it is nice to be home in Arizona as well.

We currently have our house for sale. Our intent is to let it forclose if it doesn't sell because at this point, we owe 268,000 and it is only valued at 136,000. We can pay our housenote but we rather move closer to Mike's work and just rent and then start over. We would still be better off even with the hit to our credit. Right now we are waiting to hear something from Oklahoma and if that doesn't happen, we plan to move June 1st after Alice is out of school to Anthem, AZ. It is an hour from here but only 15 min to Mike's work.

Alice is doing great in Kindergarden. She is reading a bit, spelling words, knows 100 sight words. She also follows direction really well and she enjoys it. Right now she will be off this week for spring break. We had Rose at American Leadership Academy for half day Kindergarden (we were using it as a pre k) but the classroom was not disciplined, organized, or structured enough so she was not doing well and it was actually doing worse for her behavior rather than better so we decided to pull her out and just wait and start full day kinder when Alice enters 1st grade next year. Anderson is in preschool at Kinderbugs right now and is doing so great. He tells me "I love you" in sign language all the time and today he showed me the sign for "more". Too cute!

As the kids get older and more self sufficient, some things are easier and some are more challenging. I would say the biggest thing that is hard is all of the fighting between them which I would have never thought. We just took them on their first hike last weekend at San Tan Mountain for a one mile hike and they did great. Hopefully we can do more hiking with them, especially when we go camping more this coming summer.

Christopher (Tag) is still with my friend Reilly. He will be spending two nights with us this week so the kids are really excited. He has not been to our house since last year but I see him at least once a month when I get my hair done and the kids saw him before Christmas. I miss him so much and I have a really hard time periodically with the fact that he is not with us. It feels like he just belongs with us. I know that we made the right decision but it is still hard to deal with and it will be for the rest of my life. I love him so much and just want him with us. He is doing great with Reilly and Travis and he and Tommy are little buddies. It is so cute. I know after he spends the night this week, I will realize once again why we couldn't keep him as I am sure it will be hard to have all five kids.

Alice and Rose joined the girl scouts this past Friday, they are Daisys. I am happy they will be able to socialize with their friends and learn some good core values. Alice's friend Ellie is in it with them, she is in Alice's kindergarden class.
Boudreaux is still Boudreaux, follows me everywhere, farts, eats the kids food, barks at everything, drinks toilet water, takes up his share of the king size bed (Mike says his share or more).

Mike just got a new mountain bike. He will be doing the Whiskey Off Road for the second time . He will also be hiking the grand canyon for the second time, all in April. He had a blood clot that has now gone away and also just had another kidney stone two weeks ago that has passed. I can't think of anything other updates off hand but will update again if I do.

I want the kids to know that we love them very much. Lots of questions have been coming up lately about when they were babies and about adoption. The truth is that none of that bothers me and I don't even think about it, to me it seems like I gave birth to them and I love them so much. I have been reassuring them that we are their forever family and will always love them no matter what they do or say. We will always be family. We look forward to the future and spending time with them and helping them flourish into themselves. I just can't express enough how happy we are that they came into our lives. p.s. Alice is sleeping in Rose's bed tonight and they were holding hands, too cute.

TNA

Anderson underwent tonsilectomy and adenoidectomy (or whatever) on 7/13/2010. He had to spend the night so that his sleep apnea can be monitored. He did really bad overnight and had to be given morphine but now we are home and he is doing great. He ate and drank today and I only had to give him motrin and not the tylenol with codeine medicine that I have to force him to take because it is so nasty tasting. He had the procedure done to help the sleep apnea and also hopefully help him not wake up so much and rock and bang his head to go back to sleep.
On another note, we will be going to St George Utah to vacation for a week, we got a 2 br condo for $100 for the week. It is a timeshare that a friend has that he is not able to use. Also we are going to Disneyland around Roman's 3rd birthday so the kids are really excited about that too. We also went to San Diego for my birthday this year and went to Sea World, the kids had a blast. It was their first time to California. We also like to do camping trips but have only been on one this year. Rose had a distal femal buckler fracture and had to have a cast for three weeks so that set us back a bit but we are looking forward to lots of fun this summer before the girls start school in August.

The Decision

Everything worked out perfect with Christopher. As it turns out, we decided that we would not keep him because it was too hard on us and not fair to any five of the kids. We were so torn because we also did not want him to not be able to grow up with his siblings. I had a friend that was in the process of getting her foster license and offered to take him. It was a struggle to get it to actually happen but as of 6/24/2010, Christopher went to live with another foster family. They are a great family and will adopt him if it gets to that point. It is so nice that the kids will still be able to maintain a relationship with him. We have already gone out to dinner with them as well as Christopher spent the night one weekend so it is great so far. Anderson had the hardest time when he left. He was holding his bottle one day and told me "I hold the baby's bottle for when he comes back" Another night he started crying and saying he wanted the baby to come back. All of the kids are really excited when they see him and they know he is special to them. I feel confident that we made the right decision. Even when he slept over for one night it was rough. Our kids are at such a different level right now because of that and the multiples of them, it is too hard to add a baby to the mix but we love Christopher so much. I met with Danielle at one of the visits and explained our decision to her and she understood. She asked how Alice and Anderson were doing and told me to give them a big hug and kiss for her.