O's musings

We were getting into the car last night after church. We battled some winter weather around here yesterday, freezing rain, regular rain and then a chilly night that resulted in a bit of a re-freeze. We were walking carefully out of church and to the car and as I was helping O into her car seat she looks at me and says, "You need to exercise more." This coming from the nearly 3 year old who just had her little 32 lb. buns CARRIED to the car by the same, apparently, out of shape mom. I suggest you zip it little girl! (And now I'm off to work out.)

Turner's birthday party

Was a huge success. Cake- check, ice cream- check, presents- check, good friends- check, moo shu pork- check! If those aren't fixins for a great first birthday party, I don't know what is.

Because we decided to *recycle* Turner's gifts (as they were still in the attic unopened from Christmas morning,) you may notice some familiar Christmas wrap from an earlier post. Please don't talk about me behind my back, I'd like to think of this as one of my more practical moves. Because the interest level was about the same three weeks later, all the kids got a present to help open. This actually was a big hit- although some of our younger guests (and sister) had a wee bit of a hard time understanding these were actually not for them. Life lessons never start too soon.

I thought the cake would be a bigger hit than the presents, but mostly T enjoyed man-handling the cake (which is true about most food these days.) Maybe he prefers chocolate?

Nonetheless, he did end up with a few bites going in rather than down.

And here is a shot of everyone enjoying another round of new toys. Had we been better planners and had we been in control of conception (rather than God, Himself) we may have thought ahead and not had a baby so close to Christmas. It's like Toys R Us has opened its doors and vomited directly into 107 Green St. When spring rolls around and you are having a garage sale, let me know, we might have a few items to throw in!

Turner's 1

A year ago today, Turner Paul entered the world - not without some drama. Shoulda known this kid was trouble! He was laying on his cord and his heart rate kept dropping, causing me to lay only on my right side for hours and hours. (FYI the only tv in the room- on my left side. Wouldn't you know it.) Just when I couldn't stand it anymore, he must have moved. I had to wear oxygen most of labor b/c of the heart rate thing. Makes for lovely pics, don't 'ya think?

But all's well that ends well. 9 lbs and eight days late, he stole my heart right away and has been doing so ever since. (Oh, and can I say again, thank God for Weight Watchers. Yikers!)

Fast forward one year and his big sister started the day off by saying, I want to go downstairs and have Turner open his gifts. Awwww.. that's so sweet. Til we got downstairs and the truth came out, "I wanna open Turner's gifts" was the second (and truer)version of the story. We compromised and she did one and he *kinda* did one.

More gifts to come. B/c he wasn't too interested Christmas morning and b/c he has cheap parents, he's getting his unopened Christmas gifts. Its all the same to a one-year-old.

And to wrap up the day- a quick round of the Barbie movie. Turner just can't get enough of that dragon, or so Olivia says! Actual "party" tomorrow (friends coming over for Chinese take-out and cake.) More pictures later.

Happy birthday, sweet baby boy. Did I mention he now walks, climbs on most things stable (and not) and L-O-V-E-S dogs. We're pretty sure he's got Buckeye football in his future (maybe they'll start winning then.) Go Bucks.

So I'm not so detail oriented...

Last night was the first showing of our house. Steve put our house up for sale by owner about 2 months ago and we haven't had a single call about it. It's really fine, we don't have to move. With Quinn coming, we'd like more room and with school around the corner for O, it would be nice to get out of our current school district, but there is no immediate need to move.

So we were thrilled to have a call on the house and a young, single girl come and look at it. We decided it would be a good idea to get the kids outta the house while she looked around, so we went to the Y for the evening. When we got back she had already come and gone and I couldn't wait to get the scoop.

The weird thing about for sale by owner, you get to hear what the people really think. Humph!! Pretty much, she's not gonna buy it (unless a miracle happens, but the way things are going for us these days, I wouldn't be surprised!)

