Anybody Still Here?

Quick update before I head off to bed. First I can't believe it has been a month since I've last poseted! I've been without my computer forever. I am using dh's and it is not my favorite. Mine had mulitple viruses on it and has since been fixed only now I have a black screen with some error message. Hopefully it will be fixed for good this weekend. It is probably for the best as I have started my ASL (American Sign Language) class at the college. I am in love with this language. I'll have more on that later.

We are alive, doing much better emotional as well. Between field hockey, swim classes, summer enrichment classes, summer school for Bebo and Twink, and trying to sell our house it has been insane. I hope to be back soon! I miss you all. :(

Favor Please

If you have our old blogs linked on your side bar can you remove them and replace it with our new one if your inclined to. I really don't mind if you put the new one up I just really don't want the old one up. Many thanks from our family! :)

Oh and for some reason I've lost some of you comments from the last post.

Please Read

The reason for moving my blog address and giving my children nicknames is because they are getting older and I wanted them to have a little bit of privacy. We've also had a peeping Tom snooping around our house. Jewel saw heard this person knock on the window downstairs shortly after we arrived back from China. This is not the first time we've had one. Jewel waited almost two weeks to tell us about the incident. It did freaked her out quite a bit.

I'm also very careful not to blog where we live. I always say north east but never give my state. If someone does place where live in their comments I will not be able to post their comments. Same with the kids real names. We can never be too careful when it comes to safety and our children. I went to an internet safety awareness at the kids school and it really opened my eyes.

I also just wanted to move so that I had a bit more freedom to post my feelings. Now that family is one blog and adoption community/friends is on another I don't have to worry and can be even more open. I can touch on a few things that I wouldn't if the family were to read.

So please, use the nicknames and if you know where I live please do not post it or I will not be able to approve your post. I hope that clears up why I moved and why I am using nicknames. :)

*So I was the first offender of using the kids name! LOL Thanks Carla for giving me the heads up.

End Of School Year

The end of the school year is under way pretty much everywhere. We northerners have about six more weeks of school but some of you only have a couple weeks left. I wanted to share with you something that was suggested to me way back when my son oldest son was in kindergarten.

I'm sure many of you are aware of the book Oh,The Places You'll Go ~ Dr. Seuss.  Every year since kindergarten I have sent this book to school with my son in a manila envelope with a note attached explaining to the teacher why I'm sending it in. I ask the teacher to write a little note to Dash as I plan on giving it to him the day he graduates from high school. After next year it may become harder as that is when he will switch classes for every subject BUT he will have had 7 different teacher  write some encouraging comments to him.

This year I plan on buying three more books! Spitfire will receive one as she is in kindergarten. I should have started hers in preschool. Twink will receive one as she is in preschool. Bebo will receive one as he is in 2nd grade. Jewel was older when I started this so she has no book! :( I'll have to think of something else special for her.

Hope you like the idea!

It's Back!

The stomach bug that is! Oh please make it go away. I'm begging here. We have all had some form of it but if we have to actually vomit then we still have three more family members to go. I think I'm going to lose my mind if anyone else gets sick between now and the time we leave for China. Keep those prayers coming.

Could you also pray that it will stop snowing down on the poor mid-Atlantic? Our agency (friends and family) is in the heart of these storms and has not been able to go into the office to finalize the last of our travel details. We are awaiting our passports and airline tickets as well as a few other items. Did I mention we leave next Wednesday?

Spitfire's class has been learning about Chinese New Year and made this cute banner. We hung it up on our front door and it looks great there. They also sent home a great ABC book and it described all the things Chinese people do to celebrate CNY. It is a really neat book and you can find it here.

I'm off to prepare for our upcoming trip! :)

Stomach Bug

We've had colds and croup, we've now moved on to the stomach bug. It seems this is what is running ramped in our local schools right now. I guess it is good that we have it now and not on our way to China but we have some miserable people in our house right now. Please pray this is the last of the sickness in our house.

Busy Times

I can hardly believe it is the last week of January! Boy does time fly by. It's a week of appointments that makes this week go even faster. Twink saw her ENT yesterday and all looks great with her tubes. She did much better in the way of not crying forever and extremely hard when the doctor came in. She still hates going to any and all doctors offices. He knows how much she hates it and was very slow and soften spoken to her. Totally helped in my opinion. He is happy to hear her speech is coming along as well.

I go in tomorrow for a nerve block in my neck. Not looking forward to it but is something that needs to be done. Praying that it helps with some if not all the nerve pain that I've been dealing with in my arms.

So glad we did not travel this week as Twink has been sick as well as Spitfire. When the two of them come down with it you know that I'm not far behind. Spitfire is home sick with me again for the second day.  I think Jewel was the one who started the whole thing! ;)

Won't be long now and it will be warming up outside. Oh how I can't wait!

Phew!

