Okay, folks! I’ve been promising this for a while now, so here it is!
This is the rag basket I made for my MIL for Christmas. It was really fun, and fairly simple to accomplish. Gabe’s old t-shirts came in handy as well. 
I tried to put captions with the pictures, but that didn’t work so well. Any Photo Bucket pros out there?
Enjoy!
…don’t come to the Stubborn House.
Starting tomorrow, this families eating style is totally changing. We are starting out with some simple rules, and trying to add in more and more good as we eliminate the not so good.
So we have cut out all white sugars and grains. We already eat a lot of veggies, but we are going to try to replace grains with veggies whenever possible. This will be easier in the summer because fresh produce is very hard to come by in the U.P. in the winter. My personal goal is to keep things as low glycemic as possible to help with my body’s particular needs.
Hubby Person is really excited for this change….mostly. He knows I have the will power to make sure that nothing gets into the house that shouldn’t be, which is both good and bad. He was just asking me about cookies. Does this mean no cookies, like, forever? I told him that maybe we can put a day on the calendar every month or so when we can have a cookie day.
How do all you health conscious mamas do it?
My 16 year old’s reaction in the grocery store was quite funny.
“Mom. We are out of bagels. We only have like 1 onion one left.”
“Okay, well we can get these whole grain ones. They look really good.”
“What? What do you mean? We can’t get the other bagels any more?”
“What part of ‘no white flour or sugar’ was confusing to you?”
His mouth dropped open and stayed that way for quite a while. Hehehe.
Anywho, any tips or veggie-full recipes would be AWESOME! We aren’t cutting out meat, although we are replacing red meat when ever possible, so recipes with meat but lots of veggies would rock!
Blessings!
Hannah
“Things have got to change. Tomorrow has to be different.”
Yup.
Hubby person and I are having a day of chaos with our youngest. I am realizing that currently I am dreading waking up daily because it will mean another tantrum and more tears…his and mine. Hubby person was very close to giving up this morning, but we talked through it. He realized he is incredibly deeply committed to this kid, and that’s why it hurts so much. At one point, Jeremiah asked to call our caseworker so she could take him back to the group home because he was tired of the consequences. He’s become sadistic. No consequence matters anymore. It’s all about him winning.
So we called our caseworker and she talked him through things. He didn’t actually say this, but she took from the conversation that he is terefied of loving us and being loved and so he is pushing us away first. Classic. We knew that. It doesn’t help.
It’s been like this every day since the day after Christmas.
As you know, I’ve been working on the boys’ lifebooks, and I found out something interesting. Jeremiah was placed in the group home 3 days before Christmas. Wow.
It still doesn’t help with the current behavior, but at least it gives us some clues to why.
So how do we wait this out? How do we show our unending love and yet still follow through with consequences so we aren’t shooting ourselves in the feet later?
And yes, this kind of behavior totally effects the infertility stuff going on with me because, well, let’s just say it doesn’t endear my husband to want to make a child right now.
It’s tough stuff going on. We are doing our best to stay objective and calm. I am trying to get quieter instead of louder.
I’m trying to not lose hope.
My head hurts.
My dishes are dirty.
We are addicted to diet Pepsi.
Blessings!
Hannah
Okay, here is my disclaimer warning again for my brother and other male-type people who may feel uncomfortable with mention of my ovaries etc… I’m going to talk about them, so if you don’t want to read about them, DON’T READ THIS POST!
So, to review the past month of hormonal bliss….
Okay, that brings us up to today.
Today I had an internal ultrasound which, in my opinion, aren’t as bad as I thought they would be. The nurse confirmed that I had indeed lost 5 lbs since my last appointment due to my lack of appetite. She said she was going to ask me what I did to lose the weight so she could look into it, but when I told her that the medication had made me sick, she decided against it. She also asked me if it would be okay if a med student observed with Dr. P…. A male med student. Ummm, no thanks. Not today.
The ultrasound revealed that my uterus is making its own lining. YAY! And that I have some almost-happy follicles on my ovaries. YAY! Almost-happy means that they are bigger than tiny, but not quite as big as they need to be. My biggest one was 1.02 cm, when it should be about 1.8 cm or so. I had a couple of others that were .9 cm. So, I could ovulate this month, but it may be unpredictable. Probably not within the next couple of days, which is usually when typical women ovulate….day 14 or so.
