Labels: Adoption, Advent, birthdays, christmas

Her cake represented all that she loves in life.
Singing happy birthday. Isn't she pretty?

We have a friend who is an ammeter photographer who came and took pictures. I will post more when I get his shots. I'm sure they will be great.

We had around 70 people there, big band music playing in the back ground, old photo albums to look through, and family and friends to catch up with.

The food was fantastic and I ate way way to much.

I talked with my mom yesterday morning and asked if she was all recovered from Saturdays extravaganza? "Oh yes" she tells me, "I'm all rived up and ready for the next 10 years of my life now!"

I guess I better start thinking about her 100th birthday party pretty soon.

Labels: birthdays, friends and family

This is my 89 year old mother doing what she likes to do best. Playing a good hand of Pinochle.

Isn't she cute? I am the youngest child and she gave birth to me just a few months before her 45th birthday. I read once that women who give birth after 40 are twice as likely to live to be 90 as those who don't.

I found myself thinking about this the other day when I was pondering how slow our adoption journey has been. Maybe I should have just tried to get pregnant again?

International adoption is definitely not for the faint of heart. I have been having this nagging feeling over the last few weeks that we should change agencies and adopt older children. Our current agency won't let us go out of birth order. I understand their reasoning, but my heart feels like all of these man made rules are not allowing God to work in our lives. When we started this journey we really wanted to adopt children that were between Paige and Garrett in age. Their is a five year age gap (they are currently 5 and 10) and I really felt we should adopt children in this age range. Then we were told by our agency that we could not adopt out of birth order. It was not until much later that we found out this was not an Ethiopia rule but the rule of our agency. We thought at the time about switching agencies, we prayed about it, and I still wasn't sure.

However, I am having that feeling again. My stomach has been churning and I am feeling very unsettled. I do see the hand of God in our timeline. Paige is in a much better place to welcome a sibling into her world. I have talked before about how far she has come and we talk about her getting a new sister. She seems excited and asks when her new sister will get here.

God's timing was much better than mine. I can see that now. My only question is if he is now nudging us in another direction. We would lose money. People would think we were crazy. I want to have the peace that God is leading us toward the children that were meant to be ours. I am really not feeling that right now. Maybe I am in a pre-adoption funk and it will pass?

We are praying hard at our house for some guidance. Any additional prayers would be greatly appreciated.

Now, back to the cards.

This is the very cute cake my brother in laws mother made my mom for her birthday. If you play pinochle you will recognize it as a double jack of diamonds/queen of spades. This is called a double pinochle and is worth 30 points (or 300 if you don't drop the last number when you score). Needless to say she loved her cake.

Thanks so much, Shirley, for making it for her.

Now, just to confuse you a little more here are some of the men of the family. My Dad is sitting with the blanket on him, he is seven years younger than my mom. She was way ahead of her time on that front. The man on the right is Bill and he is my sister Stacey's father in law. My kids love him. The man standing behind them is my sister Candy's husband, Nino. All of these guys are about the same age. My sister is 18 years older than me and then she married a man 15 years older than her. I know our family is very confusing.

The funny thing about Nino is that I worked in his doctor's office (he was an anesthesiologist) when I was 16 as a summer job. It wasn't until many years later that he started dating my sister and they would marry. It's funny how life turns out sometimes.

Here is some of the crew playing there beloved game.
Three of my kids now play and grandma couldn't be happier about this. Well, as long as they are not beating her. She does not like to lose!
Here is Uncle Barry who moments after this picture was taken put Jo Jo under his jacket and tried to leave with her. As you can imagine Samantha would have none of that!

Well, that's what's been going on here. Thanks for all your prayer's regarding our adoption journey, as always, I will keep you informed.

Labels: Adoption, birthdays, friends and family

Yesterday afternoon I had to run to Sam's Club and pick up a few things before the party last night. Paige enthusiastically spoke up and said she wanted to go to Sam's Club with me, so she did.

Unfortunately, Sam's Club wasn't all she had hoped for. Here is our conversation in the car.

Paige: I can't wait to get to Sam's house to play with him.

