Sharing Our Adoption Journey

2nd adoption?

2009-07-26T15:56:00.000-07:00

Ok. I haven't seriously expressed this outloud to hardly anyone, but I feel like I need to get it off of my chest because it probably won't happen. I have been getting emails from an organization called Rainbow Kids about waiting children from Asia. Waiting children are children that are older (above 3 years old) that are available for adoption. I received about 6 emails over the last couple of weeks. Most of these children are girls, but there were a couple of boys too. Most of these children are healthy, but some of them are not.

I have been looking at these children feeling like maybe we are being called to adopt again. The disadvantages of course are our age, and the money. We can get around those though if God is truly calling us to adopt. The advantages are that Gracie would have sister or brother of Asian origin, and I've been told that as a transracial adopted child gets older, it helps them feel like they belong. Also, of course, we'd be giving another child a family and a chance to know Jesus as their savior. That's a big one. If, and that's a big if, since DH doesn't even want to consider it right now, we did this we'd be adopting a child that's older than Gracie. That would keep her as the baby of the family. I think that would be a good thing.

The big thing about this is that if we are being called to do this, we need to act on it almost immediately because of DH's age. We're about to age out of the possibility. I gingerly broached the subject with him, and his response was something about going crazy if we did adopt again. So, he's not on board.

I'm praying for discernment on this. I thing I need to let God work on DH's heart. If it's meant to be, then he'll come around. I waver back and forth on whether this is right for us or not, so I'm not even sure. Last time with Grace I was sure. So maybe it's just a dream, flash in the pan thought, or maybe....?

Our day at Holiday World

2009-07-04T10:39:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we took a trip to Holiday World. Here's some video of Grace on one of the rides at the amusement park there.

Having blood drawn hardly ever goes well for me!

2009-06-30T20:04:00.001-07:00

So the topic of my post today is getting blood drawn. Ever since I can remember getting any blood drawn for any reason, at any location all over the country, I've been told that I have small veins that are difficult to find. For years, I endured having someone poke me with needles trying to find that elusive vein that would produce blood. They poked, prodded, and worst of all, fished for the vein by moving the needle around in my arm without removing it. Always, it hurt, and usually I ended up bruised. Not a good experience, but I endured it because I thought there was no other way.

Until...We were living in Fairfax, VA and I had to have blood drawn for some reason I can't even remember. I had to go to a clinic to have the blood drawn, and you can imagine I was not looking forward to being a human pin cushion yet again. So I go in and tell the tech that was to draw my blood, a very nice young man, that I had small veins and that people always had trouble finding a good vein. This guy said something along the lines of "well, we'll take care of that by using a butterfly needle." I'd never heard of or seen a butterfly needle, but was truly impressed by how easily this tiny needle with "wings" went in and quickly found the vein producing the vials of blood that were needed. He told me that whenever I needed to have blood drawn I should always tell them to use a butterfly needle.

That experience was almost 20 years ago, and as you can imagine there have been many times after that where I've had to have blood drawn by many different technicians. Of course, I alwys tell whoever is working on me that I need to have a butterfly needle because of having difficult veins. Here's the part that just gets me everytime I go in to have blood drawn, about 9 times out of 10, the tech doesn't believe me and tries the standard needle. Sometimes I'll hear something about how they know what they are doing, and don't need someone to tell them how to draw blood. Sometimes they'll just ignore me and use the standard needle without saying anything. Today the woman that drew my blood, although being very nice, also did not believe me when I told her about the small veins needing to use a butterfly needle. She plowed on with the big needle in my arm, fishing around for the vein that couldn't be found. After I let out a small yelp when she was digging around, she finally gave up. She asked for the back of my hand on the opposite hand, got out a butterfly needle, and sure enough, first time was able to get blood and fill up the two tubes she needed.

So, what's with these technicians? Is it ego? Is it that they don't like someone else telling then how to do their job? Or is it a challenge for them (at my expense I might add!)? At any rate, I sure wish they'd get over it, and trust that I know what I'm talking about. It's not like I'm a teenager or something that hasn't been around for awhile!!! Argh!

We bought a new car (well sort of)!

2009-06-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we went and picked up our 2002 Rav4, my new commuter car. It's really cute, and all 5 of us will fit in it if need be. We got a really good deal, and the insurance isn't too bad. Can't beat that!

2nd Annual Hands of Hope picnic

2009-06-01T19:24:00.000-07:00

Well, as the title indicates, we had our 2nd picnic for the Hands of Hope Adoption and Orphan Care ministry on Sunday afternoon. I was a fun time. The weather was beautiful! We couldn't have asked for a better day. The kids all had fun, even my moody 15 year old daughter. Of course, that was because we told her she could bring a friend.

It was a small crowd, but everyone got along well and seemed to enjoy themselves. We had a few new families, and some that had adopted domestically, as we've expanded our ministry to include domestic adoptions.

I took both my camera and my Flip, but of course, I forgot to get them out, and hence no photos or video of the day. I thought afterwards that we should've had a group photo each year, but alas, I didn't think about that until long after the picnic was over.

I was not on the planning committee and wasn't last year either, but I think next year I'll suggest a few changes. Like the group photo I mentioned, and maybe some kids games to keep things going. DH suggested an icebreaker game to get everyone talking to everyone else. There did seem to be little groups of people that knew each other that stuck together. So we'll see. 'til next year.

My week of TLO is coming to an end!

2009-05-21T18:42:00.000-07:00

This past week has been great to have off of work! I could really get used to being a stay at home mom, except of course that the pay isn't very good :(!

This week I've been able to get laundry done, clean house, play with Grace, run the older girls around to their activities, AND workout at the Y almost every day!! Those are quite the accomplishments for me, and way more than I can do during the week when I'm working.

Sadly, tomorrow is my last day on TLO. Of course, I'll still be off work for the weekend and the holiday on Monday, but then it's back to reality on Tuesday.

I still have a couple of things to finish that I set as goals for the week. One is finishing up Grace's curtain for her bedroom. The other is cleaning out DD2's closet to make room for things in our room that don't really belong there. I still have tomorrow to get that done, so it should be another busy day.

Photos of Grace with her cousin

2009-05-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

Here are some great photos of Gracie with her cousin having a tea party. He is just a month younger than Grace, and they are great friends!

Photos from DD2's Intermediate School Musical Production of "Alice In Wonderland"

2009-05-16T12:40:00.000-07:00

In April, DD2 was also in the school musical "Alice in Wonderland". I didn't get to take too many photos of the play, but did get a couple of her. She played the part the sassy daisy in the garden. She did a grat job. I was very proud of her!

Some Photos from Easter

2009-05-16T12:36:00.000-07:00

I know I didn't post any photos from Easter at the time, and I've finally had time to download photos off of our camera. So here they are.

Okay. I know I'm deliquent in posting

2009-05-08T08:17:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's been awhile since I've posted anything on my blog. Sorry, but with 3 kids, a husband, a job, a house, and all the things that goes along with my life, I just haven't had time.

Work is stressful. I don't dare to think that it was ever calm down anymore. I think that's just the wa it's going to be. I've accepted that, but along with that, have decided that instead of focusing all my energy on work there are other things that are more important in life. So I'm pulling back on the overtime I had been putting in since January. Now I'm trying to stick to about 40 hours a week (which actually is 8 hours of unpaid overtime for me, since I only get paid for 32 hours a week!).

Lots of things have been going on. I don't have time to post about them now. If you want to see little snippets of my life, and I know you, you can consider requesting me as a friend on Facebook. I'm much more adept at taking 5 minutes to keep up with sharing what's going on instead of writing on the blog. I'm not abandoning the blog (at least not yet), but you probably won't see me posting as much as I used to.

Playdoh and Strawberries

2009-04-06T20:05:00.000-07:00

Okay. I know that those two things don't normally go together. And they really don't in this case either except that that's what I have photos of. Grace playing with Playdoh, and Grace eating strawberries. I took the Playdoh photos, DD2 took the strawberry eating photos.

Not too much to say about it, other than Grace enjoyed both!

Putting up our Easter Tree

2009-04-05T19:41:00.000-07:00

The other day my niece, who has 3 daughters, sent a Smilebox of 2 of her girls (the smallest one is a tiny baby) putting strings on plastic eggs and hanging them on a tree in their front yard. Her daughters are young, 3 and 1. It was so darn cute, that I decided that I should see about getting our Easter tree up.

Several years ago my mother gave us a small Easter tree with little wooden ornaments that you hang on the tree limbs. It's a table top tree. We used to put it up every year, but then as the two older girls got older, it didn't seem to be a high priority. Last year, you may recall, I wasn't even home for Easter as I was with my father because he was very ill.

So this year, I decided to ressurect the tradition of putting up the tree. Grace thought it was pretty cool, although she did the same thing that the other two girls used to do when they hung the ornaments on the tree - hung them all on the same branch! I took a few photos to mark the occasiion. You can see that Grace got a little tired of me asking her to smile, because she gave me this cheesy goofy smile in some of the photos!

But she's still adorable, if I do say so myself. DD1, DD2 and DH weren't home, so they missed out on the activities.

