Hiatus!!

My mom is not doing well, I have nothing new to report and I am feeling depressed and down

Taking a break. Maybe catch me on FB.

XOXOXO,

kelly

p.s. might be doing this again if we decide to foster, maybe this summer.

I want this girl!

Is she not adorable? I am pretty sure she is in the same region as Nick was. Maybe even the same baby home. Wouldn't it be awesome if someone who is very stubborn would let us adopt her? I would be very thankful!!!!! They say she is healthy. She has Ds and will be shipped off to the institution very soon. I can't stop thinking about her. Look at her lips...look at that little ponytail on top of her head, just like the one Sophie wears. She is awesome. I want her to be our daughter so bad. If only........

Thankfulness Day 14

Again I will add 2 things in which I am thankful for Today!

First: Finally a Rainy Day.....YAAAYYYY!!!!!

Second: Ugg Boots: I love them, my kids love them. They are so comfy and warm on a cold day. Hooray for Ugg Boots.

Thankful Heart Day 12

Okay....bust me! I have not been able to keep up with this thing. So once again I will chunk days 10, 11 and 12 into one entry.

Below are three very profound things in which I am deeply grateful:

1. Survivor

2. The Amazing Race

3. The Real Housewives of Atlanta

I am so thankful that I can sit down at the end of a long day and watch "my" Reality Shows. I have never missed an episode of any of these, I ought to add that I am deeply thankful for my DVR because if I did not have him, I would never get to enjoy the 3 gems mentioned above. So there, now I'm caught up.

Thankful Heart Day 9

The kids had the day off school today...some teacher training mumbo jumbo. They are just happy to have a day off. We slept in, then got some yummy sandwiches at Jersey Mikes and headed to Sycamore Cove. It was a not so beautiful day, cloudy and cool but who cares....I am thankful that I can throw my kids in the car and be at the beach in about 15 minutes. I am thankful for where I live. I love California. I have never lived in any other place. I have lived in several cities in CA each not more than 30 minutes from the beach. There was an ocean view out of the hospital window where I was born. I enjoy writing "Newport Beach" when I have to write the city of my birth. I am so thankful to live in California.

Thankful Heart! Day 8

This post certainly might be TMI (too much information) but maybe it might be helpful to someone out there. I am thankful today for Novasure Endometrial Ablation. I had this procedure done about 2 years ago. It was and is everything it is supposed to be. I am beyond thankful that I had it done. It totally works.

Thankful Heart!

Day (What is today?) I think this is supposed to be Day 7. Today, I am thankful for my job as a stay at home mom. I used to have a "real" job. I know this mom-thing is a very REAL job, I'm talking about a job where I actually got paid and had to wear clothes other than sweat pants. I liked it. I was a teacher. I like my present job a lot better. I am thankful to my dear husband that he is able to provide for us in a way that enables me to stay home and be a full-time mom. Even though most of what I do could be defined as full-time driver and part time-maid. It's still a pretty good deal. On a side note....the weather has become a bit cooler here in CA. Yesterday I had an early morning PTA meeting so I actually put jeans and long sleeved shirt on. When the kids got home from school they all stared at me and asked why I was "dressed up." Jeans for me, I suppose, is now "dressed up." Fabulous.

Day 3

Okay...I am already a delinquent. I was gone ALL day yesterday, Football Game in one city, far away, gymnastics meet in another city farther away. Finally home at 12:45 am. Not usual for us at all. We usually just have one big event on the weekends.

Which leads me to what I am thankful for today and yesterday. It should count for 4 days. I am extremely thankful for my 4 fabulous kids. I love that I can drag the little ones for hours upon hours to watch their sibling play sports with no whining and complaining. A great describing word for each and every one our kids is "trooper." I can take them anywhere and everywhere. They are awesome and I am grateful for their personalities every day.

Thankfulness--Day 2

I am thankful for sushi! Very thankful! I love it so much. I like plain sashimi at home and I adore those fancy rolls they have at sushi restaurants. I am also thankful that my friend Yvonne turned me on to a new sushi place in our city. They have a killer yummy roll called the Red Roll! I am in love with it. It is divine! The new sushi joint is very close to the Library. Nick and I now have a standing date for Library and Sushi lunch every other Thursday. It works for me!! Praise God for raw fish!

