Happy Easter

Easter was a beautiful day!

 

 

The boys wore their new Hawaiian shirts

from Grandma and Grandpa.

 

 

Precious was as cute as ever!

 

 

God blessed us through His Son, Jesus.

Every day is a new day and we are so blessed!

We have hope that springs eternal.

He LIVES!

Easter Egg Hunt

This morning was the Easter Egg Hunt at church.

Precious thought the eggs were really cool!

BB even found a stuffed bunny!

The Easter Bunny came, and Precious was happy to sit on his lap.

BB wanted nothing to do with him, but talked constantly about him!

It was a nice morning.

Spring Break

March is the month of Spring Break.  First Sweets had over two weeks of Spring Break which ended Monday.  May and Buddy have a week and a day which started Monday.  Get the picture?

I really wanted to do something special for the kids, but the only way to make it work was to take a long weekend.  After talking with a friend, who is also a foster and adoptive parent (of 11 no less), we devised a plan.  I would leave my two little ones with her and take three of her kids that line up in age and gender with my three older ones to Disneyland.  Sound like a plan to you?

Hotel room for seven reserved; discount tickets found; coordination with school for each child to miss one day either before or after spring break; vacation scheduled at work; lots of snacks purchased and packed.  Then the weekend before, the stomach virus hits Precious followed by BB.  Oh, no!  Did I forget to mention that my friend just accepted a newborn infant as a foster placement?

All last week was touch and go.  The hotel had a 48 hour cancellation policy.  I called 48 hours in advance and explained the situation and the manager agreed to let me cancel 24 hours in advance with no fees if necessary.  (When I did finally checkout, it was with the manager I talked to on the phone that night.  He remembered and said he was glad the kids felt well enough to come.  I will so go back to this hotel again!)  As it turned out, by Thursday both little ones were on the mend, and we decided to go ahead with the plans.

Friday we left and drove to Disneyland.  We arrived after 11pm at the hotel.  We spent three days park hopping between Disneyland and California Adventure.  It was really nice.  The kids all had fun.  No major meltdowns, although there were definitely tired kids.  Tuesday we checked out and drove home.

BB and Precious did really well too.  They enjoyed their time at my friend's and each had a playmate close to their age as well. 

When I returned to work on Wednesday, I heard many comments about taking six kids to Disney on my own.  Many involved the words "crazy" or "nuts".  That's okay.  I enjoyed it and so did all the kids!  In my mind, that's a successful Spring Break.

Training

I attended an all day training session today to fulfill my hours for my foster care license.  They call it the Spring Training Blitz here, where hundreds come to get their required training hours in a single day.  There were seven morning trainings to choose from and seven afternoon training sessions.

In the morning I went to a session on motivation.  The trainer was excellent and really knew her stuff.  She was a child and family therapist.  Unfortunately, she spent almost the entire time talking about developmental stages and what happens when kids experience trauma or are otherwise interrupted during those stages.  She shared many reasons why kids lack motivation, but she didn't really get into how to help them become motivated other than to say that they need to learn what they missed during each developmental stage. 

A couple take aways from this class:

• Kids can't process working to change more than three things at a time.
• The more you externally motivate, the less a child develops internal motivation.

The afternoon session that I attended discussed keeping children safe in the digital world.  Topics covered included internet safety, password strength and security, monitoring software for both computers and smart phones, and rules regarding electronic devices.  I thought this training presented some really good information.  I signed up for an email which will outline how to set the privacy settings on social media. 

This day was made possible by my fabulous friend, also a foster and adoptive parent, who watched all of my children along with her brood.  We all met for an outdoor barbeque to end the day.

Rough Week

It's been a long week.  Here's what I can remember in bullet form:

• Tasha continued to jump our 6' block fence - had to return her to the shelter
• Precious ended up in urgent care - ear infection
• My parents joined us for dinner before leaving town for vacation
• Agonized over which school Buddy will attend next year - he's happy with decision
• Registered May and Buddy for school next year
• Three doctor's appointments - left work early three days
• Sweet's dad agreed to take her to choir - he didn't
• Buddy had field day - I joined him for lunch
• Joint meeting with BB's OT provider and behavior therapist - sensory issues

I'm tired and pretty sure I probably missed something.  I thought things would get simpler when my school was over.  I'm still waiting for that to happen!