Music

Today's prompt is to write about a song (the prompt called it a piece of music)that changed your life. It mentions writng about how it makes you feel now.

I've certainly had life changing moments. There have been people who've changed my life. I've read books that changed my life. But a song? Don't get me wrong. I LOVE music. It's just that I guess I've always thought of it as a way of expressing or emphasizing the way I was feeling at any given moment. So while I wouldn't say a song has changed my life, there are songs I associate with the things I've lived through. Perhaps my favorite is "Angel Lullaby" by Richard Marx. It touched my heart from the first time I heard it because it said so perfectly how I felt about being a parent. I loved it so much I used it in a montage of the boys. (Please note: I've posted this before but I thought I'd put it here again since I'm talking about it.) I've watched that video so many times I can see it perfectly in my mind just listening to the song. Whether I watch the video or just hear the song now, it always makes me cry, especially the lines "I'll never catch all those memories I'm chasing, never be ready to let go."

"Angel's Lullaby" lyrics:
I was never alive
til the day I was blessed by you
When I hold you late at night
I know what I was put here to do

I turn off the world
and listen to you sigh
and I will sing my angel's lullaby

The one forever near
The one you call always call
Right now all you know to fear
are the shadows on your wall

And I'm here close enough
to kiss the tears you cry
And I will sing my angel's lullaby

So tell me how to stop the years from racing?
Is there a secret someone knows?
I'll never catch all those memories I'm chasing
Never be ready to let go

And when the world seems cold
You feel all of your strength is gone
There may be one tiny voice
Your reason to carry on

And when I'm not close enough
to kiss the tears you cry
You will sing your angel's lullaby
Let this be our angel's lullaby

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Joy

Today's prompt asks for the happiest moment of your life. Oh my smurf! How do you quantify that and pick only one moment?


I think most mothers would probably pick the birth(s) of their child(ren). Similarly, many people might expect that the days that the boys' adoptions were finalized might be mine. I can't say that, though. I was happy, most certainly. I wanted to be their mother so very much. But the joy of that day was tempered because while I gained that day, they lost. And no matter what the situations were, four sets of parents lost. Add to that that the finalizations were, because of the situations in foster care, the end of several years of stress for everyone. I guess it felt more like relief mixed with happiness.

Looking back, I just wouldn't pick one happiest moment. The happiest momentS for me? Are those silly, peaceful, loving moments with the boys that can happen at any time and are too numerous to count.

Halloween 2011

Cory was The Crow and went trick or treating with friends. Jay was Freddie Krueger and Logan was Scream. The beautiful Kitty is my niece Brittanie. I have no pics of Ty because he didn't want to go since his girlfriend wasn't allowed to. Sigh...the teen years.

Ahhhh...

-No rushing around and nowhere to go

-A steaming good cup of coffee in my cozy chair

-The smells of baking zucchini bread

-Good food all day long

-Family reading time with the boys

-Planning the menu for the week

-Boardgames

-The sounds of my cheering boys

-The sounds of Football on tv

Must be Sunday at our house!!! :0)

PS: I'm not sure if it'll last and it's not 100% but I AM feeling better today!

School Pics 2010

PLEASE NOTE: I didn't include Jay's at this time. He's asked me not to share his as it didn't turn out that well. He'll be getting retakes and as soon as that picture is back, I'll post it.

I Could...

-blog a meme as I've seen a couple out there.

-do a Saturday six post I've been working on but it's been a mind bender and isn't finished.

-tell you about a few of the crazier things happening here the last few days.

-put myself out there and ask for questions from readers. Nah...I'd just be embarrassed that no one responded LOL.

I think I'll just cheat again and leave you with a couple of pictures. Care to guess where we went today????




ETA: Please enjoy the fierce look. He's really not mad. The doctor noted his football jersey and pretended to think he'd been injured in a big game so that's the look he was going for. He loved every minute of it! Well, that and the 2 (yes, 2) "very hot looking" nurses fawning over him. No one senses Cory's influence there, right? ;)

My Heart

I've never gone into much detail on my blog with the boys' stories or behaviors but if you read enough, you know that at times they can be challenging. In the past, I have felt defeated and even a bit broken at times. I've also recently said that I think we, as a family, and as individuals, have made some serious progress. I do know, as I've said before, that there will be more work to be done. But it's moments like last night that make my heart melt and make it all worth while.