October--My Month to be Thankful

Experiment: Steph over at ...to live love and laugh has offered up a challenge to post one thing you are thankful for each and every day for one month. Lo and behold today is the first day of the month. I will do it. I may not get all philosophical and religious as that is not where I am in my existence right now, (I am still mad that Big Dad won't let me adopt another kid-I think I am taking it out on God.) Anyway.....I do have MANY, MANY things to be thankful for.

DAY 1: I am thankful for Costco. I enjoy going there. I always find good stuff and Nicholas gets a free lunch from all of the samples. I had no idea he likes fish sticks. Who knew any kid would like fish sticks? I have never purchased a fish stick in my entire life, but he gets to eat as many as he wants at Costco all for FREE. He does not however, like stuffed grape leaves, he got some of those free, too. Luckily they also give out free napkins with the samples so I could wipe off the floor where he spit it out. I cannot live without the Costco Brand anti-bacterial wipes that come in the plastic canisters with the green, yellow or orange lids. I go through a lot of those. I also enjoy the ribbon they have in stock each Christmas Season. I got a roll the other day with very adorable Santas on it. Costco Rocks!!

Last Day of Summer and Back to School.

Nicholas Made the Decision for Us!

We have decided not to pursue the Foster Parent thing....at least not right now. Through a series of events that have all happened in the time between the orientation meeting and now, it has become quite clear that this is not the route we should be taking. I asked for clarity....I got it. More clarity than I actually wanted. More like a slap in the face.

First of all, the night of the first mandatory training session, I have a conflict. I need to be in several different places at once. I went around and around trying to figure out how I will register Sophie for Faith Formation class which she needs to make her First Communion, pick Tony up from football practice, pick Claire up from gym, feed everyone and attend a 3 hour training session all at the same time on the same day while dragging Nick and Sophie along for the ride. Impossible. That was the first obstacle...not huge and certainly I can call in the reinforcements. but do I want to? No.

Second, one night last week we were blessed by the opportunity to babysit the adorable 16 month old daughter of a friend. We jumped at the chance to have a little one in the house, even for just for a few hours. She is a doll. Well....I had forgotten how all-encompassing a toddler can be. Nicholas in turn became loud, whiny, demanding and needy. He kept trying to divert his sisters' attention to him and pretty much ignored the little girl and me. Not a desirable response on his part at all. Marty and Tony came home from football practice wondering where was dinner. Dinner?? How could I finish making dinner while entertaining a toddler and a needy 4 yr. old? I used to do it all of the time, but I am seriously out of practice. I should add that during the babysitting time, Claire dropped a glass bowl on the kitchen floor which shattered in a million pieces sending shards of glass flying everywhere. Not a big deal but with a barely walking toddler in the house. uh oh!! This reminded me that we would have to put baby locks on all of the lower cabinets and re-arrange everything just to be on the safe side. The girls took her outside while I cleaned up the glass and had to watch her like hawks around the pool. Another issue to worry about.

The most serious and really what made up our minds was a recent change in Nicholas' behavior. We know he has some obstacles to overcome. He is impulsive and has some anger issues. He is super smart but just reacts to things differently and is quite unpredictable. With school starting for the 3 oldest, Nick's behavior took a nose dive. He did a lot of crazy things that I have not seen him do in a long time. He always acts up at the change of our schedule. This time was a doozy. Horrible behavior all week! Behavior which demonstrated that he still needs my full attention. I think it would be too rough on him all around. Yesterday we all spent an hour cleaning the girls' room carpet after he drew all over it with a purple marker. Not just small marks but huge hula hoop sized circles on every spot of exposed carpet. This was just one example of the stuff this kid did last week. Hopefully it will not last too long. He starts school next Wednesday. Then he will be on a regular schedule, too. God Bless his new teacher!!! (She will need it.)

