O Me O My O May

Wow. What a roller coaster ride this month has been. Ups and downs and in betweens. We had 2 funerals we attended. Andy's paternal grandma and Aunt Nancy. We traveled to Illinois on the weekend of the 15th for Grandma's. And then on the weekend of the 29th we traveled to Canada for Aunt Nancy's. We took in a new boy on May 21st. His name is Joseph but goes by Joey and he is almost 18 mos. It is pretty cool that he is exactly 1 year and 3 days younger than Gabe. Boy o boy is that time of year busy with birthdays, anniversaries, and Thanksgiving already. He fits in real well and sleeps through the night already. On the 27th we had a permanency planning meeting for Gabe with CFS. It left a lot of unknowns. I dread this now in-between time period we are in when a decision has to be made and it is just on hold. It hasn't been this way the whole time with Gabe until then. I pray that Gabe doesn't become emotionally scared from all of this that may happen. I wonder if he knows what is going on? Andy seems to think that he may understand a little what is happening because he seems a bit stressed out when we are too, and extra clingy. He knows us as mommy and daddy. We take care of him in all aspects. He loves us and we love him. For some reason this all came about only 6 days after we took in Joey. I don't understand. Praise the Lord for our strong marriage! I can't imagine most people staying together with the amounts of crazy circumstances we have had. We are grateful for our family in the Lord and the many prayer warriers there are out there praying for us.

Relax

This week was all around an awesome week. On Wednesday Gabe & I met my mom at the Lodi Prime Outlet mall. From there we headed down to the Amish Country. It has been a long time coming. Gabe really enjoyed seeing the "horseeeees". And then after we shopped the entire outlet mall at the end of the day, we all rode on the train. This is the only outlet mall in the country that has a hop-on hop-off train that goes all thru and around the mall for the shopper's convenience. Trains and horses were on his mind all the next day too. I got some great buys. There was only one item on my list that I didn't get. A butter crock. I will have to keep looking. The one I saw only held one stick and that won't work for my family. I will continue to look elsewhere and look online as well too.
And the next, and very exciting other happening of this week is that we hired a house cleaner! Andy told me long ago that when we have kids that he wanted to hire someone to keep up the house. At first I was not okay with the idea of it. It is anti-me. Or should I say it is quite contrary to my family of origin's way of life. Mom does those things. Having hired help for this seems foreign. But I sure am already warmed up to the idea and actuality of it already. No more bathrooms or kitchens to do for me. She even will do special projects if requested. It is a priority to de-stress our lives as much as possible.
And now... we're getting ready to leave for someones 40th surprise birthday party at BW3's. Don't worry, it isn't ruined since I'm positive this person doesn't read this. It is a colleague of Andy's. I know, I know... I also have a relative turning 40 this month too. But this is not concerning him.