I love Mothers Day!

I Love Mothers Day! I get to be around family. We were lucky enough to have a big family party at my house for my Grandma who has like 25ish grand-kids and who know how many great-grand-kids. She is amazing. We were having an open house for her. So my family and I had spend the day before getting the basement (my apartment area) ready for my family to party here. Not going to lie that is a little stressful.
I got my mom a gift along with my sisters. She is saying how she wants things to hang on the walls in this house. So we simply bought her a hanging candle holder and a decorative candle to go in it. Nothing big but we are not really into huge gifts in my family. She loved it. That is all that matters. My mom is amazing and she really does a lot for me an Nixxon.
 I owe her more than I will every be able to give back to her. She is my main babysitter. When I work nights she is the one who takes care of Nixxon. When I am overly stressed out from school/work/Nixxon/Court and my house shows that I am stressed she usually will do a few loads of laundry for me and help me get things back in order. She is my rock. She has been a huge help through out court. She is really good at documenting things for me and a voice of reason if Joe and I got into a fight. She is also raising my two teenage sisters and teenage girls suck. My mom also had a lot of health issues she has to deal with. She recently found out she has fibromyalgia which makes her tired and hurt a lot if she does very much through out the day or the weather is changing it hurts her body. She also has asthma and is tackling a chronic cough that also takes a lot out of her. She also has a wheat allergy so finding decent food for her is kind of rough. She is tough though and handles all of this like a champ. She amazes me.
Nixxon got me a gift for mothers day. How nice of my two year old right? haha. She got me some office supplies for my new office job. I loved them. So thoughtful of her. I was very thankful on Mothers day to be able to be a mother. Nixxon was a bit of a surprise in my life but I am so so so thankful for the opportunity she has given me to be a mom and a single mom. She is a perfect kid for me. She tests me in the ways I need to be tested as a mother. But she is a good little girl.
Soon family started to show up. We had yummy food of course. There was lots of people here to socialize with. I love being around my cousins and their families it is always a lot of fun. Some of my cousins have these adorable little girls who use to adore me and my sisters. Now they absolutly  adore Nixxon. They follow her everywhere and make her little pictures and its so cute. Things didnt change, they followed her everywhere while they were here. They took care of her for me. I am pretty sure they spoonfeed her also trying to play dolly with her. It was cute.
It came time for everyone to leave. It was fun and I was looking forward to the next big family event. Once everyone left and we got things cleaned up I got a text from Joe saying
"Hey happy mothers day. I left some flowers on your porch for you, you dont have to keep thembut if you want them they are there. I hope you have a good day"
I went to look. Yep there was some flowers thrown on my porch. They were definatly the last picks from wal-mart. Half were wilted and starting to rot a little bit. Then there was a card, if that is what you can call it. It was a peice of notebook paper that just said happy mothers day from Joe.
I shouldn't complain or anything because I didnt really want them but seriously? That is what you just gave the mother of your child who has stepped up in your place also while you have slandered her name every which way for the past two years? Ya he is so thoughtful. I saved the "card" to show my lawyer, but threw the flowers out. They were not even worth saving.
Overall I loved Mothers Day. I wont complain too much about it I got to spend it with great people.

Two Easter Bunnies??

Easter rolled around which was exciting. I love Easter. It is not a huge holiday in my family but it is a lot of fun now to watch Nixxon see what the Easter Bunny brought her, that is if she has been a good girl.
I guess she was a good girl this year because the Easter Bunny left her with a floor full of Easter eggs, that were full of candy. Good to know mother gets to eat at least half of that candy right?? She also got a Doc McStuffins Bubble kit and holy cow she loved that! We still are playing with the things from that and it has been months. She also got some Littlest pet shops, little farm animals and a kit to dye some eggs with. Oh and even more candy!
We were able to play with most of her toys for a while every one got ready for church. Little did Nixxon know that the "Easter Bunny" had left what I felt like was a lot of crap for her the night before. I  At around 11:00 am the day before I got a text from Joe that said;
 "Hey the Easter Bunny left some presents for Nixxon with me can I give them to you tonight so she can have them in the morning?"
I replied "I've already got Easter Covered"
"He left some for you too can I give you yours?"
"No I don't need any"
"Okay. Sorry"
Okay I know I probably sound super harsh in our conversations but I had to. He honestly did not need to get me anything for Easter I found that SUPER weird, also my lawyer advised me to stay blunt and not to be friendly. After all we were in the middle of going to court it was not exactly the time to try and be my friend.
I left the rest of the Easter stuff in my garage along with the things he had given her for her birthday. I didn't want to take credit for giving those things to her and I was not going to attempt to explain where they came from even though she probably would not have known the difference. But it was not the best thing for her.
Easter was still a good day overall. We were pretty much left alone the rest of the day. We were able to enjoy it and play with the Doc McStuffins bubbles all after church. And eat our weight in candy. I was simply getting use to the fact every holiday was probably going to be like this and just to plan on random "crap" being left on my porch.

