edibale play.

So I was thinking of something for our 1 year old to do with the rest of the children. I know everything we try to let him do he eats, playdough, fingerpaint, crayons. So I decided to make edibale playdough. Here are the lovely pictures I took.

I gave them pretzels and animal crackers.

She's making a pretzel princess castle.

Bubba was making handprints, he thought that was neat.

And finally, Little man wanted to make a cherrio necklace for 

Grandma.

                 

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween, I hope all is well. Our children were very crabby today. We still went trick-or-treating at our mall. It’s nice to be able to go to the mall and get candy because it’s a controlled environment. Although our children were done half way through with only half their buckets full. We had candy collecting through the year, so thats what we used for the trick-or-treaters at our house, and yes it was still all good candy. We don't allow much candy eating in our house. I hope everyone had as much fun as we did.

This was our year supply, it's now gone.

Pictures

Our Lovely daughters on our "Field Trip"

This window absolutely captivated me.

                                           

They thought all the planes were awesome!

MereBear loves to pose, TayTay not so much.

The End.

My feelings.

Home schooling MereBear has been rewarding for me. I know it has only been a couple of days since we started but I really love teaching her, and I love the enthusiasm she gives me. I’ve been trying to do some Kindergarten readiness with TayTay year old but her attention span is lacking, so I’ve just been letting her color for most of the time I home school MearBear which teaches her to stay still for more than 5 minutes.



Lately little man has been going to therapy once a week, and quit frankly I’m very disappointed in how they do things. I love the activities they do with him, most of which we have been doing for a year now without therapy. The part I’m most disappointed in is that they let him get away with too much. Yes, He is our baby, we love him, he gets praised when he does things, but if you tell him to do something 10 times make him do it that many. Don’t stop him in the middle when he decides he doesn’t want to. They had him on the treadmill and he was refusing to walk, the therapist was actually taking his legs and doing it for him. For a 2 year old, what is this telling him? Oh, I don’t have to do it because someone will do it for me. So my husband went and grabbed a ball, which he loves, and asked him if he wants the ball, Little man then replied yes. He walked to the ball, by himself. Why is it that we are more strict than the therapists who are getting paid 200 dollars a session.


If you haven’t noticed already we are very strict with our children. We teach them faith, good morals, and respect. When they are asked a question they reply with a yes ma’am or yes sir. Well, we’ve been lacking on that lately. They say may I when asking a question. They sit up straight while eating dinner, and we usually don’t allow talking or screwing around. Because of this, our children, with the exception of little man, are very independent. We don’t allow much TV, and if allowed only Nick Jr. Or children appropriate movies.


I believe whole heartedly that because of the way we raise our children, and because we don’t treat Little man any differently just because he’s mildly disabled has CPS thinking we are abusive or neglectful or whatever it is they think we are. We don’t want Little man to use his disability as a crutch, nor do we even like to label him disabled. In our house that word isn’t even mentioned unless we are talking to doctors about him. We don’t want limits for him, we want him to thrive. We want him to be able to do everything we know he’s capable of doing. The second you label a child, with whatever, your child is looked at differently, treated differently. My husband and I have both been labeled as children, and that’s the very last thing we want for any of our children. My husband was told that he was going to be mentally retarded and not be able to do anything in life. He joined the Marine corps and did exactly the opposite of what was expected. I was having a lot of problems starting in the sixth grade with a severe bat of acid reflux, followed by agoraphobia, and other anxieties. I was diagnosed from A-Z, and was completely outcast at school. I was put in mental institutions, I was molested, raped. My life was broken. After I had my second daughter, I completely changed. My children and my husband complete me.


I just cannot understand why CPS thinks we are neglectful when there are other children out there that are. I cry thinking about that. It’s very upsetting, and unsettling.


I just had to get that off my chest, once again.

..Suprise!

