I suppose I’ll write about the good surprise first.

I love this time of year. I love going to the mailbox every afternoon to see whose Christmas card has arrived. I love the pictures, stories, and family updates. Of course it’s even more exciting when you open your mailbox and there’s a brown package inside with YOUR name on it! That is what I received today! The package is from my sweet cousin, Liza. She, her hubby, and their cute doggies live in Arkansas (where I was born). Check out the goodies inside:

There were two awesome Christmas towels with our last names embroidered on them, an adorable picture of her dogs, and a note at the bottom of the card, “Starbucks cards don’t expire, so even if ya’ll don’t get there before all ya’lls kids turn 20, it should still be good!” HAHAHA!! Oh, Liza, if you only knew how often we MAKE time to drive thru Starbucks. We should own stock. I also think therapists should prescribe Starbucks for depression, anxiety, exhaustion, oh the list could go on forever. I’m not sure a mental state exsists that Starbucks couldn’t improve upon with a holiday beverage of choice. Works for me every time!

Liza, you made our week!! Thank you so very much! Ashley was so excited when I called and told her. We’ll take pictures of our girls’ day out tomorrow. We’ve got a little Christmas shopping to do and we’re taking Susan along for some girlie time.

Ok, different surprise now. Not so great.

I woke up at 4am, Sunday morning (12/13) to give Joshua some tylenol because he had a fever. When I got up, I realized my arm was itching. There seemed to be a little bug bite on the under side of my forearm. There wasn’t much of a mark on my arm, so I didn’t think anything of it and went back to bed.

By Sunday night, the bite area had grown to about the size of a dime and it burned a little bit.
On Monday I called my mom, who happens to be a wound nurse, and she told me to mark the boundaries of the spot with a sharpie so I could know for sure if it continued to spread and get worse. By Tuesday, it was the size of a half dollar. You can see the picture I took at the doctor’s office.

The doctor said it was either a poisonous insect/spider that bit me, or I’m simply having a bad allergic reaction to whatever bit me. Either way, he gave me some antihistamines and told me to keep an eye on it. He also marked the new boundaries with a black sharpie marker and said to call if it got any bigger.

By Thursday it had doubled in size again so I headed back to the doctor. In this picture, you can see where Tuesday’s boundary was drawn and it had spread about an inch all the way around. GROSS. I know.

This time the doctor really didn’t like the way it looked and insisted upon DRAINING IT and sending the ooze to the lab. What happened next almost made me lose my lunch. The doc reappeared with a needle the size of a screw driver and said those dreaded words, “There’s no sense in numbing you because either way, it’s just one stick.” ARE YOU FREAKIN’ KIDDING ME!? I’ll take one tiny needle containing numbing medicine so I don’t have to FEEL the DRILL BIT as you insert it into my arm…PLEASE!! Nope. No pain meds. She pushed the needle in until I yelled, “THAT’S ENOUGH!” Then, she pulled it out and began mashing around and pushing and squeezing…and that’s all I’ll say about that part so you don’t have to lose your lunch as well. The jury is still out. They sent the ooze off to the lab and we’ll know something on Monday. Until then, I have to ‘drain’ the wound site every three hours during the day and they’re treating me for MRSA with a heavy duty antibiotic until they get the lab results back. Here is what it looks like today:

Tonight, we have a graduation party for my sister-in-law, Erin. Congrats college grad!!!

Happy Friday Everyone!!

~audrey

When the children were picked up on Monday, I casually said to the case worker, “I sure hope to talk to you soon.” Meaning, we’re looking forward to receiving more children. She smiled and agreed, but said that they had not received a new placement into the agency since the end of September. That surprised me, but I know it will happen in God’s timing, so that just gives us more time to pray for the next children that will come to us.

Imagine my surprise when the agency called me yesterday afternoon and said, “We have another possible placement!” It was a sibling group of four that they were trying to separate into two placements of two children each. They said if it worked out to separate them, we would either receive a two and a three year old…..or ONE YEAR OLD TWINS!!!! How awesome!! How crazy would that be for God to give me twins within month of Ashley having hers?? I immediately picked up the phone and called Ashley and asked her to start praying. I also told myself it probably wasn’t going to work out, so I truly didn’t let myself get excited. About 45 minutes later, the agency called back and said, “Sorry, DFCS decided to place with a different agency in hopes of keeping all four of the children together.” Yikes. God bless the family that receives four children ages three and under!

I know we’ll have news of another placement very soon. Until then, I’ll bask in the ease of only having THREE for the moment and just enjoy Christmas with my family.

Happy Thursday people! Tomorrow is FRIDAY!!!

