Forever.....

Ya know, there are some times in my life that I feel like I am blessed beyond what I should be. When I look at my husband and see how he deals with our life, I am overwhelmed. He is so amazing and I am so lucky to have him, holding my hand, crying right next to me, and most importantly, telling me that we'll be ok!!!! I know that I will survive as long as he's walking right next to me through the hard times!!!! LOVE YOU BABE!!!!

Moving on....

Some experiences in life are just too painful to talk about or want to remember. On Thursday, Randy and I had to give Nathan to his parents. It was one of the hardest things we've ever had to do. We hated every, single second of it all. We miss him more than my words can express. Luckily, we had planned a camping trip to Fish Lake with some of our best friends starting on Friday, so the day after giving Nathan up, we were able to escape reality and all of our routines and head to the mountains. It was good for us to go away. Now we can move on. It is going to be excruciating at times, but we will be ok. Thanks to everyone that has been supporting us through this hard time. Your words and strength have carried me through moments that I didn't think I could handle. THANK YOU!!!! I will post about our camping trip later, for now, I'm going to go take a LONG shower and hope I don't find anymore binkies laying around.

The plan....

So, no matter what my last blog posts say, no matter how bad this is going to hurt my heart to let Nathan go, the bottom line is that we have a loving Heavenly Father that knows the master plan. He wouldn't do anything to me to make me a bitter or nasty person, I know that. I have some new information that is helping me with this transaction. I can't share it quite yet, but it just gives me more faith that Heavenly Father knows he is doing. We can trust in Him always. So, I know a lot of people are sad and scared to let this loved one of ours go, but it must be. We must have faith and trust in our Heavenly Father to take care of him always and we have to trust that he will never forget us and how much we love him. So, here's to the next 3 days we have left with our little Nathan. We will make the best of it!!!!!!! Love you all for your support!!!

Tender moments...

I just got done doing a 4am feeding with the baby. It's such a sad time for us. He will go to live with his parents on Thursday, so today, I realize that there are only 5 more 4am feedings left for him and I. When he got done eating, diaper changed and wrapped up like a burrito, we were rocking. He didn't want his binkie, so we just rocked. He was staring at me and I wondered if he knew. Does he know how much I love him? Have I been a good enough mom for the last 3 1/2 months for him? Have I treated him as my own? That's when I looked into his sleepy eyes and he turned the corners of his mouth up into a smile, then gently closed his eyes and was asleep. In THAT moment I knew. I know he knows how much I love him. I know I have done everything I could for him with no regrets and yes, I have loved him as my own son. I will miss him so much I can't even put it into words. He has blessed my life like I never knew was possible. I will miss him more than anyone knows. I love you sweet baby!!!

I call bull sh%$!!!!

To the person that says, "it's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all".... I think you're a moron. What the hell kind of saying is that? In my situation, this is NOT the case. To me, it's painful because of the love I have felt. We will figure this all out. We always do.

Look at these beautiful blues!!!

Last weekend I took these pictures of Nathan sitting on my in-law's kitchen table. He is sooooo loved!!!!! Who wouldn't be able to love this little face? ENJOY!!!!


Aren't we so lucky to be able to have him in our home!!!

Let freedom ring!!!

This year, for Independence Day, we had a GREAT TIME!!!! It was cool that the 4th landed on a Sunday because the celebrating seemed to last all weekend!!! On the 4th, I had 2 of my nephews get their baby boys blessed in church, which means my mom and dad came home for the week!!! So we had lots of family time. Brandon and Lacey came up from Kingman, AZ for the weekend, so we took advantage of having them here. Of course, the fact that we live in a free country is just the BEST.

Some of my favorite memories of this weekend will be......

My niece's husband, Dan, coming home from the grocery store with the shopping cart, drinks and a big smile on his face!!!!

Goofy sisters and nieces..... Launa......
And Amy.......
A cute girl getting ready for the fireworks.... Maddison....

And my cute parents.....
The kids playing with sparklers, even though their mother FREAKS out about them getting burned!!!!
Don't forget Cort reminding me how exciting the fireworks are to a one year old!!!

And how exhausting all of this is to a 6 month old!!!!

The family time was GREAT!!!! Amy and Nathan.....

And the amount of lounging around was perfect!!!! Cambelle.
And wiggle cars, don't forget the wiggle cars!!!! Layla, Maddison and Naomi!!!
But don't forget the daddies playing on the wiggle cars too..... BEFORE they realized they were too big by breaking a wheel off!!!!