We got a very suprising call this morning. A news reporter from our local newspaper wants to do a story on us, and our twins..really, our whole family. We were told that the chief at the police station was giving all the credit to himself, and the 911 dispatcher, and we weren't given any credit on basically saving our daughters life. So this could be very interesting, I wonder how CPS is going to take it?

.....

Update, They are going to do a story on us, they are coming tomorrow to take pictures. I will definitely post it on my blog.

Flying with the planes.

I sincerely apologize for not posting in for what seems like forever, well for me anyways. My blog is my therapy, and all of your wonderful comments help me get through my day.



Meredith’s first day of kindergarten went very well; we said our morning prayers and then got down to our school work. I’m also doing some work with our 3 year old and our 2 year old all at the same time. It was interesting to say the least, but they all seemed to grasp what I was teaching. Time will only tell. We had a very special day out today, just with the two oldest. My husband had a VA appointment to be checked up on in Dayton Ohio. So, we decided to take our 2 airplane fanatics, and yes they are girls, to the National Museum of the Air Force. It was awesome and the girls really enjoyed it. I tried to take as many pictures as I could. I will share them at the end of the blog.


Also another exciting and very unordinary thing happened today. The nice officer that was on the scene before the paramedics when our daughter stopped breathing came to visit us today. He told us everyone in the squad was wondering how she was doing, so he decided to come see her. He commented on how big she’s gotten and how healthy she looks. It was so nice to have him come into our home, and it was nice to have someone tell us that we did a good job. I know we did but sometimes we feel we could’ve done something to prevent it. Knowing now what I know, I would recommend everyone to take CPR classes at least once. It doesn’t hurt to do it, it’s a 2 hour course and it may save your child’s life if you ever have to use it. And we are a prime example that it CAN happen.


My husband was kind enough to get me the wii fit that I’ve been asking for. I tried it today and MAN am I sore. I knew I was out of shape, but it said my age is 28! Well, that’s not as bad as my husband. It said his age is 48, 20 years over his actual age. Yes, we love our wii and I would recommend that too, our children play it, and eventually our disabled son will be playing it too. It’s awesome therapy. I tried the hula-hoop and wow; I hurt in places I didn’t know could hurt. Hopefully I will be motivated enough to do the exercises every morning..Hopefully.


I don’t much feel like walking to the van to get my camera, so I will post the pictures tomorrow morning ASAP. I hope everyone has a wonderful evening.

Prayer means so much to us.

Thank you so much to everyone that is praying for our family. It means so much to us that people truely care. Without Faith, I don't think we would've made it this far.


Little miss Bella, and Mikey have been giving us a bit of trouble the last couple of days. Bella has a cold which is making me nervous because the last time she was sick she stopped breathing, and now Mikey is acting the same way and in fact he did stop breathing tonight as we were watching the new transformers*A very good movie might I add, well as much as I've watched so far* Luckily Mikey has oxygen that we can just crank up to help him breath. After having to perform CPR on little miss Bella, every little thing that happens I completely freak out about.

Meanwhile along with all the rest of the stuff going on i.e doctors appointments, cps, and the stress of having 6 kids im trying to get MereBears homeschooling area ready for when we start early November, and Little mans PT/OT area all orginized. I do a lot at home with him because one day a week for half an hour doesn't do much for him, it needs to be very repetitive for him to understand whats going on. My hubby is building him stairs that he can walk up and down, and we are starting a whats my mood chart, and im probably going to do some preschool work with him. TayTay is going to start K4 along with her sister starting K5, which she already knows most everything except reading. Shes getting better, and shes been a lot more interested in it. I just need to do the years work for her to be able to start 1st grade successfully.

Im going to go finish watching transformers with the hubby, I hope everyone has a great evening.

Big sister duty..literally.

As I was about to change little Bella Grace our five year old daughter chimed in and said to me "i'll do it!" I said sure why not, this isnt your first rodeo. She always wanted to change bubba's diapers when he was little and I allowed it. Why not? so here she is changing her sisters diaper.

                                      Michael was not happy.

                                                     

Stomach Turning.

