Blog Name

So Sorry guys that I did not give you guys the address . It is long, but here it is,

livingmylifeonthewildside.blogspot.com. Hope you guys read. I trying to post at least every other day, if not everyday!! Thanks, Leah

another blog

I am starting another blog, then I will be deleting this one. The reason for this is because all of my blogs have been for me and Tony and about us. This time I wanted a blog just for me. This blog will about everything I do and how our family works and the things that make us work as a family of 12. I'm sorry to make it confusing and make another blog, but I just did not feel like this was my blog. I did not create it, so I wanted to create one for myself. I hope you will once again join me with the new blog. Once I feel I have given it enough time I will delete the others to make it less confusing. Thanks again, hop on over now and read the new blog!!

Thanks for the Advice

Today has been a bitter sweet day here at home. While things are getting better on this end, there is a friend of mine that has been diagnosed with Leukemia. My friend is only 28 years old and has also adopted a baby from the Ukraine. In fact she is the main reason we chose to adopt. She had shown us a picture of little Leeska when she was 1 and told us about her being sent to an institution if she was not adopted. We followed her to the Ukraine soon after she came home. Now she actually works for Reece's Rainbow. Her name is McKenna Powell. She has 3 small children and has been dealing with so much in her life. Her niece was recently diagnosed with cancer in her leg. Her family has gone through a lot with this. Now this past Monday she found out about her leukemia. She is very positive about it. She has already began to take medication to help her. Today she went to get more testing done, so please keep McKenna is your prayers and pray for a miracle right now.
As for our babies, we have changed their diet to a gluten free diet and that has helped out a lot. I know now that we do not have the best doctor because he truly does not seem to think that this is a big deal. After reading all the responses it sounds to be much bigger than I even thought it was. Thanks so much for giving me all the info that you have!! I am going to search for another doctor and hopefully figure all this out. I have Friends that will not even hold my babies anymore because they know how they poop so much. They are really grossed out my them and that really bugs me to see people like that.
I don't know if I have told people this before, but I also foster puppies. If anyone that lives near by wants to adopt a chi-mix puppy I have 4 left, and 2 spaniel mix pups. I have had them now for 4 months, and they really need to find good homes. Ill post a picture of them, but please pass the info along. The adoption fee is 150.00 but they come with all their shots, spayed and neutered and micro-chipped. They are very sweet babies. I'm a sucker for pus and homeless dogs so I cant ever say no. I joke a lot and tell people I can not say no to puppies or kids!!

Tummy Issues

I was reading the comments today and I was thinking about what Patty had said. I'm not sure what that is called or how to say it, but I'm going to check into it. We have not resolved the tummy issues by far. In fact they have gotten much worse. Everyday that we wake up the babies are covered in poop. We have to carry them to the bath and wash them off. Then we have to open their window to get the smell out of their room, then we have to strip their cribs everyday. It really gets very time consuming. Then we do this about 2 more times throughout the day. We have just recently started them on the gluten free diet, but it does not seem to help out a whole lot. We are at a loss. We do not have the best pediatrician either. He really has no clue what to do. I'm looking to find a doctor that knows a little more about downs children anyways.
I was thinking yesterday about how it will be when they are all older. Are they still going to try to get into everything when they run around on their own?? Do they always scream for no reason?? Just wanting to be prepared for these things.
Eli makes us laugh everyday with the new things he likes to do. When a woman holds him he always loves to pull down her shirt and look inside it. You can see the ladies freaking out trying to fight him for thier shirt as me and Tony sit and laugh!! Then Leeska is just learning knew things everyday. She has learned to say so many new words, and she has really learned how to listen to what we say. We are amazed at how smart she is. Its so hard to think that it has only been 6 months almost 7 that we have had them home.
We have been looking at the R.R. again looking at the older children and then some of the kids with HIV. We don't know if its OK to adopt a child with HIV if you have a lot of kids at home. We are afraid that our kids get sick so often that that would make them more sick even faster. Some people say no, but I'm not sure. They have so many kids that need to be adopted. I do not know how people pick one. We had it easy because a friend showed us Leeska so we went into this knowing we would go for her.
Well, Patty if you read this I tried to respond but it would not let me. If you know more about this disease please let me know. I'm interested to see if this could be what they have. Thanks

