Category Archives: Everyday Life

Full

March 15, 2012 Molly 3 Comments

Life in the summer always feels so… full. Anyone else know what I mean? Sure, it’s only March, still technically winter, but between Daylight Savings Time and the 83 degree day we had today, it feels like summer.

On Monday, we didn’t have a car. Aaron’s truck wouldn’t start, so Maurice the Movie Van drove him to work. It totally threw off my plans for the day. But it was a beautiful day, and I realized that I had everything for sidewalk chalk paint. Equal parts water and cornstarch, plus a lot of food coloring.

I didn’t have any paintbrushes, so they used old toothbrushes and sponges.

Can you guess what I did?

The kids also wanted to get out their trikes and had little races in our driveway.

I can almost hear her. “‘Es okay, Baby A. I gonna help you.” Don’t worry, we can buy a seatbelt for this trike.

They also decided to wash their bikes for awhile…

There’s a better video, but I’m too lazy to go upload it.

While the kids were busy doing that, I decided that I wanted to paint. They hadn’t painted in awhile. Of course, the second I sat down to paint, they wanted me to paint things for them. I had to demand some space to paint “I love Reed and Lena.” Then they each wanted me to paint them a heart, among other things.

In case you’re wondering, the dogs were out enjoying it too.

Eventually, Aaron got home from work. His truck wasn’t going to be ready that day, so I asked him to fix the stroller so that we could walk over to Lena’s speech therapy the next day. R&L were totally fascinated by this, but I love this photo of them in particular.

A few minutes later, I went in to figure out what dinner was going to be. And nearly right away, I heard screaming. Someone was running in the driveway and fell. Ouch.

We cuddled up for awhile and both fell asleep while the boys took the dogs out for a walk.

Adoption, Everyday Life, Second Adoption

Sweet Boy

March 9, 2012 Molly 6 Comments

I miss him. In many ways, those 5000 miles and all of those legal matters are everything, and in reality, they are nothing. My heart knows he’s ours.

To explain the situation fully, there is a moratorium on adoptions in his region of his country. His country has a national government, which makes recommendations on adoption matters, but each region is left to decide individually what they will do. His region is one of 3 which is currently closed.

So, we wait. We do not know when it will re-open. Our court dossier is sitting in his city, waiting to be filed. We are waiting for the judges to begin hearing U.S. adoption court cases again. When they do, we will receive a court date, travel for his court, and assuming we pass court, return a month later to bring him home.

Please pray that the judges begin to hear court cases like ours again soon, our dossier is submitted and we receive a court date.

I have been sharing some of the soundtrack of my life lately, so I’ll share this song with you too.

Everyday Life, Project 365

Lettuce, a Faucet and Tomato

March 7, 2012 Molly 4 Comments

Aaron is known for his ridiculous jokes. Here’s one he told me yesterday…

“What happened between in the race between the tomato, the faucet and lettuce?”

“The lettuce was ahead, the faucet was running, the tomato couldn’t ketchup.”

Anyways, this blog post is me trying to “ketchup” on Project 365.

Oh, here’s a Reed joke for you.

“Why did the chicken cross the road?”

“To get to the other road.”

1. Lasagna Soup (2/21) 2. Reed’s Robot Drawings 3. What we thought was our final trip to Topeka for Apostilles (2/22) 4. Reed’s drawing of taking our dog Nina to the vet for a shot 5. Reed drinking all of his water before dinner (2/24) 6. Lena throwing herself on the floor (basically how I was feeling at that moment) (2/27) 7. Reed asking me to read him all of those books (2/28) 8. My apology to Aaron, in his lunchbox (3/1) 9. Lena’s ridiculous outfit, dress over skirt, athletic socks with dress shoes topped off with a bandaid… on her shoes (3/2) 9. Our cool book find (3/2) 10. …Used for $3.50! (3/2) 10. Reed and I accidently wore the same shirts (3/3) 11. Some napkins I was working on (3/4) 11. Our outing on a beautiful sunny day (3/5) when before two of our dogs got lost 12. Lena playing outside after a nap (3/6) 13. Same as #12

So, not a photo every day, but there should be enough photos to catch me up!

And, here’s a video. Lena singing along to a song that she’s probably never heard before…

And, here’s a short video of the Lena show, performed by Reed, a few days ago…

Everyday Life

Our Family Circus

February 28, 2012 Molly 6 Comments

We had a pretty funny night tonight.

