Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

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We braved the chilly temps, the bumpity wagon and the deep snow and headed out to the tree farm last weekend to find the perfect tree (funny, how everyone else was there searching for the same thing!) After treking through acres of snow, heading cross country to the back corner of the lot through knee deep snow.....we found the PERFECT tree.....can you guess where it was? By the road where the tractor had dropped us off in the first place!!! Oh well, it isn't Christmas unless your toes become frost bitten while tree hunting (at least that is the way it was in my house growing up.....and we didn't have tree farms either.....just lots of bush to tromp through). In keeping with another new tradition, Alec felled our tree just like a regular Paul Bunyon and after a quick drag we were on the tractor headed back to our warm van!! Enjoy the pics from our fun afternoon.

Guarding OUR tree that we found!

Alec has perfected the chopping of the tree!

What do do while we are waiting for the tree to fall? Snow angels of course!

Another little frosty..........

The tree is finished and we have our own Christmas angel!!

Christmas Toys......

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The toys we collected for all the kiddos in the community...........

Small things make a big difference

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This year instead of having a gift exchange between myself and the families of my daycare children I suggested a toy drive to benefit the local children in our community. The idea was that for every toy they donated to the drive I would match it with another. Despite being a "little" daycare we have accomplished a donation of 20 new toys to be distributed to the Children's Aid Society. WOW!! It is truly amazing to see what can be accomplished when everyone contributes just a little bit. The kids have been so excited to watch the box "grow" and fill with toys. What a great lesson in the true meaning of the holiday season.

Now, I'm off to finish baking another 5 dozen gingerbread cookies. We distribute them (along with shortbread) to our neighbours and friends. This year I'm also responsible for supplying treats for Claire's class party......so I'm off to bake............

Mickey Mouse, Cinderalla, Baloo.....oh my!

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Hi Everyone!
We had an amazing vacation at Disneyworld last week. In fact it's a bit depressing to return home to the snow and cold temps. Being from a "snowy place" it was very strange to walk around the theme parks and listen to Christmas music playing while the sun shone and the palm trees swayed. The kids did great on the flight which gives me renewed hope that they will be able to handle the 13+ hours required to fly to China. Overall a big success!! Here's a couple of highlights from the trip.

TYPICAL TUESDAYS!

Happy Birthday Claire

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Yesterday was Claire's "official" birthday but today was all about celebrating with our little princess. What an amazing 5 years it's been!! Claire has literally transformed before our eyes into the beautiful, clever, and talented little girl she is today! We love you sweetie.....and can't wait to take you to Disneyworld in just a few days.....HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Our birthday girl..............

Having a blast at her gymnastics party.....spidergirl!

Our little jumping bean!

The theme?......High School Musical!!

"I can't believe I have to eat cake for dinner!!"

**There was no shortage of Barbie's, High School Musical dolls, craft activities, movies, new clothes and generally amazing toys from the party today. Right now though my two little monkeys are playing house in a cardboard box. Makes we wonder if I should return some of the toys I already bought for Christmas! :)

Where Did Summer Go?

