Figuring it out

Our life was different, VERY different. We went from being a couple with no kids, to a family of 4 with an 8 year old and a 6 year old. I am pretty sure I didn't sleep the first night they were in our home. I was filled with excitement, and slight disbelief that I wasn't actually dreaming. I had waited SO long to be a mother. I had had so many professionals tell me it wasn't a possibility and had spent many sleepless nights longing for an answer. This night was not too different. I spent most of the night awake checking on them, praying for an answer on how to function with them in my home and to give me the strength to be who they needed me to be.

Tuesday morning came and I had a list of things that needed to be done. I had to register the girls for school, go shopping for underwear and supplies (we were planning for a baby, not two children) and to get appointments made with the pediatrician. The girls stayed quietly in their room waiting for me to come out and start the day. While doing hair and getting ready, my RISE worker Shauni called and her first question was "so, do you have two little girls in your home this morning?!" I laughed and told her I did and filled her in on my plan for the day. We set up a time for her to come later in the week and I told her I would let her know as soon as I heard from a case manager.

We went down to the school, got them registered and were told they could start the next day. We left from there and went to Target and Walmart to get the things we needed to get them ready. I received a phone call later that day from Tamara, their DCS case manager asking to speak with Hilary. She was wanting to know her relationship with her dad Greg who lived in California, the last time she saw him and how she would feel about living with him. Hilary gave her answers and then said something about not wanting to live with Bridget. When she hung up the phone I asked who Bridget was. She told me she was her mom's friend that they used to live with and she was mean! We moved on from the conversation and began to go through clothes that I had collected before knowing what kids we would be caring for. The girls had a blast putting on a fashion show for me and I was starting to see the real them emerge from the fearful them.

The girls started school and a couple weeks later I received a phone call from the new "long term" case manager Nicole Valenzuela. She said she needed to schedule a time to come out to my home and meet the girls. She then told me that she was glad the girls were in school but to not get too comfortable because they were still investigating other options to reunite the 4 kids together. She said she would talk with me more about it when she came out to visit. My heart sank as I started to feel like I was going to lose these two sweet girls already! Nicole came to my home a few days later and began to clue me in a little more on the situation. She said the case was further along than I knew and they were trying to find a more permanent placement for all 4 kids to be together. I looked at her and asked why the siblings couldn't just join the girls in my home. Nicole stared at me for what felt like minutes and said "well, nobody ever asks that...are you serious?" That was a shock to me because the first priority for me would be to keep the kids together, no matter how uncomfortable the situation may feel to me as an adult. I told her I was serious and would love for them to come here, and she assured me she would look into it. She told me to contact my licensing agency and see if there was anything I would have to do for my license to make that happen. As a new foster family, we were only licensed to take in 2 kids at a time, but I knew the only exceptions that were made were for sibling groups and kinship (if the placement was someone you knew).

That afternoon I got on the phone with Shauni and told her what was going on. She said she would connect with Nicole and get the details but would start working on the amendment if it was something DCS was willing to do. Now for the problem...we only had one vehicle and it only held 5 passengers...in order to take in the other two kids we had to have a vehicle that would hold every person in the home. CAR SHOPPING!!!! Jimmy works at Whitton as their fleet manager so he was able to call up one of his contacts at the GMC dealership and work out something that we could do to solve our problem. On September 10th we traded in our Equinox and drove home in our Acadia! The next day our amendment was submitted and it was time to wait!

In the waiting process, I was able to get more details about the kids and their situation. I learned that they had officially been in the care of the state since May of that year due to domestic violence and substance abuse by mother and the two younger siblings' father. They were placed in an in-home family preservation plan and were allowed to live with their maternal grandmother. Rules were set in place and their mother was allowed to live with them, but was under NO circumstances allowed to be left unsupervised with them. At some point between May and August, they were at home swimming with mom and their younger sister Hayden fell into the pool and nearly drowned. When the police were called, mom was the only adult at home. This immediately alerted DCS and after investigation was completed, the children were pulled and placed into out of home care. They were unable to find a placement for them together so the girls came to me, the sister went to a family in Casa Grande and Christopher (their 8 month old brother) went to a family in Glendale. My heart broke for these kids as the comment from Hilary about only staying for two weeks was becoming more of a joke to me than it had when I first heard it.

