Knee Surgery

My right knee has been giving me problems since late summer. I have been going to the ortho since August about it. I've had a cortisone shot, water drained, and another shot in the knee to help relieve the pain. Unfortunately, those things only lasted about a week and I was back in pain. We were trying to hold out until next summer to do anything about it.

After an MRI reveled bone on bone, I discussed a knee replacement with my doctor. He said I was a good candidate for a partial knee replacement. The recovery time is much shorter than a total replacement-2-3 weeks vs. 4-6 weeks. We decided to go ahead and do it over Christmas break so that I could go back after the holidays and not miss much work.

My surgery was done on Dec. 15th. Once the doctor got in there, the damage was worst than he anticipated and wound up doing a total knee replacement. I stayed in the hospital for 2 days.

The recovery has been very emotional for me. I cry at the drop of a hat. I've really had to work at doing my physical therapy. That has gotten better over the past week. My biggest challenge right now is not being able to get comfortable or sustain attention on anything for very long. One would think this would be a great time to read, do crafts, etc. However, I can't get into anything. It's very frustrating.

I know I haven't been the easiest or most fun person to be around, but I've had some great support. Eric is amazing. He is handling everything so well. He encourages me to exercise the knee and get up and about. He is keeping the house going, the kids entertained, and working his job. What would I do without him?

I also have amazing parents!! They came down and stayed with me while Eric andmthe kids celebrated Christmas at his mothers. They were good moral support as well as my cheerleaders. Mom helped me with my physical therapy, got me out of the house, and cooked me yummy oatmeal. It was so nice having them here. Oh yeah-they thought they were so cute. They brought me my dad's cane from when he had his knees replaced. While I was taking a nap one day, they put a mini license plate on the cane with my name on it. I guess they wanted everyone to know that I had a license to use the cane. : )

I won't be able to go back to work next week as planned. I'm walking around on it, but my stamina is no where near what it needs to be. I go to the doctor on Monday, so we'll see what he wants me to do.

Holidays

This has been the most blessed Holiday season ever. With 3 new little ones we shared many daily traditions and created a few new ones. We did the usual tree decorating. We took the girls and let them pick out their own ornaments. This is a tradition we have had since Rebecca was a baby. When we decorate the tree, we each put on our new one in order of age. Eric and I start off with our Atlanta Braves ornament. Then we go from there. The kids enjoyed putting theirs on the tree. Ethan had a little boost from Eric since he wanted his at the top of the tree. After that, we enjoyed sharing all of the memories of the other ornaments. I always enjoy reliving memories of former students, friends, and places.

The entire time we were decorating the tree, Ethan kept saying he wanted to put lights on the tree outside. Eric was determined to make it happened. All 4 kids bundled up and headed outside to help him wrap the lights. The tree turned out beautiful and a new tradition/ memory was made.

We atteneded a foster parent association Christmas party. The kids were able to " shop" and get presents for the foster parents. Rebecca got to take the kids in and help them out with that. We were in line to get our food when the president of the association approached Eric about being Santa. The one that was supposed too come had to back out at the last minute. Eric agreed to do it and did an amazing job! I was even able to get Rebecca to sit on Santa's lap another year. : ).

Due to my knee surgery, Eric had to take the kids to his mother's by himself. My mom and dad came to stay with me while they were gone. They all had a good time at Grannas. They returned on Christmas Eve afternoon with lots of goodies from Granna.

Although we weren't at Grannas for Christmas Eve, we continued our Christmas Eve meal tradition of hot dogs and homemade chili. Donna made her famous chili and sent it home for us to eat. As usual, it was delicious. After dinner, we all gathered around the tree and opened up one gift each. This was a tradition of my family growing up. I can assure you there were no arguments from the kids to do so!! It was tough getting the kids into bed, but they finally gave up around 10:00.

