A Peek Into Our Week

Look at this. 

I know there are people that love this.  But those people do not have toddler boys. 





 
speaking of toddler boys....Savers shopping with my girl and I scored this awesome Batman shirt.  Whenever I wear it, Bennett looks at me with hearts shooting out of his eyes and says, "I love your shirt Momma." 

 
 And here's what happens when you stumble across a bag of peanuts and don't want to share.

 
 My parents are the BEST!!  Mom sent a big cupcake piggy bank full of money for us to have a family party!!  Such a fun surprise.  I promised we'd have some cake and ice cream and take lots of pictures.  And she told us to put the leftover money in the vacation jar. 

VACATION....Yes please.  We paid our down payment on our condos this week!!  119 days.  I am so excited.  And so is everyone else.  Almost every day someone will ask a new vacay question.  "Am I going to sleep in the same bed as last year?", "Can I sit by Nathan in the car?", "What time will we leave?", "Can I look on Amazon for a skim board?"  

Yeah.  It's a thing. 

 

Zekey is fantastic at making eggs.  My kids would eat eggs for breakfast every morning if they could.  And since eggs are $.89/dozen at Aldi right now they get to have eggs almost as much as they'd like.  It takes about 3 dozen to feed the whole family so that's a cheap breakfast. 

2018 Bullet Journal

New Year = New planner 

Some of my girls got new planners too and we had a fun planning night getting them all set up and ready to use.  I had this beauty on my Christmas list....

leuchtturm1917 dotted a5

Of course you don't need a particular notebook to start a planner.  But I love this one.  It lays flat, has 2 ribbon markers, a dotted grid, index, and a strappy thing to hold it together.  The binding is tight and the pages have a good weight.  It's worth the money.  I need something to decorate the outside though. 

Cover page.  I don't do monthly cover pages.  But I'm hoping this will last the whole year so I did a yearly one with my word REST.

In the front of my journal I set up all the trackers I knew I'd need and use all year.  I'll make more as the year goes on, but I like having these all in one place right now.



2 Simple bookshelves to track the books I want to read and the ones I've finished.  These will include the read-alouds I do with the kids.

My kids' behavior/color chart.  This is super important to them and I keep the striped bookmark on this spread so they can find it easily. 

A work in progress.  Just some food ideas to pull from when I'm making a menu.  The other page will be Crockpot, Emergency Meals, and Instant Pot hacks. 

A tracker to remind me of some things I want to keep track of.



Bennett is a good napper but Waylon hardly ever naps even though he desperately needs it.  But I do need a quiet time.  So I pay my older kids to sit quietly (as in silently and don't say a single word) with him and read for at least one hour in the afternoon.  This helps me keep track of how much I need to pay to each kiddo on allowance day.

Plus a basic school schedule.  Don't let this fool ya.....we never run on time. But it's a goal to shoot for.



All of January is blue.   Next month I'll use pink or red for Valentines Day.  Menu plan for the month.  I do this in pencil in case I need to change it up.  Not because I want to be perfect, but because when I make next month's menu I can look back and see when we ate certain things so I don't repeat it too much.



Regular daily spreads that help me live my life.  This is where I keep the solid color book mark.



Then I flipped to the last 2 pages to make some Christmas notes since Christmas was still fresh on my mind.

And that's it so far.  I'm always looking on Pinterest for new ideas.  Some people are SOOO artistic and crafty.  I love looking at their spreads and getting ideas for mine. 

Like this one..... Look at this adorableness! This may find a page in my BJ sometime this year.

A Peek Into Our Week

We are starting to settle back into routine after the holidays.  Honey went back to work and the college kids start back Tuesday.   I love me some routine!!  

Here's a peek into our week....

Isn't she just so beautiful? 

We had some left over popcorn from one of those popcorn tins.  Mallory spread it out and drizzled white and milk chocolate over it all.  

Hand-me-down tinker toys from friends! 

I hate the mess that onions make in my fridge.  I cleaned it all out this week and put all the onions and garlic in this bowl. 