My husband is a Medically Retired Veteran and we are a family of 8. We have a two year old boy who has disabilities and other various medical problems. CPS has been in our lives for almost a year. They are completely destroying our family, our marriage is rocky because of the stress they cause, and our children who are 5 and under are paranoid about being taken away from us. CPS has fabricated, manipulated and abused every ounce of power. The courts won’t help the media wont help. We have no one else to turn to. We have a lawyer whom we paid for, and he isn't much help either. We are forced to go to counseling even though we feel we don't need it. Our monthly calendar is already filled with doctor’s apts for our son. And because of CPS's negligence and abuse towards our family our twins were born 2 months early. Luckily they survived. They haunt us every day. We feel inadequate in our own home. We are told how to raise our children. Something needs to be done! We are so feed up. Please help.


I emailed this exact thing to about 50 different people. It is my last plead..absolute cry for help. We are so fed up with this. It literally makes me sick. They are forcing me to go to counseling, which usually leads to being medicated. And I said while I was being "assesed" that If I feel that is my last option Id be willing to go to counseling.But just because I have 6 children to me doesn't warrant counseling. We have a great support system. My husband and I have been forced to go to Marriage counseling because of all the stress CPS causes. They are forcing us to have "play" therapy twice a week at *FRC. We don't have time, our calendar is booked, we absolutely do not have any free time. It's always doctors apointments for little man, we spend every second tending to his needs. We have no one to turn to. Gosh, The media isn't even brave enough to tackle CPS. We are losing our battle, and we are feeling the repercussions of fighting for so long. We are physically and emotionally drained. Nothing we do will be good enough, they will always fabricate something to validate their existence.

*Family Resource Center, A therapy organization for broken families.

We need prayer, Lord knows we need it.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Evening.

Obviously I was born yesterday.

Honestly, What saddens me the most about CPS is the power they have over people. Too much power. They are capable of persuading doctors into saying something completely different than what they told us just to save their own butts. I also didn’t realize that CPS would be capable of insulting us in our own home. I have literally broken down, and this was after I had my twins, and they were in the hospital 200 miles away. I broke down and actually second judged my parenting capabilities. I kept asking myself and my husband am I really what these children need? Do I do enough for them? Do they deserve better. I actually went through a period were I wanted to give little man away because I felt completely inadequate.



I had to get a mental evaluation, after which the physiologist said that he “suggested” more counseling. His reason being we have too many kids, and that’s so stressful. To us, our children aren’t stressful. If God didn’t think we could handle six, I don’t think he would’ve allowed it. Well, We called that same doctor today to clarify whether or not he told CPS I absolutely need counseling. He said that he told me, which he didn’t, That I absolutely need counseling and that I refused. Yes, He suggested counseling and I in turn told him that if I, me no one else, feel that counseling is my very last option I would be willing to do so. We have gone through this with so many doctors, they will tell us one thing, CPS butts in and we are told a completely different story.


The other thing that upsets me about CPS, they do not categorize disabled children differently than “normal” children. Our little man is a head banger and self mutilator. Yes we try to stop it as often as we notice he’s doing it. But because he is this way it’s our fault. Or excuse me MY fault, because I control everything that happens. The courts won’t help us, we’ve tried that. Our doctor has written letters to them all the time, they disregard them. I have heard many stories about CPS getting involved with families who have disabled children and every time I do I get so furious. I understand that I probably shouldn’t have acted the way I did today and I made it more of a reason for them to stick around. But honestly I cannot just sit there and smile and be insulted. I’m not that type of person. Yes, I do control most of the house; I’m the one that cleans cooks takes care of kids and make sure bills are paid. My husband is a retired Marine, he’s a man of very few words, but the words he does have are most definitely not influenced by anything I say.