Summer has definately come to an end in this part of the woods! The long summer evenings are being quickly replaced with sweaters, mittens and yummy "comfort" meals like chili and stew. We just passed our 10 month waiting anniversary to bring Lauren home. According to our agency, the wait is likely to increase to between 25 - 30 months for expedited files. I have reason to believe that we may be waiting alot longer than that. My reasoning behind this is pure statistical facts that are hard to ignore. The CCAA matched 3 months of families this year. There is a chance they might match expedited families next month and if that is the case then the count rises to 4 months of files matched over a 12 month period. Our Dossier was logged in Jan'08 so theoretically there are 12 more months of "matches" to accomplish before it is our turn. If the CCAA continues with matching 3 months year then it will take 4 more years before it is our turn. If they match 4 months per year then our wait is closer to 3 more years. Either scenario is mind boggling and depressing to say the least. Especially when we were told 12-14 months until referral by our Agency last year....hmmm....just a bit off.
I spoke with our Homestudy worker who is wonderful, experienced and insightful. I expressed my frustration, anxiety and loss of direction as to what we should do. Theoretically we could do a couple of things. We could withdraw from the program, not willing to accept that there will be almost 10 years between Claire and her sister. We could stay in line and "hope for the best" like so many other families. We could try and change countries but this involves re-doing paperwork, losing the money we had paid and starting over at the end of the line. I even inquired about domestic adoption but the wait for a healthy child is approximately 8 years and the alternative is a child with severe physical,mental and social challenges. Something I don't feel our family is ready to handle.
So now my heart aches. My heart aches for the children sitting in orphanages in China awaiting their forever families. It aches for my children who ask "when" and it aches for myself and my husband who do not have the answers to give them. Our social worker understood our frustration and assured me that we are not alone in our feelings. In fact so many families are "program hopping" at the moment that the government cannot keep up and is presently 4 months behind in approving Homestudies.
So what will we do? My heart remains with China and although I'm deeply disappointed that things are the way they are I also know that we are meant to "wait it out." For if our daughter can sit patiently in a cold orphanage on the other side of the world and wait for me then surely I can sit in my warm house and wait for her.
So yes, summer has come and gone and like the picture of Evan I'm wondering just what next summer may hold.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Wishing everyone a safe and wonderful Halloween full of tricks and treats!!! Here's a couple of pics of our little gouls from today............

Happy Halloween!

Ready for the big night

Claire at her school parade this morning.........

The royal wave..........

Happy Birthday to my 12 Year Old!!

Wow! Where did the time go? I know everyone says that....but it's really true! Who'd a thought! My little guy, who isn't so little.....he is taller than me and wears a size 11 mens shoe....yikes.....is growing into a wonderful young man. We are so proud of him! Happy Birthday Alec! Enjoy your new desktop computer.....you deserve it!

Wordless Wednesday

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Future Iron Chef!!!

Some days it's difficult to find time to spend individually with each of the three kids over the course of a day or week. It makes it even harder when Monday to Friday are "Daycare Days" and my attentions are being divided 7 different ways. I often feel that "I owe" my attention to the children that pay actual $ to come every day. Often it's my own kids that are asked to wait....to share.....to help...... Since Claire is in school Tuesday and Thursday's, I've been setting aside 2 hours in the afternoon (when the other children are asleep and just Evan is up) to spend some quality time with my little guy. Lately he's been helping me in the kitchen! Baking muffins for snack is a "chore"that has to be accomplished but at the same time I've been trying to make it "fun time" with lots of love, laughter and a fair bit of craziness thrown in. Evan definately has the craziness part down pat!
Enjoy the pics.......

My little mixer!!

The whole time he wanted to know when he could lick the spoon!

Getting a better perspective on the situation ........please ignore the store bought muffin mix

Thankful Thursday

Hmmm....is it o.k. just to be thankful that it is Thursday?

By Thursday:
The house is a mess
The floors need washing
The daycare kids and my own kids are getting tired of each other
I feel like cheating on my diet!....oops....did that one already today
I'm sick of constantly cooking/washing dishes/making snacks/washing more dishes
The laundry has reached epic proportions
The windows are a splattering of little finger prints and some smudges of unidentifiable origins

So, YES I'm totally thankful that it's Thursday and one step closer to the weekend.....when I can get caught up on my laundry, floor washing, window cleaning..............and oh yay..........washing dishes!!!!

Enjoy your day...........may it be "chore free."

Apple Picking Fun!

Today our family Fall tradition continued when we took the kids to the BEST apple picking farm in the area. Hay mazes, slides, cute animals to feed and of course APPLES! Enjoy the pics!

1st Day of School

One was up at 6 am to pick the outfit.....one was still in jammies and playing video games 15 minutes before the bell rang......guess which is which......................

Whatever it takes.....

