Paula Deen, how I love thee

It's funny because I feel like I am pretty adjusted to California. For the most part, I don't even notice the glaring differences between the south and California anymore. But, there is just something about this woman.



I watch Food Network whenever I can and when her theme song comes, I feel the tears in my eyes start to form.

I can honestly say that I don't have a woman like her in my life. I think she's the compliation of a representation of the south to me.

She reminds me of the women that would stop and talk to me about what I was going to make for dinner while I was grocery shopping. I didn't know them, but they would comment on my cute baby girl and offer comments on what should make for dinner.

She reminds me of Miss Bobbie. She would paint faces for kids on Tuesday nights at my beloved Chick Fil A. She was the sweeetest person that I have ever met. She would coo and coddle the kids that she was painting. Every Tuesday night was a fight with Maggie because she didn't want to wash off all of the princess paint and glitter that Miss Bobbie had lovingly put all over her face that night.

So, I don't have real relationships with these women. It's just a feeling that they give off.And I want to be them when I grow up.

I want to be the person who loves on kids and cooks yummy meals that make people feel good. I want people to want to look forward to coming over to my house. I secretly would love to go to Paula Deen's house for Thanksgiving dinner. Not just for the wonderful food, but they all look like they are having a great time and really enjoy being together and teasing each other.

And, I'd be okay with being an overweight white haired lady, too. It doesn't seem to slow her down at all.

Bethlehem

My daughter likes to play wii. A lot.

She downloaded a Jesus mii and she likes to choose him for some of the sports. She especially likes him when she is boxing. Which, I admit, is kind of disturbing on some level. But, funny, too.

She is bowling right now with Jesus. This is the conversation that took place while she was bowling.

Maggie: Did they have bowling alleys in Bethlehem?
Me: no
Maggie: Well, then, how did God put that idea in people's heads to have bowling alleys?


Anyone got an answer?

I'm crafty!

 

I bought some vinyl a while back. I took it today and put it in my cricut and made this Butterfly for Maggie's room. It was so easy! I see an addiction coming on!

Meeting Jesus in the coffee shop

Today there was a man walking back and forth in front of the coffee shop this afternoon. He is one of those guys that you notice because he is kind of dirty looking and mumbling to himself. He walked back and forth several times in front of the store.

He came in the store and started asking me about my computer. I guess I should have thought about that when I ordered a pink laptop. I get so many comments about it.

He asked me a lot of random questions that didn't really make sense. As I was trying to answer him, I felt an urge to pray for him. I normally would be scared and shaken by these kind of conversations. But, I just felt really bad for him. He was mentally disturbed but wasn't harmful.

When I see guys like this (and I have been noticing a lot of people walking in front of my house lately who are talking to themselves), I wonder what happened. How did they fall through the cracks of normal society? How could we really help them? Do they want to be helped or is it our guilt that makes us want to help them? How would Christ truly treat someone like this?

It's hard to be this cute....

 

A cool website.

I found this really cool website : http://www.weightview.com/new/
I found the link at : http://www.5minutesformom.com/

The weight website takes your stats and a current pic of you. Then, it will email you a new picture of yourself at 5,10, 20, etc....pounds thinner. What an inspiration! I can't wait to see what I look like a little thinner.

My daughter is hilarious....maybe I'm a little biased

Here is the latest installment of Maggie fun sayings:

* We were in Louisiana for Katie's wedding. We brought our wii with us (yes, we are nerds). Papa has a huge flat screen tv. After we got home, Maggie said "what happened to our tv? It used to be huge and now it is shrunk."

* We were in a very posh hotel with an even more posh bed. The bedding was plush and made our little heater (aka Maggie) very hot at night. She would wake up hot and sweaty in the morning. One morning, she was telling Steven about being hot after she woke up. She said, "I went to bed and I was fine. I woke up and BOOM...I was sweaty".

* She has decided that all of her stuffed animals have the last name "Summers" which is my maiden name.

* Last night, I went to the store to get some ornament storage boxes. I asked Steven if he needed anything and she piped up" Yes, I need some bottles for my babies. They are very thirsty". It was an automatic response...like she had been thinking about this "need" for some time.

* She has 7 babies in her tummy right now and if you touch her tummy, they kick you very violently.

* She is obsessed with the chicken dance now since going to Katie's wedding. She loves to demonstrate it for anyone that asks to see the dance.

* She is becoming such a big girl. We went to Costco and she would mark off the things on the list as we picked them up. I would tell her the first few letters of what we just bought and she would scratch them off.

* Tanya told her that the best words in the world are "free and coupons". She lives by this mantra now and loves "snack time" with the free samples at Costco.

* She can spell certain words. Some of the bad words on her list are dumb and stupid. I spelled that something was "d-u-m-b" to Steven and she quickly got onto me for using a bad word.

I've been putting this one off for a while

I miss our little guy so much. I don't know really how to grieve through this at all. After they left, my mom and brother joined us for 2 weeks. We had a great visit, but I didn't have to really think about my feelings.This was followed by my stepsister's wedding in New Orleans. We talked about it some more because people were concerned about how we were doing.

For the first few days, Maggie cried a lot and talked about the kids a lot. Then, one morning we were talking about the little guy and Maggie asked me to stop. She said that it hurt too much to talk about him. So, I tried not to talk about him as much. I feel slightly guilty but we don't miss the little girl much. She was so much work and caused so much pain in our lives.

But, it's starting to get quiet. There is not as much going on and there's time to think. You can only push away the thoughts for so long. I miss him. I miss his little smile and how gentle he was. I miss watching Maggie make him smile when he was upset. I miss cuddling with him and most of all...I am worried about him. I hope that he is okay. I am worried about what is going to happen to him.

I am mad.I am mad at his social worker. She is taking out her anger on us and the former foster parents on the children. We are not bad people and while I understand that it's "EASIER" to not have contact with us, I would love some reassurance that he is okay.

I am confused. I am confused about what this means for our family. What do we do next? Of course, to complicate things, our foster license is up for renewal at the end of the month. Logically, it makes sense just to renew it and go through the hoops. It took a lot of work to get our license. But, in my heart, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!

I don't think we can do this again. It was hard enough for Steven and me to deal with it. But, do we do this again to Maggie. We are supposed to protect her. I don't know how to deal with all of this stuff.