Changes, changes and more changes

If having a rambunctious toddler is not enough to keep a single mom busy, why not add a little more to her plate right?? That is how my life felt for a little while. I felt like I was really struggling to keep up on my class for college and I absolutely needed to keep a good grade. It should have been easy since it was one class, but working on potty training, and working a few hours shy of full time I never felt like I could keep up with life.
I was super frustrated with court. It was already frustrating anyway but my court date would not stop changing dates. I would just get one day written off from work and all figured out when I would get a letter from my lawyer saying the date had been rescheduled again. It had been pushed from March to April then April to May. I was to the point I just wanted to get things done and over with.
On top of dealing with that work was getting to be too much. It was just Subway but my boss was always getting on my case because I was a religious person and he was atheist. I did not have a problem with him at all being atheist, that was his choice. But he made it a point to usually yell at me and cause confrontation. One night he spent at least an hour yelling at me telling me how stupid I was for listening to others to make my decisions, and how I could not think for myself because I rely on the church to think for me, and went on, and on, and on and on. I couldn't even fathom what was going on enough to respond to half of what he was saying. Even after that night he didn't stop. It was never as bad as that night but still. I had never forced my religious beliefs onto him and rarely brought it up so why was it okay for him to do this to me? I knew it was time to start looking for a new job. I did not need to deal with that. Plus so many other employees quit so I was working way too many hours. I was super lucky to get a day off. I had worked 20 days straight at one point. Working lots of double shifts and it was getting to be too much.
One day my parents told me about a job for the city in the recreation department as an office aide. I thought what the heck and applied. A few days later I got an email asking for some more information about me. I was kinda shocked.  Then a few weeks later I got a call wanting an interview with me! I was amazed!! I went to the interview so unprepared. I did not have too much time from getting off work late to look too amazing.
When I got to city hall they told me to take a seat and they would come get me in a minute. I kind of knew the guy who was interviewing me because he was actually my next door neighbor. I never had really talked to him though even we went to church in the same ward every Sunday. He and a few other guys who worked for the city sat at a round table around me and asked me questions. I honestly don't even remember what they told me because I was so nervous. Then they had me go type up something simple for them then I was good to go. I got home from that interview and knew I had failed epically. But a few weeks later I got a phone call offering me the job. It was only 9ish hours a week and almost $1.00 less than my Subway job but I wanted to get out of Subway so bad I took it. I decided I would still work at Subway until I could find another job on top of my city job but I was so excited!
Someone had also told me to apply for a CNA position at a new assisted living that was being put in town. I gave the lady my application thinking they wont hire me I have zero experience. Well guess who also got and interview for that job. I was totally nervous for that one too. I barely passed my CNA test to get my certificate so I was sure they wouldn't want me. After I left that interview I wanted to work there also so bad! It was beautiful and seemed amazing. Well a few weeks later I got a phone call offering me the job! That was it! My prayers were being answered! I was getting out of Subway. I gave  my two weeks and was ready to start my new adventures at my new jobs!

Sound the Alarm its Time for Nixxons Birthday Party!

Nixxons photo shoot for her Invitation

Food. We had "fire" Dogs, with fire ropes (licorice) Fruits/ Veggies all the color of flames, candies, and fire water along with cupcakes of course! 

Her absolute FAVORITE gift was this firefighter outfit given to her by her best friend. We are still playing with it. I wish I would have thought of it!