Me: Do you mean Sam's Club?

Paige: Yes, Sam's house. He has a Club House were going to play in together.

Clearly, this child was very confused. Poor thing, you should have seen her face when we drove up and parked.

"You mean were going to the grocery store" she asked unhappily.

I almost felt a little guilty for laughing.

***********************************************************************************
My mom's birthday party was a huge success. Lest you think I am unkind please understand that I am not mad at the person who forgot to order the food. I was annoyed, but totally over it now.

The food was great and the company even better.

My sisters in-laws came with her and her husband. My mom was so excited. She would rather play cards than do almost anything and she knew once she saw Bill and Shirley that there was some card playing in her future.

A few mad games of Pinochle followed and the light in my mom's eyes made me so incredibly happy.

I have some wonderful picutes to share but I still havn't gotten a new charger for the laptop so they will have to wait.

You will not believe how incredible my mom looks for being 89 years young!!!

Labels: birthdays, kids, Mom Stuff

Today we are having my mom's 89th birthday party at our house. We will be having about 20 people over for dinner.


My niece had offered to split the cost of ordering Mexican food from this moderately priced restaurant so I wouldn't have to cook. I really didn't mind cooking, but it sounded nice to not have to worry about it. I would have spent about the same at the market on food as it was costing for us to cater the dinner so I was really happy about that.


Knowing I didn't really have any prep work to do this past weekend for the party I happily cleaned out the cupboards of my kitchen. Yesterday afternoon my niece calls to tell me there is a problem. The restaurant requires 24 hour notice for catering and when she went to call them yesterday she discovered they were closed on Sunday.


Why she waited until the day before I have no idea.


So, yesterday at 3:00 p.m. I stood in my kitchen, where I had begun cleaning out another cupboard, frantically trying to figure out what I was going to feed all these people? I was not happy.


We decided to have another Mexican restaurant cater the dinner. I just didn't have the energy to plan a menu and go shopping last night.


Of course, this will cost us twice as much as the original restaurant.


I hate to feel this way, but this is why I don't like to let others take care of details for me. It seems like I am always trying to clean up others messes. Maybe it is just the control freak inside of me.


Either way, we will have a nice dinner tonight, and no matter how much it costs my wonderful mom is worth it.


However, next time I will be calling the caterer myself.

Labels: birthdays, Mom Stuff

I have all these really cute Halloween pictures that I wanted to post but oldest son broke the charger to my laptop so I can't download them. I am not speaking to him.

After the excitement of Halloween on Friday we had Zach's birthday celebration on Saturday night. Here is a tip for all you moms; if you tell your child he can invite a few friends over for a party be sure and give him an actual number. We ended up with 13 high school juniors sleeping on our floor Saturday night, and let me tell you, those boys can eat!

We didn't get to "sleep" until 3:30 a.m. and then Paige woke up at 6:30. All of the boys were up by 8:00 and thankfully their parents came by 9:30 to pick them up. We made it to church for the 11:00 a.m. service and then came home and fell back to sleep for the rest of the afternoon. The boys had a blast, Dave and I have decided we are really to old to do all nighters any more. I was seriously pooped out.

Today was spent having a challenging school day with my ten year old and trying not to feel anxious about the election tomorrow. I am trying to remind myself that God is still in control no matter what happens.

We have two very important propositions on the ballot for our state tomorrow. The first is Prop. 8 which would again make gay marriage in our state illegal. I went out with Zach tonight to pick up some food and the Yes on Prop 8 people were yelling and screaming on one side of the street and the No on Prop. 8 were on the other side yelling and screaming. The police were in between them trying to keep order. It made me sad that we are all so divided on this issue. There is no one that seems to be neutral, including myself, which makes for a very volatile situation.

The other proposition involves parental notification before a minor can have an abortion. My mind cannot fathom how my child cannot take a Tylenol to school without being threatened with expulsion but a teacher could take my underage daughter to a clinic during school and bring her back without her parents knowing anything had gone on. Does this make sense to you?