Ah yes, the wedding reception. It was so very nice to get out of the house and be around supportive people. I went, and took our two oldest and they had an absolute blast. The reception was actually the same exact place were my Husband and I did the “official” wedding. Our daughters remembered and it was just absolutely beautiful. I love going to weddings. To me it’s very empowering to witness two people completely in love finally saying their vows, forever embracing each other. TayTay went up to the Bride and said she looks like a princess, and that she wants to be one too when she’s older. I thought that was simply adorable, and I supposed she felt the same way.

I hope to have some newer pictures to post for tomorrow, if I can muster up enough energy.Again I hope everyone has a wonderful evening and a safe weekend.

Just a rant.

I don’t remember if I had mentioned that we have a CPS case against us for our little man. They’ve been involved in our lives for way too long. My husband’s mother drove an hour and a half to file a report falsely that we neglect our son. She can’t come to birthday parties, but when we decide to cut off all ties from her because she can’t act appropriately around our children, she then takes action.







Today we had a scheduled “visit” time with our caseworker; she claims we never interact with little man, and that we aren’t a real family. What the Heck? She also tried to claim that my husband is always open to all of her suggestions, which isn’t true, and im the one that persuades him to hate her. From day one it has always been me, Im the reason why little man is sick, and im the reason why no one in our family likes her. It has nothing to do with me, it’s the simple fact that we do everything in our power for little man. We are the reason he is able to do things on his own, but obviously we don’t interact with him. I do therapy with him. No, I don’t have time to sit down and play with him at a whim. We do have family time before bedtime. Then she asks, well I can come then and watch you play with your children. NO, that is our time. We are just so stressed out about all of this and we need as much support as we can. Today has been a rough day. We actually called in the big guns “the media” because no one else seems to be able to help us. We will see how that turns out.






On a lighter note, we are going to be attending a wedding reception. Hopefully all goes well and our children are in good spirits.






I hope everyone has a great evening.

How our day works.

If anyone is the least bit curious on how I manage to get all I need to get done in a day I will share my secret with you. I use a very lenient schedule. Big surprise. Our children function better with structure. I don’t allow them time to be idle and become bored. The three oldest have chores they do to earn “monies” as TayTay calls it. In the morning I make sure we have a family activity time. Each one of our children gets to pick an activity to do. That leaves me time to work with our two year olds coordination therapy.



Here is an example of my schedule which changes daily to accommodate doctor’s appointments.


7am I wake up get ready eat some breakfast, pray for the day.
7:30am I start my morning chores; I try to get all of them mostly done before the children wake up.
8am I start preparing Breakfast.
8:15am I usually wake up Bubba before the rest of the children; I get him dressed and ready for breakfast.
8:30am I wake up all the rest of our children, they get dressed
8:45am We eat breakfast.
9am We clean up after breakfast.
9:15am I finish all the morning chores, and the girls and Hubby start theirs. After the children are done with their chores they get to play in their HUGE play area. I do chores till about 9:45am
10am Family activity /snack
11am We do any errands or doctors appointments
12am I start lunch
12:30am Lunch time
1pm Clean up after lunch
1:30pm Nap time
1:35pm Merebear starts her home schooling.




I don’t really schedule anything for the afternoon and evening simply because I don’t like being completely bound to my schedule. Our supper time is at 5:30, We usually play games or watch a movie or something along those lines in the afternoon/evening. Bedtime for the younger children is at 8pm, or depending on their moods earlier. The oldest bedtime is at 9, or again depending on her mood earlier.


Lately it’s been daddy taking care of the children. After I had my c-section with the twins I haven’t been right. My energy level is crap, and it doesn’t help that I keep getting sick. So hopefully I can get back into it. My husband is 100% disabled, with a medical retirement from the Marine Corps. It’s sometimes nice having him home everyday, and other times he just drives me nuts.


