Random thoughts....

Some random thoughts for today....

- File this under things you never thought you'd say: Take your panties off of your head and put them on your bottom. 8 )

- TinyDancer had a violin concert last night and she did fantastic! She is working SO hard! Her class played the E string concerto, A string concerto, the Flower Song, and they did two poems - the Bow Poem and the Heavy Head poem and they sang a song out violins and trees. It was so cute! I am so proud of her and how hard she is working. We are using the Suzuki method and it is really working for her! She knows when she makes "pretty sound" and "not pretty" sound and she gets mad at herself when she can't make "pretty sound".

She knows two more songs - the Monkey Song and the Bubblegum Song and she is starting her first Twinkle. I have no idea what a Twinkle is but it seems like a mixture of the Flower, Monkey and Bubblegum songs merged together. There is also a Butterfly song that she might learn this week.


- Stranger is loving his new job as a fellow and life is pretty good at our house right now! We've slept in the same bed every night for an entire month! It's been over three years since that has happened!

- We haven't heard anything more about our adoption other than the judge in our region is on vacation until the end of August. 8 ( We hope to hear something then. However, we have friends that are going to the same region (their daughter is in the same orphanage as EasternStar!) and they just found out that they are going to court at the beginning of September. Prayers for them for a safe journey to pick up their little girl!

Cupcake liner art

Life has slowed down over the past few weeks (finally!) and TinyDancer and I had time to work on some art. We got our inspiration from this website: 4 Crazy Kings - http://4crazykings.blogspot.com/2009/07/cupcake-liner-fish.html.


We didn't have solid colored cupcake liners, we only had liners with sports equipment on them. But, that didn't stop TinyDancer!

Here we are getting ready.

You can see a picture of her inspiration on the bottom left - she wanted to make a mermaid.

Here is the finished product!

I had to let it dry overnight due to the large clump of red glitter glue. 8 ) Hopefully we'll have time to do some more art this week. I have the directions for beads that you make out of rose petals and we've been dying to make them but we haven't had time. Maybe this week!

Shower for my nephew

We had a baby shower for my sister this weekend. I'd never been the host of a shower before. Wow! That was a lot of work! My sister lives about 1.5 hours away and the shower was held an another persons house since most of her ILs live close to her. Most of our family doesn't live locally so most of the guests were from her husband's side and her friends. So at least I didn't have to worry about the cleaning too! 8 )

Here are some pictures:

The mom to be with our mom

TinyDancer and Grandma

This was TinyDancer's first shower. I don't think that it was *as* fun as she thought it would be. With about 30 minutes to go, she whispered in my ear "Can we leave now??" It was a long day - we got there about an hour early to get the food warmed up and everything set up and she was the only child there. Plus, the house we were in wasn't very "kid friendly" (I didn't even think about that part beforehand!) - it was full of statues and knick knacks. I was constantly saying "Don't touch that" "Don't play with that you'll scratch it" "Put that down". Not much fun for her!

TinyDancer and Mommy

Me and my sister

The food -

Sun-Dried Tomato and Cream Cheese Pinwheels

Sausage Balls

Vegetable Tray

Pigs in a Blanket

Fruit Tray

And for dessert - baby cupcakes!

Happy Babies!

And Sad Babies!

The punch - my favorite!

I love the tiny punch cups!

The backup photographer -

TinyDancer's plate of food:

We had to stop at Chick-fil-A on the way home to get her a "snack" since this was all she ate - several pigs in a blanket and two cupcakes. Yup - nutrition is number one at our house! 8 )

And lastly - our gift to my sister -

The diaper cake

Heartbreak loves company

My cousin - Cousin A - makes beautiful cross stich gifts. For each of my girls, she made them a decorative pillow with their birth information on it - name, date, weight, etc.

Right now, TinyDancer is laying on the floor, clutching both her pillow and SleepingAngel's pillow and saying "I miss SleepingAngel. I want her to come home. Just for a little while. Just until EasternStar comes home."


It sucks that an adult has to walk this path. I don't know that I'll ever understand why God makes a child walk this path too......

The age of whine

Why is it that the whole number ages get the bad rap (2, 3, 4) but in our house, it is the half ages that are tough (2.5, 3.5, and 4.5)? In our house, 4.5 has been the age of whining! EVERYTHIG is a whine!
"Whyyyyyyyyyy"
"IIIIIIIII don't waaaaant toooooo"
"I'mmmmm tirrrrrrred"
"Plllllllleassssssse"
"Nooooooooooooo"
"Nooo faaaaair"

Please tell me this is just a stage.
And please say it will be over soon.

More fun in the kitchen

TinyDancer loves to experiment in the kitchen. Her last experiment was a bit disappointing (in her eyes). I asked her if she wanted to help me make tortilla pizzas - just like regular pizza only you make it on a tortilla instead of a pizza crust. Her idea was to make a pizza sandwich - as in - a tortilla (because a piece of bread would be too small) - a piece of pizza - and then another tortilla. This did not taste as good as she had imagined!

Her last experiment, however, tasted great!

Her vision - chocolate chip cookies that were shaped like animals. (I asked if she wanted to make animal cookies - she came back with chocolate chip shaped animal cookies).

