Wednesday

Today was try it out at home day with G and I. S is our mover and shaker. She has great things to do ideas when we are home. I've been honing in on her skills lately as it recently dawned on me that her care free preschool days are numbered. She will soon need to join the land of school age children. This will leave G and myself home alone together for the first time in her life! *GASP* What will we actually "do"????

This summer I easily filled our calendar with activities to do together while S spent her few hours a week in preschool. Easey Peasey. Unfortunately, the Wednesday morning plan has fallen apart. It was a church bible study thing. It has issues. Issues I don't want to blog about because its one "rock" I am trying my very dangest (is that a word?) to leave on the shelf. My church makes me upset. There is little I can do about it. I keep chanting to myself, its the current government of it, it has nothing to do with your faith. Ignore it the best you can. So I won't blog about it. Because I'll get upset. Anyway. It looks like Wednesdays are going to be practice at home days without S.

We weren't overly "hot" at it. I lasted 1 1/2 hour before caving and turning on the TV....but only for one more hour. Before that we did playdough and markers. G is simply not used to entertaining herself because, well, as the youngest? She's never had too. We will need more practice.

Meanwhile I did get some paper piles attacked. The bathroom floor was put in (LOVE IT) and paid some bills (DO NOT LOVE IT) and now I'm waiting to go pick up nephew from school as he has early release and then hopefully get the little girls down for naps before the other two big kids come home. Church tonight.

Day 3

I almost forgot! Not exactly a stellar start here.

Ummm....lets see......

I'm going to blame the weather on my lack of creativity here. It went back to grey and rain today. Its all rather depressing. Summer was cool and yuck. Fall has been rainey and grey. These things do not help the ol' mood or the creative anything.

So, here is a list of random things floating about my brain tonight:

* I'm on a tea kick. I had fallen off the bandwagon of one can of pop a day lately (yes, 3 or 5 were not uncommon) and it was not agreeing with the body well at all. Hence the addition of tea. Chai tea to be specific. With different flavored creams. Its working.

* Today is my half birthday

* My hubby rescued me today by bringing home McD's for dinner before going off to another meeting. He's a keeper that one!

* I really liked the irreverance in the last book I read in the Spellman series. Thanks Becky for the recomendation.

* I'm looking forward to the MOPS book club book. It has recipes in it. YUM!

* I'm actually looking forward to Thanksgiving this year. Holidays anymore tend to mean a lot of work for Mom. A lot of emotions, expectations. They leave me just spent. I'm trying to figure out how to make this better. This year I'm heading to my Aunts. I think it will be good.

* My son is amazingly handy. He vacummed out the toilet tonight after flushing it and all that so that it ready to be ripped off in prep for the floor being installed tommorow. And right now he helped his uncle find our trickle battery charger. Cause like I'd have a clue where that was.

* My daugher actually will listen and follow advice I give her. This is shocking as my other kids take every bit of advice I offer them with large bits of skepticism. I need to be more aware of this.

* My next daughter needs to have her ears checked.....note to self...call doctor!

* My 2 year old is crazy. Yesterday she cried because "Roar" was mad at her. Roar is her stuffed lion, he is nearly as big as she is and sleeps with her faithfully. This is just an example. I love her craziness.

* I tend to think sentimentally of my children when they are asleep.

* My husband is a half an hour late right now, he should be home in another half an hour.

* I'm excited to be going to Hearts at Home this weekend, even if it makes me a Hearts at Home Junky

* I need to call my friend Robin in the AM.

* I'm not loving my new blackberry. I got it by default, buy one get one free for the business, and they had one more free one. I mostly just want to be able to answer the phone. Which twice today I was not able to do resulting in my need to call my friend Robin in the AM. I would also like to figure out how to get rid of the 400 plus emails it has on there....I do not have that many in my actual email box. Its like saved every email I've had in the last month.

* Wrong! Hubby home, randomness done for now.

Ugh. To complain about Monday, so well....but I"m gonna, even though its not Mondays fault

I was pretty good this weekend....in regard to all the candy that now lives at my house. I didn't go crazy on sweets. I promise. So, how come I feel totally ew. Kind of like I did when I was a kid and went to my Grandma's were I ate bun after bun layered with jelly...and then had dessert. Throw in a time change and I'm completely messed up. The kids are just cranky. Hubby said he just felt blah, so he put on a tie and hoped dressing up a bit with jazz him up. I changed from the jammies I really wanted to stay in. I'm calling that good.

BOGO sale at payless this year if your kids have already grown out of or otherwise damaged shoes, zip on over. My oldest daughters walks mostly on her toes, her heel does lightly touch the ground, so there isn't any issues with her tendons or what not, its just how she walks and let me tell you, the muscles she has developed because of it? Walk on your toes, and think about what muscles are being flexed. Yup, we should all just walk on our toes. Accept for this ittsy bitsy problem. Shoes are not typically designed for this and yes, she wears out the toes. She has a hole on the bottom of her shoe. 2 months of regular use, like 4 times a week wear, and they are shot. Thank you BOGO, we're good to go again.

OK...break time about done, time to go do the preschool pick up.

NoBloMo...whatever

I for the life of me can NOT remember the funky spelling of the group that encourages every day blogging during the month of November. The reasons behind it are good. I like a challenge. I'd like to give it a whirl. Just don't ask me to spell the name of the group who suggested it. Well, I'm assuming its a group. I don't know really. Anyway. Wish I could promise these posts would get better from here. Who knows, they might, they might not. Stay tuned.

