Merry Christmas!

Ok. I've got lots to say about our Christmas, but I wanted to try out posting this video of Grace that I took this morning with my new Flip on her new rocking horse that Santa left for her under the tree!

Ok. I know it's been awhile

I've been sick! I started coming down with a cold on Tuesday, and yesterday it just took me out. So much so that I ended up leaving work early. Of course, that was after I stayed up until 2 a.m. the night before working on a report for the project manager of the project I'm on. So I went into work at about 10:45 was told by my boss that if I needed to go home because I felt bad, and then left at 3. I came home and slept, slept and slept some more. I woke up this morning at 6:30 and headed into work. I still felt sick but didn't have the sore throat I had yesterday, and am feeling better. Of course, that was before I heard the news that they are having mandatory 2 week layoffs where I work. Apparently, we will be told when we will have to take 2 weeks off in either January or February, for 50% pay. Not good, huh?! But it could be worse. There are so many people that are losing their jobs all over the country. So if this is the worst it gets for us, then I feel blessed. Of course, we don't know if this is the worst, but I'm hopeful and trusting in God.

Besides that somewhat scary news, tomorrow is my last day of work for the year. WooHoo! I'm so ready to be off of work, and take a break. I'm planning on enjoying Christmas and New Years as much as I possibly can this year.

Well, better get to bed. I'll try to do better posting. I'll have more time to do so because of being off work. Oh, and I have Gracie's portraits to post. I have to scan in a copy, but I have to tell you I'm very happy with how they turned out. And I only spent $19!!!

Merry Christmas!

Another weekend coming

I was finally able to get back to the post that I started last week when I was having trouble uploading photos from the weekend, and I realized it's been a week since Thanksgiving already! Time is flying by.

This week has been a quiet one for us, which is good. The only bad news is that there was an announcement made at my work that there is going to be another round of layoffs in January targeted at particular product lines instead of across the board like it was back in August. Thankfully for me, according to my boss, my team is safe.

The other disappointing thing that was announced was that they are suspending the Adoption Assistance. I'm so thankful that we were able to take advantage of that for adopting when we did back in 2007, but sad for all of those people that may not be able to adopt because of they were counting on the assistance. Anyone that has gone through an adoption understands that it is costly upfront, and the adoption assistance is a big help! I hope this is a temporary thing, but who knows. The economy is in the toilet, and our management is telling us that 2009 is going to be a tough year. No surprises there, but still not easy to hear.

We hosted a euchre party here at our house tonight. We had a great time. DD1, DD2 and two others watched the kids that were here, 4 of them, while the 4 couples played progressive euchre. It was great fun as usual, but tonight we added something that we'd never done before. DH read about it online, and decided to give it a try. He set up a pot of money and asked if others wanted to add to it. The pot was for a successful loaner. The catch was that the first person that had a successful loaner won the pot until the next person had a loaner and so on, until the last person at the end of the evening got to keep the pot of money. It added even more fun to something that we always enjoy, a friendly night of cards.

We are in a euchre group that meets once a month, but tonight was with 3 other couples. It was nice for a change, and we'll still get to have our monthly get together with our regular group too. So that's fun too! All in all it was a good night, but now I'm tired and going to bed.

Thanksgiving weekend 2008

These are a few photos from our Thanksgiving weekend.

Well, another Thanksgiving is over. This year was a tad different than other years, because we didn't actually have any turkey at all on Thanksgiving Day because we were travelling. We left home in the morning and arrived at my father's around 2. We thought we would stop for a quick lunch on the way, but we had a very difficult time finding anything open between her and my dad's. When we arrived, we saw that Subway was open until 2, and luckily it was 1:55! So we quickly went inside and order our sandwiches.

So our Thankgiving Dinner consisted of a cold cut combo sub for DD1, a chicken salad sub for DD2, a spicy Italian sub for me, and a foot long tuna sub for DH. Gracie was asleep, so we left in her in the car with DD1 while we ordered our food to go. We ate when we got to Dad's. He was just returning from my sisters' where he'd eaten a more traditional turkey dinner with her family. My brothers' family came over later to spend the rest of the weekend with us. They had spent the day with my sister-in-law's family.

Friday morning some of us went out shopping for Black Friday deals. DD2, DD1, my sister, my niece, arrived at Walmart at 4:55 a.m. just before the employees cut off the black plastic that was wrapped around all the deals. I was looking for toys for our family gift exchange and maybe a few things for Grace and the older girls.

I snagged a cart from one of the employees, and we set off. First thing we got was a big flat screen tv for my niece. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten my cell phone at home, and my sister had forgotten to charge her phone the night before. So we had two cell phones, DD1's and my neice's to keep us connected. If it weren't 5 a.m. in the morning, we probably wouldn've had a better plan than the one we had, which was for me to stay with the cart and everyone else was to go out looking. I was stuck in a crowd of people. I could literally not move. There were people in front of me, people to the right of me, people behind me, and on the left of me was a big pile of toys. I was blocked in. I didn't know where everyone else was, and we didn't have a plan for how to meet up. So I just waited, and waited, and waited. I finally decided that I'd get out of the mess, walked down the side of the store and try to meet up with everyone in a place where there were fewer people. I waited at the new location for about 15 minutes, and finally my sister found me. Everyone was up at the checkouts. Checkingout turned out to be the longest part of our shopping experience at Walmart. We finally abandoned our cart and checked out at the Jewelry department counter. It seemed like we were in the store for 3 or 4 hours, when in truth it was really only an hour and a half.

Our next stop was Target, which was alot less crowded. We then went to Marshalls which was even less crowded. It was about that time, that I started to fade. We ended up being out for about 3 maybe 4 hours, but I was pooped out! It was a fun, but tiring time. The remainder of the day we rested. We had our Thanksgiving dinner at Old Country Buffet, and headed back to my dad's to relax.

Saturday was yet another shopping day. This time we went to the mall, and we had Grace, my twin 8 year old nieces, my sister, DD1 and DD2 in towe. Our first stop was JC Penneys where Grace got a stuffed rudolph, DD1 got her Winter Dance Dress, and the rest of the girls just window shopped. My sister got a gift card at Holister, and we met up with my sister-in-law for lunch at the food court. We had a good time, just us girls. Later we met back up with the guys, had pizza for dinner, and then watched Ironman. A pretty quiet day.

Today we heard that there was a mix of snow and ice coming so we left early to head back home. We got home around 2, unpacked the car, and put Gracie down for a nap. Tommorrow it's back to work, school and daycare for all of us.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just a quick post to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for many things this year. For our health, our jobs, our children, our mostly reliable transportation, our families, and friends! I'm thankful that there is enough food to feed our family, and that God is watching over us.

We are headed north to be with family for the rest of the holiday weekend.

I think this is a record for us!

Yes, our Christmas tree is up and decorated, and it's not even Thanksgiving Day yet! We decided to go ahead and get it put up last night because we weren't going to be home this weekend. It was either put it up then when we could, or come home early on Saturday to be able to put it up on Sunday. The girls, of course, didn't want to wait and didn't want to come home early. Well, I should say that DD2 didn't. DD1 would like to be able to come home, but not to put up Christmas decorations. She would like to spend the weekend with her friends. Ah, living with a 15 year old!

We still have lots of other decorations to put up, but we've got a good start. Gracie loved putting the ornaments on the tree. She actually was quite helpful. Unlike last year when all she wanted to do was to take everything off the tree that we put on it.

I think she'll really enjoy Christmas this year. She's already going around singing her version of Jingle Bells, which is all of "Jingle, Jingle Bells, all the way" over and over. It's really very cute!

We are headed to my hometown for Thanksgiving to spend time with my father, my brother and his family, and my sister and her family. We plan on shopping early on Black Friday, which is somewhat of a tradition for my sister and I. Sometimes we get to go together, and sometimes we're not in the same town. But we always go shopping and check in with each other during our shopping. What fun!

Happy Thanksgiving!

A good day!