I have also had the flu since Friday and we killed another rattlesnake in the yard, this time he had the balls to be hanging out in a planter right next to the pool. Not big deals, but I'm just sayin'.....

See what I'm getting at? Clarity with a capital "C."

First Meeting-check

Okay, so I attended the first Foster Parent informational meeting. There were about 20 folks in attendance. Several couples, the rest women. Mostly about my age, a few younger. I was kind of surprised, I thought there would not be that many people there. I have to say that I was quite impressed with the organization of the whole event. Perfect power-point presentation, lots of information in brightly illustrated folders, name tags, snacks, tear-jerking dvd at the end. Very politically correct and governmental. I must admit that if we chose to do this, the county has it all "goin-on." They have every base covered. Not a penny comes out of pocket from us and I can attend all of the classes myself leaving Marty home to mind the kids. He just has to be fingerprinted, that's it. The only thing we have to do here at home is make sure the smoke detectors are working and put up the pool fence.

I just do not know if my heart is strong enough for all of this. We have decided if we do it to only take kids younger than Nicky. He is 4.5 years old. That is the age where there is the greatest number of kids who get put into Foster care anyway, although many of them are sibling groups, which we are not going to have. The thought of having a "baby" here for a few months and the nurturing and bonding that will occur, then having to surrender that child back to an unpredictable home just makes my stomach turn. The primary goal of the Foster care system is to re-unite children with their bio-families. I understand this concept, but....here's where I am not so good, most of these kids just go in and out of the system their whole childhoods. It seems like the system is working for the parents and not the for the kids.

We still have not decided what to do. I do think I would benefit from the training. It is 3 hours a week for 8 weeks and it is not far from our home. Maybe I will go ahead and do the training and see where it leads. Not a huge time commitment. After all is said and done, I may have more clarity. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Summer Recap

Summer is almost over--Boo Hoo! I do not think I have much to say except that we had a great time.

June: Beach Camping weekend, Girls trip to Vegas for Mommy

July: Lake Tahoe with the Moto' Homies, Kauai with my side of the family

August: UCLA Camp and Claire's B-day, Football Season has begun!

Back to school in 11 days.

I am still being begged by one particular student to be home-schooled this year. Have not decided yet.

I will be attending an orientation meeting next week to find out about becoming a Foster Care provider in our county. This is not the road I would have ever chosen for our family, but the only road my husband will consider. So....off I go.

Cute!

Boring Blog Alert!!!

I like to listen to Talk Radio.  On one of the shows I listen to, everyday they read aloud and poke fun at the boring blog of some lady who is the girlfriend of the LA Mayor.  It is hilarious!!  It just gets me to thinking how boring and non-eventful my whole blog has become.  I started it over a year ago when I was so hopeful that we would be going back to Russia. That has not happened and probably never will. I had these great plans of how I would become a prolific writer and share our experiences with those who were interested in adoption.  Oh well...Tammy is the only one who ever reads this blog.  Tammy, BTW, has adopted the most gosh darn cutie from Russia also named Nicholas.  You should check out her blog.  It is not boring at all.  If you want to see him you can click on Tammy's name in the comment section below. It will take you to her profile then you can click on her blog title.  Very cute!!

I have, along the blogging way, read some stories of fantastic families who inspire me everyday to be a better mom, to branch out, to see things from another perspective, to hope, to be thankful for the wonderful life I have, and to see a window of the world that most people know nothing about.  I have learned a lot....just sitting here at my little computer in my little corner of the house.  I do enjoy it.  A LOT!!  But my little blog.....BORING!!! So sorry!  In the mean time until something more exciting happens around here, I will try to post links to things that I am reading that make me happy.  

My all-time favorite is  www.reecesrainbow.org If you feel at all interested in checking it out,  Navigate yourself to the photos of the sweet little girls waiting for families in Region 2 of Russia.  (This is St. Petersburg) I'll take 2 Please!!

Good Day!

4th place AA 1st place vault (9.2)

Hiatus!!

I have not had much to blog about lately.  We have been doing some fun stuff, but for some reason I have not had the energy to get it on the boring blog.  