We were driving to a local megamart and it was just a moment I want to freeze and carry with me forever. We began talking about lucky numbers, which for the boys translates quickly to birthdays, locker numbers/combinations, jersey numbers of favorite athletes, and car numbers of favorite NASCAR drivers. This led to what we call "double lucky" numbers...numbers that have more than one meaning for that person. Example...Ty's jersey number this year was 16 and that is in his locker combination. Logan's favorite race car driver is #2 and his birthday is the second. It was just fun and silly UNTIL this:

Ty: You were born in 1971, right, mom?
Me: Yep.
Ty: So you're going to be the big 4-0 this year. (Yes, he already knew this. I've been lamenting it for a few years now. Two actually...since my older brother turned 40 lol.)
Jay: Hey! That's cool. You need to celebrate. We should really do something for it this year.
Ty: Yeah! What can we do?
Logan: We should par-tay! (Yes he said it like that. I swear I don't know where he got it from lol.)
Jay: Aunt Val will help us, guys!
Ty: You're gonna be so surprized mom! (Um, no, now I'm not. But thanks! LOL)

At this point the conversation veered in another direction. I was lost in my own space for a few minutes but they didn't notice. I was thinking about the love and excitement in their voices. And you know what? I know I shouldn't need that to make me feel loved, respected, and validated. But it did anyway.

More Pictures...What Are Ya Gonna Do Bout It?

I know I did pictures yesterday but I'm not feeling the best so it's what you're going to get. These are our traditional fall pics. I'm showing you my favorite group shot and individual shot of each of the boys. Really, though, most didn't come out very well technically. They always seemed to be blurry or the lighting was way off. I'm hoping to try again but we'll see. Anyway, enjoy!

Halloween Pictures

I'm taking a bit of an easy way out and just leaving you with some pics tonight. We have for your viewing pleasure: the pumpkins the boys carved, Cory in the process of carving as he did not go trick or treating with us this year, and the boys dressed for trick or treating. The little girl in the pictuere with the boys is Ty's sister. Enjoy!

Mini Update

Things are going pretty well here. Cory and Logan are doing great in school. Jay and Ty have had some ups and downs academically. It's actually been such a roller coaster ride with them that I'm waiting for report cards next week to know how they'll end up doing.

Behavior here has really stabilized lately. Do I dare say we've had some true breakthroughs? I realize that there will be backslides and that some of the issues they deal with they'll have to work on for the rest of their lives, but I have seen some true healing going on.

Soccer and cross country are offically over. Both older boys have plans to join other sports as well this year, though. We'll have to see what happens with that. Ty is interested in basketball and Cory is thinking about track in the Spring. Skiing starts in January as well for all of them.

The job ended up not working out so I'm back substituting and stressing about money. Prayers for permanent, full time employment would be much appreciated by those of you who pray. Aside from that, I'm doing well.

Ready for School

We've been keeping busy enjoying what's left of summer. We've done more fishing, gone to the lake again, and of course we have everything we need for the school year. Well, except jeans. They all need new jeans. That can wait though since they all like to wear shorts for as long as the weather allows.

This is the beginning of the busiest time of year for us. Ty, Jay, and Logan are all in soccer and Cory runs for cross country. At the high school now. Can you believe that? A high school student! Anyway, it's challenging to work a schedule that allows us to eat together as much as possible this time of year and for me to get to as many games for all the boys as I can, but I absolutely love it. Fall sports...bring it on!

Pictures

Here are a couple of pictures from the baseball game. They didn't all turn out that great but I love them! There's also a pic of Jay's family birthday cake.

Fun

Since my last post, the boys' behavior has gotten even better. There's the typical sniping at each other because of the enforced togetherness that is summer lol but I can deal with that no problem. We've actually been making some headway, I think. Real progress! This isn't to say that there won't be other backslides or brand new issues that come up but I feel good about where we all are right now.