I know I have not been posting here very much, I'm really very sorry. You know it's bad when your husband and sister asks when I'm going to update the blog. LOL

-We are still waiting on our TA for Bebo. We are now at 63 days or 9 weeks but who's counting? ;)
-We have wonderful friends who will be staying in our house with the kids while we are in China!
-We put away all of our Christmas decorations last night.
-Bob painted the girls room and I was/am in charge of decorating it.
-We finally have snow! LOL (I don't like it)
-Both sign language class resume this week.
-Lia went to the developmental doctor last week. (more on this in another post)

I will try to post more than Tasty Tuesdays and Wordless Wednesday, promise!

Booked Weekends!

In a blink of an eye it seems as though our weekends for November have quickly filled with activities. Well I should say the kids and mine as The Count is finishing his last semester of his masters program! PTL!!!! It is actually a good thing as it will make this wait for Bebo go much faster and their are a few fun activities for the kids. Not to mention I am able to sneak away a couple of Saturdays for a couple of hours.

As you can see in the above pictures we went trick or treating without Jewel this year. She actually went with a few of her friends. I have no pictures of her in her costume though. Do you see a miracle in the above picture? Twink with her hat on and NO tears?!?! Yes, she actually wore the hood to her costume without any tears or screams. Big improvement from last year! She did not want Dash's arm around her so she took two steps away from him. Spitfire was not happy everyone kept calling her a bunny as she was a kitty. I think we'll hold onto the kitty costume for Twink and pass on the butterfly one.

Spitfire finished her last soccer game this past weekend. Let's say the weather was less than perfect. Wind, rain and we wonder why these kids are so sick. They ended up cutting the game short but not before our girl scored another goal! WooHoo! As you can see she received not one medal but TWO! Her coach did not realize the league handed out medals so he also bought them. The ones he bought though he had the childrens names and jersey numbers engraved on the back making the medal even more special. She is excited for the spring season to start already! She has a bit of a wait ahead.

Twink was sick last week. I had to go pick her up from school early on Wednesday as she was running a temp. We ended up keeping her home the rest of the week. She is doing much better. Actually all the kids are feeling better and I'm praying that it stays that way. I hope all of you are staying healthy.

Where's Autumn?

Can someone please tell me where the Autumn weather is? I know it is not here because it is 11:00am and it is 35*F. Too bad the weather forecaster say it feels like 31* outside. The cold weather reeks havoc on body and I am feeling it too early in the season this year. Since my neck surgery in 2007 the winter months are hard for me at times.

Snow is in the forecast the next couple of days! Can you believe it. Brrr!!! Hope all of you are staying warm and enjoying Autumn.

Great Author

To follow up on a question asked in the comments in my previous blog entry, yes I did buy some great books! :)

The entire reason I went to the bookstore this past weekend was to meet author Grace Lin and to have some books autographed by her. She is a beautiful lady who is so creative and so very nice. Her mom is the one who took the picture of the two of us. :) Needless to say I bought a book to donate to charity, one for a friend and some for our family. I actually had a great time even though I had to deal with the rude customer.

Hey Lady!

Yes you, the RUDE customer from Barnes & Nobles. When I am comforting my daughter who is clearly upset about something she wants but is unable to tell me just what it is, you really should have just kept walking. I know you have no idea that she has problems with communication or sensory issues, why would you?!?! If her crying bothered you SOOOO much why did you come over to where we were? Was that dirty look necessary? I know the second one was not. Were you surprised when I asked you if you had children? I know I sure was. I bet you were even more surprise at the other customers comments to you after your snide reply back! :) I think you would have been happier to see me screaming & spanking my child rather than holding her and rubbing her back. Thankfully I had a friend that just happen to be there and fellow costumers who where just awesome! Maybe next time you'll just go to another section of the bookstore instead of looking for a reason to look at someone in judgement.

Old Beauty

As I was driving to bring Dash to my dads I remembered this beautiful old church just down the road from him. My dad lives in the country. There is a ton of "old" near him. A couple years ago someone bought the land next to him and tore down the General Store that was falling apart. Nothing more has been done with the land.

This church is beautiful. It was built in 1853. I could not find out when they closed the doors. The fact that the stained glass windows are still intact amazes me. I can picture people pulling up to church on Sunday in their horse drawn wagons and their Sunday best. The little building in front that is falling apart used to be a school house. Can you imagine the kids in the school house? I would like to go up again and take more pictures at some point. I'd love to be able to get closer. Any of you have anything "old" like this around you? I'd love to see your pictures.

I Wonder?

Have you ever wondered how many families go back to China (or another country) to adopt after their first adoption? The Count and I were talking last night and told me he thought atleast 50%! He then proceed to tell me that if we could we would go back a second and probably third time. He seems to think it's a cycle. If one has the money, the heart, and the room then they'll go again.

So how many families do you think actually do more than one adoption?