Happy Birthday to Me, a little belated

2009-03-21T12:57:00.000-07:00

My birthday was on March 1, but because we were on our way to El Salvador that day it was decided that the celebration wouuld be postponed until sometime later. That amount of time was ambiguous, and truthfully I figured that it would just be forgotten. However, leave it to my sweet DH to not forget how important birthdays are to me! Last night he declared that we were going to celebrate my birthday, and asked me where I wanted to go. Well, a few years ago just after some friends of ours' daughter died, I had wanted to take them out to help celebrate my birthday as sort of diversion. We all went to Benihana's, and although I'm not sure if it was really a diversion for the family we were with (what really could be in such a sad situation?!), we had a good time watching our food being cooked at our table, trying to eat with chopsticks, and experiencing something different.

So I decided that we should go to Benihana's again, this time as a family of 5 instead of 4. So off we went. DH was thoughtful and called ahead for a reservation, so we didn't have to wait at all when we got there. We were seated with another family of 4, that appeared to be mom, dad, 1 teenage daughter, and one 8 or 9 year old daughter. They were not very talkative, and actually I thought they didn't seem very happy. At any rate, we didn't interact too much. I was more interested in Grace's reaction to the whole grilling at the table thing. She surprisingly liked the soup, and ate the entire bowl! That was good, because that's about all she ate, with the exeception of my complimentary birthday bowl of chocolate ice cream that she ate at the end of the meal.

So how did she react? Well, really not too much at all. She was interested in watching our chef (I guess that's what you'd call him?), but not overly intersted. I thought she would get excited watching him cook, flipping the spices and trying to entertain the table guests. She wasn't too impressed. Mostly she just ate her soup. The other girls liked it though, and all of us tried sushi. My first time, along with DD1 and DD2's first. DH had had it before. I can't say that I hated it. It was more of a feeling of "why would I order this as it's nothing special" feeling. I think DD1 felt the same way I did. DD2 didn't like it, and even took the salmon off to finish up the one roll she had.

DD1 and DH ended up eating most of the shrimp and steak, and both said they were stuffed. I ate a little shrimp and steak, but mostly chicken. I really liked the fried rice, and the salad. I think although it wasn't the best birthday I've ever had, it was a nice time. We bought an about to be expired mini birthday cake at Miejer to top off the evening, but alas, we didn't even slice it. Everyone was too full, and it was too late by the time got home. So another birthday celebration behind me. The good thing about birthdays is that there'll be another one next year!

San Salvador Men's prison

2009-03-14T12:40:00.000-07:00

One of the most inspiring things that we did while we were in El Salvador was visit a men's prison and share in their worship service with them. We were late arriving, so the inmates were already singing. It was quite moving to watch these men who may be imprisoned for 20 years, worship with such passion. The service was run by prisoners too, so the pastor and the musicians were also prisoners.

In watching and participating in this service, I realized that although these men are imprisoned, they really understand the message of hope and freedom that Jesus brings for all of us. Not just for the priviledged few here in the USA, but for all of his children.

Here's some of that service.

San Salvador Special needs school visit

2009-03-14T12:28:00.000-07:00

While we were in San Salvador, we visited a special needs school. I can't remember the name of the school, but it was quite a pleasant place. Evidently it used to be a women's prison, and was converted to this school in the 1970's.

All the children were very well behaved, and seemed happy. The special needs of the children that we saw were pretty mild. It is a public school, but I guess the children travel from all over to go to school here.

One of the classes that we visited was for the 16 to 21 year olds. They were learning how to make enchilladas which were deep fried dough. They were also making little paper bags to be able hold the enchilladas to be able to sell them. Here's a video of that class.

We also visited the music room while we were there. It was pretty pitiful the musical instruments that they had, and showed the need for these children. Here's a video I took while we watched the teacher teach the children.

St. Vincente de Paul Orphanage

2009-03-14T12:13:00.000-07:00

We also visited another orphanage that was state owned, but run by sisters from the order of St. Vincent de Paul. This was a very large orphanage compared to the other two that we visited. There were 300 children living here, ages ranging from birth to 12 years old. I guess when the children reached 12, they were sent to other homes specifically for their age. The sister that took us on a tour said that the children get up at 4:30 a.m. everday to start their day!!!

When we first got there, there was a group of 5 and 6 year old girls outside playing. When they saw us, they ran up and started singing and hanging all over some of our group. Here's a video that shows them singing and shows some of the orphanage.

We also got to see where they same little girls slept, along with the 5 year old little boys. Here's a video of that room

Getting caught up

2009-03-08T13:22:00.000-07:00

I know I didn't post like I wanted to while we were in El Salvador. We are back home now, as of late Friday evening. I have a little bit more time, and a lot more bandwidth to download photos and video. So I'll pick up posting on our 3rd day. We visited a home for pregnant teenagers that was supported mostly by Pro Life. There were 7 girls living at the home, and each one had babies. The youngest girl was 11 years old, and had an 18 month old baby!! It was really heartbreaking to see the girls in such a situation where the fathers of the babies were uncles, brothers, fathers, and grandfathers of these girls!!! Most of the girls go back to their homes with their babies when they are ready. The perpetrator has been removed because he is in prison for incest. So the home is safe for the girls. I don't know how long most of the girls stay, but it was refreshing to hear that the girls are not put out of the home just because of having their babies, hitting a certain age, or a certain time period they've been in the home. The director of the home, Geraldine, was very nice and really loves the children. The girls were not overly friendly, but they seemed better off than they would've been without the home. Here's some video that I shot while I was there. The two Salvadorian women in the video were volunteers that were there to train the girls in cosmotology. They own their own salons and come in to help out on their own time. We brought the girls little cosmetic bags filled with personal items, so that what they are opening and looking at in this video.

2nd Day Out

2009-03-04T19:21:00.001-08:00

I know I am a day behind, but with everything that we're doing each day it's hard to post. So this post is about Tuesday.

We left for Si, a La Vida in the morning. It is a home teenage girls that are pregnant. It is a pro life home. We met with director, who was very nice and really cared for the girls and the babies. Her name was Magdelena. It was somewhat of a sad place because the girls were all there because of sad reasons. For instance, the youngest girl was 11 years old, and had a baby that was 18 months old!!! The home, though, was a safe place for the girls and their babies. The babies were beautiful.

Our next stop was Mi Casa orphanage. It is a small orphanage that is really two homes, one for boys and one for girls. It is in the center of the city. The director and his wife run the home. They are a Christian couple that are providing a home setting for the children. We had a wonderful time playing with and interacting with these children. I even played volleyball with a few of them in the backyard!

Next was lunch with the director of Exodo. We were supposed to meet with an official in the government that handles taking applications for adoption to court for finalization, but she was unable to meet with us. We had a very nice, but filling!, lunch with Iris. We were able to ask more questions about Exodo and learn more about the orphanage.

Our last stop for the day was St. Vincente de Paul orphanage. It is a state owned orphanage that is run by nuns. It is VERY large, and well structured. We were very impressed with how this orphanage ran like a well oiled machine. We were able to meet with the 4 and 5 year old girls when we first got on the property. What a blessing that was! These little girls were so cute!!! They even sang impromptu songs for us!

I can't upload any photos because of lack of disk space, so I guess that will have to wait until I get home.

First Day Out

2009-03-03T18:44:00.000-08:00

Sorry I didn't post sooner, but I was just too tired to post anything yesterday. Then we had an early start this morning. So I couldn't post until now.

Yesterday we visited an orphanage call Exodo. It is made up of 4 homes. Each home has house parents and a cook. Two of the homes are for boys and two for girls. Right now they have 47 children living there. They take children as young as 2. The children can stay until they are adults, and have training and can support themselves. It really is a wonderful place, and it's obvious the children are well loved and cared for.

The kids all really liked the Flip, so I took lots of videos of them with it, and they were able to see me play it back right away. It was really fun, but I sure wish I could speak Spanish! It has been so frustrating to not be able to speak to the children beyond hola and adios!!!

Here are a few photos from our visit.

San Salvador Itinerary

2009-03-02T07:06:00.000-08:00

For those of you interested. Here's our very flexible itinerary while we are here in El Salvador (BTW, the weather is beautiful here. It's sunny and about 70 degrees right now!):

Sunday- We will be at the airport to pick you up. Return to hotel (about 45 min. from airport)

Monday - ( Breakfast buffet is 6:00-10:30-eat at your leisure). We will meet about 9:30am for an Orientation and time of spiritual preparation to begin the week.

Lunch- We will go to a local mall for lunch (this will give you an idea of where we could eat with a team)

After lunch we will begin the visits to projects and this will continue through Tuesday and Wednesday. Projects that we have planned are:

Visit to Exodo Orphange - this will include a presentation by the Director (sharing vision, goals of the home, structure, etc...time in the individual houses with children and their house parents...I have already spoken to her about the possibility of doing a sort of VBS or children's outreach..she would be very excited about that! The children would love for you to visit their school...where your group in the future (should you decide to take this step) could make a presentation in the school (perhaps drama, mimes, music, puppets...this is a public school, which we hopefully will visit during your time here.

