No Ordinary Family

We had such a fun day with Jim's sister and her family. They came over just to hang out. they only live about an hour away but life seems to get busy and we don't get together as often as we would like. Every time we see each other we say we need to do this more often but it does not happen, except in December and January when we have birthdays to celebrate almost every weekend. So we started the day by showing off the new crib, every one gets that tour, LOL. Then we just played with kids and dogs. We had mini-pizzas for lunch and then homemade ice cream for desert, YUM YUM. We played some Wii and had a great time! I wish we had more pictures of us all together but we were too busy having fun!! Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

Most of you know I have been involved in a secret pal exchange for the last year with my Yahoo DTC group. We ended the exchange with a Cyber-shower for both March and April DTC groups. I was paired with Kelly and I got her gift today. She was so thoughtful and sent a gift for both Little Miss and our Burundi Baby! I totally did not expect that and it made my day more than just getting a package (which usually does it.) I didn't even notice right away that there were 2 packages. I took this picture first because the package was so cute and then I realized there were two and one was for BB it was great! Little Miss got this cute little outfit. I absolutely love the pom pom pigtail holders and I can’t wait to fix her hair in piggies. The corkscrew barrettes are cute also, I love options!! BB got The Jungle Book on DVD which is a new one to add to our collection. We both love it, but did not have it yet! He also got some super cute finger puppets. Jim had to help me display them nex...

As promised here are some pictures of the crib put together in the room. We have video but I need to download it and edit it and I have not got there yet. It is funny how one purchase leads to another now we need an external hard drive to hold all the video we are now accumulating. of couse we had to test it...it sort of worked for awhile I can't remember if I posted about the changing table pad but we decided on the contour thanks for the input! I also got a super soft fuzzy cover in a matching green color. now all we need it a dresser so put all the clothes that I am accquiring in, next is the removal of the disney theme for a less commercial jungle theme.

We have been officially waiting now for 16 months! If the wait were to stay the same and not get any longer we would be over the half way mark. The families that are getting referrals now have waited about 30 months; however I think it will continue to get longer for a little while at least. We are hanging in there. We have changed our focus a little to BB and travel to Burundi but our Little Miss is always in our minds and she will be home as soon as she can.

Can you believe my blogging, ebay selling, more computer literate than her son (sorry Dad it’s true) Grandma is turning 80 today !? We are going to have a special day for her in a couple weeks when we can all get together and I will be posting pictures (warning to the camera shy family out there.) I was hoping to have a picture of her newest Great Grandchild to show her today but maybe by the party! Please stop by her blog and wish her a happy day!! Happy Birthday Grandma, I love you!! Wow, I can’t believe that it has been a year of blogging already! So much has happened and so much has changed, I went back and looked at a lot of my blogs from the past year and really enjoyed the the wonderful memories that came back. It has been a wonderful way to chronicle our journey and our lives. I don’t blog about everything but I hit the highlights and I love being able to go back and remember what was happening a particular time. The funny thing is I have never been much for journaling, but for...

I hate smoke detectors. I know, I know they save lives and they are a very important safety feature that should be in all homes. I am in no way saying that they should not be in every home, but that does not mean I have to like them. Ok there are 5 particular smoke detectors that I hate more than all others and yes they are in my home in every room and they are wired together so that if one goes off they all do. I have had issues with these particular smoke detectors before you can read about it here and here . So the reason for this particular post is because about 2 am last night I woke up to a screeching alarm, not the chirp of a dying battery but full on “get out of the house now on your hands and knees” alarm. It only lasted about 3 seconds and by the time that I jumped out of bed and started sniffing for smoke it was done. So I started doubting myself Jim heard it too but he did not clearly think it was the smoke detector so I thought maybe I dreamed it and I woke Jim up w...

