Merrill and Roberta Simon and Family

Merrill and I have entered a new dimension in this process of adopting children, it is about Birth Parents. I have come to feel that no matter what you know about a certain subject, there is always so much more to learn. We have actually dealt with birth parents before now. We have had open adoptions, legal risk placements where the birth parents were still involved, and for that matter, birth parents that were involved with a few of the children that we only fostered.  All in all, the dealings have been okay. Until now. One of our adult sons has had some ongoing legal and mental problems. To be honest, it has just gotten to the point where we did not even have a clue how to help him any longer. This is a harsh reality to even have to look at as parents. One of his former foster parents has really never been supportive of the adoption of he and his siblings. She withheld all of their pictures taken during the five years she had the children. It was hard as we tried to help them...

You know, birthday's have never really bothered me until this year. I am not talking about my birthday, I am really talking about some of the children's birthdays. Over the years Merrill and I have grown nearly weary of people that seem to just not understand that our main goal with our children has always been to first give them a family that loves them and wants them and then to give them the childhood that they deserve. Well, part of that mission includes birthdays. While we do not feel that each and every year there needs to be this outlandish party that involves everyone they know, we do feel that the birthday needs to be about them and them alone. This is one of the reasons that by the middle of May we are all so sick of cake and party stuff that we are all just going.....oh wow :o( another birthday. We have nearly non stop birthdays from mid March until mid May. Okay, so this brings me to the real reason of the blog post. Joseph had his birthday ...

Nothing funny about this post. Today I woke up to more sick kids than we have had in a long time. Not a good thing at all. I mean the reality of parenting is that you should only be required to handle so much barf at one time. This time though I had Merrill's "help". He is such a great dad. He helps me no matter how long his day has been. He can recover from surgery faster than any person I know. He will run errands on his lunch hour so I do not have to get back out with the little ones at nap time. I mean really, what more can I ask for? For starters, can you rinse the sheets before you tell me that they are ready to go and all I have to do is turn on the machines? How about not putting the blanket that was full of the child's present on top of the bed netting. What about acting like you are really sorry you have to leave me with this mess for 10 hours while you go to work? A biggie for me would not smiling so hard as you are driving to work...yes, a co-worker told...

Okay, this was about the most fun we have ever had with the children. I think that we smiled and laughed the entire time. While Merrill and I were away for a few days, we saw a family friendly snowmobile riding place. We got out and talked to them and told them all about the children. We worked things out so that they could accomodate the many special needs. This was going to be a huge surprise for them. So, they all expected that we were going to take them tubing, so it was no big deal that they got on their snow clothes. We headed up to the lake, excitement building. Nearing the last few minutes I asked them who wanted to go tubing and they all yelled with joy. Haha....I then said we are not going tubing. Many were getting upset...but before they got too upset, I told them....who wants to go snowmobile riding. Oh my...they got really excited at that point. Here are some pictures so you can enjoy our day as much as we did. McClain, Joey, LisaMarie and Mordachi waiting for thei...

Merrill and I were able to get away for a few days this past weekend. We had so much fun. The winter months are just the best for us. I love the snow so very much, so anytime we can spend time in the snow is a great time. This go around we chose to just plan two main activities. We did our snowmobile riding. I am not sure how we came about to take our first snowmobile ride many years ago, but we knew we both loved it. This time we took a backroad type of trip. It was nothing like the one we were able to take with friends a few years ago, but it was still a lot of fun. We went up to Hope Valley and it was really beautiful. We will have to add this to our list of places we love to go to. The next day Merrill and I got up and just decided to do whatever we wanted to do. Those that know us well would not be surprized by the fact that we spent several hours just going to thrift stores. It is something I enjoy doing and believe it or not, Merrill actually gets into it when the time is ...

This is short and sweet. I have been working on a new blog post that was near and dear to my heart. Today when I got on to work on it, I was shocked with what I saw. Someone with rather poor spelling I might add, had hacked into our blog and really wrote some rather sad views on our life. I hope that no one read this, but if you did, I am so sorry. Parts of it were my thoughts....like the very first sentence and then the words to a song that I love. Other than that, who really knows. I have taken precaution to stop this and I hope that it does not happen again. Check back in a few days as I hope to have this all fixed up again. Thanks for your support and as always, your words of kindness to us. .

Well, here is the post I was working on before this blog was hacked. It has been in my heart and soul for weeks. I hope and pray that it comes out the way I want it too, with sincerity as well as a bit of pride. My brother Bobby, called me once and said that when he listened to this song by Brooks and Dunn that he always thought of Merrill and I. To be honest, I had never even heard of the song before. So Bobby, being the top notch brother that he is, sent it to me. Then he sang with it to me. Gotta love him. Anyway, I fell in love with this song. Every time I hear it I think of him and then of Merrill and I. If you do not know it, please find it and listen to it. (words folloing this post) Anyway, on with my thoughts. So many of you know Merrill's and my story. I believe with all my heart that we were put on this journey of adopting long ago. I was only 8 years old when I told my mama that I was never going to have children, I was going to adopt. Merrill and I were the perfect...