1 Week

1 week until their first ballet lesson. There's a lot of excitement around here!

Cause You're Just Dying to Know...

It's O for Octopus week around here, and a membership to the Georgia aquarium came in real handy! We've actually never gotten to see the octopus before; he tends to spend a lot of time in hiding. We took our chances though and set off with wishful thinking. When we first got there, a diver was in the tank cleaning it out, and wouldn't you know it - the octopus was nowhere to be seen. We stopped back by later though, and he was out in full force! He was climbing all over the glass, and we even got to see him eat some food, work on capturing some more, and change colors!  

Here are the pictures the girls' made before we went. (Are the grease stains around the goldfish making anyone else rethink their snack options - eww!)

Name That Body Part

Any guesses on what we're studying in school this week??

How about another hint?

Crafty Craft: Earring Holder

I saw this idea several months ago and only recently got around to making it for Emma Lee. I don't remember how much they were selling for, but I do know that it was a lot more than the $1.49 it cost me to make this one!

Materials:
Wooden frame from the dollar store
Plastic canvas sheet from Michaels
Scraps of paper and random assortment of stickers
Mod Podge

Easy and functional! 

You've Got a Friend in Me

I should preface this by saying that ever since Kerri watched Toy Story 3 for the first time, she's been completely in love with Jessie. Any money that she's gotten for her birthday or Christmas has all gone to something Toy Story related. Her best and favorite purchase - the Jessie doll. Kerri's favorite thing about Jessie is that she yodels. When we were in Target, armed with birthday money, she saw Jessie, pulled her string and out of the 20 things that Jessie can say, she happened to yodel first. After that, nothing else is the entire store offered even a slight temptation for Kerri to change her mind about choosing Jessie. 

Kerri has carried Jesse around everywhere since November . . . up until about two weeks ago. We couldn't find Jessie anywhere. I wasn't worried for a few days, but then after a big room cleaning day and searching the rest of the house and the van multiple times, Jessie was nowhere to be found. I retraced our steps and called every store or place that we'd been to in the last several weeks. When nothing turned up from that, I visited, in person, the stores I thought were the most likely places where she might have taken her in and accidentally left her (you never know if the person on the phone is actually looking or not...).

Nothing. 

Kerri really and truly 100% believed that Jessie had come alive and was trying to find her way home. She prayed for Jessie. She cried for Jessie. She waited and waited and hoped that she was on her way home. It was pretty sad. I was really beginning to entertain the idea of buying a new Jessie, roughing her up a bit, and letting Kerri find her somewhere in the house.

Whatever happened, she must have worked up an appetite because yesterday Andy discovered her hiding in the pantry! Kerri was giggling like crazy and all of a sudden remembered that, for reasons only known to her, she had hidden her there but then forgotten about her.

Whew! Crisis averted and best friends are reconnected!

 

Latest Adoption Update

I haven't done an adoption update in a while, so here you go. I was anticipating December to be my month of good news about our wait time. We had heard that Bulgaria was supposed to be working on an updated waiting list. I was sure hoping that would mean we wouldn't have to wait as long as we were thinking. Well, no such luck. Apparently, they are working "hard" (comparatively speaking!), and are now caught up to 2009 dossiers. They hope to get through 2009 referrals this year, and if they are still on track, get through the 2010 dossiers in 2012-13. We filed our dossier with them in August of 2010, so the earliest referral we're hoping to receive will be sometime toward the end of 2012. I'm trying hard not to be discouraged. I'm meditating on the story of God promising Abraham a child from Sarah and how long it took for that promise to be fulfilled. At this point, it seems like it's something so far off and distant that it will never actually happen. Hopefully, one day I'll be able to look back on this all and laugh about how perfect God's timing was and how little I knew!

1-11-11

I take a lot of pictures. Actually, a lot is probably an understatement. Some of them are good, some of them are not so good, but that's beside the point. In looking back at the pictures I took last year, I've noticed that I don't have as many as I would like of Emma Lee and Kerri together, probably because it makes it sooooo much harder to get a decent picture! Because I clearly like to torture myself and those around me, I've decided to make a pointed effort to get at least one (1) semi-good picture of them every month until November (11) (which will lead right up to their birthday) of this year (11) = 1-11-11. I'd say I'll try to do it on the 11th of every month, but that might be a little over-committing myself - we'll see! Here's what I can up with today:

Too Much Love??