Gods plans

That's where we are. We are trying to figure out Gods plans for us. The moving thing is wearing us down. We know if we work for my brother we would be happier, but still don't know if that's what God wants for us. I guess its just the waiting around that is more frustrating than anything. We did not put a pool in because we might move, we also did not landscape yet because we might move. We are not sure if we will homeschooling or not because we might move. There is just a lot of things riding on this move!!
As for the babies they are doing good. Right now Eli has a fever though. He has had a lot of allergy issues. We are thinking that the 3 babies may have celiac disease. We heard that 50% of downs babies have celiac deisease. The babies have such bad diareah everyday!! When we awake in the morning the babies are covered in poop. It is sooo nasty. I have to carry them to the bath and bath them every morning. So we are going to try a gluten free diet to see if this helps. Not to mention the diaper rashes they are having because of the diareah. Leeska and Nessie are about to have their second eye surgery. They had to have one for their blocked tear ducts, now the second one will be for there eyes to not cross anymore. I think this will help them to walk better as well.
We are still trying to help my brother that has lost his mind now to. We went to visit him again this week and it is just so hard to see. I have grown up with this brother that now I do not even recognise anymore. I don't even think he knows me anymore. He is always fighting the air thinking someone is there, and he is always yelling at my sister-n-law saying that she said ir did things that she has not ever done. We watched their 2 youngest daughters this week and it was heartbreaking. The little one that is 4 fell and hit her head and Tony picked her up. She grabbed his neck and just hugged him. When he went to put her down she would not let him. So he sat and rocked her for an hour. She just sat there and fell to sleep. She said her daddy never help her.. In fact, he never even talks to her. He does not think she is one of his kids. Its so sad to me. The hardest thing is to not be able to do anything at all. I keep looking into things everyday,but in Texas we are limited to the things we do here.
I'm going to get ready now for our weekend trip. W are going to the beach again, but without the babies. This will be our first trip in years alone. We are very excited about it to!!

4th Of July

We had such a blast on the 4th of July. We were invited to go to my brothers home in Austin. He threw a huge party with over 360 people there. I got to meet a few movie stars that I never thought I would get to meet. It was sorda nice. I even got a few pictures with one of the guys holding my little Eli.
The night was finally over at about 3.00a.m. Then we had to make the drive back to San Antonio. We learned on our Beach Vacation not to stay at a hotel with the babies!! We got home at about 4.30. Long night!!!
At home everything is just settling down right now. I have put the kids therapy off for a week to just get everything here cleaned up a little. We have all my nieces from Austin staying over right now. Tony keeps taking them to Fiesta Texas while I get the house picked up. I would rather clean, than take the kids to the park!!!
Tony's job is still up in the air.. He had wanted to leave at@t because he was not doing a lot of work there, but now he just is not sure what to do. My brother had offered him a job to work with him in Austin and to travel with him, but know we are re-thinking that as well. He was offered another position at his current job also. Now we are thinking that that may be the best bet so that we can hold on to the benefits. Tony has liked it there until the past few months when it got really slow. Now they told him they had more for him to do. The only problem is that other people that he knows there may be let go if he takes the job they are offering him. We have been down this road before and lost a lot of friends that way. That is the last thing he wants to do, so he is trying to figure out a way where he can take the job, and the other people can keep there jobs to.
We are still looking at homes in Dallas, Austin, and here in San Antonio. Those are the 3 places we may end up right now. The waiting is what really bugs us the most. We just want to be settled and know where we are going to go. We need one more bedroom than we have right now, and we really want a pool for the kids.
Eli is trying to walk around more right ow, and Nessie is taking a few steps. This week we are really working on potty training. This has not been a success yet!! We are having problems with Nessie taking everyone things from them right now. She fights the other babies for what she wants. It has been a real struggle.
Well, We are going to go out for dinner tonight with our best friends. They have a lot of kids as well, so people love it when we walk i together!! Please continue to pray for Tony's job and the choices that we make !!

Hello Again!!

Ok, I think I forgot I had a blog!! Not really, Its just been a crazy time here. First thing first. I guess last time I wrote I was still dealing with the neighbor thing. Well, I think God took care of that situation. Things got worse before they got better. They got really bad in fact. I don't normally argue with people, but it got down to the point where she began to say things that just did not happen. I had to call her out on them, and now we are simply a hi and by relationship. She really does not see my kids anymore!!

