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Pictures

Heres the rest of the pictures from the Christmas Party this past weekend. We had a blast....We cant believe the REAL Santa came...he even recited from memory the night before Christmas for us all....We hope you all have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Matchy Matchy

Makenna BEGS to match her clothes with "sissy" and Nana obliged this year for their Christmas Dresses.....so here are the sweet girls at church....by the way matching outfits for an almost 6 year old and a 6 month old is not as easy as it would seem...

Winter---Whew what a doozy...

November started out decent....Jays Birthday, then visit from his parents, Jay got pneumonia and was pretty sick when his parents were here, but fought through it . Then we had A great Thanksgiving with family and friends. Then Danielle did a little black Friday Christmas shopping as per tradition. The weekend after Thanksgiving was Danielle's turn to get sick, eventually bronchitis etc  then Makenna got a mild version, then baby girl got it the worse of all of us :(. We were sent to the ER on a Sunday fro a stubborn 104.8 fever, chest x-ray was clear and after some more Tylenol and monitoring they sent us home keeping in touch with the pediatrician, two days later we were in the Dr. office for persistent fever, worse cough, audible wheezing. She was started on nebulizer treatments. Two days later I thought she sounded no better and brought her back in. Sure enough the Dr. thought she sounded bad too, tried two back to back treatments in the office along with a steroid shot before sending us to the ER for monitoring, etc. After a "miracle" treatment of "el-epi" she was resting peacefully and breathing quieter/easier....after a few more hours of monitoring we were allowed to come home, with increased breathing treatments at home. She was eventually put on oral and inhaled steroids to help her get over it and hopefully prevent further respiratory issues this winter. Thankfully she is sounding a million times better and requires less breathing treatments now, but will be on the inhaled steroid for an undetermined time period.
 We are getting ready for Christmas slowly but surely now that we are all pretty healthy!
 We are excited to celebrate Baby K's first Christmas with her. I hope you are all doing well too! Enjoy some Santa pictures from a party today. I have a few more to post when I have more time. Merry Christmas Friends and Family. Please keep praying for baby K and her future, biological parents and social workers, judge etc. We are! Nothing new to note with her case.

Be still my heart!

Ready too see our favorite dr for our sixth well check!!!

Our Christmas angels --enjoy!

Our littlest Santa finally feeling better
Enjoy:

The girls today after church....baby k finally doing well enough to
leave the house (although did stay with us in church vs nursery)

Pic overload!!!

Family

Love!

Canny stand the cuteness! 35 degree playtime

Court

For all those that are following our journey....

Court was this morning.  We ended up being the first case heard. We sat there while the lawyers went back and forth, the judge, who has a reputation as being hard, was super nice to Jason and I even asking us to tell her about the baby (which was very easy for us to do obviously), and ended up being pretty harsh with mom telling her she doesn't think she understands how serious this is, and reminded her that the law says they have 12 months from coming into care to reunify baby K with mom (or her w mom and dad). She went on to point out that mom has had already one third of that time and has "MADE NO PROGRESS" and how her infant daughter was bonding with "These two people"--pointing at Jay and I. She also ordered a hair drug analysis be done by 5 pm tomorrow, since mom has not gone for the urine test requested weeks ago as part of her substance abuse evaluation. Mom now says she has kicked dad out and they are "over with" ( she changes that from week to week lately). Dads visitations were suspended until he takes it upon himself to make a new visitation plan with DSS, and they are no longer are to visit together since they are not "together". A DNA marker test was also ordered today for him. Dad did not come to court, again.

So all in all things are great, no real changes but things good and baby K will be with longer. I couldn't help but feel compassion and hurt for baby Ks mother who sat there IN HER PJ SWEATS and SLIPPERS in the court room being talked sternly to by the judge....but maybe its the wake up call she needs, (but maybe not). Please continue to pray for her as well.

Thanks for your prayers. We go back in May, where it will be decided if the case continues to be reunification or the goal changed.

