The Court Date Wait: It's a Nail-Biter

If I had the habit of biting my fingernails, they would be chewed off right now.

Another family with our same adoption agency who received a referral for a baby from Ethiopia 2 weeks before we got our referral, just got a court date! For July 14th!!!!

I am so excited for them, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit to the excitement and panic that ensued in my mind about what this might mean for our chances of getting a court date to go meet our daughter in Ethiopia before the courts close for the rainy season which last year happened the 2nd week in August (no word yet on the exact closure dates this year) and lasted until October. Of course no two adoption cases are the same and really I cannot at all judge if/when we will get a court date based on someone else's totally different case. BUT, it does mean it's a possibility that we could meet our daughter in person this summer!!! However , it also means that if we get a court date it will very likely be for a date later than July 14th (they seem to give them out in order) and that really only leaves us 3 weeks of possibility before that window closes for months!!! And mid-October becomes our next best-case scenario.

Oh, this may turn me into a nail biter after all! All the people that have said the adoption process is a roller-coaster seriously weren't kidding!!! The butterflies in my stomach will not go away.

But, at least we have some new entertainment around here.


We just got the game Twister and my husband and I think it's hilarious to watch our children play it. Now when we actually play it with them, we feel old -- very, very old and inflexible! But, it's super fun to see the kids tangle themselves up. "Left hand red! Right foot green!" There may or may not have been a moment when my husband told our 5 year old daughter, "There's no crying in Twister!"

If you need us over the next few weeks, we'll be here, on the edge of our seats, or Twister mat, NOT biting our nails.

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Phil 4:6-7

Find more Finer Things Friday here.

It's Called Embracing the Chaos

To me a huge blessing of having 3 kids fairly close together was/is learning to let go, to enjoy the crazy and the chaos that I tried so hard to fight before the 3 of them.

Sure, there are still parts of the craziness that drive me nuts, but in much of the chaos there is indescribable joy.

Snapshots of chaos from the past few days that made me smile:

I opened the tub of wheat pretzel sticks and found a green crayon amid the pretzels!


Yes, that is a common playdough color in our house, it's called multi-color. No, they don't sell it in the stores but it's been a staple figure in our home since the addition of the 3rd child, before that Playdough color mixing was frowned upon and should the colors have happened to inter-mingle they would surely have been thrown away and replaced with solid, proper Playdough colors!

Not sure if this was intended to be a booby-trapped door or a new method of closing the back door that I'm always hollering for somebody to shut -- "You're air-conditioning the neighborhood!"


I walked into my kitchen this afternoon to find two of my children had climbed up on the counter, were sitting behind the kitchen sink, and having a fine time "washing" some random dishes.

Thank you, Lord, for the blessing of this crazy, beautiful life!

Find more Thankful Thursday here.

Toothbrush Management

Four years ago when we went from two kids to three kids the hardest part hands down was dealing with sickness.

That first year of 3 kids (ages 4, 2, and 0) it seemed like someone was always sick and we had several illnesses that ran through ALL FIVE OF US! I remember thinking, "I could do this if not for the sicknesses!" I could balance the attention among 3 healthy kids, but make that 1 sick kid plus 2 healthy ones and it got tough, and hand me 2 sick kids or 3 at a time and it felt near impossible. And don't even get me started on caring for 3 young children by myself while I was super sick. So miserable!

Most people can handle sitting up nearly all night for one night with a sick child, but what if that child gets well just in time for the next child to catch it and suddenly it becomes a marathon of sleep deprivation, round the clock nurse duties, and constant wash?

So, I became a bit of a fanatic about keeping everyone as healthy as possible. No, not going to extremes like keeping toddlers home from church for fear of them catching something. I'd rather my kids be sick all the time and in church most Sundays than live a germ-free life away from church. But, that first year I used a lot of bleach and Lysol -- door knobs, light switches -- any time someone showed the first signs of being sick, to try to keep the rest of us from catching it. It never worked.

But, in the past couple of years I think I've figured out a few things that do help lessen the spreading of the sickness within our family. This past winter we all had bouts of sickness, but none of them shared!!

We even had 3 separate (as in at least a month apart, way longer than the incubation period of Strep) instances of Strep throat, which is highly contagious, but my kids never spread it to each other!

One thing I did different this year was a new system for toothbrushes.

Instead of having all three of the kid toothbrushes in a holder on the counter where they could potentially touch each other, I separated them into individual plastic bins in a drawer.