Visit to Orphange San Vicente De Paul - Our team did a project there this week. The children are beautiful and adoptions are available from their home. They currently have a nursery with approximate 30 babies waiting and about 250 other children. Our project this week further confirmed my thoughts that this home probably would not be a good project for a long term commitment...other than visits, perhaps presentations by teams with drama etc and of course the adoption piece would be something worthy of exploration.

Visit to the School where the orphans from Exodo attend exploring options for a future team.

Visit to a small home for girls who are expecting and are all victims of incest. This is the project where you are bringing the cosmetic bags for gifts. This ministry connects us with another organization that makes babies available for adoption. We will need to go together to visit this project...not sure all that's involved or how Grace might connect.

Visit to a worship service inside the prison (Mariona/5,000 inmates) - I think this is an awesome experience and will war m your hearts. While this is not a project connected with orphanges..I would recommend this visit because of the spiritual impact it will have on each of the team. It's truly incredible!

We also have some tour/sightseeing opportunities. Mick is going on one of the tours today with 4 others on our team so he will have a first hand report of all the details.

We're in San Salvador!

2009-03-01T20:54:00.000-08:00

After two days of travel, we are now in San Salvador. We arrived at around 8:45, and got to the hotel around 10:30. The hotel is very nice, and the people that met at the airport were great!! No photos tonight because it's too late, but hopefully I'll take some tomorrow and post them later in the evening.

We talked to each of the girls today too, and they are doing well. So all we need to do is get DH over his sinus infection!!!

We're headed to El Salvador tomorrow!

2009-02-26T20:06:00.000-08:00

So the day has come. We are leaving for Chicago tomorrow, and then on Saturday to Houston, and on Sunday to El Salvador. We are going to El Salvador as part of our Hands of Hope ministry. Our intent is to visit 3 orphananges while we are there. We are looking for the right fit with our ministry to see about partnering with one of the orphanages to support it.

Our ultimate goal is to have a strong connection with the orphanage, where we financially support it, have mission trips there to work on projects, form a bond with the children there, and of course to have an impact on the children of the orphanage by sprirtually supporting them and the staff. It's a lofty goal, but one we feel God is calling us to. I'm excited to go, but a little worried about our daughters, in particular DD2 being homesick. I think she'll be fine, but she is worried about it too. And Gracie is staying with her aunt and uncle. I don't want her to feel abandoned. I want her to know that we're coming back in a week, so we're planning on calling her as often as possible.

I pray that the Lord will protect all of us while we travel, and lead us to the right orphanage and partnership to be able to make a difference in these children's lives.

Play Date

2009-02-23T13:02:00.000-08:00

Gracie gets plenty of playtime other children when she goes to daycare two days a week, and to the local YMCA with her daddy while he works there a few hours a week, but I really want her to be able to have girl friends that look like her, and have a similar background as her. So I've been trying to set up play dates with a couple of little girls that are also adopted from China. So far I haven't been too effective at doing so. The last two playdates I set up had to be cancelled because of illness, either mine, theirs or the other mommies.

So I was pretty excited when we actually were able to have a play date with Miss D. Miss D is 19 months old, and has been home with her mommy and daddy for a little less than a year. Their age difference right now makes it a little bit more difficult for them to play together, but I think that in another 6 months or so, that won't be a problem at all. And even with the difference in their ages right now, they had a good time drawing and playing on Gracie's slide. for the hour and a half they were together.

I hope to get a playdate with Miss J set up too, and wouldn't it be cool if Miss G (Grac), Miss J, and Miss D all ended up being friends together??!!

Oh, these photos are courtesy of Miss D's momma.

I'm sick again!

2009-02-20T07:32:00.000-08:00

Ok. I figured it was just a matter of time before I caught the latest round of a bug that's running through our family, but darn it, I'm TIRED of all of being sick!!!

On Wednesday, DH was feeling poorly, running a fever, stuffed up nose, the whole bit. He's now to the point of having sinus infection, which for him is typical. And though a sinus infection is not fun, it does mean that he's probably going to get better within a few days or so. Unfortunately, though, I started feeling like I was getting a cold on Wednesday. I didn't feel bad, just like I was getting a cold.

I bought some homeopathic medicine called ColdCalm, thinking that maybe I could catch this thing in the bud before it turned into a full blown cold. Well, yesterday I started feeling really bad. I took the last of my ColdCalm last night, and today I feel even worse. So if the ColdCalm worked, then I can't imagine what I would've felt like had I not taken it. My head is totally stuffed up! I can't breathe, and I feel like doo doo.

I have to say that I'm thankful that if I have to be sick that I'm glad it's now instead of the week of I'm laid off (which is next week), or the week we'll be in El Salvador. So hopefully I'll start feeling better in the next day or so. I'll write more about the trip to El Salvador later, but for now I just want to feel better!

Then again, maybe not

2009-02-18T07:50:00.000-08:00

A couple of posts ago I told you all that Gracie was potty trained completely.Well, I'm retracting that slightly. She is still mostly potty trained, but something that's been happening the last couple of nights make me think that maybe she has a reason for waking up at night.

For the last couple of nights, she has been waking up wet. Wet to where I've had to change her pants, her pj's and her cribsheet. So last night we decided to put a diaper on her just in case. Like I mentioned before we don't have pullups, so diapers were the next best thing. I put them on her, and voila! she slept through the entire night! Not once did she wake up crying, calling out for mommy. So we all got a good night's rest. Ohm and she was dry this morning.

So here's my theory: Having the diaper on is her security. She doesn't feel the need to wake up and call out. She can "hold it" until morning. Of course, after just one night doesn't prove my theory, but we'll try the diaper again tonight and see if it makes a difference again. Let's hope so!!

She's going thru something!

2009-02-12T16:34:00.000-08:00

Poor Grace. She is clingy when I'm home to the point of throwing a fit if anyone else tries to hold her or sit with her. She wants to be held alot! Although it's nice to be loved, it's hard to get anything done with a 2 year old hanging on me! Someday I guess I'll look back on these days and miss them because she actually wanted to be around me, but right now it's hard to think of anything but wanting a little bit of me time.

The other thing that she's doing is waking up at night maybe 2 or 3 time screaming. Usually she's fine if I go in and comfort her a little bit or give her a drink of water, but boy it's hard to function when you get woken up so many times a night.

Lastly, she seems to be going through a screaming phase whenever she wants something or doesn't get what she wants. I don't know if she picked this up from daycare, or if she's frustrated that she can't express herself or what. But it sure does put stress on the eardrums.

Anyway,I'm wondering what this stage is all about. Is she going through a normal insecurity phase, or is she feeling insecure for some other reason related to being adopted? I don't know, and probably never will, but I pray that we can all get good rest soon!

Potty Training Graduate!

2009-02-08T20:22:00.000-08:00

I believe I can say without a doubt that Gracie is now totally potty trained! We are done with diapers and into big girl undies without many problems at all! I am so happy to be done with diapers. They are expensive, they are stinky when soiled, and they contribute to the landfill problems.

I'm so proud of Gracie. She has practically potty trained herself. Both of the other girls were well over 3 before they 'got' the whole potty thing. Gracie got it within a couple of weeks, and with another few weeks has been essentially accident free!!

She skipped right over pullups too. We never even bought a one. I did buy her 3 pair of training pants and two plastic coated training pants. She never used the plastic coated ones, and has now moved up to big girl panties or "nonnies" as she calls them.

Of course, there are some downsides to being diaper free. First is that we check out every potty at every store. Second is that when she says she has to potty, you can't really doubt that she does. You have to take her seriously, which when you're travelling in the car can be somewhat inconvenient. For the most part though, I'm just glad to be done with them!

Good job Gracie!!

Isn't she lovely?

2009-01-27T19:34:00.000-08:00

I wanted to post this sooner, but didn't get the photo scanned in. My dad, on the other hand, came through and scanned the copy that I gave him (Thanks Dad!). So I can now post the photos of Gracie from the 2 year old portraits that we had taken before Christmas.

I was so surprised when I saw these at how grown up Gracie looks. She, of course is absolutely gorgeous, and I knew that, but she doesn't look like a baby at all. I guess I hadn't noticed how much Gracie has grown in the past year until I saw these photos. I know that she's supposed to grow up, change and mature, but she's changing so fast! I guess because we missed the first 10 months of her life, it seems even faster.

Anyway, here's my beautiful little girl at two.

Now Gracie is better, and I'm sick!

2009-01-26T07:35:00.000-08:00

After 6 days of running a fever, sneezing and coughing all over mommmy and daddy, Gracie is better. Her fever finally broke on Thursday and went back to normal for good. She was left with a cough, but that hasn't bothered her too much. I did give her Delsym one night so she could sleep, but after that she didn't really need anything else.