Here are some highlights:

Baseball Season: Over, No All-Stars this year (not a great season, performance-wise) for Tony.  He had a blast, though. Nicholas learned how to spit sunflower seeds. The famous Nick quote from Baseball Season this year "Mom-3 mens teached me how to spat seed flower suns.  You buy them, then you spit them out!"  I was ever so thankful to 3 of our team dads who got never ending joy out of watching a 4 year-old spit sunflower seeds.

Basketball Travel Team: Going Strong, they actually came in second place at a tournament and got their first trophy.  It was about 3 inches tall.

Gymnastics: In full swing, One level 6 competition down and 1 to go. She qualified to move up to level 7.  Which is called "optionals."  This, I am told, is when it gets really fun.  She still lives and breathes gymnastics.

Softball: Done.  Soph got an award for best Team-Player!  So cute to watch a bunch of 6 and 7 year olds play softball. 

Pre-School: Still having some issues, Nick called several of his classmates "losers," punched his best friend and pushed a little kid, all in one day. We are working on anger issues daily.  2 steps forward, 1 step back.

I had the chance to go to San Diego and meet up with a bunch of my college friends this past weekend.  We all re-connected courtesy of Facebook.  It was really a lot of fun.  We visited a lot of our old hang-outs, ate and drank way too much, and acted like crazy college students.  

I will try to post some photos....not much motivation.  My friend says I need to go on Lexipro!  LOL!!!  

Happy Mother's Day

This is my Mom and my Mother-in-Law on Mother's Day.  

Sick!

I have been sick all week.  I hate it.  I have no energy at all. None!! I have no idea how I am going to handle the 3 basketball games, 1 baseball game, 1 softball game and 2 gymnastic work-outs that I have to be semi-coherent for this weekend.  Plus, the Poodle has now decided to become a dog and go out on hunting excursions with Luna.  She comes in covered with mud and assorted stickers and burrs every hour or so. Luna at least has the decency to take a swim after such activities.  The Poodle also reeks up to high heavens. I think she rubbed herself on a dead animal...again. This is a dog that no less than a month ago would not venture 5 feet away from me without freaking out.  Calgon take me away!

Spoke Too Soon

These photos somehow are in the reverse order of how I wanted them to appear.

RATTLESNAKE: First of the season

LOCATION: My driveway

LENGTH: 2 Feet

RATTLES: 8

FEAR FACTOR: High

Notice the Fireman's Fear Factor: low

The "PoopenHiken"

Keeping the theme of staying home for Spring Break, we all decided to go for a hike.  We have great parks around here and this one is the absolute best for hiking.  All was well.  

I think the above photo shows exactly how much Tony needs a haircut.  He however does not want one at all.
All was well until nature called for poor Nick.  "I have to POOP."  Oh dear, we are in the middle of nowhere at the bottom of the valley at the falls, no bathroom within miles.  He was miserable.  He kept yelling about his condition and saying he wanted to go home. Poor dad had to take him into the bushes.  Yuck!!  Poor Nick!  

The rest of the hike was uneventful and thankfully we saw no snakes.  This is the first time I have had Luna out hiking since our neighbors dog's have all been bitten by rattlesnakes.  After we got home, Nick had a 2 hour nap.  I think he was traumatized by the events of the day.  We have nicknamed this Spring Break activity  "The PoopenHiken"  Back to School Monday-Boo!!  38 days left 'till summer vacation-YAY!!!

Spring Break!!

We stayed home for Spring Break this year. (We always do, due to Dad and his work schedule during this time of year) Luckily we have fun places to hang out right in our own "backyard."

You may be wondering...

Why I am interested in internationally adopting a child with Down Syndrome.   I read this today and thought that Shelley (who is in the process of adopting a THIRD adorable little boy with Down Syndrome) explained it perfectly. Shelley and her husband recently adopted boys from Serbia and Ukraine and are now in the process of adopting from Bulgaria. This is in addition to their 3 homegrown children.  What an amazing family!! Thank you Shelley for letting me share this post.  Click on the highlighted word "this" above, and it will take you there.

Is this the cutest kid?

