Salty Mommy

This is the snow from our front door when it was still coming down. I didnt get a great picture of the snow this time. I will make sure I get one next time! This is what I have been doing a lot of lately! I am a little cookie baker! I really have been enjoying making Christmas Cookies!

With the Christmas season here it makes me think about traditions. What traditions do I want to keep, add or change for my family as our little one grows up. In reading a fictional book about Christmas I learned about putting out reindeer food to show them where to land. By adding some glitter to oatmeal it sparkles and shows the reindeer your house. I thought this was super cute and would like to make it a tradition. Growing up both David's family and my family opened one present on Christmas Eve and it is jammies. I like this tradition and hope to continue this with my family. Our little one really loves trains and we have been to two homes this year that have a train around their tree. I think maybe next year we will get a train to go around our tree, I have been looking. The most important tradition I would like to have is reading the Christmas Story of Jesus Birth, our little one is still small but I want to read it every year and in my house as a child that is when Baby Jesus...

What does Santa say? Ho Ho Ho.... Do you want to go see Santa? NO is the answer I get everytime. Despite the NO and head shaking we decided to go and visit Santa. Turns out Santa is a jolly old man who likes to give out high 5's and thats cool. Santa still says Ho Ho Ho but he also understands that kids now a days need a different approach and a high 5 was the way he got my little one to smile. Last year Santa was a very scary man with a beard and this year he was a guy with a beard who gives out high 5's. Thanks Santa we have plans to put out some yummy cookies and milk for you and some snacks for your reindeer too! Merry Christmas!

Being thankful is something that most of America focuses on this week with thanksgiving on thursday. I have so much to be thankful for and for the last few two months every day David and I have thanked God for our miracle of getting to adopt our son. I love being a parent and every day I try to teach our little man to say thank you and to use his manners. This may seem silly to some but it is very important to me to teach thankfulness. We have been using sign language along with trying to teach words and the sign for thank you is one of the first signs we taught him. I am amazed at the rate his words are growing and so thankful for the opportunity to be home with him.

We woke up this morning just as Dada was getting back from working out with Pop we opened the door and waved to Pop and little man yelled DADA and then Pop beeped the horn. I am sure our neighbors were thrilled since it was 7:30am. Hahaha they should be up already, right? After Dada was ready little man and I were snuggling watching a show he says to me, "Hey did you know that he is our son?" I just smiled.

I was very happy on sunday when our pastor mentioned it was Orphan Sunday and spoke of the need for foster and adoptive homes in our county. Our journey has not been easy and I do not believe it is over. Right now we are focusing on our little man and we will see where we go in the future. I am bubbling over with love for our little man and just sit and watch him try new things and grow. I am not ready for him to be 2 and not be a baby. I realize he is already a big boy and not a baby. I am excited for our adoption day even though we dont have a date yet I know it is going to happen and I can't wait to adopt our sweet little man. I am so excited to see him grow up!

Ok seriously where did 2010 go? I can not believe it is November 1st. I dont know if it is since we have become parents that time seems to fly by but really our little one is going to be 21 months tomorrow. Which really means he will be 2 in 3 months...I think I just stopped breathing! As I am writing this I am just trying to remind myself that I need to remember all of the moments. We just celebrated our 2nd halloween and he was so cute and so much fun. I dont want to forget anything. I was looking at a picture from when he was a few days old and it doesnt feel like that long ago. I bought a book to write his story in and I haven't started writing...I need to get on the ball! Anyway I had a friend comment that she reads this and I just wanted to say thanks for the encouragement. I try to be disciplined about blogging but sometimes days just get away from me. I am so thankful for my friends! Now I am going to dowload all the halloween pictures to snapfish and order them for free wh...

We got to go to our zoo today for a little costume parade and fun. It was a big chaotic but still fun, seriously what did i expect a 1 year old and a 2 year old in a wagon for 2 hours....they were over the wagon before the parade even started. I think they both had fun and we had fun too. My mom is here and she really liked seeing all of the kids in their costumes. We have some big plans for while she is here including the pumpkin patch which has a hay ride, going to see the amish, swim school, trick or treating and i'm sure we will find more exciting stuff to do. I am sure little man is going to have a great time with Nana :) When he woke up today she was still in bed and he didn't know she was here. I asked him if he knew who came on an airplane and she said Boo I'm in here. He started giggling it was so cute. The fact that he sees my family mostly through skype it was super cute to see him so excited to see her!

