Being Patient

I was feeling really cranky while I waited in line at Kroger today. I just couldn't stand it another minute. I must have stood in line for at least 20 minutes.

This little boy waited in an orphanage for 6 years, hoping someone would come for him. That's two thousand, one hundred and ninety days! His family found him on Reecesrainbow and finally met him just last week.

"I have been waiting here all my life for you.", he told his new parents.

Kind of gives new meaning to the word "waiting", doesn't it?

Sweets

This morning Elliot and Anastasia had such a sweet moment over their Lucky Charms. Even though they are almost nine years apart, they actually enjoy each others company (most of the time!).

Isabella made me hot tea and read Catherine a book so I could actually drink the tea in peace. Bless you child!

Regular and Great came over for lunch, which was quite a treat. Regular had some birthday cake right out of the trough! Go Grandma!!!

Who need chocolate with these sweet people? (ok, I do. Bring on the Cadbury!)

Bedtime Song

Oh, the many, many ways my children attempt to make me a crazy person.

Bedtime is their special forte. They know I am tired and they are NEVER tired. Plus, they totally gang up on me, four to one!

"Mom, you forgot to give me the special tuck-in."

"Mom, I'm thirsty"

"It's too dark in here, I can't sleep in the dark!"

"I'm scared!"

"The dog is eating something gross!"

"MOMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!"

"He's bugging me!"

"She hit me!"

"Catherine called me a beastie."

"Please!"

"Can I turn on the night light?"

"Why? Why?"

"Please give me one more chance."

"I promise I'll be good!"

"MOMMMMMMMM!!!

Poor sweet things. They actually think I am listening to them. They just don't know what I did today. Today I got a secret weapon - headphones!

Video of Kirill - Denied a Family

You can't save them all!

I hear this a lot. I know I can't save all the orphans, but if we all helped, then they would all be saved.

This is Kirill and the mom who wants to adopt him. This family has been trying to bring him home for months. They finally got their court date. After 5 hours in the court room the judge DENIED their adoption. The facilitators, the director of the orphanage, the parents and everyone else in the court room couldn't believe what they were hearing.........NO. NO. The court said they were a "good family" and were approved to adopt a healthy child. But not this child. Not a "defective" child.
Never before has a child with down syndrome been adopted from this region.


This little one is Carrington.

Carrington is fighting for her life at the hospital. The family just got back to the US on March 17th and went straight to the hospital from the airport. You see, under those fluffy pajamas, was this pitiful little body. When the parents changed her into her new clothes to leave the orphanage, they discovered just how tiny she really was. Carrington is 3 1/2 years old and weighs only 11 pounds. She was clinging to life by a thread. They prayed she would just make it to the US, until they could get her help.

Her teeth are totally rotted.

She gouged at her face for stimulation.

These are the pictures that are so hard to look at. These kids are wasting away, laying in cribs or beds, day after day, night after night, unwanted and unloved.
We CAN DO SOMETHING.

PRAY.

These kids are saved ONE AT A TIME.

EVERYBODY can pray for these families and these kids.
Don't miss out on a chance to be a part of something amazing.

Make a difference...........BE that difference.

The Birthday Girl!!!

We have had a couple of very exciting days! Yesterday was Anastasia's 8th birthday!!! She had her entire day planned out to the minute. First, she wanted four doughnuts!

Then, we moved quickly on to presents. She picked out her present herself. She is a girl after my own heart, she likes to make sure things turn out just the way she plans!

We quickly zipped over to Great and Regular (the grandma's) house for more presents! Anastasia loves her stuffed animals! I always say, you can never have too many stuffies or too many books.

After the healthy breakfast the birthday girl requested we eat at a buffet. $30 and she ate macaroni and cheese, mandarin oranges and 5 plates of desserts!! Everyone was getting quite the sugar high.

The girls were in a play that night at church, which was fantastic!!! They remembered all their lines!