Guess what I am a seller on Etsy !! I have some of my blankets listed, finally. I have more to make and I am going to work on that soon, I keep getting distracted with other projects, like getting ready for BB!! Please go check it out and if you buy anything make sure you tell me you came from my blog!! My store name is littlemissblankets.etsy.com I have to give a big thanks to Diana at Red Thread Creations for the custom banner! I love it. Here is also a few completely random pictures from our weekend, since they would not load yesterday. Add your own captions ;0)

We got a crib this weekend!!! It was exciting to be more than just window shopping (which I have done a couple of times a few times a lot) We started at Baby Depot, I looked at the one that I wanted and decided I no longer liked it so I found one I liked better. But I wanted to make sure so I went to another store that I knew sold cribs. I didn’t want one that had fixed sides or a drop gate and I could care less if they were convertible into a full size bed, which is apparently the trend right now. The only traditional crib that I liked at that store was more than twice the price of the Baby Depot one and no one could work the drop side (even the sales gal.) For that much money I expected a remote control to work the side. So we went back to the first one and viola, we have a crib. Well, it took a little more than that Emily and I waited in line behind all the back to school shoppers for what seemed like forever but we finally got it. I also came in $2 under budget!! It is still in ...

Just a quick update from the Emily's. We have had a great day swimming and just hanging out. It took us a while to get everything together. I think once BB and Little Miss comes home we will need a little better preparation skills to get out of the house. We only had 2 dogs and it took us until afternoon to finially get out of town. Here are a couple pics for you, more when we get home. Oh and we can't forget KyLee! (love ya girl)

Yea, I am so excited for the weekend! No projects, just fun this weekend. There are still projects that need finishing but they can wait I need some relaxing away from home. We are not going far just to see Emily & Ryan but it will be great to get away. It is also a perfect weekend to spend next to a pool since it should be well over 100 degrees tomorrow. Hope to have lots of pics to post when we get back. We are going to do a little shopping in the big city I will post that too if we get anything cool. Here is the changing table minus the clear coat that I want to add but I really don’t think you would notice on the blog. It looks smaller green and in the room. I am taking votes on the changing table pads, contoured or flat that is the question. Have a great weekend everyone!!

So I promised that I would show you all the weekend projects that I was trying to finish. I got most of them almost done. The changing table needs a few more leaves and Jim has almost got the knobs done. Then I want to paint a clear coat on it to give it a nice finish. Then all I will need is a changing pad! The rag quilt I was working on is almost done I just need to clip the seams and wash it again. I got the bleeding hearts pulled out of the garden for the season, I should have taken a before picture but here is the after picture. We finished our adoption class!! (Sorry no pictures of us sitting at our laptops reading) I did not however get the descriptions for the blankets done and put on Etsy but I will get there. So I think that we did pretty well considering we took out time to go find a geo cache that Jim’s parents did for us. It was pretty cool except the prize was hidden under my office window at work; the last place I want to go on a Sunday but the Starbucks card and the ch...

When I saw Emily and Molly last weekend they introduced me to a watermelon drink they made. It was really good so I decided to make it myself it turned out wonderful. Here is the recipe, I think Emily found it in Cooking Light if all the recipes are this yummy I might be subscribing to a new magazine. 8 cups cubed watermelon (Separated) About 18 watermelon balls for garnish ½ cup fresh lime juice ½ cup sugar ½ tablespoon grated ginger Sparkling water Crushed Ice Blend 4 cups of watermelon, strain out pulp and discard pulp. Repeat with the remaining 4 cups. Combine Lime juice, sugar and Ginger. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Add to Watermelon juice. Pour about ½ watermelon mixture and ½ sparkling water in a glass with ice and garnish with a watermelon ball. Enjoy!!! Tomorrow I will post on all the projects that I have been working on this weekend. Just finishing up some of the things that I have started and have yet to finish. Hopefully staying at home this weekend will help me catch u...

Sorry I had to post a little update. We just watched Burundi's athletes!! There were very few and the announcers did nothing more than mention the country but they were there!!

At 8pm the 2008 Olympics began in BeiJing, a lucky day to be sure. I am sitting here watching the opening ceremony and loving just seeing the culture come to life infront of the world in such a theatrical performance. I have always liked the Olympics esspecially the opening ceremony and this one has special meaning. We orignally thought, although we were wrong, that we would be close to travel by the time that the olympic came around, we are not. But I love the fact that because of the olympics China has been everywhere, a little reminder of our Little Miss. I don't know if I have said it before on here but I love China and I am so happy that our daughter will be from such a rich culture.

Slowly but surely I am making head way on the changing table. Both ends are done and the inside and the shelves. I still have the doors to do and then the knobs. I looked at some really cute hand painted ones but they were like $15 each so Jim said that he could do that. So we will see how good he really is! Then I want to put a clear coat on it to seal everything. But since some people could wait no more for pictures here are a few to keep you happy :0). Let me know what you think of the progress.