New Baby Quick Takes

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Yes, through the miracle of adoption we have a new baby, a son Matthew Joseph born the week before Thanksgiving weighing just shy of 4lbs .

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We started working with Christian Adoption Consultant Tracie Loux in April.

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While we were unloading groceries the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Tracie called to see if we were available. We said, well Megan's wedding is in 4 days, but sure we're open to being considered.

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Wednesday night arount 7pm right after dropping Grandma D off at the Hampton we got the call that he was ours. We called and emailed back accepting after going to Culver's to think. I think better while eating chocolate frozen custard. Seriously though there were factors like prematurity and prenatal exposure that we needed to discuss.

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The attorney was then unavailable for the LONG Thanksgiving weekend. Monday and Tuesday the 27th and 28th we did crazed packing and paperwork and shopping.

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We drove 16 hrs south on the 30th and were able to hold him for the 1st time Thursday the 1st of December.

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He was discharged from the NICU on Friday and we just passed ICPC this Tuesday (another miracle since Ohio is known for slow ICPC) and will be driving home starting tomorrow.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Why it was 11am before Teresa had her teeth brushed.

My Monday morning:

Get up

Weigh myself.

Drink diet pepsi.

See if Andrea is ready.

Eat breakfast.

Load dishwasher, mutter about why no one puts their dishes in there, I realize the door is actually broke but it is broke that it opens fast not that it won't open.

Start dishwasher.

Start first load of laundry so Teresa stops asking when Jaguar will be clean. Jaguar had a unfortunate accident Saturday at dinner when it was showered with chicken and rice soup and has been unwaiting a washing since then.

Find robe so I don't scare neighbors in my PJ's.

Take out trash and recycyling.

Start a second diet pepsi.

Write 3 emails to home study agency. 3 seperate emails since I've found that emails that address multiple topics don't get adequate responses.

Get one email back from our home study social worker within 5 minutes.

Decide to take shower.

Find Teresa awake and pestering on my way to shower.

Make Teresa eggs and bacon for breakfast. Make bacon for Megan too.

Take shower.

Try to get dressed and home study agency calls back. Talk to her for awhile.

Try to get Teresa off my computer so I can see if I got the email the home study agency sent.

Give Teresa her liquid claritin. Tell her I can't find the chewie ones. Get her a cup of iced tea to wash the medicine down.

Call in 3 RX refills for Andrea.

Find chewies for Teresa. Put them on bottom shelf where I can find them.

Get call from pharmacy that okay yes you need to order one it won't be ready until tomorrow after 1pm.

Put second load of laundry in washer. First load in dryer.

Dry and put away the clean dishes on the counter.

Finish getting ready myself.

Look for a 3rd diet pepsi but THEY ARE ALL GONE.

Brush Teresa's hair while she plays on computer.

Set timer for 10 minutes she must get off and brush her teeth then.

Let Teresa open the new book for this week's homeschooling.

Read Cordoruy to her.

Sit down at computer.

She NEEDED an apple while I was typing this.

I'm ready for lunch.

And I need to go check on Jaguar. I hope he didn't melt. I planned on getting him out after a FEW minutes in the dryer but of course that didn't happen.

Quick Takes Homeschooling 2.0

Megan apologizes for the lack of picture; she is posting this from someone else's computer.

1. Homeschooling 2.0 refers to the fact that Teresa is frequently refered to frequently as family 2.0. I will admit there have been times I have not looked forward to homeschooling for 13 or so more years.

2. Doing VBS last week at our parish really reminded me about school life. Up every day, all sorts of stuff to bring in or pay for (CD, diaper donation for the crisis pregnancy center, Tshirt for tie dying), and well Teresa dear is so so active and if she is tired or hungry or interested in the room decorations she won't listen to the lesson.

3. I'm planning on starting K with Teresa in the next month or so. She won't be 5 until October so this year can totally be practice.

