Finally some really great weather!

It's finally not been too hot or too rainy and we can spend time outside.  The kids spent a night just playing ball and playing with the pups.  Jaemin and Chelsi play boats....notice the bats as oars.

Apparently my bed is just right

During naptime, most of the time anyways, Jaemin sleeps in his toddler bed in his room.  At night I make him go to his portacrib which is next to my bed.  He  will NOT sleep in his room at night, so this is our compromise.  I told him last night he was absolutely not to get out of his bed and into mine.  He tends to destroy.  So, after 10 pm last night I walked into my room ready to get into bed and well, things were turned down for me already.  Little stinker.  Between that and always wanting to sleep with all of his pairs of underwear I'm not sure what we're going to do with him. He's crazy!  :)  Such a fun boy.  Always keeps mommy guessing.

His nice cozy spot.

Here's where he always goes to after he hikes his leg over the crib and drops out.

Still there?

Anyone still there?  I haven't written in a bit.  Nothing major.  I do have to go back to work in just over a month...full time....boo hoo!  I'm a little sad, but less stressed knowing we'll be better able to pay our bills.

Our little pups are doing well.  Remember the little mini beagles the boys go about a month ago?  They're huge...I mean fat.  The vet says they're very healthy!  And they LOVE to be LOVED!

Biggest news is that Jaemin seems to be doing well potty training.  He never poops in his underwear and the only potty accidents he has is either from not poking it down fast enough or not getting to the bathroom in time and it's just a tiny bit in his pants... no big deal.  I'm relieved to think in the next 6 months or so I could be totally free of diapers for the first time in 14 1/2 years.

Let's see.  Jaemin is ornery as ever or maybe even worse.  He starts fights with Chelsi every chance he gets.  He's still sleeping with me.  If we put him in the porta crib he crawls over the rail and gets in my bed and goes to sleep there.  Oh well, you can't win them all, right?

I got my first gigs doing portraits this weekend.  It was really fun.  I love the creative outlet and make a little money on the side.  Not much, but enough I can hopefully reinvest in getting a faster laptop and some other small things for my camera.  They turned out really great and I'm really liking them.  We'll see if I can get more customers or not.  It's a pretty heavily populated job area, so it's fierce competition.

Still haven't heard about the job I applied for, but since it's been almost 6 weeks, I'm pretty much sure it's not me.  :)  Oh well, this is where my faith in God comes in.  It's just not meant to be.

Thinking about some friends in Korea right now.  One momma is there for her first time and I think she's having a wonderful time.  So happy she got that opportunity.  Can't wait to hear all about it Jane!

GAK

Gak making.  We saw a show where a family made some and I thought that might be fun for the kids.  Turns out it's extremely cheap.  $.80 worth of glue, some drops of food coloring and a little Borax.  The kids had a really great time making it and playing with it in their hands.

Happy Birthday Kaelin

I hope my girl had a great 9th birthday.  Love you Kaelin.

I ran out of icing, but did try my hand at this cake.

Back to work

I'm so proud of myself today.  Though it was another day of feeling down about my friend situation, I picked up the new power unit to the kids' computer and it worked.  I hooked everything back up right after I took the insides apart and it all went back together and worked!  I was so excited to see the fans running again.  For $43, the computer is working again.  Much better than buying a new one.  On the downside, I think I'm going to have to transfer another $100 from savings to make the September payments.  I gave my official notice to my boss yesterday that I plan to come back fulltime October 17th.  Stinks, but it is reality and we're going through the savings much quicker than I ever anticipated.  It's just not safe or anything close to it anymore.  I will always be thankful for the year I got to spend bonding with Jaemin though.  That's what makes it feel not quite so bad.

Reflections Back in Time

Even though, I'm really bad about dwelling on the past, well at least in those circumstances where I'm mad at myself for wasting money some how, I'm just reflecting back here.  I came across this post a couple of years ago.  http://chaostimes5.blogspot.com/2008/12/life-changes-and-rearranges.html  It's really hard to believe so much has changed since then.  Almost 3 years later I thought my life had changed so much at that point, I had no idea that just a few months from that post I'd have a 5th, unexpected child and pay for yet another adoption.  Who would have ever guessed?

I've been kind of in a pity party stage about things lately because stress with money has been adding up.  We're not broke....yet...but it seems every time I get a handle on things something else breaks or happens.  Today it was the grill and yesterday it was the computer.  I had to order a $43 power supply and am HOPING it's not the motherboard.  We'll see.  I don't have any idea on the grill.  Brian said some sort of deflectors were broke.  Uh...they were rusted completely through and lying on the burners.  This morning the phones kept going out and the phone company said if, by chance, it they thought it was on our side we'd have to pay.  I told them not to even bother looking at it.  We'll just have to cancel our service.  Can't afford ONE MORE THING.

BUT THEN....I came across the above post and I realized that I had lost my attitude for being positive and I'm going to get it back.  I'm going to try to be positive no matter what.  I'm NOT going to let the devil win.  I'm going to continue to believe that if we keep doing everything to get through that God will continue to provide and help us.  And most of all, I'm going to try to remember to just breath and take note that we are okay and it's NOT THAT BAD!

So here it is, I'm thankful:

• Cole is still on the same valve for 14 years and while it will fail soon, it hasn't yet.
• Brian is still able to work and while his feet burn daily and by the minute, he is strong enough not to complain and lay that on me as well.
• All in all, the rest of us are still healthy.
• We're still paying bills on time, even if it is out of savings most of the time.