Letter to Husband While Wifey Is Away On Mission Trip

What do you think?  I left out a note for hubby being I am taking 6 kids and teens and he is staying home with 7.  He doesn't cook so meals will be bachelor style.  

Chaz excited for Guatemala

INFO While Wifey is away

Yeah, go ahead.  Party hardy. :D  But seriously though, some really important things.

The chickens are ALMOST out of water.

So are the dogs and cats

The litter box needs some poopy removed

The chickens may need food in a few days filled up in their thingy

Shayla cannot eat peanut butter.  Only jelly with a folded over bread

She has a bottle in the morning, for nap, and at night.

I chop her food up super small.  She loves ramen, macaroni, scrambled eggs with ketchup.  Basically anything that doesn’t kill her.

Please water the plants every day. I love my tomatoes especially.

The chickens water has to be checked every morning, no joke. Sometimes the water thing doesn’t work right.

The cats and dogs are currently out of food

I literally had no time to take care of any of this.  My apologies.  I’m gonna go on a mission trip and a trip to Fry’s is just too hard right now.  Hope you understand.

One of the boys has trauma therapy on either Monday or Friday. Can’t remember which one so just listen out for a doorbell sound and a waiting taxi.

Watch out for kids that cook being little kids are running around. Also, watch out for kids that leave mop water or bathtub water sitting around.  

Thank you, I love you.  :D

Studying Before Our Trip to Guatemala

So this next week 6 of the kids and I are taking a trip to Guatemala to visit Kids N Missions and serve.  It's a neat place and our church has been there many times.  My two oldest sons went 2 years ago. This time were taking a small crew of us.  7 total along with the church group.  Which is great for safety reasons. There is a lot I have to learn about keeping safe and what not to eat or drink.

I've been studying things on the internet to prepare myself and came upon this website that talks about natural phenomena that happens. I remember when my boys went, they were waiting of the volcano to erupt.  Here is more info from a website about the kinds of the things that can happen.

WEATHER

"Natural phenomenon are relatively commonplace in Guatemala.

My son took a picture of this while there

Volcanoes erupt daily, earthquakes happen regularly. Hurricanes hit the east coast. El Niño visits the west. Rainy season (May through October) occupies half the year, with the early part causing some questionable runoff.

It’s unlikely a major disaster will befall you. But the weather forecast is not a horrible thing to stay caught up on, just in case." From this Website.

Eek....

Okay, so then I was studying exchange rate.  This is such a good lesson for the kids and I printed something out for them.  A quick chart to bring with them.  Just in case they try to buy too quickly and get shorted.  :)

Us Dollar vs Guatemala Money

US $1 = 7.68 Guatemala

US $2 = 15.36

US $3= 23.04

US $4 = 30.72

US $5 = 38.40

Us $6 = 46.08

US $7 = 53.76

US $8 = 61.44

US $9 = 69.12

US $10 = 76.80

Well, this year may be a bit different because my son Chaz was injured about 6 months after this photo was taken.  He's in and out of a wheelchair.  As you can see in the last picture, he can't bring a wheelchair so we are totally putting our trust in God that this is going to work out.  Chaz would be heartbroken if he had to stay home. :(

Shocking Truth of Drug Epidemic- You Are Who Your Friends Are

Does this break anyone else's heart? This is a LOT of people dying from drugs. No one woke up one day and said, "you know, I think I'd like to battle drugs the rest of my life." It starts with something small, pressure from a friend, or just to fit in.

"Show me your friends and I'll show you your future."

I recently had to let some friends go who's kids vape, do drugs, have OD'd several times. It broke my kids heart but this is NOT going to be the future of my kids. I know, it made me unpopular with my kids but a loving parent steps in when a kid doesn't understand what the end result can mean.

Don't be deceived, bad company corrupts good morals. 1 Corinthians 15:33

To get a full life of drug epidemic click HERE!

