40 Days on Purpose Update

Well, like normal life and things got in the way. I let stress derail me a time or two or three. You get the point. I did lose 5 pounds which is great, but I know it would have been better if I didn't cave to my emotions so often. We've had a rough few weeks with Jackson and some serious behavior problems. I let food comfort me when I should let God. I get angry and upset about something and instead of always going to my workouts to release my tension I would have a drink or some Wing Stop or something like that.

I'm doing better, and making better choices. I still haven't gotten back on the workout train yet simply because I don't have time right now. Things should slow down and return to our normal schedules next week so my goal is to start back then.

I hope everyone had a happy Easter. We did. The kids had a great time with all the festivities. We had several very good church services during Holy Week that we participated in. Now I'm moving toward preparing for all of the activities that we have in the next few weeks like Jackson's graduation, Bella's ballet recital, Bella's visits to her cardiologist, end of the year events, surgery prep, and the list goes on.

Some Easter week pics :)

40 Days on Purpose

Today is my Day 1 on my Lent Wellness Plan. I've lost over 70 pounds the last year and a half, but I've been kind of coasting for a few months. I got comfortable and let a little indulgence here and there become a regular occurrence. I'm about halfway to my ultimate goal so I need to re-light that fire so to speak. So along with giving up some things for lent I will be giving up some more pounds and inches. I will return to my cleaner eating and daily exercise schedule. I will take some starting pictures tonight, and my goal is to update you all on my progress as the weeks pass. If any of you use My Fitness Pal, I invite you to add me. I'm Maddiesmom513. Also since I will be back cooking most days, I'll share some recipes that I love. I hope you all will join me during my "40 Days on Purpose"!

The Stranger Reappears

Hello to anyone that's still around. I see I failed at my goal for last year and let my blog go dormant. I'm sorry about that. I let what we all do happen. I let life, work, family, sleep, eating, exercise, and whatever else get in the way to checking in here on a regular basis. I hope to do better this year because this has been such a cathartic place for me over the years and I don't want nor do I need to let it go. Just because we have been blessed to give birth to a healthy baby and finally adopt our son doesn't mean that my journey is complete. It's far from complete. New challenges are before me. Sooner or later we will start trying to expand our nest. I'm not sure if that will be through foster/adoption or birth. We're still licensed and get calls fairly often about placements, but we're not ready to go there yet (if ever).

I'm about halfway in my weight loss journey. I would like to lose another 70-80 pounds this year. I got flat out lazy this holiday season and gained instead of at least maintaining, but it's nothing that I won't lose again. Arabella has finished her 1st semester in preschool, and loves it. It's wonderful to see how she has blossomed in just a few months. I'm so glad that we put her into a school instead of leaving her in daycare for another year. She's also taking ballet, tap, tumble once a week

Jackson is doing great in kindergarten. He's been on the Principal's List each 6 weeks. He's learning to read too. We're still trying to find a good medicine/therapy combo for his ADHD. Right now he's on target and focusing the 1st half of the day, but goes downhill after that. We've had a few problems with acting out, but as far as the aggression we saw last school year he's a different child. His teacher says he's one of the sweetest kids she has in class :) He played flag football this fall. I'm not even going to get into how much I disliked that event, and the main problem was the parents. So many people don't realize that it's just a game!

Jack will be having corrective surgery in the summer to lengthen his Achilles tendons since they are too short because of his years of toe walking. I'm not looking forward to him being operated on, but I am looking forward to him being able to walk normally and run without a problem.

My other goals for 2014 include being more involved at church and at the kids' schools, doing more fun activities with the kids as a family, take more time for me like actually reading a book beside a bedtime story, and work on our finances so we can hopefully move to a bigger home in 2015.

So I will do my best to come by at least once a week to update or complain or brag or something like that.

And last but not least some new pictures of my loves ♥ and one from Halloween too lol.

Take care everyone!

