Sunday's with the Triplett's

We have stated a new tradition at our house. That is going to the beach for dinner Sunday afternoon. It has been a lot of fun we have been three times and each time has been a fantastic experience. So here are a few pics I took.

This was in our backyard just before we went to the beach.

Here are the kids in front of the light house.

Ponce Inlet is the place we go, many of you who have visited with us have been here. We even had a traveling bear visit us from a school called Dancing bear so we took her once ace well.

This is the park in DeLand but it was such a cute pic I had to add it here. lol

 One Sunday we flew kites it was so much fun it took a bit to get them up but once they were it was all good.

 Got all 4 up! We had brought 3 with us, when we got to the beach and started flying the kites a guy who was already flying a kite walked up to Josh and said here you can have this one I'm done with it. It's the dinosaur one on the far right. Way cool.

Ben got right into it!

 

Dad is always the one cleaning up after all the fun. Here Will is winding up the long tails of the kites.

Heidi had a fight with a evil vine on the beach and I'm not certain who won. she was so upset.

The end to a wonderful day. Daddy had to carry broken Heidi to the van.

This is a pic of the layers of the sand. We were digging and found that it was like tree rings for when the tied came in and out. Way cool.

I loved how the wind and the grass made such cool markings in the sand.

This time Jess and Brandon were able to come with us. We all had a great time. It was cold this time and so we did not go to the beach we just played at the park by the light house.

Our silly little band. 

I love doing things as a family but as they all grow it has gotten harder to find time where everyone is free, so Sunday dinner at the beach was born! I love my family more then anything in the world and yes the includes sparkles!!

Autumn makes a quilt

Every year the kids have to do something for their Social studies fair. This year it was Autumns turn after a lot of I don't know what to do she finally settled on making a quilt. She fits right in to the family with her ability to procrastinate! LOL I told her that if she waited too long it would not get done. she was like "oh it's not that hard to make a quilt..." ummm ok.

Well anyway she finally got around to doing it the last weekend before it was due. That's my girl!! Autumn had decided to do the quilt on the trail of tears. She choose this them because she and her sisters have Cherokee ancestry, Autumn's biological father was Cherokee so that is why she has such a beautiful tan. Autumn was excited about making the quilt and she had a lot of fun finding the pictures she was going to use.

I was able to get all of the fabric from my stash to make the quilt. I think I have a fabric hording problem but that is a post for another day! lol

here she is ironing the iron-on transfers. Her hands hurt afterwords with all the pressing.

 Here are close ups of the blocks after the ironing.

Now for the sewing of the blocks. She was timid at first but after a while she got into it and would go fast. She loved going fast. And like her mom pins were just things that get in the way and she did without. LOL

 Then came the dreaded unpicking. LOL Autumn did not like this part at all and she did a far amount of it when she was sewing the longer strips together. I lost my seam ripper and so had to use these scissors that are used to take out medical stitches. lol I got them from a military Dr. he opened a kit and did not use them and was going to toss them and said I could use them. I have used them a lot! I've had them over 15 years.

So she tried pinning them. She did this for a row or two but then went back to free handing them. She got the hang of it fast.

This next part was when she was trying out her markers and trying to find colors that would not bleed all over the place. she decided to go with a red and did bleed but then use a black down the middle of it. It looks very cool and so artsy.

Here it is all done. The only thing I did on the quilt was I cut most of the strips out. Cutting with the rotary cutter made her uncomfortable. I also did the binding but other then that Autumn did everything else.

We learned today that she won first place in the craft portion of the fair and that she is now going to go to the county fair. She was so excited.

Catching up!

I have been very bad about keep up my blog. So much has been going on and I have thought about updating but somehow the time just slips by. I even have things from the summer that I forgot to post about like Josh's 19th birthday! Happy birthday Josh!!!

 Ben is helping Josh eat his cake Such a great brother!!

This is going to be long so enjoy. First update is that of my new job as many of you already know I was fed up with my old job at Our Children First and the way they did things. I was extremely uncomfortable and felt that they were working on the edge of fraud.  The number one thing that I did not like about my job was the fact that we had to make Units this is a Medicaid system where we have to work for so many minuets and each of these groupings were called Units.

 

Here is the paper that I would calculate my units on. We were required to make 24 Units a day, does not sound too bad but the catch is we have to be working face to face or on the phone or doing research for that child. Only certain things could be done and if it was not in the service plan we could not count it. We were told we would have 20 cliants to make those units with but I was never given that many and so it was extreamily difficult to make my units. I would get calls almost daily telling me that I had better make those units or I would be fired. STRESS does not even come close to how I was feeling.