So every once in awhile I have to mix up our furniture or pictures and art work in our house. I think it has something to do with the fact that I moved a lot as a child. So today I decided it was time to move the pictures and art. We got a new collage frame at target over the weekend so I had to fit it in and that meant I got to rearrange. I really love the new frame and I am most excited about the pictures of our little man that I put all on one wall. I will take some pictures tomorrow and post them.

***Please let me know if you have any ideas or experience that may help me.*** - - I am blessed to work from home and be able to stay home with my 20 month old son. I have a schedule that I am to work 4 hours between 8am and 5pm and then an additional 2 hours or more after 5pm. I am very thankful for my job and the flexibility. However I have started to feel guilty that although I am home with our son he does not always have my full attention. This is what our day looks like now. Wake up 7:30 snuggle and watch a few minutes of a show then change diaper and have breakfast. I try to work for 1 hour at this time in our day while interacting with him during breakfast and then he plays for the rest of the hour. This time consists of him bringing me toys to play with and he plays trucks on the floor near me or even types on his keyboard next to me. Then we go outside or have a play date or run errands. Lunch is between 11 and 11:30 then its nap time. He usually sleeps 2 hours and I work as m...

Our second foster placement was a sweet 3 year old girl, she did not have very many words the words she did use were gibberish. Every once in awhile she would include a real word. The second day she was with us we took her over to see Grandmom Betty to have lunch. When we got in the house there was a delicious chocolate cake on the counter. At this point we have heard her say NO and point her finger at whatever she does not want. As soon as she saw the cake she clearly said, “I WANT CAKE!” We tried to get her to eat a variety of other foods and explained that once she had 1 bite of another food she could have cake. She would not budge and trying to be consistent neither would we. It was a bit scary, if we gave in to her demands on day 2 what would be ahead of us. We really had no idea how to parent this lost little girl and the one thing that stuck with me is a child will eat when they are hungry. She did not want to eat anything except for that cake so she was not really hungry. She h...

We had a meeting last week with our adoption case worker and the subject of our other foster care placements came up. It brought back many memories and I have decided to share them here. In a summer that started out very sad we had a bright little boy who came to stay with us for 2 weeks while his foster family went on vacation. We accepted the foster care placement for Steven a sweet 8 year old boy, when the worker called to let us know he would be coming over she kept saying to make sure we had house rules in place. Seeing as this was our first ever foster care placement we started to get worried we were in over our heads. Steven arrived and we decided to make house rules together. We had a fun filled 2 weeks and learned a lot about being parents. (we felt like long term babysitters.) This little boy thrived in our home, he was very well behaved despite what we were told. He really bonded with Mr. Dave and enjoyed calling out, "Hey Mr Dave" when he wanted to make sure he ha...

Before nap time we read a couple of stories and I let my little one choose the books. Well we were reading Good Night Beach and some how i skipped a page with out realizing it. He knew he started whining and trying to turn the page back. So i realized and went back to the page we missed and tried to continue from where we were...he would not have it. I had to read all of the pages after the missed page in order. I was amazed that he even knew we missed a page since I didnt even realize. He is so smart!

So I have been thinking a lot about my memories from childhood. I am not sure why, but it has been on my mind a lot how I made the friends that I still have friendships with today. I moved around a lot before highschool and I actually don't have any childhood friends that I am still in contact with, there are two girls from when I was a child that I have reconnected with via myspace and the internet but it isn't like we are real friends. The friends I am still in contact with 1 was made in 8th grade and the others in 9th grade. I can remember moving to Long Beach and my new school, the worst part about this move was the school required uniforms and when I went to get registered I was not in a uniform and I had to start school that day. Talk about making a kid feel out of place. I have a hard time remembering much about school when I first moved to Long Beach but I can remember how I followed the same group of kids home everyday and we walked the exact same way toward 2nd street...

So i love to read and my husband recently asked me why i dont want to write a book, since i love to read. I have been thinking about this a lot since he mentioned it. In the morning I usually go for a walk with my baby and we look at birds, airplanes, car and all of the fun yard decorations in our neighborhood. Today our walk got me thinking about an idea for a book and I might try to work on an outline. Every time I think of an idea for a book I cant seem to get it out of my head and onto paper and I always think this has probably already been written. The main idea is two moms from totally different backgrounds live in the same neighborhood and become friends. The story will chronicle the mishaps and joys of motherhood and friendship. But I need a BIG problem and I havent gotten that far yet...maybe one has to move to a 3rd world country...or one has a house fire and how they move forward from that. See I have too many ideas....maybe I will just work on the characters for now :)

We planted sunflowers in the spring and they are all starting to bloom. This is the first one!