She stayed home from daycare all week last week. So today she is back at daycare. There's so much that has happened related to having her home sick for the week. First off, she has become Velcro baby permanently attached to mommy. She ONLY wanted mommy to do everthing for her, and as much as I love her, it has been hard. She still wants only mommy, so it's still hard. We're trying to work on letting others do things for her, but in the meantime she just really wants mommy! The other thing that has happened is related to her only wanting mommy. Remember that all week, she'd been sick, and all week, I was the one doing things for her because that's what she wanted. So I got LOTS of coughs and sneezes right in my face! I tried to get her to cover her mouth and nose when she sneezed and and coughed. Sometimes she remembered, and sometimes she didn't. It was those times that she exposed me to whatever she had, and now of course, I have a version of what she had too!

Thankfully, I have not had the fever, but I do have a stuffy nose and a bad cough. Basically feel like doodoo, and DH has it too!

Unfortunately, this was not a good weekend to be sick. We had a houseful of family in town for DD2's birthday party. Fortunately I didn't feel really bad until most of the weekend was over. Yesterday it hit full force!

The weekend was fun, although I wasn't able to spend as much time with family yesterday as I wanted to. We started out with a quick trip to the grocery store to get the necessary supplies for the party. My sister-in-law and DD1 went with me. DD2 wanted hotdogs for luch on Saturday, birthday cake, and chili for dinner. She also wanted "a few birthday decorations", so that was part of what we got too. I rushed home, just as the guests started to arrive, and with the help of my sister, fixed the hot dogs, baked and decorated the cake and got the party started.

We had to cut back on the extent of the celebration this year because of the economy, but it was still fun. After the girls and family members had hot dogs all the women headed to the mall to shop. We gave each of the girls $10 to spend, and off they went. I have to admit that it was somewhat of a challenge for them to find something for a mere $10, but these girls are super shoppers! We were at the mall for 3 hours! Even Gracie went with us. She snoozed on the way there, and the way back, but besides that she was awake enjoying all the shopping fun right along with all the other girls.

After we were all tired out, we headed back home to chili that was lovingly prepared by DH. I have to give him credit for the great chili dinner with all the fixins' because I was just too tired to much of anything except eat. He handled it all from cooking, setting up, and cleaning up. He's the best husband ever!

Unfortunately, DD2's friends were not able to spend the night, but we still had a full house of family and had a great time. DD1 had her friend spend the night.They spent most of the time in her bedroom, but that's to be expected. DD2 played with her cousins, and the rest of us sat around and caught up. It was my oldest brother, his wife, my youngest brother and his wife, one of my sisters, my twin nieces, my nephew and my father. It was fun to catch up and share memories of time past.

Sunday was pretty laid back. I stayed home while DH, DD1 and her friend went to church. My dad, my two brothers, and my sister went to a college basketball game, while my youngest sister-in-law, her kids and I had luch at home. It was just about then that I started feeling very poorly, and decided not to make the trip to visit my nieces, nephews and their children at my oldest sister-in-laws house. So I stayed home while DD2, my youngest sister-in-law and her kids headed out. Gracie and I took a nap. Everyone came back briefly to our house before heading home. And all was quiet at the house again.

I have a short video that I took when we sang happy birthday to DD2, but that's it. I didn't take anymore photos or video. I'll post the video a little later.

Gracie is sick!

2009-01-19T19:27:00.000-08:00

Poor baby. She has been running a fever for the last 2 1/2 days, basically since Friday afternoon. Motrin has been controlling it well, but after 6 hours the fever keeps coming back. The highest we've read is 103 degrees, and she's coughing quite a bit. I decided last night that if she wasn't beeling better that I would call the doctor's office today. I called this morning at around 9, and the nurse told me that usually they say that if a fever is present for 3 days that they have the child come in. I asked what the biggest thing they worry about, and she said pneumonia. I don't think she has pneumonia, but tomorrow I'm going to have DH take her in. That is, unless she wakes up fever free, which at this point I don't think is the case. As a matter of fact, it's 10:30 p.m. and she's coughing right now.

I really just think it's a cold, but to be safe most likely she'll be in the doctor's office tomorrow!

Happy Birthday to You!

2009-01-14T19:24:00.000-08:00

Today my baby turns 12 years old! DD2 is 12, can you believe it?! She's so excited about turning 12, that she can hardly stand it. I'm not sure why she is so excited, but maybe it's because she's one step closer to being able to get a cell phone. She is supposed to be able to get a cell phone when she turns 13, like her big sister, but she's working mighty hard to get mom and dad to give and get her one early. I told her that there were several reasons she wasn't going to get one, not the least of which is that she doesn't need one. So maybe that's why.

She had a pretty quiet birthday. We had a fairly big snow here today, and it's VERY cold, so I left work early to make sure I could get home okay. By the time I got home around 4:30, the girls and DH had left for DD1's and DD2's dance classes. So I was home alone. I decided to surprise DD2 by baking her a birthday cake. I had stopped at Dunham Sports to buy her some pre-wrap. For those of you that aren't in the know (like I as up until a week ago or so), pre-wrap is what all the 6th grade girls are using as headbands!

So she came home at 8:30 or so, and was very surprised to see a birthday cake on table just waiting for her to blowout the lighted candles. I asked DD1 to take video, which she did, but you'll see that she's not the most creative videographer there is, and it's pretty lame. But it does show the cake and DD2 well, so I guess that's what's important, I mean that we capture the moment.

The cake was very good. You can see from the video that Gracie was pretty excited to help her sister out with the task of blowing the candles out.

DD2's birthday party is the 23rd, so tonight was just a small celebration to show her how much she's loved, which she is hugely loved! Birthdays are special, and I love to make the girls feel special on their own birthday. This was my way of showing her that.

Skipping Christmas

2009-01-12T19:33:00.000-08:00

Okay. I started this big long post about our Christmas and New Year celebrations. When it became clear that I wasn't going to finish it anytime soon, I decided to skip over it for now and come back to it. Otherwise I will probably never blog again, because it's just too overwhelming.

So the really BIG news over the holidays is that Gracie is now fully potty trained! No more diapers. Yeah!!!! She did all this on her own with just a tad bit of coaxing from us by giving her M&Ms when she was successful. She is doing so well, in fact, that last week we went out and bought her big girl panties. Not training pants, but big girl panties. She calls them her "nonenies" meaning undies. Too cute.

Anyway, that's one of the last remnants of babyhood. All that's left now is for her to move out of a crib into a big girl bed. We're not there yet, and I'm not in any hurry at all to get her there.

It's very nice that we no longer have the expense of formula, baby bottles, baby food, diapers and wipes, but they all seemed to disappear so quickly. She's growing up so fast!

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-25T19:12:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-18T21:03:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-12-07T17:59:00.000-08:00

Another weekend coming

2008-12-05T21:34:00.001-08:00

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

2008-11-30T17:07:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-11-27T05:47:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-11-25T20:01:00.001-08:00

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!

2008-11-23T20:15:00.001-08:00

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!

2008-11-22T23:01:00.000-08:00

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?

2008-11-15T20:13:00.001-08:00

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!

2008-11-14T04:10:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-10T13:08:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-11-08T19:03:00.001-08:00

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!

2008-11-06T16:27:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-11-05T13:11:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-11-02T20:06:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-10-30T13:51:00.001-07:00

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

2008-10-29T17:45:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-25T20:28:00.001-07:00

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?

2008-10-23T20:06:00.001-07:00

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

2008-10-19T08:40:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-18T19:56:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-10T19:48:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-10-09T19:08:00.001-07:00

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

2008-09-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-26T20:09:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-09-15T19:24:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-09-09T10:30:00.000-07:00

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"?

2008-09-01T06:49:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-01T06:45:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-10T09:22:00.000-07:00

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

A Rough Summer

2008-07-01T09:34:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-23T19:32:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-16T13:06:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

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!

The miracle of Miralax

2008-06-10T18:33:00.000-07:00

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!

Referral Anniversary Day on June 4

2008-06-08T14:27:00.000-07:00

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.

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

2008-05-14T13:27:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-05-14T12:51:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-14T12:47:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-25T14:54:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-18T04:49:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-13T20:09:00.000-07:00

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!!!

Bad Blogger!

2008-04-10T20:19:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know I've been lax in keepin up my blog. I started a post on Easter Sunday, but never got it finished. To try to get caught up, I'll post that Easter Sunday post and then go forward from there. Here it is:

Easter. What can I say about it? I have memories of Easter as a child that are precious to me, especially since my mom has died. I remember getting a new dress, new shoes, and a new hat to get all dressed up to go to church in. As I recall, these typically came from JC Penney. Usually we would all get up very early on Easter morning, go out to the kitchen, and find our Easter baskets filled with candy along with a big basket in the center of the table which was also filled with candy and a big chocolate bunny. We would each have a hard-boiled dyed Easter egg at our place at the table. The egg usually had our name on it and was always placed in a blue willow egg cup. My mom collected blue willow dishes, so blue willow was all over our house! For a long time there were 6 of us kids, so there would be 6 Easter baskets at the table along with 8 hard-boiled Easter eggs. There was always LOTS of candy and eggs to go around!