We decided to have Nixxons Birthday party the Saturday after her actual Birthday. She is OBSESSED with fire department stuff. Doing something princesses, and rainbows just would not fit for her birthday party theme. So I knew I had to do a firefighter theme for this year. I bought a few decorations online with firefighters. We had a yellow and red banner that read HAPPY BIRTHDAY NIXXON hanging, we had red and yellow crepe paper streamed around the room. Yellow and red balloons filling the floor. It was fun to decorate for this party. I had SOO much help from my mom. She is so creative and helped thing of awesome things to add to the party. She designed name tags for everyone to wear. She got the pictures we did for her invitations and made them big and laminated them so people could write happy birthday messages on them. She designed the labels for the water bottles. She helped me make way too may cupcakes. She helped me to frost the way too many cupcakes. She helped with a lot of the decorations. I could not have pulled this off without my mom.
 I decided to invite my Grandma P., my Grandma K and her Husband. A close family friend and his family (their son and Nixxon are quite the little toddler couple ;)) My four closest friends K,L, M, and A.  I imvited some aunts and uncles but most could not come which was fine.Also Nixxons best Friend M and her mom A. My family obviously came also.
We started by introducing who everyone was and then we opened presents. She opened the first one thought it was neat then noticed that her friend M had brought a HUGE bag. Of course she went for that one. That should have been the very last one we opened because holy cow after she got that one opened nothing else in the world mattered. She opened it to find that there was a fire fighter turnout in there complete with a badge, helmet, megaphone that made a siren noise, and a fire extinguisher. there were a few other things in there but after she seen that her life was pretty much complete. She made us open it and let her wear it immediately. She would not open any more gifts after that and she had at least 15 more to go. She threw a fit in the middle of her party so I let everyone eat the fire hot dogs and cupcakes while we let Nixxons friend M open the rest of her gifts for her so Nixx could play with her fire turnouts. We all just talked and socialized after that. 
Every one soon started to leave. A few people stayed including Nixxons little boyfriend and his family. Suddenly it turned into a full on balloon fight. It was fun to watch the kids be kids and the adults think they were kids. I was glad because it was less balloons I had to deal with later because a few were being popped as they were being used as weapons of war.
Sometime during the party I had gotten a text from Joes sister {L}She was inviting me to a family barbeque and wanted to try to fix our relationship. As nice as it was of her, it was not the time to be trying to become my friend. She was the one who had been posting rude,very untrue things about me on Facebook. I had no want to try to become her friend that is not the kind of person I needed in my life. Not saying I can not forgive her for what she did because I am working on that but you can't keep those kind of people in your life sometimes. I decided not to respond and my lawyer also said it was smart not to either. It is crazy that every day that had been special to me since Christmas Eve, someone from that family had to do something to irritate me to some level. It was really starting to  get on my last nerve.

Happy 2nd Birthday Nixxon!

It was such a bitter sweet day on March 25. Court is never fun, even if you leave with a victory, it is even worse when it is your little girls birthday.  Even though I spent a good portion of her birthday fighting for what was best for her we still were able to enjoy the princesses birthday.
When we got home from court a majority of my family came over to my house to celebrate for a minute.  Not an hour after we had been home we noticed two people on my porch.  We could see them through the window. We couldn't make out exactly who it was but we knew. It was Joe for sure. As soon as we noticed them we all hushed for a minute.  They never nocked on the door or anything. Just put things on my porch and walked away. As I seen them walking away I decided to go look out my sister's room window to see who was with him. It was one of his sister's.  They got in her car and drove away.
Once we knew they were gone we walked out to see what was on the porch. There was a lot of gifts there but the one that stood out was a freaking bicycle. It was one that has the training wheels on it. There is no way she was even close to being big enough for that yet. I don't know why it did but seeing him get her a bike made me so mad. I text my lawyer to tell him what had just happened and what I should do with all of it. He told me first off how kind of him it was to be such a "Disneyland dad" being totally sarcastic.  Then he told me to just leave it on the porch for a few hours and maybe the would see it Still there and take it back.
So thats what I did.  It sat there. I did not want him to ruin this day for any of us. This day was about Nixxon and celebrating how glad we were that she had been blessing all of our lives for two whole years now.
I decided to take my sister's, parents, and my grandma and her husband up to a nickel arcade.  I thought it would be kinda fun for Nixxon. We headed up north and stopped at Costa Vida since they have  gluten free food for my mom to eat. Poor Nixxon was so tired by then she didn't get a nap all day because of all the craziness.  By the time we got to the arcade she was not sure what was going on.
It took her a while to kinda catch on to what was going on. But she found one game that she LOVED.  It was a game that you spray the water and aim it at a target and if you hit the target then you win. This one was firefighter themed so obviously she went crazy for it.  She kept asking her "Bapa" (grandpa) who is a firefighter to play it with her. She could have played that game all night long. It was her favorite. 
We eventually ran out of nickels and it was getting late so we got some prizes with the tickets we had won and left.
When we got home I was kinda surprised that not only did Joe's gifts stay there, more had been added to the pile. We decided just to put them in the garage until my lawyer decided exactly what we should do with them.  I didnt really go through them. I peaked but most were just clothes. I didnt let Nixxon see them as we moved them into the garage.
It was a good ending to a great day. Nixx had a fun time and she deserved a fun day! Nixxons 2nd birthday was a success for sure. Now it was time to get ready for her party in a few days.