For the final thrill, the birthday cake. I am usually very creative with the kids' cakes. This cake did not turn out exactly the way I envisioned it. Someone, not to name names, ELLIOT, ate lots of the candy letters before I found them, so we had to put "Happy Birthday A". It was supposed to be a Harry Potter cake, but all I had were the Lego figures, which ended up looking like they were drowning in the icing. Though when I let Anastasia have two pieces of cake, she cheered right up.

Whew!! We didn't get to bed until midnight. Of course, little Catherine was up at dawn! I am so tired I think I need to go eat some birthday cake to perk me up. Out of the way Harry!

Sharing my Saints

I wanted to share with you some of my special saints that we pray to.

St. Jude (patron of hopeless cases)
St. Rita (another patron of hopeless cases, see a theme here?!)
St. Hannibal (not from "Silence of the Lambs"!)
St. Joseph
St. Anthony
St. Philomena
St. Monica (had a challenging son who became a saint later. I can always hope!!)

They have all done amazing miracles in our adoption!!!

Guess what? The newspaper is going to do a story on our family! Can you believe it? I never thought we were that interesting! What the heck am I going to wear? I wonder if I have time to re-paint the entire house before Monday?

My mom is having a screened in porch added to her house and she is also building the kids a treehouse! I really want to move there! Very peaceful up in the trees and no laundry to do.

Happy Happenings!

Our dossier was safely delivered yesterday!!!! Please pray that it will be submitted before April 1st, or we will have a longer wait. My friend's son had to have surgery on his skull, similar to the surgery Nastya needs. He was only 6 months old and he already had impressions of the skull on his brain!!! Yikes!


In other exciting news, Catherine got some new sandals. She keeps her eyes firmly planted on her shoes, so she keeps bumping into walls and big drooly dogs.

I cut 5 inches off Anastasia's hair.

Catherine actually took a nap.

Elliot had "Pi" day at school. I told Elliot I would bring an apple pie (store bought, of course) to school and he gave me the "look". You know the one. So it's a math term, but I still say apple pie is never a bad idea.

Othello learned table manners. He took the cookie right after I snapped the picture. He's such a table surfer.

So happy to have warm weather!!! Also, our computer is working!!! I think my mom is quite relieved that I don't have to use her computer anymore!

Addicted

When I found out our computer was broken, I almost sobbed. What would I do without e-mail and my blog?!!! How would I ever find anything without mapquest? But the computer has been gone three days now and I am starting to see the light again. I am coming out of my computer coma. I suddenly realized I was in an intimate relationship with a computer screen. I was a woman obsessed. I would think, "Oh, I'll just check it for a minute." But a minute always turned into an hour. I would hear my kids playing outside and just turn back to google. If one of the kids talked to me while I was on the computer, I would spit venom at them.

Today, since I had no facebook to check, I actually sat outside in the swing and listened to Anastasia read to me. I wasn't even distracted. I entered a race on a Barbie scooter with the kids, loosing four times in row!

My son is begging me to get the computer fixed. Maybe we won't. Maybe we don't need the battered, old hunk of metal!

Anyone want to buy a broken computer? It's got some cool Hello Kitty stickers on it! It makes a really great cat platform too.

Anastasia, pre-computer days, reading!!!!

No News Sunday

Since my computer isn't working, I had to resort to calling Fed Ex numerous time in my obsession to know where the dossier is. Of course, they aren't open today, so all I could find out was that it was "in route". Big help.

I am using my mom's computer, so I thought I would post some older pictures of us, plus I can always use them for blackmail for Elliot if I need to.

This is Elliot at 6 months. He was a chunky monkey.

Elliot, 9 years old. Isn't he a cutie?

Anastasia and me. As you can see, my sense of style was still as fabulous as it is today.

Anastasia is wearing my nightgown from when I was little!

Poor Hugger, every kid wants to ride him.

My famous Mom and Grandma (my kids call my mom "Regular" and my grandma "Great")

Hopefully we'll have some news tomorrow!

Sunny Saturday

The weather is beautiful here in Atlanta. I have decided to take a day off from worrying and just enjoy being with the kids.