One thing that might be helping is I am trying to keep us as busy as I can. We're doing the usual swimming, library visits, and park outings. We went to a AAA professional baseball game on Saturday for Jay's birthday. Cory was the only one who'd gone to a pro game before. They all were so excited, though, that you would've thought it was Christmas. I loved every minute of it lol. I've been to two Phillies games and this little AAA game? Had them beat to heck because of the boys. I bought each of the boys new baseballs before we went and the players were very gracious with their autographs. The whole thing was just a blast!

Happy Fourth and A Note

I hope you all had a happy, safe holiday weekend. We certainly did. The boys were well behaved all day, the weather was nice, and the fireworks were fun. We had snacks, sparklers, and a great place to watch from. I DID forget to take my camera. Bummer lol. Anyway, it was a really great night.

Now. A quick note about my prolonged bloggy absence. I started posts several times but they never made it to "post." There was one that did but I deleted it within a short period of time because it seemed too pity party and attention-seeking. Not that it wasn't true, just...I don't know. Suffice it to say that from about March through early June things were NOT so good. Some of it was dealing with the boys' behaviors but probably more was me. Their behaviors weren't new. We were in a "mega backslide" but it wasn't anything I hadn't seen before. It's just that after 3 years of dealing with those issues, I was anxious and aroused myself. Feel free to add in a healthy dose of depression and exhaustion from those same years of having children with sleep issues. In other words, they DON'T. Sleep that is. So I don't. Anyway, I was just NOT in a good place. I've never gone too much into detail about the boys' behaviors and it seemed like that was my life. Everything, no matter how big or small, was the straw that broke my back. I didn't know, and I'm still not really sure about this, how much I wanted to share. It made writing hard.

At any rate, things are currently better. I'm still exhausted but not quite as much as before. Behaviors are leveling out for the time being. The summer so far has been mostly rejuvenating, for all of us. My anxiety is much more under control. I have a handle on it now. I guess I tend towards being an anxious person anyway but the last few years with so much out of my control, mainly the court case and the boys' behaviors, saw it grow to a proportion I have never before had to deal with. Anyway, I am dedicating this summer to as much fun and healing (physically and emotionally) as we can get!

Birthday Boy Then and Now

Then...just turning 3.



Now...my very preppy 6 yr old big boy.

Happy Birthday, Boo! You've grown up so much. I look at you now and I have to admit I don't have a baby anymore. Such a big year you've had...starting kindergarten, learning to read, and loosing teeth are just a few of your bigger accomplishments. I know you're still struggling with the harder things life has thrown at you, but I want you to know that I'm proud of how far you've come. We'll keep working on it together til we get it right! And thanks for saying that you'll always be my baby, even if you don't mean it lol.

The Begining of the End

Need I say more?

More Holiday Fun

It was a nice Christmas. The boys have been SO well behaved, even now. They're playing together nicely and have just been fun to be around. All of them. I love it! I took a lot of pics but not a lot turned out that well. Still, I thought I'd share one of each boy with a present.

Christmas This Year

The stockings were hung in the window with care....



The boys in new jammies knew that Santa soon would be there!




After his visit presents flowed wall to wall...



Hope a Merry Christmas was had by one and all!

Cutie Patooties

I just had to share! I guess NaNoBloMo got my posting juices flowing lol. Hmmm. Not actually. I have a few posts kicking around in drafts or in my head but it'll be a few days most likely til I get to them now that November is over. I hope to post more than I used to, though.

PS~I was able to add in a background on the boys' school pics. Check it out!

Off

The last few days I've been a little "off." I'm not quite sure why, though I know that money issues and a missing atm/credit card are probably at least part of it. Maybe it's just that with the boys home more due to Thanksgiving vacation I'm having trouble finding time to pray and work out my problems with Him.

Whatever it is I do know how blessed I am. With the exception of finances (and basics are met so I shouldn't complain) things are going really well right now. Jay has had very little in the way of behaviors lately. For a week now there's been nothing but typical kid misbehavior, and extremely little of that. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop to a point but mainly just working hard to enjoy it while I can. I know there'll likely be backsliding but I am really hoping we're making true progress all the same.

Oh well. Nothing much to do except make sure I get some time with God and maybe a little more sleep. This too shall pass and before I know it I'll be back "on."