Honey and I have been married 29 years and in all that time we have never had a new mattress.  All of our mattresses have been hand-me-downs....until now.  This was our Christmas present and it finally came!!  They shipped it all rolled up in this duffel bag.  When you unroll it on your bed frame it lays flat immediately but you have to give it some time to poof up.  It has a forever warranty and you don't ever even need to flip it.  It's much firmer than we thought it would be but it takes some time to get completely poofed up I guess.  Anyway, we like it. 

Happy New Year and My Word

Happy 2018 everybody!! 

I just love new starts.  New planners.  New goals.  Big dreams.  Plans.  Changes.  All of it. 

I have never felt more sure of my NY goals than I do this year.  Picking one word seems to be the thing to do and this is my first year to pin it down to that ONE THING. 

My word this year is 

REST

Our little love QBall went home to his family before Christmas and it has been just us.  No more fosters.  And a chance to see what our family looks like complete with our 2 newly adopted sons.  We had a crazy intense year of 3 toddler boys all under 3.  Then watching them grow a little older and into new things.  Then the highs of adoption and the low of sending "our baby" home. 

And we are tired. 

We all need a hard re-set.  A season of rest.  To sleep and think and read and be quiet.  To reconnect as a family.  I need to get back to cooking and eating the way I like.  To get out of survival mode.  To stop and listen and look people in the eye...and smile.  To breathe.  Rest. 

I'm pretty good at going and doing.  In fact, I feel guilty when I take a nap because it seems so lazy.  So I'm still trying to figure out what it will look like.  But I figure it will be saying No to the things that stretch me thin and make me feel overextended.  Making sleep a priority (with no guilt).  Doing the things that fill me up....reading, a project, cleaning my house, reading to my kids, walking with my neighbor, cooking, writing letters to my grandmother, and blogging. 

But then what?  Because I'm pretty sure that if I'm not careful it'll become boring and feel lazy after awhile.  So I don't know yet.  I don't know about our future in foster care or what the year holds for my older kids and how we will need to support them.  I want to trust God with it all. 

In the meantime, my kids have been sleeping more, playing more, and Xboxing more.  This whole year of rest is off to good start. 

A Peek Into Our Week

Do you enjoy Black Friday shopping?  We do.  

We don't fight the crowds and do the super early madness.  We just go whenever we decide to go.  This year we headed out around 11am and came home with a new couch!  

Our old sectional was about 12 years old and was very well worn and loved.  It was time.  

We had been shopping around and figured out what we liked so when we saw it we knew it was The One.  I love it. 

This guy has woken up with a clean and dry pull-up 3 days in a row!!  We are all pretty excited about that.  

 

I have taught 8 kids to read with this book.  Now I'm working on 9 & 10.  I didn't have it with Meg, but my other kiddos and I loved working through it together. 

Look at this mess.  

Our school cubbies were a disaster.  It was making me mad every time I walked past it.  I finally got in there on Saturday and took them all out, cleaned everything, reorganized, and threatened every kid in the house to mess them up like that again.  All while watching my favorite mom vlogs on You Tube. :)

Do you watch mom vlogs?  Because I want to do one.  But would anybody watch it?  Is my voice too squeaky?  Would you watch mine?? 

No story here.  Just some bubs wrestling.

Grandma and Grandpa are gone for the winter so we have the whole house to ourselves!  We took some hot chocolate and watched a Christmas movie on their big TV. 



Our library is doing lots of different techy programs for STEM week.  During story time the kids got to play with these fun robots.  You draw lines on the paper with colored markers....



and the little robots follow the line and turn into whatever color the line is!!  I'm afraid they will never be content with a regular story time again. 

I love how happy and still and cooperative they are in these pictures.  There were days I wondered if we would ever be able to do something like this.  It may just look like preschoolers having fun, but to me it looks like growth, healing, and lots of answers to prayer.  I love these baby boys so much!



Isn't he adorable?  He's getting a train set for Christmas.  By the way he has his cars lined up, I'm thinking he'll love it. 

Worth The Wait

I am so happy to finally get this post up and introduce you to our new SON!!  