Shoe Rotation for Large Families

Okay, so going to buy shoes or make purchases of any kind with a large family can be a huge deal.  It's not normal to have a group of 15 people walking through a store so we get a lot of stares.  I dislike feeling like a circus but we've gotten to the point where we don't care. We're a big ball of people walking by with a lot of noise.

But this week we have some teens gone at camp so there were only 9 of us.  It felt so much smaller so we went to the mall and completed our shoe month adventure. So, we have this rotation schedule where every month 2 people get a new pair of shoes and we have a written schedule to know who is next.  This month was Ashley and Caleb but then we remembered that we forgot to get Joshua's and Charles need a pair of sneakers and work shoes.  To top it off I lost my shoes for working out!  Argh. So 2 pairs of shoes turned into 6 pairs.

We have to add fun by heading upstairs for a fun place and having super yummy chicken tenders.  Jaxon was SUPER MAD he had to be in the double stroller the whole time. He's FOUR years old and says he's ready to walk around.  Ha!  Too many little and crazy kidnappers these days.  I'm not taking my chances anymore, I don't care what anyone thinks.

But ohhhhhhh, toddlers and malls aren't fun.  Yikes.

You know, I was excited to come and watch Secret Life of Pets 2 but then, by 8pm I got SUPER tired.  That is so ridiculous.  So I sent this crew to watch a movie so I could go sleepy at home. Haha. Man, major wimp.  I am turning 40 next week!  Wow!  Can you believe it?  Hard to imagine that life passes sooooooo fast.  I'm super excited I made it to midlife.  :D

Playing Musical Rooms....Again

Okay, so 13 kids means we move kids around in bedrooms.  A lot.  Lately, I have 2 teens that just don't mesh well together.  They get along great, but kind of feed off each other and tend to get attitudes when together. Well, one of them is gone at camp so I've noticed a change for the better in the other one.  Hmmmm... Yep, we're gonna switch some kids around. Sigh.  Usually this means moving furniture but thankfully not this time.

We had a 5th bedroom built on 2 years ago.  Otherwise, we'd be in hot water.  When doing foster care there are rules and you have to have it documented which kids are in which rooms. I'm sure my licensing worker is gonna love me for switching kids yet again.

Master: Mom, dad, baby
Room 1 (small room): 2 girls
Room 2: 3 girls
Room 3: 4 boys
Room 4 (small room): 2 boys
Converted garage: 18 year old boy

Yay, so while we move rooms we're gonna do a red carpet treatment.  We used to have a red carpet in the living room and so we'd empty out an entire room onto the carpet.  Put back what we want.  Donate the rest.  It makes it super simple.  This is how you find hidden things and realize how much clutter you really had.

Yeah well, whenever I empty out my bedroom thinking its a hoarder's mess, I realize 90% of it is my kids dumping their stuff in my room.  The younger kids, that is.  Makes me feel a tad better because I'm messy by nature.  The youngest in my family growing up and my older sisters would do all the work. That left me being a tad untrained.  It's not my parents fault, I was just LAZY and the baby.  So now, I make sure the little ones don't get away with laziness.  And oh man, they try!  They're full of tricks and they're trying to mess with the wrong one.  Can't trick a master.  Haha.  

Meet the Crew

I had a previous amazing blog called Meet Virginia but a hacker found it and had some fun with it. Very sad being I had it for a decade. But, that's okay because this time I want my blog to be real, honest. Not that I wasn't before, I just only pointed out the positives. The problem with that is this is real parenting and we live in a real world. People don't relate to perfection. They relate to raw life. That's what I want to be. Some days are GREAT and some days are BAD. I have 7 teens under one roof and this is hard to navigate. I know I'm inviting good advice and ugly criticism, but hey, that's a norm for social media these days, right?

BUT I'd love to introduce them to you. :D

Chaz 18

Ryan 17

Adriana 17

Kyle 15 

Kaylene 15

Ivy 13

Gabriel 13

Ashley 11

Joshua 10

Caleb 9

Juliet 7

Jaxon 4

Shayla 1