And So It Goes...

Monday, February 4, 2008

Christmas Post.

I finally finished my journal of Christmas Day and I put it with my Christmas Eve post. Feel free to take a look. :)

Sunday, February 3, 2008

When church got cancelled today (see: Today) due to the snow storm it reminded me of Louisiana (my mission). We got snow ONCE when I was there. It was on a Sunday and it was seriously less than 2 inches!! It didn't even stay on the ground. My comp and I had to scrape it off our car to get little slushy "snowballs" to throw at each other. We were ecstatic and considered it an early Christmas present! The natives however were horrified by "all the snow" and wanted to cancel church!! :P It's been a long time but I think 2 die-hard families showed up in all (plus us), and as my MIL says, they were probably transplants.

The funny thing is that I think I'm more surprised that church actually did get cancelled in UTAH, where we're used to the snow (as used to it as one can get), :P on account of a few feet of drifted snow (esp. the amount we got) than the fact that the poor people in LA wanted to cancel church (and most didn't bother venturing out into the horrid conditions) because of the miniscule amount of snow that melted on contact.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The Snowman: By 1 wimp and 2 tough kids!

I've always been too wimpy to get out in the cold and build a snowman with my kids. Or too preoccupied with other things. Well, this past Saturday, when we had my nephew with us, I took him and MC to the park because it was finally such a warm, sunshiny day (even though it was still pretty cold, it's all relative) that I just couldn't come up with any excuses not to go outside with them. :) We went to a park that is around the corner from us. It's a climbing park with no traditional swings or slides or anything.

I figured they'd tire of the cold or the park pretty soon, but it was I that got bored long before they did. Finally I pointed to a bridge that goes over a little lake in the neighborhood and asked them if they wanted to go venture across it. They both agreed with alacrity so we headed over there. When we got to the bridge, instead of going on the paved path that spirals up until it reaches the bridge, they both proceed to head straight up the side of the hill through the snow, slipping all the way up. I only had backless slip on shoes (I originally got them as house slippers, even though they are meant to be shoes) and some fairly thin leather gloves but I couldn't very well take the conventional way, they'd be long gone. So I climb up after them, slipping and sliding all the way.

Then we headed over the bridge and down the other side. I figured we'd just head back after this, but that was hardly on the agenda! I finally catch up with them when they spontaneously decide to lay down and take a rest in the snow. MC makes a snow angel and then they're up and running again. After a while they have a half-hearted snowball fight, and then MC decides she wants to make a snowman. She starts piling snow in a little mound and I groan inside at my slothfulness in not having taught my daughter to build a proper snowman by now!! My poor deprived daughter. :) So we start rolling balls in the snow, my nephew in charge of one, MC another, and I the third. Despite my confidence that I'd make the biggest ball for the base, they were all surprisingly close in size. After we stack them all up and the kids adorn the face and torso with various sizes and shapes of bark, MC laments that we cannot take our first snowman ever home to our own yard for all to admire and enjoy. So we've consoled ourselves with a few pictures of our beloved snowman:

On the way back they want to go down the snowy, muddy hill instead of the periphery sidewalk and so once again I have to follow them. I'm also a wimp at going down steep hills so I sit down on my feet and proceed to scoot/slide down the hill. Between the mud, the snow, and my slick shoes I fly down the hill rather quickly yelling, "watch out below!" and MC says with envy, "I wish I had shoes like yours". Meanwhile I'm at the bottom with mud all over me and wondering why I get myself into these messes. :P The things we do for our kids, sometimes, when we're (I'm) not too wimpy. :) How is it that as an adult I've become such a wimp?!!?

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??)

Monday, January 28, 2008

"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". :)

Sunday, January 20, 2008

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

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

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.