Just Living Life

I'm astounded that it has been 3 months since I updated. Nothing new is going on with the adoption. It feels more like we quit. The weather has taken a turn for the gorgeous (off and on), and while it has been great, there is also a sense of dread in my stomach. The pretty weather means it's time to start hauling the yard sale stuff out. I'm sorry if I've said it before, but I am tired of yard sales. That's just the harsh truth. I'm not doing these for fun. I'm doing them for my girls. You know, we give up a lot of comfort to have a biological child. (Yes, I still remember being VERY uncomfortable at times while pregnant.) So, I guess this is some of my discomfort for my next two children. It just gets tough not knowing when this "pregnancy" will end.

So, as far as the adoption goes, get ready for me to start blogging about our fundraisers. You've been warned! ; )

Now, an update on the fam. First of all, we are halfway through birthday season. Eli turned 6 in February. He is getting SO big. Okay, more like "big for his britches". He still weighs next to nothing. But he eats better most of the time and has TONS of energy, so I'm not worrying about that. We kept it fairly simple and had a Wii party with a few friends followed by cake and ice cream. Pretty basic. The weather cooperated and was pretty. The kids gradually found the backyard, and the trampoline was a big hit. The nice thing about February is that the flies are not out yet, so we just left the backdoor open so we could supervise kids both in and out. On the actual day of his birthday we took him to Chili's and Baskin Robbins. He was tickled with that.

Yesterday was my birthday. We didn't do much. Tim and I will go out to eat later this week since he is on spring break. It was a reminder, though, that I'm getting older with no known end to the adoption. I want my girls home. I'm not very good with floating through times of limbo.

Next month we tackle Colton's 9th birthday. He is so ready to lose the booster seat. He has reached the point where it is almost insulting to be in it. He is about an inch shy of the legal minimum for losing it now. I wonder who came up the the 4'9" rule. He looks too big for his booster now.

Just so he was mentioned...Tim's birthday finishes us off in May.

School is going well. Colton is keeping us busy with Taekwondo. We are now going twice a week instead of just once. He recently earned his fifth belt (I think they called it 4th degree green). We are also still doing PE once a week and have started staying afterward for an hour of swimming. Swimming lessons are in the plans for both boys this summer. Eli has been very concerned that he doesn't know how to swim.

I have 3 new activities. First I joined Curves in February. I have GOT to lose some of this weight. Maybe that will help with settling my heartbeat down (recently identified PACs and tachycardia). I'm also hoping that will help with my new enemy reflux. Besides, I need to manage stress, fit in older clothes, and just feel better. I haven't really lost any pounds, but my first check-in (at the beginning of March) showed a few lost inches. I'll take that for now.

Second, I am trying to be a couponer. I'm working on organinzing and trying to figure out everyone's couponing policies. I'm pretty pumped about this. My first grocery trip was to Publix. I had never shopped there because I perceived them as expensive. On my first trip, the receipt said I saved $64. I didn't really get excited since this was compared to the expensive Publix prices. I compared those same items to Wal-Mart and found I had saved $34. I still wasn't satisfied, though, since I usually buy store brands instead of name brands. So, I checked those items, and I still saved $20 over the cheapest way I knew how to shop. I was hooked...at least to keep trying and to keep improving. That was February. At the end of the month, we didn't have a big savings (about $4 under our average), but we had a lot more food in the house. This month I'm working on adding the drugstores to my couponing plan. So far so good, but I haven't done much yet.

Finally, I started giving piano lessons in March. I probably should have done this a long time ago for the adoption fund, but then again I've just now found a semblance of balance in homeschooling two instead of one. I started teaching now because Colton got braces at the end of January. (He's so cute with them!) Those brought a not-so-friendly monthly payment with them. I currently have two students (besides my boys). I had others interested, so maybe they will be ready to sign up soon.

Let me close with one last thing. I wish I had more time to read and could regularly recommend books to you. I've recently read a book, though, that I would encourage you to read as soon as you can find a copy. Heaven Is for Real is the story of a young child (almost four) who visited Heaven during a serious illness. The doctors never said he died and was brought back, so I'll just say "he visited". I just do not believe that a child of his age could make up the stories that he told. One of the most compelling examples was when he suddenly mentioned to his mom one day that he had two sisters. She said that he just had the one and maybe he was thinking of his cousin. He said no. There was a girl in Heaven who kept hugging him ("yuck" to him) and said she was his sister. She said she had died in Mommy's tummy. The mom had never told him that she had had a miscarriage between his living sister and him. This child also described Heaven in a way that matched Scriptures that he was too young to have heard, much less understood. Things in the book of Revelation, for example. It's a relatively short book (a little over 200 pages), so you simply must find it and read it.

I'm going to try to update more often. Please keep us in your prayers as we begin fundraising again. We still need to raise about $10K so we can accept a referral. We are also still waiting to hear from one grant, and I need to start applying for others.