She told Steve if she took it, she'd have to make a few changes. (Duh, that's what you do when you buy a house!) I asked if she expanded on that. He said she commented on our kitchen cabinets and how they aren't the same.

What? That's not true.

I walked into the kitchen, and sure enough, I've lived here nearly 6 years AND NEVER EVEN NOTICED. By golly, our kitchen cabinets don't match. Ha! That's me in a nutshell. I am so not a detail person (drives Steve crazy!) So next time you are at my house just smile and nod and pretend like everything is normal, apparently I like it that way.

Better late than never

Now that I've come back down from my vacation high- life is getting a bit back to normal. I spent 2 1/2 hours clipping coupons and organizing them (somebody shoot me--- is it really worth it???) The house is clean and food is stocked in our fridge for the next week, I'm ready to post some shots from the '08/'09 tour of the Great Lakes (stops included Toledo, Oh, Ashtabula, Oh, Dayton, Oh -- can you include your own house as a stop on a tour???--Indianapolis, IN and concluding in Kalamazoo, Mi. Yup, we're idiots!!!)

Pictured here are the cousins. This was the best shot we could get of a 3 year old, 2 year old, 1 year old and a 4 month old (how in the world baby Carter can sleep through this photo shoot is beyond me!)

Here is a super sweet shot of O and Great Grandma, who is a reverse snow bird. Great Grandma lives in Tampa, Fl. 10 months of the year but chooses to spend every December and January in Michigan. Here G.G-ma is letting O try out her "tv ears." They are SWEET. I'm thinking about getting myself a pair.

Turner is loving his sister's new Barbie DVD. Funny thing- he loves the dragon and all the scary parts that Olivia insists we fast forwards. I see fights in our future.

At the risk of being annoying...

I'm not sure in the blog world at what point multiple posts a day gets annoying and people start boycotting your blog. But if you're my mom (and face it, as far as I know, she is the only one reading this) you care about every little moment of my day. But I promise, this tid-bit is really exciting:

Our final paper has been authenticated by the Chinese Consulate in NYC and is on its Priority Mail way back to Dayton, OH. My dear friend, Cindy and her two girls were gracious enough to go above and beyond the call of all friendship duty and hand deliver the document today (with a same-day turn around for their efforts) saving us about 3 or 4 weeks wait time. I can't even stinkin' believe it! There is a small chance that our dossier may be on its way to China by the end of the week.

If you can (and are) keeping track of this whole dang thing, once China gets that dossier (or pile of officially official papers stamped by everyone and their brother) we wait for our official approval to adopt Quinn. And once we get that approval its a matter of a few months before we can go and get that chunk of a boy.

Oh, and did I mention that we have seen God bring in over $19,000 for this adoption? ($22,00 is what we need.) Ah, yeah! The month of December has been one big fat- "I gotcha covered" by God Almighty. Very cool, indeed.

Back to life; back to reality

Wasn't that a song in the '80's? After being on the road for nearly 2 weeks (with a night or two in our own beds here and there) we are HOME. We got back from Kalamazoo, MI Saturday evening at 5:00pm. We were about to unload the car and crank the house heat back up when we decided maybe catching the 6:00 service at church would be a good idea. (After 4 1/2 hours in the car w/ the kids it seemed like an AWESOME idea to let someone else be with them for an hour and a half.) Best decision of our week~!

I spent most of Sunday grocery shopping, finding homes for all the new toys that have found our house as their new address and packing away Christmas decorations. Why do the Christmas towels, tree ornaments and 75 other red and green nick-knacks seem like such a brilliant idea in November and then turn on you the first of January? Who thought re-decorating your house for one month was a good idea? Wish that same person was available to pack up the Rubbermaid containers and haul them up to the third floor!

Today, back to normal. Ahhh. Pilates, crazy lunch, nap time, waiting for the UPS guy to bring our new flat-screen tv... you know, the usual. My kids are about as inflexible as they come, and there is no guess work in trying to figure out where they get that from. I sure do love my routine! The holidays are magical and all, but I'm glad we're back to boring.