Our little man and I tagged along over the weekend camping in Mary & Jim's camper. He had so much fun camping and I enjoyed watching him explore. He is growing up so fast! He is 17 months old and he loved camping. We played at the park, went to the beach, played in the pool and the water fun zone, went for walks and bike rides. He is not a fan of the bike helmet but after his first bike ride he didn't fuss anymore. I am amazed at how quickly he learns things. He is starting to communicate more and doing some signs. He just started shaking his head NO and we ask him to say no thank you and he does the sign for no. I cant wait for our next camping trip! We had so much fun! The best part was he loved the fireworks, when the first one went off he put his hands up like what? Then started to clap! He is so stinkin cute!!

We start swimming lessons tonight at the Cape May Pool, I am pretty excited!! It is a mommy and me class and our cousins Megan and Connor are taking them too! Hopefully our little man has fun!

I am trying hard to stay positive about everything going on with our family, but after being at court yesterday I am sad. It is very hard to be a foster parent and I do not recommend it to the weak in spirit or heart. I have a lot of love to give but the "system" knocks me on my butt every once in awhile and it is hard to stay positive. We have been waiting for the permanency hearing to take place since Feb, it was postponed in Feb to allow for more time for our little man's birth mother to complete services. We had a meeting at the division of youth and family services office last week and they prepared us that the new goal for this case would be termination of parental rights once we went to court and the judge made a ruling. It seemed easy enough, well when we went to court the defense attorney's now states they need more time to get their own reviews because they don't agree with the reviews by the law guardian. We were only dealing with the birth mother up u...

On saturday after our little guy got out of the bath he climbed into the arms of his dae-dae. I was concerned with getting a diaper on that bare bottom and all he wanted to do was be held by dae-dae. The diaper can wait it was so special to see my two boys having a little snuggle time. Today we went to see Pop down at the ferry when his boat was coming in and our little man and dae-dae ran through the field and chased the birds. I love to see them play and be crazy boys! I am so amazed at my husband and his love for our little man.

David and I started watching America's Got Talent and it is an interesting show. I have enjoyed watching the different acts and tonight the magician "michael grasso" was very cool! There were a few other acts that were really good too. I auditioned to be a character at disneyland when I was younger and that audition process was gruelling and overwhelming. I feel for all of these people who are brave enough to audition and I can only imagine what the process is like. To just sit and wait for your number to be called is draining and then you still have to perform. I did get hired as a disney character and really enjoyed that job. It was worth the audition process!

So I have been trying new recipes lately and I decided to search online for some other healthy recipes. Last night I made ground turkey enchiladas, but after opening the can of enchilada sauce I tasted it and realized it would make them too spicy for me. Does anyone have an alternative? I thought about using tomato sauce or paste? But is that wierd? To tell you the truth i just put cheese on top and they were tasty. I think the next time I make enchiladas I might look for a recipe that has a white sauce I remember having them when I was a kid. Tonight i made Chicken Ravioli Carbonara with Broccoli. I had never heard of "carbonara" before but this dish was good! I am bummed there weren't any leftovers for tomorrow!

So we decided it was time to get me some new wheels! After much searching I found a few prospective suv's and vans. The dealership was a joke and we walked out when we were ready to sign the deal because they were messing around. We then received 5 phone calls from different "higher ups" at the dealership. Amazingly they were able to lower the APR to fit our budget after checking our credit score again. It makes me sad how the car sales business is run. But it makes me happy that we walked out and ended up with the deal we wanted on our new to us 2006 Isuzu Ascender (it is the same thing as a trailblazer or envoy) I love my new car and it seats 7 so if anyone wants to come visit you dont have to rent a car...we have plenty of room!!

wow! ten years ago i walked down the aisle at long beach 1st church of the nazarene and said "i do" to david bruce! i can not believe it has been 10 years. i watched some show that the people were celebrating 20 years of marriage and they had two children who were in their teens and it made me think about the future and where we will be in another 10 years. our lives have been an adventure and i cant wait to see where God leads us in the next 10 years! i am so blessed and so in love with david. ten years ago i was planning a wedding and looking forward to a bright future. today i am waiting for a court date to see what will happen with our foster sons and our lives. i am still looking forward to a bright future and i am amazed at Gods love, guidance and direction in our lives. in the past 10 years we have been on 4 short term mission trips, driven cross country 3 times, lived on the west coast and the east coast, become foster parents, enjoyed our families and we are on our w...