Get ready for a lot of cuteness.....

I had been chomping at the bit to finally be opened for foster care.  It's a long process y'all. It finally happened on April 14, 2015.  Oh happy day.  It was also Zekey's 8th birthday so we had lots of reason to celebrate.  

But for one family it was the worst day of their life.  Waylon and his 4yo sister were taken from their first family never to return.  

We were opening for babies under 2.  My resource worker told me there had been a sibling group picked up that day and one of them was a baby.  She didn't know how old.  When they called and I found out he was 17 months old we said no.  Too old.  Then the transporter called.  I said no again.  But this time it was harder.  I called Mike and we both agreed to stick with our original plan.  But when the 3rd call came for the same little boy I cracked.  OK, just for the weekend.  

Enter the most beautiful blue eyes I've ever seen.....

I think I remember everything about that first night.  The first bath.  Introducing him to the toys.  Where he was standing the first time he threw his head back and screamed a fit. Singing to him at night.  Tucking him in and staying in the room because he was scared.  All of it.  

Monday morning the caseworker texted...

LaToya - Do you want to keep Waylon short term or long term? 

I sent it to Mike and he replied.. "Forever is fine." 

And so it began! 

A couple days later we had planned a family trip to MO to meet some friends.  In hindsight I can see what a terrible idea that was to take him.  He hadn't even had time to get used to us or his new home and we took him to stay somewhere else and be with people he didn't know.  I hadn't heard the concept of cocooning yet.  It was a hard weekend...but still great.  And we were beginning to see just how fantastic our kids were adjusting to life with a little person.

It had been a long time since we had a baby in the house.  My younger kids don't ever remember having a baby because they are all 17 months apart.  We entered the world of diapers, sippy cups, cheerios, and naptimes.  Oh....and fits.  THE FITS.

I wondered if he missed his mom and sister.  He had weekly visits and he was SO EXCITED to see her.  He never called her mom but then again he only spoke one word.  He seemed to like being with us but I wasn't sure he was attaching.  

Baseball season was upon us and we took his favorite dump truck to the fields for him to push up the hill.  Another team just finished and people were walking all around him.  He immediately started looking everywhere until he saw Mike.  It was our first glimpse of him connecting to us as his people.  

This was a learning time for all of us.  Learning to navigate the foster system and all the rules.  Learning to homeschool with a little.  How to discipline without spanking.  How to handle the emotions of visit day.  Logistics of life with a new and broken little boy and 8 other kids at home.  

And though we were only open for one placement, DHS called again.  

And again.

Soon there would be a cuddly newborn who would later be known forever as Bennett Seth Taggart.  

This picture just makes me laugh! 

One cart full of babies and the other overflowing with groceries.  The cashier is still going strong and Waylon is trying his best to reach whatever he could get into! 

Look at these guys!

As time went on, his mom wasn't doing well.  All visits stopped and termination happened.  Dad stepped forward and tried for awhile.  In the end, he wasn't able to pull it together and did the best thing he could....sign over his rights so his kids could be free to move forward with their lives.  

This is the very abbreviated version of our story.  The whole process took over 2 long years.  But in that time, Waylon was never moved or placed back with his family.  We celebrated his 2nd birthday.  And 3rd.  And 4th!  We had 2 Christmases with him and all the family traditions. 

And after NINE HUNDRED FORTY-FIVE days this guy became a Taggart!  

We couldn't be happier to have him forever.  

Welcome Waylon Gabriel Taggart.  We love you so much  You were worth the wait!! 

The Reason We Will Never Be Rich

First it was a questionable charge on my Amazon digital order...something about a video game.
Next, I was mysteriously signed up with an Audible subscription.
Then we had a new music download all of a sudden.

He never has any idea how it happens.  And he's sure it's not him.  But Amazon Customer Service has been pretty handy in helping me figure out it is always Jesse.  And each of these purchases has had to come out his pocket.

