Changes around our place

The new year has brought some changes our way.  Last Friday, X Factor was moved to another home.  His problems proved to be too great for our family to handle.  He was still throwing things at Ellie's face and hurting her.  We were also having great deal of other behavioral problems with him.  It got to the point where we couldn't do anything as a family.  Wayne wasn't coming home after work.  Jake was hiding in his room.  Ellie starting acting out and against him at times.  And I was going crazy.  Once I realized he was having such a negative effect on us as a family, I asked that he be moved.  It was time to put my family first.  It was sad to see him go, but it needed to happen.  I feel good about my decision and it has already proved to be what our family needed.  At this point, we don't plan on taking another placement even though our license doesn't expire until the end of March.  I have mixed emotions about this.  Some days I'm okay with it and others I'm not.

Just after the new year, I accepted a position as an office assistant for a company that does developmental therapies.  It's going okay.  It's very part time, just one full day a week, but right now I am working 2-3 full days a week while the main gal is recovering from having a baby.  The one day a week would have been a nice supplement to foster care, but now that we don't intend to continue that, I need to find more work.  I applied with FedEx this week.  So we'll see what happens there.  I think my current job has great potential and the staff is amazing, but I'm doubtful that the potential will come soon enough.

And as you can see from my previous post, evenings have been busy with hunter's ed.  I'm sooooo happy this was only a two week course.  It was fun to take it with Jake.  It was nice to have that one on one with him.  He is such a great boy.  I can't believe he is 14 now!  That's right.  His birthday was last weekend.

For his birthday, we took him out to eat to the restaurant of his choice.  He chose Primos, the all you can eat pizza buffet.  Afterwards, we went to the RV show and did some dreaming.  We had a good time.

I'm not sure what changes will come next.....hopefully our house selling!

Hunter's Education

Jake and I have been taking hunter's ed the last couple of weeks.  Tonight was our last class and test.  We both passed!!  And they gave us these wonderful orange hats.  I can't say that I'll every use my license for hunting, but thought the class would be good since we like to target shoot.

Jake 98%......Christine 97%
I don't think I'll ever hear the end of this one!

I reached my goal

I reached my goal of growing out my hair to 21" long......and even more importantly, I won the bet with Wayne!

It only took me 18 months.  Not too long since I had a short cut when I started and had at least 3" cut off over that time.  I've already been looking at new haircuts.  I'll post what I end up doing.  I don't plan on going real short again, but maybe something just below the shoulders.

New To Us

Yahoooo! We got a "new to us" washer last night.  Now, I can finally get caught back up on laundry.  We got a great deal on it and it's a front loading!

Shooting

We took the kids south of town on Monday to shoot their new guns.  They loved it!  Wayne and I had fun too.  Wayne got me a .22 pistol for Christmas too.  Now everyone has their own to shoot.

Christmas 2011

Here are some pictures from Christmas this year.  Since Christmas fell on a Sunday, I told the kids they had to be completely ready for church before we opened presents.  It's amazing how fast they got ready!

Wayne making pancakes! Yummmmy!

Every year we have the kids buy a gift for each other.  You can tell Jake did good!

Ellie couldn't go wrong getting Jake a nerf gun!

Our big gifts this year were guns.  Ellie got a pink BB gun.

And Jake got a 22.

The Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds is more than just a rule of thumb of where to place subjects when composing a picture, but it goes further than that.  When I was taking a photography class in Colorado, we talked about this.  Part of this discussion was that everything happens in 3s.  And in our family, things happen in 3s, usually bad things.

1st-- December 16th, Candy Day

It was my great grandmother's tradition to make candy every year at Christmas time (caramels, dipped chocolates, peanut brittle, etc).  A few years ago, our extended family got together in honor of Grandma Vera to make her recipes and to pass them down to the current generations.  I really enjoyed this and have made it a tradition of my own.  The day that I had set aside this year to do this, I woke up with a swollen foot and could barely walk.  Thinking it was just a cramp, I tried to rub it out.  But it only got worse!  I took a nice warm shower thinking the hot water would help it.  Nope, I could barely stand on the tile.  So after my attempts to help my foot, more specifically my toe, I couldn't take the pain.  I called the doctor for an appointment.  Turns out I broke my toe.  I don't know how or when but it was broken.  And there's nothing that can be done for a broken toe.  I limped around for a week and am now able to walk somewhat normal.  It still hurts and the doctor said it would take about 4-6 weeks to heal. :(

2nd-- December 24th, Quilts

I was way behind on finishing the kid's rag quilts for Christmas.  I had just finished snipping them and still needed to wash them.  I threw them in the wash.  I had gone up stairs a short time later and I smelled something weird.  I asked Wayne to come help me find it.  Well we did.  It was the washer.  After Wayne completely disassembled it, he came to the conclusion that it was indeed broken.  :(

3rd-- December 25th, Drive Home

We had gone to Christmas dinner with family and on the way Wayne noticed that we were losing tire pressure. No, he's not that good to feel that or does he check that constantly!  The "dummy light" flashed on the dash saying that something was wrong.  Our tire was slowly losing pressure.  We pulled over a truck stop and aired it back up, hoping that we could make it the rest of the way home.  It was cold & dark and we didn't have a flashlight.  So making it home without having to empty the trunk and put the spare on was the best option.  The tire held on the way home!  The next day, nothing was open.  We weren't able to get it fixed until Tuesday. :(

I could probably list more stuff before these and I'm sure more is coming.  Sometimes I feel like we are in 3 sets of 3, not just 3.  Or even 3 years of stuff.  But I know all to well that happiness doesn't come without trial or effort.  If we didn't have rough times, we wouldn't recognize the good times.  I hope that this coming year will bring us some good.  We are making several big changes (like selling our house and moving) and that is sure to bring both good and bad our way.  What a bokeh life!!!