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New house, Graduation, and VBS

The house is really coming along! We go by everyday to check on the progress and the construction crew seems to be something new each day. We are at the point now where they are have almost finished everything on the outside and are about to focus on the inside. Now comes the fun part - I get to make all these decisions about what color, style, etc., I want everything to be. It's fun, but also so stressful. It feels like deja vu too. It was just ten years ago that I just did all this. Of course, with the company that built our last house I wasn't able to make as many choices as I am with this company. We are using Baker Restoration this time and they are AWESOME!! They have given us such great guidance on EVERYTHING. And they have been available for every little question I have had.

It's been a busy couple of weeks - Becca graduated from high school on the 23rd and we are SO PROUD! She also recognized on Honor's Night and earned a cord for her gown. It was a great ceremony. We tried to go out to eat after, but everything was closed so we ended up eating at the Waffle House. It's okay though - it was good.

Kymberly also "graduated" from Kindergarten. She is a big First grader now. The school had a kindergarten celebration just before school let out and Frank and I went to see her. The kids all sang songs to us. She was SO CUTE! She got "Future Teacher" award.....hehe. I can see her helping the teacher run the classroom.

Now we're making plans for summer and vacation bible school. Malachi, Kymberly, and I have spent most of this week at church decorating my classroom for VBS. Our theme this year is a tropical island so they have been painting and cutting out lost of little fish. Our carnival is tomorrow and the vbs starts Sunday. I'm also in the skit so I've spent a lot of time practicing my lines and getting the sets ready....whew!! It's tiring but fun. We are hoping for a good turnout.

Catching up

It's unreal how much has happened since out last post. We have been through some incredible losses in the last 6-10 months, but with God's help we are still standing strong!

In July, my mother moved in with us due to failing health and she stayed with us until September. At that time she went to live with my brother. Her health got worse and she passed away the 30th of October. I really didn't think I would miss her as much as I do, but I think about her everyday. She used to drive me crazy with daily phone calls and now I would give anything for one of those calls.

Thirteen days after her death I woke up around 6 in the morning after having a lovely dream about her. I even posted a facebook status about wishing I could pause my dream and play it back the way we do our tv shows. Everyone got ready for work and school and left the house. I dozed back off to sleep in the recliner, as usual. I woke up again around 9:30 and went out on my front porch to sit for awhile.I usually dozed until 10:00 - everyone says my mom woke me up.

I was sitting on the porch, listening to the windchimes and thinking how peaceful it was when I realized there was another sound coming from the house. The smoke alarms in the house were going off!! I saw smoke coming from the garage and ran into the house to call 911. I grabbed the fire extinguisher and opened the garage door. The garage was filled with smoke and fire! I sprayed the fire extinguisher anyway then dropped it. I don't even remember going through the house - the next thing I remember was grabbing my little dog from the bathroom and then running to my brother's house next door. I stood on his back porch and watched my house burn.

We live in a rural area so all we have is volunteer fire departments. The first truck got there pretty fast, but had no water. The next trucks that came would not come off the driveway, although we begged them to go around back and use the water from the pool to fight the fire. The fire was fully involved before they started putting water on it, so the house was a total loss. We lost everything.

I think the greatest losses I have in the fire are my little ferret, my scrapbooks, and the things I inherited from my mother. I had over 30 scrapbooks that I have worked on over the last 5 years for my children and grandchildren that are now ashes. I hear people say all the time how lucky we are and how all we lost are "things". But some of those "things" were so invaluable to me. Like the sewing bench that my mother had for years. The Asian statue my dad brought back from overseas. These "things" hold very special memories and cannot be replaced. Neither can they be handed down to my children like I had planned.

We struggled with the idea of rebuilding again. This was not our first fire. Our house burned down in 2004 as well. We just didn't know if we should try again. We prayed a lot. Finally we decided to chance it again and are in the process of rebuilding on the same lot. The house is about 1/3 completed. The builder has told us that the latest it will be completed it October, but we are praying for August so we can be in it and settled by the time the kids go back to school.

People have been so kind to us!! People we don't even know have come out to help us and we are so grateful!! I don't know what we would've done without their help. Done without, I guess. I can't possible thank everyone of them, but I have prayed for a special blessing for each of them. God is so good!!

Topsy-Turvy Weekend

This has been a truly topsy-turvy weekend and one of the most confusing times of my life. The three kids that we fostered are all gone - BOOM - at once. Lies were told against me (by my own child, no less!) and the two agencies involved couldn't get their acts together to benefit the kids, as usual, so they ran in and took the kids out without bothering to consider how it would affect them. Now I am left with empty arms and a broken heart.

One of these kids has been with us for 2 years and the other two have been here for 9 months -since the baby was three months old. In fact, this all happened on her first birthday. She got to spend it with strangers. Isn't that lovely?

We went into foster care because we have a great love for children. This is something we have been doing for the last 13+ years and have given our heart and home to over 25 children. In fact, we have encouraged many others to do the same. This was our mission. Now, we are being treated like dirt. Our reputation and history means nothing.

Sorry for the rant, but I am so disgusted with the way we have been treated.