Last month was his birthday and it's not unusual for my kids to get boxes in the mail around birthday time.  One day Jesse got two.  And being an excited birthday kid, he paid no attention to anything except what was in them.  The first one was a brand new pair of cleats from his sister.  SCORE!!! But the next one was a box that had a couple of silly dollar-store type of junky things.  He decided Meg must've gotten some free samples with the cleats.

As ridiculous as that sounds, I didn't pay much attention to it because....who knows.

Last week I got a bill in the mail.  Or I should say, Jesse did.  But it wasn't an ordinary bill.  It was from collection agency (!) demanding $35.  What on earth?

When I called the number, the lady couldn't tell me what the charge was for but she gave me the number to the place where it was purchased.

Publisher's Clearing House. 

(Really, Son?)

I was able to get the best customer service rep to help me unravel the mess.  Someone tried to enter the sweepstakes with his email account (which she gave me).  When you go through the steps of trying to win ALL THE MONEY they have the opportunity to try to sell you all kinds of magazines and books and junk.  You only have to click once and it is automatically added to your cart.

When you hit "Submit My Entry" you have automatically purchased everything in your cart. In Jesse's case that meant an outdoor thermometer, a cheap exercise tracker, and a plastic rain gauge.

(Are you kidding me, Son?)

It also signed him up to receive emails from 15 different companies.  Oh my word.

It doesn't ask for any payment info.  You just receive a bill with your delivery.  And with Jesse's excitement and confusion, the bill was probably tossed wherever the junk landed.  Because they were free samples, right?

The lady was super nice.  She said because he was a minor that the charge would be waived and she unsubscribed him from every email.  We were also disqualified from ever entering the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes again.  And anybody that moves into this house after us is out of luck too.

Mike and I decided not to tell him the charge was waived.  At some point when he continues to have to fork out money we are hoping he will GET IT.  (Is that mean?)  And a re-setting of parental controls seems to be in order.

In the meantime, we won't be hitting the jackpot any time soon!

Mom Fail

Today I told Mallory she could help me make a dessert for Bible study.  I had no idea what I was going to make but I didn't want to go to the store.  I had apples so I pinterested a recipe for an apple cake.  She was excited.

We looked at the recipe together and it was kinda fancy but I knew she could do it all by herself.  So I backed out and told her I'd print it off and she could make it.  Immediately she started making excuses.  It was hard.  She didn't understand the steps.  But mostly her attitude was terrible and I got mad. 

I KNEW she could do it.  She likes to cook.  WHAT IS THE DEAL??

Her eyes filled up with tears and she said, "I was just looking forward to doing it with you.  It would be fun to do together.  But now even if you did it with me, you are upset and so it won't be any fun." 

I felt horrible. 
LOSER MOM.

I was wanting to back out and do other things that needed doing.  She just wanted to spend time me.  How did I not see that? 

So I apologized and hugged her and we started over.  As it turned out, it was a complicated recipe that she probably couldn't have done easily without help.  We enjoyed learning the steps of it together.  And it turned out amazing!! But most of all I'm happy that I listened to her.  I want to be better at listening and being sensitive to my kids' needs instead of focusing on my to-do list.  I am a work in progress. 

A Little Bit Of Lately

I'm pretty sure this week goes down as Most Unproductive Ever.
We've all been down with the stomach bug.  And we can never all catch it at the same time, so it makes it way slowly through each one of us....one miserable victim at a time.  It's so gross.  And the whole house stinks.  As soon as this is over we are emptying our cans of Lysol all over the place and renting a carpet cleaner.


Today is Mallory's turn.  Baby Girl is so pitiful and Laney jumped ship and is spending the night at Grandma's to avoid sleeping in the same room with her.

But I have to brag on Blue Eyes. At just 3 years old he made it to the potty 3 times at Grandma's! And this guy doesn't even have a lot of experience puking. I'm so impressed.  Unfortunately he wasn't so quick at church and I'm afraid we accidentally exposed every kid in children's church.

And speaking of Blue Eyes, ADOPTION DAY is November 15th!!  2 adoptions in the same year....I just can't get over it.  And with this guy, it's been a long time coming.  Even though I've attempted a few unsanctioned blog pics of him, there's so many more you need to see!  Just wait.

