Like we didn't already have enough toys...

So, we are celebrating Christmas yet again! Today we had Christmas with Emory's grandparents, so it's my kids Great Grandparents. They are the sweetest people you will ever meet. They have embraced each child we have brought into our family, regardless of color or background. I absolutely adore these 2 people. You couldn't ask for better grandparents and great grandparents. Anyway, they gave our children many, many more gifts. I am most excited about the V-Smile, b/c it will help the kiddos learn their abc's, counting, spelling, math, etc. I love learning games. Especially for Mina, she loves school, but hates when we push her to learn at home. This is a great tool for her!! They got robots, bug toys, board games, race cars, batman toys, barbies and barbie clothes. They are totally loaded down with gifts!! It's a good thing the 3 older kids don't have birthday's coming up!! Here are some pics!

The unfathomable happened today..

So, Emory and I took the kiddos to breakfast this morning at this little hole in the wall called "Doug's Place" in Cartersville. It's cheap food, that needs a lot of salt and pepper. Anyway, as always the tree older children ordered pancakes, which as you know, requires SYRUP. SO, we allowed them syrup, and they actually all finished their pancakes. We were impressed. And as you also know with these kids being 6 and under, syrup requires a trip to the restroom to wash up. So, I march the 3 kids into a one seater in the main hallway of the restaurant, you almost have to walk through here to get to a table. As we get into the bathroom to wash our hands, each child discovers the immediate need to use the restroom. So, one-by-one they use the potty. Michel first, then Aidan and lastly Mina. As each kid is using the restroom someone outside the door is knocking, so I say"someones in here, we will be done in a minute." But, still the knocking continues, so as Mina squats to go potty, I crack the door, to tell the person interrupting our bathroom session that we will be out in a minute, that this restroom is a ONE SEATER!! Low and Behold, this 90 year old woman busts through the door, almost knocking me down, and scars my children for life. She pulled up her dress, pulled down her panties, and ALMOST SAT ON MINA. I kid you not, the whole time shouting "I am an old woman, I can't hold it." I was horrified, yelling at the kids to close their eyes, as I shoved them through the door. We saw her tutu! Or whatever you want to call it. Aidan kept saying what is that, what is she doing, and I was screaming GET OUT!! Can you believe that. She would have sat on my child with her bare butt, had Mina not moved as quickly as she did. I was totally disgusted!! I don't care how old you are....YOU NEED MANNERS.

Santa's little helper...This one's for you Blair!!

So, one day after school Aidan came home and informed us that he was an elf. He told me that before he came to live with us he lived in the "north poole" and worked for santa making toys. He went on to tell us all about Santa's workshop and how he made toys for a living and that he really missed it, and that soon Santa would be asking him to come back! Soooo, Christmas Eve he breaks it to us. He says" I'm sorry guys, but I have bad news. I am pose' to go back to the North Poole tomorrow. When you wake up I will already be gone. I am very sorry, but Santa only sent me here to watch out for Michel and Mina. They were really good this year. But, now I have to go back and make toys, I'll never be back. I am sorry!" Anyway, he was serious. He really thought that he was an elf and that he was going back to the North Pole on Christmas Day. He was very disappointed to find out that Santa had come and forgotten to take him back! He's still sad, but enjoying his many new toys!!! Still waiting on Santa to come back and pick him up!! :(

Christmas Morning

Well, Christmas is over after a very long day! I can't believe it went as fast as it came. We had a great day! We woke up to all of Santa's gifts, and then went to 3 other houses to open more gifts. I wish that I had remembered to take a pic of my car with all the presents in it. It was totally ridiculous. These kids have more toys than they can play with in a year. Unbelieveable. Being a kid is great, you don't get near that many gifts as an adult. Anyway, we had a great time. We gave the kiddos a trampoline, it was raining yesterday, so I don't have any great pics of them on that, but I will post more pics this weekend. Here are the other pics:

PS- My next post is cute...I'll write it when I have time...It's about Santa's elves!!

Ready for Christmas

Well, I cannot believe that it is Christmas Eve. This has definitely snuck up on me. This has been such a hard 5 1/2 months on us, that I just want to skip right over it all. But, it's definitely coming. We have a very busy day. First, our own family Christmas, then Emory's parents, then my parents, and then my aunt! Way to much for one day! But, the kids love it. They love the rush of the next present. Anyway, hope you all have a MERRY, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!


PS: I'll post pics of all the kiddos tomorrow night!!

Another sick kiddo!!