Now the things that we are dealing with now are a little different. I have a brother that I am trying to take care of. He did a lot of drugs a few years back that has fried his brain. He now has skitsophrneia, not sure how to spell it, but that sounded right.. He is OK if he would take meds, but he wont. We are trying to find a way to have him committed. Its really sad to see him the way he is. Its even harder to know that I can not help him. I know that God will help him in the end, but the waiting is very hard.

The second big thing we are dealing with here at the Beasley home is Nessie. We are still having a hard time here. I do not understand why she screams all the time. She is always fighting the other babies, and always hitting them. Tony and I were so upset yesterday because she pulled a hand full of hair out of Leeskas head. We were so sad for Leeska. I'm wondering if she had to fight off the other kids in the orphanage. That's how she acts now. The thing is, she gets everything she needs here. Oh well. This is just some of what we are dealing with.

Poor Tony is so depressed at his job so he is getting a new job that will be moving us to Dallas. Then my brother stepped in and told him that he wanted to hire Tony to work for him in Austin. Now we have to decide what to do with this as well. We are trying to figure out what God wants us to do. We want to make sure that what we decide to do will be good for us in the long run.

Right now as I write my brother, not the one I spoke of earlier with the illness, has all of my oldest kids in Austin. My brother is a doctor and is a millionaire. He has everything he has ever wanted or needed. So now my kids are getting a taste of this life. They are never going to want to come home. Even to pick my kids up he had his private jet come pick them up. I'm proud of him for being so successful, but I do not want my children to be all sad when they come home that they do not have all these nice things. We feel that a lot with our oldest adopted son. We feel like he wishes he had been adopted by someone else. He does not like discipline, or chores. He always feels like he is getting into trouble, so in the end he puts that blame on us. He doesn't seem very grate full of anything, and expects everyhting in return. We are really working on him, we are trying to teach him that it is this way at other families homes as well. It was probably not very smart to send him to my brothers, but I did not want to deny him of that chance to be with his cousins as well.

I just wanted to say thanks for following along. I know I am not doing a good job at posting a lot, but you guys are patient to keep coming back!! The babies are doing great other than the screaming. Leeska is so big, and sooo smart. Eli is getting so big and soo funny. Ill post some pictures!! Thanks guys!

Way to long to write!!

Wow, I know I know, I have not written in forever. I looked today and saw that I have lost all my followers as well. That's my fault , I know. I don't know how people do this when they have so much going on.

My oldest is 12 going on 13 soon and it has been so interesting lately. She has always been glued to my side. I have enjoyed being best buddies with her for so long now. Now she has made new friends, which I love, but I must admit, I miss my friend. We have a neighbor that is older than me that loves the kids to come over and play. Its o.k. with my boys because she has boys their age, but she has no girls. She keeps asking Faith, my oldest to come hang out and watch movies and go to the park and things like that. We were o.k. at first with all this, but now its every day. Me and my hubby just think that its weird right???

She keeps asking her to spend the night now to with other girls. She talks all the time about how she wishes Faith was her daughter.

So last night we told my daughter she could not hang out over there anymore. I now have to figure out a way to tell my neighbor this. Faith really does not understand this either. She liked my neighbor a lot. I just feel its a weird situation to begin with. She gossips about every neighbor their is and you find it so hard to not join in, so its better to just stay away from the situation.

Other than that everyone else is doing great. We are looking at adopting another baby girl from the Ukraine named Kristin I believe in number 16 where we adopted our others from. She is such a cutie.

I hope everyone will stick with me as I try to post more often, If you have any advice on my drama feel free to tell me anything!! Thanks, Leah

My Sick Nessie

The days are really getting harder for me here. I feel like I'm loosing control. I have always told myself I would adopt a lot of kids, but we would never let having to many kids get into the way of us living a normal life. When I say normal life I mean going out into public with our family to eat, and just going to the grocery store, and going to Fiesta Texas with our family. We love to do things as a family, and told ourselves we would continue to do so. We have done well with this until now. Nessie has been screaming for so long that now we can not go anywhere. When she screams I think she is just doing it because she has gotten really spoiled. Tony thinks she is in pain. When we tell her to stop though, she gets it, she will stop for a moment, then she just starts all over again. We have seen a few doctors, but so far she is fine. If we put her down after holding her, she starts her scream. Its is a high pitch scream that everyone hears. We went to the beach this weekend, and we could not wait to come home. She screamed the entire time. Today we went to eat, and we left before we were even done.. Now I feel like I have finally done it..I can not go out in public anymore. I am stuck in my home because I have a child that everyone will stare at me and wonder why I can not keep her quite. She even screams when she is happy. When she stands up she gets so excited that she just stands there screaming.

