Toy Drive

Jonathan is doing a toy drive for his Eagle project and I just wanted to express my appreciation for all the friends and family that are helping out. We have had family offer to help during the toy drive and also donate toys and water bottles for the volunteers. We have had friends ask what they can do and I am so pleased at everyone's generosity. It is humbling to see how many people want to support Jonathan in getting his Eagle. I am so proud of him, because he is doing all the work. Bryan guides him and he comes to me when he needs support and we are both happy to help him, but almost all of the work has been done himself.

I am also pleased at the generosity of our local businesses that have donated things too. Staples donated 500 copies for fliers to hand out at the toy drive. Paradise Bakery donated 3 large bags of cookies, at least 150 cookies and Krispy Kreme donated 8 dozen donuts. During this economy, I feel grateful for their support!

Anyways, I hope tomorrow is a success for Jonathan, and I am sure it will be mostly because he has a kind, loving and supportive network of family and friends. Thank you everyone, for showing my son that people will step up and be there for him. It means a lot to me!

When do I breathe?

I feel like I am so busy that I haven't even had time to breathe! This past week especially. I have barely looked at blogs and facebook. Life is so crazy and this is summer! I have no idea how I am gonna keep up this fall and later in the spring when I will have all the kids playing baseball again. Oh well!

I have spent the last week running a "camp" for my mom's two foster girls that she has had for years. They are older girls, ages 22 and 21. They have special needs, which is why they are still in the foster care system. Due to these needs, they have been kicked out of every camp they have ever attended, so my mom came up with the idea of me running the camp. It went better than I thought, but it was really hard on my family. They felt like their whole lives were invaded, and they were. The girls were difficult and ornery at times and sweet and grateful at others. Mostly, they are really hard to be around for extended periods of time. Some of the activities we did were: makeover day (getting them hair cuts and TRYING to teach them that 21 year olds don't wear blue eyeshadow and glitter all over their faces!!) They act like they are about 9 or 10 years old, so that is a really hard concept for them to grasp and makes taking them out in public potentially embarrassing!! Then we had some cooking classes and basic instructions there. We had movie day and took them to see the newest Harry Potter movie. They laughed and made all sorts of noises at weird times so I am glad the theater was crowded and they had to sit a row behind us! (I know I am a little bit of a jerk there, but I can't help it!!) We took them to Saguaro Lake on the boat and let them do a lot of tubing. Which they loved and I so wished that I had a camera to take pics of how funny they looked bouncing up and down on that tube! And finally, of Friday we took them camping overnight. They had never been and really did enjoy the experience.

It was a really busy, hard and frustrating week, but worth it. I am so glad it is over! Anyway, now I need to de-stress and get my house/life back in order. It's also time to get the kids ready for school. All 5 of my kids should be in school this year. Alex is enrolled in a preschool program, although I had a small snag in the registration for it, hopefully it will work out. He will go 4 afternoons a week for 2 hours. It will be weird having my kids all gone for a part of the day. It's almost too bad I have to babysit, cause I will still have kids in my home. Unfortunately, I still need the income. Oh well, gotta do what I gotta do.

Anyway, that is why I haven't returned emails, calls, posts, rsvp's and such. I do feel bad about that and will hopefully be back on top of things again!