Happenings

Yowza.  Life has been just packed to the gills in our little world lately.  Here's a little pictorial guide to what we've been up to:

Painter's tape: like Disney land, only not.

We finished all of our 5 billion home repairs, painted the entire house and officially put our house on the market.    We painted so much, that my hand was in a permanent claw.  I'd like to say that it was the fumes from the paint that drove me to a state of mental insanity and grouchiness, but the truth is that the mister and I do NOT do home repairs well together, and I'm pretty sure that is the reason why I went into total biotch mode for weeks on end.  I'm convinced that painting in confined spaces while you repeatedly scream at the children to not touch the walls, will potentially put even the happiest of couples on the fast track to divorce.  Thankfully, the chaos is over and now we wait for the perfect little family to come and snatch up our house.

While we are waiting, we put in an offer on our dream home.  This home, ahhh, this home.  It would have been pure perfection for our growing family.  There was room to roam.  Woods to play in.  Giant trees that would have been a great foundation for the bomb diggity tree house.  And horses- lots and lots of horses right next door.  Our kids may have even nicknamed the neighbor's horses.

But alas, even though this home has been sitting vacant for well over a year, the owner's weren't willing to even entertain our offer. (Literally, we got the rejection within 3 minutes of making our formal offer!) So we are back at square one.  We live in an area of the country that hasn't been hit quite as hard by the housing crisis so there are very few homes actually for sale around here.  This was the only one on the market that had enough bedrooms and a little bit of land that is in our same city.  We LOVE our city and wouldn't even consider leaving it.  Thus, we are beginning to contemplate building a house.  But for all of the previously mentioned issues concerning how we do home projects together, the whole idea of building a house makes me want to vomit.  But I'm considering it.  I'm also considering that this kind of endeavor can not under any circumstances happen unless I convince my doctor to double my anti-depressants just as a preventative!

In lighter news, Miles tried a jalapeno pepper. He was not impressed.

We are church shopping.  Actually, we have been church shopping for almost a year.  People, church shopping is not the epitome of fun, but you'd never know it by looking at these cuties on the way to trying a new church last week.

They were super pumped.  I got a wee bit super pumped when I walked into the church and saw this rockin' adoption wall that shows where all the adopted children in the church are from.

How cool is that?  AND it was right out in the front of the church- not buried in some remote hallway with the rest of the mission "stuff" like most churches.  Finding a church whose mission is missions is crucial for me.  I want to go somewhere where missions are the focus of everything the church does and stands for, not one where missions is a "committee" that you can't even get people to join.  We may have just found that.  It didn't hurt that Miles and Noah's class looked like a mini United Nations delegation either.  We do love us some diversity.  And when it's mixed with a firm foundation in the Bible and missions- look out!  Perhaps we have found "the one" and we can stop church shopping and make a commitment.  

And speaking of shopping, Sadie and I had a little girl's night out.  You know how you can just tell when one of your kids needs a little one of one special time?  Sadie was at that point.  So we loaded up and went shopping and stayed out late on a school night.  It was just what she needed.

Being wild and crazy women in the Target dressing room.

While we were out, I saw this frame...

Now, it's becoming more and more common to see this kind of stock photo in a frame that says "friends" on it, but to see two cute little girls, one blond and one brown that says "sisters" on it?  Well, that just made me so stinkin' happy that I had to give Green Tree Gallery a public shout out for showing a transracial family in this frame!  Times, they are a changing! ('bout time, right?!)

Noah's preschool class took a field trip to the public library.  He was very excited about it (not sure why because we go there frequently anyway) and he asked me to take his picture in front of the library to document the momentous occasion.  That boy is just so much fun by himself (and in groups, but especially one on one).  I could just squeeze him to death.  The new season of Amazing Race has started (our family's Sunday night tradition) and Noah climbed up on my lap while we were watching and whispered, "I love you the best. Daddy already knows."  Can I just keep him this age forever?  Before you feel sorry for my husband, Sadie is totally daddy's girl.  She regularly tells me the Daddy is her favorite.  Gotta love honesty, right?

I taught Sadie how to make a "cootie catcher".  Do you remember these?  

Please ignore that creepy expression.  Sheesh!

She has become mildly obsessed with it and is constantly asking me to "pick a number" and then she tells me my "fortune" under the numbered flap that she lifts.  She especially loves it when I choose "you will have a really gross boyfriend". (Because when you are 8, that seems like a fate worse than death!) 

Miles is having another surgery tomorrow.  I swear, it feels like having surgeries is our number one hobby around here.  He's having new ear tubes put in (his other ones only lasted 6 months) and they are also removing his adenoids to see if it will help him sleep better and keep things draining back there like it should. His hearing is so bad that if this doesn't work, we are going to have to consider some other alternatives.  Say an extra prayer for him tomorrow if you don't mind.  Doctor visits are always tough on him.  Hopefully he'll breeze right through it and keep a big smile on his face.

Operation fostercare/adoption is still rolling right along.  We have our first home visit with our social worker this week and only 4 more weeks of classes.  Once our classes are finished (end of March) it will take a few months to get approved by the state and then after that, we will be able to take a placement.  We are still going back and forth between opening our home to foster children and adopting if one of our foster kids becomes available for adoption or choosing a child who has already had their parental rights terminated. (www.adoptuskids.org)  It's a tough decision.  On one hand, if we foster first, we can make sure that we are a good fit for the child's needs and make sure they are a good fit with our family.  On the other hand, I'm not sure if Miles' fragile attachment is prepared to see kids maybe come and go out of our home.  If only these gigantic, life changing decisions could be easy!

I think that about wraps it up for the happenings in our home!  Happy Monday!