This was the first time we had ever spent Christmas morning with my parents. What a nice treat to be at our house on Christmas morning. I wound up waking up the kids around 7:00 to go see if Santa had visited. He indeed had visited the children. They were so excited over their new goodies. The big hits-Nintendo DS for all of the younger ones and a new t.v. for Rebecca. We moved into the living room to open the rest of the presents. Everyone was spoiled rotten.

My sister, Jennifer, and her family braved the snow and headed this way. We enjoyed a second round of opening gifts after they arrived. If was great to have my family under our roof this year. Momma Hope made lasagna for our Christmas dinner. If was delicious.

A new activity(hope to be tradition) was that the family all watched a movie together. Rebecca got Toy Story 3 for Christmas and was the one we decided on. It was a sweet movie.

The day ended with the women all piling up on my bed and chatting while the kids played games and the men watched t.v. It was just plain good family fun!!

Here is a slide show of some of the highlights. We are not allowed to post the foster kid's pictures on the internet, so there aren't many pictures of the entire Liles' clan.

This free slideshow created with Smilebox

Beta Club Induction

We are so proud of Rebecca. School does not come easy for her. She really has to work at it to make good grades. When she didn't make Beta Club in 7th grade, she made it a goal to make it in 8th grade. We are proud to say her hard work paid off. She was initiated into the Beta Club this past Monday night.

Cheer Competition

Rebecca and I wrapped up our competition season yesterday with the

state cheer classic. Our girls worked so hard this season. While we didn't do as well as we had hoped, we made tremendous gains as a squad. I couldn't be more proud of the girls. Here is a video of their performance.

Rebecca was sad to see her middle school competition cheer season come to an end. She is more and more like me every day. : )

Here we are about to take the tumbling warm up mat.

This is my dear friend/c0-coach, Doris, and her daughter, Dionne.

Proud parents!!!

Daddy's Little Girl

I have really enjoyed coaching the girls. They have been a sweet group. We still have basketball season, but the "hard" part is over.

Trick-or-Treating

Rebecca was excited about going with the kids trick-or-treating. She didn't want to dress up until her friend, Miranda, showed up in her super girl outfit. They walked around for a little bit with Eric and the kids and then decided they were ready to join their friends.

Before the change into the costume

Rebecca and her pumpkins

A great group of teens

Rebecca's Loot

Carving Pumpkins

Halloween with 4 children is quite an adventure. We started out today with carving pumpkins. I bought each of the children their own pumpkin to carve. They each had a small and large pumpkin. They told me what they wanted on their pumpkin and I drew it out for them. They each had their own carving kit and got busy cleaning out their pumpkins and carving the faces. They went from working on them on the counter top to sitting in the middle of the floor working on them. My kitchen floor had pumpkin seeds and pulp all over it when it was all over. It was well worth it when I saw the smiles on their faces.

Rebecca found a pumpkin plant growing inside of her pumpkin.

Trying hard to get the top off

Starting to carve the face

The mess on my kitchen floor

The front porch

Pumpkin Jars

I love to browse craft sites online. I have been scouring them lately for new halloween ideas. I came across one that looked like fun for the entire family to do. The kids absolutely loved doing it and then seeing them all lit up. Here are a few pictures of our new pumpkins.

Rebecca and Mir Mir making their pumpkins

All lit up on the mantle

What's Happening at the Liles' House

We recently took a trip to Lenoir City, TN to celebrate my dad's 70th birthday. He informed me that I need to update my blog because he doesn't do facebook. Here's to you, Dad.

Life with 4 kids is amazing, a whirlwind, busy, crazy, and so many other words I can't describe. We are enjoying the children. They have definitely changed our world-for the good!! They pretty much go to school, go to after school care, do homework, and attend Rebecca's cheerleading events. We are signing them up for the Upward Bound basketball/cheerleading program at a local church. I think they are excited to get to participate in something.

Rebecca had her first cheer competition this past weekend. It was a very small competition (2 squads in her division). They came in 2nd. It was a great opportunity for the 7th graders to see what a competition is like on a very small scale. It also gave us a chance to see what kinds of improvements we can make. We have 5 more to go. We hope to increase our score each time.

