Recent projects around the house

Here is the mess we are dealing with in the computer room. There is a layer of paper we put on on, then a layer of old wallpaper, then a layer of paint, and then two more layers of paper. This wall is just awful. Our bathroom is on the other side and while I think underneath everything there is drywall, the actual drywall has an outer layer of particle board type material. It is not easy to scrap with my normal "water and vinegar" technique. I end up gouging the drywall. So this wall will be sanded down the best I can and covered with a technique I have been wanting to try. The other walls in this room are plaster and are in decent shape. They are getting paint.

Here's our finished living room (sorry it is a little dark). I really love it. We just need some curtains and maybe a clock and it is good to go!

I think I am going to do caramel apples with the kids today. They will love getting to do their own and I will love eating the left over caramel. Tonight we are going to the harvest bash at church. They get to dress up and just have fun with games and candy. We didn't get to do trick or treat like we normally do because of Logan's soccer tournament. Which by the way, Logan did awesome in! They did not win, but I think Logan probably had two of his best games of the season. I am very proud of how hard he has worked this year.

Julie

PS 6 days until court!

1 week from today

Well, our court date is one week from today. By the time I wake up, it will be done. I am not sure at what time is the norm for finding out if we pass or not, but certainly at some point on Thursday. I am starting to get a little bit nervous, not too bad yet, but we will see as time goes on.

My buddy Leslie (she was one referral ahead of us at our agency) PASSED court this past Monday. I am so happy for her and her new son. He is totally beautiful!!! Also, it is also good to hear other people passing.

I am just ready for my son to become officially my son. I have studied him, I dream about him and he just needs to come and join his very anxious family.

Julie

Just popping in

Things are trucking right along around here. 10 days until court!!! That is certainly the foremost thing on my brain. I try and reason with myself all the time about why we will pass court on the first try, when 50% of parents don't. I do think we have a better chance than average because Asher case is an abandonment case. In those situations relatives do not have to show up to court which can often times be the reason a case will not pass. Pretty much as long as all our documents are there, we will pass. At the same time I am trying to no get my hopes up. I know in the long run, a few extra weeks will not matter if we fail. I am still desperately praying we pass though.........

We got quite a bit of work done on the house this weekend. We have a few projects we want to finish up before winter/Asher comes home. Yesterday we screwed deck boards down a good chunk of the day. I would say we have about 1/2 of them down. That is pretty good, but it seems to be going very slow.

Ryan got some more wood cut yesterday also. The last batch of wood he brought home was very unproductive, so that, combined with warmer weather, has prompted no wood burner. As messy as it is, I love our wood burner stove. There is just something cozy about it and to have at least one place in the house I know I can get warm. So Ryan got some good wood and we are hoping to be able to rotate the wood so that the bad stuff doesn't go to waste (it just doesn't burn very well). Last year Ryan cut all the wood we needed for the winter of the summer/fall. This year he has gotten us a decent stash, but not enough for the whole winter. I think he plans to just play it by ear and make a couple mid winter trips to the woods.

We finished the living room painting that I have been working on for about a week now. That has been pretty tough because my living room has been torn apart and we have had to keep the little ones out. It looks good though. The walls were really almost "too rough" to paint, but we just filled what imperfections we could and went with it. I love how clean the "lines" look and once we get pictures up and stuff, the cruddy walls won't be very noticeable.

Right now my next project is getting all the paper off the computer room walls. This is proving to just be ugly. The paper in the living room came right off, the computer room, well, not so much. Two layers of paper, a layer of paint and then two more layers of paper is just hard to work with. Also, one who wall has some sort of weird top layer that is like a really fine pressed wood. How am I suppose to scrap wet paper off that? The "wood" will scrap of also. I think I will just turn that into an "accent wall" and I have a new technique I will probably try on it that is suppose to be really cool (and cover a multitude of sins......ahhhhhh....old houses). I am also waiting on in that room for our handy dandy man to come and put the new door in (that goes to our new deck). He should be here this week.

Pretty much once we are done with the above projects, we will have the items on my list done, I am thinking though that I might want to paint the hallway that goes upstairs. That will not be an easy paint, but it really needs some work. I did a crummy job painting it the first time (it is really hard to reach certain parts) and it has some holes in the plaster in some spot (thank you my wonderful 5 kids). Plus the hands marks everywhere and the seriously drab color doesn't help anything either. Really, to paint that will just prolong the start of my sewing (which is what I intend to do for quite some time once the house is in order), so we will see whether I choose to do the "fun" thing or the "good caretaker" thing.

One last thing......my house is finally free from sickness. It hit Anna, then Gideon, then Madeline, but we have been fever free for over a day. Anna seemed to have gotten hit the hardest (and longest) and I feel pretty fortunate that it wasn't any worse than it was. Hopefully all 7 of us will remain free of the ickies for a long time!