My neighbor would come get her to watch her while I tried to have chill out time, but now she wont even come around anymore because she does not know how to handle her either. I sooo wanted to adopt more babies, and more children, but now I don't think I could handle anymore. I hope that this is just a short phase and that she will grow out of this, but for now it just keeps getting worse.

The other little ones are happy and growing so fast. Little Leeska surprises us everyday. She learns so much from her new school, and haves so much fun there. Eli has started to smile at us more than he used to. Hr is never to affectionate, but he getting closer to giving us a little lovin!!

I will try to post more pictures, but for now this is what we have for now. Thanks, Leah

End Of The School Year

As the year draws to an end we sit here trying to figure out if we should home school again, or send them all back to school. For us we like homeschooling, but we do not know a lot of people that do it, so its hard to talk about it to others. They think we are just sheltering our children from what needs to happen. I do not do it to shelter them, We do it because we feel like we can give them better education, while teaching them about God. We also like to be together all the time as a family. We do more family functions, and vacations. We do have a few of the kids that WANT to go to public school. So, I think we should send the ones that want to go, but hubby thinks we do all or none!! That's what we have been debating all week this week.

As for the babies, well, we have had a long hard week with Nessie. She has had something wrong with her for 3 long weeks. The doctors are trying to figure this out, but no luck yet. She just screams all day. It seems like something inside of her tummy hurts her, but nothing is showing up on anything. We went to the beach for a little weekend trip, and it was awful. She ruined the trip by screaming the entire time. We don't know what to do to console her. The other babies are doing great. Leeska started school last week. It seems to be going OK, but the teacher does not tell me what is going on. She does not like kids being added to the end of the year. Leeska really loves to get on the bus and to go to school, so that makes us happy.

We enjoy our nigh time together when we can all sit together in our chair together and just watch the babies cruise the room and play with each other. They have grown so much in the past 3 months, and they have learned so much as well. We can not wait for the day that God calls us to do this again.

This week is a busy week of trying to go to new appts for Nessie to understand her pain. Pray that God will send us to the right doctors so that her pain will end forever!!

Posting on Fridays

I have been so busy that I have not been blogging at all anymore. Tony thought that we should close it all together, but I really did not want to do that because we are thinking of exciting things for the future with maybe more adoptions.

We have been reading Chrissie's blog lately because she was adopted from Reece's Rainbow right before we did. Chrissie had open heart surgery and has been fighting for her life since last Monday. Her parents have inspired me to adopt again. They knew when they adopted her that she had a bad heart, yet they obeyed God and adopted her and gave her the best life she would ever have. I'm just amazed at how calm the mom is. I did not ever think that I could bring home a child that may die, but now she has me thinking again. Maybe that is the child I need to bring home. It will take a lot of praying for us. I know that right now we are talking about it. My husband really wants to start an Orphans Outreach program at our church here in San Antonio. He thinks that's where God wants us right now. So, We just need to see where God is taking us right now.

For now on I think Im going to post every Friday. I feel bad that we are not posting as much as we had, but we are having a lot of therapy right now, and Elisa is stating school this week. She is so cute with her little bag. I will have alot of pictures on Friday for you guys. Thanks for reading.

Our Progress so Far

Monday will be an exciting day for us!! Little Leeska will start her first day of preschool. The school bus will come all the way to our home, which is a good 30 minute drive, and take her by bus to school. She will stay there for 2 hours, then return home. The teachers have all been so kind to us, and to her. She is the smallest kid in her class, and I think the cutest!!!

The other 2 babies are still doing great in there therapy. Little Nessie is starting to stand by herself and has now taken 2 steps. She has also gained a lot of weight. Her hair has gotten so much longer, and finally one of my girls is going to have those cute little curls!!

Eli, well Eli is ALL OVER THE HOUSE!! We had to put in a gate to keep him in one place. He really hates it a lot. He now cries when he is in it. He uses his head to push against the gate until it either falls, or moves open enough that he can get through it. Once he gets through it he uses his military crawl, really fast to get to the stairs as fast as he can. He knows once he is out we will come to get him so once he sees us he goes even faster. Its funny because he knows he should not be doing what he is doing. Eli is so big and so strong that he really does not know his own strength.. He is going to be a super strong kid!!

