A Night With Friends

Last night we had the missionaries over for dinner, invited our friends Tiffany and Austin Lanter to come eat with us, and ate hawaiian haystacks. Christian and I like feeding the missionaries and getting to meet them as they come through the ward. They shared a 20 minute video with us afterwards about missionary work that I hadn't seen before. It was a great video and we have some really neat missionaries.

After the missionaries left, Tiffany, Austin, Christian and I got into our regular routine of playing Settlers of Catan. We are such nerds when it comes to this game. I won the first game and Austin BARELY won the second game. Only because I traded you that ore right before your turn...dang. Oh well, one cant get greedy about winning...can they?

Christian left this morning to go to work in Yuma and he won't be back until Saturday. Just like last time it was, "Yeah! oh wait, you're going to be gone how long? Oh...okay". The perdiam and overtime are extremely nice but that means I'm gonna miss him for 4 days. What's funny is I made a chiropractors appointment tonight to have my neck and back adjusted so Christian could be home to watch the kids, and I'm gonna end up taking them with me to my appointment anyways. They do have a play area there for the kids but Dane never wants to be in there. He has to follow me around the office and hold my hand and he goes and gets more lollipops from the front desk girl any chance he gets.

And as a last note...have you guys seen this commercial? After seeing this Superbowl commercial I realized that I really am just that much immature still. Why are toot's so funny? I'm a grown woman right? (Although Christian's are definantly not the ones to laugh at) Someday I will overcome the urge to snicker at even the littlest trumpet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc8mHUa5zFE

Here is what's up!

So Christian and I are still waiting to hear back from Casa De Los Ninos in regards to getting children for foster care. We started this endeavor last March so we are coming up on 1 year of preparation for foster kids. Because of the economy, CPS workers are getting jobs cut, transportation services for the foster kids is being done away with, the government allowances for foster parents is being cut pretty significantly and I'm sure there's a lot of other changes coming, but I'm still ready to be a foster mom. I've been waiting a long time so I'm not about to throw up my hands and say never mind. Besides, I think Christian and I could help some chilren in a pretty significant way. So I'm here at home, trying to keep a home of order (and failing) but at least my kids are happy.

During the week I have multiple children that I watch. 3 Part timers and a whole lot of drop-ins. It's fun to be a stay-at-home mom and to have children that like to come over to "Ms Emily's House". I've dropped all my full time kids because I need to be within ratio for when we do receive foster kids, and I did this not only because...#1 it's the law and I have to follow a certain ratio...but #2 I really do want to give any foster kids that come to us a loving home that will be less chaotic then the one they just came from.

To compensate for the loss of kids I had been watching, I picked up cleaning houses in the evenings. I've started cleaning for family members and friends and I've gotten really good at cleaning homes in 2-3 hours. Christian still doesn't like the idea of me doing this because it's hard work and somehow he doesn't think it's dignified. But I like doing it just fine and I think he'll eventually come around to the fact that it's just not that big of a deal. I also picked up selling Scentsy. I figured having these side jobs would change up my schedule during the week and they are all things I can set my own hours to.

Speaking of watching children and cleaning houses, I think these two things have aggravated my already weakening neck and back over the last year. I'm starting physical therapy to help get my neck back in shape. My neck has absolutely no curve in it and is showing signs of degeneration. Actually, both doctors I went to see last Friday (it was a long day for me) told me it might have something to do with my height and me trying to slouch down all the time to make myself shorter. Perfect example: When we went to the dollar movies on Valentines Day I slouched as far down in my theatre chair so the people behind me could see the movie.

So I know people think I'm totally nuts for some of the things that I do. But if I don't try something, then how will I know if I'm good at it or not?