MOOOOOVEMENT!!!!!

Well being the blog addicted one I am...I must check blogs daily...we have finally had movement amongst the referrals!!!!!! Yea!!!! I believe at least 2 people have received referrals, so that means at least 2 more children have found forever families and are...Praise God, no longer orphans and parentless. What a difference adoption makes, one minute a child has not one person that personally loves them deeply and another minute they do. We look forward to our referral as well. We've gotten closer today.

MONTEREY and ADOPTION FRUSTRATION

We had a great time visiting the Monterey Bay Aquarium last Monday. You know the trips that you throw your heart into planning and they just don't add up to what you thought they would be? Yeah. Done that. This little trip wasn't like that, it was completely last minute and we had such a stinking great time!



Ooooooo, sea stars!




Purple ice plant flowers along Asilomar Drive, so nice!



Otters, oh my! So close and really cute.




Last but not least, a trip to the famous Ghiradelli ice cream and chocolate shop!





A walk along the beach, thanks God for my family and your creation.


SO...ADOPTION FRUSTRATION!!

As soon as we are on the waiting list, all referrals have just stopped. I feel impatient, I am ready to complete our family, I want to see our son now!!!! I have not gotten our monthly update phone call, I want to know what's going on!!

PUBLISHED!

Well, I do have to say, I'm a little excited. I have finally finished a 5 year project in the making. I got my little book on mommy advice published and gosh, what a sweet treat to be finished! So this is why I'm posting...I want to market this book to little baby boutique type shops. So if you have time, could you let me know if you have any little shops like this in your town and if so, let me know the name and address of the store. My plan is to send them a book and see if they might be interested in selling it. You never know, maybe they might!!

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!