And, here's the kicker, I believe.

Each child has their own tube of toothpaste!

It never occurred to me until recently how that toothpaste tube touches every toothbrush and can spread those nasty Strep or stomach virus germs.

Call it paranoia, call it overkill. I really don't care. We are hopefully, prayerfully going to have four kids living under this one roof next winter and this toothbrush/toothpaste system is staying!

And nobody eats after each other! Kids are little germ reservoirs. I don't care how healthy they seem, I'm not finishing off their food. That sandwich they only ate one bite of can be saved again for them, but anyone else that eats it is eating at their own risk!

I have some other tips on keeping the family healthy I'll share in another post at a future, undetermined date.

Find more Works for Me Wednesday here.

Summer's Finally Here!!

Last week was the end of the school year for my two elementary aged kiddos, which meant that every day of the week they came home and within seconds my straightened home became a never-ending pile!


Each and every day of the week they unloaded the contents of the elementary school onto my kitchen table. You know, journals, workbooks, pencils, markers, crayons they'd used all year at school plus tons of end-of-the year notices, report cards, crafts, gifts from teachers, etc., etc.! I was inside the school on the last day helping with the kindergarten party and it occurred to me how bare and empty the school seemed and then I remembered, "Oh yeah, all the stuff that used to line the walls of the school hallways and fill the classrooms is now in my home on my kitchen table!"

The last day of school seemed like a good enough occasion to try out Mint Oreo Brownies. They were yummy and certainly super easy, which is perfect for a crazy week like the last week of school!


And what better way to celebrate the beginning of summer than with a new Slip-N-Slide?!!

Something else I love about summer are the black-eyed peas we can pick by the basketful from our very own backyard garden! They cook up super yummy (with the glorious addition of bacon, of course) and my 5 year old daughter is the best bean snapper/sheller! Her brothers are way too impatient for such a task, they help with about 3 beans and then scurry off leaving just me and my girl for a good half hour of uninterrupted time together!


But, my very favorite part of summer so far has been swimming laps at our neighborhood pool with my 2 oldest kids. My son's been a good swimmer for a few years but this is the first summer my 5 year daughter old can really do laps, like making it all the way across without stopping, doing the side breathing and everything!!! I'm so proud of her and so excited that both my big kids LOVE to swim! It is a sport of my youth. I was a very serious swimmer in high school, on the swim team and swam two times a day, every day for years. There's just nothing like sharing that sport I still enjoy with my kids! And it helps that although my 8 year old son is getting really fast, I'm still faster than he is. Lately as his interest in science and chemistry has gone through the roof, often I feel like I fall short of his expectations, me with my biomedical science degree cannot answer many of his science questions. Oh how much I've forgotten! But the swimming always comes back to me no matter how long its been; he still looks up to my swimming abilities! That's a joy I plan on savoring while I can!

Find more Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!

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Classifiable Fingerprints This Time!!!!

A couple months ago I posted about how our fingerprints were expiring for our adoption and that the first time I went through the fingerprint process over a year ago, it took several different appointments because my fingerprints were deemed "unclassifiable" by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration (CIS). We went in mid-April to get re-fingerprinted and we just got the notice in the mail of a successful renewal of our fingerprints! No unclassifiable, come-back multiple times headaches to deal with this time! I'm so relieved because if the fingerprint issue drug out for several months like last time it could possibly have jeopardized when we could bring our new daughter home!

I have Kathleen to thank for her wonderful lotion and spray, magic potions I now call them! And perhaps it helped that for the few months prior to the fingerprinting this time I was more careful about wearing gloves when using strong cleaning products!

Now onto the next step . . . renewing our homestudy! I used to say the only thing worse than paperwork was re-doing paperwork, but actually it's not so bad this time around! Whatever it takes to get our daughter home!

Good to Know!

This past Sunday we went to a Cookout at some friends' house and they had water balloons for the kids, which were a huge hit! My little 5 year old daughter, being the treasure (trash) collector that she is, gathered up several of the brightly colored deflated, popped balloons and smuggled them home tightly clinched in her little fist.

My husband and I had no idea the deflated balloons had come home with us, much less made it into the house. We gave the kids a snack and sat down to rest for a few minutes from the heat and activity of the outdoor party before attempting the bedtime process for our kids. Then we heard our 5 year old shrieking and the dog coughing a bit. "Madeline (the puppy) swallowed the orange balloon!" the kids were yelling.