I have been praying very hard for both of these laws to pass tomorrow, and if we don't win, I know I will have a 24 hour period of feeling very very sad. I almost don't want tomorrow to come.

Pray for our country my friends, I am so afraid we are going to head down the wrong path tomorrow.

p.s. I'm only kidding, I'm talking to Zach, though I am very annoyed. This is the second time this has happened. Grrrrr.

p.s.s. After I posted this I clicked over here. True words of wisdom were spoken and I felt much better. God truly is in control.

Labels: birthdays, Mom Stuff, politics

I became a mother for the first time.

I will never forget the overwhelming love I felt for this long prayed for child.

We had just celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary a few months before. I never dreamed when we got married that it would take six years to have our first child. I was ready to be a mom the next day. However, that did not happen.

Looking back I can see God's hand in this timing just as I can see his Hand in so many other circumstances in our lives together. If our first child had been born any sooner I would have had to work and been unable to be the stay at home mom I longed to be. I would have HATED THAT. God's plans are always so much better than mine.

In many ways, from the outside looking in, it looked like the worst possible moment for us to be starting our family.

Dave's job in Boulder, Colorado was ending in a month (he had a 3 year apprenticeship at the University), I had been laid off from my job at the hospital, we needed to sell our house but the economic climate on that day was much like today's, depressed and people were weary. Our house had been on the market for 3 months without a bite. My husband had a PH.D in physics and had recently decided the world of academics was not for him. He was looking for a job in aerospace but there were hiring freezes on all over the place. He had many people wanting to hire him, but there hands were tied until the hiring freezes were lifted.

Things looked bleak.

New baby, no job, no money, can't sell our house. What could we do?

As I entered my last month of pregnancy I should have been full of anxiety about the future. However, this time of my life is very precious to me because isn't it through adversity that our relationship with God seems to grow the most? Yes, I was anxious and a little scared, but I really felt God holding me through this experience and reassuring me that everything would work out. Others commented on our strength during this time and how we seemed so calm about the future even with such uncertainty swirling around us. It was a very special time.

The decision was made, with much prayer involved, that we would move back to California at the end of October and stay with my parents until Dave could find work. My parents, as always, were more than willing to help us. I'm sure the fact that I would be bringing a wee one with me while we stayed did not add to their excitement about our arrival at all.

So, after a VERY LONG day of labor seventeen years ago today I gave birth to our first precious son. From the very beginning to this day he has been a complete joy to parent. I cannot imagine our lives without him.

A few hours after he was born I lay nursing him contentedly. Until it started to hurt. I couldn't figure out how to unlatch him from my brea*st. The phone started ringing. I tried to grab for it. Ouch! How do I get this kid to let go, I thought? Just then the nurse came in, grabbed the phone, and showed me how to put my finger in his little mouth to release the suction. She was probably thinking, "That poor kid, this woman has no idea what she is doing".

After she left I picked up the receiver she had laid next to my bed. Our realtor was on the other end of the phone. She had sold our house, and they wanted a quick escrow!

The next day Dave went to the airport in Denver to pick up my mom who was flying in to help me pack up the house and move. We had ten days to get it all done and be out of the house.

Our wonderful friends Brad and Kathy (Brad is our friend and also the minister who married us, our 12 year old daughters are now best friends) called from California to tell us Brad was flying in to help and was going to stay with Dave to drive all of our belongings (and our two dogs) cross country to our new home in California.

We never asked. Everyone should be blessed with true friends like this.

God's blessings continued a few days later when I was again nursing our son and the phone rang. Thankfully, this time, I had become a more experienced mom and could actually nurse and talk on the phone at the same time. The voice on the other end asked for Dave, he wanted to offer him a job. Dave had been talking to this man and this company for six long months. It was a job he really wanted and they really wanted him. Somehow they had found a way around the hiring freeze and they were offering him a great job, with good benefits and he could start right away. As an added bonus, the job was in California, the very place we had felt God telling us to go back to a few weeks before.

In four days we had been blessed with a son, our home had sold, our friends and parents had rallied around us to help, and a job had been provided for our family.

