Working Boy

Josh has just amazed me at his ability to "build". Now, I've known since he was small that his strongest abilities lay in hands-on things. From the time he was little he was building dams to divert water -- things a child his age shouldn't have been able to comprehend, let alone do. Now, he has decided to build him a "fort" for the ditch where the kids play. He took lots of scrap lumber we had from shelves we took down and he has taken them apart, sawed them, hammered them, painted them and continues to build on our back deck. He has no plan to go by, pretty much no help (although DeeDee helped him saw on Mother's Day and Kevin has helped him hammer some) and has come up with this all by himself. He is still working on it, so I don't have a photo of the finished product, but I will soon. Here are some of him in process. I am so amazed by this boy. I can't imagine what his future holds, but I know it will be really cool to watch!

Mother's Day and Ellie's Dedication

I'm WAY PAST DUE on this post, but Kevin is finally home and I can do something other than hold sweet Ellie. She is feeling much better and has slept better and ate better the last few days. Today is day 5, so I suspect we are at the end of this round. Hopefully, she can have a good long run of good health for a while now.

On to the fun...

Mother's Day was wonderful. We had Ellie's dedication at church and despite being sick, she was a really good (albeit wiggly) baby. MeeMee and DeeDee had her dress made for the day, and she was just beautiful. It was a sweet ceremony and such a wonderful time to be at church celebrating the One who gave her to us.

And here are some "close-ups" of her trying on her dress the day before. Josh would ask you to ignore him in these. *smile* He was our "make sure she doesn't fall" guy.

One shoe on; one shoe off

This dress and hat reminded me so much of the kids we saw in Flamingo Park while we were in Kyrgyzstan. I remember taking pictures of them wearing their little crocheted hats. Here is one of them. I kept thinking how excited I was to bring Ellie home and have a little hat like that for her. And, here we are.

The day before Mother's Day, we went to visit Grandmother at her Mother's Day Social at the nursing home. We had a nice time there as well. Ellie had already begun to feel poorly though and I hope she didn't share her "love" with Grandmother. I don't think so as I haven't heard any reports that she is feeling poorly. My understanding is that this is primarily a "little kids" issue and that most adults have already had it, therefore developing immunity to it. They took a wonderful picture of all of us together so when I get it, I'll post it here. I think it's the first picture we've had of all four of us (Grandmother, Mama, Me and Ellie) together so I'm excited to get it.

MeeMee and Ellie

Grandmother opening her gifts

Nana and Ellie

Poor Ellie

I know some of you were expecting a post on Ellie's dedication at church yesterday and a lovely Mother's Day post -- ha! Well, I would rather be posting that, and I will post it but not soon.

Saturday Ellie got a fever and was kind of lethargic. Sunday night she started crying and was inconsolable. I was on the phone with the doc's office four times through the night, thinking it was her ears again, but getting pretty much no help other than, "Motrin and Tylenol and make an appointment tomorrow". *sigh*

So, today, we were off to the doc's office again (you'll remember we were just there Friday and got an "all clear" on Ellie's ears). Turns out she doesn't have an ear infection this time -- thank goodness.

Instead, she has a viral infection that causes blisters in her mouth and throat. Poor baby is in pain!! Of course, since it's viral, we can only alternate Motrin/Tylenol every three hours and feed her cold things and make sure she gets plenty of liquid.

Kevin is working out of town and last night Ellie and I got about 2-3 hours of sleep the entire night as she spent the rest of the night screaming. I'm hopeful tonight will be better, but doc indicates this is a 5-6 day virus. Yay. I feel so bad for her -- I wish I could make it better for her.

Looking Back . . .

I spent a little time this morning looking back over the posts from the first part of May. In particular I was looking for a Mother's Day post that talked about how I felt on Mother's Day last year. I thought I had written a post indicating how hard it was for me to be in church on Mother's Day and how I had really, really wanted our referral before then, but that even if I never had another child, I would be satisfied with the one I had and consider him a blessing.

Interestingly enough, as much as I remember those feelings vividly, I didn't find such a post. My Mother's Day post was pretty bland and the posts surrounding adoption talk were pretty factual. I'm sad, now, that I didn't write was I was really feeling during that day. I still remember it though, it was so powerful.

However, I look backward from a year's perspective and see that God had that referral ready and it came, instead of before Mother's Day, a sweet three days later. And now, a year later, we get to celebrate the sweetest Mother's Day by knowing that tomorrow Ellie's life will be dedicated and that we will promise in front of our church family and God to raise her to know Jesus. What a sweet blessing to get to do that on a day that only one year ago was so emotionally hard.