I was reading one of the comments, and thank you so much by the way for leaving comments. I was told we may be the next “duggar” family. I love the duggars I think that what they are doing is absolutely wonderful. I wanted to comment back to your comment. We originally wanted a Bakers dozen. 13 children. Honestly I probably would’ve had more. I was told after the twins were born that it would be to risky for myself and the baby if we had anymore. So, I got the lovely procedure done. Honestly, after I got home and the realization that I can’t have anymore children finally settled in my mind I literally felt horrible about myself. It’s gotten better but some days I just feel so miserable to the point I can’t even look at myself. It’s like I became less of a women. Hopefully as time passes It will completely leave my mind to never resurface. Now I can focus on the children I do have.




I hope everyone has a wonderful evening. I have to go tend to the twins.


Silly me, I forgot to add my showcased child of the day.

We picked TayTay for today.


Things most people don't know about our little TayTay, She has one green eye and one blue eye, and four different colors of blonde in her hair. She’s a dare devil who loves to climb trees, and try anything new and exciting. She absolutely loves Dora the Explorer. She’s a daddy’s girl who loves to cuddle and watch football. She’s a little princess at heart. She loves helping me cook, and bake. She’s a joy, and we love her.






TayTay’s quotes of the day. “Mommy when I get bigger, I want to be just like you.” “Mommy, You have a butt crap on your belly” She was talking about my scar. And she meant to say crack. Hehe. “Daddy, you’re a stinker” “Mommy, You needs to get feeling better so you can make us a bath.” That’s all I can remember, She wasn’t feeling good today so she was in bed most the day.

After eating some brownie batter. Yum!

                                              


 
                   

Stupid shots = Sickly Children.

Today was pretty drab. Nothing much happened. We had to take little man to an appointment because we have to be CPS’s “Monkeys” and do whatever they tell us to. It was a therapy session to asses how we treat little man, which has been explained to them a million times, we treat him the same as our other children. Just because he’s “disabled” doesn’t mean he can’t be active and able to do things. Drives us up the wall. Our marriage is stressed to the breaking point because of this. We still chug on though, we have children to think about. Quit frankly I’m a little upset because they try to take all the credit for what we’ve done with little man. We are the reason for all that he’s capable of doing. And because of all we’ve done, we get neglect charges slapped on us (which has been dropped because we don’t neglect him).







Enough of that.






We have 6 sickly children because of shots..Lucky us. We’ve almost finished all of our Halloween decorating. We absolutely love Halloween. I try not to go too crazy but it’s hard at times. Our themes have always been whimsical scary, no blood and guts at our home. I will have to post pictures when it’s all finished. This afternoon I was looking everywhere for our one year old, the last place I looked I found him and look how I found him
 

Yes, he loves the computer.

                                                
 As you may have noticed I don't edit my photos, not because I don't want to but because frankly I don't have time to. And yes he is wearing a onsie that is 4 sizes too small, but he still looks absolutely adorable.
 
I have an update on the housing situation. The realtor that is trying to sell the house we are living in has offered to pull some strings to get us a loan so we can own it. Hopefully it turns out in our favor, we need some good news. I will update more fluently when I have more information.
 
I hope everyone has a wonderful evening.

Little Man.

                                              
I have decided that I will be showcasing one of our children for every day of the week. For today I have chosen Little Man. I want to talk a little about him, and I also want to talk about his disabilities and how they affect him everyday and how important it is to make sure you catch these things early.



Little man is two years old, almost three. He was born at thirty weeks after I had a full placental abruption. We can’t say for sure how long he was without oxygen; I was in labor for seven hours before they realized I was in labor. I started bleeding very badly, and when he finally came out he was very discolored and not responsive. He wasn’t breathing on his own so he had to be on a respirator for 3 days, we had a very long NICU stay. When it was finally time to take him home, he was very tiny, not even 4lbs. He was still on oxygen and he was on an apnea monitor. We were terrified to have him home, but somehow we got through it and he was a perfect healthy little baby. About 4 months of age we noticed he wasn’t responding to us, and we noticed he was more delayed then he should be. We took him to the doctor for his shots and they just reassured us that it was just normal preemie delays and not to worry.