Time went on and we were working through some emotions with the girls, helping them adjust to our home and our rules. We finally got our amendment back at the beginning of October and started the process to get the correct approval from the judge to move the siblings. I got a visit from the GAL (Guardian ad Litem) social worker who needed to see the kids before court. She asked me a few questions about how the girls were doing and then asked a loaded question. She said "Now, are you and your husband willing to adopt these girls?" WHAT?! I was taken back, I had only known these girls for 6 weeks, they were just starting to really remember my name, Jimmy's name and where the bathroom was in our house! And already I was having to decide if I was willing to keep them FOREVER!? I smiled and disbelievingly said, "well, if that is where the case is headed then, yes" She typed for a minute on her computer, talked to each of the girls alone, took a picture of them and left. I quickly emailed the GAL, LaurieAnn Perla, and told her how taken back I was by the visit. She called me the next day after court and apologized for not briefing me beforehand about the progress of the case. She reiterated that it was further along than anyone understood and mom had been involved with DCS a few times before for the same type of charges. She said that this case WAS moving to severance and adoption, it was just a matter of how we were going to get there. She said that as long as we were willing to stick it out, we would be first on the list. She informed me that the grandmother had been blacklisted and would NEVER be considered as a permanent placement. She explained that when DCS gives you a chance and you mess it up like she did, you do NOT get another one. She said she had heard we were willing to take in the siblings and couldn't be happier about that reunification! She assured me that she would keep me in the loop and be the first to talk to me about any changes that were coming before I got broadsided with loaded questions again!

October was half way over and I was making preparations for Halloween. Not knowing if the other kids would be here or not, I was putting it off as long as I could. On October 15th, I got a call from Nicole saying approval had been given to move Christopher and Hayden to our home but she needed to check with the other foster families to see what day worked for both of them to pick the kids up. In my mind I thought, JUST GO GET THEM!!! DON'T GIVE THEM A CHOICE! But I quickly calmed down and realized that I would appreciate the heads up if the roles had been reversed. She called me back later that day to let me know she would be picking both kids up the morning of October 21st and be bringing them to my home. We had talked with the girls about the possibility and told them that we knew FOR SURE now that they were coming to live with us, but were keeping the actual date a surprise!

The life changers

Alot has happened in my life, in our lives and I don't even feel like I am the same person I was when I was blogging before.

In 2013 we were told that the chance of ever having a biological family was slim to none. Almost that would take a miracle for it to happen at all. It was a hard pill to swallow but we knew that Heavenly Father must have another plan for us because we both knew in our hearts that there were children out there that were meant to be ours. After taking some time to look at all of our options, we kept an open mind to adoption and the possibility of a donor of some sort. All processes were so intimidating as they were all so time consuming and costly!! In the fall of 2013, my sister in law took in a 9 year old foster girl and opened our eyes to a whole world we knew so little about. Watching her work through all of the struggles and new aspects of life as a foster parent, we decided it was something we should look into. We met with the intake coordinator at RISE family services in April of 2014 and started the process to become foster parents in May of 2014.

We worked hard over the summer to prepare our home and our hearts for the adventure ahead. We had many discussions as to what we were open to and what we thought we could handle. We decided that we were willing to take a child from 0-8 years old, boy or girl and we were open to taking in a sibling group. We completed our training classes and were officially licensed as a foster family on August 22nd 2014. The weekend was the longest weekend of our lives as we waited to be placed on the "open beds list" Monday morning.

Monday, August 25th, rolled around and I left for work early in the morning anxious for 8am to roll around when my phone would start ringing! At 8:30 am I received the first phone call. Unfortunately I missed the call and had to call them back. The woman on the other end told me she had a sibling group of 4 that needed placement, however the 9 month old and the 2 year old had already been placed. My heart sank as I realized that I was too late. She told me she still had the older sisters to place, an 8 year old girl and a 6 year old girl. The thought of it intimidated me to no description. But, with the training I had received I knew that just because I said I was willing didn't mean that DCS would choose me to take the girls. I hesitantly told her we would be willing and she told me to keep my phone close and wait for another call. At 10:30 that morning I received the second call, we had been placed with the two sisters and I would receive another call from the case manager to set up a drop off time. My heart dropped as a realized that in less than 24 hours I was going to have 2 little girls in my care. I called Jimmy with apprehension and excitement to tell him the news. He immediately started to cry, nerves, excitement and anxiety filled the air. We knew we were ready for this but were so nervous at the same time.

All day long I waited for my phone to ring to tell me to leave work, but no call came. I got home and made sure everything was ready, although was losing hope that they were coming. I contacted my RISE agent and she told me that if I didn't hear anything by the end of the night to let her know and she would place us on the list again on Tuesday. The high I had been feeling was slowly fading as I was realizing it may have been too good to be true. We went on with our night as normal and had some friends over to eat dinner and swim. At 8:00 pm, while in the pool, my phone rang! I answered in slight disbelief, but was excited to hear on the other end that the girls were in the car and on their way! The transport agent told me their names, Hilary and Haylee, and told me they were tired and hungry. Again, the pounding of my heart began as I quickly gathered my thoughts and decided what to do next. Our friends were filled with joy for us and told us to let them know what happened as they gathered their kids and left.

