Salty Mommy

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)

so tonight i made another dish from my new cookbook...page 186 turkey meatloaf and broccoli with cheddar cheese sauce. so the whole 30 minute meal thing is lost on me...i made the meatloaf last night because it is impossible to cut a bunch of "hidden" veggies for the meatloaf with an 11 month old trying to crawl up my legs. so i cut up all the "hidden" veggies and put them in the turkey loaf - zucchini, red bell pepper, scallions. the other secret ingredient replaces bread crumbs - smoked almonds! i think these made this meatloaf so delicious!! the cheese sauce was very scary to be because i tried this one other time and ended up having to throw the pan away. so as i was mixing all of the ingredients i think i may have held my breath. the cheese sauce i made with no fat cheese and it still tasted sooo good! i also made some mashed potatoes and we put the cheese sauce on those too!! all in all i am pretty excited that i liked the meatloaf because it was very tricky h...

so for christmas a very exciting gift is my new cook book... get real 30 minute meals rachael ray tonight i made my first 30 minute meal - - turkey club salad with avocado dressing (i substituted chicken for the turkey) the first thing i have to say is it took me an hour I do have a 10 month old to chase after but i think i might just be really slow at cutting veggies. (slow is good so i have all my fingers still) the best part about this meal is the dressing it is very simple 2 ripe avocados, zest of 1 lemon, 1 garlic clove, 2 tbl red wine vinegar and 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil. I always add sourcream to make avocados go further but this is a much healthier and better way to do this. I think it could have used 1 tbl red wine vinegar because that was a little strong. the worst part about this meal was the bacon - - it was turkey bacon and it would not crisp. i realized i bought a different type then what was recommended so next time i will buy ready crisp bacon! i am so excited for...

why does it seem like everytime i am going on a trip the night before is chaos? i try not to procrastinate i even set out everything i wanted to pack last night but some how i ended up awake at 3am "finishing" packing. tomorrow is a first for us and for our baby...first plane ride with an infant for us and of course his first plane ride ever! He is teething so our adventure might be a bit rocky, hopefully he sleeps a lot. He is a very cute baby so whoever sits next to us will probably fall in love with him and not hate us!! We can only hope. So as I was packing i put 3 books in my checked luggage and one in my carry on. David quickly brought me back to reality and said "you really think you are going to read 4 books?" i haven't read much since november when Bobby came to stay with us and i had high hopes of catching up on some reading. but i am glad i have a husband who calmly explains that i shouldnt add any weight to my bag. so i brought 2 books and hope to re...

i am so amazed at our 2 year old he has so many words now and he is so smart! when you ask him who is the cutest or smartest he now says "me"! i love it!!

today is the first time i am celebrating that my husband is a father. when i woke up to the baby crying i went right in as fast as i could so david could sleep. then i looked over and he was already gone for church. i came out to the kitchen changed the baby and made him a bottle. i sat down to davids computer and he had a word document open with a story he wrote last night. i went to bed before him because he went out for a jog and i tried to stay awake until he got back but gave in to sleep. he didnt make it to bed until after 4am, i dont question when he stays up late he is by nature a night owl and he will get to nap today. any way back to the word document it is titled "first fathers day" and as i read it tears welled up in my eyes. by the end i was full out sobbing!! i am amazed by my husband everyday he is the best dad! being a parent is the hardest but most rewarding job in the world. i love my husband more everyday.

so now that i am addicted to facebook i dont blog as much. i guess i just figured no one is reading so why write. but i realized i like to write even if it is just little notes here and there. i am enjoying being a foster mom - - "fissa" is what we have bobby call me and he used to just not call me anything but he recently started calling me "mama" he knows i am not his mama as he points at her picture on our fridge and says mama and dada. so i am not sure why he calls me mama maybe because fissa is too hard for him to say? I always say not mama - fissa and he giggles. I love this little boy so much!! he started weekend visits with his family 2 weeks ago and the first week was really hard but last weekend when he came home he was pretty good, other then crying for mama and dada and now poppop at bed time. his family is probably going to reunify in june once school gets out. we are going to miss him so much but we are happy for his family. being a foster parent is ha...