So, last night was MIna's 1st choir performance EVER. She did great, she was one of 1,000 voices at our church! It was really a cool show. We had great seats, but with 1,000 people singing it was really hard to see Mina. They did flash her sweet face across the screen a time or two!! However, that was not the end of our night. I spent another long night in the ER with Michel. During the show, he started having an asthma attack, that got really bad really fast. As soon as the show was over, I realized his temp was up, and his asthma was way worse. So, my sweet mother-in-law took me to the hospital so Em could take the other kids home! She is great, she didn't get home until 3 am. But, as soon as we got there they rushed him back and immediately did a breathing treatment. The 1st treatment helped, but he was still wheezing, so they did an x-ray, and of course he has pneumonia. SO, they did a 2nd treatment, and wrote up RX's for 2 antibiotics, 1 steriod, 1 inhaler, and a breathing machine of our very own!! They also gave me the lecture of getting him to the ER faster when he sounds as bad as he did. So, i have learned my lesson with asthma, and I will always react quicker than I did last night! Michel was a great sport though, so cooperative. He is such an angel!!

Christmas, my favorite time of year!!

I was trying to wait until it was dark to take pics of the house decorated for Christmas, but they didn't turn out as great as I had hoped. Here are the pics, anyway!! I love my house at Christmas time. I wish it could be decorated all year long!! We downsized this year. WE only have 2 trees!! Last year we had 5!!!

Meet Elmer

This is Elmer, Santa sent him straight from the North Pole, to keep his eye out on my children! He has been such a blessing, my kids behave really well for Elmer. And if they act up, I threaten to tell Elmer. Elmer knows everything, he follows Mina on the bus, and follows Aidan to school. He spends a lot of time with Aidan, b/c well he is Aidan! I just wanted to introduce you all to him, he has been a part of the fam for 2-3 years now, and I thought you all might want to meet him!!!

Christmas Time

Wow! Can't believe it's been a month and half since I blogged. Sorry, Alexandra!! I have been quite busy though! Since Emory lost his job, I have been working a lot of hours. In addition to work, we still have a lot of kiddos, so between work and home I have been pretty busy! But, we are starting to figure out our routine and get on a schedule with the 4 kids. We are in full Christmas swing, seeing as how it is only 13 days away. I have not bought one gift! Oh, wait. I have no money to buy gifts. Santa may skip our house. HAHA!! Just kidding. He'll stop by with a bag of coal for Aidan! He has been rotten lately. Although, Elmer the Elf is here and he has straightend up a little. I'll post pics of Elmer later. I will also post pics of my decorated house. I love when my house is decorated for Christmas. Anyway, Carlos is sick this week, he has bi-lateral pneumonia and a double ear infection-so he is plain miserable. I haven't worked much this week, which would have been a great opportunity to catch up on blogging, but I chose to catch up on laundry instead. And vacuum up all the Winston hair, he SHEDS a lot. But, I will be better about blogging and adding pics!! In the meantime here is a sweet pic of the baby!!

The rest of the night

Our trick-or-treating was much longer than I had anticipated. We have a halloween ritual with some of our very good friends, we trick-or-treat and then we sit around a bonfire at Tony and Hannah's and pass out candy to everyone. This was our 3rd year. It is lots of fun, but with four kids our night was cut short after 1.5 hours of trick-or-treating. We didn't even go very far, it just takes a long time with our entourage. We had the 6 of us, plus Nana and Poppa, and Uncle Chris. So, it took us awhile to make our way down the street. Here are the rest of the pics!

Halloween Preview!

Thought I would give you a quick peek into our Halloween with 4 children. The baby is napping, but here is a peek at the other 3. I'll post more later!!

Christmas Art Giveaway

My friend Hollie's Mother-in-law is starting an Etsy store. And to get it up and running she is having a giveaway on her site! Check it out!!! The pictures above are of the item up for grabs!

Sick...

So, as you all know I am just about recovered from surgery, but now I have some viral crap. I have been throwing up all day. I hate being sick, hate it. I am not good at being sick. I cry when I throw up, I can't get out of the bed, and with 4 kids, that just isn't acceptable behavior. I had to get out of the bed, I had to play mom still, in fact, I even had to take the boys for their 1st court date. Throwing up all the way there. It was great fun, really it was. Anyway, to update you on the boys, they are both doing very well. The 7 month old finally pooped after 5 days! YEA for poop, and the 3 year old has settled in quite nicely. He and Aidan are buds. Anyway, I will add some quick pics! We are having lots of fun, I'll post some pics tomorrow of all the kids in their halloween costumes too!!!

