Lentils and Such...Yummy!

So I thought I would share a recipe that I devised and thought was pretty tasty.

While you are cooking a nice steak on the BBQ....
Saute 8 oz of sliced mushrooms in a 1/2 bottle of red wine vinaigrette until mushrooms have reduced.
Add in a pound of cooked lentils and cook until the lentils are warm, you can add more vinaigrette if you need more flavor. It should kind of have a slurry consistency when you're done.
Now when the steak is all done, poor this mixture over the steak and last but not least, add some Gorgonzola cheese over the top to melt in. OH YEAH, IT WAS TASTY!!!!

And now on to the "Such"...I think I seriously have a problem. I can't peel my little fingers off the keyboard, I sneak in peeks in between having patients in the recovery room, I have a vacant stare into the computer while my children are pulling my shirt asking for food, I say "oh, yeah, yeah, I'll get to that" and that is the tell tale sign of a person who is seriously addicted to the BLOGWORLD!!!! I am now going to blame my friend Mary who first tempted me with sending a link for adoption blogs. I love this whole new experience!!! Thanks to all my fellow blog friends who have opened up a new fun spot in cyberspace and send sweet notes of encouragement. And to all the wonderful people who say "hey I checked in on your blog, it's really fun", thanks for caring and checking in!

BEACH BABIES!

We had an unusually hot (in the 90's) weekend here and we decided to take advantage of it! The beach was gorgeous and it was just fabulous sitting and watching our girls play. The sand is always just a natural playground and they loved being in the water. All in all, it was a great weekend. On Sunday, I participated in the Wine Country 1/2 marathon and had a really great time. It was a beautiful course. I felt I had been flown free to Tuscany without my knowledge. The run took place amongst the vineyards, gentle rolling hills and green, green, green everywhere. Thank you God for creating this landscape!

RANDOM THOUGHTS WITH JANA.....WD-40 IS THE BEST STUFF EVER!!!!

So we were all on the way back from the airport after a 4 hour plane ride, a 3 hour car ride, and a 7 day vacation in Texas (very fun but tiring!). So you get the idea, all of us parents at some point ply our children with treats just to make it through and get home. Such would be the case with us! Enter....bubble gum in the car. Yeah, so I'm a rookie ok? At some point our dear Meris says, "Mom, my bubble gum is gone". I say, "uh, Sweetie, what do you mean? You probably just swallowed it". "No Mommy, it's gone!". Well, to make a long story short, the guilty gum had unexpectedly exited said daughter's mouth, launched itself on to the seat belt and when she unbuckled her seat belt well you know...the bubble gum smeared all the way along the seat belt. It was retracked into the impenetrable seat belt casing and the seat belt was stuck. I mean really stuck. So it's been like that for a month. So brilliant Jana's solution is ice cubes and razor blades. I slowly extracted a little bit of the seat belt at a time, icing and scraping, icing and scraping. That definitely doesn't work, I am a idiot. So having a brilliant realization I go to that handy thing they call the "internet" and google "removing bubble gum". Low and behold, my sweet WD-40 can appears, voila. Do you know that stuff just dissolved the gum in an instant? And all the veteran mom's say, "uh, yeah". So if you ever find yourself in my situation(probably not), you now know!! And I always have kinda liked the smell of WD-40.

LUCKY NUMBA NINE!

Slowly, but surely we are moving down the list. So looking forward to having our little guy home. Meris has been steadfastly praying for baby brother. She seems perplexed by the idea that he may not be out of his mommy's tummy yet, hmmmmm. We are certain that God has just the little man to be in our family and we look forward to meeting him. It is a strange concept to wrap my head around, to not know what he might look like, to wonder what his preferences will be, to wonder if he will be a snuggler or a free agent. Come to think of it....it's a lot like a regular pregnancy, you never know what you're gonna get!

Oh, the Joy of Easter and Little Girls!

Just so pleased to feel pretty!


Gotta smell the flowers!



This photo prior to church and easter egg hunts: I was going for the PRE-"chocolate induced coma and malted egg smear down the dress" look.



I love my family!

WE ARE #10 ON BABY BOY LIST!

We received our phonecall today bright and early announcing that we are #10 on the boy list. We are super excited and finally feel like this is a reality! You spend so many hours doing paperwork without a kick in your tummy or a heart beat to hear to confirm this wonderful miracle. We will now only be hearing from our agency monthly to update us on our status. We do however get bi-weekly updates via email and should be able to guess where we stand based upon the referrals given for the last 2 weeks. We have been told to gear up for a wait time of 4-5 months for referral and 2-3 months to travel, so still a ways away...but getting closer as we speak.

Yipee! Wahoo! Yes!!! Los Angeles Immigration ROCKS!

We are super stoked! In the mail Rob found our "favorable determination letter". Immigration basically provided a statement saying that we are approved for bringing an orphan home to the US. We have faxed this letter to our agency and they will provide us with where we are on the list, as in maybe we will be # 11 on the boy list. This will mean we have 10 people ahead of us waiting to adopt a boy. Within the last two weeks they sent out 5 referrals!!! So this means, maybe our wait won't be so long. We are expecting to wait about 5 months for an infant boy referral and then we would travel to Ethiopia 3-5 months after that to pick up our little guy!!!!I will post again when I find out our exact ranking.