Nona rules!

She has the most patience and creativy of all of us...sometimes combined! She can take buckets (insert picture below) and have the grandkids amazed for hours...

She's going to kill me one day!!!

Bella is tres into dance...This was her version of a fetching ensemble....Dang funny.

Thanksgiving at Granny's 3

Relay races... My plan was to run the kids until they dropped from exhaustion.


A little rolling...


And finally the exhaustion. Which lasted all of 3 seconds.


This is Gabe. He and his dad came down from Kentucky to visit. What a blast!

Thanksgiving at Granny's 2

So we go for a little walk after lunch since I can't sit still either and the horses come running to hang out. The kids loved it, except.....

Bella..."I go. I go. I go." No love for the horses.


Talia, Elias and Gabe sorta wanted to pet the horse...


Uncle/Cousin Dustin helping his son, Gabe, reach the horse.

Thanksgiving at Granny's

Bella


I was the only adult allowed at the kids' table...not sure if I should be proud of that or not.


Why must my child take her shoes off at every event?


Not the best photo but I caught the midleap I intended. Just a little ditch play.

Had to mark this in history!

12:00 midnight. Watching the next PRESIDENT Barack Obama give his first speech! What an amazing moment for me. I am having a hard time actually putting words on the page. I've spent the evening blogging, making cards, organizing my new laptop, IMing Julie, Julie and Emilee and watching the numbers rise. At 11pm it was projected that Obama won and my sweet sister started to cry. An hour later and I'm still grinning like a fool and have this unexplainable excitement building inside. How am I ever going to get asleep?!

So you think you can dance?

So, seemingly out of the blue, my daughter is now interested in dance. Those that have seen her "dance" know how odd this might be. Up until Boo at the Zoo last week, her dancing consisted of rocking back and forth. The magic bunny costume had her (literally) wagging her tail, much to my suprise. Now she is a dancing queen?

Hagen beats Dole!

Awesome! At least our state touches a state that is now Democrat!

So its all meant to be...

Yesterday we got an email from the adoption agency director saying the grandmother of the little girl happened to call the other family first and fell in love with them. We were a little bummed that she didn't give us a chance, but the focus is on the child and if she felt 100% that Adrianna would be perfect for them, then that is what we want, too. But I was still bummed, more poor me bummed than why not that child bummed. So I went to Handpicked and looked and absorbed the beauty of jewelry and then cruised Target for an hour and a half, racking up a nice buggy of stuff and a nice bill. I came home, put Talia to be and then hopped online. I jumped to the agency's website to see if there were any new birthmoms and I saw the blurb about the girl we wanted to adopt: The birth mother's father is suspected by his X of being maniac depressive but never been diagnosed. Grandmother also suspects prescription drug abuse (pain pills) during the pregnancy.
Interesting. Not part of the email we got. SO, wow, it is so much better to trust God and let what is meant to be happen! Hard, but better. So, again, things happen the way they are supposed to happen.

50% Chance

So, Monday we get an email about an almost 15 month old girl that needs a "forever family." Cool. We say, we'd love her. We were then asked about our homestudy. I looked at said homestudy. Expiring in less than 2 weeks! Not cool! I panic. Call our adoption investigator extradanaire, and she sends me on errands. That was Monday. Tuesday I find out that our (old) family profile book was sent to the grandmother (who has custody), along with 6 other families. 1 out 7 chance. 15% chance. So Wednesday June (adoption queen) emails and helps us update our homestudy. She also gives me the name of the DSS person that processes DSS checks. Usually it take 2 weeks. I called Mrs. Barbara and she was willing to take the paperwork from me and process it. I still figured a week. Nope. Thursday I showed up with a check and the signed papers and she said, hang on. I waited and about 45 minutes later she comes back with papers ready! 2 days and I am paperwork ready. Rock on! So Thursday night about 9:45 Mike and I are in bed about asleep and the phone rings. I jump up. Out of state listing. Probably adoption related. The cell phone stops and house phone starts ringing. I run downstairs and it is the director of the agency. "Hi. Just wanted to make sure your paperwork was indeed ready." "Yes." "And you are planning to stay home for 3 months after the adoption?" "Yes." And you are willing to have an open adoption and make yearly visits to the grandmother." "Uh, yes...Have we been chosen?" I ask hesitantly. "Oh, no." She responds with no hint of hope or disallusionment. "I just was going to have a conference call with grandma and wanted to make sure I had all my answers if I was asked anything." Heart still beating very fast. She thanks me and says goodbye. I run upstairs and am thankful I took Nighttime Tylenol.
So today I get home from work and have two hang ups on the answering machine. She calls back a little while later and tells me that the grandmother has narrowed the choices to us and another couple. Wow. Odds just went to 50%. Better. So at this very moment, at 8:45pm, we are still waiting for her to call us. Get it over with! I hope the silly funny charming Cara comes out instead of the super nervous shy Cara. That will get us nothing. :)
So, I'm off to wait some more. Update later.

