RazzBerryPie Boutique: Giveaway! (UPDATE!)#links

RazzBerryPie Boutique: Giveaway! (UPDATE!)#links

I just happened to discover yesterday that my cousin has this cute online store called RazzBerryPie Boutique. What a cute name! And the blog is way cute too! Check out the giveaway link. I think the necklace and earring set is pretty cute! There's also other cute things like baby leggings. I wonder if this is the same thing my SIL had on her son when I saw him in April. She said it works wonderful for long car trips- keeps the legs warm without the hassle of pants over onesies (makes changing diapers a pain while traveling). So cute- wish I had a little one to put these on.

Where's the time gone??

Wow! Time seems to be flying by so fast! It seems like I just got back from girls camp and youth conference and now my kids are already in school! We also welcomed two new additions to our family. Destiny and Raivyn will be staying with us for a little while. So now we have a 4 year old, 5 year old, 7 year old, 9 1/2 year old and 13 1/2 year old in our house. And I discovered a schedule/routine is important! I know I always say this, but I'll post pictures tomorrow. At this ungodly hour, it's amazing that I'm even typing up this post!

I've been reading the Stephenie Meyer "Twilight" series. I thought the first book was ok but the rest of the books made up for it! I'm on book 4 and Caleb reports to me that one of his friends is reading it! And he wants to read the series now! I never figured a guy would like reading it. Go figure!

Anyone have any fun plans for Labor Day weekend? I'm thinking of heading down to Utah. In March, we purchased a membership pass to the Hogle Zoo thinking we'd be back at least once during the summer but the increase in gas prices prohibited us from traveling this summer. I figured we might as well "bite the bullet" and go down and enjoy a fun weekend with the fam. One last hurrah!

Busy, busy!

Whew! July was spent getting ready for Girls Camp which was held the last week of July. Eric and I went and stayed the whole time (Tuesday-Friday). We loved being up there at the beautiful new campgrounds! Of course it helped that we had our pop up camper with heater. Cozy nights (shhh...don't tell the girls!). We were constantly on "bear alert" since a young women group, just a few weeks earlier, had a bear visit (it tore into a leaders tent because it smelled the chocolate doughnuts and Dr. Pepper in their tent) . Their camp was only a few miles away from we were so they strongly emphasized bear safety. We were praying that we wouldn't have a bear encounter! Wednesday morning we saw a guy dressed in military fatigues with a bear hound on a leash, walking through camp to make sure there were no bears. It was pretty comforting to have them accompany us on our hike that morning! Especially when it ended up in a hiker needing to be escorted back to camp for health reasons (he used his GPS to get the girl, leader and another hiker back to camp). I'll post some pictures of camp later.

The next weekend was Youth Conference and we both went to that, with Caleb. We went to Willow Bay in American Falls (25 miles away) and spent Friday night-Saturday evening boating. Our bishop loves to have any excuse to go boating so he took the youth up to share in his favorite activity. We all had a blast and came home with some pretty good sunburns. I even went on the tubes with some of the young women. I was so sore the next 2 days! Now if I can just get the sunburn on my thighs to go away!

This week we're busy getting the kids registered for school and buying back to school supplies. I love that time of year! Jared will be going to preschool 3 days a week. He is so looking forward to it! I'm so excited for him.

Oh, we got a call the other day from the mother who has Lakota in her care. She asked us to do respite care (babysit) while she goes out of town for a few days. Kaitlyn, Jared and I just can't wait until she gets here!! We're so excited to be able to have her in our home again for a few days!

Baby update...

I promised pictures in my last post of sweet baby L. It's been a while since I last posted. So much has happened. A few of you already know what happened but this post is for those that don't know.
We picked up baby from the hospital on Monday. She was a very sweet, gentle baby and she loves to be held. She rarely cried (just when getting her diaper changed or during her sponge bath, or if I took too long getting her bottle ready). She has such a sweet spirit and we just fell in love with her. Wednesday we had a court appointment for baby to be officially placed into foster care with us, even though the social worker was working hard to find another home for baby. Thursday we got the sad news that baby would be going to a different family. Kaitlyn and Jared cried when they heard the news.

I forgot to mention in my last post that baby is part Native American. It is because of this reason alone that we couldn't keep her with us. The federal government signed an Act that protects children of Indian descent. This act says that if a child is part Native American Indian (it can be as little as 1/8) they must find suitable a suitable home from this list: 1- immediate family (brothers/sisters, aunts/uncles, grandparents, etc.). 2- Native American family of the same tribe as the child. 3- Native American family of a different tribe. 4- licensed foster family that is Native American. 5- foster family licensed with the local Indian Reservation which in our case is the Fort Hall Reservation and finally 6- state licensed foster family. If they can't find anyone available from number 1-5, then they go to the state foster family which is what Eric and I are. Even if the child doesn't look like they're Indian, if it is mentioned/documented at all, the state must follow these guidelines mentioned.

When the social worker came to pick up baby, we asked about what it would take to keep her (we really wanted her to stay with us). She said that unless we have Indian heritage, it won't be possible. That's when Eric mentioned that his father was 1/4 Cherokee Indian. That would put us at number 4 on the list (which is the same as the family Lakota went to). Since we can't prove it, baby went to another family who is Native American. (That's a good motivator to us to finally do Eric's family history!) This Act stems from years of government interfering with the Indian culture. They just want to keep their children close and make sure they know of their noble heritage. We met the foster mom who baby went to (the father was away on business at the time). We had a chance to visit a couple of times so I know she's in good hands. It still doesn't make me miss her less though.

My only regret is that I didn't spend enough time holding her. She was almost never put down, she was held all the time by Kaitlyn, Jared, my friends, and SIL. I tried to hold her as much as possible during the day but I had some serious competetion (from Kaitlyn). At least I had her to myself at night (and those were the sweetest times).