I was downstairs cooking dinner. I went to light the (gas) stove and didn’t notice that there was a paper towel on stove… right next to the burner I was lighting. So that instantly went up in flames.

Then, just a few minutes later (like burgers still on the stove), Aaron comes running in, “Reed locked Lena in your [craft] room!” as he starts to dig through our tool drawer. Ummm, what? I guess they went to put the dogs in their crates and Reed locked her in there! So, as Aaron was digging through the drawer for tools to remove the door knob, I told him to let me try something first, and ran upstairs. [While I told him to take care of the burgers– I didn’t burn the house down in the process.] When I got up there, I said “Lena?” “Yeah, Mama? (sounding totally calm)” “Do you see the door knob?” (I wiggle it) “Can you turn the little button on it?” “Okay!” And voila, she unlocked it! So, we went downstairs to finish getting dinner ready and laugh at Aaron for being so quick to get out the tools. While she listened carefully to my instructions, she must have been VERY nervous. When she came down, she told Aaron about 15 times, “Papa, Mama talk to me and tell me what to do… and I did it myself! All by myself! I did it myself!”

So, Reed’s “punishment” was that he would have to be Lena’s special helper for the rest of the day. He was getting her place ready for dinner and Lena asked Aaron what she should do. Aaron told her that she could go sit down in her seat. He looked over a minute later and she wasn’t there. He went to go find her and he found her up in her room taking the sheets off of her bed! She had already gotten 3 corners of the fitted sheet off! Apparently, she heard “go get your sheets” instead of “get in your seat”. While she is told multiple times a day to go get in her seat, I’m not sure we’ve ever asked her to get her sheets!

Oh, and my kids were cracking me up this morning too. We walked in the house from L’s speech therapy and Reed asked if he could watch a movie. I said “yes… oh, wait, we need to brush your teeth first.” “Okay… you forgot to brush out teeth last night. ” “No, I didn’t. We brushed your teeth last night.” The thing is, I knew what he meant. He says “last night” for any previous time, but I was trying to deny my guilt. So then he said, “hold on, I’ll show you when I’m done.” So, the second he was done, he marched over to the calendar, pointed to yesterday’s date and said, “THIS is the day you forgot to brush our teeth.” And I said, “yes, I did forget.” And then Lena said, in a sassy voice, “Uh-ooooooh, you forgot to brush our teeeeeeeth.”

Everyday Life, Project 365, Second Adoption

Home and Project 365 Catching Up

February 19, 2012 Molly 2 Comments

We are home. Phew. We got home last night around 8:30.

It is so nice to be home, but I am emotionally fried. R&L seemed to do pretty well with us being gone, but they are understandably a bit more needy than usual.

For Reed, he seemed a bit indifferent that we were back, happy to see us, but kind of eh. Then, today, he was so needy. Constantly needing someone to play with, constantly interrupting conversations, just loud and kind of crazy. My patience was done was him by about 4pm. I told Aaron that I’d do all the dishes for the next 3 days if I didn’t have to have anything to do with bedtime.

Lena’s emotions have been a lot more on the surface. She was so happy she was almost in tears that we were back. Giggling and wanting lots of hugs. She slept for 12 hours straight the night we got back and then I climbed in bed with her for awhile, just to cuddle. I told her how I loved her and missed her. I said “I missed you soooo much.” L: “Too much?” “Yes, too much.” “I miss you too much too.” I love that girl. She has taken to laying on the floor with a grumpy face A LOT. She had been getting away from this for awhile, but it’s back in full force. A quick distraction usually remedies it when I can find the energy.

I am just exhausted myself. Not physically, but emotionally. A lot of emotions and frustration. Yesterday was Helen’s birthday. As happy and excited as we are about “Anderson”, my heart still breaks about Helen and the uncertainty of her future. Be praying for her, okay? Specifically that she gets to be at home with a family soon and that she does not have any medical complications that cannot be handled by doctors in her country, at any time.

Anyways, here is my photo catch-up.

Skyping. Fighting over camera space.

Reading to us from a children’s bible. This went on for ten minutes! “One time…”

Leaving the frigid north.

The little map showing where we are and the flight route. I took this for my mom.

Playing at their grandparents’ house. Please note that L DOES have clip in her hair… I just needed to fix it… again.

I forgot to take any photos today, and then everyone went to bed, but me and the dogs. So, here is Miss Nina, angry that I woke HER up to take her photo. Apparently even my dogs can’t do photos without blinking.