Leaves, a tree, and back to decisions

After the devastating news that hit last Thursday, I pretty much came home and went to bed.  As tired as I was, I thought I would sleep the afternoon away, but that did not happen as I was too upset.  Mom talked with the doctor and learned that the cancer has spread to the area outside her liver and to her colon.  She resumes chemo on Tuesday, and apparently there has been some good results with this chemo, so we continue to hope and pray.  Our hope is not in chemo or surgery but in Christ.  I know that my mom is in a win-win situation.  She can recover and spend more time with us or go explore her mansion, physically hug Jesus, reunite with relatives missed and live where it is said that one day in the courts is better than a thousand elsewhere (not necessarily in that order).  This, however, is not a win-win situation for me.

On Friday I gave my two weeks notice to my part-time employer.  Much like the decision to seek and subsequently take this job weighed on my mind, my decision to leave is constantly on my mind.  I resigned because this is retail, and it is a small enough store that often only two people are scheduled.  Given that set-up, I feel like I can't leave on a moment's notice, and I feel like I need to be able to do that.  However, the discount is nice, and if we can ever pull enough money together to replace some furniture that is in bad need of replacement (ie. the kitchen table and chairs since we can't all six sit at the table at this time), the discount combined with the sale prices could make some very nice furniture affordable.  The people I work with there are super, and the kicker is that I received my first school paycheck yesterday.  I could not determine my pay last year when I was trying to work with the school on Julia's tuition.  School pay is a complicated thing.  I knew there was a possibility that my pay would drop, and it did.  Therefore, I am not sure I can afford to leave this job.  My kids are bothered by this set-up, and much as I like the job, it has been difficult to run the household with this added responsibility.  My manager has offered to keep me on if I will work one shift a week.  I am in a quandary about what to do.

Saturday found us in a different sort of mess.  Savannah has a leaf project due on the 14th. She needs to find and identify 40 leaves for this project.  We joined a few of her friends and a couple of moms at a local cemetery to collect the leaves.  This cemetery marks many of their trees, so we were able to collect 40 leaves and now she faces the task of compiling this project and finding the scientific names.  I am grateful to the security guard who granted us permission to pick the leaves off of the trees as we could not find any on the ground.  Why would this project be given at this time of year with the specification that the kids could not pick the leaves? I never complain about school projects, but I may do that on this one.

I had never been to this cemetery and plan to take Wyatt and Julia back to feed the ducks, a childhood pastime that they missed because my grandmother was no longer able to do this by the time they joined the family.  I also want to explore this very old, serene, and beautiful cemetery.  I came home to a lovely surprise.  My original intention before I became distracted by school projects and life was to paint a small area off of the kitchen on Saturday.  It was a much needed task.  I worked on prepping the walls on Friday evening, and returned from the cemetery on Saturday to find that Andy had completed the first coat.  The walls improved immensely with just that one coat of paint.  Andy hates the color on the kitchen walls (a Dijon mustard yellow), so he quickly pointed out that the contrast made the kitchen walls look awful.  Guess what is prepped and ready for paint today:)

We are in the process of fixing things like our broken closet doors and painting walls in desparate need.  Unfortunately, we are also tearing things up as we go.  When I was putting on the second coat of paint, Zach walked under the area where I was working, and paint dripped on his shirt.  Without realizing it was there, he promptly sat on my favorite couch.  Andy replaced our broken closet doors last night, but he slammed the trunk down on his GPS when trying to load up everything for Savannah's field hockey game yesterday.  (sigh) I, for one, am beyond tired of this recession.

Julia had a family tree project due on Monday...as if there was not enough going on here without school projects.  She used the pictures at the end of this post.


Today I have a special plan for Wyatt.  I am struggling to afford this, but Wyatt is kind of the left out kid right now.  We are going on a family outing to see a cave (something he has wanted to do all summer). He has been fascinated with rocks and crystals lately, and there is a place where he can "pan" for cool rocks at this particular cave.  I would wait to do this, but this is the last weekend that this place is open for the season.  He is one pumped little guy!