I said goodbye to all the wonderful friends we had made while in Colorado and boarded a plane with my mom and ten day old son heading back to my roots and family in California.

When Dave reported to his new job a week later he had to first go to the companies nurse for a physical. She told him that his was the first new hire physical she had done in FOUR YEARS and she had no idea how he had actually managed to get hired. It would be another year before the hiring freeze was actually lifted.

The nurse may not know how this could of all happened, but we do. God told me he had everything under control and to trust him. For the first time in my life I actually did that and watched him put the pieces of our lives together the way he wanted them to be. God wasn't going to let a little thing like a hiring freeze get in the way of his Will for our lives. What an awesome God we serve.

My husband still works at that job seventeen years later. Our son is almost a man. Those first weeks as a new mother were stressful and tiring and maybe not actually the way I would have planned them, but they are some of the best memories of my life. I would not change them for anything.

Happy Birthday son. I love you more than words can possibly
describe. I am so proud of your strong work ethic and the way you are not
afraid to go after what you really want. Remember to trust God
and seek HIS will for your life, he will not let you down. Your
father and I can't wait to see what your future holds, though we know there
will be sorrow along with joy. I thank God everyday for the privilege of being
your mother. Have a happy, happy, day son.

p.s. I'm sorry you had to get up early on your birthday to go and take the PSAT. I will make you your special breakfast tomorrow, I promise.

Labels: birthdays, Mom Stuff

As you can see Paige didn't like it AT ALL.

She didn't have any fun at her pool party either. It was so sad.

She put the candles on all by herself, and she insisted on a lot of candles.
Opening presents is so much fun!
For some reason we didn't get any pictures of the kids swimming. I guess the photographer (me) was busy doing other things. I am kind of sad about that.

Overall, a wonderful and fun day with friends and family. The cake was a big hit too!

Labels: birthdays, friends and family

Last night I was making Paige's birthday cake for her party today. I made her a double layer chocolate cake with a Tinker Bell theme. I had finished frosting the cake and then decided I wanted to move it onto a prettier plate.

I know, your thinking I probably shouldn't try and do that.

You know what? You would be right.

I broke the cake in two, a huge crater was going down the middle. The kids said it looked like the San Andreas fault (if you live in CA. you will know what that is).

I tried to fix it by stuffing the giant earthquake crack with about 3 pounds of frosting. I am not kidding.

I finally gave up around 10:30 pm and figured I will go to Sam's Club this morning and hope they have a cute cake.

When Paige said her prayers tonight she thanked Jesus for her pretty Tinker Bell cake.

Yikes. Hopefully I can find a cake that I can put her tink decorations on so she will be none the wiser.

I am such a bone head some times. When will I ever learn????

Labels: birthdays, Mom Stuff

Today I went shopping for Paige's birthday present. She turns 5 today but we aren't celebrating until Sunday.

I decided to drive out to the big Toys R' Us about 30 minutes away so I could have a big selection and find the "perfect" gift just for her.

I looked in the little girl section and found an amazing supply of Barbies, Baby Dolls, and dress up clothes and even put a few things into my cart. However, after a few minutes I realized I was buying her things she really wouldn't play with (they were the things I wanted to play with). She likes babies and dolls OK, but she prefers trucks and trains. I still have not given birth to a girl that loves Barbies like I did as a child.

So, off I went to the boys area where I found a new Thomas the Tank Engine train I knew she would love to add to her collection along with this bridge. I bought her more digging utensils for the back yard (the dog had chewed up the others), some wooden Melissa and Doug Bead sets, this cute princess set (she loves magnets) and this because she loves to make music (I also got the microphone that you can sing into and it records your voice). She probably really would have liked the boys wooden tool box with all the hammers and nails but I had spent my limit and that will have to wait until Christmas.

Maybe our new Ethiopian daughter will want to play Barbies with me. Anyone out there have a Barbie loving girl they would like to share until then? I really want to play dress up with someone. Though I do have to admit......I love the trains and dirt too. I wouldn't change anything about this sweet 5 year old girl for ANYTHING! Messy hair and all.