Meet Mr. Penguin, one of Kerri's favorite stuffed animals (the girl has way too many and doesn't want to leave any of them out, but a few have managed to work their way to the top of her list. Mr. Penguin has dominated that spot for the longest amount of time.)

I was surprised and confused when I discovered Mr. Penguin's latest spot.

Any guesses as to why her favorite animal has been subjected to such a cruel and unusual punishment??

• She's watched the Toy Story movies too many times, and he's her version of the evil Dr. Porkchop??
• She's watched the Toy Story movies too many times, and he's been captured by her version of the evil Dr. Porkchop??
• He's made her mad and is suffering public humiliation in front of the other watching animals??
• She's experimenting to see if she can make his head fall off??
• ???

None of the above.

I asked her about it, and he's the Star of the Week, of course!!

Next Design Star - Apply Here

Being in a new place, I had not gotten around to decorating yet before I got out all the Christmas things. Yesterday, we took them all down and packed them all up, and now I'm left with this:

Yikes!! Where do I start??

 I do have this set of picture frames that I thought about using above the fireplace, but I'm not 100% sold on the idea because I have another place I might use them. Also, if I decide to use them - do I use our family pictures or "artsy" kind of pictures. What about color or black & white??

 

What to put on the mantel is a whole other set of "problems." I do have several hurricane vases in assorted sizes, but that's all I have to go on right now.

I'd LOVE any ideas or suggestions you might have for me!!! Please, I'm begging here! ;) 

Missing Persons Report

I'm getting pretty desperate here - I've waited longer than the required 24 hours because I was trying to be considerate. I figured, it's probably a busy time of year with all the returns from holiday traveling and extra guests, etc. I've gone past the patient stage, past the irritated stage, past the angry stage, now I'm downright worried and afraid, so I thought it's high time to file a missing persons report.

Case Number: INDHLP____________
Date: Jan. 6, 2011_________________
Time: 10:15 am___________________
Relationship to missing person: it's complicated, but she really means a lot to me___
Description: small, sparkly, probably has wings, I'm guessing, I mean, I've never actually seen her I just know she's gone...

My laundry fairy has disappeared!!!
Generous reward for anyone who offers information leading to her whereabouts!!

A (Long) Holiday Recap

After all the holiday traveling, we're finally back home and trying to find our "normal" again. (Whatever that is!! I realized that in the two and a half months we've lived in GA, I've traveled back to NC on 4 separate occasions and two of those times lasted a full week and included 3 locations! No more traveling for me anytime soon!!)

We had an amazing first Christmas at home and began traditions that we hope to follow every year. The girls really got into celebrating Jesus' birthday and took their task of selecting his Christmas presents very seriously. We hung around our house until that afternoon - then we packed our bags and headed off to NC.

I also had my very first white Christmas and couldn't have been more excited about it! It snowed about 5 inches at my parents' house, and we all had fun getting out and playing in it the next day!

 

The guys also made what has to be close to the world record for a snowball.

Of course, they couldn't just be content with that - or with a normal snowman. Instead, they made a skull and turned it into the snow beast, which just proves no matter how old they get - boys will be boys!

Emma Lee enjoyed the oldest cousin role as she organized all the kids into doing a Christmas play for everyone.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I also got the chance to meet my newest nephew who is a real cutie!

 

 Story time with Grandpapa was hard to beat!

Seeing our Durham friends was a special treat.

 

 

I suppose for posterity's sake, I should just point out that we don't know the smallest girl in this picture. Kerri, however, must have felt an immediate bond with her because she decided it would be a great idea to decorate the girl's entire face, feet, and hands with an ink pen! 

On the 28th, Andy and I celebrated 8 years of marriage. I'll admit it, I was more than a little pouty on multiple occasions leading up to our anniversary due to the lack of big, exciting plans to celebrate. In the end, we ended up going out to Starbucks and reminiscing about the years that we've spent together, and it couldn't have been better! I think some good old uninterrupted, deliberate conversation was exactly what we needed. As you can imagine, we haven't been getting much of that lately! It was pretty amazing just to take the time to stop and remember all that the previous years have held and how much we have grown together! I love him so much!

 New Year's Eve we spent all night playing and eating and eating and playing some more!

 

 

 

We really enjoyed all the time we spent with family and friends, and somehow we even managed to enjoy (almost all) the traveling.