Mark turns seven!

March 26, 2008

Mark is seven years old today. Seven years have flown by! I remember the day he was born like it was yesterday (although I can't remember yesterday). He was so mad when he was born. The look on his face was like "HOW DARE YOU! I was fine and you disturbed me!" After the initial crying spell - Mark was a great baby! He was full of smiles! As an infant he would sing E-I-E-I-O all day long. As a toddler he told the preschool substitute teacher they didn't know their ABCs or any of the other songs she suggested singing. The entire class went along with that little lie and the music lesson was quite a mess that day. He is funny, athletic, smart, constant entertainer, and an absolute joy to parent - well - most of the time! I can honestly say I never know what the creative little mind is going to do next but that keeps life interesting.

Saturday we are having a handful of 7-8 year olds at our house for a sleepover. I figure Chris and I will recover by Derby (that's May for my out of towners). We normally don't do sleepovers...

He opted for make it yourself sundaes rather than cake for his actual birthday. Here's the picture of Mark and his mound of whip cream.

St. Baldrick's Day and King of Kindness

March 19, 2007

Matt and his cousin Sam shaved their heads for St. Baldricks Day. They raised a lot of money for childhood cancer research. Here's their picture. Matt is on the right. Here's the link to Matt's youtube video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvx5P6ckizE

Mark came home as King of Kindness yesterday. He was fairly pumped about that. He told me he was kind by helping others with their school work. See his gold crown!

Mario - I've received a request to picture Mario on my blog since we talk about him so much. So I added his picture. He's a 7 lb. Mal-Shi which is a Maltese and Shih tzu mix. Aside from chewing flip flops and sandals in half and jumping out of my car at the Starbucks drive thru, he's a very good dog. I completely blame this purchase on my neighbor who dog-sat a similar breed. But we love him to death!

Sunday we went to High School Musical Broadway production in Louisville. I'm not sure if any of your kids are into this but I highly recommend catching the show if it comes to your city. The cast was very talented. It was funny and I had chills when they sang at times. Two thumbs up!

Paperwork is complete on home study

March 19, 2007

M's first gift is a pair of little pink floral and checked flip flops. They are simply adorable! Here's a pic.

So today I noticed today on Holt's website that Holt has stopped accepting applications to Thailand temporarily. Thank God we got in before they stopped! They do that sometimes when the wait times increase. They've also increased the time frame on the website to 24-30 months. I'm guessing that affects us since we just started the process. Website said 21-24 months when we started. I guess the influx of applicants to Thailand was as significant as they indicated in Jan and Feb. I'm praying it doesn't get any longer. I'm still waiting on my adoption guidebook which should be coming anyday. Remember, I reported they ran out due to the increased interest. Well not much we can do about that I guess.

We've turned in all our homestudy paperwork. Chris had his meeting with the social worker yesterday. He reported it was quick and painless. We have our home visit on April 7th. The social worker indicated she was still writing most of our report next week and then updating it after the 7th for whatever comes up there. I'm excited that's still on track.

Dossier paperwork is close to finished too. Of course, we can't file that until the home study is completed.

Medical Checkups are over!

March 12, 2008

Chris and I had our medical checkups today. Everything checked out great! We get our TB test read on Friday. The medical forms and letters are already completed and in my possession. All they have to do is write negative in the TB box. At that point, I'll only be waiting on one document to complete the paperwork for our home study. Sweet! That's a huge relief to have all that paperwork completed. Of course, we still have 2 meetings with the social worker which are outside our control. I've tried to speed those up without success. Although I think she's writing our report over the next two weeks and then just amending it for the home visit which is scheduled for April 7th which is very nice of her. Hopefully, the boys will be having a fantastic day (or hour). Think they'll tell if I use bribery? hmm - better not, anything is possible!

Our dossier is coming along well too. I have to fill out the Thai application which converts dollars to bahts. I've been putting that one off. I think that's the only thing left I can do at this point. I've tried to accumulate pictures for the dossier. I need 6-8 good ones. You'd think out of thousands of pictures, I could come up with that. I mean, they don't all have to be taken this week. We still don't have our Adoption Guidebook from Holt. We've done an excellent job without it thanks to our Holt contact emailing us many of the forms in the guidebook. I guess they were serious when they said 2-3 weeks.

From the boys point of view - They are so funny about the actual trip. Matt continues to talk about Little M like she'll be here next week which is a little confusing for everyone in his circle. Mark told his best friend that he'd like to take him with us when we go to Thailand. Mark's already telling Mario (the dog) that he's going to miss him. I wonder how much they are actually thinking about it because they are constantly talking about the trip and their little sister. One of the things on my list to do after all this paperwork is to find parents who took children with them to Thailand. I'd like to get a feel for how that worked out. I know every scenario will be different and we'll have to do a great amount of educating before we go. As we learn, we're trying to teach them.

One Month

March 10, 2008

For my new found blog friends, I put my email address in the comment section. Please email your blogs. I would love to read about your process. Let me know if I can add the link to a list. Feel free to add mine to your site.

Today we've been waiting for one month. I guess we were fairly busy because it went fast. Over 100 hits to our blog.

We will definitely talk about our one month milestone over dinner. I've heard of families marking each month by lighting a candle or some other symbol. Haven't decided yet what, if anything, we should do.

We think about Little M everyday so it just feels like any other day. We'll just say a prayer that if she's born, she's doing well and her foster parents are taking very good care of her. It's probably more likely that her birth mother isn't even pregnant yet or is just finding out that she's pregnant.

So assuming the estimates are correct (which they probably aren't), we'll be going to get Little M in 20-23 months now. And for whatever reason, that sounds a lot closer than 21-24 months. I guess because it's under 2 years.

Hopefully, within the next month, we can finalize our home study and dossier.