4. Why I'm starting in July is that maybe just maybe if all this paperwork and other stuff falls into place we will adopt again this year and it's likely a newborn. Homeschooling with a newborn I've never done. Andrea and Megan were 10 and 12 when we started so I've never done a K student either.

5. The curriculum has fallen in place the last few weeks. I'm using CHC for phonics and handwriting. MUS for, well, Math. A CHC number workbook before the MUS primer. Image of God K for religion. I don't think I'll use the God's Love Story book that CHC uses too for Religion. Other than that we'll read a bunch and do any of the Little Saints Preschool that we want to do. Likely mostly crafts since Teresa loves to glue and cut and color and I AM NOT CREATIVE.

6. The Image of God books came today. I LOVE THEM. I need to figure out how to ask our religious ed dept of our parish to use these instead. The stuff they use for Jesus Hour (our preschool/K CCD) now is so weak. Image of God talks about communion is the bread and wine becoming Jesus. I didn't know this until I was in my mid-thirties. It also has lots of worksheets and crafty stuff which Teresa adores. She thinks mazes are so cool.

7. Puzzles are educational too. This week I bought Teresa this Melissa and Doug puzzle. I think 100 pieces might take her a bit to master. The last 50 piece one I bought her she mastered in 1/2 hour.


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7 Quick Takes 25th Anniversary

1. Last Saturday May 28th David and I were married for 25 years. I'd post a wedding picture but that's one area that the quick wedding while you're home on military leave was lacking in. Maybe my daughter Megan will help me get the fairly bad picture my brother posted on facebook. I must remember to send our priest a thank you note for all he did so we could be married at my parish while we were home. Megan says: Here it is.

2. We went away for 50 hours. (That's how long Megan could be convinced/bought off watching Teresa) It's also about how long I can go before missing being at home. The bed and breakfast we went to was the White Oak Inn. Here's a picture of our cabin. It was a wonderful place. Very scenic. In fact there was a high water road closed sign at the last turn that had us a wee bit concerned but it didn't block our route thankfully.

3. We went to Red Lobster for dinner Saturday night. We had unheard of service. Our entrees were ready within 5 minutes of ordering. Our waitress apologized for bringing the salads and rolls out after the entrees.

4. Sunday we went to Mass at St. Francis in Newark. We've been to this parish in the past and it was worth the drive. Then out to lunch at Texas Roadhouse. Again our wait times were short. We did get to eat our salads first.

5. The rest of Sunday David and I spent relaxing at the Inn. We took a walk. I napped. We watched NASCAR. Our cabin had this wonderful tub.
I soaked in this at least 4 times over the weekend. We brought wine, cheese (yummy Jarlsburg spread from Kroger), crackers, and Hershey dark kisses to snack on.
I also loved the teas the Inn had available. This was my favorite.
David even liked it. "It's not bad for tea" Of course he drunk it without sugar and milk.

6. I almost forgot the flowers my sweetie had waiting for me at the cabin.

7. Here's my sweetie too. I love you BLOT (Bunches, Lot, Ooodles, and Tons). May we be blessed with at least 25 more years together.

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Quick Takes 4-15 (#6 for me)

#1 Tax Day- We are still having issues with our adoption credit on our federal return. We re-sent our documents last week. Judging from various blogs, forums, and facebook we're not the only adoptive parents having issues and we should not plan on getting the refund soon.

#2 Last weekend our parish's noon Mass was especially for those couples celebrating 25 or 50 yrs of marriage this year. We will celebrate 25 May 28th. We received a special blessing during Mass, a cake from the Altar Society, and a very nice blessing certificate from our Archbishop.

#3 I drove Monday to Grand Rapids for my niece's confirmation Monday night. Then back home Tuesday morning. Their diocese does the confirmations at the cathedral on weeknights. I'm still tired from driving 10 hrs in just over 24 hrs. It's more emotionally exhausting since I'm still a wee bit anxious driving on the interstate since the wreck in Aug 09.