Side Note: Our little dog Jo Jo is doing much better and has been running around the house all day biting at our toes. I feel such relief that she is OK, she has grabbed all of our hearts and is already such a wonderful part of our family. Thanks so much for all the kind words and prayers.

Labels: birthdays, Mom Stuff

Wow, I can't believe it has been 5 days since I last posted. I guess I took an unannounced bloggy break.

Life has been crazy busy.

I got the house decorated and all the presents purchased. Now if I could just get some things wrapped I would feel a whole lot better. Maybe tomorrow.

We are the only house on our street that does not have our outside lights up yet. Never mind that no one on the surrounding streets has there's up either. Our kids think we are awful for being the only non lit house on our street. Guess what we'll be doing after church tomorrow?




Poor hubby. Tomorrow is his birthday and not only does he have to get the lights up (so his children will stop bugging him) he has to take a 5:00pm flight to Arizona for a business meeting Monday morning. On his birthday. I feel really bad about that.

So, to remedy the situation, the kids and I had a meeting and we decided that tomorrow is not their Dad's birthday. It is actually on Monday. We will celebrate and pamper him when he gets off the plane Monday afternoon. That way he can relax a little and not have to hurry off in the middle of our little celebration.

This past week we also had Paige's first appointment with her Neurologist. I wasn't really impressed. He basically told us that he felt she had a speech disorder (yeah buddy we already know that) combined with a disorder on the Autism Spectrum. Or, an Autism Spectrum Disorder. So, what does that mean? Uh, about a million things. There are a lot of disorders on the Autism Spectrum. He didn't seem real interested in helping us figure out which one it is. I asked about some new therapies I heard about and he basically said he didn't think they worked. He was definitely old school and basically told us to continue sending her to speech therapy and he would see her in another year when it would be easier to diagnose a specific disorder.

Umm, yeah.

Part of the problem was Dave and I didn't go into the meeting very well prepared. I thought he was going to suggest tests, therapies, and other avenues of treatment. Well, I was obviously very naive in my thinking.

As a result we are requesting a second opinion from a different neurology group. We would like them to do a blood test and check for chromosomal abnormalities and also do an MRI. After reading up on Autism and other disorders I found this to be a pretty standard first approach. Hopefully the new doctor will agree with us.

In other news our social worker is coming to our house on Wednesday for our Home visit. I am a little stressed about getting the house in order by Wednesday night. I only have Tuesday what with Dave's birthday party on Monday. If you saw what my house looks like right now you would be stressed to. Hopefully he won't look in closets.

Well, I better go. My sweet 11 year old girl is sleeping next to me. She went ice skating this afternoon for 5 hours and came home with a bad head and stomach ache. She has just fallen off to sleep so I am going to try and sneak back downstairs to clean the kitchen before I head to bed.

Have a blessed Sunday tomorrow.

Labels: Adoption, Autism, birthdays, stuff

Yesterday we celebrated my Mom's 88Th Birthday. We had a great time watching football (grandma loves all sports) and playing Pinochle...and eating. The food, oh my, the food was fantastic.

Even though I made it I am still going to state that the food was fantastic.

The best part being I made almost everything one or two days ahead so I had very little food prep to do yesterday. Which allowed me to lay around and eat chips and salsa (and suchi and cucumber sandwiches and lots of other stuff my thighs are thanking me for this morning) with every one else.

It started on Friday when Garrett helped me peel 10 pounds of potato's. This was his first time using the potato peeler and after a few minutes he was a pro. He helped me make these potato's. Let me just tell you my friends, these were a huge hit, and it is doubtful I will ever make regular old mash potato's again.

See, he's a pro now. He has been elected official potato peeler for our family. Doesn't he look thrilled?



















I made my Brisket recipe and since I saw Uncle Brad licking the last of it out of the pan last night I am pretty sure it was a huge hit also.

We had ambrosia salad, zucchini casserole, Cole slaw, baked beans (the best beans ever) and Parmesan garlic rolls. We then all exploded. It was very messy.