Last Sunday Nessie turned 2, now this Monday Leeska will be 3. We feel like they have changed so much in the past few months. God has given us so much. We know we want to adopt again, but its such a hard decision. Before Leeska was sorda picked out for us, so we just picked more kids from her orphange. Now we have the chance to pick any kid from anywhere. How do you do this?? For now we will just pray that God will give us the answer to this question. We don't need to rush into anything because we are loving what we have right now!!

I just wanted to let all the Reeces Rainbow families know that if you are adopting from Russia we are praying for you guys that your adoptions go smoothly because of what this woman did to mess up every ones adoptions! It sad that this has happened, and I hope that they do not shut down all the adoptions!! We will be praying for you guys!

Springtime in Texas

It is tradition for many families in Texas to take pictures in the bluebonnets when the flowers bloom in the spring. We do it every couple of years, but this year was extra special because of the new additions to our family. As we sat Elisa, Nessie and Eli in the sea of blue flowers, I couldn't help but think back to the 30+ inches of snow we left back in the Ukraine. They were always wearing at least 3 layers of clothes and here we are, a few months later, sitting in a field of flowers at sunset.

A good friend of ours who is a professional photographer offered to take the pictures as a gift to us. What a wonderful gift that we can now share with all of you. If anyone needs a great photographer, let us know and we'll get you in contact with Ray from Life is Beautiful Photography here in San Antonio. He is amazing...... Thanks Ray!

The first of many new posts

Today is the first day that I am writing in our new blog. We felt that the other blog was mainly about our adoption process, now we want people to see how we live with 10 kids and 2 adults.

I have to say I read another blog the other day about a lady that has 10 kids. It was funny because she was talking about how everyone always talks about them when they go out to eat. We have the same problem. Its kinda funny though because when they see us walk in you can tell they are a bit freaked out and even try to move at times. Its always good in the end though when people actually get up and almost always walk over to our table to tell us how good our kids are at the table. About a month ago I saw a man and his wife stare at us through the entire dinner. I just knew when they left they were going to say something awful to us. When they left they said nothing at all to our surprise. When the bill came the waiter said it had been paid in full by that couple and they left 50.00 in cash for us to keep. They thought that we had done a good job at teaching the kids how to sit at a restaurant and how to behave. This made us so happy because we do get a lot of people saying that sometimes we are simply to hard on them. Its times likes this that the discipline pays off. We have to teach our kids how to act in public, and we have to teach them that we are different than normal families. People are going to be looking at us already because we have so many. Even when its not a restaurant I get the question all the time, 'Those are not all your right?? You are babysitting right?" I always laugh it off and say ," No, they are all mine,"

I think my friends think that my life is very hard and that its very stressful on me. Its the total opposite. I'm so fulfilled. I'm so overjoyed and happy. I want more, a lot more kids. I have no number, and no end in sight to stop adopting and having babies. I think we are doing well with them, and I think our kids are loving it. All of our kids help each other . We always talk to them about getting more children, and they all agree to do it again. I do think at times I go a little nutty, what mom doesn't, but its so short lived. All of our children have their chores that they must get done before leaving the house. They all get their allowance at the end of the week. If their chores are not done they do not get their money. Getting their money comes into play when we all go to Fiesta Texas and they want candy apples, or funnel cakes. Yes, I make them buy their own!! They know that ahead of time, so it motivates them to get their chores done. They also lose the Wii, or T.V. if their work does not get done. I know that people think I can be strict on them, but I also know that I have 10 of the best well behaved kids on earth!!

Now, I have to tell everyone a bit about my hubby as well. Another question that is asked all the time is if my husband likes adopting , Is he on board. That's funny to because this was his idea first. People that know this say," Well yeah, because he doesn't have to stay at home with them and raise them," Not at all right!! When Tony gets home he totally takes over caring for them. I can go rest or do whatever I need to. Even when I leave to go run errands Tony gets the entire house cleaned and cares for all the kids, He really has a gift at multi-tasking. He is the best dad I have ever met. He loves his kids and tries to always make their lives better for them. He is very hands on with them to. He takes them outside everyday to play ball and to jump on the trampoline, or just go for walks with them.

I just wanted to start this blog off explaining how our family works, and what makes our family so special. At the end of the day I can truly look back at my day and Thank God for every single little blessing he has giving to me, I am blessed, and I am so very happy!!!