Recovery, a new baby and Disney on Ice

Well, what a day we had. It started out pretty dang rough. I woke up at 4:30 am, and told Emory you cannot go to work today. I hadn't slept a wink, and my abdomen felt as if it was going to bust. I think I had accomplished to much with our new addition the day before. So, I decided that I was going to take it easy and let Emory put out all the fires. HAHA!! For those of you who know me really well, you know that I am too controlling to let that happen. SO, once again I did too much. In addition to doing entirely too much, we also gained yet another child. Yes, we are crazy, but we love shocking the pants off of everyone. So, at 3pm our social worker dropped off the infant brother to the one we had already received. We will call them MM-3yr and CM-7 mos. They are precious and they will be staying with us for a week at least, and maybe longer. They came with nothing but the clothes that they had on, and as you know we are poor so we are praying that our church family and foster family comes to the rescue. The little one needs diapers, wipes, formula, clothes, sleepers, bottles, etc. The 3 year old needs undies, socks, and clothes. Please pray that we are provided with the things that we need for these little ones. I will be taking them to the ER today for a physical as well as to check the nasty cough thay both have. I think the little one may also be a little dehydrated, I am a little worried. He has only had 4 ounces since yesterday at 3pm, and no wet diapers. YUCK!! Please pray for healing.
Then to top off our long day, we drug 4 kids to Disney on Ice. It was really a lot of fun. Mina of course really got into it, but the 2 boys and the baby enjoyed it as well. I was so worn out, we only stayed for the 1st half, but it was fun and we had great seats. I will post pics from my other computer as soon as my hubby fixes it. They are so fun though, and then you can see our 2 additions.

Surgery and A new child

So, I am laying in bed bored out of mind. What better to occupy my time than to blog. For those of you who don't know I had surgery today. Emory and I have been trying to get pregnant for 3 years to no avail. So, after I had a major cyst rupture in July, I decided it was time to try and find a new ob/gyn. And I did just that. She is fabulous. On my first visit she said that she felt pretty certain that I have endometreosis, and that she felt like I would need surgery to relieve my pain. So, I did it. She said that it turns out I have endometreosis pretty badly. She was able to laser some off, but a lot of it was too vascular. She was unable to zap those in fear of bleeding out too much. I am glad she elected that option. She hasn't told me the likelyhood of getting pregnant, but my guess would be it isn't great. But on a happier note: We have a 3 year old little boy. He is great. He came to our house while I was still at the hospital, and seemed to really like Nana (Emory's mom, she was here with Aidan and Mina). Then Mia dropped me off at home and also spent some quality time with him. He may be here longterm or it may be for 1 night, we will no more tomorrow. I will keep you posted. In the mean time, please pray for him. He is a happy boy, but scared a little as you can imagine. Pray for a speedy recovery for me, seeing as I have 3 children now.

PS- He has a 3 month old sis, and if he ends up staying with us, we will probably get her too! Pray that she is safe, and is brought into DFCS custody quickly.

Picture Fun!!

Fun with pictures! Just thought I would show you all the fun I had tonight, playing with pictures!!

No training wheels.....

Soooo, Mina will be a whopping 6 years old in like 1 month! We are hitting one milestone right after the other, the latest one was quite a surprise! We were playing across the street at our neighbor's house, and Mina decided to pick up a bike without training wheels and attempt to ride it.. Much to my surprise she rode that bike without training wheels. I was shocked. She hasn't ridden her bike with training wheels in so long, that I thought she would never learn to ride without them. However, SHE DID IT!! She is so proud of herself, so on Saturday daddy will be taking off the training wheels. Here's a little video of her new found mad skills on two wheels!!! (Emory wrote the last sentence)

Home with A!

So, I have been working so much lately that even on my day off I have had to go to work. But, today I got to spend a lot of time with Aidan. It was really nice. He had a lot to say, of course. Most of the day we sat on the front porch and just hung out. It was great. I really enjoyed just watching him play, and being himself. Noone else around to occupy his attention, just me, Aidan and the puppies. Here are some pics of Aidan the Artist.

Soccer is over....

So, this past weekend was our last weekend at the soccer field. I must say I am ready for a break. This waking up so early on Saturday's was about to kill us. It was a great season though. Both kids played this season, and they played well. They both learned a lot about how to play and really enjoyed it. We will definitely continue soccer. They also made some really good friends that I know we will keep in touch with. Check out these cute pics: