Making Christmas Cookies, Hard Visits for Our Little Peanut, Snow, and Visiting Stonehenge

Samantha: 114 Months, Week 4

Aedan: 82 Months Week 2

Owen: 38 Months, Week 4

Sunday, December 6th was Christmas cookie making day in our house! Ben and the kids made the cookie dough the day before so it could sit in the refrigerator overnight, then in the morning they helped use our Christmas cookie cutters to cut out and bake the various shapes that we use. After lunch, once they cooled, we put the cookies on baking sheets to help contain the sprinkle mess, got the sprinkles out, and let them go to town. Ben spread the icing on, I helped Owen with decorating, and Samantha and Aedan were fine doing it themselves. I loved watching them work, being very specific about how they designed and decorated their cookies. This is a family tradition that is looked forward to every year. And we have lots of yummy cookies to enjoy afterwards! Here are some pictures and videos from the cookie decorating process.

And here are our finished products. They are all so unique and colorful. Samantha was the one who went crazy with the red hots, so we will see who eats those cookies!

With the beginning of December, I always like to find an Advent devotional to read through each night to help our family reflect on what this time of year is really about as we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Focus on the Family usually has free Advent devotionals to print out, so that is what we are doing in this picture. We take turns reading the passage from the Bible that corresponds with the devotional, read the devotional, and then discuss what we read. Usually there are discussion questions regarding how to apply it to your life, so it leads to some good conversations. Sometimes I miss going to a more traditional church where they have families light the Advent candles each Sunday, so a few years ago I decided to buy/make our own Advent wreath candle holder. Every Sunday we light a new candle as we go through the month of December, and it's something the kids really look forward to. 

These two boys generally enjoy playing together and get along pretty well, but they are brothers so fighting happens regularly, too. Here they are playing Rescue Bots together, but Owen was doing something Aedan didn't want him to do, so he was pushing his toy away, and then Owen responded by yelling at Aedan. What can you do? They have to figure out how to work through their problems in some way.

If I remember correctly, I think I found a performance posted online of the Nutcracker ballet, and I let Samantha and Aedan watch it while Owen took a nap that afternoon, so they all had to get dressed up in their fancy clothes from Uncle Tim and Aunt Ba's wedding so they could pretend to dance together. Aedan and Owen even have styled, slicked back hair. Watching this video makes me smile, from Aedan's laugh and spectacular dance moves, to Owen just spinning around in circles, to Samantha trying to do real spins and directing both of her brothers to do certain things, to the smile on Samantha's face when she is holding Owen, to Aedan grabbing Samantha's leg and spinning her around. I love watching them play together like this. It makes me so happy, and I hope they can always find ways to enjoy each other and be silly together.

We heard from our little peanut's mom mom that overnight visits were going to start sometime this coming week, but we had not been contacted at all about that by the caseworker, which lately has been pretty typical for us to get information from the bio mom before we hear anything from Children and Youth. Monday morning I contacted the caseworker to see what was going on, and we were told that there would still be the normal Wednesday and Thursday visit, but the overnight would probably be over the weekend sometime. Then we finally were told that bio mom confirmed Friday into Saturday would work best, so we had our first overnight on the books.

That Monday I subbed at Lehman Jackson, and Ben stayed home with Owen and our little peanut. She took a long morning nap, sleeping for about 3 hours, but before that she fought Ben on eating until she finally pooped and then felt better. Owen and Daddy were having fun together playing while she napped, and they had a good day. Here is a picture Ben took holding our little peanut that afternoon before the kids got home from school.

I need to go back and check to see if I have posted these pictures already, but I found them on ClassDojo and wanted to make sure I documented these pictures of the kids at school from the beginning of the year.

Here are some art projects I found in the hallways at the kids' school. Aedan made a picture of a monster, but of course he had to put a light saber in his hand to make it look like a Star Wars character. I love it!

And here are Aedan's colorful, symmetrical winter mittens.

Here's a picture of Santa that Samantha drew. The art teacher took them through how to draw it step by step, and then gave them a chance to color it. It's fun that they are being taught how to draw people and figures.

Here's a leaf drawing by Aedan with leaves of different shapes and colors, with a watercolor background. I think it looks really pretty, and he did a great job.

Here's some work the kids brought home from school that day. Aedan has a page matching a word to a picture, writing related addition and subtraction sentences, and practicing words with a long i sound.

Samantha has a Chapter 4 Math Quiz on adding and multiplying with decimals that she got 50 out of 50 on and a Chapter 4 practice test for her upcoming test. She does such thorough work. It's impressive!

On Tuesday we spent time at home playing in Owen's room together. Our little peanut was looking cute in her little elephant onesie and pink pants that I remember Samantha wearing when she was a baby. She was very happy and smiley that morning, so I took lots of pictures of her sitting propped up in the glider chair and laying on the Boppy pillow to work on her neck muscles and let her look at a soft book on the floor in front of her. She is getting so big! Her belly and legs are so chunky, and she is just so adorable.

Owen was fighting napping that afternoon, and our little peanut woke up early from her nap, so I hoped she would go back to sleep, but she kept on waking up. I was hoping to get some work done that afternoon while they napped, but that wasn't in the plans.

I have no idea if there was a reason for why Samantha and Owen were hugging like this in the picture, but it is one of the sweetest pictures ever. Samantha is holding him so lovingly, and Owen has both his little arms wrapped around her as far as they can go. Owen loves hugs and cuddles, and his big sister takes good care of him and makes him feel better when he's sad.

Here's a picture of Aedan from school that his teacher posted. They were learning about "sneaky e," so they colored one and then used it to add on to syllables to make a new word where the e makes the vowel say its name. Aedan is so cute and tiny in this picture. I love his little pants that are getting too small for him, and how he always wears athletic pants, no matter what shirt he chooses to wear. He's such a handsome, sweet boy.

Here's some work the kids brought home from school on Tuesday. Aedan was practicing subtraction and then checking with addition, a color by number page, two 90% grades on spelling tests, three 100% grades on weekly reading tests, a 95% on his Chapter 4 Math Test, practice with spelling words, and a math mid-chapter checkpoint. He brought a lot of papers home, so he must have been cleaning out his desk and folder that day. He is doing such an excellent job in school. I am so proud of how much he's excelling, even in the weird circumstances of being out of school for three months at the end of school last year and having this year be in-person, but much different from what it would normally be. He sometimes finds school boring, and would much rather be playing, but he is learning well above where he needs to be at this point, and we are really proud of him.

This was a really hard week for us as foster parents in dealing with caseworkers and the future of our little peanut in our home. On Wednesday, we had to ask for clarification from our little peanut's caseworker's supervisor because our little peanut's caseworker was telling us and the bio mom slightly different things about the court date on the 16th. The grandma was an approved home, and that was what the hearing was about, but there was also a permanency hearing on what we thought was the 22nd (which we found out later was actually the 21st) for the bio mom. The caseworker told us that it was a pretty sure thing that our little peanut will go with her grandma on the 16th, and to even have her stuff packed and ready, but according to bio mom, it seemed like the caseworker was telling her that they may just wait to move our little peanut given Covid and the fact that the permanency hearing was less than a week later. We were just trying to understand what going on and how to be prepared for whether she was leaving us on the 16th or staying longer, especially because we had plans to go out of town for Ben's surprise trip as my Christmas gift. We got an answer back, and the supervisor said that the grandma was approved as a resource for about 6 weeks, and they were waiting for this hearing to approve our little peanut moving to her grandma. However, the bio mom's attorney will be seeking all children to be returned home at the permanency hearing on the 22nd. She said there is also a chance that the attorney may make an oral motion at the 16th hearing for the children to return home. The agency would object to this oral motion, but she said the hearing office has been allowing things like this to happen lately due to Covid. So after all this discussion, we assumed that our little peanut was going to leave our home on the 16th, whether to her grandma's house or back home, so we at least felt like we had some clarification.

Ben took our little peanut down for her visit that morning, and the roads were terrible due to the snow we got; he had to turn around several times and take different roads. I took Owen to the doctor for his well child visit and then was going to go out to Tunkhannock to go grocery shopping, but the roads were too bad, so I turned back around and just did my shopping at Weis for the week, even though I knew it was going to be more expensive. I couldn't get up the driveway when I got home, even with the 4 wheel drive on in the Subaru, and especially with the snow plowed at the bottom of our driveway from the street. Our driveway is just too steep and slippery when it snows, so I just parked on the street, put the hazards on, and just left all the groceries in the car since it was cold enough outside. I was going to have to shovel the driveway after I got Owen down for a nap and then pull the car up. I was grateful that I didn't have our little peanut at home with me as well during all this craziness. I hoped that all the work I was doing to shovel off the driveway actually worked to get the car up the driveway. I was unsure how long I should keep the groceries in the car before just walking back and forth and dragging them all up the driveway.

Here are some pictures and a video of the snow we got that morning, as well as my process of cleaning off the driveway. We got a good few inches of snow, and since our snow blower is currently out of commission, it is quite the process to clear off our driveway with a shovel. Ben could do it a lot faster than me because he is stronger, but I had to try and get it done so I could get the Subaru and groceries up the driveway and so Ben could pull in when he got home from work after picking up our little peanut.

Here is a picture of Samantha hard at work in her math class. She is wearing red in the back row. They are cutting pictures from a catalog to practice adding, subtracting, and multiplying with decimals and using money and making change in a practical way. I love seeing pictures of them at school because that is a part of their day that I don't know much about, other than what they tell us when they get home from school. Samantha is such a hard, diligent worker. I am so proud of her inner motivation to do well, and how she seamlessly keeps track of her schedule and switching classes and keeping up with her homework with little to no assistance or reminders.

The day seemed long and stressful, and I still wasn't able to get the Subaru up the driveway despite spending all afternoon shoveling it. With already having driven on it after it snowed, it made those tracks just too slippery. After picking the kids up from the van, I had them help me bring the grocery bags upstairs as I brought them up the slippery driveway and into the house. Then, I had to put all the groceries away before helping with the after school tasks of snack time and homework.

Here is work the kids brought home from school that day. Samantha has a spelling page practicing long e, a science review packet, spelling sentences, a spelling test that she got 100% on, and a math test on multiplying decimals that she got a 100% on. This girl is so impressive, and not just because of her grades. Her handwriting is so neat, her answers are so thorough, and she never has to be reminded to show her work when doing math.

Aedan had this worksheet where he had to fill in the correct word.

I had another day of subbing on Thursday, as I am trying to take more jobs now that Ben can be come since his semester is over. Our little peanut had a visit that day, so Ben went down to drop her off at her normal time of 11:30. However, it still had to be a supervised visit, meaning the grandma had to be there as well to be the supervisor. However, she was running very late, and the caseworker told Ben to stay there and wait with our little peanut until she arrived. He was waiting and waiting, trying to get information about what to do from the caseworker, but she had to talk to her supervisor to get any answers for him. It ended up taking over an hour for her to get there, and Ben had Owen with him as well. It was lunchtime and nap time, and they were standing waiting in a stranger's house. We were frustrated and didn't know what to do; the caseworker shouldn't have asked him to do that. Later on, after the fact, we were told by the supervisor that we should wait no longer than 15-20 minutes with our little peanut and then just take her and leave.

I picked her up after the visit when I was done subbing, and I could tell then that we were going to have a rough night with her. She was with her dad and grandma from 11:30-4:30, and when I asked how she did and how much she slept, they laughed and said she only slept 15 minutes. I don't think they try to put her down at all. They just keep her in the living room with all the commotion and the TV on. Ben even told them that she would be ready for a nap by about 12:30 that afternoon, and that she would have to be taken somewhere else away from a screen in order to sleep because she is starting to become much more distracted by outside noise and lights. Even in the few hours between when she was in bed and when Ben and I went to bed, she was up screaming and crying three times. But when they don't put her down for naps during the day, we pay for it when we get her back because she doesn't sleep well at night either. We were getting ready for our little peanut to have her first overnight with her mom and sisters from 3:30 Friday afternoon to 3:30 on Saturday afternoon, so we were anticipating how that was going to go, or even how much she will allow her to sleep at her house either. 

Visits have been really hard with our little peanut lately because it's been throwing her whole schedule off. With the court hearing coming up that Wednesday at 3:00 to approve the grandma for our little peanut, we assumed that we would only be dealing with the craziness of the back and forth for a few more days. As I have been thinking about her going home, I definitely have mixed feelings. It will be sad because she is such a part of our life, we've had her ever since bringing her home from the hospital, and we love her like she is our own. Bio mom is doing everything she is supposed to do according to the court, but it's hard not to think that our little peanut could have a better life and better opportunities with us. The kids will definitely be sad, especially Samantha. But with how she has been sleeping lately, and all the visits and back and forth, and how the visits just throw her off, it's been hard caring for her lately. I'm tired of waking up several times with her at night, for almost six months now, and Ben and I are feeling exhausted. Plus, every time she goes to her mom's house she gets congested again because of the secondhand smoke she gets while there. It makes sense that they are considering the grandma because she has been approved, but they should have moved our little peanut a long time ago if they were going to move her. At this point, it seems silly to have her move there for six days before just going back with her mom at the next hearing. Many conflicting emotions are going on inside me. This system is so broken sometimes, and we are the parents and family our little peanut knows the best. We have been her home so far, and it will feel like something is missing from our family when she leaves, whenever that might be. We knew this day was coming, we knew the plan was always for reunification, but it's hard when you are facing the reality of it, and you feel happy and sad all at the same time.

Here is some work Samantha and Aedan brought home from school on Friday. Aedan has a Christmas color by sum page, practicing related addition and subtraction sentences to find the missing number, picking a word to match a clue, and a 100% on his spelling test.

Samantha got a 94% on her math project using the toy catalog and practicing using decimals in various ways. I really like Samantha's math teacher. She comes up with great interactive, creative projects like this, even for math, that engage the kids more and show them how to use math in other situations besides for pages in the math textbook and taking quizzes or tests. Samantha has excelled and learned so much in her class. I secretly hope that she gets Mrs. Welby as her 5th grade teacher next year because I really like her teaching style. She is organized, fun, prepared, has high expectations, and communicates well with parents.

Friday afternoon we dropped our little peanut off for her first overnight visit, with her sisters as well, and since we didn't have a baby to bring along, we decided to pick up some Subway sandwiches to eat in the car and go to Stonehenge to drive through the Christmas light display. We did this last year and really liked it, so we figured we would do it again and make it a yearly tradition. The kids were excited about it, and we didn't have any foster children with us like we did last year when we drove through it, so it felt much easier only having our three children. We had such a good time in the car that night, enjoying dinner together, talking, laughing, and just enjoying time with just our family. The lights were beautiful, and we got there early so we didn't have to wait in line at all. It's so fun to begin celebrating the Christmas season. Here are some pictures and videos of the light display.

At the end we decided to stop, get out, and look around since we didn't do that last year. They had this large present made out of lights, as well as a large Christmas tree made out of lights. There were people there to take a picture using your phone, so we decided to take advantage of getting a few pictures of all five of us together. 2020, what a memorable year!

As we were on our way home and about to pull in our driveway around 7:00, our little peanut's mom called us, completely in tears. We could hear our little peanut crying and screaming in the background. It was not going well, and to be honest, this is what Ben and I were afraid was going to happen. Her mom had never had her overnight before, and not only was she keeping her overnight for the first time ever, but she also had both her other girls as well. She wanted to make it a fun night, but she wasn't really taking into account the fact that she had a baby to care for now, too. When we dropped her off, we texted her with a general schedule so she would feel prepared and would be able to refer back to it in writing. We said she will want to have a bottle before 4:00 p.m. We usually give her cereal around dinnertime (6:00ish) or after her evening nap, usually 3 ounces of formula and cereal mixed in. We told her that she usually eats close to 8 ounces at bedtime, and we put her stomach medicine in her bottle at night. We use a fan for white noise, put her in pajamas, put her in a sleep sack, turn only a nightlight on, and then feed her a bottle around 7:30. She falls asleep after eating, and we lay her down in her crib. She will normally have to be given her pacifier a few times in the evening, if she starts crying a little, to get her back to sleep because that has been common lately. Also, she has been waking up once or twice a night. If it is twice, she will wake up earlier, like between 10:30 and midnight. If it's once, it's normally around 3:00-4:00. Normally she is up for the day around 8:00 a.m. In the morning she gets the min and the stomach medicine added to her bottle. So anyways, we told her all these things, but it didn't seem like she was really trying to follow what we said. We were sure a lot of it was that our little peanut just wasn't used to her, and she didn't know what her cries and cues meant or how to comfort her in a familiar way. Bio mom has had her during the day for up to six hours, but it's different taking care of a baby in the evening and overnight.