No update on the dossier. It appears to have left Paris, but it hasn't landed anywhere yet. I had a dream last night that they lost it. I also had a dream that Isabella had neon blue hair with white polka dots, so let's hope neither of these dreams come true!!!

I am so touched by everyone's kindness and generosity in donating to our give-away. The girls are so thrilled amd my heart is just soaring!!! So many people have donated and written such thoughtful comments to me! Thank you all so much!!!

Sorry, no pictures today. I am at the library writing. Gotta go catch Catherine who is NOT using her quiet library voice!

Wish I was where my package was!

It's in Paris, France right now! Keep traveling baby!!!

Obsessed with tracking

So I thought I could relax since the dossier is mailed, but nope. Now I am obsessed with tracking the package. So far, it's only in Indiana.

I also just heard that the country Nastya and Moira are in will close for two weeks beginning April 1st. So, that means we might not get submitted until much later. Please say a prayer we get submitted next week!! Every day is another day of pressure in Nastya's skull. We don't know what day the pressure may be too great for her brain to endure.

Please, please don't forget our ring give-a-way!!!

"Whatcha doing?"

My kids play a game at their drama class where someone says, "Whatcha doing?" and they have to act out whatever the person says, like pretending to swim. If someone said that to me today, I would be acting like a crazy person, jumping around ecstatically, cause guess what I did today!!! Mailed off our dossier!!!

My friend at the Fed Ex. She has been there through all of my adoptions.

It doesn't look too impressive on the floor here, but it is like gold to us! 40 documents, notarized, checked, re-checked and apostilled.

It's considered good luck to kiss it before it goes!

Catherine could hardly contain her excitement.

I felt so drained that I actually went home and took a nap. Then, I ate a bunch of Oreos. I did this sitting down on a chair, which is quite significant since I have been running all day long for weeks.

Now, all I have to do is worry it gets there, worry it is accepted, worry that nothing will go wrong and pray, pray, pray. Deep breath.

So, now what the heck am I going to do for fun?

Perspective

Today, I got a flat tire. I had to walk over a mile home, carrying Catherine, who loudly decided she couldn't walk another step. My husband had to crawl under the car and tried to wrench out the spare tire, which was stuck. Many people stared. A fire truck came by and waved. I was quite annoyed about the whole situation. Whine, whine, whine.

My husband was grumpy too.

My children, however, are never gloomy. They can be happy and find creative things to do no matter where they are.

Later, I found out that both front tires were ready to blow, a rod axel was breaking and the brakes were bad. I have been driving downtown, on highways, in the rain in a blue ticking time bomb on wheels. Really bad things could have happened. As I watched my kids sliding down a dirt hill, I realized how lucky we were to be stuck only a mile from home, safe.

So, I climbed up a mud hill with my kids. Glad to be where I was after all.

Crazy Fowl

Has anyone missed me?
I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off for days now. Now that we know all is well with Nastya and Moira, the frenzy of getting over 40 documents ready for our dossier has begun. Of course, I chose the rainiest, coldest day to travel downtown.

I also managed to loose my keys several times. They were found in Catherine's carseat, on a counter in the county assessors office and also in a shoe. Some people started to get a little cranky. It might have been me.

I had to get our marriage certificates and I actually went to the wrong county. We have been married almost 18 years and I can't even remember where we were married? My brain is just going in a million directions and I feel like I can't remember to even eat. Or sleep.

My children seem to sense I am not all there and are finding lots of ways to amuse themselves. Let me just say, powder sugar, butter and a child should NEVER be left unattended!

However, I think the children are learning valuable lessons without me to constantly monitor them. Things like, the faucet does not turn off automatically if you leave the bathroom to go outside to play. Also, they can learn how to wash many, many water soaked towels on their own.

Guess what I get to do tomorrow? Re-do about 10 documents!!!! Catherine is thrilled.

Please don't forget our give-a-way!!!! This is a real diamond ring!!! You can just click on the Reecesrainbow button on the right. We are getting closer and I am getting worried! Thank you to everyone who has donated so far!!!!