.....to get these monkeys to go to bed! I just had to snap a picture of the kids the other night. I was coming down the street after taking the dog for an evening stroll and from the distance I could see the light on in the van. When I got closer I realized that Adam and the kids were sitting in the van together..........reading bedtime stories? Strange! Apparently Evan was on the brink of "pre-bedtime" meltdown and the bribe of storytime in the driveway was enough to diffuse the situation. Good going Adam! You win the award for "Parenting Quick Thinking!"

Storytime with Daddy is always a treat!

Especially when it's in the car!?!?

There's a Hole in My Bucket.....uh Yard!

This weekend we tackled the sink hole in the backyard that we had discovered about a week ago. It turns out the sinkhole wasn't little at all! In fact it was the old septic bed that had rusted through causing a hole 6X4 feet wide and 4 feet deep to form. The only thing nnot causing a massive cave-in to have occurred earlier was about 3 inches of topsoil and some grass!! The hole was filled with rusted and jagged metal that I'm sure would've caused serious injury had someone fallen in. Thank goodness we won't have to worry about that!
We contacted a gravel company and had 4 yards of pea gravel delivered on Sunday and set to work filling in the septic tank. Need I say that Sunday was like the hottest day we've had all summer! Anyways, after much sweating the deed was done! I'm just thankful no one was hurt and that the yard is again safe for the little ones. Here's a couple pics. The actual magnitude of the pit is a bit deceiving in the picture because we only opened a portion of the pit and then used long rakes to fill in to the ends.

Our "hole"! Looks small but oh no!

A "bit" of gravel for our pit!

Trying to be Patient..............

We are quickly approaching our 8 month anniversary for our Log-In to China to bring home our amazing daughter Lauren (yes, she is amazing even though we've never met) I fluctuate between thinking "wow, 8 months has really flown by" and "hmmm...I wonder how many months are left." People are asking us whether we are still adopting? Are we getting the baby soon? And even, "oh, are you still waiting?" For those "in tune" with the international adoption scene 8 months is really only a drop in the bucket for what the end wait will be. Families who received their babies this month waited on average of 2.5 years. For families just beginning the process the wait could stretch to 7 years! The "expedited line" (the one we are in) is said to be processing Dossiers 40% faster than the regular line. If this is the case then we could expect our Referral sometime in late 2010 or early 2011 (based on an approximated wait of 2.5-3 years). For those interested in learning about the wait times in China, the social and political issues surrounding the international adoption of children from that country, and the families all over the world who wait to bring home their "forever children" then I encourage you to check out the website chinaadopttalk.com . This website, presided over by the "Rumour Queen" helps to make sense of the current wait times, and the possible future of the China Adoption Program. I guess to some extent I'm getting tired of the comment: "wow, there are so many babies over there why is it taking so long?" If only it were are simple as "supply and demand." Yes, there are many abandonned children in China. No they are not all girls. Yes, many have special needs. The percentage of orphanages that participate in the International Program is incredibly small. That means that the majority of children will never qualify to be adopted internationally. From a political perspective, China has an image they want to protray to the world. Once proud of running the most successful and non-corrupt adoption program in the world they have now shifted to not wanting to be seen as a country that "exports it's children." In the face of the recent Olympics in Bejiing, China is attempting to portray to image of cherishing it's children and caring for "their own." Will things change in the future? That is definately the "million dollar question." Personally I think not. Prospective parents are left to generate their own opinions and ideas in regards to the direction the Chinese governement will take. I feel the move will be towards a Special Needs Program only with the eventual disintergration of the Non Special Needs Program. My hope though is that the families who are currently Logged-In will eventually receive their children; and those children will receive the love of a family that has persevered and struggled to bring their child home. And that will make the wait worthwhile!

'Cause I had a bad day!