We used the regular Nestle chocolate chip cookie recipe but substituted m&ms for chocolate chips because that is what we had on hand. My friend suggested that we only use 1 stick of butter and that did help them keep their shape a little better. They still tasted great! It was a bit tricky to get the dough into the cookie cutters and then remove the cookie cutters and keep the shape. I think that next time I'll spray the cookie cutters with PAM first and see if that helps.

Here are some pictures of the latest experiment:

A close-up of the dough.

The chef and her bowl of dough. Note that she is baking in her cheerleading costume. 8 )

The cookie cutters - we didn't have animal cookie cutters so she had to make due with shapes and letters instead.

The second cookie sheet with the cookie cutters removed. We made a cookie with each of our initials - N, L, E, K, and S.

The finished product - those were some giant cookies!!

More waiting

The wait continues.
The whole adoption process is so odd - you work so hard to get paperwork together and then you mail it off - and it goes off into some random place where it floats around and you have no idea where it is or what is being done with it. And then one day, either your paper comes back to you and you go on to the next step. Or you get a call that says that your paper is wrong and you need to fix it...... Or you get a call with a referral or a court date. We're just wondering....where are our papers? And what is being done with them? When will we get THE CALL???

I found this poem on a fellow Russian adoptive parent's blog. (http://verduin.blogspot.com/). I'm so thankful that she shared this!

Wait
by Russell Kelfer

Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried;
Quietly, patiently, lovingly, God replied.
I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate . . .
And the Master so gently said, "Wait."
"Wait? you say wait?" my indignant reply."
Lord, I need answers, I need to know why!
Is your hand shortened? Or have you not heard?
By faith I have asked, and I'm claiming your Word.
"My future and all to which I relate
Hangs in the balance, and you tell me to wait?
I'm needing a 'yes', a go-ahead sign,
Or even a 'no' to which I can resign."
You promised, dear Lord, that if we believe,
We need but to ask, and we shall receive.
And Lord I've been asking, and this is my cry:
I'm weary of asking! I need a reply."
Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate,
As my Master replied again, "Wait."
So I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut,
And grumbled to God, "So, I'm waiting for what?"
He seemed then to kneel, and His eyes met with mine . . .
and He tenderly said, "I could give you a sign.
I could shake the heavens and darken the sun.
I could raise the dead and cause mountains to run.
"I could give all you seek and pleased you would be.
You'd have what you want, but you wouldn't know Me.
You'd not know the depth of my love for each saint.
You'd not know the power that I give to the faint.
"You'd not learn to see through clouds of despair;
You'd not learn to trust just by knowing I'm there.
You'd not know the joy of resting in Me
When darkness and silence are all you can see.
"You'd never experience the fullness of love
When the peace of My spirit descends like a dove.
You would know that I give, and I save, for a start,
But you'd not know the depth of the beat of My heart.
"The glow of my comfort late into the night,
The faith that I give when you walk without sight.
The depth that's beyond getting just what you ask
From an infinite God who makes what you have last.
"You'd never know, should your pain quickly flee,
What it means that My grace is sufficient for thee.
Yes, your dearest dreams overnight would come true,
But, oh, the loss, if you missed what I'm doing in you.
"So, be silent, my child, and in time you will see
That the greatest of gifts is to truly know me.
And though oft My answers seem terribly late,
My most precious answer of all is still . . . Wait."

Busy busy busy bees

Ok, I'm totally making up for my lack of photos with this post! This post is very photo heavy, so if it takes a few minutes for your page to load, that is why. Sit back, relax, and enjoy!

We've been very busy since we returned from Russia. Not only did we complete our court dossier, but we've also completed some projects around the house:

- We've built and painted a shed for our backyard toys:

And then filled it!:

- We've organized our garage:

Those bins on the left are empty and will be going away soon! We added some shelves in the garage which has helped enormously!

- We made a drying and display area for all of TinyDancer's artwork:

- We cleaned up after our exploding watermelon:

Note to self, no more produce from Wal-Mart!

- We've organized our stock pile in the basement:

- We've straighten up the shelves in the laundry room:

- And hung a peg board to organize all of our bags:

Our coats will be hanging here come fall and winter.

- We've unpacked all of our kitchen stuff and put it away. Yes, we've been in our house for three years, but we moved in over 1 weekend and then hit the ground running with Stranger's job. After three years we are finally unpacked and feel settled!

The only stuff left in boxes is our china. I want to get some nice storage boxes that are made for china, like these:

- We hung Stranger's diploma:

But it hasn't been all work and no play!

- We've played in the water slide at Grandma's house:

- We've played with our new (to us - Thank you craigslist!) teeter tooter:

- We've watched our Lilly's bloom:

- We've gotten confused as to what season it is:

- We've practiced TinyDancer's violin almost everyday:

- We've made Oreo Chunk Cookies:

- We've gone to the zoo and watched the Rhino play in his swimming pool:

- And we participated in the annual 4th of July parade in our neighborhood:

Next up, we are removing a shrub from the side of our house to make a house for our trash cans (no more trash cans in the driveway! yay!) and getting started on EasternStar's room!