Grab a cup of coffee ...

I was having trouble uploading photos from my camera this week and everything I wanted to blog about needed photos to go with them. Therefore, now that I finally figured how to get my photos again, this post ended up combining several topics and became very long. So grab a cup of coffee and prepare to read a small novel:

Still Waiting

We are still waiting for referral. I think this is the hardest part so far. Up until this point, I have been actively working toward completing our dossier. Now, I feel as though there is nothing more we can do. We can't buy clothes because we don't know what size; we can't completely decide on names because we don't know her given names yet; we can't make vacation plans because we don't know when we need to be ready to travel to Russia; we can't register her for preschool next fall, because we don't how old she is; we can't make build-a-bears because we don't know if we should make one or two bears yet; etc., etc. etc.


The only thing we can do to survive this wait is to continue to have fun with the boys, help them with their schoolwork, keep up with our work-work, stay busy with the never-ending house work (yuck), try to get the house more organized, and keep focused. While I can't say I've stayed focused very well, we are doing great on the having fun and staying busy part! Baseball season starts in a couple of weeks and we have two birthdays next month. That should really keep us preoccupied.

Snow Day!

We had a small snow on Wednesday. When you see photos of the boys in their snow suits, you'll think they are going skiing. But it was just a little dusting of snow. They had fun while it lasted. It would be nice to get enough snow to at least go sledding for the day. It is just mid-February ... there is still time.

Preston's best snow ball!

Nolan - Put your hands up or I'll blast you with this snowball!

Liam's hat was a little too big

It's hard to climb a rock wall in snow boots!

Valentine's Day!

We had a great Valentine's Day. Preston and Garrett cut out paper hearts and wrote clues on them for a scavenger hunt. I had to follow the clues to find my gift. It was a lot of fun. Preston especially put a lot of thought into his rhymes and the clues were quite challenging. That evening we enjoyed a night of swing dancing at our church. It was fundraiser for our youth to go to camp this summer. I had a blast dancing with all my guys!

I ordered a cookie bouquet for our family's Valentine's Day gift. It was supposed to be delivered on Valentine's day, but FedEx brought it a day early. The problem is that instead of bringing it to the front door, the FedEx driver stuck it somewhere in the garage. My car was even parked in the garage because that was our snow day and the boys and I were were home ALL day. Well, we never even saw (or heard) the FedEx truck in our driveway that day. I was expecting it to come on Thursday and kept looking for it all morning. Finally, as I was leaving to go to work, I went to get my car out of the garage. And that's when I discovered the cookie bouquet -- or should I say what was left of it!!!

Apparently, the FedEx driver put it near Roxie's crate in the garage. Roxie is our one year old yellow lab. When I put her up that night, well, naturally she thought it was her Valentine's Day gift, AND ATE IT! She even ate some of the sticks holding the cookies and the tissue paper wrapped around the cookies. There were only trace bits of evidence left.

I was so distraught when I called the cookie bouquet company. But, I have to give them a little free advertising here. They completely took care of us. The lady I spoke with was so sympathetic and she promised they would have their driver make a special delivery to our house that night. The cookie bouquet they brought was even bigger than the one I ordered. It was perfect and we have all been enjoying the wonderful cookies. So check out their website and make someone's day by sending them the world's coolest cookies! http://www.cookiesbydesign.com/

Here are some photos:

Adyson is Walking and Talking!

We kept Adyson this past weekend and it is just amazing how much she has grown since Christmas. The first thing she said when she saw our cat was "woof, woof". By the time Ashlae came to get her on Sunday, the boys had Ady meowing and growling. Liam was NOT happy about her stealing his cookie. But the funniest thing was when I trying to video her walking down the hall, she came right up to my camera, cookie and all, and said "Cheese!" That was totally unexpected. Do you think this child has ever been photographed?

And here are more Ady photos:

Showing off her mouthful of teeth

I just love her big blue eyes!

And she is such a girly-girl already. Ady was having a ball trying on clothes from her cousins Rachel and Emory.

While I am so ready to bring our little girl home, Adyson was kind enough to show us that our house is not quite as toddler proof as it should be yet! We need a few more locks on our cabinets, a gate for the steps, keep all small legos in a secure location, remove night light from hall plug, remove Martin's tools from around the house, and remember not to set drinks with no tops down in the living room. Good thing we built this house to withstand just about anything the kids can dish out!

When little boys get too quiet:

The other day, I was working at my desk when it occurred to me that Nolan and Liam were being quiet. Unusually quite. Too quite. My motherly instincts told me to go check on them. As soon as I walked out of my office, here they come hopping down the hall -- in my pillowcases! They had been in our Master Bedroom, with the door closed, having sack races. Nice!

That's all for now!