Of course we were confused, "What orange balloon?" But, once we figured it out we were worried because we'd heard deflated balloons could be very dangerous for dogs as they can cause blockages in their internal organs. I stuck my hand down the puppy's throat. My husband stuck his hand down the puppy's throat. No luck!

We debated taking her to the emergency vet or waiting it out to see if she just passed it through. Then my husband said, "I'm going to go try to get her to throw-up," and he took her outside. He came back in very quickly and was like, "How do you make a dog throw-up?"

Me: "I have no idea I thought you knew since you suggested it."

But The Internet saved the day!

He Googled the topic and found out you should measure out 1/4 cup of hydrogen peroxide, have one person hold the dog's head tightly so her mouth is pointed up, and have another person squeeze the hydrogen peroxide as far down the throat as possible with a turkey baster. It said the dog should throw up within a minute.

So we did it, turkey baster and all!

We estimated only about one-tenth of the hydrogen peroxide went down her throat, the rest was slung out all over us. But, lo and behold about 2 minutes later SHE THREW UP!!

And there was the deflated orange balloon amid some dog food kernels and a whole acorn (would that have passed all the way through? Not sure.)!

Too much information?

Dog owners, take note, you just never know when this information may come in handy!

Likely saved us thousands of dollars at the emergency vet!!

P.S. After using this technique go ahead and keep the dog outside for a while. Let's just say the vomiting isn't limited to a single instance before it's over.

And a lesson for the darling 5 year old in our home: Trash goes in the trash can and, "Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal." Matt 6:20 and where puppies do not eat it!!!!

Thankful this is a story we can laugh about now!

Find more Thankful Thursday here.

Cures for "Mom, I'm bored!"

This week's Works for Me Wednesday theme is the "Mom, I'm bored" Summer Edition. I have to say, one benefit of having 3 children close in age is that I really rarely hear "I'm bored" when they are all home. There's always someone to play with and with the creativity of the 3 of them, always something interesting going on. I truly have more problems with the boredom complaint when my older two are at school and just my youngest is home and wants me to be his constant playmate and entertainer. And then I hear, "Mom, I'm boring!" Which is way cuter and less annoying than, "Mom, I'm bored!" But, I'm still very excited for his older brother and sister playmates to be home full time to keep him entertained this summer!

We are still holding out hope for a trip to Ethiopia this summer for our adoption court date. But in the mean time we do have several things we're looking forward to doing over the summer, many are on this Summer fun list from a couple years ago. But, I've really learned it doesn't take elaborate plans for my kids to have fun, give the three of them a bucket of water in the backyard and they'll surely be entertained for a good while, although there will be mud involved and much clean-up required at the end, including a bath for the dog!!

Along the simple lines, my 4 year old's preschool teachers gave the kids a great end of the year gift. It was a gallon size Ziploc bag filled with all kinds of random things to create with - paper cut out in various shapes, bottle caps, a paint brush, washable paint, glue stick, cardboard, adhesive letters, etc. Then they included a label that said, "Have a creative summer!" No doubt they compiled those bags with things they had left-over from the school year, but it was such a great gift idea and way better than a junky toy! My little guy has already enjoyed making some creations!

This would be an easy idea to do at any home, just find all kinds of random small things -- paper plates, rubber bands, paper clips, old magazines, etc. and put all the stuff in a box or bag with some typical craft supplies like crayons and glue sticks and let them go at it! For older kids you could even challenge them to create a robot or a boat or building and give them a time limit.

And if that doesn't work, there's always cleaning to do!! Ha! I waited tables in high school and early college and there was a manager that had the saying, "If you have time to lean, you have time to clean!" Anytime she saw any of the staff standing around, leaning on a counter talking, she'd say her famous line and send them off to tackle some dreaded chore! But, seriously the few times my kids have complained about nothing to do I've given them a list of chores to choose from and strangely enough now I don't hear that complaint much from my two older kids!!!

But on the chore note, the kids will play a much more active role in the household duties over the summer because they have more time. It's a great time for me to teach them to cook, sew, clean out cabinets, etc. My 8 year old is actually really excited to help me cook this summer; he has a list of several of his favorite foods he wants to learn to make!

And my last tip is workbooks. I buy my each of my kids a large workbook (from Sam's) at the beginning of each summer for the grade level they're going into and they love it! I don't even have to make them do the work; they just want to! I think the fact that it's not work they have to do, but just can when and if they want to, helps it be more fun!

For more summer ideas check out We are THAT Family.