Oh, Hello There!

I've started this blog post in my head a hundred times or more. I have so much I want to say, but I don't have any idea of where to start! It's been a while...
Ideas for possible topics of this post I tossed around in my head:

• I miss blogging. I miss composing my thoughts and sharing a little tiny slice of my family's life with the world at large. I miss posting pictures, so that a year or 12 from now we can come back and see them and remember just what was happening on a certain date in our lives. That was the plan for this blog in the first place.

{Claire helping Grandma plant things}

• I miss your comments. I really like hearing from you all. 

• Depression stinks! (possibly due to any or all of the following: post-baby hormones, winter, or maybe my brain just doesn't work correctly all of the time, to produce the right amount of happy hormones... stupid brain.Working on improving my diet, letting things go, and lots of sunshine are helping.)

{Out for exercise in the sunshine with Emmett}

• Grief stinks, too!

• Grief really stinks when it's not just you, but your 2 year old baby suffering over the loss of her (foster) sister!! (Little Miss H, our foster daughter, was moved from our home to go live with relatives out of state a little over a month ago. We all miss her and it has been very hard to deal with. But it has been especially hard for Claire. H came to live with us when both girls were about 18 months old. Claire doesn't remember a time before H was here. They did every. single. thing. together. They thought they were really sisters and we treated both of them as such. Then one day strangers came in to our home, sat in our living room and talked for a few hours and then took her sister away, never to be seen again. How do you explain that to a 2 year old? Claire spent most of February crying over any and everything. She stopped sleeping through the night, and never wanted to leave my side. Some days would be better than others, unless she caught sight of something that belonged to H still laying around somewhere then she would crumble into a tearful mess and cry and act out and be generally miserable the rest of the day. I still have no idea how to best help her. I know she is grieving, I know she doesn't understand. And I don't know what to do about it. I am trying to just follow her lead and deal with it day by day. She still talks about H constantly and asks about her. I try to explain as best as I can, and she tries to understand as best she can and somehow we'll get through this. But it's hard. 

• Our foster care system is good/horrible/necessary/evil/uncaring/difficult/works really well/doesn't help at all! All of those things, depending on what day you ask me.

• We are selling our house, well, we are trying to sell our house. Anyone out there want a well cared for, sweet little house in a nice country neighbourhood? 

• I've noticed that I always spell neighbour and neighbourhood like the rest of the world does and not like they do here in the USA. Google spell checker doesn't like it. I don't care! It is a nice quiet neighbourhood with friendly caring neighbours! Take that Google spell checker!

• I like it when Australians say chooks, instead of chickens. I still say chickens though. Actually I don't say much of either one right now, since we got rid of all of our chickens in January... trying to sell our house you know. I didn't think prospective buyers would appreciate the chickens in the yard. If they want them they are welcome bring their own!

• The idea of selling our home is really kind of stressful! First we have 3/4 of our stuff packed away to make this small house look open and roomy. (It's 1400 square feet and there are 7 of us living in it!) Plus I have to keep it much cleaner than I am used to, so that it can be ready on a moments notice to show to buyers... not easy with this many people home all day long!  The pictures I took for the real estate listing make it look pretty nice I think, looking at them I thought that I would want to buy this house. Only we want a place with more land and hopefully a larger house! But also it is really hard to contemplate leaving here. This is the first home we've ever owned, and it has been "home" for the past 6 years. Claire and Emmett where born here. We've made a lot of really good memories here. But we all feel like the time has come for a change. 

• Our trampoline decided to go wandering due to a huge wind/thunder storm that came through the area a couple of weeks ago. It wanted to see how it would look perched in a neighbour's tree 2 houses (and over 2 fences) away from our house. It didn't look so great up there, so we got it down and brought it back over both of those fences back to our backyard where it belongs. Oh and we staked it down so it wouldn't go wandering without permission anymore. The neighbour agreed with us that his tree was a strange place to keep our trampoline after all. 

• I've been a bit of a creative slump.

• I'm coming out of my creative slump! Lots of WIP's and ideas percolating. Even a few finished things to share here soon!

• There has been some of this going on... Still not very reliably though, just when the mood strikes her ;-)

• And lots of this... 

{Emmett is almost 6 months old already!}

{Check out those beautiful chubby arms, and face! He is so very squeezable and cuddly!} 

So that is a brief summary of what has been happening around here for the past few months... Well, maybe not so brief in retrospect, but when you consider that I haven't posted here in about 2 months... A lot can happen in that time! I can't wait to start posting again now. I have tons of things to share!