The following pictures are from Julia's family tree project:

Andy's side of the family

This picture of Andy's parents is quite old.

This picture of Andy's sister Pam with her husband Mike is also quite old.

Page is Pam's and Mike's daughter.

Mitchell is Pam's and Mike's son.

Andy's sister Dianna with her boys, Alex and Ben.

My parents and my sister Tiffany with her husband Tony and their boys, Austin and Logan.

Tara and Jonathan

Tessa and Joshua

For our family we used the blog home page picture.

A Spot of Tea

We enjoyed another grown-up princess party today...the occasion..ahem, a celebration for Mother's day with my mother in law.  You might remember that we took my mom out for Mother's day tea on the day before Father's day.  We run a bit behind here.  In our defense on this one, my mother-in-law lives three hours away.  Today also happens to be her birthday, so we combined the celebration.

Julia actually agreed to wear a hat.  Of course it required beads and feathers in abundance for the glam girl.

Along with the scrumptious goodies you see here, we each enjoyed a bottomless pot of flavored tea.  Everyone at the table chose a different tea, and we sampled each other's.  I found a couple that I liked. I really enjoyed my own chocolate turtle tea.

Andy's sisters also made the three hour drive to be there, and Alicia came as well.  Alicia used to run with Andy's dad. They trained for marathons together, and she was there the day of the accident that sent him running straight to his eternal home in the arms of Jesus.

I would say this catches us up, but I have yet to give my dad his birthday gift.  I'm only a month overdue on that and have no excuse.  My own birthday is coming up on Friday.  I sure hope 40 is indeed the new 30.

Thanksgiving and another adoption for this family

Thanksgiving
Over the river and through the woods to Granny's house we did go. Andy's mom lives about three hours away from us, and we do literally go over the river and through the woods to get there. Our thanksgiving feast started with a tradition started a few years ago by my mother-in-law - communion. We then enjoyed all the turkey and trimmings followed by pumpkin pie or red velvet cake for dessert.

Our niece Page is always helpful with the little people. I met Page just after meeting Andy when she was a week old. Time does fly. It is so hard to believe that was 17 years ago.

Andy's Aunt Judy (left), and his grandma visited along with his Uncle Walt. Andy's mom is in yellow.

This is Ben, Dianna, and Pam. Dianna and Pam are Andy's sisters, and Dianna is Ben's mom.

We had an uneventful trip this year, and given the number of people hanging out at Jean's house, we opted to stay in a hotel. This was the first time that it appeared we would need two rooms. However, the hotel staff found Wyatt and Julia to be small enough to allow us all to stay in one room. This is just one of those adjustments to a bigger family. I figure that once we have two rooms, we might as well fill them...one more child won't cost that much more...lol.

This year I am quite thankful that we have had an easier year than last year, but I am most thankful that "Peter" (mentioned in a previous post) got to be at home for Thanksgiving. During communion in church on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, I prayed that Peter would be home with his family for Thanksgiving. There was a sliver of hope there according to the last update, and I really felt like God said to me, "it is going to happen." Yet, I did not dare share that with anyone for fear that it was my own wishful thinking. We do indeed have much for which to be thankful, not the least of which is a personal God.

Tradition

Our church paper asked us to share our favorite Christmas traditions. I sent a message about our long-standing tradition of having Mary and Joseph travel through our home during the holiday season. They stop for the night in each of our bedrooms at some point during the journey and arrive in "Bethlehem" on Christmas Eve. The baby Jesus arrives some time later that night, and the wise men arrive later Christmas Day. Yes, this means that aside from a couple of animals, our manger is displayed, but empty, until Christmas. However, I started this in hopes of the children being delighted by the arrival of the baby Jesus, not just the arrival of Santa Claus.

So, I sent this information to the church paper, and they sent me on a photo shoot. Whoa, I wasn't expecting that. So, I managed the following shots.