She is currently living in a baby home in Eastern Europe. Well...in a few short months she will have a birthday, not the kind with cake and presents, she will on that day be sent to a mental institution where the mortality rate is unspeakable.  Yes... she is beyond adorable, yes, she has Down syndrome.   I would love for someone to help her!  Wish it could be me!  If you or anyone you know would be interested in adopting this Princess,  go to www.reesesrainbow.org   Look for the link for "Most At-Risk girls.  

WOW!!

Is this Normal for a 4-yr. old?  He drew this himself and Claire was wondering why he asked her to spell "toilet" until we heard him laughing and saw this!!! He cracks himself up.  

Nick does a Basketball Tournament

This is what a 4-year old boy can look like when asked to travel 2 hours in the car and sit through 2 of his brother's basketball games when he would rather be doing something else. At least he got a razzleberry icee and an In-and-Out Burger out of the deal.  Good times!

Huge Progress!

I had a wonderful surprise when I picked Nick up at school today.  The kids are usually outside playing when I come to pick him up so I have a minute or so to chat with his teacher and ask about the day.  She will tell me how the day went and report on his behavior.  Sometimes if she is busy with another child or teacher, she will just give me a thumbs up or thumbs down.  Today, the minute I saw her she signaled me over with a huge smile. She reported that Nick had been in the sandbox happily doing sandbox "stuff" minding his own business.  Another boy out of the blue, comes over and dumps an entire bucket of sand on Nick's head.  Why?  Who knows? probably because they are 4 yr. old boys. In retrospect, if Nick had done that, I may have flipped out and figured something was wrong with him. I wonder if the other kids mom freaked out? oh well...I'll never know.  Anyway, Nick quietly got up walked over to the teacher and told her what happened.  She even said he had tears in his eyes.  This is a major miracle in 3 ways.  First, Nick did not retaliate and throw sand back at the kid, kick him, yell or fight. Second, he came to his teacher and asked for help instead of taking care of it himself. Third, and this is huge. He was sad. Sad that his classmate had done something mean to him. Really sad with tears in his eyes. Not horribly spitting angry as he has been in the past in situations like this. His teacher was thrilled.  She gets Nick and truly loves him and wants to teach him.  I was so excited.  He was excited because his teacher made a big deal out of his good behavior.  When we got home,  I broke into Tony's secret stash of candy and gave Nick a teeny pack of M&M's.  He deserved a little treat.

The Burrito was Fantastic.

I ate it in the dugout at the Softball fields while Sophie was charming us all at the Opening Day festivities. It was 88 degrees.  Life is Good. 

A Big Step.

I put all of our adoption paperwork away today. Way up high in my closet on a shelf where I cannot even reach it unless I stand on a chair.  For me, this is an admission of defeat.  I was so sad.   My big accordion file stuffed with dossier documents has been proudly sitting at the side of my desk downstairs. It has been there for 3 years just gathering dust. Sitting there waiting so everything would be easier for me to find when I started adoption number two.  All of the important stuff that is needed for a dossier is in that file.  Putting this file box away was not an easy thing for me to do at all.  I felt resentment and anger doing this.  I feel like a door has been slammed in my face. 

Down, but not defeated entirely, though.  Lent this year for me is going to be a season of gratefulness for what I have now, not about the child I cannot bring home.  Thankfulness and gratitude for the life and family I have.  For now, I will focus on those things.  (No one can stop me from looking at the cuties on Reece's Rainbow though, no matter what)  Those kids are never far from my thoughts.  Wish me luck, it may be a tough road ahead. Old habits are hard to break.   

Just to make me feel better, I am going to eat a huge carne asada burrito this weekend--South Beach Diet-- be darned!!  I can't wait!

One Week!!

