A New Year, A New Day, A New Hope

I'm taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly....

The buildup to Christmas was not the happy and relaxed time with family that I had earnestly hoped for...our life is too busy to even enjoy moments like these with the kids. 2 days before Christmas and on Christmas day, I just cried. I regretted everything th

at took me away from enjoying my children during such a special time of year. The build-up, the anticipation always has such high expectation and I felt like I failed miserably. I know for certain if you asked the children they would happily exclaim that Christmas was "great" and "fun". I've even heard a couple of them declare "this was the best Christmas ever!".

But I guess I had high expectations for myself and what I wanted to "accomplish" this season - I had big plans of baking authentic Chinese and Colombian food to honor the cultures in our home, I planned to have some quiet evenings watching our favorite Christmas movies and eating christmas candy and treats, I envisioned taking all the kids downtown to walk through the light display and then getting hot chocolate and laughing together....

I'm going to be honest...raising 5 kids takes A LOT of time and energy. Sometimes I deny

this to myself and truly make myself believe that I can do everything I did when we had 2 children. When we had 2 children I owned my own business and worked the hours I chose, my husband worked 1 job and our children were young and weren't in any extra curricular activities...fast forward to now....I have 2 jobs, my husband works 2 jobs, we are full time foster parents and all 5 children are involved in one activity (does hockey count as one activity when it's 5 nights a week???) So, technically, I should be giving myself a break...lowering my expectations a little, right?! But, I didn't. I made myself believe I was superwoman and could do it all.

Christmas Eve we had a big party with our friends and family...this is how crazy my day was...when people arrived at 7:00 I didn't even have the punch made or any of the appetizers ready, no food out for people to munch on. I did, however, have 5 additional

children who were beyond excited and extremely adorable!!!! Hours before our party I found out about 8 children who didn't have anyone to help them celebrate Christmas...our 5 kids each picked one of the children (I got 3 children and the mom!) and we headed to town to buy some Christmas gifts. We also invited the children to our home to celebrate Christmas Eve with us...only 5 could come as the others were too young to come to our home without their mom.

That was the highlight of our Christmas. Beautiful, precious little things who LOVED having gifts to put under their Christmas tree, kids who begged to come back to our house for more play time (and how could I refuse them?) and the next day we spoke to them and heard how happy they were with their 2 gifts each. A lesson for all of us...

So, the authentic Chinese and Colombian baking did not get done, we did not watch many Christmas movies (just Elf) and we most certainly did not make it down to the light show and drink hot chocolate.

After Christmas day, though, we DID manage to get some down time...all the children's activities shut down for Christmas break - except hockey but we LOVED watching Dylan and Caleb play in the tournament (and rink fries are really tasty!)...we had my parents come for a visit, I had 2 different families over for visits, we watched lots of movies (we even watched 2 in one day!), we had time to play games with the kids - like seriously, I can't remember when I had the leisure of sitting and playing games. I know this should be a "normal" thing to do in a family but the last year has proven to be anything but normal for us.

So, now it's 2010...a new year, every day will be a new day, with new hope....

We are making changes to help set the mood for 2010....

1. I resigned from my job at Canadian Blood Services...less money but hopefully more sanity!

2. We have been dealing with some challenges with a couple of our children...fostering and adopting has many challenges...for us, facing the reality of this and then doing everything in our power to get the right support has been vital...we feel better equipped now t

hat we know what these challenges entail and ways to work through them so each child can reach his/her full potential.

3. A few renovations to our home which will provide adequate space and a comfortable living area so ALL OF US can remain sane under this small roof! :-)

4. A new attitude that each and every child that lives in my home (now and in the future) is God's child and although I do not have the energy and patience to endure my crazy life, God absolutely does.

So, here we go...into 2010.

Happy New Year everyone!

*Note: Unfortunately I can't add pics right now...most of the pictures I took over Christmas include our foster child as well as the other children and I'm not able to post a foster child's picture online.