#4 Stuff keeps breaking around here. Sunday we tried to turn our heat off and the thermostat control panel wouldn't budge except the temp down button so at least we could turn it way down. The thermostat was still under warranty but it didn't cover the service call to diagnose/replace it. My new cell phone screen has gone blank twice this week. If it doesn't recover I'll have to call on that and see what the warranty is. I didn't drop it or get it wet or anything.

#5 This morning Teresa and I went to storytime. Last week I was being so productive mopping tile that I totally forgot until too late. The storytime was the last one for several weeks due to the library closing for remodeling. The kids decorated Easter pails, had an Easter egg hunt, got paper bunny ears, crayons, and holiday pencils. Definitely more than typical storytime.

#6 After the fun storytime we went to do the boring but necessary grocery shopping. I had made a good list and managed sticking to it much better this week. By the time everything was unloaded I was ready for a rest.

#7 While I was resting on the couch Teresa came over and crawled up too. She wanted to be my snugglebug. I will admit that makes my heart melt and appreciate what a blessing it is to be home fulltime and to be a mommy again at my age.

For more Quick Takes see Jen at Conversion Diary.

Quick Takes #5 Lenten Updates and randomness

Happy Feast of the Annunciation! (or would it be more proper to say Solemnity of the Annuciation?)

Lent so far has been challenging. Nothing major just all those little things that seem to happen all at once.

1. David's car seems to be going on another cycle of "I refuse to work unless you spend money on me repeatedly". Since its last moodiness was over a year ago I guess we shouldn't complain.

2.Teresa had a cold that turned into an ear infection last Sunday. She basically didn't sleep Saturday night or Sunday night very well and whined and had meltdowns all day. Monday morning I called the peditrician at 8:05am and they said they could see her at 8:30 or not that day. So I had to get her out of bed (she of course had finally taken some Advil and was asleep) and hustle there in time for the appointment. We were seen very quickly then at Kroger waiting for the RX right after the pharmacy opened at 9am. Teresa has been sleeping a ton ever since like 12-13 hours straight at night. She must have been feeling really lousy last week unfortunately that was the week Megan was home from spring break.

3. The IRS according to their website seems to need more information to process our return. We're supposed to receive a letter telling us what they need. We're hoping it's something simple.

4. Our clothes dryer seems to being dying too. It's been taking longer and longer to dry and the last few weeks has developed a terrible squeak. Our washer and dryer are in a closet area of the main hall so this squeak is very annoying. I've started to try to plan to dry my laundry when I need to leave the house for awhile.

5. The decluttering is going pretty well. David is keeping the log of how many pounds we've given/thrown away but I think it's at least 100lbs. The old old computer moniter that went to Goodwill was a lot of that weight. Interesting finds during this has been the missing puzzle piece to a Melissa and Doug block puzzle (in the corner of our bedroom under David's spare ball caps behind his coat tree) and the skip counting cd for Math U See that I didn't know I owned (behind one of my bookcases). I had bought MUS again for a little boy I was babysitting the summer Teresa was placed with us. I was thrilled to find this since it was on my buy list for Teresa for Kindergarten.

6. The exercising/less snacking is going okay. I do well for a few days or I do well on one but not both.

7. I haven't done as much reading as I would like with Teresa but we've been busy with more outside playing and activities when she wasn't sick. Teresa started swim lessons and soccer at the Y this month. She loves the swim lessons. Her group jumped into the deep end the last lesson and she was so excited. One of the main reasons I had her start lessons was I didn't think she would be content in the baby pool anymore. I might have to brush up on my swimming skills if she wants to be in the deep end.

Extra #8 David and I submitted our homestudy this week for a not quite 3 yr old boy who is available for adoption in another Ohio county. This is the first time this year that we submitted our homestudy. We were close to being selected many times last year so we're hoping this might be a good match for all of us. We're praying of course for his caseworkers to have wisdom to find the very best family for him. We received the flyer about this little boy during our family's novena to St. Joseph regarding our adopting again so we'll see what St. Joseph has in store for us.

For more Quick Takes see Jen at Conversion Diary.

