Happy Father's Day and Week 6!

First of all - Happy Father's Day to the best husband and father out there! Thanks so much, Brian for being such an awesome husband and Daddy! You take such good care of us! Also Happy Father's Day to all of the Dads and Dads-to-be out there.

Week 6! It's been 6 weeks since fingerprinting and 9 weeks since they received our homestudy. My guess (perhaps optimistically) is that our I-171H comes next week while we're traveling. But I'm starting to think it really won't come until after 9 weeks now. Our agency now says not to bother emailing her until 9 weeks, yet it seems like most people from our agency have had to email her before receiving it (when I say most I have talked to about 3 other people so that's perhaps not a huge sample). I know poor Elisabeth waited forever to get hers. Hopefully we'll hear soon.

Family (not so) Fun Friday: Warning - Contaminated House

So strep is being passed along throughout our family. B brought it home from school. My aunt said that they are sick too and called her son a carrier monkey which I thought fit here very well. 3 of the 4 of us are now on antibiotics. B is back at school today, he's been home pretty much all week. I've bleached the house and we're ready to enjoy the weekend.

Also I've been home all week dealing with a leaking air conditioner. It was broken about 2 weeks ago for a week, now it's working but earlier this week was flooding the basement. Now it's a more mild leak - not flooding but drizzling. I'm a bit sick of staying home waiting for this guy to arrive, he doesn't give any indication. I had to go fill a prescription today and missed him. Oh well.

On the upside my in-laws are coming to visit today! We're very excited to see them! The kids can't wait to have them here. G has been asking for days if they're coming after her nap (in our house we have short naps - during the day, and long naps - overnight). Finally I could say that they would be here soon after her nap! This is why she does not know that she will have a sibling yet. A few months will be more than enough time for her to adjust and drive us crazy while we're waiting, we don't need her to know close to a year out.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Book Worm Wednesday and Saying Yes! (or Lunch with Cinderella -take your pick of titles)

For Book Worm Wednesday I'm going to mention a book and podcast that is helping us fund this not-so-inexpensive adoption. It's "The Total Money Makeover" and the Dave Ramsey show.

Dave Ramsey has some pretty radical ideas of how to deal with money. Some people are really turned off by him. He doesn't sugar coat things and Brian and I don't follow his program 100% (we find credit cards useful as long as you pay them off every month). We're actually not paying off debt right now (though it would be great if those student loans were gone) but we're piling up cash to pay for our adoption and we find his advice helpful. His ideas on budgeting and really cutting expenses are motivating. A lot of it is common sense when you stop and think about it, but sometimes it helps to have someone mention it.

I also listened to a podcast on a book called "Miserly Moms". I don't remember the author off hand but she had a lot of great tips about cutting your budget and figuring out ways to spend less and save more. Just what I needed to hear! I even used a few of her tips and managed to cut down my commissary cost this week by about $40 from the norm which is fantastic if I can keep that up! I want to read her book now.

OK, now the personal stuff. I say no a lot! Anyone who has kids, but specifically a 3 year old will tell you that they probably do the same. Now I think it's good for kids to hear no, especially when they're young and to learn to live with that answer, but I also think that sometimes Iget so used to saying it that I forget how to say yes. So today when my daughter asked for the umpteenth time to wear her Cinderella dress (it was her Halloween costume) and no was on the tip of my tongue, I stopped. I looked at her happy anticipatory face and thought "Why not?". We're not saving it for anything, who cares if it gets messy. We're going to W@lmart and Jimmy J*hns - who cares?!? Then I did something she hasn't heard in the many many times (over the course of weeks) that she has asked and I said "YES!" She was thrilled and she just ate up the attention she got wearing the dress too. I felt silly at times but I need to get over it. It's not about me, it's about my happy little girl who will only be 3 once!

New Look and New Perspective

I decided to have a little fun and try out one of the new layouts on blogger. Also I read a wonderful post from Money Saving Mom on appreciating life. It's a great message for anyone but really spoke to me in the waiting process for adoption.

Check it out - Lessons from the Playground: Choose to bloom where you're planted: http://moneysavingmom.com/2010/06/lessons-from-the-playground-choose-to-bloom-where-youre-planted.html

Hope you're all having a wonderful weekend. We're enjoying it because we've been able to do a lot together! It seems like it's been a while since Brian's had a fairly low-key weekend. His last week of class for the summer is this coming week and then we get 2 months of no class! Lots of free weekends to spend with us! Starting with his parents visiting next weekend. Yay! :)

Book Worm Wednesday

I wasn't sure what books to write about today but while I was at Taekwondo there was a book lying out by the same author as one I enjoyed. Celia Rivenbark wrote "Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank" which is a hilariously funny book about southern living. Now I'm a Yankee - born and raised in upstate NY - but I can appreciate her humor. It's worth a read and will help pass the time for those of you in the intense waiting! Also a good beach read (something you can pick up and put down pretty easily).

