3 days gone

It's like someone took away 3 days of my life. During the last 3 days, Joe and I have spent about 20 hours in classes... Pride Training classes. That stands for something, but what? They are classes we have to take for our foster adoption process. We have learned some interesting stuff and heard some really scary stories. It really is amazing what some people do/don't do to their kids.
We are hoping to get a baby under 18 months to love and adopt. There's a good chance that we will have several different children before we get one that we can adopt, but we think eventually we'll find the child that's supposed to be in our family.
I have so many mixed emotions about all of this. I am excited, scared, anxious, curious, all at the same time. Luckily my sister-in-law Angela has already gone through this, so I hope to be able to go to her a lot for questions and problems that come up. (presumptuous?)
Since all of the classes have been in Plano, we have been staying with the Ashursts. They are amazing, and have taken care of our kids all 3 days, as well as provided us with a place to sleep, dinner, breakfast, and good company. Thanks!

What Tampa?

We had a special treat of ice cream cones for dessert today. We were all admiring Ginger's cuteness, and she was happy to comply.
At one point Ginger just looked at Earl and said: "What Tampa?"

Turtles

We have turtles in our lake. At first I didn't believe it. I mean, turtles live in zoos and pet shops, and Florida... not in OUR lake! Sterling found the first one last week. It was a pretty good sized box turtle. A few days later he found another one. Then a few days ago the kids found a good sized "red" turtle. They like to keep them in a box by the back door and think it's hilarious when its head shoots back in when someone walks up.

Every day

I haven't done much blogging lately, and it's primarily because I just can't think of things to write about. The fact is, my life is pretty boring and repetitive. I do the same things every day. So it dawned on me today that I should probably write those things down. I mean, that's my "life of a non-working mother" right?
Yesterday I had a mongo shopping trip. Since Winter is out of school now, I had ALL 3 kids! I don't know what possessed me to go shopping with them, but I kind of had to. Joe was out of town, and I had to go to all the stores to get my super values on coupons groceries. If you wait too long the good items are sold out... We left the house around 10.30. We first went to Lowes, then Target, then CVS. By that time the kids started acting out a bit, so I promised them that if they were good at the next store, we would have lunch at McDonalds. We then went to Albertsons. There was a Wendy's next door, so we went there instead of McD's. The kids wanted to go in...no. They wanted a toy... no. Just a cheeseburger. Whine, whine, whine. We headed to another CVS to get some bandaids, mouthwash, and toothbrushes for free. I wasn't sure if I could keep going. But I still had 3 stores to go! So I mustered all my courage, and kept deep-breathing and headed to Kroger. This store was the worst! I needed to find all the sale items, and wasn't very familiar with the store, so it took forever (or maybe it just seemed that way because I had been shopping for the past 4 hours with 3 whiny/roudy kids). Then we were off to Sam's club. I figured I could run in and out, because I didn't need too many items. I first had to set up my new membership (I switched from costco) and then raced through the store. All the stars alligned, and everything was placed in obvious spots, so we were out of there pretty quickly. By that time, both my coolers were full of freezer/fridge stuff, and I decided that if I also went to Walmart, it would probably spoil. So I hit the road. In the car all I could think about was the fact that when I got home I would still have to bring in all the groceries, and put them away. It was 5pm by now. The kids were great and helped me bring them in, but I left them for today to put away in the cubboards.
Then Sterling came in yelling that cinnamon killed another chicken! The chicken had flown over the fence. So I went balistic. I had read somewhere that you need to beat the dog over the head with the dead chicken. This had (obviously) grossed me out when I read this, but at this moment of rage all my sanity left me and I started beating with the chicken carcass. I seemed to work for me for the dog, because she was freaking out. Until we can find another home for her, I guess she'll just have to be tied up during the day. She's lucky.... she could have gotten treatment .22.
Joe came back from a short business trip to Tulsa OK. He drives there several times a month, and always gets distracted on the way home. Last week he stopped at a livestock auction (and luckily didn't bring any animals home in the geo). Yesterday, he found some free roosters on the way home, so he stopped and got them. They are huge!! And beautiful. One of them has already gotten "busy".
The duties of a house wife keep coming. One load of laundry is in the washer and at least 4 more are waiting in line. Why don't I just do 1 load a day, it works great! I guess I was crazy a little busy yesterday with other household chores, that by the time I got home I could barely walk. The dishes are also patiently waiting in the sink. And the beds are patiently waiting to never be made. And the bathroom is patiently waiting to be cleaned. Man, this chair feels good!

Farm Work

The kids really like helping out whenever they can. Ginger and Sterling braved high-90s temperatures and very high humidity to help load our ailing bush-hog into the back of the truck.

I Go My Classes?

Every Sunday, immediately after the "amen" of the opening prayer in sacrament meeting, Ginger shouts out, "I go my classes?" in a mixture of inquistive and exclamatory tone. She sometimes will also do it after each of the sacramental prayers and after the closing prayer as well. It is super cute - even if it is a bit disruptive.

At least she likes going to nursery now - A month or so ago, it was a major ordeal getting her settled in there without a lot of crying.

Pillars of the earth

So after I signed up for that cool book website, I compiled a list of books to read. I based my search mostly on the overall rating. So yesterday I hopped in the geo, and went to the library. Our library has about 3 shelves of non-fiction, so I made sure to have a long list of potential reads. The result: out of the 7 titles that I checked, I found 3. Not too bad right? Granted one of them was "to kill a mockingbird" which every library has, but still. The librarian was also really nice, and told me that if I couldn't find certain books, she might be able to put it on the order list.
One of the books I checked out is The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. I'm on page 114, and it's pretty good so far (941 total pages). I have found that I really enjoy the longer books. I hate getting into a book about 150, just to find out only 30 are left. I like to get to know the characters and follow plot lines and twists and character development. Back in college however, I would try to read the shortest books possible. I didn't enjoy reading. I blame that to my teachers. I never read for fun. I just read the books that were assigned, and honestly they were rarely any good. It took me a couple years after getting out of school to actually enjoy a book, and look forward to read another one.