About an hour later, another call came in, letting us know they were still on their way but Haylee was complaining of itchy legs. The transport agent wanted to make sure we had some sort of cream or benadryl to help with that. My first clue that I wasn't as prepared as I thought I was! We quickly ran to the corner to grab some supplies and pulled back into the driveway just in time. A small white sedan pulled up to the front of our house and an older woman stepped out of the drivers seat. Next, the back door opens and a cute, small blonde girl steps out looking worried and apprehensive about coming up to us. Her sister slowly followed behind her, dark hair, missing front teeth. Her eyes were moving quickly as she took in the scene and spotted us, waiting with a smile near the front door. Immediately my heart leaped, an automatic love for these two sweet girls was emerging from inside of me. I held my stance and waited for them approach me. We offered to help them with their stuff but they carefully and kindly denied. They followed Jimmy into the house as he offered to show them where they would be staying. I stayed behind a little to get the necessary information form their transporter and sign the necessary paperwork. I could hear them laughing inside as they toured our home. My heart swelled with an overwhelming love for them and my sweet husband as I listened to their laughter. Information was exchanged and the transporter left, leaving us alone with these two helpless little girls.

The first words out of Hilary's mouth were "I only packed enough clothes for two weeks, because I am only staying here for 2 weeks! Then I am going home to my grandma's house."  I smiled and told her that was great and asked if she would like me to help her unpack. She accepted and asked if she could have something to eat. I asked them what they would like to eat and Haylee excitedly answered that she would like "BASKETTI AND MUSHROOMS!!" an odd request from a 6 year old, but I gladly obliged. While I cooked up some quick dinner, the girls bathed and came out to eat. I had taken the next day off of work and played the rest of the night off mellow. The girls finished their dinner and fell asleep watching a movie together in their bedroom. As I turned off their TV and tucked them in, I smiled, knowing my life had forever changed because of those sweet girls.

Our Weekend!

No matter how many times I say I am going to get better at this blogging thing, I never do! Here we are again almost a year since my last post!! I just wanted to do a little update since I am sitting here on a Sunday afternoon at the hospital...makes a person think and reflect on life.
Yesterday morning I woke up to a text message from my mother in law with this picture and caption:

Guess where dad is!

Now if you know my father in law, you know that he is 60 years old and has NEVER been a patient in a hospital except for the day he was born. No stitches. No broken bones. No major diseases. Knowing this information I was half in shock, half in disbelief looking at this picture. A few weeks ago, he was working in the yard and was almost taken to the ER by my oldest brother in law for heat exhaustion...close to a stroke. This came to my mind instantaneously and I just felt like that must have been what happened. I immediately sent her a text asking what was wrong. She called me and did not sound panicked or worried. She told me that Dad had been up all night with abdominal pain, he woke up at about 6 saying it was too much and that he was leaving for the hospital. They headed to the hospital and got right in to a triage room. From there they took him in for a catscan to see what was going on and said they would have the results within a few hours. She asked me if I had heard of Diverticulitis. I had heard of it but was not familiar with what it did or impacted. She said it causes "air pockets" in the large intestine and when they burst it can lead to infection and surgery. They were both familiar with this because Jay's mother dealt with it for many years before she died. The doctors had told them that they suspected that to be the problem. Jimmy and I headed to the hospital to be with them and hear the updates. As we arrived the surgeon was in the room explaining what was going to happen from there. He said they did not think surgery was necessary but would like to keep him in the hospital to be monitored and fed antibiotics in hopes of killing the bacteria and letting the pocket heal itself.

So today is Sunday and here we sit on the third floor of the hospital while my father in law lays in a bed in pain. I asked if he was feeling better or getting worse and was told that he was not getting better and the doctor felt it was getting worse...this means surgery could be in the picture. My mother in law joked that she needed me here because I was the one with the guts to go tell the nurse to get him pain meds because he was in pain.

The best part of this hospital adventure is that my father in law is a crack up when doped up on pain medication. He told us last night that he was "sick of this gown" and to give him his shorts! He immediately slipped them on and told Jimmy to get the silly gown off of him so he could put a real shirt on. The CNA helped him get it off his IV and helped him sit up to get his shirt on...again if you know Jay Tenney you know that this was not just ANY shirt and shorts....you guessed it MOSSY OAK CAMO!!!! He even took Jimmy's hat to make his outfit complete! haha.

