Thanksgiving 2012

This year's Thanksgiving was memorable to put it mildly.  We invited my dad and sister to visit.  My sister

also brought her two very large dobermans.  They drove through the night Wednesday and arrived early Thursday morning.  Just to make things interesting, we got a call for a placement of two little boys Wednesday night just after dinner.  They showed up around 8pm and then the fun began.  Thursday morning we awoke to 4 children (two of them brand new), 3 dogs, 2 cats (who quickly decided to go into hiding b/c of the new dogs!), and 4 adults.  Kyle got right to work on the Thanksgiving feast and that left the other 3 adults to tend to the dogs and children.  You would think 3 adults would be able to handle 4 children (after all I

handled 5 all by myself not all that long ago), but you would be wrong.  It was absolute CHAOS.  My poor dad spent most of the day underneath Hannah and Tater Tot which left Heather and I to tend to the new boys whom I'll call the Shrieker and Flop.  The Shrieker decided he would only be happy if he was held, preferably by me, but Heather would do.  Flop liked to wander and because of some serious medical needs and an inability to answer to his name he needed to be kept in eyesight pretty much at all times.  It was an exhausting day!  Dinner was delicious, but the actual act of eating was exhausting as well.  I don't think I took a single bite that was actually warm!  A first for us, both Shrieker and Flop will eat absolutely anything

you put in front of them so at least we didn't have any whining for treats instead of vegetables.  There was however lots of whining for more food, vegetables accepted, by Shrieker!  That kid can seriously put away the food! I think he, at 14 months, ate more food than any of the other kids aged 3-6 1/2!  It's nice for once to not have to worry about meal times and whether or not I'm going to be able to get the kids to eat.  At least I have 2 slam dunks that will make me feel like a good mom by eating their veggies when I serve them!  Hannah, fortunately, really likes both of the boys and has been a big help with them now that my dad and Heather are gone and the children out number the adults 2 to 1.  Tater Tot on the other hand is NOT impressed.  She's not cool with the fact that the attention that was once lavished on her is now split 4 ways.  She also has a serious issue sharing toys and neither boy is super good at that either.  Consequently there have been numerous scuffles over toys and rivers of tears have flown.  We have no idea what the boys' future looks like, but

 we are praying through whether or not we will be able to care for them long term given the fact that they both have serious medical needs and we also have 2 other children to care for.  Please pray for us that we would make the right decision for our family and for the boys.

Photo Notes:  Since I can't post pictures of many of the people that were in my house this Thanksgiving you'll have to settle for some pictures of my handsome dog nephews, Maverick and Heinz.