the weekend

so obviously attempting to blog again has not been succesful.

i feel like i have so much that i missed in the gaps of not blogging that it is stressing me out feeling like i need to go over everything. but i am just gonna ignore all of that that for now and tell you about our fun weekend.

on friday my sister gina and her kids sam (6) and lola (3) came for an impromptu visit from ontario!

here is lola and i reading together. we totally coordinated.

on saturday my sisters and i had a girls day.

posing it up

my bun and boots give me a height advantage over my sisters. amazon laura.

really i cant be trusted in picture posing

we went shopping and out for dinner - super good times.

but even more fun happened after dinner. we went over to my sister sara's beautiful house and played beauty shop. my favorite.

we had purchased a few makeup items we wanted to try out and sara wanted to try some new hairstyles on gina and i. 

 so girly and so much fun. 

i haven't laughed so hard in the longest time. i couldn't breathe at times. no sound came out while i was laughing.

it was that funny.

trying to take pictures of each other all glammed up was hilarious. we could not for the life of us keep a straight face but we both wanted pictures of how pretty our hair turned out.

sara you are a hair genius. i am so bad at doing hair that all i ever do is put it in a bun. 

i am the bun lady. 

so thank you sara for giving us pretty hair for our at home movie night, ha!

we pulled it together (barely) to snap these pictures as we lovingly gazed into each others eyes.
i had to think about sad puppies. gina was thinking about happy puppies.

my hair was so lovely. pictures never quite do justice. sara you need to come over every morning and do my hair.

gina you look so beautiful

but these photos down below will forever make me pee my pants.

 we were trying. so. hard.

i was trying so hard to not laugh.
gina we failed.
but you look good. i kind of look like an alien.
deal with it in your hearts.

oh mah gawd - gina we are nailing it.

 this makes me laugh hard - keep it together gina

where is sara you ask?

oh she took her make up off and forbid any pictures.

she is so glamorous she does not need photographic evidence of her beauty.

gina and i take these precious moments of glamor seriously.

where were the kids you ask?

they were having a "camp in" at gramas.

they went bath tub fishing with their toy fishing rods and hobo scarves

they each got a couch in the sun room for their first sleep over all together. my heart exploded.

first night together and grama got them matching jammies!

just hanging out together in the sun room. cousins for life.

so basically we had the best weekend ever!!

and then i got the flu.

awesome.

tyson

i am going to try to get through this post with out becoming too much of an emotional wreck.

uploading all of these pictures of tyson brought back so many memories.

this boy holds such a tender spot.

sometimes my go to reaction to deal with things is to push it all down and forget. try not to think about it too much. so this will probably be a good thing for me. to remember.

my blogging life just stopped when this busy boy entered our world.

i wish i had never stopped - there is just so much in life and when you don't take the time to write things down and take the pictures so much can get forgotten. blogging makes me more in the moment somehow. you think you will never forget it all but you can. so i am going to do my best to document our life via this blog again.

although i feel there is so much back tracking to do.

so today i feel the need to write about tyson. my throat has major lumps in it and i may or may not have teary eyes.

this boy. oh this boy. he gave me so much. so much good. so much challenge. so much frustration. so much laughter. so much stress. so much heart growing love.

looking back sometimes all of the hardship seems to fade away and the good has a way of standing out.

i won't sugar coat it though - tyson was a huge challenge for me. he was very active with no concept of fear or danger. he was very loud with an intense sometimes non stop cry. he had a very sensitive tummy so finding what foods would work for him without serious diaper issues was a constant problem. i could not let him out of my sight for two seconds. he could find trouble anywhere. our house proved very challenging with it being so small and limiting. it was pretty much a disaster 99.9% of the time.

on the other hand the boy had so much charm. he was funny. he had the worlds best giggle and babble. we called it "talkin ty". he had this certain way and it was hilarious!! sophia and i could mimic it pretty good. sophia loved him unconditionally. she never wanted to do anything with out him. she didn't want to miss a thing with him. she took her big sister role very seriously. he slept like a champ. he slept through the night from the second night we had him and had a solid two hour nap every day. the kid played hard and the kid slept hard.

tyson was 8.5 months when we received him and 15 months when he left.

he learned to walk with us at 10 months.  he said his first word with us. mama. to him i was his mama.

the first few weeks i had a reaction that i wasn't expecting to have. seeing sophia interact and be with tyson and getting to experience all the big sister moments made me incredibly sad. sad that she never got to experience it with her own sibling. knowing this wasn't a forever situation broke my heart for her and in a weird way made me angry. angry that life took that awesomeness away from her. it still makes me hurt thinking about it. i think it will just be a sensitive issue for me my whole life. i don't think there will ever be a time that it wont hurt. it is still very raw. i know i should look at it in a way of gratefulness that for 7 months she did get to experience being a big sis. just sometimes it is hard to be mature and look on the positive. sometimes you just want to pout.

now that sophia is in kindergarten and we are meeting lots of new people. people who don't know us or our background story. they have no idea of what we have gone through. that chris had two brain surgeries and intense radiation which took away our ability to have kids. that we had a foster son. they just see me as the mom with the one little girl. they don't know that i am jealous of their three crazy kids. yes kids drive you crazy and they are full on looney bins at times. but they are amazing and i would give anything to have my own crazy kids pulling on my jacket. the other day one of my new mom friends asked me if we were planning on having any more kids and i forgot she didn't know. i have been friends with her for a few months but i have never gone into our saga. she had no idea. she just thought i only wanted one. i feel like i need to wear a badge saying "yes i want more than one child and no we can not have any more and i am learning to be okay with that". it will probably take me my whole life to be okay with that.

fostering was wonderful and challenging all in one. i got to know his family. he had four older siblings who were all in care too. his mom was rough and full of issues you can't even really get your head around. despite all of it we connected. i could spend all day talking about the family and how i had a real tender spot for them but it is not mine to share and i will keep all of that private.

in the end tyson got to move in with his older siblings into one big house. the goal of the ministry is to keep siblings together which of course i am all for. tyson got to upgrade into a very large fancy house with his siblings. the foster mom who now cares for them stopped any contact with me. which is fine i get it. to her it is more of a business and i am just white noise to her. the last i heard he was doing well. he will most likely never be returned home with his parents.

i wish i could help more kids. there are so many kids out there going through things we can't even begin to fathom. it makes our problems seem like nothing and reminds you to be grateful. so that's what i am going to do. i am so thankful for my special, beautiful daughter and all that life has given me.

now for an onslaught of pictures of our foster son tyson

you can not help but smile when you see this sweet happy boy!!

we love you ty guy!

easter morning

in the summer looking dapper

mr blue eyes

always trying to escape!

fun day at the fair

love this photo - his smile just beamed!

playing in the play house

how can you resist this?

i mean does it get much cuter???

post nap cuddles

mr chubb chubb

melt my heart

i can't resist babies in overalls

my view all day long - oh how he just wanted me to hold him all day!

two second floor nap

at least ziplocs are easy to clean up!

a tuxedo - i mean the cuteness is over the top!!

such a peaceful sleeper