No matter how many times I visit a friend or family member who is in the hospital for anything other than having a baby, it never gets easier!!!! Poor Jay! Hope you feel better soon!!!!

Pumpkin Time!

Every year my family gets together to carve pumpkins for family night, the Monday before Halloween. This year it was a little hard with Halloween being on a Sunday to judge whether our pumpkins would make it or not.

We met at my sister's house at 6 o'clock for pizza and then started in on the pumpkins. We each had our own pumpkin and had the chance to be creative. As I said in my last post, I am not creative, so I used a stencil :PNot too shabby eh??? Jimmy's is on the left, mine is on the right.

(this is what happens when you have a 52 year old take a picture on a digital camera at night lol)
Us with our lovely pumpkins.

Just as we thought, by Wednesday night our pumpkins were looking rather sad.


On Thursday night we decided to make new ones after work.

I love that my house has a PERFECT spot to show off our pumpkins!!


This time Jimmy did an owl sitting on a tree...
And I did a Skeleton and a cat looking out...unfortunately when you leave the husband in charge of the camera you don't always get the pictures you want, like an upclose one of HIS pumpkin...but not yours :)

HaPpY HaLlOwEeN!!!!!

Anyone who knows me, knows that I stopped dressing up for Halloween in the 7th grade...I was TOO cool for that childishness!

Well last year I decided to make a small effort and threw on some scrubs and called myself a nurse...Jimmy threw on his "trust me i'm a jedi" shirt and carried around a light saber. Lola was the most dressed up in her little witch costume that she hated!

Even if I outgrew hallowee, I always thought it was so cute when couples dressed up together. I always looked forward to the day I could dress up with my husband and kids. Last year I blew it! So this year I decided I wanted to do something FUN.

In early September I decided on what our costumes would be. I told Jimmy and he was all for it. As time went on, I was a little worried that it wasn't gonna happen. With expenses from our family reunion and bills, it wasn't seeming possible to spend the extra money on costumes that we would wear once! With some patience and answered prayers, we were able to come up with the money and get the materials to make our costumes. I was a little nervous as I started cutting the material. I am not a crafty person and I do not ever sew! This was an endeavor like non other! It was two days before we needed the costumes for our Halloween party which meant no room for mistakes! I started cutting, sewing, gluing and measuring. To my surprise Jimmy's turned out AWESOME!

It looked just like the real thing! Now it was time to tackle mine, a little more complicated...I was stressing.

With patience and diligence to not give up, they came together just perfect!



We were told many times at each party we attended that if their was a costume contest, we would have won for sure! We even had complete strangers asking to take our picture at my mom's halloween party!!

I told Jimmy that I may have just set myself up for failure because now more is expected of us next year! How in the world am I going to outdo these costumes?! I am not that talented!!!!

I guess you will just have to see! (and yes, that is ALL my hair + a can of orange halloween hair spray. And YES we got told many times that all we needed was a little Pebbles or Bam-Bam...I assure you we are working on it :P)

Happy Happy Birthday Father Dear...

Tomorrow is my dad's birthday!!! He will be 52 years old! Every year when his birthday comes around it gets me to thinking about how lucky I am to have him. 12 years ago, we didn't know if he would GET another birthday.

(I LOVE this picture...Look how adoring he looks at her!)

My dad and brother had just come back from a trip to Idaho to pick up my brother's birthday truck from my grandpa and bring it back home. They had not been home a week and our world stopped. It was Wednesday morning, I was in 5th grade, everyone was doing their thing to get ready for the day. Everything seemed normal, my parents were gone(they left first), Kindra was up getting ready for school. Jeremy had already left for his A-hour class. Courtney was in our room getting ready and I was in the kitchen making my lunch. Nothing felt out of place, nothing seemed wrong, this was our routine. As I was leaving the kitchen, the phone rang...it was my aunt. As soon as I answered the phone, I KNEW something was wrong. My aunt skipped the small talk that normally happened between us and with a shaky voice she asked to talk to Kindra. A little confused, I gave her the phone and stood close by to hear what was going on. I don't know exactly what my aunt said but looking at Kindra's face, I knew it wasn't good. She calmly called Courtney and I into the room and told us to hurry and get ready, Aunt Roni was on the way and we were going to pick up Jeremy. I was SO confused...I was supposed to be going to school! Why were we going somewhere so soon before school.

A few minutes later our aunt arrived, gave us each a long hug, and told us to get in the car. Her face was sad and worried. It wasn't until then that I put it together that something was wrong with mom and/or dad. We stopped by the high school and picked up Jeremy. Being the only one not at home he was the most confused. My aunt was staying quiet and wouldn't say anything about what was going on or what had happened. The only thing she told us is that we had to meet my mom at the hospital. My 10 year old heart sank as all the possibilities ran through my mind.