The way I remember it, although it may not be accurate, is that my parents would let us eat as much candy as we wanted before we had to get ready for church. Then when it was time, we'd all have to be cajoled to tear ourselves away from our Easter baskets to get ready. After we were all dressed and ready to go, and my mom had put a ham in the oven to bake for Easter dinner, we'd pile into the station wagon and head to church. After church my dad would take a photo or maybe an 8 mm movie of us outside all dressed up in our Easter best. Later we'd eat a huge Easter dinner, sometimes at the dining room table, and sometimes at the kitchen table. And that was our Easter. I know it doesn't sound like alot, but those memories are precious to me. Not because we got lots and lots of candy, or because we got new outfits, but rather because we were a FAMILY. A family that celebrated together, that loved together, that most likely fought together, and that built memories together.

I know that there are many other reasons to be happy about celebrating Easter. The big one being the Jesus rose from the dead and gave us all new life in doing so. And I know that the fact that God did that for us is incredible. But this Easter is different for me. It’s a little melancholy for me, as I did not spend it with DH and the girls. That is even more true, since this is Grace’s first Easter. I’m at my father’s house with my brother because my dad had surgery last week and needed someone to take care of him. He was in so much pain though, that he thought it wouldn’t be good for the children to see him. He thought that seeing him that way would scare them. So he asked that the children not come. So my Easter this year was sleeping in, talking with my dad and brother, and eating hash for lunch. The day was pretty quiet. No Easter candy, no Easter egg hunt, no Sunday morning church dressed in our new spring clothes. But even with that there were some good things about this Easter. My dad felt a lot better. So much so that he went out with my brother in the car for the first time since his surgery. He was joking and laughing, and I think enjoying the day with his children. My brother and sister-in-law were over, and my sister was there too. So it was a good day for him.

As for DH and the girls, they did have the Easter baskets at their place at our kitchen table, they didn’t go to church, but they did have an Easter egg hunt at DH’s parents. I missed being with them, and I especially missed not being home with Gracie on her first Easter with us. But she won’t know the difference. I have a few photos that DD2 took of their day.

Daycare and other thoughts

2008-03-19T07:35:00.000-07:00

Here we are a week after Gracie started in her new daycare. I must say that I pretty much couldn't be happier. Gracie's new daycare provider is great. She went 2 days last week, and did great. And DH took Gracie on Monday because he needed to get some paperwork, done so we all went to pick her up around 5. She was playing at the table with another child around her own age, looking content and happy as could be. Jean was sitting on the floor back in the back of the room, while her DH was in the larger room where Gracie and the other children were. It was really a comforting site to see. When Grace saw us, she came running over to me. She said "Mommy" when I picked her up, and was patting me on the chest. I guess she was telling everyone that I was her mommy. How cute is that?! AND how wonderful that she really knows that I'm her mommy. Of course, I still don't know if she understands what a mommy is yet, but she's got my name down and understand that I am "Mommy".

Jean seemed very excited to tell us all about Grace's day. She said that the kids were decorating shamrocks because it was St. Patrick's Day, and Grace was saying "green". She said she almost had Grace saying "yellow", but not quite. She said how smart Grace is. Of course I could've told her that yes she was very smart :-)! She also told us that she's excited to see how Grace will interact with another little girl from China that will be there during the week of spring break. We're not sure if Grace will be going to daycare during that week, but I too would like to see how she does.

Oh, and on another note, unrelated to daycare, my friend Jan left for Beijing this morning to get her daughter. She and her DH get their daughter on Monday morning. She is 8 months old. This is Jan's first child. Her LID is 12/20/05, so her LID was about a month and a half later than ours. That month and a half turned into almost an 8 1/2 month longer wait to actually get their daughter. Wow! Who would've thought that adpopting from China would take this long back when we started this journey in April 2005, 3 years ago!!! Anyway, I pray that Jan and her DH have a safe journey to ther daughter, and that God prepares their daughter for the changes that are coming in her life. Please Lord give Jan and her DH confidence in their parenting abilities, and let their daughter bond quickly.

Update on the search for daycare

2008-03-07T09:20:00.000-08:00

It's been something of a roller coaster ride here at our house with daycare. As you may recall, right after our daycare provider came back to work after a bought of pneumonia, she informed us that they were building a house and were selling their house. Their new house is to be built several miles away, to where it would impractical for us to continue daycare with her. I was sad we'd be losing Meredith, but understood. Meredith told us that they had 4 months to sell their house, so we took that information and thought we'd have at least 3 months to find new daycare.

Mind you, the housing market is reportedly so slow right now, we thought we'd have plenty of time before we'd have to really get serious about this situation. Well, we were big time wrong! Sometime during the latter part of last week, Meredith's house went up on the market. Over the weekend, her realtor had an open house. According to Meredith, 3 families came through. The very 1st family came back later and offerred Meredith and her hubbie full asking price for their home. I think in this market that just doesn't happen, but it did! So they have until April 1 to get out their house. We found this out on Tuesday (less than a week after finding out that we'd have to find new daycare), when DH called to get Meredith's SS number in order to file out taxes. On Wednesday, on dropping off Grace, DH asked when Meredith was going to stop daycare. Her response was that she wanted to be done by the end of THIS week! Okay, so that means we had 5 days to find new daycare!!!

Thankfully, we'd been thinking about calling the woman down the street that has apparently had daycare in her home since we moved here over 13 years ago. We didn't know her, but knew she had a daycare in her home because every once in awhile when she had openings she hung a sign in her window. As her home sits pretty close to a main road in town, I guess that's her form of advertising. Luckily (or maybe providencially) she has the sign in her window now! So DH called her Wednesday and explained our situation, and asked her some questions. She said she'd be happy to take Grace and happy to talk to us whenever we wanted. DH called yesterday and set up an appointment for us to visit last evening. We went over after 6 which is when she closed her daycare, to see the facility and chat. I just have one word to describe her. Jean is Wonderful! She is about our age, 50 ish, and has been doing daycare for 19 years. So you know she's good. She is Christian. She has a cute dedicated room that she uses for daycare. It looks just like a daycare center. She has a fenced in backyard with playground equipment where the children can play, and she's licensed. The entire time we were there, Grace was running around laughing and smiling and really enjoying playing. She was a little shy, but really seemed to like the surroundings. I was pleasantly surprised.

During the course of our conversation, DD2 who came with us, asked her if she had a granddaughter named Txxxx, to which she replied "Why yes I do? How did you know that?" DD2 said she saw the photo of Txxxx's uncle up on the wall in his military uniform. Txxxx's uncle had come to school to talk and visit with the kid's in DD2's class before he went to Iraq. Turns out this is Jean's son and DD2 is friends with Txxxx. How funny is that?! Anyway, Jean is willing to have Gracie part time, seems to love children, has way more experience than anyone else we've ever used for daycare, and charges less per day than Meredith! God is GOOD!

We have paperwork to fill out, need to get copies of some papers, get an emergency medical permission form notorized, and then Grace can start daycare next week. This is such an answer to prayer! We had asked that we find loving, Christian daycare that's affordable in a timely manner for Gracie. And as always, God provides. Thank you Lord for being so faithful!

A Baby Asks God

2008-03-07T08:53:00.000-08:00

I found this on my hard drive as I was looking for some other information. I don't remember where I got it or why I saved it. But I thought it was sweet. Enjoy!

A Baby Asks God

A baby asked God, "They tell me you are sending me to earth tomorrow,
but how am I going to live there being so small and helpless?"

God said, "Your angel will be waiting for you and will take care of
you."

The child further inquired, "But tell me, here in heaven I don't have
to do anything but sing and smile to be happy."

God said, "Your angel will sing for you and will also smile for you.
And you will feel your angel's love and be very happy."

Again the child asked, "And how am I going to be able to understand
when people talk to me if I don't know the language?"

God said, "Your angel will tell you the most beautiful and sweet
words
you will ever hear, and with much patience and care, your angel will
teach you how to speak."

"And what am I going to do when I want to talk to you?"

God said, "Your angel will place your hands together and will teach
you how to pray."

"Who will protect me?"

God said, "Your angel will defend you even if it means risking its
life."

"But I will always be sad because I will not see you anymore."

God said, "Your angel will always talk to you about Me and will teach
you the way to come back to Me, even though I will always be next to
you."

At that moment there was much peace in Heaven, but voices from Earth
could be heard and the child hurriedly asked, "God, if I am to leave
now, please tell me my angel's name."

"You will simply call her, "Mommy."

How many 5 year olds could you take?

2008-03-03T10:08:00.000-08:00

I thought this was cute! Try it yourself and see what you come up with. I apprently can take twelve 5 year olds in a fight.

YMCA Daddy/Daughter Dance 2008

2008-02-28T07:24:00.000-08:00

The two older girls were invited on a date by their daddy to the local YMCA Daddy/Daughter Dance. While they danced the night away, Grace and I met up with the other moms and ate a delicious meal at Ram. So we all had a great time!

Here's some photos of the dance. Sorry, I didn't take any photos of Grace and me at the Ram restaurant.

Some recent photos of the girls

2008-02-28T07:15:00.000-08:00

I know I've been lax in posting any newere photos of the family and the girls, but well, life gets in the way sometimes. So to try to give you a taste of how the girls are growing and changing here's some photos that were taken this month. Enjoy!