It was such a fun time. Perfect, to be exact!!! I hope everyone else had a fun and safe 4th of July also!!!!

Be careful who you judge....

I am blogging right now through tears of anger. As you know, we have a child in our home that is in foster care. He is just 6 months old and we are having a blast, but something happened tonight that makes me so mad.

As a child in foster care, he qualifies for WIC. "WIC provides certain nutritious foods for growing families, information on healthy eating, help for breastfeeding moms and babies and referrals to health care". I have never used WIC before and I have had to learn the ropes one month at a time. This is the first month that I got baby food and cereal for the baby, every other month has been formula only. Like I said, it takes some learning to figure it all out.

Tonight, I got the appropriate foods and formula for the vouchers I had. Got in line and put the food in order with the vouchers on top of the piles. The way the program is, because I got formula, baby food AND cereal, it took 6 separate transactions to get it all.

Albertson's was really slow tonight (bonus) and everything was going great. A lady and her 4 kids got in line behind me and I warned her that mine was going to take a few minutes and she might want to go to a different line. She told me it would be fine. She loaded her stuff on the belt and THEN saw what I was buying with the vouchers on top. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that I was using WIC.

The checker was so sweet. She remembered me from past trips to the store. Also, when you use WIC, your name is on the vouchers. HOPE CLYDE isn't a hard name to remember, I guess. She was chatting and asking how the baby was and that's when I noticed it..... the lady behind me was rolling her eyes at me. In shock, I kept looking her way. She stood with her arms folded, hip cocked to the side and staring me up and down. Occasionally, she would close her eyes, breathe in deep and when she would open her nasty, little eyes, they would roll to the back of her head. As this went on, I was feeling like an absolute idiot for using WIC. The checker even noticed and twice, mouthed to me, "don't worry about it". Thank goodness I had a seasoned checker that got me out of there in a hurry.

Loading my car, I couldn't stop thinking about that lady. The things I would say to her, just running through my head. I got in my Tahoe and started to pull out of the parking lot when the little princess came waltzing out of the store. Her eyes met mine and she looked at my car. Not needing a translator to read her lips, she said, "OH MY HECK!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?". I guess the car I drive isn't what she would imagine to be WIC recipient worthy.

I don't know if it was good or bad that I was on my way out of the parking lot and there was a car driving behind me, because I wanted to turn around and let her know how wrong her assumptions were. I know my mouth and I know it would have been NOT NICE. I kept driving.

The feelings of humiliation and anger took over and I couldn't control my tears. Calling my mom and my sister made me feel much better. But, the bottom line is, be careful who you judge. You never know what THEIR situation is. If she had known that I was a foster parent with a 6 month old baby in my home, would her attitude have been different?

This isn't the first time I have felt this way, but usually, I can give people the bird and tell them to kiss my butt. When Tyler was a baby, he was on oxygen for the first 11 months of his life. Well, we had to park in the handicap stalls to get him AND his oxygen out of the car at the same time. I got a lot of dirty looks then, also. *A 20-something woman parking in the handicap stall with her baby!?!* Yea, not the first time it's been this way. But I really hope to use this experience as a learning tool for others.

Don't judge a mama until you've pushed a cart full of WIC items through the store... isn't that how that famous quote goes? You get the idea!!!!

So, let's all be a little more kind. You never know what people are going through. It made me think of family members and close friends that are on WIC right now because they qualify financially. Do THEY face this regularly? It made me sick to my stomach to think of how THEY feel. I hope my loved ones don't face this discrimination.

Anyhow, just another experience to learn from in this whole process, right? Be careful who you judge.

Loooong night.....

A couple of nights ago, Cambelle was crying in her sleep that her bum was hurting. I figured she had a UTI and was going to take her to the doctor in the morning. She woke up and said all was fine, so I thought she was ok. Last night, just after 10pm, she started crying uncontrollably in pain again. I did everything I could and she was shaking, crying and in terrible pain. I told her we would go see our Doctor in the morning, that wasn't good enough. She was so miserable, so I took her to the ER at midnight. A quick check and they confirmed a UTI, she got an anti-biotic, went home and off to Lala Land for her. WELL, it was 10 minutes after that, the baby decided it was his turn for some nighttime fun!!!!! He fussed all night. ALL NIGHT!!!!! Needless to say, daddy and I didn't get a wink of sleep last night. I don't know how Randy's doing at work, but I plan on turning off the phones when the baby goes to sleep so I can too!!!!!! My poor Cambelle. I hope today is better than last night.