Here it is Sunday evening already. DH and I are watching football and just relaxing. Today was a quiet day. I cleaned house some, DD1 and DD2 played PS2 games with DH, and Gracie just hung out with whomever was available to hang out with all day. She's going through a mommy phase, where she wants me over anyone else. I like that she feels connected to me to want me, and I know that this is a good sign that she is properly attached. She also loves her daddy and her sisters, but has no problem saying hi to strangers as long as one of us is closeby for security.

Grace really is an amazing little girl. I can't tell you how many times I've heard from people that they are surprised that she is only 2 years old because she's talking so well. I don't know if it's because of the First Steps therapy she went through or not, but she is something to listen to when she talks. Her favorite expression now is "Oh My Gosh!". Her intonation is too cute when she says it! It's pretty funny.

DD1 was in a good mood today too, for the most part. That's a good thing, when a moody 15 year old is having a good day. She even was playing around with me when she went to come to say good night to me by sitting on me and trying to squish me. Sometimes she's really a wonderful kid! Oh, I shouldn't complain. For the most part she is a great daughter. It's just that it's hard on all of us, when she's trying to find her own way, and doesn't really understand her own feelings nevermind ours. Because of that, I appreciate the good days like today even more!

DD2 was her usual happy self. She rarely has a bad day. I guess that could change as she approaches her teen years, but for now she is in a good place. She's not perfect, but her loving, happy spirit more than makes up for that.

I guess I'm just really blessed to have such great children. Our Hands of Hope ministry had an adoption information meeting last night at church, and I was talking with people that were interested in adoption. I was telling them that most people believe that the only reason to consider adoption is because of infertility issues, but that's not true. That was not our reason for adopting. Our reason for adopting was because God told us he wanted us to. We are being faithful servants, and praise him that we are, because if we hadn't follow his calling we would be missing out on sooooo many blessings! Yes, it's hard sometimes being older parents and having a two year old, along with 2 other daughters, but it's totally worth it! I wouldn't trade it for the world!!!

As we approach Thanksgiving, I'm thankful that God has given me the opportunity to be a part of His plan. I'm thankful to Grace's birth mother for carrying her, caring for her prenatally, and for leaving her in a place where she could be found, taken care of and brought to a place that led her to our family. I'm so thankful for my daughters, my husband, my job, my warm home, for having enough food to feed my children, and for the many blessings that have been bestowed on us all. Thank you God!

Don't try this at home!

On Friday, I decided it was time I took Gracie in for her 2 year old portraits. You might remember that last year I took all three girls to Olan Mills for portraits. They all wore their Chinese dresses. They turned out great!

So, the question was, do I try to top that this year, or with money being tight, do I do something a little less expensive but yet document Grace's 2nd year. I opted for the latter. I made an appointment at our local Walmart for a session, thinking that I would use the online coupon that I found while making the appointment. I scheduled the appointment for 11 a.m. on Friday morning, thinking that it was late enough in the morning that she would be well rested, and early enough that she wouldn't be cranky and need her nap.

I had the dress, shoes, and tights. The dress came from a friend that had bought it for Grace last Spring. A very cute black and red holiday dress. The tights red, and the shoes black patent leather mary janes. We didn't have any matching bows for Grace's hair, so I decided to pick one up at the store beforehand. Much to my surprise, there were really no red hair bows at Walmart!! So we settled for a frilly red pony tie. It worked well, and Grace had the extras that came in the package of multicolored ponies to play with while we waited. So were were ready, or so I thought.

What I didn't count on was a 2 year old attitude! She started out pretty well, trying to accommodate the photographer to make her happy. We were to have 7 different poses, and by about the 3rd pose Grace had had enough. She wanted nothing more to do with this photo shoot, and decided to show both me and the photographer who was in control. Let me give you a hint that it wasn't either of the adults! She had a meltdown, and refused to cooperate. Finally after prodding to try to get her to cooperate for "just a little bit longer", I decided to try something that every parent swares they will "Never do that when they have children!". I bribed her! I told her she could play with my cell phone if she cooperated. Somehow that worked, and we made it through.

Really only abut 4 of the poses were good enough to consider for purchasing. And of course, after the photo shoot was over, we had to sit through the photographer's sales pitch to try to get me to spend $199 to get "the best deal" they had, and then the $149 next best deal, and $79 deal. During that time, Gracie decided that it was time to let mother nature take her course, and she dirtied her diaper. So instead of taking the time to take her to the restroom and change her diaper right then, I decided to wait until we were finished ordering the portraits and then change her, which really was only another 30 minutes or so.

So after we finished up, I reached in the diaper bag, and much to my surprise there was NO wipes in the bag! Who took the wipes out of the bag? Why would I leave the house with a diaper bag that didn't have wipes in it? How in the world was I supposed to change her diaper without wipes? This is where it comes in handy to have the photo shoot take place in Wally World! I just went back to the baby department and picked up a package of baby wipes, went through the checkout, purchased them, and headed to the restroom. We were able to get her cleaned up and head home, but I have to tell you I was pooped out (no punn intended)!

Gracie came home, ate a quick lunch, and took a 3 hour nap. So it was obviously tiring for her too. I have to say, it was not a fun experience. I will not ever take a 2 year old to get their portrait taken again. But I do have to admit that my little girl's photo that we selected, which was the coupon deal they had with one pose, is mighty cute! So maybe it was worth the hassle. I'm sure when I pick the package up on December 5, I will have almost forgotten about all the hassle, and just enjoy the beautiful smile on my girl's face!

What did I do today?

I was checking some of the other blogs today, and thinking I should post on my own. So here I am, thinking "what did I do today, and what happened today that I might want to write about?". First off, it was blissfully a pretty quiet day.

We got up fairly late, around 8, and then ate a breakfast of egg and hash brown scramble ( a speciality of DH's), and cinnamon rolls. It's a rare thing that all 5 of us sit down to eat breakfast together. Even on the weekend, either one of the girls is gone, DH is up early doing something, or one or more of the girls sleep in. So it was nice to sit down together. I suppose as time goes on this will become even more of a rarity as both DD1 and DD2 become more interested in their friends, rather than their families. It's really already the case with our 15 year old. It appears to me that she only spends time with us when she has to. Now I understand that this is normal for her age, and that she's trying to figure out who she is the world, but all the same, sometimes it's hard to accept as a parent. Anyway, it was a nice relaxing morning.

After breakfast, we moved on to cleaning house. DD1 wanted to go to her girl friend's house, and the rule is you can't go anywhere until your room is clean and the bathroom is clean. So she was highly motivated. DH worked on fixing our desktop computer that crashed hard. He still hasn't been able to get it to boot. Gracie played with DD2 and kept herself busy.

Every year our church has what's called the Frontline Expo, where all of the outreach ministries have a manned booth where people can come and talk to any of the ministry representatives to find out about it, and hopefully help people find their passion for serving. This is that weekend. So I had to get to church early to get our Hands of Hope booth set up. We're having our giving tree with Christmas ornaments attached to donation envelopes for our adoption fund that we're giving away, and a medicine drive for orphans in Guatemala. And of course we have the man the booth. So my time to be there to talk to people wandering by is tomorrow at noon.

The giving tree looked really good. I'm planning on taking the camera with me tomorrow, so I can get photos. After getting everything set up at the booth, and making sure the people were there to work it, we headed into service. Afterwards we headed to DD1's friend's house because she's spending the night there, and then headed home to eat dinner. The rest of the evening was quiet. DD2 and I went to Miejer and Gracie went to bed, to get milk and other food essentials. DH went to bed early, and DD2 and I are watching Jack Frost.

And that's it for the day. Nothing exciting, nothing boring, just a nice peaceful quiet day. Ahhhh! I like those kinds of days.

Gracie made the display case!

I few weeks ago I wrote about how our local library was having a display case featuring National Adoption Month, sponsored by Linked By Love, a network of churches that are working to care for the orphans of the world as mandated by Jesus.

I also posted the photos that I sent in for consideration. Well, we were in our local library on Monday night, and I have to admit that I'd forgotten about the display case. So when I walked by and saw my daughter's referral photo blown up to 8x10 as part of the display I was surprised. So I went and got the girls to see the photo. Of course Gracie didn't really appreciate that her photo was on display, but the others two were pleased.

I tried to take a couple of photos of the case using my cell phone. I'm posting them here, although I don't think they are that good. Gracie's photo is in the lower left hand corner of the case. She's wearing a red jacket.

Catch Up Photos

This is DH's birthday cake for his birthday that was on September 8. The girls wanted to use the "1" candle instead of the 54 individual candles that he should've had. I guess it's less of a fire hazzard. LOL!

Happy Birthday (belated) Sweetie!

No photos for you!

Remember that line from the Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld? Well, apparently our memory card reader has taken some lessons from the Soup Nazi! I think I told you that we got a new memory card reader to download our digital camera photos to the computer because the girls lost our old one. It worked great for photos off the memory card in DD1's camera without any setup or anything, but somehow the photos that were on the memory card in our camera (which is a different card format) than DD1's didn't work. I didn't think too much about it, and asked DH to help try to get the photos off the card.

He installed the driver on my computer and put the memory card in the slot. But wait, there are NO photos on the card!!! Apparently without knowing it, I earased ALL the photos on our memory card!!! That's most of the photos from the Weekend of Servic project, and ALL of our Halloween photos!! That means NO photos of ANY of the girls in their Halloween costume, and most especially NO photos of Gracie in her fairy costume. I AM SO BUMMED!!!

I'm thinking of having the girls dress up again, and take photos even though Halloween ended over a week ago. I just can't imagine not having photos of the girls dressed up.

Right now I'm so frustrated with myself, I could just scream!

Finally some photos!

Well, we finally got a replacement memory card reader. It's nothing fancy, but it got the job done. Here are the photos from our weekend of Christmas card making for orphans in Ethiopia.

Looks like we're going to have a violin player in our family!

DD2 came home from school on Monday saying that she talked with the Strings teacher at school. The teacher told DD2 that she could join Strings if she wanted to. So now she'll be in Strings on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and in Choir on Tuesday and Thursday.

DD2 has wanted to take violin lessons for about a year now. I really thought it would pass, and that she'd forget. Her memory is not that great. LOL! But since she's brought it up again and actually talked with her teacher about it, we are going to let her do it. The only problem is that she needs a 3/4 violin. Have you ever priced violins? They are pretty expensive, and I hate to spend too much money on one if she isn't really serious about sticking with it. She can rent one for $25/month or $129/year, or of course we can buy one. So I started looking around online to see how much I could buy one for. The prices are all over the place! You can get one for a cheap as $30 or as expensive as $500. So okay, I thought that I'll just check Craigslist. Surely someone is selling one cheap there, but no such luck. The cheapest was $150!

So now what? What I did was post a question about what way to go to Mamasoure.com. I got back several responses, but haven't been able to read them yet because that website is blocked here at work. So when I get home, I'll check and see what great advice I get from other mamas in our area!

We'll keep you posted!

Whew! That was a long weekend!

Well, the Weekend of Service is over and I think it was a great success! We had 69 people over 4 sessions come to our Christmas cards for Ethiopian orphans project at Archiver's.

Out of all those people, only 2 got angry. Why you ask? Well, apparently they got some bad information from somewhere about the start time of the session they had signed up for. Consequently, they arrived 1/2 an hour early for a 1:30 start time, and noone was there. That's because Gretchen, DD1, DD2 and I were all out getting a much deserved break after our successful morning session. Gretchen came back early (about 1:05) and apparently the two young women went off on her about how they were told that the 9:30 session was cancelled, and to be at Archiver's at 1, and how they were put out about noone being there at 1 p.m. I think they some pretty strong language must of been used. My daughters overheard some of what was said, although it was over before I got in the building, and they said it was not pretty. I felt so sorry for Gretchen. She is so sweet, and these young women wounded her. So I went over to talk to the two young woman and apologize for whatever they felt they needed an apology for because really I don't know where they got their bad information. They seemed to settle down some then, and finished out the session okay. They even seemed a bit happy when they finished up before everyone else at 2. But as you can guess they never apologized for their behavior.

Later in the day when I was back home, I checked the email that I'd sent out to one of the two women to see if I'd inadvertently messed up the email to them. I checked both my Sent and Inbox, and the one email I'd sent them didn't have any of the info in it that they claimed was there. So the only thing I can think is that they got some misinformation from church, but who knows.

I have to say that I don't understand the attitude of these women. Surely they understood that we didn't purposefully feed them bad information for a volunteer project, did they?!! We are an orphan care ministry affiliated with a Christian church for goodness sakes! Why would we intentionally sabotage the project for them? Also, why would they be the ONLY ones that were that early to the session start? I think that if they would've thought about that instead of jumping to conclusions, then maybe they would've been better off themselves, and for sure it would've been better for Gretchen! I think it must be a maturity thing for them. I sincerely hope that when they got back home that they reread my email to them, and understood that maybe they'd misread the information or didn't completely read the email. And maybe it's unChristian of me, but I sort of too wish that they feel bad about their behavior because it was really uncalled for and inappropriate given the circumstances. MOst of all, I feel badly that Gretchen had to take the brunt of it as she really had nothing to do with communicating any of the information about the session. She just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time!

Enough about that, for the rest of the news is really good news. We must have about 200 cards to sent off to Children's Hope International for the orphans in Ethiopia!!! And everyone else was so nice and seemed so appreciative of the project, the organization, and the ministry. I'm really happy overall with how it went, and if and when we do this again, I'll have lots of experience under my belt with what to do and what not to do again!

Oh, and lest I forget, I also have to tell you that Archiver's was GREAT! They were very accommodating, kind, pleasant and helpful. I don't remember the assistant manager's name that worked this weekend in the store, but she was really a Godsend! So a big Thank You to Arhiver's is in order!!!

We still can't find out card reader to get the photos off of my camerea, but when I do, I'll post some photos of the entire weekend including the girls in their Halloween costumes.

Hands of Hope Orphan Card Making Project this Weekend!

I have been a busy beaver this past week or so! Let me explain. A few months ago (I think it was in June), our church, Grace Community Church, decided to cancel weekend services on the weekend of November 1 and 2, and instead send all the church attenders out into the community to do service projects.

What a great idea, huh?! So, to get the projects set up well in advance they asked for project ideas of all of the Outreach ministries. Our ministry, Hands of Hope International Adoption and Orphan Care Ministry, is one of those, and as the sponsor, I was asked to submit ideas. I took this message to our board, and they had a few ideas, one of which was to ask any contacts we had with agencies related to our ministry for service projects. In the end we submitted 3 ideas: 1. making cards for orphans, 2. planning a silent auction to fund our adoption fund, and 3. holding a garage sale to help fund our adoption fund.

Well, our church picked 2 of the 3 ideas along with many many other ideas from other ministries to go forward with providing 3000 volunteer opportunities! The time for signing up closed this past Monday, and it turns out that our #2 idea didn't have enough volunteers to make a go of it. So for Hands of Hope our only project left is making cards for orphans of which I happen to be the project leader AND the team leader both. I didn't really understand what that meant to be both the project leader and the team leader until this week.

As the project leader I've been responsible for getting everything ready, from contacting and working with the scrapbooking store where we're going to hold the sessions, gathering all the supplies for all the sessions, working with the Childrens Hope International contact that I have to get the information I need about the orphans, and in general getting all the planning done.

As the team leader I've been responsible for contacting each person that signed up and verifying which shift they are going to be working, trying to figure out how to accommodate everyones' request, and then also reminding each person that signed up of the date, time and location of the the sessions. And I will be responsible for leading all 4 sessions, which means that I'll be at the site from 9:30 Saturday morning until 4 p.m. Saturday afternoon, and then 11 a.m. Sunday morning until 5 p.m. Sunday afternoon! Wow! Did I sign up for alot?!

Anyway, I'm about 90% ready on both jobs. Turns out that we'll be making Christmas cards for orphans in Ethiopia. So because I'm not really crafty or creative in making cards, I decided about 2 weeks ago that it would be best for me to take DD1 and DD2 down to Archiver's (where the event is to be held), and practice making cards. We met another board member there, picked 4 card ideas that Archiver's had on the their website, and went around with one of the store clerks collecting all the necessary supplies to make those 4 cards. Well, 30 minutes , and $230 later!!!, we were ready to make our cards. We all faltered a little bit getting started, but soon we were off. The girls' imaginations took off, and we ended up making 7 cards in about 2 1/2 hours of time (Gretchen pointed out the each of the cards cost us a little over $30!, but we'll be able to use alot of the supplies again, so it's not as bad as it sounds).

After I finish up writing this post, I'll also post photos of the cards we made. I did learn lots on that card making adventure. First and foremost is: Don't buy card making supplies at a scrapbooking store! It's too darn expensive! I decided that I'd make trips to other stores and buy the additional supplies we need for this weekend. I went to Dollar Tree which quite a few things we could use, Walmart which didn't, and Hobby Lobby which was a gold mine!!!

All in all I've used about $260 of our ministries funds for this project that will have 4 sessions with 16 people at each session. We'll be passing out cards and return envelopes at the event for people to take home to consider making a donation to the Hands of Hope adoption fund which has been set up to provide interest free loans and matching grants to Grace adopting families to help bring an orphan home to their forever family. I also have had to print out the envelops and donation cards to support that, so there's additional minimal cost associated with that, but who's counting, right?!

I still have a couple of things I need to get: yellow or gold card stock, and brown or black card stock. But that's it, and I'll be ready!

I'm excited, and nervous about how this weekend will go. I'm excited because we had a really good time making the cards last weekend, so I know people will enjoy it. I'm nervous because, although Archiver's told me we could use their work room for the sessions, they didn't reserve it for us. So it's possible that other people from off the street could come in and take one of the 16 chairs that's available. That should'nt be a problem for the Saturday and Sunday morning sessions because we are there first thing when they open, but for the afternoon sessions there's just no guarantee.

So I've been praying alot over this event. I want it to go well. Not so much to show what a great planner I am, or to give me the glory for all of this event. But rather because for some people this is the first time they've done any service project at all, and I want it to be a good experience for them so they'll be more open to volunteering year round. Also because I want the Ethiopian children to enjoy the hand made cards and to know that they are loved not only by us but by God!

An invitation for all Christians

I received this email from my niece. I like the message and the idea for all of us to get involved. So I'm extending this invitation to all who would like to participate!

ONE MINUTE EACH NIGHT....

This is the one of the most threatening elections we as Christians have ever faced. From the looks of the polls, the Christians aren't voting Christian values. We all need to be on our knees. Do you believe we can take God at His word? Call upon His name, then stand back and watch His wonders to behold. His scripture gives us, as Christians, ownership of this land and the ability to call upon God to heal it. I challenge you to do so. We have never been more desperate than now for God to heal our land.

2 Chronicles 7:14 :

'If my people, which are called by my name shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.'

During WWII, there was an advisor to Churchill who organized a group of people who dropped what they were doing every night at a prescribed hour for one minute to collectively pray for the safety of England, its' people and peace. This had an amazing effect as bombing stopped.

There is now a group of people organizing the same thing here in America . The United States of America and our citizens need prayer more than ever!

If you would like to participate: each evening at 9:00 PM Eastern Time, 8:00 PM Central, 7:00 PM Mountain, 6:00 PM Pacific, stop whatever you are doing and spend one minute praying for the safety of the United States, our troops, our citizens, for peace in the world, for wisdom and courage for our leaders, the up-coming election, and that the Bible will remain the basis for the laws governing our land and that Christianity will grow in the U.S.

If you know anyone who would like to participate, please pass this along. Someone said if people really understood the full extent of the power we have available through prayer, we might be speechless. Our prayers are the most powerful asset we have.

Thank You

Please pass this on to anyone who you think will want to join us. God Bless You!!!

ONE MINUTE EACH NIGHT....

Patsy's retirement party

Because we've had 600 salaried employees either laid off or forced to retire, there have been lots of going away parties. The first round was for those whose last day was October 1. The next big wave is going to be those whose last day is November 1, and the last wave is those whose last day is December 1.

There's a woman that I've known for 13 of the 14 years I've been at my job. I met her when she worked in the training department as the education coordinator, and since April I've shared a cubicle with her. She is a dear sweet woman that was widowed at a young age, and chose to raise her sons by herself. She was one of the "forced to retire" people. She's only 57, so very young to be retired, and she was not really prepared financially to do so. We threw her a retirement party at work with her sons and friends from all over. She had a great time, and I think it really meant alot to her. She's been gone now for a couple of weeks, and I've all alone in my cubicle. It's been hard adjusting to not having Patsy to talk with everyday to share our lives and stories. I miss her.

I heard that she's spending this time to fix up her house to sell it, and then she's going to start looking for a job to be able to make ends meet until she can truly retire. I wish her well. This photo is of she and I at her party. One of her sons took the photo. She does look happy, doesn't she?

How will you vote?

Today I received an email from one of the women in our China travel group. She and her husband were adopting their daughter at the same time we were there adopting ours. Angie and her husband live in Kentucky. But that's not why I'm telling you about her email.

She sent me and others in our travel group a link to Randy Alcorn's blog, where he gives his opinion on how anyone that is truly prolife must vote in the November elections. He's got a good point, but I'll let you judge for yourself.

Before you go to Randy's blog, let me warn you that there is a very graphic video on the blog that is quite disturbing. I wasn't going to watch it, but decided that I needed to, if only to be able to talk about it with others that read the blog post. As I was watching the torn bodies of these babies, and their tiny little feet, hands and faces, I was thinking about Gracie. What if her birth mother had decided to take the abortion route? She very well could have, but she didn't. For whatever reason she decided to leave her in a place where she knew that she would be found and taken care of. I thank her for the decision that she made that day, one day after Gracie was born.

You know, for the past few weeks, I've been going back and forth on who I should vote for on November 4th. I was wrestling with some of the very things that Randy talks about on his blog related to the issues and personalities of the candidates. I can't say that I agree with the complete platforms of either candidate or am too thrilled about either, but after reading Randy's blog entries on the subject and watching the videos he has posted, I'm now sure without a doubt how I'm going to vote.

My prayer for you is that it will help you decide how to vote too.

Then and Now

Recently I received an email requesting two photos of Grace. The first one of her referral, and the 2nd one recent. The purpose of which is that our local library is putting together a display case for National Adoption Month of children adopted to highlight the impact adoption has on children.

These are the two photos I sent. She changed alot in a year, hasn't she?!

I can't wait to see her and other childrens' photos in the library case.

Happy Birthday (yesterday!) DD1

I now have a 15 year old daughter. Wow! Where did the time go?! DD1 turned 15 yesterday, and in all her teenage glory celebrated with her girlfriends and not so much with her family. We decided that when the girls turned 13 that they wouldn't have any more big birthday parties with the exception of a big one when they turned 16. So DD1 asked me if she could have 4 friends spend the night on her birthday. DH and I were okay with that, I mean what could happen?

Well, it was okay, but somehow it really turned into a full-fledged birthday party. She had her first friend come home on the bus with her to help her make her birthday cake, and then the rest of the girls came over during the course of a few hours after that. The theme was "80's girls", and all the girls dressed like they thought someone their age would've dressed during the 80's, you know big hair (or as big as they could make it anyway), big scrunchy on their side ponytails, leg warmers, torn t-shirt hanging off of one shoulder... It was really very cute. Here's a picture of DD1 with one of her friends.

The girls had a great time, but were MESSY, and I guess that's typical, but the biggest issue was that they stayed up until 4:30 a.m. I figured that DD1 would be a mess and want to sleep all day, but she didn't. She cleaned (after some prodding from mom), and went to church. Why you ask? Because she has another party to go to tonight! So she's at her friend's house for another party, not for her, but because her friend wanted to have someone her own age at the party for her grandfather. DD1 is spending the night, and will be home early tomorrow morning. She then has to watch Grace becasue I have a meeting at church and her dad is playing pickleball. She should be exhausted by the time tomorrow moring is over!

I think she'd say that her 15th birthday weekend was a huge success, but I think for mom and dad it's just the beginning of a period of time that we won't be spending much time with DD1!

Halloween costumes for DDs

Halloween is always something that our girls have looked forward to. I too remember getting excited about dressing up and trick-or-treating. Now, as a parent, it's not near as fun, but it's still fun to help the kids figure out their costumes, and see all the neighborhood kids costumes as they come around for trick-or-treat.

This weekend, I was in Dollar Tree to get cheap stickers for Gracie, and happened to see these fairy wings. They came in red, blue, green, orange and yellow. Next to those there was a little fairy skirt that came in the same colors with the exception that the blue was a different shade of blue than the wings (why would that be?!). Anyway, I started thinking that this would be a cute costume for Gracie! DD1 and DD2 were with me, so course, we couldn't stop at those two things. By the time we got out of there, we bought the skirt, the wings, slip on shoes, a wand, and a tiara - all in green. We decided to go with green because Gracie has a pair of green blue Tinker Bell pjs that I think she'll be able to wear with the rest of the outfit, and Voila she'll BE Tinker Bell!!!

If for some reason it's too warm (it was 86 degrees here yesterday!), then I'll have her wear a onesie with tights. She'll be adorable! We were all 3 pretty proud that we got her a costume for $5!

Well, then we went onto Walmart, and DD2 wanted a larger light up fairy skirt for $13 to be able to go as a dance teacher. That's all she needs, so we got off there cheap on her too! DD1 wanted leg warmers and hair scrunchies to be a girl from the 1980's, $11! So for 3 girls, 3 costumes, we spent $29!!! Not bad! I can't EVER remember getting costumes that cheap. I'm so blessed to have girls that are very good about considering cost, and I just love getting a bargain!!

So we are all set for Halloween with the exception of the candy to hand out. I'm not getting that until the last minute, because if we have it too early, I'll eat it all!!

Hands of Hope goings on

We had our monthly Hands of Hope board meeting this morning, and we ran out of time before we got through everything that we needed to get through. There is so much coming up in and around the month of November, and it's truly amazing that this all happening around National Adoption Month. Coincidence? I don't think so! I believe that God is using this time to bring the plight of orphans to light, and to prod people that He is calling to adopt to get off their rears and do something!

Here's what we have coming up:

• November 2/3: Archivers Orphan Card project for Childrens Hope International
• November 2/3: Silent Auction Solicitation Project to support Hands of Hope adoption fund
• November 14/15: Frontline Expo featuring all Frontline ministries including Hands of Hope
• November 22: Hands of Hope adoption informational meeting
• Start of the Hands of Hope adoption fund; accepting applications for families that want to apply for an interest free adoption loan or matching grant
• Participating in the Grace Christmas Catalog

This is amazing! God is working in this ministry! We are also getting closer to determining who we will partner with to support an international orphanage. We've got a good candidate, and are thinking we'll go with them, but I don't want to say until we make a decision. Our goal is to basically "adopt" an orphanage providing financial support, prayer support, missions trips, and whatever else we can do to show the love of Christ to the children in the orphanage. Another goal of this partnership is to educate people on God's heart for orphans. So it's exciting!

One of things that I'm wondering now though is how the economy will affect our progress. I'm not worried because I know that God will lead us, but on the surface it appears it's not a good time to step up a ministry like we're trying to do. So prayer is definitely in order!

First post on new blog!

I found out a few days ago that AOL is closing their journals. So they conveniently had a way to transfer all of the previous blog posts off of my AOL journal account to Blogger. Well isn't that great?! Except that I've tried 3 times now, and still can't get all my posts to show up!!! So I guess I'll start anew.

If you are a visitor to my blog, Welcome! I started it a few years ago while we were waiting to adopt our daughter from China. That was in 2006. Now here it is 2008, and our daughter has been home with us now for about 14 months. She is a joy, as our other daughters are too. So we are now a family of 5. As I struggle through life like everyone else does sharing the good times and the not so good, I'll try to post my feelings and experiences as a way to capture the moment for others to share, and for me to relive my past over the years.

I can't guarantee that you'll always be entertained, but I do hope you enjoy getting in my head a little bit!

Tiny Rockstar

Our Hands of Hope ministry is promoting this cool way to help feed an orphan. By buying a tshirt from Tinyrockstar.com you can feed an orphan for a month. Here's the link to their website:

Let's see how many orphans we can feed, shall we?!

Feeling down today

As alot of people around the country are feeling the sqeeze of the economy, so am I. The company I work for is downsizing to the tune of 1/4 of their workforce. They are letting go 600 people over the course of 2 months. Their are many people I know and call friends that have been affected. I'm safe for now, but I don't feel as safe as you might think. With the economy the way it is, there's no guarantees anywhere, and that's true where I work. I was feeling okay, not great, but okay until yesterday. Yesterday I had a meeting with someone that works in my old department. She told me that she'd heard a rumor from her boss that there's going to be another round of cuts that will take effect in June 2009. She said another 25%! That means that our workforce (that's salaried workforce) will be half the size it was this summer!!! And who's to say that I won't be in the 2nd round of 25% cuts?! Oh, and the other thing she told me was that instead of the severance pay that's based on the number of years you have with the company that they offerred this time around, this next time they'll give one month severance pay - that's it!

So I'm feeling squeezed. I don't want to look for another job and give up my 5 weeks vacation and ability to work from home. But I guess that's selfish. So I need to get motivated and start seriously looking for a job. But what kind of job? I don't really "love" my job. I like it okay, but I'd give it up in a second to be a SAHM. Of course, I can't do that, so do I take my skills and try to apply them to some other field or play it safe and go with another company doing the same thing I'm doing now? Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Oh, did I mention that I hate looking for job? And that's it's been 15 years since I have? Now that I've whined for awhile, I just need to suck it up and move forward, but you know I'm just not there yet.

One therapy down one to go!

Today was Gracie's last day with her developmental therapist. I should've taken a photo of them together, but of course, didn't think of it until later when it was too late. It was pretty anticlimactic really. All ther dt said was that she knew from the day she met Grace that she was going to catch up quickly, and that she has. She did say that she would miss Grace because she was such a cutie, and so smart. I can't tell you how many time her dt has told us that it's so nice to work with parents that are actively involved in their child's therapy. She's said several times to me that alot of the moms the time that she's there with their child to go have a smoke and use her as a free babysitter. I'm not saying this because I think we're better than other parents. I just don't understand how you wouldn't want to be there for your child. I do have to admit that there were times when we didn't have time to work on everything the therapist wants us to, but I'm always interested in watching Grace interact with the therapists, watch them work with her, and hear her progress. I think it must just be a matter of being overwhelmed for some parents, that they don't feel the same way. I truly feel blessed to have Gracie be casught up developmentally, and am very thankful to Laura her therapist for helping her get there so quickly!

Now she only has to finish up her pt, which her therapist has said she thinks she'll be caught up by the end of the month. She wants Grace to learn to kick better. She says she has to work on her "motion planning". Who knew that motion planning is something that's learned!? Anyway, she's almost there, and then she'll be finished with First Steps. I have to say that I'm happy with the job that First Steps has done, and again am grateful for her therapists and the care that she's received in the program!

Guaranteeing our Teens won't fail?

I read this on Mark Gregston's website, and thought it was really good. It made me think about the best way to insure that my teenage daughter and future teenage daughters won't fall away from their faith. Basically the answer is, I can't!!! We all need to remember this, do the best we can, cut ourselves some slack, and spend lots of time in prayer for our children.

Here's the article:

Wanna Know What You Can Do to Guarantee that Your Children Won’t Fall in the Teen Years?

I often see Christians who believe that parenting according to scriptural values, taking their kids to church every time the doors are open, and promoting family togetherness guarantees that all will be well in the teenage years. Like buying an insurance plan, they think that doing the right things will bring about the right result.

Sticking with the insurance policy analogy, why do we buy insurance? To help protect us if any unforeseen incidents occur, right? Car insurance to protect us from the actions of other drivers as well as our own mistakes. Health insurance to take care of anything that can happen to damage or weaken our bodies.

Do you see where I’m going? The things you did when your teen was a child WAS insurance. The problem is that insurance doesn’t guarantee safe passage through life, it just helps protect us in case something does happen. The foundation that was laid in childhood remains throughout a person’s life — good, bad or indifferent, it will always be there.

Let me tell you, based on years of experience with struggling teens and their parents, that thinking you can somehow provide safe passage through adolescence with a strong, scripturally-based parenting style is just plain wrong. Thinking you can do it all on your own is taking God and his redemptive grace completely out of the picture. So, to answer the headline of this article, there is nothing you can do to GUARANTEE your children won’t fall in the teen years.

Some quote the scripture “train up a child in the way he should go,” but that says nothing about the turbulent teenage years. In fact, you’ll want to remember that some biblical characters with seemingly perfect spiritual upbringings had difficulties themselves in their younger adult lives. So don’t forget that the passage goes on to say,”…and when he is old he will not depart from it.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t consider a teenager as being very “old.”

Stuff happens along the way that is out of our control as parents, and even if we do everything right, stuff still happens. One angelic teenager in our family can lead us to think that we have found the right formula, right up until we see our next child go down a completely different path. Welcome to the real world — where God gives each of our children a free will.

One parent wrote me saying,“We’ve done everything right. We took our son to church, raised him in a Christian home, sent him to a great Christian school, home-schooled for a few years, have taken him on mission trips and poured our life into him. What has gone wrong? How can he reject all that we’ve taught, and all that we’ve been striving for?”

These parents raised their teen in the church and taught him good and strong values. Then one day, he decided that those things no longer worked for him, so he started “trying on” other values - values of his peer group. He was not interested in how his behavior made his parents feel. He was “in control.” He acted as he chose to act.

Every trick in their parenting bag failed. Their arsenal was empty. Did they do everything right? Possibly.

The pain and stress comes when we, as parents, recognize that our children have chosen poorly and are clearly (at least to us) heading down the wrong path. This is not just when their choices are self-destructive — drugs, alcohol, sexual promiscuity, etc. — but also when they begin practicing a different religion (or denomination), or to decide that after years of playing piano and winning competition after competition, Julliard no longer matters.

When your teen is struggling to discover his or her identity and trying to become independent, it can be an extremely frustrating and painful process for all involved. But it can help us better understand how God must feel when he see His children fail.

No parent is perfect, nor is perfection the answer, for even though God is perfect He still had a couple of rebellious kids. So, it’s not about the parent, and it’s not always about howthey were raised. It’s all about the child and his God-given gift of individuality and free will, which is first exercised during adolescence.

I’m sure you really did lay a firm foundation for your teen. You did a great job! You did such a great job that your teen feels safe to create his own immature views. It may not seem like it now, but that is a very good thing. This is how teens become mature, well-grounded adults, who can contribute positively to this world. They are stretching their wings and preparing to fly.

Sometimes these “first flights” are hard for parents to experience, especially when they typically involve several failed attempts. The important thing is to be there when the wounded teen wobbles back to the nest, to encourage a stronger and more skilled flight the next time around.

Being a parent of a teenager can be hard work. There is emotional pain and even feelings of betrayal when our child gets off track in the adolescent years. But I know this — it makes us parents spend a lot more time on our knees! The process is therefore worthwhile. For in our journey, no matter how bumpy the turbulence, we may learn what God is trying to teach us as well.

Does anyone else have a problem with "The Secret LIfe of An American Teenager"?

Okay. So this show "The Secret Life of An American Teenager" has been on ABC Family for several weeks. My 14 and 11 year old daughters have decided that this is one of their favorite shows on tv. Before I ever let them watch it, I found out what it was about, and decided that they could watch it if we watched together so we could talk about what was happening

So now, I hate this show. I hate the fact that I have to make a decision about whether to let my children watch a tv show on what is supposed to be "family" television on the subject of premarital sex and teenage pregnancy. I've got more to say on this, but as usual I'm getting interrupted. I'll be back!

Another lag

So this typical. I sit down to blog, and I get interrupted. I guess that shouldn't surprise me or anyone else with 3 children between the ages of 14 and 23 months. But it sure is frustrating!

So I wanted to tell you all about our trip to Colorado. Colorado is probably one of my favoritest places in the world. I absolutely love the mountains! Give me mountains over ocean anytime.

Anyway, we spent 4 days in Estes Park and 2 in Boulder. The weather at Estes Park was great, and in Boulder a little too warm. But we had a great time. We went with my dad, my brother, sister-in-law, and two of there 3 children. We stayed at YMCA of the Rockies. My first time there, although DH had stayed there years ago. If we'd know up front about all the activities that we could've signed up for, it would've been even more fun. But as it was we didn't know, so we missed out on fun things like a zip line.

The bigger kids were able to go horse back riding. Grace, my dad and I went into downtown to eat breakfast while they did. Grace was too young, and dad didn't feel well enough to go. So we had a nice relaxing breakfast at The Egg and I.

Grace enjoyed Rocky Mountain National Park, mostly because of the animals she saw. She was too cute squealing everytime we saw a chipmunk, ground squirrel, elk, and deer. We also got to spend time with my brother, his partner, and their daughter, my uncle, aunt and a few cousins that all live in the area. It was a good vacation, and Grace did great on the plane ride out and back!

We had photos, but our hard drive crashed, and we lost them all. So now we have to wait to get the others' photos to share.

Now we're back to school and more of routine.

Catching up

Okay. I know that I haven't blogged in over a month, and I know that during that time we had lots of things going on that would've been great blogging fodder. Unfortunately, life got in the way of blogging, and I had to set my priorities. Blogging hit the bottom of the list.

So I'd like to take this time to catch up. During the month of July we went on a couple of trips. The first was to Holiday World in Santa Claus, IN. It's a fun place for kids, and a pretty good place for parents too. We went with friends from DH's work. One of the families we were with camped out with us, the other spent the night at local hotel. David and his wife have two children, Lucy, 3 and Eli, 4 months. They were the ones that stayed at the hotel, and who can blame them. I don't even think I'd attempt taking two small children to an amusement park, nevermind try camping out. Greg and his wife (the other family that camped with us) have two children, Emily, 13 and Taylor, 11. They were all great fun, and it was a really enjoyable time. Unfortunately, we didn't take the camera with us, so no photos. But I can write about the trip, and hopefully that will document some of the memories for us to share with each other later.

For those of you that don't know about Holiday World, it's an amusement park and waterpark. The admission price includes admission to both,. They have free drinks while in the park, and free sunscreen while in the waterpark. It's clean and VERY family friendly. So it's a really nice place to go with younger children. By about high school, I would say though, that the kids are probably going to want to go to someplace with more adventerous rides.

With that said, Grace had a good time. She was too little to go on alot of the rides, but she had fun on the ones that she could go on. We started out the day at the waterpark. While the other adults went on the big kid waterrides, Grace and I went to the Monsoon Lagoon which looks like this:

There's lots of spraying water

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A Rough Summer

DD1 has been trying our patience. Now, I understand that she's learning to be her own person, learning how to live in a world where it seems you're nobody unless you fit in, and it's cool to not like your parents. BUT, it's hard. It's hard for her and it's hard for us.

This weekend she was caught on her cell phone at 4 in the morning talking to her boyfriend. Not only that, but she was talking about things that, most likely weren't too risque, she shouldn't have been. So in addition to the punishment of getting her cell-phone priveledges and IM priveledges taken away for a week, there are also some rule changes. Up until this weekend, she was able to keep her cell phone with her in her room at night, with the understanding that she's not allowed to send/receive text messages or phone calls after 11 during the summer. Well, no longer. Starting next Sunday, she has to give her phone to us at bedtime. We'll charge it for her, and give it back to her in the morning. You'd think she'd be upset about these new rules, and she is, but honestly I think she's upset with herself more than with us. I think she fully understood that if she broke the rules, there would be consequences as we explained to her. She broke the rules and now she has to live by the consequences. I'm really proud of her for understanding that. Lots of kids today don't. They find it easier to blame anyone else besides themselves for their predicaments. DD1 is owning up to it and taking her blows. Maybe we are doing something right after all, huh? J

We're entering unchartered territory now

A couple of weeks ago, oldest, DD1, told me she had a boyfriend. She really only told me this because she wanted to know if she could go to the zoo with him, her friend and and her friend's boyfriend and the boyfriend's parents.. Oh my gosh! OK, I have to admit that I already knew about the boyfriend. DD2 told me. What I'm concerned about is that my baby girl wants to go on a date. A date?! She's only 14 years old!!! When I told her no, that she can't go to for several reasons. First, she's not alllowed to date until she's 16. When I told her that, she said that it wasn't a date. I told her that it was, and finally I asked her what she thought a date was. She told me that a date is where you go out with a guy without anyone else there. I told her, no that what she's describing is a date. No matter what she wanted to call it, it's still a date.

So, she decided that she would ask if they could all come over to our house instead. I told her that would be fine, but that she was not to be alone with her boyfriend at any time. Her response was that DD2 would be with her. I told her that she had to be chaperoned by an adult, not a child. She didn't like that either, but she decided to give it a try.

So today her boyfriend, girlfriend and girlfriend's boyfriend all came over. I have to say her boyfriend was very polite and seemed to treat her well. Her girlfriend's boyfriend was not near as gentlemanly. He kept trying to kiss the girlfriend. To the point where it was annoying. And later when she asked me what I thought of her boyfriend, I told her I thought he was trying to kiss her too much.

Daddy was a happy camper on Father's Day 2008!

Yesterday was Father's Day. DH had what he called "the best Father's Day he's ever had!" Why? Well, let's run down his day:

7 a.m. met with his mentoree from church (he meets most weeks with a guy from church that he's agreed to be his "accountability partner". They meet and talk mostly about his friend's problems and happenings in his life.

8 a.m. played his weekly Pickle Ball with his friends at the neighborhood tennis courts. Some guys from our neighborhood meet every Sunday morning in the summer to play Pickle Ball, which is sort of like table tennis on a tennis court.

10 a.m. came home and ate sat with his family while they ate breakfast. I went out to buy donuts and hashbrowns for the girls, thinking that he'd eat breakfast too when he got back. But he'd already eaten when he met his friend at 7.

10:30 a.m. opened his Father's Day cards and gifts. He got a card from me, a card from all the girls, an Outback Steakhouse gift card from me, DD1 and Grace, and a pair of shorts and a t-shirt from DD2.

12:30 p.m. Lunch at Texas Roadhouse with all of us. Gracie was still full from breakfast, so she didn't eat much. But she was very well behaved, and we all had a good time.

1:30 p.m. napped while DD1 and I road our bikes to Marsh to return the RedBox DVD we'd rented the night before (which the ride was a story in and of itself!)

3 p.m. DD1 and DD2 got the mower out of the shed to get ready to mow the lawn for Dad as a surprise. DD2 went out to the garage to get the gas can, and grabbed the wrong can (none of us girls knew he had a gas can that was a mixture of gasoline and oil, and a 2nd gas can that's just gasoline. I bet you can guess which gas can DD2 inadvertently picked up? Right, the wrong one - gas and oil mixture). When he got up from his nap, he asked about it, and had to stop the mowing progress, and clean-up the mower. He was none too happy, but didn't complain too much!

4 p.m. Went back to where I lost my bike chain after it broke off (told you there was a story about the bike ride) and retrieved my bike chain.

4:30 p.m. played Pickle Ball again with 2 cousins and one 2nd cousin.

6 p.m. Came home from Pickle Ball, showered and settled down to watch the US Open Golf tournament while the girls and I went to Walmart to buy essentials and shop for clothes for our trip to Lexington this weekend.

8 p.m. Ate leftover pizza (at his request) for dinner, and continued watching golf tournament.

10 p.m. Sat down to briefly watch "Jon and Kate plus Eight" with DD2 and I after DD1 and Gracie went to bed.

11 p.m. Headed off to bed declaring it was his best Father's Day ever!

Bike riding with Gracie

Remember when I told you about that wonderful bikeseat that I bought for Gracie last fall for her first birthday? If you've forgotten, here's the seat.

Well, a couple of days ago I took her out for ride, and realized that my baby girl is getting too big for the seat. The seat is only rated for up to 40 lbs, and Gracie is 26 lbs, but the real issue is that the seat gets in the way of my pedalling. I really like the seat, but I think it's time to move to something else. So we checked out Craigslist to see what was available - nothing that we were interested in. I decide to googl bike trailers, as we had one when the two older girls were little, and it worked great. It was a two-seater that I think we got at Sams Club. We gave it away to friends when we thought we were done with little ones (Never say never!). So I found this on Amazon:

The Instep Quik and EZ bike trailer It's not too fancy, but the reviews I found on it were pretty good. The reviewers mostly said that for the price it was a good trailer, but it is best for road and trail riding, i.e. smooth surfaces. That's the kind of riding I do, so for free shipping offerred, I went ahead and bought it.We should get it next week. I'll let you know how it works out. In the meantime, we'll keep using the front mounted bikeseat we have. If this trailer works out, look for my bikeseat to be posted on Craigslist!

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The miracle of Miralax

WARNING: If you don't like hearing about poop, don't read this!

Almost from the time we first held Grace in our arms, she has had issues with..ahem...bms. The problem is that she cries whenever she poops. It doesn't really matter if she's having a hard time letting go, or if it comes out easily. She cries. We had pretty much written it up to her personality, however there are times when she had some blood in her stools afters struggling alot with going. So we have tried prune baby food, which worked well before she started really eating solid foods, and prune juice mixed with water after that, to control the problem. Prunes worked alright I guess, but she'd alternate between hard poops and overly soft poops, and I didn't really feel like the right solution.

So last weekend when we were the Hands of Hope picnic I was talking with a family that have a baby girl adopted from Guatemala. Her name is Jillian, and what a cutie she is! But I digress. They also have another child, a boy, that had had similar problems with pooping. They eventually took him to the childrens hospital to a specialist to see if he could figure out how to "fix" the problem. The specialist put him on Miralax. Two half caps a day mixed with liquid, and that worked wonders for them. So I decided to try it on Grace.

I went to our local pharmacy bought a bottle and asked the pharmacist about the proper dosage for our baby girl. She recommended 1/2 capful a day. Apparently Miralax is one of those things that you have to experiment with to figure out the right individual dosage. So for the last 4 days or so, Gracie has been taking Miralax, and wonder of wonders we have no more poop issues!

I decided today to go ahead and call the pediatrician's office to check on dosage and how long Gracie could take the wonder medication. Turns out that she's taking about the right dose, and can stay on it for as long as she needs it. The nurse did say that if she still is having trouble after about a week of using Miralax, that we need to come in to see the doctor.

So for now, Miralax gets two thumbs up!

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Referral Anniversary Day on June 4

On June 4, we had our one year anniversary of when we found out the identity of our precious baby girl, Grace Minshan! I can't tell you how excited I wasa the day we found out who Grace was, and saw her face for the frist time. It was so exciting. I think it was even more exciting than finding out we were pregnant. Although it was pretty close to the same feeling.

Here's one of the first photos of our baby girl from our adoption agency that we received by email on June 4, 2007:

Now, here's a photo of Grace that I took this afternoon.

She's grown quite a bit, hasn't she? And isn't she adorable?!!!

Happy Referral Day.

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E.L.F.! What a deal!!!

