Feeling impatient

My sister had her baby this weekend. Another cute little redhead that they named Paxton. I got to watch her oldest for 2 nights and we had a blast. We visited the hospital (waiting the whole time while his mommy had a c-section) and he was so cute with his little brother. The next day our whole family (ML, BR, MC and I) went to the hospital to drop off my nephew and see my sis and her baby again. The kids washed their hands right when we got there so that they could hold the baby. I got a turn, and then ML wanted to hold him. I love seeing ML with a baby. He really is a natural. As we left the hospital he expressed emotions that I'd been trying to suppress, "Why is every other family we know given babies right and left?" We try not to ask the proverbial "Why us...or rather, why not us??" but sometimes its tough to not question the reasons for our trials.

Before pictures: my sister and my darling little nephews





I called our case worker, wanting her to read our "Birth Parent Letter" and look at our "Adoption Collage" so that we can get them approved or fix anything she thinks we need to change. She told me that she'll look at those when she comes to our house for our "home visit". She told me she'd call to schedule that. It's been a week. No big deal, I know, especially when we've taken months to do our part of things. But now that the ball is in her court, I wish I could just press the fast forward button. :)

Sweet Success!!

Most days I feel that there's some kind of thief that steals my time and that I should have much more than I actually end up with, and therefore accomplish much less than I'd like or hoped. Well today I didn't feel quite so robbed, and it was a good feeling! I got up and decided to clean the house and do all the laundry (normally it's just my laundry day...and sometimes grocery day too). I got 96% of the house clean and 90% of the laundry done thanks to MIL who made me lunch AND made most of dinner!! And thanks to my sweet kids who did their normal chores plus helped mop the kitchen, laundry, entry, 1/2 bath, kids bath and master bath!! (Go team!!) AND I got some blogging done!! :P (That's a miracle in itself, wouldn't you say??)

"I'm the boss grandpa"

So, for a few months now, we've been leaving BR and MC home alone for short periods of time(much like Wayne and Ashley) and they've done really well so far, but I still feel the need to rehash with them all the do's and don'ts so they'll be safe. And I've learned with BR that he takes things very specifically and doesn't have a great knack at generalizing everything yet. He'll follow instructions to the "T" as long as he feels like they apply to a situation, but doesn't really extrapolate how they fit in with any other circumstance. Because of this I try to think of every possible scenario that might arise so that he can know how to handle it. Well, I forgot one this past week. My MIL and I decided to leave the kids home for a few minutes while we ran to the post office and a store. We left the kids doing their chores and plans to play the wii afterward. (Which they did!! Once again I'm reminded that they don't posses any of my genes...discipline?? when parents are gone?? the FIRST thing I would have done was turn on the TV or wii (if we'd had those back then)!!) We reminded them not to open the door for anybody, what to do in case of emergency, etc. etc. and we even taught them a new one that I hadn't thought of before,(thanks to the inspiration of Wayne's blog) we made sure MC knew what to do and who to call in case BR was hurt. Well about 20 minutes after we leave MIL gets a call from FIL (or Grandpa). He's just gotten home and the first words out of BR's mouth are, "Grandpa, I'm in charge." Lol. I guess grandpa doesn't rank high enough to relieve him of his "authority". :)

Everybody's happy!

I spent the whole day at my sister's house yesterday. There were many benefits for all in this arrangement.

1. I have a HUGE debt to repay to my sister for childcare that she provided my kids while we were in Europe. This made up one measely day, but hey 1 is better than none! :P
2. ML had finals to work on (due today...which he finished in record time, I might add) so it was better if he didn't have us around to distract him.
3. My sister and her husband wanted to go house shopping. They went out twice yesterday while I was there to provide babysitting. The second time they found a phenomenal deal on the house of their dreams! Yay for them!!!
4. Grandma and Grandpa didn't have to go crazy with five hyperactive kids all cooped up in our house all day. (I don't know if your kids get like this, but whenever my kids get with their cousins they ALL start bouncing off the walls and it's as if there are ten or fifteen kids instead of five...I remember being like that, I'd venture that maybe it's hereditary, but then....guess not.) :)
5. I got to work on scrapbooking for our adoption and use my sister's vast inventory of paper/stamps/ribbon/idea books/etc. as well as get feedback and ideas from her (when she could get down off her "I found the house of my dreams and it's a steal" high for a minute to actually give it some thought). I really got pretty far and I'm very excited about that! I only have a few finishing touches left to finish up and then I can get moving with the whole thing!! Yay!!
6. The kids got to spend ALL day with their cousins. And if you couldn't tell from some of the aforementioned benefits...they think that's about as great as an amusement park!! (We were asking them what they wanted to do on Martin Luther since the don't have school: #1 go to cousin's house. #2 go to indoor/outdoor amusement park "Boondocks")
7. BR had used his much beloved, hard earned allowance money to buy 2 legos last week. One for himself and one for his cousin. He was able to give his cousin the lego he'd bought for him. (He was really excited to give it to him, and proud of himself for being so generous, but honestly I had my doubts that he'd be able to resist opening it until he had a chance to give it to him.)