So there you have, post, day 1.

Go VIKES!!

Time to get my football food going and enjoy the game. CYA TOMMOROW!!

Camera

Update on all those questions at the end of my last post.

Our camera is most likely gone. I can't help but feel it was stolen by one of their employees. The hotel has done everything in their power to allow the person responsible for it to get away scott free really. It has been a constant run around.

The manager who called to tell us it had been found and mailed to us? Totally wrong. Our name was NOT on said package. 4 days after the fact the person in charge of lost and found was finally notified and contacted us.

I'm so very sad about it. I know we left it behind, I take responsibility for that. What I don't get is someone taking something that isn't theirs and keeping it. Its unfathomable to me. Sigh.

Those memories too. Gone. Thats the worst part. My sons entire football season of pics. Gone. His 11 birthday and my DD's 5th. Gone.

Stuff

So many things. September is always busy with all the back to school everything and fall sports. The sports stop and we slide into birthday week and fall break from school. It just gets nutty...and ideally I'd like to record some of those thoughts here to remember at a later date. But actually getting here to do that? Never quite becomes reality. The fact that the 2 year old here spilt about 4 drips of diet coke on my keyboard resulting in the letters "asdfjkl;" not working. The asdf I get...thats where the drips were. But the jkl;? never got close to it!! Fortunately I have one month left on my warranty and got a new keyboard mailed here and I was able to install with ease...because well, I've done this before. Anyway. Recording thoughts while in the theores? Just didn't happen. So goes life around here.

Birthday week has come and gone....and was a sucess. J turned 11 on Tuesday last, I have mixed feelings on that one. Wow! 11 years, how did that happen...and oh my gosh we have a lot of adolescent years ahead of us. Hold on peeps! He did pay me a very nice compliment. DH was not going to be able to make it home for dinner. His excuse was extremely valid...the sort of excuse that is business changing like. Otherwise I would have thrown a stink. Birthdays rank in importance for me. Anyway. The compliment. I told J I would take him and his sisters out for dinner where ever he'd like to go. He said, "thats ok Mom, I like your cooking better" Did you hear my heart flip flop? But at the same time, darn, now I have to cook. The menu choosen by the birthday boy? Breakfast pizza, orange julius and peanut butter pie. Unique as the boy requesting. Mission accomplished Birthday was sufficiently happy. :)

Onto birthday number 2. Hubby's. As it turned out, we were out of town for the weekend. The kids and I were on a trip, Hubby was on a vacation. (We were in the same place) There is a BIG difference here. I do think he had a good enough time and liked his presents well enough. He certainly enjoyed the hugmongo strawberry margarita that went with his humongo plate of fajitas. He had no room for his strawberry shortcake.

Then birthday number 3. S, she turned 5!!!!!!!!! AHHH!!!!!!! She is just so "old" these days. So capable, so independent. So sure of herself so much of the time. She is is trying just so hard to be so big so fast. It happens when you have older siblings I guess. She had a fantastic day. She woke up in a hotel, had a doughnut for breakfast, went to a movie, went swiming, had pizza for dinner and chocolate Little Mermaid cake with a giant Little Mermaid balloon (I swear the thing is as big as her little sister). She got to sleep in the hotel again surrounded by her now unwrapped gifts. Life is great in the land of the 5 year old.

Wouldn't pictures to accompany this missive be just swell? It sure would. If I had them. We left the camera at the hotel. I've been just sick about it The hotel staff has been nightmarish to work with on this. We got word today that apparenly the head housekeeper had it, and mailed it. We are now trying to find out if she mailed it to US!

Well, to borrow my 2 year old words: "Mom, this is just super. Super Awesome" (said in a totall deadpanned manner)

Decisions

Thank you for prayers!!

I am a Catholic Adoptive Mother. I am 100% pro life. Had it been mine and my husbands decision, we would have welcomed any pregnancy...and as many as God sent to us. God had a different plan for us however. We would become a family through adoption. I have been so incredibly blessed by it...and there just aren't enough thank you's in the world to express what is in my heart.

Lately I have been frustrated that adoption means that I have to choose the sizee of my family. Does that make sense? We have 4 beautiful children we are busy raising. Most, to look at us, assume we are "done". And maybe we are. But how do you know?? If nature got to decide then maybe we wouldnt' be.

I have done some praying, but not enough. I get hung up on the unfairness of it, which is really odd for me. So much of the process hasn't been a struggle for me. Accepting our infertility wasn't this hard. The process wasn't overly hard to accept. So much of it I've been able to deal with reasonably well...or at least understandably.

But now? Not so well. I'm pushing 40 here. Its natural for people to think we are done. But I don't want to make this decision! Nor do I want to go through a process where I have to ask 4 people to again say, yup, they are ready to parent again. I don't want to ask a SW to agree with them, and have her ask her board. Sigh. I'm wishing for the first time in years and years that we could just be like other people. That we could have a whoops maybe if thats what God wants for us. And I do know that if God wanted to bless us with a whoops if it were his will. Some of this probably stems from the ability that we have had to say "when" thus far. Well, as much as any adoptive parents gets to say "when" lol, totally acknowledging that it was God who guided things.

I got to remember that God is still guiding. That we need to keep listening to him. I need to get over my stumbling blocks so I can hear.