23 Months and still counting...

I literally have spent most of the day trying to come up with something truly unique to post for our 23rd month LID anniversary and honestly I've come up with... blank!

I tried to write the 23 months of Log in - to the tune of 12 days of Christmas - and only made it to month 10 with complete writers block. Then I thought I'd write something along the lines of "Twas the night before Christmas" only "Twas the 23rd month logged in & all through our house," but that's as far as I got with that one. I even tried to come up with an acronym for
TWENTY-THIRD MONTH
and there's only so many things you can come up with for the letter T.

So...without further delay, the best I could come up with is ~
Yes, we are still waiting for our daughter from China.
Yes, we are still excited about it even though the initial giddiness has worn off.
Yes, we still wait expectantly each month for word about the next matches of referrals. And YES, we would do it all over again, even if we had to wait 23 months!

Happy 23 months to us!!!

Merry Christmas to all...

To all our family and friends, have a wonderful blessed Christmas!

Praise the Lord we were all well and able to celebrate with one another the birth of Jesus our Savior and Lord!!!

Will it ever stop???

Today after church we celebrated Christmas with my hubby's side of the family! What a fun time we all had with one another relaxing and enjoying the day. Of course oldest came home from church and announced he wasn't feeling so well; said his stomach was a little upset. We chalked it up to one of the soup's I had on the stove (as he's not all that thrilled with this particular soup and we just figured it was the smell). Just a simple reminder, last Monday morning we all woke to "oldest" child having the stomach flu. Now one week later, he dismissed himself and went into his room to rest. I find out that while someone was occupying our one and only bathroom, oldest was throwing up outside his bedroom window, as he figured that would be the best place to do something like that. UUgggghhhhhhh! We unfortunately didn't alert family members as we assumed that it was due to a really late night last night (4 am to be exact - I guess he couldn't sleep) and not eating the best during this season. Assumption incorrect! It's 10:24pm and he's still making runs to the bathroom.

I am so sick and tired of having this nasty bug in my home (talk about depressing). I thought when we finished last week with youngest son we were out of the woods. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and not only do we have more family celebrations to attend but 2 services which we are a part of. Please God have pity on our poor family!

In the event I don't get back to this blog for reasons I don't care to list - to each and every one of you I wish you a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas Blues!

Well so far I haven't been subject to the flu bug, but I have definitely been bit by the Christmas blues; being housebound with sick children tends to do that to you.


I have Christmas gift lists that haven't been shopped for yet , not to mention children who can't tell you what to get them for Christmas because they "just don't know" what to ask for, holiday goodies that need to be baked for our family Christmas celebration in 3 days - baring sick children are well, blah, blah, blah - need I go on.

Thus...feeling a little blue!

STUCK...in the land of the ill

It's true, the flu bug has hit 2 of my boys. UGGgggghhhh. My oldest woke up Monday morning early worshiping the white throne. After doing his business, he returned to bed and slept for 7.5 hours.

"Phew" we all thought as it appeared to have just barely left evidence of being worthy of being called anything at all.

Well, we didn't escape it that easily. My youngest woke this morning at 7:00am and began bowing down to again said 'White Throne' and didn't let up until early afternoon ~ poor fellow. I have literally spent more time sanitizing everything in, near or around the bathroom and his bedroom that my fingers have pruned to the point of un-recognizable (good thing we have already been finger-printed for the 2nd time as I think I have burnt all my prints off with chemicals).

I'm tired, worn out and don't care to see another bottle of Lysol in the near or far future. Pray that N recovers quickly and for protection for the rest of the clan.

Caution...

Blog re-design and editing in process.

Please stand by...

It's my birthday and I'll cry if I want to...

and why would I cry??? My blog seems to be going through a mid-life crisis! No matter how much I tweek it, custom it, decorate it there always seems to be parts of it that some can see and others can't ~ and vice versa. And the sad part is that I think I have lost visitors because of it :-(

So...I am going to go and enjoy the rest of what is left of my big 40th and leave the blog design for another day!

Wedding gown, Candles, Pictures, Bouquets...