#5 is my very favorite bonus. But, I'm glad that the arrangement was so inclusively beneficial!

Camping with the treasured cousins

Progress on the Adoption App

To clear up all confusion: I was not adopted. :) And we ARE adopting. :)

On that note, here's our progress: We're on our way with the letter. ML has his personal interview tomorrow evening with our case worker. So now we need to put together two 8 & 1/2 by 11 scrapbook pages that show our family in a nutshell. These are the pictures we were thinking of using. It's kind of like a collage.



If any of you have any pictures of us that you think would be good, or know of any, we'd love to have them. :) Our pictures are mostly supposed to be of us as a couple and us all together as a family.

Now taking votes on the Pictures to put on our Adoption Scrapbook Profile

"Quaint Italian Restaurant"


"ML and MC doing fireworks"


"The Fourth of July"


"Taking TRAX downtown to see the lights"


"Halloween"


"ML and MC driving the boat"


"ML and BR swimming in the lake"


"ML and MC playing in the park"


"Me and MC and my nephew in the pool"


"ML swimming with BR and neice"


"MC gettin’ down"


"Me, MC and nephew wading in the pool at PAWS bridal shower"


"Hiking on our Memorial camping trip"


"ML and BR in their sword fight"


"MC and BR exploring"


"Me and ML on Christmas 2006"


"Me and ML in a river"


"Me and ML on a 4-wheeling trip"


"Whole fam after the 4-wheeling trip"


"Me and ML on our camel ride in Egypt"


"Me and ML on the Isle of Capri"


"Whole fam in front of the house"

Isn't she cute!!

Just watch and see for yourself. :)

I have angels watching over me!!!

There's no other explanation for it! Today as I took my kids to school the sun was shining and the day looked bright. I got home and ML hadn't left for work yet so he asked how the weather was. I told him bright and sunshiny. He almost left his coat home but I told him you never know what the day could bring. Well, how true those words were!!

About an hour after he left the wind started blowing like no other. Then, a little while after that, I look out the window because I could hear pelting outside. Snow had joined the wind. Well, between the cold wind, the warm streets, and the cold snow, the streets were virtually ice skating rinks. I had a dentist appointment at 12:30 (to check a crowned tooth that's been bothering me). I started out for it in my trusty little Saturn and soon realized how bad the roads were. I was driving with caution but as I was trying to turn at a stop light onto a major road (avg mph: 60) I began to slide sideways toward the truck who was turning in the next lane. We narrowly missed each other. I then travelled along (more nervous than before) and tried to avoid going too fast (though others around me certainly had no qualms about sailing along :P ). I approached the next stop light going about ten mph under the limit and the light changed to yellow so I tried to stop. I pressed as hard as I could on the brakes and it seemed to have no effect. I sailed right through the red light!! As I did, time seemed to slow down and I looked at all the people I was passing and thought what a miracle it was that nobody had started through the intersection yet. I saw at least half a dozen accidents in my 12 minute drive to the dentist. I'm still quite shaken up and amazed that I wasn't one of those accidents!

Christmas is officially over at our house

On Saturday we finally got together as a family and tag teamed taking down everything Christmas. The kids did their own little projects while ML and I took turns working on the major stuff and picking out pictures to put in our adoption profile. It feels great to have that checked off the list, but on the other hand taking down all the fun lights/trees/decorations etc. always seems to leave our home feeling a little less warm and cozy to me. I made this comment to ML and so he starts singing, "I CRY THE DAY THAT I TAKE THE TREE DOWN...". lol (That song has never been one of my favorites.) :P

Book on CD Junkie

Since I love to read so much and I don't have time for that right now with my other activities and obligations (I don't really have that much going on I'm just a plodder I guess. Whoever, besides me, takes six hours in the kitchen at night?!?! I'm such slow cook!! That must be why, if I have to choose, I'd rather clean than cook...I'm not SO slow at that.) So I've been frequenting the public library to get my fix and coming away with stacks of books on CD at a time. They will only let me take ten at a time so I usually get all I can and then have BR get a few for me on his card. :) As it is I get strange looks from the librarians. :P When I get them home I download all the disks onto my ipod and then I can satisfy my craving to read while I'm driving around and especially while I'm cleaning houses.

These are some of my recent "reads":