Quick Takes #4 Lent Prep

I'm quickly writing out my goals for lent this year. It seems like a big list but many are things I've done in the past, do 1/2 the time now, or just things I want to get in the habit of doing.

1. Diet Pepsi/Pop- This is our classic lenten luxury to give up. This really isn't as hard as it used to be. I still drink tea. I gave this up for a long time while Teresa was our foster child so pop doesn't taste as good as before.

2. 200 lbs/20 hrs of decluttering-This is what my husband and I will be doing together. He suggested decluttering. I came up with a measurable goal. It really isn't as bad as it sounds. We have 2 computers/moniters that weigh a lot.

3. Rosary, Stations, or Mass as a family on Fridays. We generally go meatless all year are Fridays so we wanted to do something more on Fridays.

4. Exercise- My goal is 15 minutes a day on average. So 10 hrs for lent.

5. Diet-I'm going to adapt the No-S diet. If I lose weight great but more importantly I need to stop constant eating and daily chocolate. This will be a BIG challenge next Thursday. I'm driving to get Megan so 8 hrs in the car without snacks. (I read my dear Megan's Quick Takes and she talks about being moderate in eating. I think that's my goal here too.)

6.Computer use- limit myself to an hour a day.

7. Read to Teresa every day. I do this most days but I want to be consistent especially since we plan on starting some homeschooling in the fall.

For more Quick Takes go to Betty Beguiles this week.

Quick Take #3 2-25

1. We joined the local Y a few weeks ago. Last week I did great. I went 3 mornings and Teresa went to the babysitting there. She loved it and I got exercise. This week not once. Our schedule is off and the Y doesn't have childcare in the afternoons when I've been available. Next week I will try again.

2. The other night Andrea came in my room asking for a bandaid. I was helping get Teresa's PJ's on. The only bandaid I could find was a scoobydoo one. Teresa upon seeing these bandaids promptly states "I have a boo-boo somewhere, let me find it, I know it hurts." She did find one on the back of her heel.

3. My post foster children placement nesting cleaning urges have ceased. I got nasty decluttering left. I started on one of the ancient boxes in the garage the other day while Teresa was playing. I tossed old prom pictures (not my dear David) but was stuck on things like the 1st Father's day card I gave David right before Andrea was born and Andrea's little card from her hospital bassinet.

4. I have a new cell phone. It's from http://www.sienna-group.com/ I need to get numbers programmed in it and get the ringer changed. Right now when it rings I take me too long to remember that's my phone ringing.

5. Our taxes seem so time consuming this year. Mostly due to changes in the adoption credit that should mean we get a very large refund this year. Turbo Tax finally got the form updated completely yesterday. We have to attach documentation from the adoption so Wednesday I picked up some copies of our adoption paperwork from our caseworker . Thursday Teresa and I went to the court house to get an official copy of her adoption decree. I wasn't sending our only copy to the IRS. We're not eligible to efile so before we print out our return we need to get toner for the laser printer. Then of course the envelope will need weighed so a trip to the post office.

6. Megan was home last weekend from Franciscan. We spent the weekend eating lots of meat.We had salmon Friday night. I've been looking for something to do with plain frozen salmon since Walmart stopped carrying the creamy dill salmon we loved. Well all we did Friday was bake the salmon with lots of BUTTER. It was quite tasty. Saturday was another simple but yummy meal. Put onion soup mix and some water in crockpot with roast. Let it cook all day. Boil noodles. Shred roast with a fork add a bit more beef broth. We ate it with green beans and bacon and applesauce. Our family requires bacon for green beans.

7. I'm off tonight for a local moms' retreat. Just 24 hrs but I'm looking forward to it. I'm also hoping that the weather doesn't ruin it. Last year I decided not to stay overnight at the retreat house and I had to cancel since the weather was too bad to drive back home on the dark rural roads. Overnight we've had our too frequent recent combination of rain, freezing rain, and snow. It is all supposed to stop by 11am. I'm hoping that forecast is correct.

For more quick takes see Jen at Conversion Diary.