I played with making some new svg files yesterday. I think I am getting the hang of this. I haven't tried cutting them out yet so I don't know how well they cut. If you use them please let me know how they turn out.

We are doing out Sunday School lessons on missionaries this quarter and I wanted some maps of the different countries we are studying so I made svgs of Australia https://www.box.com/s/oxklhv1h74mmig71sxxu
Asia https://www.box.com/s/t0g48wx9ie8agyf6798a
South America https://www.box.com/s/oxklhv1h74mmig71sxxu
Europe https://www.box.com/s/wcq5wg3y773qnjsytalo
and North America https://www.box.com/s/pp8yqj83d5kold8b43ec

I also made some more general svgs just playing around. Here are the links to them:
A Fleur de lis https://www.box.com/s/d68ju76elvfk35vcdykg, a bone https://www.box.com/s/wzp3c8wdqyjv1eood5tt, and a Christian Fish symbol https://www.box.com/s/esu88fz0hdam09mmubor.

I hope they all turned out well. I had fun with them.

Belk is having a Private Charity Sale on Saturday, April 27, from 6-10 am to benefit local non-profit organizations. You must have a ticket to shop and tickets are $5 each. This entitles you to $5 off your first purchase and 20-70% off storewide. The first 100 customers will receive a free gift card!

If you are unable to attend on the 27th, you are welcome to reserve your merchandise for the event beginning on the Sunday, April 21. Just present your Charity Sale ticket and ask for details on reserving merchandise.

Contact me if you would like a ticket to this wonderful event! Proceeds from our ticket sales will benefit the Madison-Oglethorpe Foster Parent Association.

Our visit to the Childrens' Museum of Atlanta

We went the the Childrens' Museum for the first time with our church on Saturday and LOVED it. It was a Kids Day for the younger set of our church. We had about 10 kids with us and it was a challange keeping up with all of them. There were a LOT of activities to do and the kids were running all over the place. The exhibits were really neat, too. Frank and I even tried out a few of them. I had my camera around my neck, but kept forgetting to take pictures so I only got a few and most of them were of Kymberly since she was the one I was chasing the most. LOL. I already look forward to going back again.

Updating my scrapbook pages

I finally had time to work on some scrapbook pages. Seems like forever since that has happened. It has been so busy around here. The only time I can really get any scrapping time in is during the monthly craft day at church or late at night after the kids are in bed. And by then I am usually so tired I am asleep by the time they are :).

Hopefully soon I will be able to finish the Christmas 2009 album. I didn't realize we had taken so many pictures that year. It's hard to not scrap all of them. And when it comes to Blake, Haley, and Kymberly I pretty much print them all. I don't want to miss a minute of them!!

Hope you enjoy the layouts. Comments are always appreciated!

Catching Up

I can't believe how long it has been since I posted anything on my blog. Talk about being lax!! SOOOOOO much has happened since my last post...........
The little girl we have taken care of for over a year and a half now has left us and gone to live with her forever family. She left in November and we have really missed her. Especially that laugh of hers! At the same time that she left we took in two new fosters: a boy and his baby sister. They are pretty good kids who have been through a lot. It shows more in the older one. He acts out a little, but it's nothing we can't handle. The baby is adorable. She nearly always has a smile on her face. She is pure joy to take care of. There have been other changes as well. Aubrey and Rachel have each moved out onto their own. The nest is getting smaller. We now only have three kids (plus the fosters) at home. The house seems so much quieter than before. I worry about them all the time, but I know they are doing ok. Rachel is making big plans for her future: SHE'S GETTING MARRIED!! Her fiance, Ereck, proposed to her on Christmas Eve and they are planning a wedding for the end of April. He's currently away at Marine Boot Camp and once they get married she will be joining him in California. CALIFORNIA!! Not only is my baby girl getting married, but she is moving clear across the country!! This was supposed to be a year of change - I was expecting her and Aubrey to graduate high school and then start college in the fall. I WAS NOT prepared for this. I think I have adjusted though. At least, I tell myself that I have..... Kymberly started PreK this year. Yet ANOTHER change. She's done really well, though. In fact, up until last weekm she had not even missed a day of school. She got the stomach bug Monday and had to stay home. She LOVES school and her teachers!! They are awesome with her. She is one of the youngest students in the class due to her birthday being in August so they have really worked with her. She has come so far since school started. I have to go next month and register her for Kindergarten. Wow!! Why is it that the older you get the faster time seems to go. I've fallen so far behind in working on my scrapbooking. Having a baby in the house will do that for you. I look forward to the monthly scrapbooking days we have at our church since that is really the only time I get to work on my pages. This last month I went and managed to get 10 pages done during that one day. I would have loved to have been able to stay longer - I was on a roll and felt like I could've worked all night! I, of course, haven't touch them since that day. We are having a Relay for Life Scrapbooking Crop in April where we go in on Friday night and work til Midnight then we can leave all our stuff and come back and work all day Saturday. I am so looking forward to that!! I hope to get so much accomplished then. I have some pictures of a few pages that I have finished. I'll post some more when I get them done.

Shop my AVON store!

Shop my AVON store!: Here's a sneak peak at some of the latest products available at Avon. Be sure to click