Eric is doing a great job playing Mr. Mom. He picks up the kids most nights and gets them started on homework. I don't know what we would do without him.

I think everything finally caught up with me yesterday. I came down with strep throat. NOT FUN!!

Cheerleading, homework, and kids about sums up our life right now. Sorry there's nothing more exciting to post.

Life Is Good

It has been too long since my last post. A lot has happened in the Liles' house. On August 5th, we were blessed with 3 beautiful foster children. We had been working since March to get them in our home. Doubling our family size has been quite an experience. One that I wouldn't trade for the world.

We were blessed by friends and co-workers that showered us with the necessitates for everyday living with 6 people: laundry detergent, food, toilet paper, paper towels, napkins, games, and gift cards. They helped make our financial transition much easier. Thank you to everyone!!

School started on August 19th. Eric was a trooper taking each of them to their Meet the Teacher night. Because I had to be in my classroom to meet my new little ones, he took one of them at a time to meet their teacher. Everyone at the school was so impressed with Eric. The kids are in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade. They have adjusted nicely and love their teachers. We are having to learn how to balance the homework, but life is good.Rebecca is in the 8th grade this year. I can't believe it. She was excited about school starting and being "The Big Dog" at the school. She and her friends couldn't wait to be able to stay in the cafeteria in the mornings instead of having to wait in the hallway for school to begin. Oh the things that excited them. : )Here she is on her first day of middle school.

Rebecca has been an amazing big sister. She really helps us out with the night time baths and bed time. She loves to play the Wii with them and straighten the girl's hair. The hardest part for her has been having to share dinner "talk" time with them. We still manage to take her and do small little things with just her. I think(know) she likes that special attention.

Rebecca and I have also been VERY busy with cheerleading. We practice 4 days a week. It is

very time consuming for me. I love coaching and the girls. I can't wait to see what this year holds for us as a squad.

Eric's office is doing a management class. He goes in early on Wednesday mornings to learn how to become a better manager. He even has to study at night. It's kind of cute.

We aren't allowed to post photos of the kids on the internet. Sorry about that. Trust me when I say that they are beautiful children and we are enjoying them very much!!

That's it for now. Hopefully it won't be so long between posts next time.

Vacation

Eric had a SC Poultry Federation conference in Hilton Head this past weekend. We were all excited about the chance to go to the beach, especially since it was paid for!! We had hoped we would have our foster children by this time so they could go with us. It didn't work out as planned, but Rebecca's best friend did go with us.

Here are the girls ready to go out to eat with some of Eric's salesmen.

Mark and Mitchell took us to eat at The Bonefish Grill. After enjoying yummy appetizers and an entree, we ordered dessert. Eric ordered the brownie with ice cream. It was the largest brownie I have ever seen in my life. With the exception of a few bites, Eric ate the whole thing.

The girls had been planning their adventures for weeks. They planned to go down to the beach at night and check things out. Let's just say it is VERY dark on the beach at night. Thank goodness for the illumination of a cell phone. They wrote in the sand and walked in the water.

After breakfast at IHop we ventured back to the beach. It was pretty crowded. I decided we should sit close to the water. Bad idea. The tide kept moving up on the sand. We must have moved our things back at least 10 times.

Oh to have these figures again!!

One of their plans was to build a sandcastle. They may have filled the bucket one time a piece. They didn't build a sandcastle. : (

We bought boogie boards from the resort gift shop. They took them out to the water, but brought them back to me because there weren't many waves.

Here they are posing for a facebook profile picture.

It's really hard to see, but there was a jellyfish that washed up on the sand. They decided it would be cool to touch it. Thank goodness it was dead. Lexi wanted to take it home with her, but decided to leave it in the ocean.