Making Daddy's Birthday Cake

Monkey Business! Or, David turns 3!

So didn't know this place existed. Too cool. They had 4 birthday parties and random drop in kids going the entire time and never was it crowded! Indoor rides. Fun stuff. There was even two real monkeys and two real parrots (couldn't exactly get near the animals, but their spirit was there.) This was the second birthday party this weekend where you pay some gosh awful amount of money (as I use to think) and the kids have a bought and paid for party. This was a blast. Last year was my one and only birthday party experience and I spent sooo much money and stressed so much. This seems a little easier.




Tori's sister. She's one and all about riding the big kids' rides. Wow.



Talia loves the rolling tunnel thingy. It was kinda fun for me, too.

Mike Jr's 40th Birthdau

Signing happy birthday to her Uncle Mike (with whom she shares a birthday.)

Bat nephew

Just an awesome picture....if I do say so myself.

Bella turns 2

This was the second event of the day. The second event involving cake. The second of three events planned for this day. Sept 28. Talia basically was a zombie at her (late) soccer game. The coach played her the ENTIRE hour...to test her will? to see if she'd ever perk up? to teach her a lesson? Who knows. 30 minutes into the game where Talia stood and ate her shirt collar, I started giving her sips of my Diet Coke. Didn't help. So then we go to Bella's birthday party where soccer star decides to rev up. She danced and played and sang and climbed and _________ (insert other action verbs) for the entire 90 minutes. Where was that at the soccer game? Anyway, this party rocked. Julie won the party by submitting a picture of Bella to the Parents magazine, so it was free, but it would have been worth any amount of money. The high school girls sang and played the whole time, they cleaned up, they provided everything. All we did was show up. Nice.

Life Update

So a few weeks ago Leigh from our adoption agency called us and said that they were killing time during the slow adoption season and were talking to an agency in Florida that we didn't even know had a copy of our book. The director there said twice our book had been included in a group of profiles for a birthmom to view and twice they wouldn't even open the cover because "Mike looked mean." Now we haven't told that story to anyone that hasn't been shocked, but if that is the impression of some then we needed to change the picture. Below is the cover and family shot in the updated book. I changed a few more pictures, added two pages at the end of photo collage and brightened the backdrop. Fascinating stuff, huh. So will be printing it again and sending it to all our agencies.

House update-nothing to report. The world is potentially collapsing, financially. I am being (really!) patient about this. I think our house looks awesome. We're in a great location (for eeryone except us.) It is priced right....Blah blah blah. So we wait.

Saturday is another soccer game. Then Bella's free birthday party at Gymboree that her picture won at 4pm and Mike/Bella's birthday family birthday party at Catherine's at 6:30. We'll be grumpy and dead by then. Should be fun. Sunday is church and another birthday at 2pm.

Talia's first soccer game

This is Talia's first team anything and so she's had a steep learning curve. And her first real game was the first day she'd been let out of the sick house after a week. So...lowered expectations.... She ran her little heart out, not always in the most helpful direction, but tried. Hopefully this Saturday will be a little more focused. (I'm scaring myself! Sounding too much like an obsessive soccer mom! Next thing I'll be belting a parent at practice...I'll get help.)