In between all the eating the cousins had fun playing together.Something funny was going on with the computer and Grandma decided to check it out. Maybe they were reading my blog?
Crazy cousins on the trampoline with the bunny.















Aunt Stacey made her famous Spice Cake and believe it or not I was to full to have a piece last night. I know, I know, shocking.

My piece is all covered up and waiting for me this morning. I'll be inhaling that with my morning coffee. I guess I better hurry and get off the computer before one of the kids sees it and devours it in one bite.

Happy Birthday Mom. We love you so much and can't wait for your 89th!!!!

Labels: birthdays, friends and family, recipes

Garrett turned 9 a few weeks ago amidst his mother's weepy protests that this could not possibly be his last year in single digits. I refuse to let him turn 10. I'll let you all know later how that works out.
Here he is very excited about this large box of baseball cards.

He was thrilled with his Yankee pennant. I can't tell you how much it pained me to purchase this particular item. (Go Angels!)

Singing Happy Birthday and blowing out the candles.


This young man is such a joy to his daddy and I. He is a great athlete and does really well in school, but more importantly, he is a really good person who cares about others.

He also seems to be quite the ladies man. At the end of last school year one of the other mother's told me her son didn't want to play with Garrett anymore because he had stolen his girlfriend. I laughed thinking she was kidding. SHE WAS NOT!

This mother actually thought that because this little girl now wanted to play handball with Garrett instead of her son he was going to have some long lasting effect on his life. They were in the second grade. Sigh.

Thank goodness we have many years until this young man has his first REAL date.

Labels: birthdays

Today is my birthday. I turned 43. 43? How could this be?

I would like to tell you that the number above you doesn't really bother me, but it does.

I don't feel 43.

In my heart I still feel 23. That doesn't really seem fair.

Until someone reminded me of this.

It is better to be 43 and feel 23 then to be 43 and feel 63.

I have to agree. So I have decided to be thankful for this number.

After all, isn't 40 the new 30 or something like that? My mom reminded me that when she turned 43 she hadn't even conceived me yet. Her 40's were her favorite time of life.

Something to definitely think about.

What, you might ask, did I do for my birthday?

Before I answer I must post a warning. If you read this you will truly understand my weirdness and what a complete nerd I actually am.

OK, you have been warned.

Dave asked me what I wanted for my birthday sometime last week. I knew immediately.

I want you and the kids to help me clean out all the kitchen cupboards on Saturday.

He looked at me quite pitifully as if to say "Wouldn't you prefer if we just bought you something"?

I have been trying to get my kitchen cupboards cleaned out for over a year. Something always seems to come up and I just don't have the time.

There level of disorganization was really getting to me and every time I had to find something in the disorganized mess I found myself feeling stressed and unhappy.

Hence, my birthday request.

Now, I would like to tell you that the children jumped into this project with enthusiasm and agreed to my request out of great love.

However, they did not.

They complained and wined on and on. There Dad was getting madder by the minute and yelling things like "Your Mom does everything for you, can't you do this one thing for her!"

The guilt job worked and together we had all the cupboards (I still have to work on the drawers) cleaned out in a few hours.

I am a much happier mommy now.

This morning we went to church and then Zach had a baseball game in the afternoon. After his game we went to the mall for a while and then out to dinner.

Where the waitress made me some sort of Trojan princess warrior head piece to wear that my family found very amusing.

The little girl in the next booth got a cute princess tiara with lace.

I guess when you are 43 you no longer qualify for that one.

My family thought today's birthday celebration was much better than yesterday's slave labor version.

Go figure?

Labels: birthdays

My little girl turned four yesterday. I am mourning the loss of toddlerhood. It was so much fun. Paige has been such a blessing to our family. I thank God every day for sending her to us.

Here are a few pictures of her special day.

Excitedly checking out her gifts!

Her sweet cake big sister made her all by herself.

Big brother admiring her new princess outfit and helping her play with her new phone with fur all over it. Doesn't every girl need one of those?

Since blogger is giving me fits about adding more pictures I guess that will have to be it for now.

Have a blessed day tomorrow.

Labels: birthdays, kids