The S.C. Poultry Federation had a dinner at the resort. Here we are "dressed up" for the event. The dinner wasn't my favorite. Dessert was great. After dinner, a hypnotist did a show. Eric was a participant and the life of the show. He really did go "under". He was hilarious. Unfortunately, there are no pictures because they said no flash photography.

We actually found sand dollars in the water. We used our feet to find them. We found a ton of them. Some of them even had teeny tine crabs on them. It was pretty amazing. I have never found sand dollars at the beach before.

Rebecca and Lexi talked Eric into letting them bury him in sand. He is one crazy man.

I was fortunate to get to visit with a former student. His family moved to Nashville the year after we moved back to North Carolina. I saw the mom's status on Facebook that they were headed to Hilton Head on vacation. We chatted back and forth and decided to meet up. Seth has gotten much taller and has a really deep voice. It was great to see the entire family.

Before we went out to eat on Saturday night, the girls started horsing around with Eric. They were popping each other with towels and climbing all over him. Here is Lexi on top of Eric's shoulders.

The complex manager for Columbia Farms took all of the Columbia Farm employees and their families out to eat on Saturday night. We enjoyed seafood at Scott's Fish Market. The best part of the meal was dessert. They had my all time favorite dessert: Kentucky Derby pie. Oh my. I haven't had it in a long time. I enjoyed every drop of it.

It was a great long weekend mini-vacation. I hope we'll get to go again. Thanks, Columbia Farms.

The Nation's Birthday

We enjoyed a quiet Fourth of July. My parents came down to spend a few days with us since we couldn't go up there. We did made the All-American meal for dinner-hamburgers, corn on the cob, and home made salsa from our garden tomatoes. We enjoyed home made ice cream for dessert. A local church put on a great fireworks display.

I am so lucky to live in a free country. Thank you to the men, women, and their families that fight for my freedom.

God Bless America.

2-4-6-8 Who Do We Appreciate? Applebee's

The 2010-11 cheer season is in full swing. The girls are practicing hard this summer. Last Saturday, we had a team fundraiser at Applebees. They offer a pancake breakfast fundraiser. Each girl sold 10 tickets to the event. We served approximately 130 plates. It is a fun event for the girls. They rotated through the different jobs-meet, greet, and seat-wash dishes-serve. It is a great team builder as they get to know one another better and learn how to work together to get the job done.

Rebecca and her friends-Hannah, Lexi and Carl

My sister and her two boys were able to come and support Rebecca.

My partner, Doris-LOVE HER!!

The girls in their cute zebra outfits!!

Kids Wanted

We have been working for 3 months to become licensed to foster/adopt a group of siblings. They are not legally free for adoption, so we are going to start with foster care. The process is going slower than we would like. We really had hoped to have the kids before now. However, we ran into a small snag last week. We hope to have it resolved soon. In the meantime, our parents have been gracious in helping us with the bedding/decorations for the bedrooms. Donna, Eric's mom, bought the girl's comforter sets. They are precious. My mom made the curtains for their room.

My mom has gone crazy over the boy's room. His favorite color is red, so I decided to do a plain red comforter. Momma Hope bought it. She also go him a precious lamp. The base is a small baseball bat. You turn it on by pulling the whistle. She also bought sports stickers for the wall, bookends, a shelf, and a wall plaque-all in a sports theme. He loves to play sports!! She also bought a set of baseball sheets and made the curtains for his room.

We appreciate everything they have done. Now if we could just get the kids. I know they will love their new bedrooms.

Logan's Visit

We were finally able to get my youngest nephew, Logan, to visit us by himself. He loved coming so he could go swimming. He was a little fish. He played and played for hours, many times all by himself. Here are a few pictures of his fun:

Oodles of Noodle Fun

Fun with Uncle Eric

Just Chilling Out

Blowing Out the Air

Playing the Wii with one of my students, Connor

He fell asleep on the gym floor during cheer practice

We absolutely enjoyed having Logan. We hope it is the first of many more summers to come, just like his big brother, Jordan has done for 15 years.