Julie

COURT DATE!!!

Folks, we have a court date. Yeah!!!

November 5th is the big day!!

We really have made good time here considering we were just submitted to court last Monday. So, two weeks from tomorrow we could legally have another son! Holy Cow!

Please pray that we pass on the first time. If we do pass, we "could" still have him home for Christmas! I am not counting on that at all, but at least it would be a possibility.

We are soooo excited! (can ya tell?)

Julie

Anna is sick and more Asher pics

Poor Anna, she's feeling pretty rough today. I noticed yesterday that Anna's eye's were watery quite a bit and by the time Ryan got home she was looking a little rough. She was acting ok and I had felt her head a couple times throughout the day and she didn't feel warm to me. By bedtime she still didn't feel very warm, but we took her temp anyways and she had a low grade fever. She slept in our room and we kept her on Tylenol through the night. I think she's gotten worse as the day has gone on. I have had her on Tylenol all day and I just took her temp, it was 103.7. Luckily it was almost time for another dose. Anna is being a trooper though. She has been waited on in our bedroom all day. She has only been out once and that was only for about 15 minutes and then she started feeling bad again.

Here she is taking a little snooze

At this point I think she was thinking that watching cartoons in mom and dad's room might not be so bad. She even ate 1/2 a peanut butter sandwich and a banana. You can tell though, she doesn't look well.

Logan and Leah made her some "get well" cards and Anna calls them her "happy cards." It is so cute. I think she is getting them confused with birthday cards. Say a little prayer for Anna if you can. I really have not seen her sick like this. She really is being such a good girl, but I know she feels like poop.

We got some updated pictures of Asher today. He is still as beautiful as ever. He looks to have gotten quite a bit bigger, but it is hard to tell sometimes in pictures. He appears to have some sort of skin issues going on. There are small bumps all over the place. They are not red or look irritating, I'm not sure what that is. I know kids can come home with all kinds of skin conditions that are easy to fix here in the states. I guess I was just hoping Asher would not be one of those kids.

I am still hoping to hear about court any day. My good adoption buddy that I have mentioned before, has a court date for October 26th, so very soon! I am so happy for her and I pray she passes the first time! Maybe we are next?

Julie

Recent Pictures.....

We always enjoy a weird egg around these parts. Usually eggs that look like this are double yolks and double yolks are always exciting. This one look even more unusual because it was very oblong.

So, here it is cracked. I think it was an egg within an egg. The yolk had some sort of membrane around it (Ew, yes, I know). No, we did not eat this egg.

This is how Gee gets his pants/undies back on after he goes potty.

It's close, right?

Madeline's creation with the pattern blocks. I was pretty impressed because it was somewhat detailed for an almost 4 year old. Madeline has really been stepping her skills up lately. She is recognizing lots of letters/numbers and her coloring has vastly improved!

My mom and step dad brought my sister's kiddos to Logan's soccer game Saturday. Here is my oldest niece, Samie, with Madeline.

Here are my nephews AJ and Jackson, my niece Cassie and Anna and Gee. (It was very cold)

Yesterday, while too chilly for my taste, was a beautiful day. Ryan went to Lowes to get boards so we could finish our deck. We spent all afternoon/evening yesterday working on it (and I use the term "we" very lightly). The kids were playing and I thought it would be a good photo op. Here is Anna swinging. Both her gymnastic teachers have come up to me on separate occasions and told me how strong she is.

She is so stinking cute!

Apparently the sun was just too much for Gee because he kept covering his face at the last minute (I have 4 photos that look like this).

Ryan is working hard!

Poor Madeline, just as we were telling the kids to stop messing around on the support beams, Madeline slipped and whacked her nose. She got is pretty good and it bled quite a bit. She is looking pretty good today, but she's talking like her nose is plugged.

A battle of wills.....I feel like I am loosing.

Madeline, God love her soul, is so far my most trying child. While she is incredibly smart and she totally cracks me up, she is very high maintenance. She is that child who always needs to be tended to. If I am getting a shower, she'd the one that has to come in and ask a question, every time. If we are driving somewhere she probably asks 25 questions compared to Anna and Gideon asking like 5. Out of my 3 little ones she is the first to complain, take a toy or push. She is the one that consistently sneaks out of her bed and disobeys. She is also the first to apologize and seem genuinely sorry, but...... Over the last few months we have been dealing with lying from her, and she is good at it. She has gotten better at being truthful, which is good, but occasionally we still get situations like this morning.