Snow Day (Weekend)

March 9, 2008

Well, in Louisville, we don't get a lot of snow. But when we do, the city isn't quite sure how to handle it. I mean, brine, salt, shovel, seems fairly basic to me. Friday morning we wake up to Snow Day - School is Out - wow - how much did we get? Not ONE FLAKE when they called it off. I'm thinking send them to school and let us out early. That way it counts and we don't mess with summer break!!! I grab my Starbucks before Chris heads to work!

Well this time - we get about a foot of the white stuff. So what's a person to do? Oh yeah - did I mention Wednesday it's going to be 60 degrees here????

My planning is perfect. Thursday I took inventory of all our paint colors and bought everything I needed to touch up my house. We've lived here 3 1/2 years and the high trafficked area (which is basically anything with kids can reach) needs to be cleaned and/or painted. Friday I painted all the white trim on the first floor except the master bedroom (go figure - our room looks ok) and the closets b/c who sees them? If you haven't seen our house, that's a lot of paint. We have white columns, doors, etc. Ok, I confess, some I just touched up but I painted about 8 hours straight. I rent some movies, grab a pizza. Saturday - Make a pot of really strong coffee since I can't risk running off the road just to get Starbucks. I will survive one day without it. I paint the dark taupe, light taupe and yellow deciding that the boys room can't be touched up, I've never been a huge fan of the color and it's likely to be redecorated in the next year or so. Why bother? Wow - I'm going to hurt tomorrow.

Then it's time to have some fun - because the snow has quit falling and we now have a foot of it. It's time to sled (thanks again B and Chip - our sled rocks) and try out that new snowboard. And I thought skiing was hard! Mario (the dog) is basically swimming when he ventures off the footprints, sled path or driveway (which has been cleared). Here are some pictures of the boys and youtube links. Yes - Mario did go down the little hill and the big hill (more than once). He is asking for snow boots and a coat next year!

Sunday - Starbucks for the entire family even let Mario have a taste of whip cream! Today we are going to have some fun! It starts to warm up so we spent the entire day sledding the big hill taking breaks only to eat and dry clothes. Did I mention there's a bit of water at the bottom of the big hill. Zack (neighbor kid) built a ramp to gain more speed as if that was really necessary. Turns out the other Zac and Matt are decent snowboarders. Chris is ok at it. Mark and I stink at it and so naturally, don't even like to watch people do it!

All in all - a great snow weekend - which translates, it was warm enough to enjoy, sunny enough to not get depressed and there were no broken bones. Speaking of sun, the boys did get sunburned - oops. I guess Chris and I wearing caps protected us.

I was wrong - I'm going to hurt on Monday.

YouTube Links:

Race you to the bottom

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-CbYW5sAdA&feature=user

Mark hate snowboarding

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuvnUqqQex4&feature=user

Matt loves snowboarding

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq4M6826lkA&feature=user

Watch that tree

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HKTVewOQWw&feature=user

Mark on the little hill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wHBScT6Qh0&feature=user

Mark on the big hill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHUh74eOPxo&feature=user

Matt hits the water

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGUIvoTuiNU&feature=user

Home Study Meeting #2, Boys eat Thai food

March 3, 2008


My meeting with the social worker went very well today. She doesn't bite! The first thing she asked me was Have you ever been arrested? I said No. She said Are you sure you have never been arrested? I looked at her like what do you know that I don't. She said, littering, trespassing anything? I said No, really. I've never been arrested. I was a little scared seriously racking my brain. She finally explained herself. I guess if I was arrested in Indiana, it wouldn't show up on the 3 police checks we've done in KY so far but it will show up on my federal check which we'll do sometime in the next month. Yikes - I think I was instantly sweating! Hoping the hour long interview wouldn't be like that. Fortunately, it wasn't.

For our home study we are only waiting on a couple documents. That's great - considering we only became aware of most of the list 16 days ago! The social worker told me she was going to do the majority of our report the last week of March. We have to give her all our documents by 3/20 so she can do that. She said she'd do it faster if time allowed and she had everything so I hope to give her all the documents by 3/15. We've scheduled our home visit for April 7th so the report will be amended for those items (talking to the kids and checking out the house) and we'll review it along with Holt simultaneously. 5-6 weeks is pretty good for a home study.

Update on the boys' thoughts - We've started a new tradition - Eating at Thai Siam as often as we can afford to - and by that I mean pocketbook and waistline! Chris and I love the food so we're likely to come home from Thailand weighing a lot more than we left the states if we aren't careful. Matt tried everything we ordered and liked almost everything. He's very excited to eat the real stuff. Mark (poor Mark) is convinced he'll starve to death while he's there! We encouraged him to try the plain chicken (Satay) but his only comments were... "that's not like Kroger chicken, that's not like McDonald's, who knows where they even get their chicken? 2 whole weeks. 14 days. On my." While trying not to laugh at him, we assured him that Burger King and McDonald's are international companies. With any luck - we'll find a pizza place too! And we will take food with us. How many Ding Dongs should I pack???

In the meantime I'm reading Toddler Adoption which is a great book. Mary Hopkins-Best keeps it real - sometimes too real. It's been a huge help in learning what's ahead for us. Although none of the families interviewed in the book adopted their toddlers from Thailand, it's still very relevant. I highly recommend the book if anyone is considering adoption.

So we talk about Little M everyday. We are less nervous and anxious than we were a month ago when I started this blog. Our social workers are great and very responsive to our questions and requests. With all the Easter dresses out, it's hard not to imagine how old she'll be, how big (or little) she'll be, and what color we'll buy! Oh, by the way, the lady in front of me at Gymboree today spent $183 on one bag of pink and purple clothes. I nearly fell over. My 2 "Easter" polos were $19 (total not each)!