The Big Day

Finally March 25 rolled around. I was waking up extremely early to make sure I looked good and also Nixxon looked adorable because ha court was scheduled on her 2nd birthday.  I was pretty upset that I was not going to be able to spend all day with her on a special day, but I was going to be in court fighting for her.
I had lined up one of her friends mom to watch her for me while we went. I had asked my family to come to court with me. Including my aunts, uncles, grandmas, and cousins. My lawyer said it might show the judge that Nixxon has the support of a lot of family so we asked if they would come sit on my side of the court room.
It was so hard to drop Nixxon off not knowing what was going to happen in that court room.  My lawyer gave me some Ideas of what was going to happen.  Since this was Joe's court date( which I had actually filed a case against him to terminate his rights a few weeks before he has filed for temporary parent time) anyway my lawyer said that either they would start him off with a little supervised parent time or they would deny him that until my case was settled. Or the judge would go ahead and hear my case while we were there since he was the same judge assigned to us for my case, it was just In Juvenile court.  so it could have went a few ways.
So I dropped my little birthday girl off at her friends and told them it wouldn't be more than an hour, kissed her goodbye and headed back to my car.  My family drove together to the courthouse.  They asked me to say a prayer as we drove. I can't remember exactly how my prayer went but I know I asked that His will would be done.

When we pulled up we didn't recognize any bcause as cars so we sat in the car until we seen that my lawyer showed up. Suddenly a car comes flying in the parking lot and jumps a curb. A small lady got out and ran inside.  We all kind of laughed at her, well turns out it was Joe's lawyer.

Then Joe and his sister pulled up and walked in. So my family got out of the car.  Suddenly a majority of my family as in aunt's and uncles walked over to us. They all gave me words of encouragement and told me they would do anything to help out Nixxon and I. Most were taking time off work to come.  It ment so much to me.

Finally my lawyer showed up. He was impressed with how many people I rounded up to watch.  He walked us inside, we went through security and he told most of my family to head into the court room. My parents and I needed to go over some things before we went into the courtroom. Awkwardly this court house only had 1 room for clients/lawyers to meet in so we were shoved into an unfinished office because Joe had gotten to the to room first.  My lawyer just reminded my parents and I that if it didn't go our way in the courtroom not to act any different and if it went very well not to dance in the inzone. He gave me a little pep talk and told me everything was going to be okay. 

As we made our way to the court room,  Joe also made his way out of their meeting room. He opened the door for the courtroom and let his party in then held it open for my group. seriously?  He held the door open for me which was nice but I was going into that room trying to prove I was capable of raising my daughter on my own and I was perfect capable of holding my own door open. The urge to slap his head with that door was a very big urge.  Lucky for him it was a court room and there was a lot of cops around and I am sure it wouldn't have went over too well with all of them. So I simply walked through the door.

My family took up pretty much one whole side of the court room. Joe had. Few family members there but the support of my extended family stood out. After we all stood for the judge and he got going he even asked if they were all present for one case and ha we were. It ment so much that my family was there for me because going in front of a judge for anything is really nerve racking.

We had to listen to a couple of cases before ours started. Before I knew it our last names were called and my lawyers was headed to the table in front of the judge. He showed me where to sit and told me to not act nervous.  Which is extremely hard by the way if you cant imagine. 

Joe's lawyer started to present the case. I dont know half of what was said because it was like legal terms, and codes and laws. So I just sat there and tried not to fidget, look confident, yet humble. 

The judge started to talk about how he felt that Joes lawyer had filed their petition in the wrong court. This petition should have been filed in Juvenile court not district court. Joe's lawyer did not believe that was true so the judge gave us a few minutes to go discuss it and let the lawyers talk.

My lawyer took us out into the parking lot. He told my parents and I that he felt pretty confident about today. The only problem was that he found out that Joe's lawyers husband, and the judge were good friends so he was going going easy on her. So we just needed to stick to our guns. Then he decided it was time to go back in.