The kids were eating breakfast this morning and Madeline did not want her food. In general my food policy is that if you don't want to eat, fine, but no food until the next meal. Madeline gets this rule and usually handles getting no snacks just fine. This morning though I knew she was not eating just because she was being picky and I told her I wanted her to finish (it was only 1/2 a slice of whole grain bread with apple butter and some banana slices). She refused to finish and I told her she had to sit there until she ate it or until lunch (for the record, she sat until lunch one other time about 3 weeks ago). Truly, I do usually like to avoid this eating battle if possible, but it is a struggle for me. I HATE the kids wasting food (which is why I try to go light on the portions and then they can have more if they want it), but to some extent I think kids will eat if they are hungry. I don't really like the whole "you must eat everything on your plate" mentality. Ugh, like I said, it is a struggle. Anyways, (I obviously digress) Madeline refused to eat and said she'd just sit there until lunch. Well, of course she just whines and cries, etc., etc. She heard Anna and Gee watching cartoons and I think that pushed her over the edge. I was sitting at the counter with my back to her and she came up to me and said "I ate it all" and showed me her empty plate. I was very surprised and my first response was that she was lying. It had only been like maybe a minute or two since I had last looked at her. I looked her in the eyes and asked very forcefully "Madeline, are you lying to me." 3 separate times she very convincingly said she was not lying and she ate it all. She was so convincing that even though I thought is was impossible for her to have downed her food that fast, I was going to believe her. One last time I said "Madeline, if you are lying to me you will get many spankings and spend your morning in your bed, where did you put your food?" She pointed to the bathroom and sure enough she had dumped her food in the trash can. I felt more defeated than I thought I would be. At least she ended up telling the truth, but those "where have I gone wrong" thoughts got to me more than they normally would. I know that Madeline is just EXTREMELY strong willed and EXTREMELY head strong, so I think situations like this morning are just part of dealing with a child like that, but it is still hard and frustrating for me. I grow weary sometimes of dealing with her antics........

I need to say though, that I have been blessed with 5 very different children. Yes, Madeline is certainly the most trying of the 3 little ones right now, but I honestly would not change her God given personality if I could. I love her little fire lit spirit, but trying to train that spirit sometimes completely exhausts me.

Julie

We are officially getting ready for court! (Misc. pics too)

So, I spent about 30 minutes or so on the phone with Dr. Staat. She looked over all the medical info on Asher and the bottom line is he looks good. It was a little tough because the dates were so wonky. His stats (hight/weight/etc.) mean a lot less when you don't know his exact date of birth. She pretty much gave her imput based on him being 4 months, which we both agree is probably about right. So, weight wise, he is below the charts (less than 3%), but she wasn't too concerned about that. She said his pictures look good and she had seen worse than that coming from Ethiopia. He is the 50% for height and 3-10% for head circum. His labs look good, except for being a little anemic. He didn't even test positive for any parasites (which Dr. Staat believes to be pretty accurate). So, all in all, he's pretty healthy. We officially approved his medicals and hopefully we will have a court date in a week or two (the courts open back up on Monday).

Now, to completely go off topic, here are some recent pics!

These are the cool little goodies we got from Ethiopia a couple weeks ago.

This picture still cracks me up when I see it. This is my adorable niece Ava. We went to a weeding a couple weeks back and they had cupcakes. This is how Ava "ate" hers. What was so funny was that this is how she looked for probably like 3 minutes. She didn't move it, she just held it there and ate/licked it?

When we got home from camping a couple weeks back we had 40 eggs. Our rock solid buddy, Olivia collected for us while we were gone, but we ended up staying an extra day, so the eggs went a day without being collected. 40 eggs is just a lot.... Oh my.

Here is my proud egg collector!

This is Ryan and Logan at Logie's soccer game last Saturday. Kind of far away, but I thought it was cute.

This is me finding joy in the little things in life..... When we home school, I do 99% of grading, etc. at the kitchen counter. Last year I just kept the books piled in the corner during the week and would put them back on the shelf in the computer room on the weekends. That set up was a pain, so earlier this week I decided to find a better system. Here is what I came up with. This is a flimsy little crate that our bulk green beans came in. I am happy that the books finally have a spot and I think the crate looks kind of cute!

Julie

A little snip-it of our beautiful son....

Ok, so this is the best I can do for a picture. I guess in theory these toes could belong to any old kid. But nope. They belong to our son!

Look at those beautiful little feet! And my goodness, he at least has a little bit of chunk on those thighs. I am loving it!

An apology......

Last Saturday morning at soccer I got a very sincere apology from the lady that opened her mouth a little too wide a few weeks back (you all know who I am talking about). She apologized more than once and I really appreciate her coming to me. I don't think she (or really anyone she would know) even reads my blog, so I don't believe most post would have prompted the apology. At any rate, I was impressed that she did what she did and I am happy that she recognized the need to set things right. Kudos to her!