Our little peanut was so overtired, and her mom didn't feed her at 4:00 like we told her to, but instead she took all the girls out to the store to get food. I'm sure it was all overwhelming to our little peanut, and she was trying to put her down to sleep in the middle of the living room with the TV on, which is different than she is used to because at our house she sleeps in her own quiet bedroom with a sound machine. She just kept screaming and crying and wouldn't sleep, so bio mom just kept trying different things, feeding her in the middle of everything, bringing her up and downstairs, and giving her a bath. Our little peanut was probably really confused about what was going on at the time her body is usually ready to go to sleep.

Anyways, when talking to bio mom on the phone, we tried our best to calm her down, reassure her that she was doing a good job and was capable of taking care of her baby, but it was so hard to hear our little peanut crying in the background. In fact, bio mom had us on speaker phone as we talked to her, and our little peanut heard our voices, calmed down, and stopped crying. Knowing that just hearing our voices calmed her down just broke my heart. After we got off the phone with bio mom, Ben and I just started crying. This little girl is our little baby, and it was so hard to hear her so upset, to not be able to hold her and comfort her, and to know that this very first overnight visit was not going well for anyone involved.

When talking to bio mom the next day to see how the rest of the night went, she said our little peanut was okay for about 15 minutes after our phone call, and then it started again. She put her in the tub and she liked that and was quiet, but as soon as she got out it was going again. She said she was trying everything we talked to her about. She put the other girls in the tub and went downstairs with our little peanut. She said she thought it has to be her just being uncomfortable, and that she hoped at that point that she would just wear herself out. Bio mom felt terrible though. She thought our little peanut went to sleep downstairs, but when she came back down she said she was just relaxed, watching TV, still never slept, but was finally happy. Even at almost 10:00, our little peanut was still awake, but relaxed and just sitting there. Bio mom said, "She wouldn't go to sleep for nothing." It was after 10:00 when she said she finally passed out, then she woke up once at 4:00 for a bottle, and then slept until about 8:30. Bio mom apologized for having a meltdown and felt embarrassed for calling us like that, but we told her we were glad she called and felt comfortable opening up with us and asking for advice and help. Our little peanut woke up happy that morning, like she usually does, and she was feeling good that morning, so we hoped the rest of the day would go better than the night.

After Ben and I settled from the emotions we felt about our little peanut having a rough night with her mom, I slept great. It felt wonderful having a night of uninterrupted sleep. Then, that morning Ben took the kids to get something for me for Christmas and to pick up a bookshelf that someone was selling on Facebook Marketplace. (We need more places to store books in our house!) So I got to spend the morning home alone. I decided to do a Pilates workout, take a shower, and then sit on the couch to work on my blog, which was something I hadn't had time to do in a long time because of having a foster baby and taking a graduate class.

Then, that afternoon we all drove down to pick up our little peanut because CYS had a gift giveaway event. Normally they would have a party, but because of Covid, they just had families drive up, "see Santa," and pick up their presents and a box of Christmas cookies. Our little peanut was so incredibly exhausted. We could see it in her face when we picked her up. She instantly fell asleep in her car seat as we drove, and she continued to sleep for a long time once we got back home and all the way through dinnertime. In fact, I ended up having to go in and wake her up so that she would actually go back to sleep for bedtime. She got a bath right away that evening because she definitely needed one after being around secondhand smoke. We fed her baby cereal and tried our best to get her back on her normal schedule. It's amazing how much I missed her just in those 24 hours she was away from us. I couldn't stop thinking about her and how she was doing while she was gone. Sometimes it's exhausting having a baby that wakes up you, but that just comes with the territory. We were glad to have our little peanut back, and felt so bad for the hard time she had, especially with reunification possibly coming right around the corner.

The kids were very excited to get home and open their presents. Owen got a cooperative game called Stack Up where you work together to stack blocks without the tower falling over. Aedan got a light-up drawing board, which he wasn't too excited about at first until he saw what it could actually do. Samantha got a Disney Trivia game, which she also thought was "babyish" until we she actually saw what it was and how fun it was. We were excited to bust out the games that night for a family game night, and all the kids enjoyed drawing on the light-up drawing board. The gifts were really thoughtful, and I was pleasantly surprised by their choices. These are gifts that will be used for a long time to come.

(Blog about December 6-12, 2020)