Our little guy loves to... eat dirt, eat rocks, play in leaves, carry around sticks. So camping was so much fun for him. We brought bubbles for him to play with and he loved them as well. What we didnt think about before going was bed time...how do you put a toddler to bed in a tent outside not in a crib or pack n play? well it worked for us because he was so tired. we went into the tent and that was pretty exciting, we had a little mat and sleeping bag all set up and we let him roam around the tent for a little while. he got to the point that he was so tired he couldnt even stand up he would try to stand up and then just sorta collapse on his back and kick his feet. this was aroun 7:45pm then all of a sudden we hear a bugle horn play the intro to taps and a boyscout leader (we were lucky to have 3 boyscout troops at the campground) came over and invited melissa and jason to a flag retire ceremony. well as soon as the bugle was done the baby sat up and started clapping. he was so excit...

so we decided to do an overnight ten camping adventure with our 15 month old. we all had a great time but i think he had the best time out of everyone. the two best things for a little boy dirt and water. we drove to bushkill falls, pa about 3 hours away and then set up camp at valley view campsites a group camp area with no running water or electricity. they have latrine bathrooms which was so stinky. after setting up camp we had lunch and then headed to bushkill falls for a hike. we decided to do the red and yellow trails which should have been about 2 1/2 hours. our little man was in his hiking backpack and he loved it! about 1/2 way through the hike we got to a water fall that had a little pond. so we decided to let him get out of the backpack and of course he wanted in the water. it wasnt too cold but he was soaked after about 10 seconds. he loves the water and did not want to continue hiking. we still had an hour of hiking to go and he went back in the hiking backpack. after a li...

so i have been on a cooking healthier kick and i ordered the jamie oliver cook book. it has a lot of recipes that scare me, mostly all the fish. but i am going to be brave and try them. last night i made the cauliflower cheese which is an alternative to mac n cheese and it was really good ( i left out the anchovies though) !! i also made turkey burgers with his "a cracking burger recipe" i am excited to see what else i can make! both of these recipes were fairly easy but i wouldnt have been able to finish if melissa joy hadnt arrived because i had a very needy little one who wanted to be held. dinner was yummy and then we headed to the beach for some play time and exercise! life is good!!

so spring is here! last night was the first time that i noticed the time change because it was the first sunny day since the time change. it was so nice to have our front door open for most of the day and enjoy the sunshine coming in the windows. i didnt mind the snow this winter i actually liked it and enjoyed being snowed in and having a blizzard party :) but now i am excited for spring...living in a land with seasons is pretty cool. i am glad that i can appreciate the season changes and not take them for granted. something that is even more cool about where we live is in the off season winter, spring and fall it is very quiet and you can really enjoy the nature that surrounds us. in the summer it gets more crowded but then you can people watch and that is great! especially the french canadians in their banana hammocks (yuck) hope the spring season is full of flowers and sunshine!!

my parents moved to the border of san pedro/palos verdes since i came home last and i love their new house. despite the bad weather we had last week (even in rain the view is amazing) i am enjoying my time here with my family and so happy for my parents that they found such a nice house. today we went with my mom and her friend terri to the dog park at the bottom of their gated community and the dog park is right on the cliffs of the pacific ocean. so amazingly beautiful. seth is enjoying the sunshine and he loves to watch the dogs play. i will try to get some pictures of the view now that its not raining. :)

http://www.davidmacomber.com/photoblog - - if you dont already check in daily on david's photo blog you are missing out. he started this up again after a short break and he plans on updating it everyday. enjoy!

so david asked me if i was going to call the year two thousand ten or twenty ten? I think two thousand ten works for me...i didnt call last year twenty nine. i seriously can not believe it is 2010! i am going to be 30 this year (pretty soon) and david and i will celebrate 10 years of marriage and we have had seth for 1 year! time goes by way too fast! i think my goal for 2010 is to keep living on a budget and to pay off our debt. we have been chipping away at it and we are getting close. i coupon shop and try to save money on groceries and i dont buy anything unless we need it. (most of the time)