Saturday, April 25, 2009

A welcome form AND a welcomed phone call

**Welcomed form**
We received our wonderful new super dooper enhanced I-800a...WOO HOO!! What this does for us is let us now send the two dossiers to China....So Tuesday I will be driving to Springfield to have them stamp all the forms and then we will Fed-X all the forms to the Chinese paper stampers(they have an official name, I just cannot remember it at this moment) in Chicago who hopefully will stamp all the papers double fast and Fed X them back to me...and then I will Fed X them (think fed X makes a few dollars off us huh?) to the adoption agency who will then translate them and Fed X them to China....the way travel time looks I feel (asking for prayers) could be August.
**Welcome call**
Last night, well actually this morning at 3 a.m., my cell phone rang out on the kitchen table. Claude rolled out of bed and answered it and no one was there but a vm popped up...thinking a truck co or plant had an emergency i just hit redial on the phone and was so utterly amazed to her our friend Kelly answer. Kelly and her husband Nate and their daughter Hope are missionaries in the Philippines and she was calling us to congratulate us on our Pa for the littlest girl. But to the funny part....she was stuttering just a little bit and finally asked "what time is it there" and I peeked at the clock and said about 3 am...poor Kelly was so sorry and embarrassed but hey!! I had a phone call from Kelly!! It was great hearing her voice instead of "reading" her voice....So Kelly thank you for making the error in calling us at 3 am...it was a great conversation with no interruptions from anyone here!!! Anyone else want to visit with me with no interuptions just call my cell at 3 a.m.!!! And Kelly...3 am sincerely was fine...and thank you for the great congrats on PA.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Bye Bye cows


For those of you that were so entertained with my weekend last weekend….well you were probably not aware that Monday night when I got home I again chased cows, in the rain with a bit of hail added in (Claude had "done me a favor" and gave me the eveining to myself and he took the girls out to dinner) this is the result of their behavior. The sale usually starts about 7 pm for large animals at the Kewanee Sale Barn, Kewanee, IL in case anyone needed a cow, or 6. I think unless the chickens can unlatch the gates or the bunnies can get out of their pens I should have a bit of a calmer weekend this weekend.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Kayaking weekend-NOT for me

So Saturday Claude had three guys come over for breakfast and then they loaded up their kayaks on the trailer attached to the mule and off they went to put in at Indian Creek. The girls and I had things to do and were working in the yard when Vicky came with the phone saying Baba wants to talk to you...he asked if we would call our dog, Coal, who was following them. So we all stood out there in the yard yelling Coal, Coal, come here Coal...no dog and finally I told the girls enough...

The next phone call was Claude saying that now the dog was swimming after them in the Spoon River and would I bring the 4-wheeler down and get him? Gee sure...let me drop all my things I have scheduled and go get the dog while you have fun...yes honey, I will come and get the dog...so off I go on the 4-wheeler looking for this area that they are at and when I finally find them the dog is in the middle of the river and the guys are all back paddling to stay in that area while I am being Queen for the Day and getting the dog. Without painting a actual picture just imagine me sliding down the river bank in my new flip flop, yoga pants that are also new and my favorite Eddie Bauer sweater...to try to lift the darn dog (Coal is a black lab) up the bank to the top. I have thrown away the sweater, praying that the laundry pre-wash will fix my flip flops and who knows about the yoga pants?

So I get home with the dog who is just beat and tell the girls I have to go take a shower as I am covered in river bank clay dirt, all the while delivering my cell phone messages that have piled up to hear this very cheerful voice of the lady at the post office saying " we are so sorry that your 25 baby chicks did not catch the early morning ride to the post office that is much closer to you and they are here in downtown Peoria, can you please make arrangements to pick them up before 4 today?" Well this is 40 minutes away from me...I go take a shower and am in the bedroom to get dressed to go get the chicks when I happen to glance out the window and OH MY GOD THE COWS ARE OUT! Really I think my whole being slumped just a bit at that moment...but being the great wife and mom that I am I got all the girls inside so they would not get trampled and accessed the situation a bit more to see that only one of the cows was out...I went over to the barn and got a bucket of grain and got the cow back in with encouraging words from Vicky who was standing at the opened window telling me there she goes that way! No now she is coming with you...she is almost in! She is in, shut the gate, hurry mama!

Then we head to Peoria with a cup of water along with us, get the baby chicks and all of us sit on the sidewalk and dip their beaks in the water to save them (they should have had water about 7 am) and put them all back in with the lid on and head home. Addie only asked 15 times to make them quiet down that they were making her head hurt...I think we were all glad to get home and have things settle down just a bit!