We arrived at the hospital emergency room as my mom was walking through the doors to meet us. I ran over to her and gave her a hug. With tears in her eyes she hugged us all and told us to follow her. When we got to the waiting room of the surgery unit of the hospital she filled us in on what happened. Her story went something like this:

It was about 4 in the morning and I was being woken up by dad wrestling around in bed. I asked him what was wrong. All he could say was there was a pain. He was holding his left arm and told me not to worry, it would go away. I rolled over and tried to sleep. About fifteen minutes later it happened again. He now told me that the pain was going down his left side and through his chest. I told him we should go to the hospital and check it out, it could be serious. He told me he wasn't going anywhere, we don't medical insurance and we can't afford to go to the hospital for nothing. We argued for a few minutes and finally decided to let it go and see if it was still there when he woke up for the day. At 4:45 the pain was back, a little worse this time. I got out of bed and told him to GET UP! We were going to the hospital and that was that! We headed to the Emergency Room of the nearby hospital and were taken right back. They hooked dad up to some machines and looked at his heart. They told us that we were smart to come in and if we would have waited 10 more minutes he may not have made it to the hospital at all. They said that dad had had 3 minor heart attacks at home and one major while they were watching his heart at the hospital. They said they were going to need to get him into surgery as soon as possible to stop what was happening.

My heart stopped because in my little child mind, my dad was dying! The last person I had seen in the hospital was my 80 year old great grandmother and she had to go through so much therapy and rehab to get out of the hospital. My dad had JUST turned 40, he didn't drink or smoke! My little innocent mind had no idea what was going on and was full of questions. My mom patiently answered all of them as we waited for the doctor to come out and update us.

I don't know how long we sat there before the doctor came out but it seemed like hours. He walked through the doors with papers in his hand. He didn't look like he had bad news, but not good news either. He called my mom over and explained what was going on. He could see the worried looks on us four kids' faces and so he explained it loud and in plain terms. He said that my dad's heart was hurting and that they were getting it fixed. He had pictures of what my dad's heart looked like before and after the surgery. He said there was a blockage in one of his arteries and he pointed to it on the picture so we could see it. He said that they were able to get a balloon up to his heart and blow it up with air to help keep the artery open. He told us that our dad was very weak and needed some rest but we would get to see him soon. We all sat down while my mom made all the necessary phone calls to family members and friends to update them. As soon as she was done we could see the doctor pushing my dad on a bed out of the doors. My heart started beating really fast as I looked at my dad all tangled up in wires and cords with machines beeping and buzzing next to him. He looked tired and sad. He was to high up for me to hug him but he grabbed my hand and told me he loved me. I immediately started bawling as they wheeled him away down the hall. The doctor stayed behind to tell us what we were to do next. He said he was taking him to the ICU where he would be watched for a couple days until everything was stable without the machines. He said that in the ICU there was a limit on how many people could go in at a time and how long they could be in there. We took turns going in the room and watching my dad. He slept alot and there was always a nurse checking the machines and his vitals.

He was in the ICU for 6 days. Us kids visited him everyday after school. It never got any easier for me to see him with all of the cords around him, looking so weak. He was my dad, my superhero! Why did it have to be HIM laying on that bed so helpless?! Everytime we left the hospital I cried the whole way home, not knowing what was gonna happen, thinking that I may not get to see my dad again.

After the week in the ICU they moved my dad upstairs into a room. I liked this a whole lot better, we could all be in there and there weren't so many machines and cords. My dad was awake more and was actually back to his sarcastic self. We joked with him that we didn't recognize him because his hands were so clean and his face was getting so hairy. He wasn't able to shave because of the blood thinners they had him on to help his heart pump the blood. He was in a room for 4 days before they let him go home. He was told to watch his diet and get lots of rest. He was not to go back to work until he had medical release. Getting home was a hard transition for all of us. We were a family who ate red meat ALOT and we drank whole milk. When we got home...that all changed. We started eating egg PROduct, 1% milk(aka white water) and turkey meat in everything. My mom's feelings got hurt alot because us kids got a little mean sometimes when she tried to feed us "fake food" as we called it.

My dad faced death and walked away from it! He has gone to the cardiologist once a year since 1998 and everytime they tell him he is doing great. Being my dad and having the dry sense of humor that he does have, he always jokes that he could die any day, he escaped it once but doesn't think he will get away with it again. I love my dad! Now that I am growing up I am realizing that he is a human. He may not be a "superhero" to the world but he is MY SUPERHERO! He is the kind of dad I want Jimmy to be for my kids. He makes mistakes and learns from them. He has taught me many things and has always been there for me. He is always willing to go the extra mile to help someone in need. He has always said "my dad is the nicest person in the world...he may live by the motto of 'people are no damn good' but he would give the shirt off his back to a stranger on the street". I am proud to say so would my dad!!!

