A bunch of sickos

TGIF. Although it won't look much like a weekend around our house. Steve is in charge of and has been planning a weekend-long retreat for about 300 college students from around the region. We're super excited about it and our very own pastor, Rob Turner, is the main speaker. With everything kicking off tonight, I've secured a babysitter for this evening so that I can go and enjoy dinner and the first session with the 25 UD students who are attending. Its going to be super fun.

But I wasn't so sure it was going to be as of last night. Steve and I went out on a date. Kind of our usual (so usual in fact, our babysitter just laughed when she heard what we were up to.) Shopping and then dinner. I still have gift cards from Christmas that had yet to be used and was in desperate need (although I use that word loosely in light of world catastrophes and all) of some make up. I've been using remnant of concealer and foundation for nearly 2 months now. But the thought of taking 3 kids into Sephora is my own personal hell. We can barely make it through Kroger where they are secured in a cart. Can you imagine the *fun* they could have with the million tubes of sample lipsticks? Lordhavemercy.

So, off we went to our local "shopping towne center." All of our good stores have moved out of the mall and into this outdoor, walk your butt a mile from one good store to another, location. Fine when its spring, summer or fall. But when you live in Ohio in the middle of January and your high is 20 degrees in the heat of the day, strolling around the towne center is not so much fun. But hey, when duty calls!

After we froze ourselves pretty good, we headed to our favorite Indian restaurant. I loaded up on my fav... chicken tikka sagg. Oh it is spicy heaven on earth. Their scale is 1-6 and I like mine at a 5. On our ride home I noticed I was feeling a little *off*. I even mentioned to Steve I was glad we shopped first, because it's no fun to try on pants when your bloated. By the time I went to bed at 10 (I couldn't get warm) I was full blown nauseous. By 11:15 I was revisited by my chicken tikka sagg- spice level 5. Oh, please, for the love of all things good in this world, promise me you'll never throw up anything spicier than a 2!!!! Torture, I tell you. This morning, I woke up feeling fine. Tired but fine. Its the weirdest thing. I feel like I've battled these weird throw up spells for the past 6 months. But what do you do? Go into the doctor and say, "Hey doc, sometimes I throw up and I don't know why." Good luck with that!

Also, by way of update, my dad is home from the hospital. He was released on Wednesday evening. He is feeling tons better but we still don't know the actual diagnosis. The verdict is still out on a rare lung disease. But I guess since he is improving without the treatment for the disease, they are leaning away from that diagnosis. Thanks for your prayers and concerns. Thankfully we are nearly out of January for another year. My mom is a week or two away from coming home as well. I, for one, will feel tons better when they are both home and we are safely into the month of February. But hey, its a good thing I'm not superstitious!

Cloudy with the chance of crazy!

I woke up this morning and there was a big fiery ball in the sky. Some say it is the sun, but I know not of what they speak! In fact the fiery ball was so bright in the sky, I needed a pair of special glasses to protect me from its blinding rays. I enjoyed it and I hope it stays.

The winter blahs have definitely been taking their toll on our family. The 2 two year olds (with a bit of help from their 3 year old sister) have already put a hole in the jump house so we are back to the drawing board on how to get the crazies out.

Let me tell you, one way to NOT do it is by taking them all for a family outing to the grocery store for your big weekly run. 'Cuz all that'll do is make the mama crazy! And blast you, Kroger, anyhow. By the time we rounded the corner to the bakery where the promised "if you behave yourself and stop trying to throw your sibling from the cart, I'll let you have a free cookie" cookie usually lives, we found out this is the day they were plumb out of free cookies. Ack. That was right about the same time Olivia decided she couldn't wait to go home to use the potty (naturally 3 minutes after I had hit the frozen food section.) So I did a very interesting dance between the bathroom and the full cart of food as well as the brothers who were trying to escape the dreaded "car cart." If you've used one, or have been trapped in the cereal aisle by some one using one, you know why its dreaded!

We made it. I saved $85 by taking advantage of a sweet sale/coupons. No one died or lost a limb. (The verdict is still out on my sanity, however.) All in all a fine trip.

There was one Turner report that made me smile yesterday. I picked the boys up from the Y child care. I get a daily Turner report, now that he's 2 he is acting the part. The ladies were smiling and said that Turner was very "obedient" today. He went up to a little girl and was about to hit her. The ladies said, "Turner, keep your hands to yourself." He smiled and folded his hands. Then, he kicked her instead.

Hey, if they are nothing else, my kids are creative! Creative I say.

Slowly but surely

Here are the fruits of our labor.
While I didn't pick up a paint brush this weekend, I feel entitled to say "our labor" because in order for this to be completed my labor of love with the kids was much in order.