We do have some funny stories behind this tradition. There was the year that we got everything set up and had some old boxes that needed to be tossed. I asked Andy to dispose of the boxes thinking of only one stack. However, I did not specify which boxes were to be trashed, and he cleared out all of them...including the one that held the baby Jesus. Thus, we rebuilt our nativity set and chose a classic set that did not have breakable pieces so that the children could handle them. Our old set was porcelean, and by the time the baby Jesus landed in the trash, one of the wise men had already had to have his head glued back in place a few times. Unfortunately, this was a pricey collection, so we continue to add one piece a year until it is complete. This year I bought a traveling Mary and Joseph to better suit our tradition. Of course, it arrived the day after I submitted the pictures :)

Adoption
I am guessing that for some of you, the rest of this blog entry has been skipped. After reading the title, you jumped right to this sub-heading. You may have already known about our new addition. If not, you might have been thinking baby thoughts. To be honest I am praying about the baby thing. I know, I know this is coming from the woman who said upon marriage that I would have no more than two children. Well, look at me now. How much can I nurture?

Anyway, this is the story of Shiloh. We have been looking at dogs for several weeks. Long before we said goodbye to Bambi, we felt that this family would always have a dog, and the last 4 1/2 months have been the longest that we have been without a pooch. My only rule for this dog hunt was that the dog could not be big enough to open our doors that contain our cat to the only area of the house where she is allowed and that the dog cannot be big enough to drink from the toilet. Visions of a spoiled, tiny lap dog danced through my head. However, beagle kept coming up. It came up when I bought my new vacuum cleaner. "They make great family dogs" the clerk said. They kept coming up on the Humane Society web page, and finally, I realized that my selfish desire for a spoiled foofoo dog is really not fair to a family, and this next dog will hopefully see our children to adulthood. So, I found this little cutie last Friday night on the Humane Society site. We had to go out of town for wrestling on Saturday, and when we returned, she was no longer on the site. I inquired about her and learned she had been moved and to call the next day. On Sunday I was told that she needed to see the vet and probably had a cold. On Monday I learned that she was being transferred to a location very close to my work. Hmmm, everything seemed to be working together, and the books in the library indicated that you could not go wrong with a beagle. So, I went to take a look at her and brought her home.

She had been named Tula by the Humane Society and had sisters named Tilly and Taffy. I mentioned Shiloh as a name. I believe that Shiloh means "home." Since dogs generally greet you, I figured it would be an appropriate name. Savannah pushed hard for this dog and latched onto the name Shiloh. Ultimately, the name came down to a vote that included only Savannah, Wyatt, and Julia. They chose Shiloh unanimously. Although, Wyatt and Julia both toyed with Tula.

So, I brought home this dog and spent money that should have been used to paint or buy a kitchen table and then spent the whole first night worrying about what I had done. Shiloh's paws indicate that she may just be able to sip from the toilet...blech! She will certainly be strong enough to open the doors, and I am trying to be diligent in training her so that she will be a very good dog. I am also praying very hard. After all, God loves all his creation, right?

The kids are enamoured. I could not get home with Shiloh before picking up three of them from the bus stop. Zach was the first to see her and immediately asked to hold her. He would not let her go until she was at home. Savannah has been attentive and worked at training her. Julia is a hoot and loves that Shiloh follows her around. Wyatt is a riot! He called to our neighbor who was cutting his grass.."Hey, Neighborhood! " Wyatt shouted this while waving the neighbor over. "Look, we have a new dog!" Wyatt then took a look at the fence and asked, "what if she gets into your neighborhood?''

Shiloh had her first vet visit today. She is 7 pounds and 2 ounces. She was born September 18th, and her training is going well. Shiloh is feisty today. I think she was quite nervous until today.

Not everyone is crazy about Shiloh. Our cat has hissed every time she has been near the dog. She is so mad that she won't let anyone near her and scratched Andy pretty badly tonight when he tried to love on her. I have to admit that I often think that cat is the spawn of Satan. She is a piece of work!