Friday, April 10, 2009

Saturday room re-do











Thank you so much to my sister Carrie and friend Vickie for coming and for Vickie bringing HUGE cinnamon rolls from Great Harvest to fortify us while working setting furniture in the room that is finally pretty well done. I was so lucky when Andy called and said the rug was delivered and thank goodness he agreed to be a great son and wrangle it into his to small for the rug car and bring it out here from the office!!! We all agreed it looks great in the room. I found the brown "paisley" chairs at Big Lots and just love them!!! Vickie helped hang the photos of the girls (bear in mind I have to get some more frames the wall is not complete) Vickie suggested I need long drapes to soften the room and Carrie and I agree so the hunt is on for those. And for the large table I have ordered black chairs to go with it....so all in all it is starting to come together! I am going to have us live in the room a bit before deciding on the cabinets to house the t.v. and on that wall will also be some large water colors from China. Thank you again Carrie and Vickie

Monday, April 6, 2009

April catch up

Sorry for being so lax in posting...a bit busy and a sore throat has kept me from doing as much.

The new adoption first-we have our finger print appt set for 4-14 and will leave about 4 am to drive to Chicago for that so we can be back at a decent time. I hope that everything keeps moving along as I am figuring it to and possible travel as early as August. So far Penny and Vicky are still going with me. I am still waiting for some papers to come back so we can apply for their passports but everything else should go ok. I have bought two different accordion files so I can keep two complete dossiers separate and organized (yes I said organized) and since they are different print designs I should be able to manage this.

Penny is still developing her sense of language and how to use it..she is experimenting with her tone in the family also...Claude and I were addressing the girls about being sloppy in the tv room and Claude said how about mama and baba go upstairs to your rooms and make a big mess and she said "bye-bye" to him and smiled....hmm, time out! Her English is very good, still a lot she does not understand but she does well. She is reading a lot, still enjoying the piano and has really moved up in her talents there. And she has gained 20 pounds that she needed.

Vicky has really went to town on A.R. points. She loves the Little House on the Prairie series and has read a ton of them....She is trying so hard to not bite her nails. This is a huge thing for her if she gets it done...she has started painting them to help her. Right now Vicky is sharing the sore throat seat with me too and has a bit of a cough....Vicky spends every waking moment thinking about the trip to China, but at the same time is a bit worried about it. She knows she can decide to not go....I believe I have never experienced a child more interested in biographies, and seeking information then this little girl...amazing sponge that she is. Vicky is also taking piano lessons and is doing so well. Vicky asked me if I believed that prayers worked....and I said yes and went on to explain what i feel and believe about God and how when I say a prayer I have proof that they work...well then I have her eyes looking at me with a bit of a challenge and also a desire for proof...so I said remember last week you were very upset about not being able to play the recorder and get more ribbons/levels like Penny and so every morning on the way to school we would say a prayer asking God to show your mind and fingers how to play so you could get the levels? And look you have moved up three levels in less than two weeks.....or how I pray every night for God to let my daughters as they go to sleep so beautiful, healthy and smart to still wake the same in the morning??? and how each day everyone is....and she just relaxes against me and said hmm, oh. She continues to ask me to remember things in my prayers and in our night time prayers for her....

Addie-this little girl is just such a Jewel...She has excelled at reading this year and is doing so well in school. She is such a caring little thing and is always so willing to help anyone. Her hair is growing again and she says she is not going to cut it ever again...every morning she asks me to put it up in a pony tail to always grumble that I don"t have it at the right level on the back of her head..so the other day I showed her what level it was on her back so we have a marker of sorts...why did I not think of that several weeks ago when I had gritted my teeth when redoing the pony tail for the 4th time? She still loves her desk and writing, and playing babies....and getting up every morning and laying on the register in the kitchen that her Grandpa Tom cut in the floor when we built this house...who would have ever thought when dad made those templates to router out the plank flooring so the grates would sit flush that we would have all these little girls laying over the top of them every morning? God and His ways! Addie has made me think that we should either buy stock in the potato chip market or learn how to make our own...she loves chips!

Kate-as she holds out to keep her status as the baby of the family, but yet wants to give up some of those things that mean being a baby, she is a bit in a limbo state...she went with Claude and got tired and he said go ahead and take a nap Kate on the ride home and she looked at him, pulled her thumb out of her mouth to say you know I can't take a nap without THE YELLOW THING oh yea she had left her blanket at home trying to leave it a bit....the other day Claude found that she was trying to not loose it again (she is always loosing her blanket, as much as she looses it you would think she did not need it) and he found it thumb tacked to her bulletin board..pretty smart! Kate is in kindergarten this year and she is reading first grade books so is doing so well. Kate settles in with all the girls and yet can be just as happy by herself. She and the other girls planted about 5 trays of garden seeds and they have great plans of summer flowers and veggies. She is also counting the days til the baby chicks arrive.

Our house...the people we contracted to lay about 800 sq feet of hardwood flooring returned to tear all of it up and replace it..neither one of us felt that the 2 1/4 inch curve they had put in it belonged there...but that is fixed now. the painter is putting the last coat of pink on the two bedrooms and then carpet comes in a week...my friend Vickie is coming up Friday and hopefully giving me some suggestions on some decorating and the contractors are almost done with the outside too. they keep teasing me they are on a four year plan...great.