No Ordinary Family

Bah Humbug...... I am so not in the Halloween spirit this year. We did get some candy to hand out to all the cute munchkins but I am just not into it. Last year we even dressed up the dogs but I figured that was enough humiliation to last a few years so no costumes this year. No decorations on the porch unless you count the dead flowers. It kinda snuck up on me, oh well. Maybe I can convince Jim to make be a Halloween green slime Martini (AKA appletini) when I get home or maybe not. I think we might watch a movie or play Wii. What ever we do it is Friday YEA!!! Hope you have a fun and Halloween and don't eat too much candy.

Well, I was going to do my 18th month scrapbook page with this picture but inspiration is eluding me at this time. I am going to get it done eventually, because I would like to put them all in a book one day, hopefully, before it is time for 19. Jim and I had a wonderful time in Leavenworth, although somehow we missed the cheese monger shop. Well, I guess that gives us a reason to go back. We did find the fudge hut and I was more than pleased to walk away with 6 different flavors of fudge, although I would have been happy with just 3 Maple Nut, peanut butter/chocolate and Chocolate Fudge. It puts me in the holiday mood. I love making candy and baking for the holidays, I just wish I had more time. It has really sucks trying to save all my vacation and sick time for an adoption trip that seems like it may never happen. I have even considered trying to get pregnant again, even though I know that will lead to severe emotional breakdowns ( I don’t handle the hormones that they give you very...

Happy Birthday Dad!! This is one of my favorite pictures of my dad because it is so him. He loves to fish and this was one cold trip. I love you Dad, hope you have a great day!!

I know this was posted late but I wanted to make sure it got on the blog. I hope to have month 19 done on time.

Good news first!!! I WON, I WON!! yippee how cool is that!! Check out this post ! Yep that is me on Ni Hao Y'all , the famous Ni Hao, Y'all blog !!! Well, I don't know if it is really famous but she has alot more followers than me. I chipped in enough for 2 numbers in the give-away, never thought I would win anything, but, I thought, hey every little bit helps and I would hope someone would do the same for me. I was the 6th number drawn by little Shepherd (now my favorite of all Stephanie's super great kids). I won the bracelets from MySilverPie !!! WOO HOOO!!! I am a little disappointed that I did not win the camera, but since it went to the very funny Lisa (congratulations Lisa!) I guess I will live with it :0). So, now I will have to choose what saying to put on the bracelets....any suggestions would be appreciated, since putting "What's Her Name" on them is not an option, LOL. And, yes, still no name and I don't think there will be one anytime s...

I was tagged by Diana over at Diana's Daily Ramblings . So I have to come up with 7 random and or weird facts about me. Although Jim could probably come up with about 100 random/weird facts about me I was having trouble, simple because I think everything I do is perfectly normal and non-random. So here is my best shot. I hate hot food on cold plates. I will run my plates under hot water or set them on the stove for a few minutes before dinner. I have to sleep in a top with sleeves. I can't stand to have my shoulders bare. If I could go back 15 years to when I started college I would have studied harder and gone to medical school. I would love to study or work in the epidemiology field. I wear a green coat in the winter (this one is just totally random) The only normal food that I don’t eat is eggs. It makes going out to breakfast challenging. I started saving the fortunes from our fortune cookies when we were logged in to China and I have most of them in a red envelope in...

The Great Pumpkin has visited my Mom's house and left some pumpkins to enjoy. The actually name of the Great pumpkin is Dale, although, Jim I don't recommend while at work you calling Dale, Pumpkin, I don't think he will take too kindly to it. They etched the name in the pumpkin when it was small and as it grew it scarred and turned out really cool. It is the biggest pumpkin that I have ever seen outside of the fair. So without further ado, the pictures. The last one is from the out takes.

Since Halloween is coming and I got inspired by the interview post to let my readers know more about me I thought I would share more. If you really know me then you know that I am terrified of spiders. They are after me, I know it! Irrational maybe, but all spiders are poisonous to some extent and I just can’t risk the ones that won’t bite me, because I know there are secret meetings they have about me and ways to get me. Also, I don’t discriminate I treat all spiders the same in the house (I don’t have as much of a problem with them outside) they need to be eliminated from the house. I also have a hard time killing spiders because what if I miss and they come after me, because I know they will. I would rather that they be captured and taken out doors to tell their buddies not to bite me but if they must be killed so be it. I have a ton of super scary spider stories, like the time I had a wolf spider on my hand in the shower or the time I sat on the couch for hours with a can of Raid ...

I am participating in a blog interview that Wendy set up. What a great way to get to know your fellow bloggers. Here is my question from Wendy. I love your list of blogs! Have you picked up on any good parenting advice from some of the other blogs that you read? Definitely, I pick up advice where ever I go not just blogs. But being able to follow families through waiting to referral to travel to home with kids has been wonderful. Jim keeps up with a few of the blogs that I do and he said to me one night “You know following blogs like this is better than any of the adoption education that we have had.” And it is so true. I have learned so much from all of you and I hope that someday someone learns something from me. The best piece of advice that I have gleaned is that your child will be their own person regardless of what you imagine them to be. I think it may be hard to let go of expectations but if you go into this process knowing that you need to be flexible then you will actually b...