It's too bad you can't get the full effect of the colors here. Because it turned our really nice.
We've also added some "grown up" accessories. I found this lovely photo of the Empire State Building and a coordinating wall clock this week at Target. I think it helps to update the bathroom. I'm a sucker for anything NYC!

I also added this new basket.

I like to keep my hairdryer easily accessible and therefore keep it in a basket next to the sink.
We are still waiting word from the tile guy. We're hoping he can work us in within the next 2 weeks. Once that happens we'll also be able to install the sink, medicine cabinet and get rid of the old medicine cabinet between the two towel racks in the first photo.

I also included a pic of our current shower tile. Tony is going to replace this with tile that matches our floor.

Super excited.

I'm off to an early bedtime to recover from my crazy weekend!

Take two asprin and call me in the morning

Hung over! That's what I am this weekend. From all the partying we did.

It was back to back kiddie parties for our family.

And apparently this is Olivia's new party pose...
lovely, isn't it?

This is a fun new phase for our family. Parties for kids who are friends with ALL three of our kids.

Pizza. Cake. Juice. Big empty spaces to run and go crazy.

Paradise when you're 2 and 2 and 3!

Pandemonium when you're 37 and 38!

Party 2 was at a Chuckie Cheese knock off. It was the craziest Saturday night Steve and I have spent in a long time.

The kids had a B.L.A.S.T.

Turner loved the games. The lights. The music.

Quinn loved the pizza. The cake. The candy he won at the end of the night.

O?

She loved being with friends.

Somehow she managed to snuggle up to both birthday boys each time they blew out their candles. It was kinda funny.

As for me? I gotta get crakin' on planning my own 4 year old birthday party next month. We were going to rent out a bounce house until I checked on the cost. We're going to the Y instead. I appealed to my daughter's greed (oops) by telling her if we had the party at the bounce house she only got 1 present from mom and dad but if she chose the Y, she could have 3. She chose the Y~! Hey, it was either appeal to greed or take out a second mortgage on our home for her party. Cut a mama some slack. I learned a valuable lesson... ALWAYS do research before introducing idea to child.

Who stole my children???

In order for Steve to make a dent in painting the bathroom I've been in charge of keeping the kids occupied today. No sweat. It's who I am, it's what I do. It's just that usually Saturdays around here are team effort. A day I look forward to, because I don't have to shoulder the responsibility of entertaining 3 very energetic children for a whole day... by myself... in the dead of winter... in Ohio. (do you hear the desperation? are you extending pity? just checking!)

My plan? Off to the Y so that someone else could entertain my hoodlums for an hour and a half while I worked out and grabbed an uninterrupted shower. I'm no fool. Next stop, the mall play area.

Let me first start by saying, I've not been so proud of my three for a long time. I think we've just entered a new stage around here. And I likey!!! The 4 of us walked into the mall, all holding hands. No one wandered into traffic. No one refused to hold someone else's hand. No one made me regret the day I said "I do."

Next, we hit the play area. And believe it or not, when we first arrived there were only 2 other kids there. One was a girl, who turned out to be 2 days younger than Olivia. They became fast friends and played well for the next 40 minutes. The boys played their guts out- running, jumping, rolling and sliding. Turner only hit 2 people (and they *might have* deserved it!) I found a nice grandma to talk to and actually enjoyed it rather than being annoyed by it.

Everyone came when I told them it was time to go home. No one whined. No one cried. No one made me chase them like a lunatic through the mall. No one pooped in their diaper. No one had to go potty in the restroom. No one begged for a cookie (stupid mall planners put American Cookie Co- or whatevertheheckitscalled RIGHT NEXT to the exit of the play land). They each got a sample chicken nugget from Chick-fil-a as we walked out out... they even said thank you.

So, either we've turned a corner as a family, I've chilled out, or my kids have been replaced in the middle of the night by stepford children. Whatever the reason, you won't hear me complaining!

Up to speed

I have about 40 blogs that I keep up with. Most are written by people I don't know. Some are friends of friends. And then there are a handful of people I actually know and may even consider friends (hopefully the same would be said of me!)

I'm always amazed that these people seem to find SOMETHING to write about. I had been devoted to some over the past 2 years but have dropped them because they either a.) never update (and that drives me BONKERS) or b.) are boring, preachy or uninteresting.
Does that make me a blog snob? If so, I can live with that.

The point is, I found myself going to write a post this week and finding nothing to say. I'm fearful you'll drop me 'cuz I don't update. Or worse. 'Cuz I'm uninteresting. Oh well, to each his own I guess.