~audrey

As I woke up this morning, day two of only having three children in my house, I had a renewed sense of peace. Yesterday was very hard. I was reduced to tears in Jesse’s class when a sweet little five year old girl approached me and said, “Mrs.Audrey, I really like your earrings and your eye shadow…and your shirt.” I smiled and said, “Thank you Baylee; pink is my favorite color!” She got a big smile on her face, leaned toward my ear with bright eyes and whispered, “Mine too!” My eyes welled up with tears and I had to leave the room for a moment.

What in the world was that all about?

Was it because my little Baby Girl took a piece of my heart with her as I loaded her into the case worker’s car on Monday? That sweet little girl that couldn’t speak but sure knew how to love. I miss her crazy hair, toothy grin, and the way she’d hold on ever so tightly, with her head planted on my shoulder everytime I picked her up, as if she knew she was safe in my arms. I also miss this:

She and Josh had a sweet, special bond and I know he misses her too. In fact, he stuck his bottom lip out last night as he walked into the office/Baby Girl’s room. Sad. I miss Baby Girl.

Even little Owen asked Monday night, on our way to church,

“Mama? *Baby here?” *of course, he said her name*

“No honey, she’s not here.”

“Oh”, he said, “She’s in Daddy’s truck?”

“No baby, she had to go bye-bye.”

He then proceeded to ask the very same questions about Four Year Old and Biggest Brother as well. We all miss them.

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I got bit by something in the middle of the night Saturday/Sunday and woke up with a bite on my left forearm Sunday morning. Every day since then, it has gotten larger and has continued to burn and swell. My mom is a wound nurse, so I sent her this picture and she sent me right to the doctor.

They said it’s either a bite from a poisonous bug, or I’m just having a bad reaction to whatever bit me. I’M STILL FREAKIN’ OUT AT THE FACT THAT WHATEVER BIT ME, BIT ME IN MY BED!!! GROSS!!!

They gave me some oral antihistamines and marked me up with a sharpie so we could tell if it continues to grow. If it gets worse, continues to grow in size, or if I start displaying any other symptoms, I’ll have to do a round of antibiotics and just pray it’s not a flesh-eating infection. HAHA!

Check out this absolutely adorable picture of my big baby boy at the doctor’s office. They did so well while we waited and waited.

P.S. I’m hoping to put my hubby to work over Christmas break, by redesigning my website. I’m not doing any professional organizing right now and I don’t see myself having time for it in the near future either, so I’d rather the focus of my website be redirected to my blog. I’d like my blog to be the home page of my site and I’d like to brighten it up a little. We’ll see what he can come up with.

Christmas is TEN DAYS away!!

~audrey

My boys seem to have a favorite Christmas song this year and I love it!

“It’s Called Christmas With a Capital “C”

Toward the end of the song, the guy says something about how Christianity is the religious heritage of our country and if you don’t like it, “PUT A HELMET ON!  IT’S MY COUNTRY TOO!”

So I laughed out loud when I was leaving the grocery store this morning and I heard Owen say, in his sweet little two year old voice,

“It’s MY country too!”

…last night, Josh took our three boys to my in-laws’ to visit Josh’s grandma who is in town through Christmas.  She hasn’t seen the boys in over a year.  I decided I didn’t want to risk the stress of uncertain behaviour from Biggest Brother, so I stayed home with them.  It was a good decision.  Josh and the boys had a nice quiet evening at Mimi’s and I had a nice, uneventful evening at the house with ‘our other three’. 

I decided to color my hair last night after I put Baby Girl in bed.  My plan was to color my hair darker than usual and then pull it through a cap and highlight it.  I know, I’m so cheap.  I’ve only had my hair colored ‘professionally’ twice in my life and it was discounted both times.  It’s just TOO expensive.  Well, the first color came out nicely, but as I suspected, it was pretty dark.  Too dark to leave it by itself, with no highlights.  So I opened up the highlight kit to get started.  UNFORTUNATELY, someone had already STOLEN the cap out of the box! 

Uh oh.

Josh is not a fan of the dark-haired me.  I am a blonde and he prefers it that way.  :)  My plan was to wait until this morning and I’d run to the store and get a new kit with a pull-through cap.  Go figure, Josh didn’t even notice that I’d colored my hair TWO LEVELS darker than my natural color.  I had it pulled back in a pony tail.  So when I got back from the store with the highlighting kit, I said, “Did you even notice that I colored my hair??”

He looked over at me and said,

“HOLY COW!  IT’S DARK!”

HAHAHA!!

Gee, thanks for noticing honey.

I’m looking forward to the final outcome.  I may even wax my eyebrows today.  A nice Saturday of cleaning and grooming and pampering….between diaper changes, bickering, and time-outs.

Have a marvelous Saturday!!

~audrey