Nicholas had one great week at school.  No issues.  His teacher was even out on 2 of the days.  He did have a few minor meltdowns at home but nothing too serious.  We are working on it.  It is pouring down rain here today.  I have one sick kid and probably a few more by the end of the weekend. Nasty Virus going around the big kids' school.  Tony is not going to be able to play basketball this weekend--bummer.  We are staying home for Valentine's Day this year!  We figured out that we will save so much money by doing this. We probably will have a much happier family, too!! In years past... we hire a babysitter, order pizza for the kids while we are gone, go to an overpriced hurried dinner, then sit and talk about the kids and miss them. We'll save close to $200 by changing things up a bit.  This year, we will make heart-shaped pizzas ourselves and have a family movie night.  We even borrowed some movies from the neighbors!! This saving money thing is actually quite challenging and I am doing pretty well, except for the small fact that I really want to buy the above item. I am smitten with these sunglasses.  the ones i want are actually in black, but I put up the wrong picture.  Am I crazy??  I think not!  I will try to find them at a good price!  I do have a birthday coming up and I have been known to buy my own gift, wrap it and say it is from my silly husband who is thankful he did not have to shop.  

This Morning,

I have done 3 loads of laundry, had a discussion about possibly selling our house and moving to a cheaper one, emptied the dishwasher, made 4 lunches, supervised 4 breakfasts, fed 2 dogs, mopped muddy footprints off of the kitchen floor-- twice, administered first-aid to a wound,  returned 3 e-mails, given a spelling test, reviewed the systems of the human body, signed 2 homework papers, filled out a reading log, had 3 cups of coffee, found a missing pair of glasses, decided what I was making for dinner, dropped off 3 kids at school, put 4 yr old in front of Spongebob, wrote this blog entry, looked at crackbook, I mean Facebook, commented on Zoey's blog.... all before 8 o'clock.  Happy Friday to me, hopefully Nick can make it through the day without some interesting behavioral issues. I am keeping my fingers crossed. Yesterday he told me "You are ruining my life." What 4 year old says that?  He cracks me up!!

A Busy Weekend!

Sophie made this Caprese Salad for us on Saturday Night.  It was fantastic!!  

We had our first meet at our new gym.  It was out of season for Claire and the last time that she will compete at level 5.   We are movin' on up.  She did great, 3rd place All Around and best of all..... she finally got a First Place in Vault!!!  We really like our new head coach.  He seems to be what Claire needs to move her ahead, especially in vault and bars!!  Woo Hoo!!  Our Team also got First Place.  YAY GIRLS!!!

Oh Dear!!

Nick decided to throw sand on a classmate, hide from his teacher, spit at his teacher (raspberries-not a full-on loogie) kick sand at his teacher, and call her a "punk."   Happy Friday to me!! Thankfully he did not call her a "frickin' idiot"...that was last month.

His teacher says he has "anger issues."   Lord, help me!

Sunny!!

We got a new little family member today.  We did not think Big Dad would like her, but thankfully he does.  They think she is about 3 months old.  Super cute.  I think she will fit in with the rest of the crew just fine!!  She is a little poodle-rescue puppy.  The rescue group named her Noel, they said they found her wandering the streets of L.A. on Christmas.  We changed her name to Sunny. We thought that sounded good with Luna (our other doggie.)

Two (Too) Funnies!!

First: My Mom (Grandma Donut) has Leukemia and has been going through chemo for the last few months.  Since she has been on chemo, she is bald.  Well, she was visiting this weekend and Nicholas was hanging out while she was getting ready to go out.  Grandma was wearing a hat and needed to change into her wig.  As soon as Grandma took off the hat to put on the wig, Nick said "Wow...Grandma's a Boy!!"  My mom thought this was hilarious.  So did we.

Second:  While in the car, from the backseat, I hear:

Sophie: Mom, what are Buppies?

Me:  I don't know, what do you mean? Buppies?

Sophie: You know that song This Land is your Land, This Land is My Land, (starts singing) As I was walking a ribbon of highway I saw a BUPPY....an endless skyway.

We had to explain that there were no Buppies, too bad.  I think Buppies sound much more interesting.

Happy Birthday Sophie!!

Our sweet girl turned seven this week.  She had a very special day.  She got her ears pierced, then spent her birthday money from Grandma and Grandpa on a Monkey from Build-a-Bear.

Then out to dinner with the neighbors.  Yummy Cheesecake Factory!!  It was great!