The Ones I Actually Made!

So I didn't actually kill, clean, and prepare my own turkey this Thanksgiving.  In fact, the picture of the live turkey was taken the day after Thanksgiving.  However, I did make quite a few turkeys on Thanksgiving day!  This kind:

 Isn't that cute?  I got everyone in on the fun of making these cookies - whether they wanted to participate or not! :)

Ethan with his first completed turkey!

Aaron with a turkey.

Elise had more patience to keep working on these than any other child.

Ian was very proud of his turkey!

I even got my mom to make one...

"Do you think we escaped the Thanksgiving slaughter?"

Aaron quickly got goofy with his creations...

I had to force Stephanie to participate.  I even had to resort to using her daughter to guilt her into it! But I think she made a mighty fine turkey, don't you?

Before and After

Thanksgiving was a while ago, but since I haven't really blogged since then, you get to relive the joy of Thanksgiving with me!  Here is a before and after of our Thanksgiving turkey:

Before:

After:

I have always *loved* doing things from scratch in the kitchen! *






*The first picture may or may not actually be the same turkey as the second picture. I may or may not have actually prepared the turkey that was eaten by our family on Thanksgiving day.

Something's Not Right Here...

I don't know how long you have been following the two of us Jo's, but if it has been since 2007, and if you followed our other shared blog before the birth of this one, you might remember when I got started creating a Tunisian Crochet blanket to match my *newly* decorated master bedroom.  I was so excited.  For the rest of you (all but Joanna...), you can check out my excitement here and here.  (I had to laugh out loud when I looked at that first post and read Marie's comment about using red text!) Anyway, I got about 3 feet of this blanket crocheted, and then it was summer and I was too hot to crochet a blanket.  Oh, and I got pregnant with my third baby and started a Chinese adoption.  I put this lovely blanket on the shelf and nearly forgot about it.  Fast forward 4 years from the time I started this blanket...I remembered how beautiful it was and how excited I was and thought, "It's never to late to finish a project!" So I got it out and lovingly started crocheting this blanket again.  

I was working on it diligently, but even so I thought it was progressing so much quicker than I remembered! It was at that point that I realized a very important crafting truth: When it has been 4 years since using a skill, one should review the rules and pattern for said skill before trying to pick it up again.

I made so much progress - look!

It looks fantastic until you back up a bit.  Notice a problem?  ::sigh::

Forgetting one simple step causes this rapid reduction in the length of each row!  No wonder I was moving through it so quickly!  I was stitching less and less with each row I made!

So I had to weep and rip out row after row after row, until this is all that is left: 

Yep, you guessed it - about 3 feet of blanket.  Then I got so discouraged, I put it on a shelf and haven't touched it since.  But I did start knitting a pair of socks! (With equally disastrous results...Of course, that is for another post!)

You Miss Me, Right?

The cat's favorite place to sleep. 

 

  

 I have to hold Lily's head still in order to get a good pictures. Homegirl is squirrely.

 This is about as much snow as we ever get here.

 Ella is busy catching up in geometry. While her sisters are on a school break, she's doing lots of geometry and grammar.

 I wish I could relax like a cat does.

 Anna would like to show you her teeth.

 And her dinner.

 My favorite ornaments. My aunt made these for us our second Christmas together.

 This is how Ella spends nearly every meal: reading and eating. I totally understand.

 Rachel is my Master Shifu.

 Isaac. He's so cute.

 My Christmas tree is oddly adorned. This is what happens when you have toddlers and a dog and a cat.

 My little Tiger Lily. Ahhh. She's a good snuggler.

RIP Rosalina

 Ella and Sarah's little robo dwarf hamster, Rosalina, died this morning. Poor Ella was hysterical. Now she's buried in my flower bed. We are going to plant a rose there.

What Adoption?

It has been so long since I wrote anything about our adoption, some of you may have completely forgotten it was happening! Well, other than that adoption ticker that has been on my side blog for years... If you haven't read the posts from three years ago about the first parts of our adoption, you can read the highlights here, here, here, here, here, and here.  If you are suffering from insomnia, you can do a search in our blog for "adoption" and get every last post.  For a while, it was really all I wrote about...

Anyway, we are still in "the wait." A few things have happened that have caused us to start moving forward again.  We are watching the current wait lengthen, and lengthen, and lengthen some more.  The families who are getting their babies right now have been waiting for over five years at this point, and it is still getting longer. We have already been waiting three years, and from how things are going, the best prediction is that we would have to wait another three to five years!  We do not really want two separate families with one group of older children and one of younger children, so this wait is quite unappealing.  We also have slowly come to realize that we are indeed open to a child from the waiting list.  When we first started this adoption, we applied under the most limited guidelines we could - to get a healthy baby girl, under the age of one. As we have learned to live with the allergy fiasco in our lives, we have realized that all children have special needs and feel convicted that excluding a child simply because she has some medical need is not okay for us.  Almost a year ago, we began to pray about switching our application to accept a "waiting child" rather than accept only a "traditional" placement.  It is only very recently that Jerry and I are on the exact same page with what we are comfortable with, but when that happened, we started the process of moving forward.  Because all of our paperwork from 2008 is out of date, we have to redo most of what we have already done.  The first thing we did was start taking the eleven "parent training" classes that are required for the adoption.  They are not really about parenting generally, but more about parenting in adoption situations and learning about adoption, needs of adopted children, and China specifically.  We have now done three of the eleven classes, and they have brought about great discussions for us!  I also called our wonderful adoption agency and told them we were ready to renew our paperwork.  They are contacting our social worker to get the ball rolling on a new home study, which is the first thing that must be done with that.  We also need to submit a "Medical Checklist" to our agency, detailing what special needs we are willing to consider.  This is very difficult for us.  It feels completely wrong to check a box that says, "Yes, we will accept this." and "No, we will not accept this." It feels like we are playing God! We have talked with our pediatrician about getting together to go over the medical terms on this sheet to know what each condition means for our daughter's long term health, and really need to set a firm time to do this.  Once they have this checklist at our agency, they start looking for potential matches for us.  By switching to the "Waiting Child" program, our wait will now be 6-18 months rather than just as many years (or so it seems...). 

Please pray for us as we enter this new phase of the adoption.  Please pray that we will know when we see a specific child on the list if she is the right one for our family.  Please also pray that if God would want us to adopt two children (as is our desire) that he will work out the details for that.  It is possible for us to bring home two girls instead of one, but there are many things that would have to line up just so for that to happen.  However, if there is one thing I have learned absoultely for certain through this whole process, it is that God is more than able to line up every detail to accomplish what he wills - even the details that in no way should come together!  I am trusting that this is also in his very capable hands.

Because all posts are better with pictures, I'll include some! :) The first is from our original adoption application sent to China, then one more recent to show a comparison!

June 2008 - Andrew is in my tummy, and Ethan is the same age in this picture that Andrew is now!

Aaron and Ethan showing off the banana bread they helped me make last week.

The Frog Is Not Cuter Than the Children

 Ella likes to climb trees. I finally got a picture of her not looking goofy.

 I caught a tree frog in my parents' home last night. Then I took this picture. Isn't he cute?

Look! Someone else was behind the camera lens.