I also took a peek at my childrens' bookshelves for some ideas. The "Little Quack" books have amazing illustrations and are sweet stories about a Mama duck and her ducklings. "Little Quack's New Friend" includes a frog who is different from the rest of them and at first is a bit of an outcast but then they all learn to be friends. Sweet and a good book to discuss similarities and differences with kids. My favorite is "Little Quack's Bedtime." It's a very sweet book about a Mama Duck putting her ducklings to bed and calming their fears along the way. Just thought I'd share these. I haven't read a lot of adoption kids books yet so I don't have those to review but I have read a lot of general kids books so those are easy to write about. ;)

Also - a friend of mine recommended "The Calligrapher's Daughter" which is set in Korea in the early 20th century during Japan's occupation of Korea. I haven't read it yet but it sounds like an interesting novel with some good Korean culture and history mixed in.

I'd still love to hear any recommendations out there! Thanks!

Korean Baby Games

Another Bloggy Mom, Kelly, posted this youtube video of Korean Baby Games:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArTpgbSy3nA&feature=related


kunji kunji (point to hand)
Jahk-jah goong (clap)
Door-ee (shake head back and forth)
Jam jam jam jam(? - not sure about the j sound) (open and close fists)

There's also a Korean Peek-a-boo video on there. You say: cock-koong
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xc6IrxaAOk

I tried to write them somewhat phonetically but I'm not entirely positive it's accurate but it's great to learn these things! Just thought I'd share.

BTW - Today is 4 weeks since fingerprinting, 7 weeks since they processed everything. Really hoping to hear soon but assuming at least another 2 weeks.

Faithful Friday

OK, I'm going to start out saying that I've been working on this post for over a week but I can't quite seem to put it into words.

There is a lot of uncertainty in our lives right now. Anyone who has experienced adoption can relate to that though it's not the only area of uncertainty it is one of the most prominent. We're struggling with some aspects - trying to get information, make some decisions, and, of course, WAIT. In the mean time there are some other things going on so what I've really had to do is pray. I've had to give this over to God and let go. That is extremely hard for me.

I remember when I was younger a friend of mine had FROG stickers (Fully Rely On God - with a cute little frog). It was cute and a great message, I thought it was fun. But I don't think I spent enough time contemplating what that actually looked like. It is at times like this that I have the opportunity to truly experience that. In a way it's a gift, though one that is very difficult for me to accept. A gift to let God do what is best in our lives. He knows and I don't. To fully rely on Him it means letting my life really go in the direction He wants which is awesome! And scary! But I'm trying and I praise Him for the opportunity.

Thanks for listening. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Book Worm Wednesday

I decided Wednesdays sounded good so until we get a referral I'll do Book Worm Wednesday. ;)

Thanks for all of the great comments last week! I did get "Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child" from the library. I've started reading it but I'm still finishing "Bringing up Geeks" so it's slow going. ;) By the way - Geeks stands for: Genuine Enthusiastic Empowered Kid so it is a positive thing, just so everyone knows. It's really about instilling your values into your child. :)

A fictional Book that I enjoyed a lot was "An Irish Country Doctor". It started out slow but once you got to know the characters it was an excellent book!

Also thank you for the website recommendation! www.tapestrybooks.com is a great resource for adoption books.

Also an adoption related website that I'm a fan of is www.creatingafamily.org - Dawn Davenport wrote the book "The Complete Guide to International Adoption" which is sort of a "What to Expect while You're Expecting" of International Adoption and I love it. It's also MUCH funnier and easier to read than the What to Expect book so I highly recommend that as well.

Update on our lives: day 3 with no a/c and temps reaching towards 90. Grrr. Hoping to hear from the a/c guy again soon!

Countdown - it's been 3 weeks since fingerprinting and 6 weeks since USCIS received and processed our home study so I keep hoping (though I know it's likely to be a few more weeks).

On a positive note - my husband was promoted and had his promotion ceremony yesterday! Congrats Bri! I'm very proud of his hard work and dedication! B and G were very good during the ceremony - the rest of the day was crazy but the ceremony was very nice!