Baby K was great for Jays parents while we were in court, they took the girls to Marbles to play.

Look at this smile!!!

November.....

Its been a crazy weekend so far, a busted water heater in the middle of the night equals large fans now drying our soaked carpet in the nursery and hallway--just in time for Jay's parents to come for their annual visit for his birthday....carpet is supposed to be cleaned by Wed afternoon assuming its dry they say! 

We signed a lease on a town home about a 1/2 mile away from the apartment we live in now, not our choice to move really but its quite a bit more affordable and out of a complex, Makenna will get to stay in her school and I will still be able to watch the kids I have been, all of which were important to us at this time. If all goes well (they lease our current apartment) we will move in the weekend after Christmas (maybe I can convince my mom to come help organize and unpack, etc again! She is sooo good at it!!!), if not we will move in for Feb 1, we signed a two year lease, locking in the more affordable rate.....we are so tired of moving (didn't think "I" would ever say that!!!). 

We found out this week Makenna's kindergarten teacher has now left for good (been out last several weeks due to illness), Makenna is sad. Thankfully the teacher is no longer ill, just took an out of classroom position at another school they said. Hopefully they will have a new teacher in place by the time she tracks back in early December. We are enjoying the 9 week in 3 week out schedule of year round school so far (ask me again on week three of track out with her home with me and the littler kiddos and I may have another opinion) Shes still excelling in school and enjoying it!

Baby K is still doing awesome, shes up to 14.5 lbs now. She had her first ear infection last week along with croup, which was no fun, but we managed to keep her comfortable mostly, and shes all better now, just a couple more days of antibiotic. Shes always smiling and giggling and very much into toys and interacting now. We go to court next Thursday. 

I hope you are having a great November so far too!

The girls in the tub tonight :)

Today

A different kind of post, after the "interesting" supervised visit today with baby 

K's mom:


Being a foster parent was not our plan, but it was God's plan.


While my heart is so in love with this baby girl it also hurts so bad at the same 

time for her Mother and the hand she was dealt and has chosen, or chooses. It 

appears she continually chooses not to accept the help being handed to her

time and time and time again, yet she too loves this little girl.



foster care --- its so sad.



So I pray...and rock her baby girl....daily. 



Please Pray with us! Court next Thursday 9am.

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Brrr

Ok so we may be from upstate NY but when you have been here nine years or whatever you get COLD very easily apparently! It is cold here right now! IN the 30s at night and today's high was like 52! Luckily its short lived and will be in the 60s-70 again next week I'm sure! One advantage of the cooler temps is seeing the kids in their cute little winter coats/hats, etc!

Someone at work gave Jay free tickets to the state fair, so we went last night and had a blast. Luckily we aren't big fair ride riders as there was an accident on one of the fun looking rides...hopefully everyone will be okay! Makenna didn't even ask to ride rides last night, which was odd, but our wallets didn't complain!

October was a busy month for our little family. Jay is settling in to his new job still and liking it. Makenna is enjoying kindergarten. She got her first report card and is doing great! We are so proud of her! She is making new friends and really doing well with sounding out of words, writing and her beginning math skills. We went to costume Bingo last week and it was cute to see all the kiddos dressed up and enjoying family time together at school. Of coarse it wouldn't be "normal" unless there was a melt down...so before we left Makenna had a huge melt down because she wanted to win again.....O MY! Can you say T-I-R-E-D. Straight to bed when we got home for sure.

Baby K is doing great too. She turned 4 months old this week! She was 14.1 lbs at her well visit and just over 23" long. She is happy, chubby and adorable as ever! We still have no idea how long she will be in our home, but we are having a blast loving on her and enjoying her. She brings so much joy to our family.

We soon will approach November..which brings Jays birthday then the beginning of the holiday season, Yippee! Makenna is already making her "LIST" and checking it twice!

I am sorry I am not updating the blog more, I swear I try! Life is just a little hectic sometimes!