No Ordinary Family

The back story on the spoon can be found here , for all my newer readers. And for Jim, it was at least centered the last time you put it up there, and yes the door is not centered but I am not moving that are you? The stupid builder was what can I say... Challenged. I am going to use this post to praise my husband for being Mr. Fix-it today. He successfully changed the element in our hot water heater!!!!! WOO HOO!! I can take a bath tonight! I am just glad that we did not have to buy a new one right now. It saves us a couple hundred dollars and even if it is only for a few more months it is worth it. It seems like everything hits you at once. We need a new washer and dryer, the stove could seriously stand to be up-graded, Jim's truck needs some repairs and we still need a couple big baby items. Oh yeah and there is that little thing called an adoption we are pursuing. I don't mean to complain I know we have a lot more than others and for that I am truly thankful but ...

I just need to say that the hot water has something against me. It really does! First I take a shower with luke warm water and I go out to tell my husband that he is indeed going to need to fix it. We have feared this for about a week as the water temperature was going between scalding hot and barely warm in a very unpredictable fashion. As I get ready for work in the bathroom Jim comes in and tells me how good his day is. What? I have been my normal grumpy morning person that I am so why he should be expressing such joy is beyond me. I walk out of the bathroom and he has that stupid smug smile on his face and is practically jumping up and down. THEN I SEE IT! The dreaded SPOON! It has been hiding in our closet for over a year now. I hung it up on the inside wall and I rarely think about it and that is why the evil hot water heater was able to easily betray my hiding spot. Jim promised to place it out of reach but in clear view. UGGGGG!!! I will now have to find another hiding spot, be...

As some of you know Jim is very creative. Almost all the art on our walls was painted by him and I almost love it all. There are a few that have been taken down and painted over a few times and I think they will be done again, someday he will create something for those walls that we just can't bear to see painted over. My favorite by far is the pear that is in my dinning room. I absolutely love it. Then there are the green squares which were my idea but Jim brought them to life and they are great too. He also did a mural in my Mom's Daycare playroom that is amazing, I love it and so do the kids. That brings me to the paintings he is making and selling to help us with the adoption. They are really cool too. He has sold a couple and has a request for a few custom paintings that he has yet to make. But the first one shipped out today, it is the spaceship one, and I am kinda sad. See, Jim hangs them all up in the living room to be sure they look good and if he does not like them th...

It has been 2 years (24 months) since we were logged in to China on our wait to Little Miss. In some respects I can totally feel it and in others time has just flown by. I really wish I knew what these 2 years mean in the total wait time but I don't. I wish that I could tell people one more year or whatever it is going to be but I don't know. I am Ok with the wait although I am not happy with it. I can't wait until our referral day and the day we are finally able to meet our daughter. I always knew that Jim and I would have more than one child but I never thought that we would be working on bring home 2 babies at once and some how they would seem to be out of order. But that is OK with me. I knew that if we were going to make this dream of having more children come true that we could not just wait for China, we needed to do something more. So as this marks the 2 years that we have been LID it also marks 1 year since we made the decision to adopt from Africa. At that point w...

Diana at Diana Rambles is hosting an awesome give away of Coco BonBons clothing. I am hoping to win some clothes for my little guy since we are kinda short in the boy section of the closet :0). So go check them out and sign up for the giveaway because the next best thing to me winning is to have one of my bloggy friends win.

I had a great evening on my Birthday. I really like low key celebrations and that is exactly what we did just Jim and myself. Jim made a wonderful dinner and we had angel food cake and strawberries for dessert. We watched Stargate and talked a lot. I got the best call from my wonderful Niece and Nephew. They are growing up so fast, it was not that long ago that I could not understand a word they said on the phone but last night I actually had a conversation with both of them. Although it is a hard concept for a 5 year to get that I did not have a party on my Birthday and why she was not having cake, LOL. We will have to find some time to get together before the kids go off to college :0). In the midst of trying to post and getting a bunch of phone calls wishing me Happy Birthday, closing my pampered chef party and just trying to relax, I forgot to wish my good friends Kim and John a Happy Anniversary! They got married 3 years ago yesterday! So Happy Late Anniversary I hope yo...

So from the title you may have guessed that today is my Birthday. I got up this morning and guess what I smelled, yep, I smelled BACON. Yum, we don't usually eat breakfast on the week days, I normally have coffee and a granola bar later at work but I was not turning this down. Jim made me bacon and hash browns and not the store bought type he cut up the potatoes and the veggies and cooked them all up. What a awesome hubby I have!! So then I go to leave for work with out my lunch because it is tradition in our office to have lunch for the birthday person on their birthday. I drove about 1/2 our block and something was just not right. I got out and sure enough flat tire. Well it was almost flat so I drove to the local gas station, full service, gotta love that about a small town, and got it aired up. I then called work told them I would be late and took it to the tire shop to be fixed. It was not really so bad, they fixed the tire for free and off I went to work. Work went ok I hate ...

I had a wonderful weekend. I got to spend time with my family (minus Molly, we missed you!!) and I got to see some friends. My party on Sunday went off great! It was so nice seeing everyone that could make it and more people came than I expected!! Woo Hoo! If anyone wants to order, my party is open until tomorrow evening so you can go to Pampered Chef online and enter my name as the hostess when you order. If you need my last name email me at the link in the sidebar. If you are local, give me a call and I can put your order in so it comes to me and I will deliver it. They have some great products I am really looking forward to getting the collapsible bowls and losing the big ones that take up too much space in my tiny kitchen. Yesterday, the pollen count was as record high and I sure felt it. Those of you with allergies and asthma know exactly what I am talking about when I say I should be watching the pollen counts . I had a huge head ache all day. I ended up coming home at noon and ...