I was at church one sunny August afternoon talking with the bride-to-be about her wedding and she found herself teary-eyed and quite frustrated as they'd chosen to move their "planned wedding" from June '08 to December '07 ~ and she had no idea what to do, nor where to start planning this monumental life event just 4 shorts months away.
My heart went out to her and I told her that I would love to help her coordinate her wedding to make it as spectacular as possible. You must know, I am no wedding coordinator, however I have gone through my own wedding as well as attending many in my lifetime.

Well spectacular it was I must say! Saturday, December 8, 2007 @ 2:30pm, Gloria and Edward pledged their love to one another together, forever. The ceremony went so smoothly with no goofs or hiccups, the reception flowed with food, fun, dancing and fellowship. Their exit was classic in a Stutz Blackhawk.
A humongous thank you to everyone who joined the process and pitched in to help out. There were a lot of long hours (11-13 hour days) Wednesday (having to re-paint the reception hall as the paint we used for touching up dried a shade darker and not the same original sheen), Thursday (moving all the equipment out of rooms for the event) & Friday (decorating the sanctuary and reception hall). And to think, all that work was completely cleaned up and ready for Sunday morning church today in just about an hour!

And yet, all the work was so worth it to see them glowing with happiness and joy!

And now, I think I will collapse for a day or two and enjoy what little time I have left to be 39 (26 hours to be exact)!

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

Truly I think that is about the only thought I have right now floating through my head that describes how I feel about the most recent referral report:

The CCAA has finished the placement of children for the families whose adoption application documents were registered with our office before December 14, 2005.

Waiting for word about the next referral matches is very much like swimming around with jellyfish. One has to be careful not to get "stung" by the disappointment of number of days referred.

In spite of that, a big huge Congratulations to all those families who are celebrating the arrival of their referrals. Only 44 more LID's to go.

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

I'm off to build an Ark

I copied these pictures were taken from a fellow blogger friend's site (thanks K1) to show how wet it really is. These are of downtown Woodinville - just 11 miles from my home.

I guess I am off to make my lumber list...

My Season of Chaos

It's time again for wrestling season in our house. #1 son began practices with the high school team well over a month ago~ 5 days a week for 2.5 hours each day. And all 3 of the boys are a part of the Greater Gold Seattle Wrestling Club every Monday and Tuesday evening as well. So, basically I have no social life to think of (come to think of it, I'm not sure I really ever had one).

So to give you just a glimpse, today was the first day of tournaments for all three boys, and to make things really interesting their tournaments were in different parts of the state.

Here is how it began:
4:50am ~ Beep, beep, beep~alarm clock. Hit snooze once since it really can't be morning already
5:00am ~Realize it is true and crawl out of bed
5:00-5:30am ~ pack coolers with breakfast, lunch & snacks for day
5:35am ~ take son #1 to school to catch bus for tournament down South 1.5 hrs from home
5:45am ~ Hubby takes sons #2 & #3 to meet Coach to carpool for tournament up North 1.5 hrs from home
7:30am ~ After shower and packed cooler, I head to #1 son's tournament down South
7:30-8:00am ~ Regulation weigh-in's for both tournaments
8:00-10:00am ~ boys eat breakfast and warm-up for competition
10:00am ~ Competition begins
5:00pm (notice how we are now in the pm hours - where did the day go?) #2 & #3 sons are done with tournament, time to head back home.
8:00pm ~ #1 son is finally done competing, now I get to go home IN THE SNOW!!! I hate driving in the snow, especially when you can only drive 10-15mph.
10:55pm~#1 son calls to say tournament is officially over and their school bus is leaving, they should be home in 1.5 hours -

Did I mention that I had to be up EARLY this morning and that I sat on bleachers in a high school gymnasium for 10 hours?!?!?!?!?!

And...here is how they did:
#2 son took 3rd place in his tournament.
#3 son took 4th place in his tournament.
#1 son lost 3 matches at his tournament

Now of course, don't get me wrong ~ I love to watch my boys wrestle. Well...really it is more like a love/hate relationship. I love to see them excel at their sport, yet it is the most gut-wrenching 4-6 minutes of a mother's life during each match. And thus, the season has begun. Between the 3 of them, we manage to have Saturday tournaments throughout the months of Dec, Jan, Feb, not to mention during the week league matches at high school's all over the place. If I get the chance to get some good pictures of them, I will post.
Until then, I will hold my eyelids open, waiting for my son to call and say he's ready to be picked up so we can all go to bed.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!