Once again we needed to wait for a few more cases to be heard. Some were criminal cases and those were kind of interesting to hear. I was teasing my lawyer that this was only scheduled to be a two minute things but here we still were an hour later. He laughed and said that he didn't have a clue it would be this long.

After a few more cases the judge was ready to hear ours again. I nervously yet confidently walked back up to the table and said a silent prayer for peace and confidence.  Joe's lawyer started to pretty much just say the same things. So once again he wanted to let the lawyers talk about it again so we left the table and I sat with my family while our lawyers went out and talked. I was really nervous at this point. The judge was giving her another chance to prove she filed in the right court. And what was she now telling my lawyer?

My lawyer came back into the court room and asked my parents and I to come with him. We got up and walked clear across the street into another building to make sure we had privacy to discuss things. He said that Joe's lawyer had just told him that Joe was now claiming that my parents and family had been going behind my back and telling him how he was not the father and he should stay away from me and such. We all just laughed about it. We all knew that was a lie and was twisting words way too much. He also told us about how we were still doing pretty good and he was confident about today. We talked about the next court date we had scheduled and how my family could not make it so we needed to reschedule it. This gave me hope that today would go well and my case would really be heard before Joe's was since I filed first. After about a half hour of talking we decided to head back.

Same thing we had to wait for a few more cases then the judge called for us.  Once again as I walked up there I prayed again.  I looked over at Joe to see him chomping down on his gum and being fidgety and bouncing his legs.  I was glad I didn't look like that.  Almost made me giggle a little. 

Once again the same arguments were being made. Finally my lawyer had a chance to speak.  He talked about how we already have a case pending in district court but Our date had been moved back by the other party so it hasn't had time to be determined yet.  Also how deciding to let Joe have temporary parent time could be harmful to Nixxon if the district court decided to terminate Joe's rights.

The judge agreed he also felt that we should just pretty much combine our cases together and make one case. My lawyer agreed.  Then we were dismissed!

I practically had just won! I knew I still had more battles to fight here soon but that was  one victory for me! Joe was not going to get temporary parent time just yet and that was good for us.

We were able to leave and go pick up Nixxon. I felt bad for being away so long on her birthday.  It was only scheduled for 2 minutes but instead we were there for over 3 hours. I was glad to be out of the courthouse and headed home to celebrate my baby turning two!

Finally a court date

Our court date had been moved around a few times by the time we finally got one. March 25 was the day we were set to make our first appearance in court. 
In order to try and have Joe decide to just terminate his parental rights on his own we had some work to do. My lawyer asked me to contact as many friends/colleagues/classmates who had heard Joe say that he was not Nixxons father.  Joe had told so many people that. Now I needed to ask each person that I could if they would do me a HUGE favor and sign an affidavit saying that they heard Joe deny Nixxon as his child.
It was not an easy thing to ask of someone you hadnt talked to for a couple of years and most you really never talked to but were asking a big legal favor.
One friend said he couldn't because he was too good of friends with Joe and I and couldn't get in the middle of it.  Then there were other who told me they heard Joe deny it but when I brought up the affidavit they suddenly changed their story that they never actually heard it with their own ears. Then there was great people who understood this was not about me or Joe, but just being honest of what really happened.  It was simple. Of course getting involved in a legal situation is never something that you want to do but I needed their help.
I also needed to gather all of my documents of everything.  All my receips I had saved since Nixxon was born, all my texts from Joe. Luckily I had been documenting everything since the day my parents and I realized that things were going south and I was still pregnant. 
I think I got all together about 7 affidavits even though I had asked about 20 people.  And couldn't ask so many others because they were on missions in another country or I could not find them. I got 2 from ex girlfriends of his which both said that he denied even sleeping with me. 1 from my bishop who had been at my house when Joe came to talk to my parents once and he lied to
My bishop and said there was no way it could be his child. Then I got a few from people around town and a few from my frinds who heard him say it.
In the midst of all of this Joe was texting me at least once a day asking random things.  He once told me we should take Nixxon fishing one day. Then the most comical one was when he text me and asked if Nixxon was excited to turn three. I was amazed he had her birthday right but was off by a year. She was only just about to turn two. He even spelled out three so it wasnt even that he hit the wrong key on the key bored. Thats pretty sad when you don't even know how old your daughter is going to be. That right there showed that he wasn't too worthy of being involved.
Getting ready for court was a pain but I sure hoped I had enough against Joe that the judge would side with me.
I had a few days until I knew what was going to happen.