Quick Takes #2 Weather

1. We were in the area that had a lot of ice and some snow this week, our yard and driveway are somewhat like a 4 inch thick snowcone.

2. Since Mass Sunday I had only left the house to go to an eye doctor appt Monday at lunchtime until this morning.

3. This morning I managed to motivate Teresa to be ready for the day by 8:30am with promises of storytime at the library. When we got there at 10 there was a sign posted that they weren't opening to noon. She handled it remarkably well.

4. The next stop was Kroger. It was very busy mostly with senior citizens. I indulged Teresa with her own little cart. She piled it high with groceries. She rejected the raisins though, "I don't like them, put them in YOUR cart!" Also when she found one aisle empty of people she took off at a run pushing her cart and giggling.

5. I'm trying to keep to the weekly grocery budget which is nothing new but I'm also trying to see if I can do while just going to Kroger each week. I generally go to several stores (Aldi, the bread store, dollar store, Save A Lot, Walmart). Not all of them every week but several generally. They are all close together but unbuckling carseats etc takes a lot of effort and Teresa's behavior goes way down with more than 2 stops. Kroger seems more expensive than Walmart but with sales and not adding other items which is easy to do at Walmart I'm hoping it will work. Some other advantages to Kroger are that we get our RXs there already, the store is smaller, and I greatly appreciate their customer service. They bag, they will go get a new item if somehow one got smushed, they will even volunteer to take your cart and unload your groceries for you. Our Kroger also just got a gas station and with their points I can save quite a bit on gas. I've done well with the grocery budget the last 2 weeks so if that continues it could be one way to simplify life.

5. We went to the library to return an item that our small city library requires that it be returned to the children's desk downstairs. This library has a lot of rules but no overdue fines. The item is part of this series. We really liked the 1st one we had which was counting.

6 I just got the ice off of my van. The van roof had ice as thick as the luggage rack in places. I was worried this morning when I was driving that the ice would come off and hit the car behind me. I've been chiseling (really using my scraper) for about 2 days getting a few feet here and there.

7. Teresa keeps seeing dump trucks and bulldozers downtown moving snow. She wants to do that when she grows up and she wants toy ones for her birthday. "Put it on my list." She says that almost every day now. "Can I put that on my birthday list?" Her birthday is in October.

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My 1st Quick Takes

I promised by daughter, Megan, that I would start blogging on a more regular basis. So I'm trying to start by doing Quick Takes for the first time today.

1. Last Saturday our two foster children returned home. They had been with us for almost 6 months. Even though it was a hectic time with them here they will be missed.

2. I've been cleaning like crazy this week, like reverse nesting. Some of it is related to the children leaving like changing sheets and putting spare carseats in the attic but some is over the top cleaning at least for me. For example I vacuumed the exhaust fans in both upstairs bathrooms.

3. David and I are trying to decide what to do next with fostering and adopting. Thursday we did an agency's webinar about international adoption. Next Monday a county caseworker will be doing a home visit to complete our annual foster license renewal.

4. David and I also started working on our taxes this week. We always use TurboTax. Currently TurboTax has an error with the adoption credit carryover from prior tax year for special needs adoptions. Yes that's one of the credits we're trying to do. We're also still waiting for other paperwork so hopefully when the rest of the return is ready TurboTax will have a fix for the issue.

5. Megan went to Washington DC for the March for Life this past Monday. She posted more on the topic but I just wanted to say thank you to Teresa's birth mom for choosing life.

6. Teresa has been sleeping much better this week with her room to herself again. She still wants to sleep with the big overhead light on. I'm going to try to find a small lamp between a nightlight and the overhead light and see if that might work. With her improved sleep, I've actually had 8 hrs in a row in my own bed several nights and I really like it.

7. Teresa is also leaping in fine motor skills this week. She was watching Leap Frog Letter Factory and started writing most of her letters on her little slate. Previously she could only write a T well. Wednesday, she also for the first time did a good job scraping two carrots. This is a picture of an M she drew for Megan the other day while we were talking on Skype.

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