No Ordinary Family

I have a few Thank you's due. I got these great books as a thank you from the Bohmann family. They were my secret pals from the April LID Yahoo Group. What a great gift I love childrens books. Little Miss's library is really growing and these 3 were ones that we did not have. I read them all and can't wait to read them to our children. Then I got these bow holders from Kathy's bows , well actually I added the Black and Blue one to go with the pink one that Kim got for me. Don't they look great together? As an added bonus Kathy added a ladybug clip to the package. Thanks Kathy I love them. As if that is not enough goodies I got this shirt that I ordered last week. I love it. I found it here . It is a blog to help us all find adoption fundraisers to help bring our babies home.

We have a TV stand that we were using as a fish tank stand until the tragedy and since then it has just been a night table in our room. Well, last week I got the bright idea that it would make the perfect changing table. I have not found a changing table that I like and I have a hard time spending money on something that only has the purpose of changing diapers. It is the right height and it has a shelf that I can put diapers or wipes or whatever and then I can hide stuff in the doors like even more diapers. The top is also the right size for the changing pads that you can buy. And when it is done being a changing table it can go back to a TV stand or a fish tank stand or just about anything we decide to turn it into. But in order the make it Nursery compatible it needed a face lift. We have decided to go wild! That is Jungle fever wild. I figure it is a good gender neutral theme that will work for BB and LM. Plus there are jungles in Asia and Africa. It is far from done, mainly

Well it has been 15 months and of course we are still waiting for our Little Miss from China. It is hard to believe that another month has just flown by. This month has been a little more difficult than the other months. There were so many ups and downs that it was a true roller coaster ride, and I don’t like roller coasters. To be so close to parenthood was truly a joyous moment but to have it taken away was heart breaking. I understand our decision to adopt internationally even more this month than I ever have before. I do know that domestic adoptions do work out most of the time but to opening yourself up for such devastation is too much for me right now. I am glad that we were already was pursuing other options to help ease the pain. I am also thankful that I have such supportive friends and family, you all know who you are and you are all wonderful and truly a blessing to me. I started to list everyone but that would take all night. At the same time as all that was going on the B

Finally got Gypsy in to get a good bath, brush and a trim. She looks great. I think threatening the groomer to get it right or else, is the trick when going to a pet store for grooming. They even put bows behind her ears! They must know me! This is what she looked like before, the picture does not show how scruffy she really was but she looks pretty sad about being scruffy.

Last night I was looking for a healthy meal out and we decided on Mongolian Grill. It was good with lots of veggies and little noodles and chicken. At the end of the meal came the fortune cookie as it does for most Asian restaurants in the US. The history of the fortune cookie is actually rather fascinating but I will save that for another time. This post is about the fortune. I cracked open the cookie and quickly gobbled it up, I believe that if the fortune is to come true you must eat the whole cookie before peaking at the fortune. Then I read the fortune and this is what it said… I really hope it is true, maybe we will be going somewhere around the end October, beginning of November! I dated the fortune and put it in my purse to put with all the other fortunes that we have been saving since our wait for Little Miss started. If anyone is wondering Jim’s said something about getting an unexpected payment, which would be nice too.

Kim got her package and I am thrilled that she loves it!! I would share the pictures of what I sent but hers turned out better so go check them out here . We have only met in person once but I am so glad that we did. I have truly met the most amazing friend on the internet. I never thought that I would say that but it is so true. Kim was my secret pal in the April 2007 yahoo group gift exchange and we exchanged gifts throughout the year and last month was the reveal month. I kinda figured out that she was my secret pal a few months before that but was afraid to tell her because I did not want to spoil her fun. She would not have cared, but we did not know each other as well as we do now. And boy have we ever gotten to know each other, we chat online nearly every night. Kim has been there to support and just listen when I needed it through stressful times of last month. So, as I was pulling out the goodies I had collected to send to her as a thank you for being so wonderful, I realized

Yesterday, my Grandma’s sister Carol and some of her family were in town from Oklahoma. My Mom, Dad, Emily, Ryan and I headed over the mountain to Uncle Hollis's house, to see the family. Jim somehow talked me into letting him go to an airshow in Seattle. Jim took the camera so I used Emily’s camera most of the day. Unfortunately, we got home too late to share pictures so I will just have to show you some ones from our camera. Sorry not much detail mostly pictures in this post but they tell a bit of a story, alot of reconnecting and story telling, Fun Fun. Grandma Lorrene, Aunt Carol and Uncle Hollis Our family that could make it. The kids sure had fun playing Aunt Carol, Brandy, Jesse and Uncle Jess Aunt Carol and Grandma Dad and Darrel, Probably talking fishing Aunt Dar, Aunt Karen and Mom, talking about something? Brandy enjoying the circle Uncle Dennis and my chin.

We have Max for a few days. He is Jim's parents dog, they are on a vacation for a few days. He has been a good dog and it very cute. But you can tell that he is just a visitor as he is camera shy. If he was our dog he would realize that the camera is just and extension of our arms. I also have my package to Kim ready to go!! I can't wait until she gets it!!! I am sure she will like everything but I am very excited for her to see a couple of goodies I found to see what she thinks! Have a good weekend everyone!