I wrote this really long rambling post about toys and parenting. It was chocked full of advice and opinions but I have decided not to bore you with the whole thing. The decision not to post came from the fact that it was entirely too long and I am not a parent yet so what right do I have to give my opinions and advice. But I like the topic so I will give you the abbreviated version in a few bullets and besides a little unasked for advice won't kill you: Elmo Live, Seriously! $60 for a toddler's toy that is, quite frankly, creepy; I don't think so. Chicco’s Child First Radio Control Car – Very cool toy, Nephew seems to like it (sorry should have given it with a ton of batteries) and they also have a girls version . (I know I only paid $14.99 for this a year ago so either inflation has gotten it or it was on sale when I found it.) Here is the parenting part. Don’t give your kids something in a store you know you are going to take away at the register. The kid notices and when...

We made it to the first peak last week. All of our documents have been collected and are currently being reviewed by our agency. Once they give us the all clear, we will be heading out on the next leg of our hike, where we will start the authentications process. We did receive news last week about the progress in Burundi. Referrals are still several weeks away which is a bit disheartening but progress is being made in Burundi so it is good news over all. I wish that for just once in the adoption process something would come before it was expected. Everything is always delayed. I would like to hear someday (soon) something like “hey you better be ready you are getting a baby next week.” I hear stories like that but it will never happen to me. Don’t worry I am not depressed or upset about it, I just find it interesting. Planning takes on a whole new meaning when you wait for 8 years to be a parent. It will be so surreal when it actually happens I don’t know how I will respond,...

HTML Editor I am not, but I try, he he he. You may notice that I have a new background. Diana's new signature inspired me. So I googled adding new blogger backgounds, you can learn any thing from a google search, you may not want to learn everything that the search results reveal but hey it is a good start. Anyway, I think I might do a little more tweaking but it is better than what I had. Cool huh? I will still call on Diana when I am ready for that complete blogover but for now I am loving learning what little I can, besides it keeps me busy during these long waits in the mountain climber camp.

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone that commented to wish us a Happy Anniversary, I think I had more comments on that post than any before. It is so great to feel the love. Diana made me this great signature, she does great work, Thanks Diana. Jim and I went out to Dinner at PF Changs on Thursday, it was good. It is nice to go out to a place we don't visit often, although we did order the regulars orange peel beef, spicy chicken, and Sichuan aspargas. After dinner we went to B&N to browse, it was a good evening. Friday night my sister, Molly, called and was in town so she accompanied me to the chiropractor and then we went to Best Buy to get my anniversary gift from jim. I have been wanting an ipod but after some research we decided to get me a Zune which is microsoft's version. I have been playing with that in all my spare moments. Thanks Jim you are the best. Molly and I got Pizza and we hung out the rest of the evening. It was so much fun, I have not seen...

Jim and I were married. It is hard to imagine it has been that long. Five years almost to the day after our first date we were married. I had a hard time writing this post and I am not sure why. 9 years ago I would have imagined our lives very differently than they have turned out. So I think I will leave you with this quote from my favorite husband's favorite authors. "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." Douglas Adams (and just for Jim "Remember, Kiss")

I hate that weekends seem so short. I can’t believe it is already Sunday night and we have to go back to work tomorrow. Here is the run down: Friday, I got off a little early so we could pick up our police letters and get our financial statements notarized, the letter were not ready but we will bug then every day until we get them this week. In this adoption thing persistence is best in my opinion, as Jim quotes “never give up never surrender” from Galaxy Quest. We then went out for dinner, Mongolian BBQ, and we were going to go to a movie but changed our minds when we got sucked into a 25% off Sale for teachers at Borders bookstore. We got a couple things, just for fun. Then we came home and had an evening of reading and no TV and no computers, it was great. Saturday, we headed down to Jim’s sisters house for a kinda pre-birthday party. It was just Jim’s parents, Carrie, Scott, the Kids, and one of their friends. It was fun we went on a small treasure hunt so that Carrie and Scott cou...

Guess who was back on my desk today? Yep that's right the ladybug returned. I thought for sure the poor bug was doomed to die in my office. But I looked down after my lunch and there he was sitting on my desk right in front of me. He was looking kinda dead again (his wings were out) so I scooped him up and he started to move a little. He's ALIVE!! I quickly took the little bug out side and released him on a bush. I hope he survives! But it has to be a sign that something is coming, right? Hey, a girl has to dream or she might actually go insane (not just the pseudo crazy that I am now).

Today marks two years since we sent our application to AAO (our agency). Although we started researching and committed to adopt from China in August 2006 it wasn't until October that we signed a contract and really got started. So exactly one week before our 7th wedding aniversary we started the journey to Little Miss. We would have been LID alot sooner if I had been 30 but we had to wait until April to send everything to China. And 2 years later we are slowing making our way up a smaller mountian to BB. We have definately left base camp and our hiking our way up a steep slope. Hopefully there is a notary on the other side of that rise that we are approching.

Today was just one of those days. It was one of those where you just wish you could crawl back into bed and stay all day because you just know tomorrow will be better. Nothing in particular happened I just was feeling down about many things that I don’t want to bore you with, I wrote an entire essay for later reflection and maybe someday I will publish it. It was probably because I am fighting a head cold and my brain is foggy. One of my favorite poems as a child, I loved poetry as a kid, was called “Tear Water Tea” and man I could have made some of that today, I could have supplied the whole office with tea for a week. So I stayed in my office with the door pushed shut most of the day. This afternoon I went to the daily meeting and I forgot to shut my door when I came back. A guy that I work with brought me a ladybug. It was half dead but it was a ladybug. Now although I make no secret at work that we are adopting, I don’t think that anyone knows about ladybugs and adoption and I know...