I thank my Heavenly Father EVERYDAY for letting me keep my dad, for letting me have my dad at the temple with me on my wedding day and for letting me dance with my dad at my wedding to hear him say "geez, there must be something wrong with me...everytime I dance with a girl she cries!".


I love my dad so so much and don't know where I would be without him. Happy Birthday Dad!!!!

So Happy Together

I have made it my new goal to post a new blog at least every other day. I do not keep a journal(i know, shame shame shame!) so this is my journal :)

Sorry if you get bored with my posts, some will have pictures, some will just be days of contimplation...but just remember, you don't HAVE to read them...plus, this is how I remember things :)

So, my parents are taking a trip to Idaho to visit my dad's parents this weekend and they are taking pictures up there to show them what we have all been up to since we have seen them last. My mom asked me to get together just a few pictures for myself for her to take.

*Just for kicks let me clue you in to how long that has been. Here is the timeline: I was born in March of 1988, my family moved into our house in April of 1989, my grandparents came down here in August to help my mom out. They drove the 30 hours in a van with NO A/C! Needless to say, that was their first, and last, impression of AZ also their first time meeting me. Then in 1997(I was almost 9) we met them in Ogden, Utah to pick up the car they bought my oldest sister for her 16th birthday. A quick weekend trip. Then in 1999, I was about 11, we went up to Idaho to see them for two weeks. I am now 22 and have not seen them since that trip. My grandmother refuses to fly and my grandfather has such bad memories of the last time he drove to Arizona that he won't do it again.

HOW IN THE WORLD AM I SUPPOSED TO CAPTURE 11 YEARS INTO A "few pictures"?!

I figured I would just put together pictures since my wedding because I knew for sure that we had sent them those for Christmas. As I was going through my pictures I was getting sad...why in the world do I NEVER have my camera with me!? I had pictures of NOTHING. I decided to change that. When I got home from work one night last week I told Jimmy to put on a nice shirt and fix his hair so we could go to the park. He thought I was crazy but when I pulled the "we don't have any memories of things we do together" *pout pout pout* he stopped arguing :P

We went to Freestone Park in Gilbert with our dogs and took some pictures. By the time we got there it was a little dark so they are kinda fuzzy when you make them big but they are all I have.

So....meet my family:

Jimmy and I

My, I mean OUR, 2 year old Toy Poodle, Lola Marie 10-E...I found an old scrapbook at my mom's house that I made when I was in achievement days. It had a paper that I wrote in 1997. It was a letter to Santa and in it I had asked him to "please send me a little white dog, that would STAY little"! I laughed and said "see mom, dreams do come true, sometimes it just takes 11 YEARS!"

This is our newest addition, Duke Hunter 10-E(he is super cute even though he looks like a demon from the movies in this picture lol) our 5 month old Chocolate Lab. We figured now that we have a backyard, we needed a dog to protect it and Lola is the least protective...she will pretend to be tough until the "danger" is standing in front of her face, then she just surrenders and pees on herself. :P

Me and Duke. He is still learning the SIT, STAY thing. This was his first trip to the park and he did surprisingly well. I was very proud of him!

My boys! I am so lucky!

My little family! It is amazing sometimes how much dogs/puppies can be like children. I just wanna beat them up sometimes because they have such attitudes and they don't listen to me...yet if they were to get hurt or run away, I would be histerical!

Me and my girl! She looks like a creature from a scary movie, and I look like a blimp in this picture but I love her and she loves me! She is my cuddle bug of a lap dog. She knows when you are sad and she snuggles up on your lap! She is so freaklishly smart, it scares me sometimes lol.

Got me thinking....

So yesterday I was teaching my lesson to my CTR 6 class and the lesson was on talents.

I always thought I had a lot of talents. Always thought of myself as a pretty talented person. Why then was it so hard for me to come up with a talent that I could demonstrate for my class?!?


I first looked at the lesson on Saturday morning to see if there was anything I needed to go purchase or any extensive craft I needed to make. I created a talent card for each child with three talents that I had seen in them(swimming, riding a bike, sharing, singing, being reverent, saying prayers, etc.) They all seemed pretty easy, come on they are 6, how much can they really do alone anyway!? I then got to the part in my planning where it said to bring a talent of mine to teach, share or demonstrate. We looked around the house and instantly found something to take for Jimmy. He had made a candy dispenser in his wood shop class and we thought the kids would think that was pretty cool.