Drop me if you will, but my post today is just a bit of hodge podge to bring you up to speed.

1. Extreme Home Makeover: bathroom edition. It was going full force and then we might have gotten a bit too big for our britches. We've decided to hire some *English as a second language* friends to install tile in our shower and to our floor. Its gonna be awesome, but its going to be a few weeks until Tony can come and do it. And when he does, it's going to take 4-5 days. Ummm... he needs to take the toilet out and NO SHOWER for that time. Have I mentioned it's our only shower? It could get dicey around here!

Steve started painting the walls. The color is nice. But its taking awhile. When you have 3 little kids you have rather small windows to get a job done. Its not done.

The cabinets and sink can't go in until the tile is down. The back wall can't be painted until the medicine cabinet is ripped out and dry walled. Yep. Definitely too big for our britches.

2. We had a realtor come and check out the house to put it back up on the market. Basically she said, "You haven't done jack to your house... you need to ask waaaaayyyyy less than you did last time." Oh, "And paint your kitchen." Great. Its taking a week to get the little bathroom painted and she wants us to paint the whole kitchen. What have we gotten ourselves into?

3. My dad is having a lung biopsy in about an hour and a half. What we thought was pneumonia may actually be some crazy rare lung disease. Hopefully the biopsy will let them know for sure that it is/isn't. We're praying for isn't. Pray with us if you would!

4. Saw the movie Book of Eli this week. Crazy movie! If you love Denzel- go see it. If you hate violence and hands being chopped off- don't.

5. My friend, Susie, left this morning for Rwanda to pick up her son, Charlie. She's going to blog about it when/if the Internet allows. Follow her journey with me, if you like.

6. Two kid birthday parties this weekend. Finish painting the bathroom. And Supernanny tonight.

Consider yourself up to speed.

Maybe I'm just weird!

Over the weekend, I realized that we're just cruising along doing life.

For a long time it seemed like this blog was about me waiting. Waiting on the whole adoption thing. The journey. Now, here we are- just doing life.

We went to the UD women's basketball game the other night. The five of us. We met up with about 12 of our college friends. And there we were, just being us.

A lady a few rows ahead of us kept doing the goo goo eyes thing at Quinn and I could just tell she was DYING to ask about him. She finally got her chance. It was fun to share the brief 1 minute version. Turns out she really just wanted to talk about her sight seeing trip to China this past summer. Whatever. It got me thinking.
I don't think I'm a normal "adoptive mom." I don't think I'm an adoption crusader. While I love and live adoption and I have a heart to see all kids have permanent families, I'm not sure I live in a personal world driven by the adoption cause. I don't belong to a bunch of adoption websites or chat rooms. I don't even read a ton of adoption blogs. I think I'm just doing the life God's called me to do.

I realized I haven't even given a Quinn specific update in a long time. I haven't bragged about how great his English is or how much he fits in with our family. How awesome his lip revision looks. Or how he irritates me just as much as the other two do at times. I haven't told you about what a kind and generous 2 year old he is or how we consider sending Olivia and Turner for a stint at an orphanage so that they can become as obedient and tender hearted as their brother.

In all honesty, I forget that he's Chinese or that he looks different than I do. I forget that 5 1/2 months ago he turtled up and wouldn't eat, drink or talk for 2 days. 'Cause now he's just Quinn. He's my son. He lives here and he belongs here. But it's kinda no big deal. I don't really think about it and I certainly haven't been blogging about it. It's just life.
So you can imagine my surprise this afternoon when I was eating my lunch while the kids were watching some show on PBS and out of nowhere I started tearing up.

The show had a segment about China. Olivia and turner were glued to it (Quinn was still at the table finishing lunch, naturally... he's the last guy down from each meal!) Olivia yelled, "Hey mom, look its about China." Then Turner got super excited and super animated.

He started running and dancing and saying, "Mom! LOOK! CHINA!" He was running around the room smiling and yelling, "China!" I asked, "Hey Turner do you love China?" He yelled back, "Yes! LOVE China.!"

I'm no fool. I know that Turner had little to no clue about what he was excited about. But the fact that my kids, all three of them, celebrate China brought joy to my heart. They've ALL three been to China. They will all three go back. We will continue to develop that love and enthusiasm for China through out ALL of their lives.

It was good for me to remember that we are an adoptive family. I may not be a deep thinker on the subject or spend a lot of time meditating on that fact or engaging in the adoption world. But I don't want the day to day life to go by too much without re-visiting the reality from time to time.

I still maintain I'm just weird. But hey, so is the rest of my family! Did 'ya notice those pics???