Enough puke talk.



Happy Birthday to Nana!!  They came to town and we had a little party with Grandpa and Uncle Kenny.  That same night we had a huge storm and most of the town lost power for about 14 hours.  FOURTEEN HOURS.

The next morning we woke up to this.



Did I mention it was a huge storm?  Almost everybody had trees and branches down and spent Sunday trying to get dressed in the dark and digging out the chain saws after church.

I served lunch and dinner at Grandma's.  They are gone for the whole winter and had ALL THE POWER!  So we used it up and didn't open our fridge or freezer. 

We also have some roof damage on our rent house to deal with.  Blah....



Our whole family went to ET's Heaven Or Hell drama.  I love this show!!
It's so powerful and Mallory and Zeke both re-dedicated their lives to Christ that night.  So precious.  I love that this church puts this on every year and offers it to the community for free.

Saturday Meg is hosting the family costume party.  This is our 3rd year.  She makes it so fun with prizes and games and food.  The challenge is to come up with a costume without spending more than $5.  Tricky!!  So we borrow, use coupons at the thrift store, look for sales, and rummage the house to make it work.  I love the creativity my kids have with this.

Today I decided to pull out the costume boxes from the attic and get to work.  It also seemed like a good idea to start pulling winter clothes.  This was only a good idea in theory.   It fell short in the practical application.  Not only did we have dress up paraphernalia all over the place, but winter clothes of all sizes too.  Big big mess.



But here's a sneak peak at the cuteness.  Spiderman costume I borrowed from another foster mom.
I think he's a way better Spiderman than Peter Parker.



Spiderman Bennett got a new big boy bed and he's doing great with it.  When I tucked him in last night he said, "Mom, Eat me up you love me so. "  YES.  Yes, I do.

My New War Room

Have you seen the War Room movie?  I absolutely love it.  I am a big Priscilla Shirer fan anyway and the older lady reminds me of my friend Shelley.  I love the story, the ideas, the characters, and OH MY Priscilla's clothes ya'll!!

But no way can I empty a closet for a war room.  I don't even have my own closet.
And if I did, I know I couldn't line it with papers everywhere because that would just look ugly and I know I would avoid it.

A couple of years ago I went to a Priscilla Shirer/Anthony Evans conference with my friends.  Anthony mentioned that because he traveled a lot, his "war room" was in a folder.   It wasn't the theme of his message, but I remembered it.

This week I have started my own war room folder.  I've been adding prayers and Scripture in there by themes.  It's super simple...notebook paper and a green folder.   I'm not even using fancy pens or washi tape.  Yet.

I tuck it right beside my bed and it's convenient and easy to pull out and review before I fall asleep.  After a long day in the trenches of mommy-ing, wife-ing, and managing life, I can no longer think well enough to fashion any prayers of my own.  So having these already written out has been awesome and easy to read over and meditate on as I'm falling asleep.

On A Wednesday

It's kinda my favorite day of the week.  Except Friday...because that's house cleaning day and I absolutely love a clean house.  It's my love language.

But Wednesday is library day and I love that too.  Last week BlueEyes and QBall were terrible during story time so they will stay home this week.  That means just Bennett as far as toddlers and let me just say that one toddler is easier than 3.

It also means I might have time for Olivia to teach me how to do DHS travel.  For 2 1/2 years now I have not had to do my own travel.  The DHS travel lady took pity on me and did it all every time.  None of my foster mom friends like her and claim she's hard to deal with.  But as for me....I think she's awesome.  And I've always felt like the Golden One when everyone else would complain about travel.  But now Travel Lady is too busy and asked if there was any way I could do it myself.  My Golden Age is over.

It's also BlueEyes' therapy day.  I drop him off and Mike picks him up on the way home from work.  I'm using it as an errand day since I'm in town.  Today's errand is just Aldi.

Bennett also has therapy today but his therapist comes to our house.  He loves therapy!  And it is incentive to keep the house clean on Wednesday.