As I began thinking of something to take for me my mind went blank. I tried my hardest to think of talents that people have told me I have, NOTHING! My mind was literally blank. I could not think of one thing that I could take to show or share with my class. After hours and hours of thinking about it a decided I was going to cheat and make cupcakes and tell them that I was a good baker(even though I made it with a box recipe.)

I was starting to feel a little more relaxed, I would have hated to say "Well here is what Brother Tenney can do....Sister Tenney however can't do anything, moving on...."


Jimmy ended up getting sick on Sunday morning so I was on my own. The class was going good, they were excited to see what was in my "secret box" and they thought the candy dispenser was pretty cool. As they were going around the room sharing their talents and telling me how they could "use them wisely" as the servants in the parable of the talents did, I was starting to feel a little worse. How was it that a 6 year old could come up with more talents that they had and that they were learning on the spur of a moment but a 22 year old could not think of ONE thing in HOURS?!



When I got home from church I was still thinking about this, it really bothered me. I have done alot in my life but how much of it was me and how much of it was people I know. I don't mean this to be a pity me story just a moment of reflection. We are taught to use our talents wisely or it will be as though we never had them. Being a primary teacher for the first time, it is AMAZING to me how much I am learning and being reminded of by the sweet spirits that I get to spend two hours with once a week!

I want everyone to take some time and write down their talents, maybe you are like me and cannot think of them right away but as you think of them over the days or months, write them down! I know I will!

Looking Back...

So I just found my camera after moving from the condo to the house.

I decided to look through it and see what pictures were still on it.

Just to show you how long it has been since I have seen this camera, I decided to post a "getting ready for Halloween" post

This is what we were up to almost a year ago, in October:

My family waiting for dad to finish carving his pumpkin

The whole family being silly with their jack-o-lantern creations

Us in our costumes. I was a Nurse, Lola was a witch and Jimmy - a Jedi!

She did not like her costume very much, she actually would not move with it on lol

Oh how time flies, so much has happened in the last year and now it is time to get ready to do it all again! Happy Fall everyone!!!!

Spring is in the air!!!

Ain't it pretty?!

So we bought this fish tank with our tax refund in March. Jimmy really really REALLY wanted to get a saltwater tank with tons of "cool" fish. Like any good mother, I mean wife, would do I told him he could start small and once he proved that he could take care of the simple fish and not kill them off, we would talk about getting a bigger one. Well we met in the middle by getting a fresh water tank with Cichlids....if you are like me, you have no idea what those are!! Cichlids are carnivorous fish, they can be very aggressive and are very finiky about their Ph level and water temperature. We began by asking the petstore "fish specialist" which ones could live together(because they kill each other!) and which ones were the easiest to keep alive. She pointed us in the direction on Black Convicts and Oscars. She said to watch the bigger ones because they may start picking on the smaller ones and eventually kill them. Oh great!




We took our fish home and put them in the tank. 2 Albino Ocscars and 4 Black Convicts.

We noticed immediately the difference in sizes between the two breeds, and even within the 4 convicts. We also noticed the coloring on one of the convicts was a little different. It was more gray and less bright than the other three. We decided to just keep an eye on them and see what happened, this was a test right?

A few weeks went by and we noticed that two of the black convicts were staying to the top of the tank, each time they would move, they would get chased back to where they were. I knew right away they were being bullied and felt horrible. I also noticed that the Oscars were keeping to themselves and one of them was starting to get a messed up fin. We decided to move the tank out to the living room to show it off. Two days after moving it, the Oscars died. We went back to the pet store and asked the lady what we could have done. She said a lot of time the cause of death in Cichlids is nothing you can do, it is just stress. Moving them, being bullied, ICK, Ph inbalance, you know, fish stuff lol.

We decided to check our tank and treat it for ICK thinking that must be our problem. Still the two convicts stayed to the top as the other two(one of the bold black ones and the lighter more dull one) owned the place. With in weeks the two weaklings were gone too. Now I was starting to notice that "dull fish", that my sister in law so nicely named RaRa, was starting to form an orange cirle on the side of her body. "Great, once these are dead, I'm done!" is what I thought. If Jimmy couldn't keep these alive how was he gonna do saltwater fish?!

We then moved from our condo to the apartment and the apartment to the house. Both of us secretly hoping these two would just die already so we could start over. A few weeks after getting the tank set up at the house, I noticed that RaRa was being a little weird. She wouldn't really eat and she was hiding in the rock a lot more than usual. We also, by this time, purchased two crabs to help with the algae in the tank because they brutaly murded our placostamous. Not only was RaRa hiding but Fred(the name given also by my sister in law) would chase off the crab everytime he would crawl anywhere near the plant. We figured she was just sick and Fred knew it so he was just trying to be a gentlfish and let her die in peace.