Finalization

We finally closed another chapter in our book of life on July 23, 2013. We finalized the adoption of our son who we had been fostering since September 10, 2008. After an almost 5 year battle, we are finally free to share with everyone that Fuzzy is an official, legal member of the Douglas Clan!

I am overjoyed to introduce everyone to Jackson Cole Douglas!

We had a great adoption judge. The kids loved her.

All the grandparents were able to attend. We even had Robert's grandmother there too which was wonderful. 

After we finished the formal stuff we took the kids to an indoor arcade/ fun park to continue the celebrations. Our attorney brought her nephews along, and Jackson made a new friend :)

A few days later we had a big birthday/adoption celebration for Jackson. I haven't uploaded those pics from my camera yet, but I will soon. So more pics coming soon!

1 Week!

This will be my mantra for the rest of the week. It's been such a long time coming that I just want the day to be here NOW!!!! I'm busy working on Fuzzy's birthday and adoption party. All of the pieces are slowly falling into place. I have the cake ordered. He's going to freak out when he see's it :) I have the caterer booked to make most of the food so that I don't drive myself nuts trying to do it all the night before. I'm still searching pinterest and the net for ideas for centerpieces, games, and little extras. I'm trying not to stress but that would be beyond me to not stress lol. Well, back to work for me. I'll update again soon :)

Guess who?

Guess who got lost or bogged down with life again? My husband mentioned that I hadn't posted in a while, and I realized that every time I planned to post something came up. So now I'm just stopping and taking a quick break to post. So what's happened since my last update? We celebrated Madison's 7th Angelversary or Angel Day. We wanted to do a random act of kindness in her memory so we went shopping for supplies that families staying at our local Ronald McDonald house would need. We took them 2 big baskets full of toothpaste, tooth brushes, shampoo, soap, paper plates and plastic utensils, stationary, envelopes, tape, etc. We had a nice visit and learned more about the house while we were there. It felt good to help someone in Madison's memory.

We also now have a date that we will finalize our adoption! On July 23 we will be able to walk away from this whole foster parent thing and just be a family with no strings attached. We were hoping to get things finalized before Fuzzy turned 5, but we will miss that date by 4 days. So this year we will celebrate his birthday on July 23!

Fuzzy finished his 1st year of school, and will be going to kindergarten in August. This summer we are trying hard to get his medical issues dealt with while he's out of school. He was diagnosed with ADHD this spring, and we were trying to get the right mix of medications so he will be able to calm down and focus better this year. Pre-K was a lot more lenient than kindergarten will be, and I want him to have a level playing field if at all possible. We're also dealing with some aggression issues with him that we have to get under control.

Miss Bella is doing great. We're in the process of getting her potty trained so she can attend a Pre-K3 program in September. But she is stubborn!!!!! In my opinion if you can tell me to clean up your poopy pants then you can get your butt on the potty to poop in it! She will pee all day in the potty, but nothing else. I'm trying to not let her know that she is stressing me the hell out!!!!

Let's see the latest with me is that I got off track and just plain lazy the last month, and haven't lost much. But I have my eating mojo back and I'm back on the healthy, clean eating bandwagon. Hopefully I will get my exercise groove back soon too.

Robert is still the same D&D playing, video game, computer nerd he's always been. :)

I hope to update again this month, but I will make sure that I do update once the adoption is done for sure!

Still Waiting

It's been almost 5 months since Fuzzy's bio mother had her rights terminated, and he was freed for us to adopt him. We've had a bunch of mistakes and people dropping the ball to get this adoption done, but I'm trying to stay positive. Hell after almost 5 years why not? I'm praying that we will get a date this month or at the latest next month. I want him to be official before his birthday in July. I want to officially close this chapter, and put so much of it behind us all. I want to share his cute face and smile and his name with everyone! I'm ready to be just his mom not his foster mom. So keep praying and keep your fingers crossed that we can get this done asap!