10 Things Every Christian Can Do To Care for the Orphan Child

2008-02-23T04:56:00.000-08:00

Taken from Hope for Orphans: http://www.familylife.com/atf/cf/{8E975F2E-4C1C-4315-AAFF-34A97EB367B5}/TenWays_inside.pdf

1. Pray with the Father for them.

2. Speak up for them.

3. Give them what they need.

4. Support those who support them.

5. Provide them a safe place.

6. Go visit them.

7. Give sacrificially to them.

8. Cheer them on.

9. Give them a forever family.

10. Mobilize your church for them.

On the lookout for a daycare provider again!

2008-02-21T13:12:00.000-08:00

After a week and a half of not having a daycare provider because she had pneumonia, we sighed a sigh of relief to have Grace be able to go back to daycare on Tuesday. DH and I were both able to go back to work knowing that our little girl was well taken care of. Well that sigh of relief lasted exactly one day.

At dropoff on Wednesday morning, our daycare provider told DH that they were going to be moving to the city west of us in order to be closer to their oldest daughter's school. They've already signed the paperwork to begin building a new house, but even with that according to our daycare provider, they have up to 4 months to back out if they can't sell their current house. So, instead of waiting for the maybe move, we're out looking for daycare again for Grace. We have a couple of leads, but are essentially starting all over again! This has got to be the hardest part of being a working mom - finding good affordable daycare!

To be fair to our daycare provider, she says that they are spending 40 minutes driving their daughter to school, and spending $60/week driving her back and forth. She said when they built the house they're in, the plan was to only have one child and when that child went to school and mom went back to work, they would commute together because work and school were close by. But, they had a surprise when their second daughter was born, and now it's much harder to get their oldest to school. So I do understand their reasoning, but Grace has been there less than 5 months, she's become attached to our daycare provider, and now will have to adjust all over again. I would've appreciated it if we'd known back in September that they were thinking of moving. But I guess since that didn't happen we'll just figure out what to do next. Please pray that we can find loving daycare for Gracie!

2 entries in one day, means lots going on!

2008-02-19T12:36:00.000-08:00

It doesn't happen very often, but today I have so much to get caught up on, that I'm posting twice to the blog. Last post I brought you up to date on thinking of adopting again. This post, I'll talk about Hands of Hope, International Adoption and Orphan Care Ministry. You can learn more about Hands of Hope at: http://www.gracehandsofhope.org/Hands_of_Hope/Welcome.html

We had our big birthing announcement weekend at our church this past weekend. We had a compelling video that indicated the number of orphans around the world had grown exponentially, gave some information about why, and then introduced our ministry. We had a good response from the people that were in all 6 services. We had a giving tree that people could pick hearts off of where each attached card had a specific need for an orphanage, and bring back the needed items to our church. I was responsible for the tree. It was pretty cool. Here's a photo:

We also have a project for donations of 400 mosquito nets for 400 orphans in Liberia to help prevent malaria. That's one of the mosquito nets convering the table where the Giving Tree is sitting.

Lastly, we had a kiosk where people could stop to talk with us about our ministry, and what we're trying to do with helping orphans. Our booth looked like this;

It was a very cool weekend! I had lots of help with getting everything ready, and lots of support at the kiosk. I can't tell you how much fun I had talking with people about what we are trying to do, about God's heart for orphans, and how we're trying to make it easier for people to adopt. All in all it was a great weekend. Now we just need to run with our good start and keep our momentum! God is working big time in our ministry, and we owe it to Him to follow where He leads us!

So much to tell, So little time!

2008-02-19T12:15:00.000-08:00

I know it's been awhile since I've blogged, but I didn't realize it had been that long until I saw my last entry about Grace walking. Lots has been going on, not the least of which is that Grace's walking has improved very quickly. She's pretty much a pro at it now.

First Steps came out a couple of weeks ago with 2 therapists: speech and motor development. Turns out that Grace is right on target for her age on speech, but that she needs some therapy to help develop her upper body muscles. They said that holds her shoulders up (like in a shrug) too much, and that's a compensation for lack of tummy time when she was a baby that has now caused her chest muscles to be tight and weak. So this week, Alecia is coming out to get us signed up to start occupational therapy with Grace. I must admit that I was surprised by the evaluation, but am willing to see what comes of the therapy. So on we tread!

Another thing that came and went was the consideration of adopting a 2 year old little boy from China off of the A Helping Hand special needs list. We had received an email from our adoption agency, A Helping Hand, that said that there were still children on the special needs list that needed families.Their files were being returned to the CCAA on February 9. So they wanted us to spread the word that these children needed families. Well, when I went out to take a peek at the children out there, I fell in love with a photo of 2 year old Luke. He had a repaired cleft palate/cleft lip, and was "slightly motor delayed." I inquired about Luke and the info that was available on him, including medical. I also found out that there was one other family that was interested in adopting Luke. So I read over it, noticing how small Luke was at 16 months - 15 lbs, and took the info to our pediatrician for her to look at and tell me what she sees. She came back and said that he was small - really small, and his head was large. She said she'd be concerned about fetal alchohol syndrome, but of course, she couldn't tell. I asked her off the record if she would do it. Of course, she said she couldn't answer that.

So armed with all this information and prayer, I went to DH to ask him what he thought. Oh, I should say that I didn't get to talk to him about Luke until the night before we had to decide whether to go forward. Well, his response was "I applaud that you want to help an orphan in need, but I'm just too tired." I asked himif he thought Luke was cute. His answer was "No, not at all." I didn't argue or beg, but rather just decided that it wasn't meant to be. I was disappointed, as was DD1, but not heartbroken. Later, I went out the website and there was a (Hold) by Luke's name. So I know that he'll have a chance at a family. Maybe that's why I wasn't heartbroken, or maybe the reality of having 3 children, a job, a husband, and a house to take care of weighed on me. I'm still praying for God's direction on what he wants us to do, and I still struggle with having another Chinese child that Grace can identify with in our family. For now, though, we are not adopting again. I have other things to focus on in my life - many other things, so I can live with it, for now.

Gracie is really walking!

2008-02-01T14:32:00.000-08:00

I knew this would happen. First Steps is coming out on Tuesday to evaluate Gracie to see if she is developmentally delayed on walking. Well, the past couple of days she's taken off walking on her own. She's still not as sure of herself as she could be, but she is walking to get from point A to B without being prompted to. I think it's only a matter of days, I think, until she will be quite confident.

Of course, I'm still glad that First Steps is coming next week, but it's funny that this has happened. They will still evaluate her speech development too, which I think is behind. So I'll be happy to find out where she is on the continuum, and to see if she needs extra help.

First Steps Program

2008-01-26T20:59:00.000-08:00

When we first took Gracie in for her appointment with her pediatirican I asked her about Grace being evaluated by First Steps, which is an early intervention for developmentally delayed children under 3 years old, program that's run by our state. Every state has a program like this, and ours is called First Steps. The pediatrician told me that she had to fill out some paperwork for First Steps, and that they shoud be calling me to see about setting up an appointment to have Gracie evaluated. The evaluation is free, and I wanted to find out the level of developmental delay, if any, Gracie might have due to being in an orphanage for the first 10 months of her life. That was about 5 1/2 months ago.

So I waited, and nothing. I don't know what happened. If the paperwork was lost, if the pediatrician's office never sent it in, or what went wrong. I didn't really think about it much after that, but then when we had Grace's 6 month post-adoption follow-up visit with our social worker, she asked if we'd had Grace evaluated in the First Steps program. I told her the story about the pediatrician's visit, and she said First Steps had offices in each county in our state, and I could just look up their phone number in the phone book and call them directly.

The next day I looked up the number on whitepages.com and called. The number I called was not for our county office, but for our state, which was fine. The not-overly friendly woman I talked with asked a couple of questions, and told me that I'd be getting a call from someone in our county to get us signed up. The next day I got a call from Alecia. Alecia explained that she needed to have a few things from us before the evaluation could happen: a copy of last year's 1040 tax form, a copy of Grace's health insurance card (front and back), and her social security number. Okay, no problem, I made an appointment to have Alecia come out to the house to give her the information she asked for and to get us signed up.

That very afternoon, I another call from Jenny to make an appointment to have Gracie evaluated on her speech development and her gross motor skill development. Boy this agency works fast! Alecia was out at our house yesterday to explain even further what is going to happen in regards to having her evaluated and if she qualifies for having any early intervention developmental therapy what would happen. Alecia was kind and friendly. I have to tell you, that so far I'm impressed with this government agency! Everyone, with the exception of the first woman that I talked with (the state lady), has been warm and friendly. They also have gotten back to me in a timely manner, and have been accomodating to our schedule as much as possible.

Who'd have thought that with so many goverment agencies where you can get caught up in red-tape with people that don't really seem to care, that there is such a gem of an agency! I'll report back to let you know if I still feel this way after Gracie has her evaluation, but for now IMHO this agency rocks!

This book is a keeper!