I think the lesson here for me (and maybe others who choose to embrace it) is that no matter how low we feel like our lives are, how far into despair we feel we have been cast, God is sitting from a place where he can see the whole picture and not just one day. If He has, like in our case, made a promise to you, He will fulfill it -- in His time, not ours. His blessings are rich, and we are an impatient lot. I'm sure He gets as frustrated with us as I do my kids sometimes. *smile* I am so thankful that He continues to love me in my sin and impatience, and that He has entrusted me with the lives of two children who are so very, very special to me.

Faces

This afternoon, as Josh and Kevin were throwing the ball in the yard I took some pix of them. When I was looking through them I was struck at all the crazy faces Josh was making. Check them out:

And, just for good measure, here is one of Kevin:

And, last, but not least, the "Big Lug", Bear, who came out to supervise:

Stylin'

It seems like I've got a couple of Hollywood stars living in my house this days from the looks of this photo -- what do you think? I "found" another tub of clothes and stuff we got before Ellie came home that were all her current size and as we were going through them, we found these glasses. Just a month ago, she wouldn't keep glasses on, but now, she was a little more accepting of having them on for a little while. I told Josh to grab his glasses and I'd get a picture of them. Crazy hair is courtesy of "piggy tails" earlier in the day that she ripped out of her hair.

Then, "Little Miss Thang" decided to pose some for a few more pix:

But, finally, the stress of all the attention got to her and she gave me the look and action I'm becoming more familiar with -- a hissy, taking off her headband, tossing down her glasses and trying to climb up my leg to get me to hold her. Look at that pout.

Sleep!!!

I waited a while to post so I wouldn't "jinx" myself, but Little Miss Ellie has been sleeping through the night now for three nights. We are just in hog heaven around our house!! I don't know what to do with myself at 2:00 am -- wait, yes, I do -- sleep!! Way to go, Ellie!

One Year Old Photos

As promised, here are some of the pix we had made recently. As you can tell, Ellie thought the tub was hilarious!!

Tuesday

I'd like to be more clever than just a title called "Tuesday", but ... I'm not. :-)

I haven't posted any new photos of Ellie or Josh in almost two weeks. I pick up the "Mother's Day Gifts" (sssshhhhh... don't tell the moms!!) of Josh and Ellie's photos on Thursday and I'll scan and post them soon. I don't think my mom will care if she sees them here first -- just that she gets them!!

The shot Ellie got last week, combined with a new round of antibiotics seems to be doing the trick for her and she is back to her "old" self. She is talking up a storm, trying very, very hard to walk and getting more and more active every day.

She has taken a few unassisted steps from one of us to the other and she will stand much longer by herself now. I suspect we are right around the corner from her taking off on her own.

Her newest fun thing to do is to throw and roll the ball to you. She thinks this is hilarious to do. I think she's watched Josh play ball so long already that she thinks that's what you are supposed to do!! She rares back her arm and just heaves the ball to you and then just cackles. If you roll it back to her and it goes past her, all you have to do is tell her to go get it and she's off like a light to get it and roll it back -- laughing the whole time.

She has learned where every one's nose is and that if you push it, sometimes it goes, "Beep Beep". Her daddy entertains her this way a lot. Now, if you ask her where your nose is, she puts her finger out and pushes your nose. FUNNY!!!

She is also sleeping MUCH BETTER now that we think her ears are clearing up. Her regular schedule now seems to be down around 9 p.m., bottle around 1:30 and sleeps until about 7:15. I'm ok with that. I think she'll eventually cut out her middle of the night bottle, but she is still small, so she just might need it to go 10 hours.

Josh had a field trip today to the local dam. The kids who got all their A/R reading points all year long got this as a reward. They grilled out hamburgers and hot dogs and got to play all day. He said he had a lot of fun. I'm glad it was dry for them today because it has been raining a ton here lately. Many of his baseball games have been rained out. We are hopeful to play again on Thursday.

I'm looking forward to Mother's Day. Kevin and I decided we wanted to cook for our moms this year instead of going out to eat. First off, we have all this FOOD in our house (remember, triple coupons!!) and with Ellie, it's becoming a bit more challenging to go out to eat -- not impossible, just challenging. This way, we can come home and she can eat and play and if she gets tired she can nap. We will have just finished her dedication at church too, so I'll want to change her before she eats. I'm looking forward to cooking -- I was so busy at Easter I didn't get to this year and I missed it.

And, that's about all that's new at our house. Boring, I think, but good.

Triples!