Nordstrom is changing the logo on their makeup, so they're selling
everything that says "e.l.f." for $1!!! (you still have to pay shipping,
but it's SO worth it!!)

http://www.eyeslipsface.com/shop.asp

The make-up line E.L.F. ( Eyes, Lips, and Face) has been bought out by
Nordstrom and will be re-packaged with the Nordstrom name on it. They
are getting rid of all the make-up in ELF packaging. They are selling
everything for $1. YES ONE DOLLAR. You do have to pay shipping,
However, even with that charge it's cheaper than buying make-up anywhere
else and it is fun to try things when you don't have to worry about the
cost! They have powder, mascara, brushes, nail polish, you name it ..
Just thought I'd pass along the good deal.

Also, if you use the coupon code: CAROLINA you will get $7.50 off your
first $15 of your purchase.

Earthquake in China!

I wanted to post this entry separately to give the even the respect it deserves. Yesterday morning, we woke up to the news that there was a 7.8 earthquake in China centered in Chengdu. Chengdu is about 250 miles west of Chongqing where Grace was born. Many many people have died or are missing. It's very sad.

If you would like to donate to help out you can do so at A Helping Hand Adoption Agency at: http://worldadoptions.org/index.php. They have set up a relief fund to help.

Please pray for all the families that lost loved ones, for the children that lost families, and for the relief workers that they can get to people quickly.

Getting caught up

I know, I know, It's been 3 1/2 weeks since I've blogged. That would tell you just how things have been going with us. We are overwhelmed with all that has/is happening in our lives and the lives of those around us. I'll try to get caught up in this one post.

First off, the dance recital was great! DD1 and DD2 were wonderful (okay, maybe I'm a little biased, but I do think they did a great job)! They both looked beautiful, and danced amazingly. Neither one had stage fright, so right there they are one up on their mom! DD1 in particular was awesome. I'm so proud of how she's developed into a young woman. Don't get me wrong, at home, she still has her moments, but as one of her teachers once told us "She represents your family well." Around others, she is quite mature, and shows her best. So if she's going to have meltdowns and moodiness, I'm glad that she has them at home where she feels safe to, and knows that we love her no matter what!

DD1 performed with the Dance Team and then a Hip Hop number. DD2 performed in 3 dances: the Disney Princess Dance, Hip Hop and The Princess Dance. She did a great job of remembering all of the steps she needed to for all three dances, and with me helping her with her costume changes, she never missed a cue! She was great!!!

I took DD1 and DD2 to the dress rehearsal at the theater on Saturday to rehearse twice. It's a good thing Grace didn't come, as she would've been bored quickly. As it was, when DH brought her for the 1st performance, she was a handful. The one time she really noticed that her sisters were dancing onstage, she started crying and reaching out for them. She wanted them to come be with Her!! So DH took her home and the rest of the Dance Recital went off witout a hitch.

DD1 is now in the dance class in preparation for the parade the Dance Team will perform in, so she's back at it. DD2 is taking a rest until summer, when she's going to volunteer at Princess Day Camp. Right now the girls are concentrating on finishing up school. Their last day is May 28, so only 9 more days left. It's hard to believe that the school year is almost over. I'll have a freshman in high school and a 6th grader soon!!!

The last part of April, and first part of May we all went to Fort Lauderdale. I attended this: http://www.christianalliancefororphans.org/summit.php We went down to FL on Wednesday and spent the day at the hotel before I had to go to the summit on Thursday. The weather was just beautiful! The older girls loved being out of school, and Grace just loved it all (except sleeping in the pack-n-play!). We came home early Saturday morning, so it was a quick trip, but a good one. I have some photos to post, that I will try to get to later.

So now, things are somewhat back to normal. I'm having trouble adjusting to my new job, and just keeping up with life in general. My dad is doing much better after having his latest cardioversion, so praise God!

I think that about catches you all up. Like I said I'll post pictures when I can.

Our week

This week has been one crazy up and down week! First off, allergy season has hit us all full force! Everyone but DD2 that is. DH and I are both struggling the most, and DD1 has itchy eye problems.

We thought Grace might be having allergy problems too but today her runny nose turned green. So most likely she has a cold. In addition to that, she has a rash. It's kind of all over her body in spots, but the most prevalent place she has it is on her wrists. I think it must be related to a change in something: fabric softener, baby wash, sizing in new summer clothes,...? I really don't know what it is. It doesn't seem to be bothering her, and I've been putting hydrocortozone cream on her skin. That seems to be helping too.

Besides that as of last Friday, I officially changed my work day, from mornings to afternoons on Friday until Grace is done with her physical therapy. I asked her pt last week how long she thought Grace would have to continue pt. She said that it was kind of early to tell, but she thought by fall she'd be caught up. So that means all summer I might have to work afternoons instead of mornings. Oh well. It might be a challenge to do so when the older girls are out of school, but I'm sure we'll work it out somehow.

The past two Fridays I've been starting work at around 1 p.m. when Gracie goes down for her nap, and working until 5. When DD1 gets home from school at 3 she watches Grace for me while I work. So far, so good.

The other big thing this week is Dance Recital! We've had picture day, and dress rehearsal, and tomorrow is dress rehearsal at the theather. All leading up to the actual recital on Sunday. It's a BIG deal to DD1 and DD2! They are both excited. I'm anxious to see the recital, but by the time we get through it and the dress rehearsal I will have seen it 4 times. So I may not feel that way come Sunday evening!

Well, off to take DD1 to the Middle School talent show! The fun never ends!!!

5.4 Earthquake or wait 5.2

I wanted to document when the earthquake of 2008 hit, where we were and what we were doing, so that in the following years I'll remember. So here's goes.

This morning at about 5:40 a.m. I was laying in bed waiting to get up to wake up the two older girls to have them get ready for school, when I felt the shaking. The bed shook and the windows rattled. It really wasn't bad, but initially I didn't know what was happening. I got out of bed trying to figure it out (not that I knew how to figure it out?!), and then got back in bed figuring it was earthquake. A few minutes later DD2 came and knocked on the bedroom door. When I told her to come in, she opened the door and asked me what happened. I said I didn't know, but thought it was an earthquake. She asked me if it was a tornado. I reassured her that the skies were clear, so no it wasn't a tornado. She went back to bed, although I don't think she or DD1 went back to sleep.

When we turned on the tv, it was obvious that yes, it was an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.4 on the Richter scale. That seems like a pretty big earthquake, but on the news I heard that you don't really seem too much damage until you get to a 6.0.

So we started our morning out with a shake-up! It wasn't really scary, but was a little confusing just because none of us had ever felt anything like it before. DH is in LA, so of course, wouldn't have felt it. It's funny that he's in the part of the country where you hear about earthquakes happening all the time, and the girls and I are the ones that experienced an earthquake! Kind of ironic I think.

The epicenter of the earthquake was in West Salem, IL. I'm thankful that there appears that there is no major damage, and that noone was hurt.

Update: Now they are saying it was only a 5.2 not a 5.4. I'm not sure how much difference that makes, but just wanted to make sure I got it right!

Gracie's first bike ride

This past week, we were on Spring Break. We went to an indoor water park for a couple of days, and I'll post about that later. Before we went, we had an opportunity to be outside in some beautiful weather. One of the things that we did during that time was to take Gracie on her very first bike ride.

One of Grace's 1st birthday presents last October was a bikeseat and a toddler bike helmet. Of course, once she got her present, the weather turned too cold. So we never got the chance to put the bikeseat on my bike, and so it was packed away until this spring. Well, last week, I was determined to get it mounted whether the weather cooperated or not. It was supposed to be a pretty easy installation, but as is typical, it wasn't quite as easy as the directions indicated. So DH came to the rescue and helped me install the bikeseat, adjust it, and get it working for Grace. I rode up and down the street with Gracie in the seat, and DH did too. She loved it! Of course, right after we returned from the waterpark, when I could take her out for a longer ride, the weather turned way too cold for any riding. So I can't wait until I get another chance to take her out for a real ride.

Here's a photo of us both on the bike.

Oh, and BTW, you may notice that I've gained some weight since we got back from China. I've had some trouble staying on program with WW, since we got back, and as a result I'm 10 lbs heavier than I was before we left for China! Ugh!!!

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