2008-01-22T19:45:00.000-08:00

I think I mentioned this book before, or maybe I mentioned the doctor that wrote this book. But I wanted to say specifically that this book, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems, by Dr. Richard Ferber, is the book that changed forever how we get DD3 to bed. When we first got DD3 in China, of course, she slept in a crib in our room. So there were times when it seemed only natural to bring her into bed with us to get her to go to sleep. It made it easier for us to sleep to. Then when we got back home, we had DD3 stay on the same bedtime routine and schedule.She'd go to bed with a bottle and one of us would lay down with her in our bed unti she fell asleep. Then we'd move her into her own crib where sometimes she'd sleep through the night and other times she'd wake up several times a night, whereupon we'd repeat the routine. As time went by, this method become more and more demanding and less and less effective.

One day, I was reading a post on our travel group's Yahoo group. One of the women had asked for help to get her adopted daughter to sleep. It seems her and her husband were having worse problems than we were with getting their daughter to bed, sleeping all night, and sleeping in her own bed. Well, one of the pieces of advice that she got was to read Dr. Ferber's book and try out his method. This woman claimed that it solved their sleep problems with their daughter. I got to thinking about that, and decided that even though our sleep issues weren't as bad as this woman's experience, I'd give it a try.

So I borrowed the book from our local library, read most of it, and with support from DH, decided to give it a try. I have to say, that I think one of the most helpful sections of the book was where Dr. Ferber describes the process of sleep. I knew very little about how we sleep, and how we mature in our sleep as we age. I knew that there were stages of sleep, but I didn't know that we move in and out of these stages at regular intervals throughout the night. Of course, once I understood better how sleep works, following the Dr. Ferber method was pretty easy.

We followed the method pretty religiously, and by about the 5th night DD3 was going to sleep by herself at bedtime and naptime, and sleeping through the night. It's been great! I highly recommend this book!

DD2's Well-child checkup

2008-01-19T20:00:00.000-08:00

DD2 had her well-child checkup, since she turned 11 years old on Monday, yesterday at the pediatrician getting a two-thumbs up on her health. She is tracking just below the 5th percentile for her height and 30th for her weight. That's right where she was at last year at her 10 year checkup. The pediatrician is very happy with how she's grown.

The pediatrician has been concerned about her height and weight for the past several years. Since she was about 18 months old she's been just below 5th percentile for her height, and 70th for her weight. So much so that DD2 was referred to a endochronologist to see if growth hormones were in order. Priase God that growth hormones weren't even an option, but we did find out that DD2 is most likely going to be short. Between 4'10" and 4'11". DH still thinks that the doctors are wrong because he was a late bloomer, not getting his greatest growth spurt to get hime to 6'2" until he was a senior in high school. But at any rate, it's obvious that God has made DD2 just perfect for her height and weight. She has a spunky personality to match her height, and everyone thinks she is cute as a button (which is true!).

So, anyway, DD2 is staying on track for her height and is slimming out.. I asked if she was on track to hit 4' 11". The pediatrician wouldn't say for sure, but she did say that she's got at least 3 or more years of growth to go. And since she hasn't seen DD2's growth spurt just before she starts having periods, that she's got a good chance.

Besides that DD2 is very healthy all around, and we are blessed that this is the case!

Happy Birthday DD2!

2008-01-15T12:19:00.000-08:00

I know this is a day late, but I'm still going to post a most Happy Birthday to DD2! She turned 11 on the 14th. We didn't have a party for her because she chose to get her American Girl Doll instead, but we did celebrate yesterday by going to the local arcade to eat pizza and play the arcade games. The only problem was that the restaurant part of the arcade was closed. I guess that's because it is winter (they also have outdoor miniature golf there), and it was a weeknight. Anyway, DD2 chose Subway to eat at because it was just down the street, and well, let's face it, all she really wanted to do was play the arcade games.

So after a quick sandwich we all drove back to the arcade where she and DD1 played games for about an hour. Gracie didn't play for obvious reasons. DD1 graciously donated her winning tickets to her sister (only after she bought a Twix bar with 100 tickets!), and DD2 chose a variety of junk from her 300+ tickets that she won.

And that was it. DH went to work and the girls and I went to Walmart to get some groceries. Not a very exciting birthday I'm afraid, but DD2 didn't complain. We are having a family party for her on February 2nd with some of her cousins, aunts, uncles and grandpa, so I think that's why she wasn't too disturbed that we didn't do much last night.

With that said, I'd like to reflect a little bit on what kind of daughter my sweet DD2 is. She's the kind that takes the song "4 Hugs a Day, That's The Minimum" to heart. She is a snuggler, and always has been. She also doesn't complain too much about having to do her chores, although she does have to be reminded that she has chores sometimes:-)! Her attention span is short. She can take her shoes off upon entering the house, and have absolutely no idea where she's left them 10 minutes later. Those things are just not important to her. Much more important are relationships. She is our lover, whereas DD1 is our thinker. She is most always quick to jump in to help with Gracie. She smothers the poor baby with love sometimes! But it is so sweet to see the two of them together. DD2 can make Gracie laugh louder and hardier than any of the rest of us. Gracie knows a good sister when she sees one! There's so much more I could tell you about DD2, but I'll save that for another time. Just suffice it to say, when she came into our lives, she brightened it forever!

I was going to do then and now photos of DD2, but our scanner is not working. So I can't scan in any old photos of her to show how she's changed. So for now, I'll just post a few photos to show what a joy she truly is! She's the short blond one in the all the photos.

American Girl Doll Place

2008-01-13T07:55:00.000-08:00

I think I've already posted that on New Years Eve, that DD1, DD2 and I went to the American Girl Doll Place in Chicago with my SIL and her two daughters. DD2 was to buy a doll for her birthday, which is tomorrow, and boy did she have a hard time choosing which one to buy. Anyway, after finally choosing Nelly, we took a couple of photos there.

A few, very few, Christmas 2007 photos

2008-01-12T19:34:00.000-08:00

I wanted to post some photos of Christmas, but I don't really have many. The reason is that we didn't take many photos at all. We took mostly videos, and DH hasn't shown me how to download (or is it upload?) videos off of the camcorder yet. So without further adieu, here are a few photos of our Christmas 2007.

As you can see, most of these photos are of Gracie, no surprise there, as this was her first Christmas. These photos were taken with DD2's early Christmas present of a Sony digital camera. We gave her the camera early, so she would have it for Christmas day, but we didn't give her a memory card. So she quickly filled it up. Since then we got her a 2Gig memory card. So she won't have this problem any longer. I'll try to get DH to show me how to upload the video and get that posted soon.

Okay, I'm going to try this again

2008-01-11T19:46:00.000-08:00

I tried to post this entry the other day, and for some reason couldn't get the photos to come up the way I wanted them to. So I'm going to try again.

Today we had a visit from our social worker for our 6 month post-adoption follow-up visit in order for her to write her report and send it into our adoption agency. All 5 of us were here. She asked us several questions about how Grace was adjusting, what milestones she's had since coming home to us, how we bonded with her in China, how she's bonded with her sisters, and a few questions about daycare, our jobs, the older girls school, and things like that. It took about and hour. We have to send her a copy of Grace's US Certificate of Citizenship and gave her 4 photos of Grace (one of which had to be all 5 of us together). I want to post the photos that we gave to our social worker to send to the CCAA with her report. Here they are.

Oh, and here's one more that we took but didn't use for the 6 month post-adoption photos, but I like it too.

It's official - Grace now has a US Birth Certificate!

2008-01-11T19:33:00.000-08:00

Well, our journey to have Gracie fully integrated as a US Citizen is almost at an end. Today we received copies of her state birth certificate. We had hired a lawyer to file our adoption paperwork within our state back in September, and paid her to get us copies of Grace's state birth certificate. She filed the paperwork with the court, and we received a copy saying it was filed in October. According to Rebecca, our lawyer, the state has slowed down in getting birth certificates out from 2 weeks in the past, now to 3 months. So we were expecting get the copies this month, and they came in the mail today! We had a little opening ceremony and took some photos to commemorate the event, and then filed them away in our fireproof box. And that was that. Gracie can start school with her very own US birth certificate.

She now has her US Certificate of Citizenship, her Social Security Card, and now her US Birth Certificate.The only thing left for us to do to close out this chapter in her life, is to apply for and receive a US passport.

Gracie's Finding Ad

2008-01-05T12:11:00.000-08:00

In China, before an orphanage can put a child in the pool to be adopted, they have to print a "finding ad" in the local newspaper to see if there are any relatives that would like to claim the baby before they proceed with the adoption. For Christmas, DH bought me a copy of Gracie's finding ad. Brian Stuy has adopted 3 daughters from China, and has made it his work to find out information on children that have been adopted from China for families that are interested. Brian is where DH got the finding ad.

I cannot tell you how precious this pboto is to us and I'm sure will be to Gracie when she gets older. This is the earliest photo we have of her. The date of the newpaper is October 26, 2006, so Gracie was just 25 days old. And as you can see she was VERY tiny. When Gracie went in for her 15 month checkup yesterday, we were talking about her development, and I showed this photo to the pediatrician. She said that she looked like she was born at just 28 weeks justation based on how she looked and her birth weight. What a fighter our little Gracie is, to be so small and to be so premature. She surely was meant to be part of our family with having so much to overcome to survive!