I am feeling much better today so this evening I decided to finish my second dress. I know what you are thinking, that is her first dress, she is delusional, the reaction to the vaccine was more than she could handle and she has lost it. I understand your worry they are eerily similar. But as proof here are the 2 dresses together. Here is the explanation: Kim led me to believe that I could sew clothing, as it turns out I can with a little help from Mom. However, Mom did not go with me to buy the pattern or the fabric. Apparently, reading a pattern is more difficult than it sounds and I purchased 3 yards of fabric when I only needed one, oops. Good thing it was cute fabric. So hence I have enough to make 3 dresses. Since Kim had talked me into the clothing venture I thought it would be nice for Little Miss and Isabella to have matching dresses. How cute will they be in these!! Not sure what I am going to do with the rest of the fabric but I am sure I will find something.

I hate shots!! I might have mentioned this in my previous post but I am apparently in the 10% of people that have a reaction either that or I am getting the flu. Either way I feel yucky, head ache, nausea and just plain tired. Good thing we really did not have any plans this weekend. I have just been doing a little sewing as I feel up to it. We did go grocery shopping yesterday as we were completely out of meat and that is just a food group that we don't like to be out of. Yes, we are carnivores! On a cuter note! I forgot to blog about the super cute panda we got for Little Miss while in Seattle. I know we should have got something for our Burundi Baby but I am trying hard to only buy things for them that I really love (otherwise we will be broke and we will have to move to accommodate all the stuff). I just did not find anything that we could not live with out except for the panda. It is a Truffle Panda by Jellycat , I wish they had an African animal to sit next to our panda.

I had a Doctor appointment today. I needed to get the medical form filled out for the home study update to switch countries. We still need to do the financial forms and send in taxes and paystubs and all that jazz. Jim needs to find a doctor and get his medical form too. But we are getting there. Then we have to send it all to USCIS (immigration) so that we can be fingerprinted and get there OK to change countries. We will eventually have to file again for China but we will wait until we are closer to referral for that. We still are not sure of all the paperwork we will need for Burundi so we will have to wait to work on that for until we hear from our agency. So while at the doctors I asked about Hep A vaccine. I have known I needed it for a while but I have been procrastinating. I don’t particularly like shots but as travel may be sooner than we thought before I figured I better go for it. So I got a shot, I need another one in six months but the doctor said I should be fine if we t

I have been a bad blogger lately. I have not blogged much because there have been a lot of stuff happening that I was not ready to make completely public. Last week was particularly tough, we thought that we might have the opportunity to be the parents of a wonderful little baby boy through a domestic adoption. However, because of lots of complicated things I don’t want to get into here we don’t think that it is going to work out. There is still a possibility but it is looking slim at this point. That opportunity came upon us very suddenly but we have also been working with our agency as they develop a Burundi adoption program for a few months. Tuesday evening we went to a reception in Seattle as an official opening of this program. We were able to meet the Bishop from Burundi that is the liaison to the program. He was an amazing man, we really liked him. We have been waiting until the program was actually open to make any official announcement on the blogs but I don’t think that we ca

Ok, really it is a dress for Little Miss (I have had a dress before, really)but it is the first article of clothing that I have completed, made all by myself. Start to finish and done!! Complete with embellishment. I have never made button holes before never stitched a blind hem and I only needed Mom to rescue me twice. Pattern reading was the most difficult of tasks. I accidentally bought way too much fabric (like enough to make four dresses) but I guess I will make an extra or two for friends. And then I did not know how to clip the seams so things would lay flat. I was surprised at how fast it went together. I am really happy with the result although there are a few things I will do differently next time. I am really proud of how it turned out. I will actually be happy to put Little Miss in the dress and say that I made it! Next, I will conquer ZIPPERS!! Ok, Calm down Cora, you were stepping out on a limb with buttons, LOL. Let me know what you think.

I have been tagged by Kim at Journey to Isabella to write my Six Word Memoir. I had to do a little research on Memoirs. I learned that unlike an autobiography, although the words are commonly used interchangeably, a memoir is not a chronological telling of one’s life and can be more representative of a specific time. Also a memoir is less of a history and more of a feeling that came from a point in one’s life. I don’t know if this is completely accurate, I learned most of it from Wikipedia , but it is what gave me direction in writing the Six Word Memoir. So, with that, I decided to take that information and write something that applies to the current feeling of my life. Now, I know how it is read and I know the exact feeling behind it but the reader will not and that is one of the joys in reading, you can get your own feeling from it and make it mean things the author never even imagined. So here it is my Six Word Memoir, I left out the punctuation on purpose, I don’t want to

Independace Day has started out a bit rainy and I love it! It has been so hot and humid lately that it is a nice change. We plan on having a relaxing and hopefully stress free weekend! Here is a little scrapbook page I have done for today, now I just have to get some pictures today to add to it, that's my goal. I will post the finshed page when I add pictures sometime this weekend. Hope everyone has a great day!

Well I have a lot to blog about lately but I just can’t do it. Perhaps someday I will put into writing what we have been going through this week. It has been worse on me than Jim, I hate roller coasters. So anyway I thought I would blog about the thing that threw me over the emotional edge, today. Now please keep in mind I was extremely close to the edge already so it did not take much of a push. The IT guy in our corporate office blocked all streaming media. Now that does not seem so bad but I listen to Sirius Radio at work in my office on the computer. I am the only one that does this in my plant. I cannot get radio reception in my office. I use the music so that while I am working I can forget about some of the things that are pushing me towards that edge I was telling you about earlier. I was not doing this in secret or against any existing rules but I had asked my boss and she said it was fine. What really bothers me is that this guy could not just have asked me to stop, he had to