Seven Random Things About Me .....

OK, I've been tagged by Jeanette a couple weeks ago so here goes...

First, the rules...

1) Link to the person who tagged you

2) Post the rules on your blog

3) Write 7 random things about yourself

4) Tag 7 people at the end of your post and link to them

5) Let each person know they have been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.

6) Let the tagger know when your entry is up

Now, let the randomness begin...

1.) When I was growing up I used to volunteer in the local hospital as a candy striper and could not wait until I was a Jr. in high school because then I could start the Licenced Practical Nurse Program through our local tech school.

2.) My last labor and delivery (Spitfire) was 45 minutes! Let's say intense and I asked for an epidural when I heard I was at 7cm. The Not so kind nurse told me that I would be delivering the baby soon and that there was not enough time. I think I panic at that moment. LOL

3.) I love bed and breakfasts. We've gone to the following ones and loved all of them! The Chalet Inn Rose Haven Inn 1790Bed & Breakfast

4.) I had neck surgery 8 days before our referral for Twink. So in our referral video I am wearing my neck collar and I was in so much pain. The excitement pretty much took over any feeling of pain once the phone rang and AWAA popped up. Then I had to try and figure if I'd actually be out of the stinking collar before we actually left for China. I was able to remove the collar 4 days before leaving for China ( 8 weeks from referral ) That's what I call cutting it close.

5.) I'm debating on if I should grow my hair out long again! LOL I do this every time I get my hair cut.

6.) I love to mow the grass on our ride on. I find it good meditation. We have a good size yard to mow and it take about an 1 1/2 to do the whole thing.

7.) I long to move to North Carolina at some point. I love the Smokey Mts.

I am tagging...Cristy Denise CarlaB Angie CarlaL Jodi and Erica

Still Here

First let me say Twink is doing great. She is fever free. Spitfire does have hand, foot mouth as of last Saturday. I'm praying Twink does not get it because she has her ears done next week. Not sure if they'd put her under if she had that virus.

Last week was extremely busy. We have been preparing our church for a potential pastor. All week I (and others) worked on the landscaping in front and near our main doors. It looks wonderful, if I do say so. While I was working in the front of the church on Tuesday, some teens broke into the church and did graffiti on our adult Sunday School room walls. At the time I was the only one there. The police think I may have scared them off. I'm must say I was a bit startled when we returned to the church later that evening for our board meeting and everyone started questioning if I had seen anything. So on top of doing the landscaping we had to scrape creamer off the tables and soak the rugs in order to breakdown the non-dairy creamer that they spread all around the room. They were super nice to moisten it so it was like dried on glue! We ended up painting the entire room and steam cleaning the carpets. I must say I was pretty sore from all the work we did.

I'd like to ask if everyone if they would pray that God's will be done and that this gentleman we interviewed will be our new pastor. His family is wonderful and I love his wife. They have three bio boys and adopted a little girl from the foster care system. Now comes the shocking part! I shared with the wife that Twink had an in utero stroke and she told me that her daughter had the same thing! I think my eyes teared up because I couldn't believe that I was talking to someone in person who is going threw the same thing we are! They seemed to really like our church and I'm praying that they will accept the position.

The older kids are doing summer enrichment through our schools for the next four weeks. Both kids will go to our church camp for a week but different weeks. My baby is going to teen camp! YIKES! I know they will have a ton of fun. This week is VBS also so they are keeping busy. Last night Spitfire fell asleep during the music at VBS. So that's whats going on around here! Hope your all doing well!

Good Bye Hair

So I decided (like I always do when my hair get this length) to cut my hair! I had hope to go a bit shorter but I think the lady that does my hair gets nervous when I go short! LOL When I go short it usually means taking 12-13 inches off at one time. This time we took 12in for a donation for Locks of Love. This will be my forth time donating to them. I usually grown my hair out and if I only do a trim it only takes a year and a half sometimes two. Jewel has donated twice also. I recently cut off about three inches from Spitfire's hair so we are know growing hers to donate. Hopefully we'll make it but if starts to tangle again I just don't know!

We lost power today so the guys were not able to come out and finish the back splash. They won't be able to come out for another two weeks or more either. Doesn't that stink! Doesn't matter, I've found a paint color that I'm going to go with so we'll get started on that and I have to finish up some dresses now that I have power. Hope everyone is having a great day!

Dress Up!

I'm sure any of you have small children will know how they like to play dress up. Spitfire asked if I would play dress up with her the other night and as you can see I joined her. She has tons of dresses to play with but these are the ones she chose.

Twink on the other hand wanted nothing to do with any of it. She does not like daddy with anything on his head. She had just finished trying to pull the hat of him without success. I put my glasses on the other day and she freaked out. She buried her face in my neck and would not look at me. When she did she cried harder. As soon as they came off she started to giggle. I guess I better pray I don't need them all the time!