Welcome to 2014.....

What a crazy and busy holiday season we had. Right before Thanksgiving we moved and as if that isn't hard enough with 5 kids we all got the flu minus our 10 year old that week of Thanksgiving. We took forever getting well and trying to finish unpacking while feeling so bad was really tough. Our Christmas was pretty good, the boys really enjoyed opening gifts. The day after Christmas we had invited my parents, grandma and sister to come over and have dinner. I spent the whole day cooking I made 2 meatloaves, 2 corn casseroles, mashed potatoes and a big Greek salad. Around 4pm I was in the kitchen cooking and Jared was with the kids in the family room when I heard him yell. Kaeden one of the 3 year olds had reached up and poked him in the eye. By the time everyone got here and sat down to eat Jared was in a lot of pain and asked me to take him to the ER. So we left the kiddos here with everyone and headed to the hospital. They confirmed it was a cornea abrasion and gave us some meds. The next day we went to an opthomologist who gave more meds and scheduled a check up for a few days later. We ended up having to go back to him early because it was still hurting him so much, the abrasion was actually a tear and he had to cut a flap off his eye over the pupil. After another check up Jared's eye is healing but his vision is cloudy in that eye, the part of the cornea isn't attaching back to the rest of his eye like it should. So more medicine and more follow ups, we are praying his vision in that eye is restored since his job is inspecting things.....

Anyways on the adoption front since we moved we had to update our home study again and re do almost everything. We are almost done and hopefully will have everything ready for our dossier by mid Feb. As much as I hate these delays I know it's all in Gods timing. We are finishing up our shoe and clothing drive in the next few weeks! Yay!!! I'm so ready to not be digging through used clothes and shoes! Lol between that fundraiser, our tax return and the money left from selling our other home after remodeling our new one we hope to only need a few thousand to bring 2 children home!!! As of right now we need about $15,000 to do that.

I know I'm going to have critics about us moving and remodeling a home while fundraising but let me tell you we downsized. We bought a smaller home that's older. So yes of course moving costs money but we sold our previous home and are using those profits to remodel this one and make it handicap accessible (our old home wasn't handicap accessible either).  This home is in a much better area and zoned to really good schools. So far we love it, I'm close enough to walk to the elementary school.  Well I need to go  do some paperwork to bring my girls home so I'll leave you with a few Christmas photos.

Decorating cookies for Santa

Christmas Eve

The aftermath of opening gifts!!!