So we didn’t. We know better now. So then came the time to try some solid jar food. Well, this is when the major problems started happening, or at least we thought they were major. He wouldn’t swallow his food. Well we again mentioned it to the doctors and they again just told us not to worry about it, he will eventually get the hang of it. We were still solely bottle feeding him till about a year old. We then found out that he has mild Cerebral Palsy. From then on our world got flipped upside down. By fourteen months old little man wasn’t sitting up yet, he wasn’t crawling, but he was finally taking solid foods. My husband and myself and the rest of my family worked with little man for hours and hours trying to get him to be able, and to want to do things for himself. If we had known what to look for, and how to look for it, I do believe that things with him would be completely different. He now is able to crawl, and he walks with a walker. He talks very fluently. The downside, he is very defiant. He hates walking. He screams most of the day, and lies awake all night. I wish and pray everyday that something will change. I just hope one day he understands why we push him so hard. If anyone has gone through this please please don’t hesitate to talk to your doctor if you feel something is wrong. You are the ones around your children, and we usually know when something is wrong.


Anyways, I also want to talk about him and not just his conditions.


When he is able to sleep, He is a very happy full of love and very compassionate little boy. I was having a little talk with him one day to find out what was bothering him. We had an hour long conversation. Well, he did most of the talking. One of the things he said to me made my jaw drop. He mentioned to me that he noticed his sister, who is being potty trained right now went potty in the toilet. He told me that he’s so proud of her, and when she goes potty like a big girl it makes him happy. I was thinking to myself that did not just come out of his mouth. I had to literally ask him to repeat what he had said, and yup he did say it. Little man loves to cuddle, and loves to talk to everyone he see’s. He amazes me. We love you little man.
                                                    

                                             Yes, He is a Ham
 
 
 

Adorable.

 
                                          

Our biggest little girl.

I can't believe shes five years old. My how time flies, I remember when she was born like it was yesterday. Simply Amazing. She had her party on saturday, we only invited a few people, our house is crowded enough with just us there. It turned out wonderfully, everyone was in good spirits. She was so excited, but explained to me that she's a bit scared of whats to come as she continues to get older. Yes my five year old talks like shes thirty. She got lots of "awesome" gifts; a new bike, a leapster2, barbie's and barbie accessories, and a camera.
                                                        

Yes we had little fingers in the cake.

We wouldn't have it any other way.

The weekend was pretty uneventful, besides the party. Sunday we were all cranky so most of us slept. It amazes me how my husband and I are exauhsted but we are still able to function.

Today was a very busy day. All of our children had to go in for shots. We got to the doctors office, the waiting room was empty. I thought to myself oh my gosh we take up the whole waiting area. Amazing. We got into the room, and of course right on time our twins were simotaniously hungry. Of course we left the bottles in the van. My husband had to run out to get them while I rocked the twins and kept our two year old occupied. Where ever we go people look at us, ask us if all of the little ones are ours, then proceed by saying..are you nuts? Usually our reply is, Yes. But we enjoy every second of everyday and we wouldn't want it any different. My father had to come with us this time because we don't have enough room in our van to fit everyone. He was put in a seperate room with the three other children. I was running back and forth from the rooms to help with the shots. I probably looked like a nut. It took 2 hours to give shots to 6 children. By the time we got home I was so exausted.

My husband wanted to mention our laundry detergant on here. Yes, I make my own. It costs me two dollars for 5 gallons which lasts me 3 months. Its very simple to make and saves us about 50 dollars a month. If anyone wants more information on how I make mine, or if you want me to make some for you let us know.

Hopefully tomorrow I will have more time to blog, and have something more interesting to blog about.

I hope everyone has a lovely evening and a good day tomorrow.                                                   

What we are Thankful For

Watching my two littlest babies sleeping together so peacefully got me thinking about what Im thankful for. So this is what came to mind. Im thankful that our twins are finally home, together, and they are happy, healthy and beautiful. Im thankful for all my other children, without them I wouldn't be who I am today. Im thankful for family, especially my parents who have the wisdom and guidence to move mountains. Im thankful for my husband, and for him sticking by through the good the bad and the worst. Last but not least im thankful for being able to finally accept Jesus back into my life, without his grace I wouldn't get through this time of crazyness.