Happy day when I got my new job with Community Partnership with Children. I will be a case manager kinda what I was doing with the other company but I will be working with Foster Children and NO Units. Happy dance. We once I got the job I gave notice at the old place and prepared to move on I only had one more thing to do concerning my old job and that was to.

I burned every paper I had from that company I saved the unit page for last and I relished every moment of its demise!!

Next update. Ben had his 17th Birthday I can belive how much he has grown. We got him a computer game that he has been wanting. The girl's made his cake I think they did a fantastic job!!

The next big and I mean big update is the fact that after almost 5 years we were able to adopt the girl's. I still have trouble believing it is real and I'm just not in some dream.

 

This is the very first photo of our new and improved family. The man in the robe is the judge! LOL His name is Judge Marriott as fare as I know no relationship to the Mormon Marriott family. When he was going over the paper work he said now I have two choices to adopt or not to adopt...what should I do adopt, not adopt, adopt, not adopt. He was driving us crazy for a brief moment i thought he would actually choose not adopt my heart pounded. Finally he put his pen to that paper and stated "Your now adopted!" The next thing he said was "Girls have you ever seen anyone fired?" they all shook their heads as acted a little uncomfortable. he then said "Girl's do you see all of these people standing over here?" He pointed to all of the lawyers, case workers G.A.L's etc..." He was pointing at all of the people that had been running their lives for the past 5 years. He then said "You are all fired!" It was great! We then took photos and went out into the hall and took more photos. 

Here the girls are holding the documentation stating that they have been adopted!

From left to right Tiffany the adoption specialist. "she is an epic fail There were days I truly hatted her. But every good part has to have a little evil to make the good all that sweeter! Adrienne she has been the girl's case manager almost the entire time they have been in care. Then Hannah, Abby, Heidi down in the front, Autumn in the back. Sue the G.A.L (guardian ad litem) and on the end Carmon she is the GAL supervisor she was Adrienne's supervisor for years before that.

After the adoption we had two things that happened on the same day. Hannah's 11th birthday and the three oldest girl's getting baptized! It was a wonderful day all the way around. Hannah had her birthday party the day before and unfortunately not many photos were taken it was a little crazy. She had a number of friends over and they decorated cookies for the cake part of the party and played games and just had a fantastic time.

The morning of December18th we went down to the ward building for the baptism. They girl's were so excited they have been waiting for this day a very long time. Will pulled out the baptismal clothing he had worn with the older three and alas it had gotten a little small. must have shrunk in the wash!

We had a wonderful pot luck lunch afterwords there were a lot of people from the ward. Lost of good friends, family and food!!

 Heidi and a couple of her friends helped out with the cleanup. It's a special treat to be able to sit on the giant vacuum leaner while the room is being vacuumed! There is room for two or three on the monster!

Before we knew it Christmas was just around the corner and it got here. Heidi had a school play as did Hannah and Abby but unfortunately they were at two different schools the same night and the same time. I went to Heidi's and Josh, Ben and Autumn went to the other one.

 

The play was great, Sorry that the quality of it is so poor. Heidi is the one in the red dress. Little kids are a hoot! The photos did not turn out well at all.

Here is Abby and Hannah's play. Hannah is an elf and Abby is a reindeer.

 Abby is just behind Santa

 Abby and Hannah in this pic.

 Elf Hannah.

 Look at those greedy little glowing eyed children behind Elf Hannah just waiting to grab all those presents. LOL looks kinda creepy!!

Then it was time to get ready for Christmas. It was a little difficult for me this year due to having a new job and not being home like I have been every other year. The best thing that happened was that the kids all pitched in and made a lot of the goodies that have become a yearly tradition in the home.

Christmas day was amazing we had wanted to have a small Christmas but that was not to be. The girl's grandparents and Aunts and Uncles sent them a bunch of toys and so our nice reasonable Christmas was turned into a toy store explosion. 

We took these photos just after we got everything set out. Midnight Jess's cat is checking it all out to make certain that we got it all done right LOL so crazy! Next year I hope that it will be less, I know that the extended family of the girl's want them to know they are missed and loved but there is only so much room the house.

Well I have more pics and videos to post but they will have to wait for another day. Anyway that's it for now.