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Saturday, August 30, 2014

FASD Training

I just signed up for this online training. I know there are quite a few of my readers who have children suffering from FASD and are always looking for answers maybe you will learn something that will make life easier for both you and your child!
Here is the link:
livingwithfasd.com

Friday, August 29, 2014

Adoption Party!

We had Lia's adoption party a week and one day after her adoption. She soaked up the attention and charmed everyone as usual.
I set up this poster the afternoon of the party. I forgot about doing it so wasn't able to incorporate the fun idea's I had .
Lia got many nice gifts, including a doll she insists on sleeping with... without clothing on it. The doll came with a little hat which she calls a helmet.

Two little girls admiring the gifts.

My grandparents brought their ice cream machine, we had vanilla and raspberry, along with caramel corn, chips and the goodies my mom baked especially for Lia's party.

Thanks, mom! They turned out lovely!

Lia spent most of her time on the playground.


Lia's friend Jana came to help celebrate. Lia looks for her every Sunday after church.

Peeking into a gift she got from her friend Jeralyn who is only a few weeks younger than Lia.

I hung some of the pages from Lia's scrapbook on the walls.


I have always liked the following poem. My heart often hurts for my children's birth mom's. They all loved their children in their own way and my gain is their loss. I remember their tears, those good bye hugs and kisses and the turmoil of feelings I had as I walked out the door knowing their child was now mine. How can something like adoption be so beautiful, yet cause so much pain?

LEGACY OF AN ADOPTED CHILD
Once there were two women who never knew each other
One you do not remember, the other you call Mother
Two different lives shaped to make you one
One became your guiding star, the other became your sun
The first one gave you life, and the second taught you to live it
The first gave you a need for love, the second was there to give it
One gave you a nationality, the other gave you a name
One gave you a talent, the other gave you aim
One gave you emotions, the other calmed your fears
One saw your first sweet smile, the other dried you tears
One made an adoption plan, that was all that she could do
The other prayed for a child, and God led her straight to you.

Now, which of these two women, Are you the product of?
Both, my darling, Both, Just two different types of love.
---- Unknown

We had a different experience this week. Joseph had a bee in his ear. He came into the house screaming hysterically. I thought he was trying to say he got stung but eventually figured out he had a bee in his ear. Sure enough, by looking closely I could see something wiggling around in there. I held his head while Dean probed at it with a tweezers. I was ready to take him to the ER as Joseph kept jerking his head and I was afraid we would make matters worse. At that moment Dean got the bee out. He checked to see if it had all it's parts...legs, wings, head, and it did. We irrigated his ear with peroxide and I made him stay with in eye sight for awhile as I was afraid he might have an allergic reaction. He didn't thankfully,. and was soon back outside running and playing as if nothing had happened. I read online that you can out oil in the ear to try to flush bugs out but that bee most likely wouldn't have floated out on its own. It was huge!











Wednesday, August 27, 2014

First Day Of School

Kiana 1st grade

Joseph 1st grade

Tristan 5th grade

The little miss who is currently very bored and missing her playmates












Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Summer Vacation

Last week My sisters and I went down to mom to can peaches. It is always more fun when we can work together.
Peaches ready for the canner

Canned peaches

We discovered that putting a teaspoon of Fruit Fresh in each jar before filling them with syrup keeps the peaches looking and tasting more like fresh peaches. Kiana dutifully put a teaspoon in each and every jar.



Friday evening we had Lia's adoption party. (More pictures later) She received many nice gifts and enjoyed all the attention.

Yesterday I took the childrens to Chris' Pizza for lunch. They earned a soda & one slice of pizza through the summer reading program at our local library. We had PTF meeting at school last night and stopped for their free cones at M*Donalds. They were out of cones and gave them each a sundae instead! No one complained about that!

Today is the last day of summer vacation. I will miss my childrens help and Lia will miss her playmates, however I am looking forward to having a schedule once again. At the beginning of summer vacation I had high ideals. We would stay on schedule, each child would have their daily chores and we would use the remainder of our days soaking up the sun, reading, eating ice cream, swimming and all the fun things that come with summer. Somehow, I never established the routine but we did all the fun things so yes, Summer was a success!







Thursday, August 21, 2014

More Pictures and An Update

                                             Here are a few more pictures from Lia's adoption.


Dean, Lia and I with Sheryl Bernot from COBYS. Sheryl has been right by our side through the whole journey. She advocated for our family, calmed fears, corrected misunderstandings with CYS and prayed for us. Sheryl was as happy as Dean and I (if that is possible) when the adoption was finalized. 

Lia beaming at her admirers. She doesn't understand the concept of adoption but she does know something very special took place.

I am often asked how Braden is doing and I am sure you all are wondering as well. I wish I could say he is doing great, unfortunately that is not the case. We are seeing another specialist as everyone involved in his care feels that there is something else going on besides RAD. He had a few months where he did really well. We saw the "real" Braden that had been buried under the pain, fear and grief for so many years but for reasons no one can explain, that window closed again. Please continue to pray for us as the uncertainty we experienced this past year still affects us. There are several good things that came from the accusations and turmoil. One of them is that I can now in a small way feel the betrayal Braden felt while in his bio home. Another is that I know God is in control. He gave Dean and I peace when in reality we should have felt anything but peaceful! 