If I don’t get my period by day 40, which would be….(looking on computer’s calendar)….February 4th, I should take a pregnancy test. If I am pregnant, I will do a happy dance and you will hear wails of joy (yes, those are real things) all the way from the U.P. If I am not pregnant, I will cry a little bit, and then start taking progesterone again (a different type this time that won’t make me so sick), and then do the cl-mid thing again.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Okay, that’s my update.
Oh, and YAY for a new niece! Danica Jordan was born last night to my brother, David, and his beautiful wife, Keturah. YAY! She bookends the crew of 6 as the only other girl. Welcome to the family, Danica. You are mighty loved.
Blessings!
Hannah
I got 1 and 1/2 pages done for the boys’ life books today. YAY for momentary inspiration!!!
I have been busy uploading photos to w*lgreens. com . We have one locally now, which is nice, cuz I get to pick up prints there, and it’s cheaper and higher quality than printing off of our printer, even though we have a good printer.
Anywho, I ordered another 95 prints today, but had a coupon for 9 cent prints. ROCK! If you use w*lgreens.com, type in the code 9CENTS at check out.
I got Gabe’s “home coming day” page done this evening . He helped pick out the stickers for it and made it quite humorous. He kept asking if that was okay, and I kept telling him “It’s your life book.” BTW, is life book one word, or two? I’m seeing one in a lot of places, but that doesn’t make much sense to me.
I’m half way done with Jeremiah’s “home coming day” page, but I’m waiting for some of the pics that I will pick up tomorrow.
I tend to get really excited about projects for short periods of time and then lose interest, but with this, since it’s for the boys, I think that I can follow through.
I’ve got requests in with the boys’ caseworkers for photos and I spent today typing up history stuff from Jeremiah’s file, and will do the same for Gabe tomorrow. That should be interesting.
I know that part of the purpose of a life book is to help the child come to terms with what happened in their past. Gabe has a lot of magical thinking when it comes to events that led up to him being placed with us. I’m hoping that putting things in print in front of him will help him internalize things for what they really are. Even having the dates in place will help. He has a hard time with the concept of when things happened in relation to each other. I think that will help Jeremiah too. Time means nothing to that little one.
So tomorrow I’m going into town for a Dr.’s appointment (Yay for internal ultrasounds!), and then I am planning on hitting the craft store for some good, neutral pages, and maybe some more lettering and embellishments. A dear friend got me a bunch of scrapping stuff for Christmas, but a lot of it is very summery or bright, so I need to find some boyish stuff.
I’m still needing tips, so those of you who haven’t commented in a while, or EVER, please let me know you are there and give me some ideas. They can be life book ideas, or simply scrap bookings ideas. Or maybe you can just let me know you are there. UN-LURK PEOPLE!
Blessings!
Hannah
I’m working on (have been working on) life books for the boys.
I found some great albums that fit each of their personalities on ebay. Holy crap, there is a lot of scrap booking stuff on ebay! Anywho, Gabe really likes military stuff, so I was really happy to find a desert camouflage album for him. For Jeremiah, I found a story book style album that has “Once upon a time” on the front.
I have some idea of what goes into a life book. Our agency gave us these fill in the blank ones, which both boys expressed deep disdain for, but at least they give me an idea of what kind of info to include.
I wrote the boys’ caseworkers, and they are going to do their best to help track down some pictures for me. Gabe has some that he brought with him, but we have absolutely NOTHING for Jeremiah.
Here are some questions I have…
Anywho, the countdown is on for the adoption finalizations. I have no idea what the countdown is, but we are hoping before March…which is not far away at all.
Can’t wait to hear some of your ideas.
Blessings!
Hannah
when your neighbor calls and asks if you know your 10 year old is laying on the front porch…in the middle of a snow storm.
Yup. We knew. He chose to stay out there for nearly half an hour…in his socks. Thankfully, he had his coat and his robe on. But no shoes. Hubby Person eventually had to go get him.
It’s been that kind of weekend.
My dad, step-mama, and lil’ sis are visiting, which has been wonderful. Unfortunately, Jeremiah has been tantrumming 75% of the waking hours. After a three hour long battle this afternoon, my daddy told his grandson that he will be leaving in the morning and would really like to spend some time with him, so to PLEASE do what he was supposed to. Jeremiah snapped out of it. We’ll see how things go tomorrow morning.
It’s been nerve racking for me to discipline my child with my daddy here. I want to do well in his eyes. I desperately want him to see me as a good mom.
I only slightly lost my temper today…but I did not yell…so that’s an improvement.
We’re having to invest in more locks and alarms. No fun.
Please be praying for us. And if any of you fantastic moms or dads would like to give any tips, especially on stealing and food issues, please do.
Blessings!
Hannah