I'm exhausted from triple couponing at Harris Teeter and Kroger. I have "tripled" so much I'm literally OUT of coupons that will triple that I want to use. And, my cabinets, refrigerators (I have two) and freezer are screaming too. I've told Kevin I am DONE until triples roll around again. We have enough food, except milk and produce, to do us a long, long time.

Some of my better deals during triples week were:

• Betty Crocker Warm Delights: $1.89 (Kroger), $.50/coupon tripled, final cost: $.39 (we now have 12)
• Betty Crocker Muffin Mix (box): $1.73 (Kroger-clearance), $.40 coupon/tripled, final cost: $.53 box. We had five boxes. I made some for tomorrow and have one in a give-away bag
• Skintimates Shaving Cream: $2.38 (Kroger), $.75 coupon tripled, $.13. We have five. I can't shave that much, so one of those is in the giveaway bag.
• Viva Papertowels, $2.49 (both places), $.60 coupon tripled, final cost $.69. I got six.
• No Yolk Noodles - Free
• French's Mustard (honey, spicy brown, honey dijon -- you name it) - Free -- we have four (and one in the giveaway bag)
• Hormel Meals (can't think of what they are really called): Free -- four
• Red Baron Pizza Singles - $3.33 (Kroger), $.75 coupon tripled, $1.08. We have four or five, I think
• Rhodes dinner rolls - three packs - Free

It was a good week. If you are interested in learning how to "coupon", feel free to email me so I can share how to save this kind of money too!! Food tastes better when it's free or really, really inexpensive!!

Happy Photos

Here's a few happy photos from last week. Some of them don't make me so happy as you will see.

I'm driving down the road and see this in front of me. I'm wondering what exactly it is.


As he passes I see it's some sort of plane that apparently caught fire and burned down to the frame. I can't IMAGINE wanting to get in one of these things:



At one house some birds fluttered off from a bush and scared me. As I looked down I saw this:

I looked and looked all around for the nest and couldn't find it. Here's where the birds went and what they were doing. Isn't this sad???


The nest ended up being in the eave of this house (which was vacant) and so I'm sure this little egg/birdie didn't make it. How sad that the parents were trying so hard to figure how to get that egg back in the nest. I think there's probably a good analogy in there somewhere. It just made me sad.

This is Marble. I don't know her real name but she was very friendly with me at this house and even posed at her scratching tree for me to take her photo. I called her marble because she reminded me of a marble cake.

This is SAL. The owner said that stands for "S**s a Lot". *sigh* Apparently, Sal laid an egg one day and is now Sally. She was fun and loud. When her owner covers her up she says, "I'm a good bird" over and over. Weird.

I felt like the name under "Otay Street" should have been "Buckwheat Street", but, who am I to say?

I came upon this lovely village on Monday or Tuesday. Imagine my surprise when I read this week that Andrea and her family went there recently on an adventure for C's birthday!! Where else but in Kentucky??

And that's it for this week!! Enjoy.

Queen of All Things

Well... Mala has nominated me as the Queen of All Things. Crazy girl. I've probably been called "The Queen" before, but I think it had something to do with the phrase "Queen B" or "Queen Bee". But, nonetheless, I'm never one to let a good award pass me by -- especially if I can share it on with others who are "AWE-SUMMMM" too, so here goes:

1. List seven things that make you awe-summm.
2. Pass the award on to seven bloggers you love.
3. Tag those bloggers to let them know that they are now Queens of All Things Awe-Summm.
4. Don't forget to link to the queen that tagged you.
5. If you would like, copy the pic and put it on your sidebar so everyone knows that you're a queen.

• I am a mom to two wonderful kids aged 11 and 1, a loving hubby, I have my own business, and I haven't had a full night's sleep in close to seven months -- isn't that enough to qualify me for Queendom right there???


• I lived through the trials and tribulations of international adoption, travelled twice to a foreign country where I didn't speak one lick of their language, lived on Pringles and M&Ms for a few days, lived without regular TV for two weeks, turned down a referral and knew what it meant to have my heart literally break, accepted that same sweet girl as my daughter again for the second time, travelled back to that same country with my girlfriend, lived on the clothes on my back for almost three days, lived through diarrhea, a new baby, homesickness, falling across the border from Kyrg into Kaz, being stopped by the police on the way to Almaty, not being able to find food in Almaty, and travelling half way back around the world with a new baby. I rest my case -- that confers Queendom on me right there.


• I can multi-task like no one else: talk on the phone, cook dinner, check my email, mop the floor and hold a baby -- all at the same time. All Hail the Queen! (Shouldn't a Queen have someone actually doing this for her?? Hmmmmm...)