Friday, August 15, 2014

Dental Surgery

Joseph has waited a long time to get his teeth fixed. I had all manner of insurance issues. I called them with a question, they left a message for me, I left a message for them and on it went. Joseph was thrilled that his teeth wouldn't hurt anymore. He told me, "Lia had a big day and now I am having a big day!" Personally I don't think there is any comparison between an adoption and dental surgery but who am I to say?

He was NOT impressed with the gown. He asked why he has to wear a blue dress

Growing drowsy from his sleepy juice. 

Finally a bed and a warm blanket.  At this point he told me his teeth no longer hurt. He was hoping he could still back out.

A very blurry post op pic. He was thrilled to be able to keep his fuzzy socks and his wish was granted, he got to a wheel chair ride. I bought him a milk shake on the way home. He had it drained in 15 minutes. Tonight he is running around here like nothing happened!






Thursday, August 14, 2014

She is ours!!!

She is now officially a Zimmerman! Today, after many long months of waiting we were finally able to adopt our little sweetie! Thanks to all who prayed and interceded on her behalf. I do not doubt for a moment that without those prayers our story would have had a very different ending. We are also thankful to God for blessing our home with.....

LIA HOPE ZIMMERMAN










Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Green Meadow Farm

Monday evening was Kiana and Joseph's last lesson at Green Meadow Farm. They loved their instructors and will miss spending time with them every week. I will miss those quiet moments in the Pasture Peace, enjoying the scenery and reading while the children had their lessons. 

Joseph and Aspen. 

Joseph and Miss Olivia. Joseph fed Aspen carrots after the lesson.

Kiana and Miss Jennica

Joseph holding his Graduation certificate

I bought Kiana and Joseph shirts with the Green Meadow Farm logo. 

As we were preparing to leave Miss Becky asked if their program had been of any help to our family. I assured her it had. They felt led to share love and care to families who have children who struggle with issues due to situations they dealt with in the past. As far as I know no one in the family has experienced anything of this sort, they are simply doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. That spoke volumes to us as we tend to experience negative comments versus caring. It felt so good! The children felt the love and concern of the staff and soaked it all in.

On Monday a friend messaged me and asked if there is anything she can do for me this week. I mentioned our need for baked things and guess who rang my door bell and handed me plates of cookies later in the day? Yes, Melissa. You can read her blog at farmdayz.blogspot.com. Melissa has been such an encouragement to us this past year. I plan to use her technique of asking what she can do versus telling people to let me know if there is anything I can do to help  them.

Monday morning found us at school scrubbing away in the school kitchen. Two other ladies were also assigned to clean the kitchen. With everyone working together the work was finished quickly. Afterward we went school shopping. The children don't need to bring many school supplies as the school provides the basics like crayons, pencils, paper and glue. However there are always those little extra things they think they have to have!

Yesterday a church friend along with some of her family did corn. I came home with 70 quarts for the freezer. She said we did app. 159 quarts all together! needless to say, we were tired of doing corn. The men took off work and took care of the cookers while we ladies cut the corn off the cobs. Till we were finished cutting the corn they had everything cleaned up from cooking. Many hands make light work!

Joseph is playing with his match box trucks. They are all Fords because Chevy's are to slow. The other day he asked me, "What is the slowest truck in the world?" I of course had no clue and told him to ask his daddy. He settled the question himself by deciding Chevy's were the slowest. All except his friend Ryan's truck that is a fast Chevy. Is it obvious his daddy drives Ford vehicles. :) 

Today I am canning tomato's I juiced Saturday morning. Yes, my days were so full the juice needed to wait to be canned until today. I forgot to mention the tomato peeling tip I used to peel my tomato's when I made salsa, cut the stem from the tomato and cut an X in the bottom of the tomato. Then dip it in boiling water for app 10 seconds (I had several different varieties and some took longer than others) when you see the X beginning to widen remove the tomato and place in cool water. The skins can then be peeled off. That went much faster than trying to peel each one.




Monday, August 4, 2014

Chore Time


Friday was a busy day at our house. The house was cluttered after a week of coming and going and the laundry had piled up. I knew I needed my little people to help but didn't feel like listening to all the whining that tends to come forth when I anounce it is time to work. I usually give them a chore and when it is finished they are to come back to me for their next job. That works fine when everyone is motivated and in the mood to get things done but then you have those days when no one feels like doing anything and there is fighting, dawdling, sloppiness and the like going on. For something different I made them each a list of chores and the rule was that mom needs to ok the finished job before it gets crossed out and you go on to the next thing on the list. Surprisingly they loved this idea. They could see what they had accomplished and how much more needed to be done before they were free to play. As an unexpected reward for their cheerfulness and good attitude I gave them each a peanut butter cup I had stashed away for just such a time.


Earlier I tried writing all the jobs that needed to be done on a slip of paper and putting them in a cup. When one job was finished they pulled another slip to find out what the next chore was. That didn't work as well as the children have varying levels of ability and I ended up having to supervise even more to be sure that the little guys weren't getting all the tough jobs and big brother wasn't just sailing through the easy ones!


This character came to visit me the other day. A friend did corn rows in Kiana's hair and she wanted to try making them herself, thus the wild hair do! Lots of shampoo and coconut oil made it surprisingly easy to comb out the knots.


I made a couple batches of salsa on Saturday. It is delicious! 


Today is "therapy Monday" the day with two appointments back to back.  Kiana and Joseph are having their second to last riding lessons at Green Meadows Farm. I dread telling them that those lessons will be ending soon. They love every minute of their time on the farm.