Those song lyrics seem so appropriate today and I'm sitting here hoping that it's just the heat (or hormones) making me grumpy and that tomorrow I'll awake and laugh at myself. We've been waiting for the Town Water & Sewer Department to sign off and give us the o.k. to dig for the new fence. Well, today the Sewer Department arrived. I didn't even realize until after he was finished that he had spray painted a green line down our "NEW" driveway. When I calmly asked him if it washes off he replied that it will "wear off eventually." GREAT!
To top it off we had noticed the other day that there was a soft spot in the backyard. Adam was going to investigate it later this weekend. Of course I couldn't leave it alone and curiousity led me to stick my foot down into the hole. There was a giant "whooshing" noise and the ground gave way. Luckily I wasn't sucked in too! Adam, who now thinks I'm pretty much insane, measured the sink hole to at least a depth of 4feet and there appears to be water at the bottom. We speculate that there used to be a septic bed there and it is causing the ground to cave in. We have a call in to a septic company to assess the situation but right now visions of having to dig the entire backyard up and remove the old tank are running through my head. And with all the money we spent on renos this summer there is not a penny left over for this newest disaster. Safety with the daycare is my biggest concern and I know the problem needs to be fixed. But how? Hopefully everything will work itself out for the best. And that concludes my pity party. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...................

All the monkeys in the zoo...........

Fun in the sun..........

We had a lovely weekend away and now it's back to the routine....that's the hard part! The kids spent long days at "Papa's Beach", ate "Grandma Cookies" till we thought they would be sick. Even for breakfast! Wow, I must've been in a good mood to let that one slip by! We've been looking forward to the day when the kids would be old enough to do fun family activities....so this weekend we decided to give Mini-Putt a try! Alec loved it, probably because he won; Evan was surprisingly good considering the club was the same size he was. Claire.....oh Claire! She fell asleep on the way there, and was in not-so-fine spirits for most of the outing. Oh well, 2 outta 3 ain't bad!
Adam spent the weekend showing my parents homes located closer to town. They even put an offer on one but were out-bid! It will be sad to say goodbye to the river; I know our kids have wonderful memories to take with them. Here are a couple of pics from the day.

Brother ~ Sister "LOVE"

Our Mermaid

Kayaking with Uncle Gregory (I was only a little nervous he would fall in)

Whew......

The To-Do List is slowly creeping to completion (finally). The patio and new bathroom are great. The driveway has been repaved and the kids are having a blast using the sidewalk chalk and riding their bikes on the "smooth" pavement (compared to the boulders and potholes that constituted our driveway previously). The new fence and gate are going in this week and I'm looking forward to letting the kids outside to play again without the worry of anyone escaping! The last bit of work will be finishing the rough -in and putting in the new fixtures for the downstairs bath. I'm pretty content to let this one rest till the Fall. As busy as we've been though I'm already thinking about "next" summer and what projects we'll tackle. We desperately need a new garden shed and now that I'm an expert "patio builder" I'm thinking of tackling the front walkway. I have some leftover stones that are begging to be used!
Till then though I'm enjoying relaxing with the kids. It's a long weekend and we'll be joining the massice exodus from the city and the migration towards cottage country, bonfires, kayaking, and playing in the sand. Can't wait!!

Are you ever really done?

Here are the pics from the recently renovated bathroom. Wow, I'm so glad this one is over! Being that it is our only bathroom, AND that we are a family of 5, AND that on any given day I have around 7 preschoolers running around the house, it sure was nice to have a toilet and running water again. It makes me rethink my desire to be Laura from Little House on the Prairie! Not as easy as it looks!!! So the reno is done and I think the results are fantastic considering we did 90% of the work ourselves. We had some drywall challenges and a couple of days where the electrical was a little screwed up but "all in all" I couldn't be happier. We are taking a little break (probably until September) and then we'll begin the finishing work (the rough in is already done) for the new downstairs bath. I'll keep yah posted! So here are the pics...........

The infamous "before" picture

Work in progress

Starting to really miss indoor plumbing

New drywall

The "result".....isn't it great?

Worth the wait!