About a week later, we had gone out for a little swim at about 8 at night. Walking by the tank I thought "wow, we need to clean that, it's looking pretty bad!" As we were coming back in Jimmy stopped to turn off the tank light as I continued down the hall. All of the sudden I hear "OH MY GOSH, BABE COME HERE!" I thought something horribel had happened or that our dog Lola had gotten into something so I rushed back down the hall. He was standing in front of the fish tank, mouth dropped open and finger pointing. I looked in the tank to try to understand his freak out thinking again, "yeah maybe you should clean it every once in while, then it wouldn't look like that!!!" Then I saw it! At least 300 tiny tiny TINY specks were swimming around our tank. "BABIES, she was protecting her eggs!"

All the events of the last week had finally made sense. She was hiding and not eating because she had just laid eggs inside the rock, Fred was attacking the crab as to keep him from eating the eggs and the other crab was stuck in the rock hiding because he was forced to stay in there.

Now what to do with 300 fish!? I started reading up on it and everything/everyone said to remove one of the adults, some said the male, some said the female. We took the one that was not guarding the babies. We put it in a smaller tank along with the isolated crab. We have been told it is hard to keep baby cichlids alive because sooner or later the parent(s) will eat them. So far it is has been 3 weeks and they are growing strong. As far as I can tell none of them have died or been eaten. Once they are big enough to eat pellets and not just flakes we will either try to sell them or take them back to the pet store. When fully grown, they can be up to 6" in length, my 35 gallon tank is NOWHERE near big enough for 300+ of them!

If you know of anybody who may be interested in purchasing some of them, or if you want them, please leave a comment and let me know :)

5 Things

While reading the blog of a friend that I have not seen in a while, I realized how utterly horrible I am at this whole blogging thing! I decided to steal one of her posts and use it for my own(of course I will use my own answers), she tagged someone which I will not do.

5 Things I was doing 5 years ago:

1. going on my first real date

2. working a part time job

3. starting my senior year in high school

4. shopping all the time!

5. counting down the days to graduation!

5 Things on my To Do List:

1. save money

2. find a cute way to decorate my "spare room"

3. exercise

4. put up the last of the shelves in our "den"

5. learn to cook/eat healthier

5 Things I would do with One Million Dollars:

1. buy a second vehicle

2. redo our second bathroom

3. pay off ALL debts

4. give some to my parents

5. have a quilt free shopping spree

5 Places I Have Lived:

1. In Jimmy and I's new home

2. my in-law's tiny apartment

3. in our first condo

4. at my mom and dad's

5. in my parent's first apartment ;)

Home Sweet Home....almost

We received the keys to our new home on May 21st 2010 and started working immediately!

There was much to do with the popcorn ceilings, bad paint jobs, smelly carpet, bad windows, old doors, inadequate closet space, and dungeon like bathroom!

Once we got out of our condo we were living in the apartment on the side of my in-law's house along with 4 couches, 2 beds, 2 long dressers and two kitchen tables....talk about cramped space! We worked diligently with SPACE as the goal!

Let me give you a tour of what we walked in to at the beginning of this exciting journey....

This was the front room, great first impression eh?

And this was the dining room, termite eaten wood put "talently" along the walls


The kitchen was next, not in horrible shape, but could use a face lift to bring it from the 50's to today :)

Then you would walk down the never ending WHITE hallway, making you feel like you were headed to some sort of insane insullum or something! It was in desperate need of some color!

Then if the hallway wasn't enough white for you, the first bedroom was WHITE as well. Set up perfect to do a two toned room, just not used to it's extent.

Right as we begin to think the previous owners didn't know how to paint or didn't ever complete a paint job, we come to the second bedroom....we like to call it the tiki room! Isn't it beautiful....I wanted to leave it this way forever!!!! hahahahaha YEAH RIGHT!

An average person would probably start to get scared and not want to move on through this house. I guess you can say Jimmy and I are not average ;). Across the hall you will find the master bedroom. It was in the best shape, just needed to become mine!

Now you are a little more familiar with what we walked into. A lot of work but we could see it's potential.

We have talked to a few different realtors that we know and each one said they had shown that house multiple times and could never get anyone to walk past the ORANGE room! Our realtor was one that said that and she was SO excited when we told her we liked the house and wanted to put an offer on it. She said she loved when she helped someone get into a fixer upper, its make the home become YOURS and not what someone else pictured for you. We have loved working on our house and making it our home. The work is almost done, which means more pictures to come :)