I don't know everything that the add says, as it is in Chinese, but the important thing I wanted to share here was the photo. What a wonder our little girl is!

And know here's the photo.

The other thing that strikes me when I see how tiny she is, and how vulnerable she must've been is how well she was taken care of at the orphanage to have made such strides. Comparing this photo with her referral photo, i.e. the one we first received from the orphanage when we learned who she was, she not only survived, but she thrived. She obiously was very well taken care of and loved, and for that I am eternally grateful to the orphanage director, her nannies, and to God for watching over our little girl.

Guess who's sick now?

2008-01-04T09:19:00.000-08:00

Okay. So I was feeling pretty smug with everyone around me dropping like flies to this cold/flu thing that's going around. That was until yesterday. I woke up with an awful headache, stuffed up nose/head, and slight sore throat. DH also woke up with similar symptoms. Since Gracie didn't need to be to daycare until 9, and the older girls didn't have school, he went back to bed after I left for work. I told him that I would've stayed home if I'd had my work laptop at home, but it was at the office. So I schlepped into work feeling terrible. After I got to work, I took an Airborne and felt a better. I never got rid of the headache though. So last night after work I lay down to rest while DD2, DD3 and DH all ate dinner. DD1 was at a friends house. I got up after about 1/2 an hour, feeling a little better. Today though I've still got the headache and stuffed up head. Being home from work today was a blessing, as I was able to lay down for about 2 hours this morning. I now feel better, but still have a headache. What's up with that?

Anyway, DDs are all home, so DD1 watched the other two. This afternoon DD3 has her 15 month checkup with the pediatrician. I'm kind of anxious to hear how much she's grown, as I know she's put on weight. Also, I want to ask about her development. She's not talking too much, but seems to understand everything. She's walking with a walker all over the place, but her little legs just can't seem to hold her up on her own beyond about 5 steps. I don't know if that's within the normal range or not, so we'll see. Besides that I think that she's right where she needs to be developmentally.

I haven't heard from DH to know if he's feeling better, as he went into the Y to work. I'll have to post another entry on the blog to tell all about his new temporary job at the Y while he's on leave from his airline job.

Hope everyone stays well, and if you're aren't well, I hope the bug leaves you soon!

Happy New Year 2008!

2008-01-02T09:59:00.000-08:00

I know it's been a few days since I posted about Gracie's fever, but it turned out to be not much to tell about it. After giving her Tylenol exactly two times over the course of two days, her fever disappeared. This leads me to believe that maybe it was teething related, as she is cutting two more front teeth, but whatever caused the fever seems to have left her little body. So that's good.

Now to get caught up on some other happenings in our family. I wanted to post about getting Graice to give up the bottle and sleep in her own bed before I forget about the whole experience, but I'll save that for the next post. For the rest of this post, I want to post about our final days of the year 2007 and our New Years celebration, so as not to forget that either. So here goes.

Late last week, we weren't sure if we were going to go to Chicago or not to celebrate ringing in the new year with my brother and his family because of Gracie running a fever, but since the fever was gone by Saturday we decided to head on up to Chitown. I was surprised to find out that my father was there too, albeit pleasantly surprised, when we arrived around 2 p.m. Basically we sat around and chewed the fat, getting caught up on everyone's goings on the rest of the afternoon. The guys watched football of course, and then we headed out to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner.

On Monday, New Year's Eve, my brother fixed us his world famous pancakes for breakfast on his brand new griddle that Santa brought him and then the girls in both families (with the exception of Gracie who stayed with her dad) headed downtown to the American Girl Doll Place for DD2 to pick out a doll for her birthday. Her 11th birthday is on the 14th of January, and I told her she could either get a doll or have a birthday party with friends, but not both because it was too expensive to do both. She chose the doll. After snagging a metered spot on the street close by, we walked to The Cheesecake Factory, foolishly thinking we'd have no problem getting a lunch table for 6 on New Year's Eve. After finding out that the wait was 40 minutes, we decided not to wait and headed out the California Pizza Kitchen in Water Tower Place. We were seated right away where our waitress took our order quickly and brought our drinks. Well, then we waited, and waited, and waited some more. After my SIL noticed that several other tables that were seated after us were getting their food, she called the waitress over to ask why our food had not come out yet. The waitress came back saying that there was some mixup with the greek pizza order, and that the children's meals would be out in 5 minutes. The part about the children's meals coming out quickly was true, but we waited and waited somemore for the pizzas. So my SIL called over the manager to tell him our situation. He went to check with the waitress, came back with her and informed that our pizza order was put in 12 minutes ago, and would be right out. Well, for our order to be put in 12 minutes ago, when we'd been sitting waiting for over 45 minutes, something just wasn't right. In the end, our waitress was not happy with us, we weren't happy with her, and we got our pizzas free along with a single dessert free. I paid for the kids' meals, and left a 10% tip, which my SIL thought was too much. She was prepared to leave without paying a tip because she felt like the waitress had lied to us by telling us there was a mixup with our order, when in reality she had just put the order in. Although I wasn't happy with the waitress either, I felt a little bit sorry for her because her section of the restaurant was very busy. At any rate we got the AGP at around 2. My SIL ran back to put more money in the meter, and the girls and I looked around the store searching for just the right doll for DD2. If you've never been the the AGP, then this doesn't sound like such a big deal, but if you have, you'll know that there are many dolls to choose from, and for a 10 year old girl surrounded by all these choices, it's tough. In the end she wisely chose, Nelly, Samatha's friend. I say wisely because Nelly's hair is fairly short at chin length, and will stay relatively untangled. DD2 has Kaya at home, and her hair is very long causing all sort of issues with trying to keep it untangled and nice looking to the point of Kaya needing to go to the AGP hospital for a new head! DD2 also picked out a couple of outfits for Nelly using her Christmas money from Grandma to pay for them. My two nieces each got an outfit, and DD1 at 14, opted not to get anything from the store. We headed back to the suburbs at about 4, and the weather turned nasty causing us to not get back until almost 5:30. This was significant because we needed to get to a fovorite local restaurant by 6 before they closed for the holiday. The restaurant was right down the street, so that posed no problem, with the exception that it was snowing profusely causingour minivan to have trouble getting up the hill in my brother's cul-de-sac. Of course my brother didn't have any problems because he has an SUV. Anyway, we had our New Year's Eve dinner which was delicious, and was graciously paid for by my father (Thank you Dad, if you're reading this!) and headed back to my brother's for a fun evening of Scattegories and Catch Phrase. At about 11:30 p.m. we turned on the tv to watch the ball drop in Times Square at midnight, and shortly afterwards headed to bed.

Yesterday, New Year's Day, after breakfast we headed home in bad weather. There was about 6 inches of snow on the ground where we were, and the wind was blowing snow most of the way home. DH drove while the girls slept and I listened to music on my mp3. Even though we had bad weather, with the expert driving on DH we made it home safely.

The weather here in the midwest has turned bitterly cold, and this morning it was 1 degree at our house! However, I bundled up to drive into work and experienced no difficulties. And so the new year begins!

Running a fever of 102.7!

2007-12-28T13:38:00.000-08:00

Well, I knew it was bound to happen over the holidays, and it did. Last night at around 8, Gracie started running a fever. I took her temperature with the ThermoScan set on Infant/Toddler and it registered as 102.7. I was pretty surprised, as she felt warm but not near that warm. So I thought maybe something was wrong with the ThermoScan, but it registered correctly when we tried it out on the Child/Adult setting for DD1. Anyway, I gave Gracie two droppers of Tylenol and laid her down to go to sleep for the night at about 9:30 p.m.

Now, I have to tell you that we have been trying to get her to fall asleep on her own in her own crib for the past 5 nights or so using the Ferber method of putting her down awake and progressively checking on her when she cries. This was working like a charm, until last night. On the 6th night, per Dr. Ferber, I was supposed wait 17 minutes before going in to check on her and reassure her. I did, but she cried the entire time between. So I was worried about how this was working. I went in and checked on her telling her that everything was okay, that she needed to get some sleep and told her I would see her in the morning. I then left the room closing the door behind me. I knew that this wasn't going to make her happy, and Dr. Ferber had said the same thing. That is that she might cry harder after leaving the room. She did. Shortly afterwards, say maybe 5 minutes, she fell asleep and slept through the night. So, so far so good with the Ferber method.

Back to the fever. Gracie woke up this morning with a cool forehead, but was sweaty. I think the fever broke during the night, but by 12 noon she was running a fever again. I gave her more Tylenol and then left with DD1 to go to the eye doctor, while DH fed Gracie lunch and put her down for a nap. She woke up around 3:15 feeling cool, but again sweaty. Now she's acting cranky. Her cheeks are cool, but her forehead feels a tad warm. I haven't taken her temperature yet, but I suspect she's running a low grade fever. I don't know why, but it's making her cranky and clingy.

I remember when our other DDs were little and how these fevers could come and go. I hope this is the same kind of thing, and that she'll be over this soon. Oh the joys of having a baby in the house!