Right now Asher's 2nd Medicals are being looked at by Dr. Staat, the International Assistance Dr. in Cincinnati. She will call tomorrow so we can talk about Asher and her opinion of things. I am looking forward to speaking with her and to ask her a few questions.

Julie

Yeah!! The second medical report is in!!

Ok, so this is pretty exciting stuff! We just got Asher's 2nd medical report in! Yippee! This is a very exciting step because once Ryan and I "approve" these medicals all our documents get submitted to court. Right now court is still closed, but it will re-open on the 12th of October. Our case manager told me today that once we are submitted to court we usually have a court date within a couple weeks and that court date is usually 4 to 6 weeks out. She also said that historically once court reopens (it closes like this every year), it tends to move faster than that because there isn't the backlog of cases. But things seem to change from minute to minute in Ethiopia and I know our agency is very hard pressed to put a standard on anything.

Looking over the medical, he looks good. Not that I can read lab results, but all the big stuff was still negative. Our caseworker said that in general his lab work looked impressive, except for a little anemia. Our caseworker/agency really recommends taking these more extensive medicals to an International Assistance (IA) doctor. We have an IA doctor in Cincy that we used for Anna and Gee, and she was great. It is a little pricey to use her for this pre-adoption stuff, but I think we might just to be safe. Our case worker did say something about the urinalysis results not looking familiar to her.

Asher is 11 lbs and his measurements are: height - 25 inches, head circum - 15.5 inches and chest - 15 inches. Age wise we still don't know exactly how old he is. I was originally told that he was about 5 months old (about 6 weeks ago), but his first set of medicals put him at just 3 months. Birthdates in Ethiopia for adopted kids are pretty arbitrary. Especially with kids that have been abandoned. So, the medicals we just got today said at the time of exam (dated Sept. 30th) Asher was 2/12 months old. Which is 2 months out of a 12 month year (the Ethiopian calander year is 13 months, so this age was "converted" for the report). However, I just got a monthly update yesterday (in addition to the medicals today) and they said he was 4 months old. Confusing enough??? Truly, it isn't that big of a deal, but I kind of like knowing he is a little younger than originally thought. It kind of makes me feel like I am not missing as much with him. From all I have read so far, it seems that 4 months seems like the most reasonable guess, so I am going to go with that. There will be a birth date placed on the court documents and I am sure we will just go with that, but we won't really know what that date is, until I guess we travel?

So, very good news and I love being just a little bit closer!!

Julie

Blue eyes........... *Sigh*

Last week we were in the car and Anna told me that she wanted blue eyes. A whole number of things went through my mind, but I simply asked her why. Her response was "because Madeline has blue eyes." I gave the poor girl like two minute speech about how her eyes were beautiful and how mommy loved her big brown eyes. I told that Jesus picked those eyes out just for her and they were perfect. She was seriously not convinced. If you know Anna at all you have seen her "moods" that she can get in to where she is just seriously irritated by something and nothing can get her out of it. After I told her that Jesus gave her brown eyes, her response back to me was "Jesus makes me sad," followed by a major pout. I did correct her and let her know that Jesus did not make her sad, but that she was making herself sad, but I pretty much just let the subject drop. Anna was not convinced her brown eyes are perfect for her and I had said as much as I could to make her "see the light."

So, the very next day, Anna and Madeline are walking into the house and Anna comes up to me again and says "I want blue eyes like Madeline." We went through the whole "your eyes are perfect speech" yet again. Anna then says "but I want to see in the dark like Madeline." Then Madeline chimes in "yeah mommy, blue eyes can see in the dark." I could not hold back my laugh, but Madeline and Anna were as serious as a heart attack. I took some time and showed them the error of their ways and I thought I got through to them.

Fast forward to this past weekend camping. We walked a trail with the kids and it started to get dark. Madeline just says (like it is a well known fact) "It's ok that it is getting dark because I have blue eyes and blue eyes can see in the dark." Of course Anna hears this a again whines that she does not like her brown eyes and she wants blue. God bless Leah, she spent the rest of the walk going over everything under the sun that was brown or had brown eyes. You know like, "Kayla has brown eyes, chocolate is brown and we love chocolate......." That kind of stuff. My hope was that Anna would finally get it (and that Madeline would shut her mouth).

So, two nights ago we were coming home late from the store and it is dark. Madeline, as if she has completely turned a deaf ear to all we have told her, says again "It's ok that it is dark because I have blue eyes." OH MY GOODNESS. I wonder how many times I am going to have to correct Madeline before she gets it?!?

Oh, and for the record, Anna seriously has some of the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. Her eye lashes do not end and I have never seen another child more expressive with their eyes.

Julie