Well I got a few early birthday gifts this year. This year seems to be a the year for Jim and I not being able to wait to give the other their gifts. This one was unexpected but a pleasant surprise! I love these little monsters! They can be found at CurlyQ Cuties Website . Jim got me the blue one for Christmas and I think they will be good friends! And BB and LM will have a whole team of good monsters to keep the bad ones away. They have new super cute fairy tooth monsters, now too, check them out. Then I have been asking for the Stargate SG1 series on DVD. I expected to get season 1 and then we could build from there. I was super surprised when Jim got me 4 seasons! Costco had a coupon buy one get one free! so he got 4 for the price of 2. so we are having fun watching this series. We are both sci-fi fans! So even though my birthday is not until next week I am enjoying some of the benefits now.

So a while back my sister, Emily had a pampered chef party and I decided it would be fun to have one of my own. Keep in mind this was way before BB was an actual little person. So I was supposed to have my invitations out on April first because of the excitement and the busyness of gathering paperwork and getting it sent I was way late with the invites. I don’t know if that has anything to do with it but not many people are able to come. Yep, I am almost considering canceling it. It is really pathetic I think I have 4 people that have said yes. I do have a few maybes so maybe it will turn out ok. I guess I am just not the party having type. Oh well at least I will be able to get a few items that I have been wanting. But in the mean time Jim didn’t have a job yesterday so he did an awesome job cleaning the house. I have more to do like pick up my sewing stuff but the house looks pretty good. If I get a chance I want to get out and weed the front gardens they need it bad and maybe plant ...

I have not posted in a few days, I guess because not much has happened. We had a low key Easter and it was wonderful. Jim and I went to my Mom and Dads for Turkey Dinner and angel food cake with strawberries!!! Yummy. It was just the 4 of us we chatted and watched some TV. No news on BB. I sent our agency an email today so I hope to hear something soon but I don't expect it will be much because if something did happen they would call. I did dream of him last night. In my dream he was walking and talking and very cuddly it was good until the end when his Mom turned out to be the mother of the other little boy that we were going to adopt last July and she said no we could not adopt BB either. So I beat her up but she escaped on a helicopter, in my dream of course. So apparently I still have some issues with that subconsciously. I have a problem with my email program. It no longer spell checks. It says that the language is not recognized I thought I was emailing in English but apparen...

I have been working hard making dresses like crazy. I posted them on the Blankets and Stuff site. I have really been enjoying sewing and I love that I am actually selling a few. I hope that I am able to make enough from all my stitching to help with our adoption trip. If you know anyone that has a little girl that needs a pretty dress please refer them to my site! It is going to a good cause.

This is for Anything April. I thought I would share with you why we are not worried at all about our dogs and kids. I love that our animals are good with kids! Well, Sully the cat just hides but I think he will get used to our little guy after he is home for a while.

Well, a burst of engery came after a long winter slumber on the mountian of paperwork, I believe that we have reached the summit! And boy is it a beautiful view! This afternoon I got our last document off to AAO. They are going to be getting all of the authentications done for us this time around. Once those are finished, off to Burundi with the dossier! I can not believe that we might actually be this close. It is truely amazing to me that I might actually get to join the mommy club. I have been looking in the window for some time now and truely think that the door is opening slightly. I am feeling better today I still don't have my voice back completely and I am coughing a bit but I finally have some energy!

I still have this retched cough and cold, so I decided to stay home today. I hate using my sick days but I need the extra rest. I don't know why but when I get a cough really bad it tends to hit me at night the hardest no matter what I take. So I have done nothing today except watch TV. I did move into the kitchen to make a cup of noodles. I just hope this day of rest helps because even though I have a doctors appointment tomorrow I really just want to get a vaccine and our doctor letters notarized and get out of there so I can make it to Fed Ex in time to get them to our agency by Wednesday. Thanks for all the great advice on the blog. I think I know what I am going to do but you will have to stay tuned to see. If any of you have magic remedies for a bad cold and cough or know any magic faeries that could clean my house since it is a crazy mess, please please please email me NOW. Hope everyone else is having a good day.

So I have been thinking about this for a while and I did not think it would ever happen but I have been considering a new blog. Our journey has so changed and grown since I started blogging. It is not all about Little Miss, our girl that we plan to adopt from China. For some time now it has been about us and dealing with the trials and tribulations of international adoption and our lives in general. It is now going to become about our lives with our baby boy from Burundi. So here is the deal-lee-doo what do I do. I don’t think maintaining 2 blogs about our lives is realistic. So do I start a completely new blog with a new URL or just keep the littlemisswhatshername.blogspot.com and change the title of the blog? I would love to start over and make a fresh start but does that mean that I would lose my followers because they all have this site bookmarked? So let me know what you think or what you would do in my situation? As for the title I think I am going to use the title “No Ordinary F...

Just incase anyone was worried yesterday's post was the real deal. I am sending everything off to our agency today. I talked to them last night and we could travel as early as the begining of June!! That is the earliest, I expect delays because this jouney has been full of delays so probably July or August. Have a good Thursday everyone!

WE HAVE A REFERRAL!!! Yesterday we learned that we were chosen to be the parents of a little boy from Burundi. Yep we know who BB is! We are so excited and a bit terrified! We know very little about him but we decided to take the leap of faith that he is meant to be with us. He is about a year old and appears to be healthy. There is so much yet to do and yet I think this could go pretty fast but then who knows we are still dealing with a foreign country and anything could happen. We have drafted our letter formally requesting to adopt him and we are gathering up all our documents to be sent to our agency ASAP. Now I wish we would have got our doctor letter fixed alot sooner. But that should be the only thing I need to collect and as long as I can find a notary to go to my doctor's appointment with me then I will have that done next Tuesday. Now of course things could still go wrong but we are really hopeful about this one!