The weather is chilly this morning and I'm a weather wimp and so no walking.  But my friend gave us her elliptical machine and I hope to have some time to try it out.  Yay for a new toy!! But chilly weather also means impending clothes exchange.  I can't put it off much longer.  That means I may have to sacrifice playing with my new toy this afternoon.

We only have 2 days of school this week because of Jesse's bday.  (More on that later) (I hope) (I'm a terribly unfaithful blogger) Some of my kids are already finished for the week and that's super nice.

We are having trouble with our iTunes account and as of now my phone is completely shutting me out.  We have reset the password multiple times and talked to customer service.  My man is getting quite fed up with it. 

It's baking day.  Bread and pizza.  And my little boys will like having a little dough ball to play with on the table.  It's also an easy dinner to make ahead of time and have before church.  I'm wanting my kids to work on this.  I've been terrible at working on their cooking skills lately.

Church night!!  I do love the Wednesdays.

It's A Boy!

When we started fostering, we felt we knew what we could handle and it was ONE.  One child.  One day at a time.  We were licensed for one and that spot was filled within 5 minutes of opening.  But DHS has a way of working around your ideas.

A few weeks later we got a call for another baby.  Just for the weekend.  They would get us a waiver, they said.  And Strawberry Princess entered our home and blessed us for 13 days.

It wasn't long before another call came.  For a newborn.  And really, BlueEyes was keeping us hopping and plenty busy.  But a newborn?? SWOON!!!  I do love itty bitties.  Mike said that he wouldn't be as much work as BlueEyes except for the nights and I believed him. I didn't need much convincing.

Enter this guy!


All six pounds and 15 ounces of perfection.

He was the easiest baby..... a good eater, good sleeper, no tummy troubles, and rarely cried.
He was snuggly and precious in every single way.

But as is the way with foster care, you fall in love only to be heart broken.  His young momma was doing her best to get her kids back and we jumped on board to help her.  Within a few months she had completed her case plan and Little Man went to live in his new home.

Those were some HARD days.  I had the privilege of working with his momma and developing a relationship with her.  We missed our Little Man and I desperately wanted the best for him and that meant the best for his mom too.  I was so proud of her good work and determination to get her kids back.  I wanted to help in any way that would be helpful.  I babysat him every weekend I could.  I bought him new clothes and diapers and filled her fridge with food.  I stopped by when I was in town to kiss his little face and see his smile.


But after awhile the doors closed.  Without sharing the details of his first family, I'll just say there were lots of struggles and challenges and we didn't see Little Man for several weeks.

I kept his blanket at home.  And diapers.  And baby toys.  And all the things.  But one day when I was cleaning I saw his blanket and thought, "It's done.  It's over.  And it's likely we won't see him again."  So I cried and prayed and just turned him over to God.  Because what else could I do?

I was cooking dinner that same night when the phone rang.  It was one of his family members telling me Little Man had been picked up again.   I still remember the heart racing feeling and the shaky hands!
I called every DHS number I knew to try to find him and to secure placement after hours. 

Christian was already in town on his way home and immediately went to get him.


I just love this picture. A selfie he sent home to let us know he got him and all was good. 
February 22, 2016.  He was back.  And would never go anywhere again.

A year and a half later and lots of court cases behind us we were finally able to secure his future forever in our family.

September 28, 2017 his name was changed to Bennett Seth and he became a Taggart forever.
Bennett is a derivative of his first name and means Blessing. 
Seth means Appointed or Placed.
Bennett Seth - a blessing placed in our family



Best.  Day.  Ever.  Our friends packed out the court house and showered us with LOVE.  I will never forget it ever.

And Bennett makes TEN

We had a big party to celebrate and took lots of fun pictures. 

I think it was a fun day for him too even though he didn't have any idea what was happening!



Me and my son.

A couple of people have asked me if I feel any different since the adoption.  Does it seem more real?
And no, not really.  He's been with us most of his life and doesn't remember a day that I was not his mom.  But there is a difference in the fact that it's final.  It's forever.  I don't have to log his allergy meds or get permission to take him on vacation.  There's no fear of something changing and him leaving again.  He's here.  He's ours.  It's forever.