Our Christmas Celebration

Well the pictures were a little out of order on the last post, the first picture should have been the potato candy (the last picture). My Great-Great Grandma use to make it every year and it's been a family tradition. Well this is the first year that my Mom was like, "hey lets make potato candy". Well she doesn't have a recipe or anything just this is the ingredients. So I skin a whole bunch of baking potatoes, coo k them, mash them, and so on. Then we realize that we really only should have used about 4 potatoes and that would have been enough to make candy for everyone, family, neighbors, friends, etc and also some to send to friends far away. So now we have enough potato candy to feed everyone in the world. And I gotta say it's so freakin good.

The next picture is of K and her kitchen that Santa brought but the point of the pictures is her "Meow Ho Ho Ho" Hat that she has on. While trying to start and finish our Christmas shopping on the 22nd of December. We were walking down the aisle and she started point and saying "that cat" and then meowing. Well we were next to the pet stockings so I really thought she wanted to see one of them. So I started to hand her one and she shook her head "no". And so she continued her "that cat meow". So finally I really look at what she is looking at and thrown at the bottom under a billion other hats is a leopard looking ball, so I pull it out and she excitedly put it on her head and exclaims "Meow Ho Ho Ho". So of course I had to buy it and I was excited when it was only $1.74. So K got her "Meow Ho Ho Ho" hat that she wore all the way home, all day on Christmas and every day since then. I guess she's not going to let me pack it away with the other Christmas decorations.

Then there is our stove, which did catch on fire, if you blow up the picture you can see the salt we through on it and also how it's still burning at that point. I was trying to cook potato casserole when this happened. We are still not sure what caused it because nothing ran over. So it's a mystery. But we then used the picture of the bucket of water to clean up the whole stove and the insides of the stove. And the very last picture is not of the smoke alarms which failed to go off (yes I am going to buy new smoke detectors) it was of the burglar alarm that went off instead and the panel wouldn't reset it, so I had to climb up there and unhook the wires to make it stop.

So that was our Christmas in a nutshell. There were a few other things like it was only suppose to be the 4 of us and my Grandparents ended up staying with us because my Grandma was sick instead of heading to Tennessee like planned. My Grandpa complained about everything we fixed for dinner and how it didn't get enough to eat. Which just ticked me off for the fact that my Mom and I didn't eat certain stuff so he could have more which it certainly did take seconds and thirds.

Otherwise my Mom did escape the layoffs, so at least we have one income, but they cut her hours back, so not as much money coming in. We are still trying to get the social worker to come out for our last home visit. She is never around when I call and I"m just getting frustrated I'm trying to find out if I could change agencies but that would mean starting all over with home visits and paperwork and we have already put in so much time to get to this point. So I'm just not sure what to do. I have my license in hand and hanging up in my kitchen cabinet and I carry my state issued foster parent license (looks like a driver's license) in my wallet too.

What do these things have to do with our Christmas celebration?

I'm taking guesses :)

Wow...unexpected free time

Well I really had thought I would make it through the layoffs at work but it just wasn't meant to be. So at 930pm last night I am officially without a job. To say I'm pissed off about this is an understatement. I guess this week and next I'll be looking for a new job, we can't live off unemployment, it will help for a little while but it won't even come close to paying the bills.

So today being my first free day in over 2 months I baked Christmas cookies with K. We had so much fun together and I realized that I have missed so much working the hours I was working. After Grandma got home, we went out and started and almost finished our Christmas shopping. We then headed to Sam's club and bought Christmas eve and Christmas dinner. Otherwise last night I had the strangest dream, that on Christmas we got a call about a Foster to Adopt placement and it was for newborn twins, a girl and boy and both were of Chinese heritage. I was just blown away and woke up this morning with such a strange feeling, like the dream was of a forshadow of the future.

Otherwise onto some pictures taken over the last month of K

This was at the MOMs Club Christmas Party, the had 2 Giant inflatable bounce houses

This was at the beginning of our 1st snow storm, we eventually got 9 inches of snow and 2 inches of ice

K loves to wear Santa hats, she walks around the house and goes "ho ho ho"

watching our Christmas cookies bake

Back from Blogcation

After everything that happened at the last tests for K, I had to take a Blogcation. First off I'm happy to report that we got our Foster Parent License 2 days before Thanksgiving. The downside is the Placement worker is dragging her feet because we have to have one last home visit before we can take in Children. She has had between now and when we finished classes to get it done and so far nothing. I guess because we had such a good experience with K's Social Worker and being that this women works in the same office I thought she would be just as good.

Otherwise in our lives, we are trying to get ready for Christmas, today I dragged the tree down from storage, it's been hard getting things done because right now I'm working 12 hour days and 7 days a week at least through the 22nd. I'm getting about 2 1/2 hours a sleep a day since by the time I get home, it's time to turn around and take my Mom to work and then after that K is wide awake for the start of the day. After all this I'm still not sure I'll have a job or be layed off after the 22nd. It's so frustrating, I work my butt off for the last 3 1/2 months and how do they repay me. So I'm trying to look for a new job just in case but it's really hard to find work right now during the Holiday season that's just not temporary work. I'm sorry to my family and friends who have emailed me and haven't heard anything, I'm really trying to get caught up on stuff but it's just not happening.