• I have fierce loyalties to my family, friends and to things I believe deeply in. Most of the friends I have have been there for a long, long time. I am now secure enough in myself to say the things that matter to me, to share my faith and my feelings without worrying what others think. Case in point -- this blog!!


• I am a sap for animals. Over the years I've had tons of pets -- still do; and I cry every time one of them dies. If I believed in reincarnation, I'd say I was St. Francis of Assissi. *smile* As much as I complain about them, I can't imagine my life without a pet of some kind. And I think animals know that I love them, which is why I end up with so many, and why, I think, I do so well with the animals I meet every day in my job.


• I am a fairly good photographer -- not great mind you, so probably not "Queen" status on this one, but I get by and I'm proud of one or two pictures I've made in the past. Unfortunately, I'm highly critical of myself and my work (in all areas of my life, really) and so even "the good ones" have room for critique and improvement.


• And maybe while I'm not so much a Queen, I am most definitely a Princess, a daughter of the King, God Himself, whom I can call Abba, Father, Dad. He says I'm perfect -- and since He created me, I'm certain I am perfect to Him. The fact that He loves me with all my faults and failures is amazing to me. And that, to me, is more important than ever being a Queen. (And, really being a Queen is a lot more work. I think just wearing pretty clothes, being taken care of a doing all things Princessly is much more fun!!)

I'm off to find my crown. I might just wear it around town tomorrow strutting my Queenliness (if I could find it in my lovely mess of a house!!).

And, to close it all out, here are seven other women I think are Queens in their own right:

• Elizabeth (will she or won't she do this??) who travelled around the world with me in our quest to bring home our daughters.
• Mayme, who understands exactly what it's like to be in your forties with middle school aged children and starting over with a baby
• Suzanne, who is waiting and not being passive while she waits and is making every attempt to get her sweet M. home, she so inspires me.
• Jeanne, who became my friend along the journey to Kryg and who is now changing courses to bring her daughter home from Russia.
• Michelle, who is my friend and mom to Ellie's buddy, Caleb.
• Dee'Anna, babysitter extraordinare who really won't have time to do this because she is Queen to a house of four kids, a hubby, a doggy, and watches my little pipsqueak and is uber-busy, but I want her to know I think she's WAY COOL!!
• Andrea, mom to two with a hubby and works and still finds time to do cool things like blog, embroider and do really cool things with her kiddos. You rock!!

Thankful for my "bloggy" friends!

While I am thankful for all my friends, it has been quite a "linking" kind of weekend. Here's how I've connected with my bloggy friends this weekend.

1. On Saturday night, in a major panic, I called my friend (who was a friend before blogs came along, but even more so now that we can follow each other's lives via blogs), Mayme, because I couldn't remember what I should put on Ellie's "boo-tay" when she had this "came up super quick really red place that might be diaper rash but made her scream loudly without stopping and trying to climb my shoulder pain" spot. Mayme is a nurse (one of her many jobs, huh, Mayme??) and she is also a mom to a wee little Asian princess. She was able to remind me of that old standby - DESITIN (ha!!). We are now rotating Desitin and Nystatin because I think she has another yeast infection brought on by ultra strong antibiotics. This is likely the cause of the many poopy diapers we had about mid-day today. Yay.

2. On Sunday after church, I finally, finally, finally got to meet the infamous Reed, who has been home from Taiwan f.o.r.e.v.e.r. Let me tell you folks, he is just as cute in person as he is on his blog!!

3. I got to talk to my friend, Elizabeth, whose mom just had shoulder surgery from a fall she had while we were in Kyrgyzstan. E. will always be one of my best friends; we've been through so much together!! She also just got a cool picture of Aidai from when she was several years younger and it is so cute!! I know she's really excited to get it -- click over and see it.

4. And while she is not a bloggy friend, I got new pix of M. and P's daughter, A. who came home a week after Ellie and who are some of my dearest, dearest friends. She and I shared so much during the adoption process, and P. was in country while we were, and I LOVE getting pictures of her little one!!

5. And last, but certainly not least, Mala, who has obviously let her (medium) brown hair color, now turned blonde, eat her brain cells and has nominated me as QUEEN OF ALL THINGS!!! (well, I knew this, but was trying my hardest to be humble - haha!). So prepare to read my response in the next post.

I have not been the best blogger or blogger reader/friend lately. I've been busy trying to carve out niches to get sleep or things done -- all of which never seemed to happen!! I'm hopeful this week will bring a wee bit of respite from all things "adult-like" (aka responsibilities). :-)