Other news, Our cat..suprised us..and had 4 beautiful healthy little kittens on thursday. I of course was requested by her to be there, well, not really sure if she wanted me there. I wanted to be there. All the children woke up to a wonderful suprise and were very excited. Sadly my husband is only letting me keep one. Drats.

First time sleeping together. Simply Adorable

New baby kittens, Luckily I don't have to feed them.

More exciting news, Our oldest is finally turning 5 tomorrow. It's amazing how time flies by so quickly. She had her "special" Lunch today, she gets to pick where she wants to eat which of course was none other than..Olive garden. We then allow her to open our present to her, we save her presents from her brothers and sisters for the "party" which is tomorrow. Shes very excited. Im exaughsted. I attempted to make a cake, frost it, then decorate it while holding Bella, making sure our 3 year old wasnt eating to much frosting and trying to walk around with our 1 year old attatched to my leg. My attepmt..Failed horribly. So I made the hubby go to walmart and buy a cake.

That was my day, I hope everyone takes time out to think about what you're thankful for.

                                               

Here are pictures of Bella

Here are pictures of our beautiful little girl who is coming back home tomorrow! we are so thrilled, and now she gets to be back home with her brother and all the rest of the gang.

She has come a Long Way

                                                   

Out of all our children, Bella and mikey are the only ones who enjoy being swaddled.

Our last little princess.

Wow, Im slow.

So It's been awhile since I last updated, and a lot has happened.


First an update on Bella. She is doing well they figure she had a virus of some sort they're not sure what, which amazes me. She may be coming home on Thursday. She’s a very healthy 6lbs 12oz, and she’s eating like a champ. She hasn't had any more complications that would entail her coming home on oxygen or an apnea monitor*Knock on wood. I miss her so much, we haven't been able to go up and see her, We've all been sick with bad head colds, and lovely flu's.

Secondly...Drum Roll....We got to bring her brother home on Monday. He is still on oxygen, and an apnea monitor but we've been through it before. It's a pain with all the wires, tubes and skin irritations but we'll manage. Hess a joy and had his first doctors apt yesterday, He gained an ounce since he’s been home, he's always been an over achiever. He now weighs 7lbs 5oz; quit a difference from when he was born. He weighed 3lbs 6oz. He still looks like a preemie but I think it's adorable. God, I love him.

We have been so busy with doctors apts, running this way, running that way I pretty much had a melt down with I was sick. I don't like feeling that way, nor do I ever want to feel that way again. It would be nice to just have peace, and not have everything happening at once. We had an in home nurse come unannounced yesterday thus screwing up our schedule thus making us to miss Mikeys eye exam.

On a more serious frustrated note, the home that we rent, for 1200 a month is literally falling apart. We would love to buy our own home, but we have TONS of medical bills, some of which we are slowly paying off. Okay, back to the frustration, the roof needs to be fixed. You can't even walk atop it without it crumbling beneath you, which we didn't know about until after we signed a lease and after we had to patch the lovely no parking sign our landlords lovingly affixed to the giant hole. Another HUGE and im not understating this in the least bit, our bedroom support wall is bowing. Now I don't mean a slight bow, there is literally a 2 inch gap where the corners should be together. Not only is there a gap in between the two connecting walls, there’s a gap all the way up to the second floor plywood. To top it all off, during a major down poor we happened to walk into the attic only to find, TonS of water leaking through the peak.

Now clearly if we'd known about "major" problems we wouldn't have signed a lease, but we were never told. They refuse to fix anything, and then we come to find out they listed this house on the market. Absolutely drives me insane that someone could actually put our family in harms way like that, so we have some big decisions to make...and im not sure what we are going to do.



I would end by adding a new picture of our newest member, but my port to plug the camera into the computer just broke..Welcome to our life