Scene from the drive to Florida

Are We There Yet?

Sam just asked if we are there yet. We have about 3 more hours. It's
going to be a long 3 hours...

On the Road

We have been on the road for a little over an hour. So far, the kids
have gotten in three fights. No one has asked if we are there yet, so
that's a positive.

I figured out this mobile blogging thing, so I have a feeling that
I'll be blogging a lot more than normal.

Vacation...

We're leaving tomorrow morning for our vacation. I'll try to post, but who knows if that will happen. I'm not going to have a lot of internet access. Little or no internet for one whole week?! What the hell am I going to do?

Exciting Weekend

Tomorrow Bill and I are going to celebrate our birthdays. Our birthday is actually on Monday, but we thought I had to work so we made plans for tomorrow. Now that I don't have to work on our actual birthday, my parents will be taking us out. (I owe a friend at work big time for working for me!)

First on the agenda? Breakfast at Cracker Barrel! YUMMY. Nothing says "Have a Happy Healthy Birthday" like gravy, sausage, biscuits and hashbrown casserole. I can feel my arteries clogging already! Then, we'll go to a local flea market so Bill can look for Hot Wheels. We'll have some time to kill after that but second, we're going to see "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". I'm so looking forward to seeing that! (I may joke that Bill is a big dork, but I think we can all tell that I am probably the bigger dork.) We'll have a few hours to spare after the movie and then we're going to eat yummy yummy dinner at The Melting Pot. The Melting Pot is my favorite all time restaurant.

So, I have a question for anyone reading out there. We are in need of new mattresses. We are considering the memory foam mattresses. Does anyone have an opinion about those?

I love this sound...

This laughter can make everything better.

Something to make me smile

So, here is Sam talking about the puppy (Lacey) and then he starts talking about Fizzy, me, his home and toys. Notice Lacey is not moving at all...I guess she's used to being handled by him now.



I can always count on my little guy to make me smile. (My other reason to smile is at her Papa's today.)

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Welcome to my pity party. Won't you sit down and make yourself comfortable? If you don't feel like listening to me whine, go ahead and step away from the blog.

I feel over worked and under appreciated.

I've written this post several times already and I've deleted every one of them. I don't want to sound ungrateful for the things that I have. I have the two most beautiful children in the world. I have a great husband. I have a job; I have a car; I have many things that others may not be able to afford. I feel like I should emphasize that my feeling of being over worked has nothing to do with being a mother...at all. It's everything else. Working night shift, getting far less sleep than I need, cleaning up constantly...it's a lot. It's never ending, actually. Now I feel like I should say that I wouldn't change my life at all - I just wish I could juggle it a bit better. I want a house that I'm not embarrased about people coming into. I want clean floors and less clutter. I want more time and energy to clean. I want to make a lot of home improvements that are going to cost a fair amount of money and lots of time...time that I don't have right now. I want to be able to go one month and save money. Gah...I want, I want, I want. As much as I want to delete this post, I'm not going to. Maybe I'll read it again in a month and realize I have nothing to complain about and Jebus, what in the hell was wrong with me when I wrote this.

*Because I'm superstitious, plus my habit of feeling guilty over every single thing: I want to say that I am glad I have a job; I wouldn't trade my husband or kids for anything in the world (including a clean house and all the sleep I can possibly imagine). Even though the night shift hours are not my favorite, it's the best for our family. It means no daycare for the kids; one of us is always home with them. Really. It's true.*

In my head, this post was going to be eloquent and it sounded much better than when I typed it out. Now I feel like a brat and a complainer. Uggh...perhaps I should just stop now before this gets worse.

The Incredible "Hunk"

Sam can't pronounce his "L"s very good...Most of the time he says it with a "Y" sound. (Example: he calls his aunt "Ya Ya" instead of "La La". For some reason, however, he calls the Hulk the "Hunk". LOL


Yesterday, I bought him some of those Hulk smash hand thingies. He loves them. He has been running around yelling "I AM the Incredible Hunk! I will SMASH you!".

Hunk angry! Hunk will smash you!

Vacation

I can't wait for June 1st to come around. We're leaving for vacation that day and, frankly, I am counting the days down. We're not going anywhere special, just the Redneck Riviera. It's vacation, though and that's all that matters.

I've just reached a point where I feel like everything is weighing down on me: work, family things, etc. I just need a break. Of course, riding in a car for 5 or 6 hours straight with the kids may make me change my mind about going on vacation! Emma is good for about an hour (at most) before she starts whining to get out of her seat. Sam is an excellent traveler and will sit for hours on end as long as he has some form of entertainment.

Sorry I don't have anything else to write about. I'm just feeling kind of blah....

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope everyone is having a terrific Mother's Day!

I'm at work now (Boo!), but I spent the day with Bill and the kids. It was terrific. Sam made some hearts for me. Bill told Sam to help me with some random thing today and Sam asked why. Bill told him it was Mother's Day. Sam just rolled his eyes and asked, "Why does it have to be Mother's Day? That's just silly!".

Back to work for now.

The Happiest 5 Years of My Life.

***This is the post I've been trying to write since March. Sometimes life just gets busy. Just because I didn't have time to write it at the time doesn't mean that I haven't thought about it every single day.***





On March 14, we celebrated five years of our Samiches being home. Five years. Where does the time go? I can remember so vividly when we first got our referral call. It was after 8pm and I was in the shower. Bill was on his way home from work. The phone rang and I answered it, thinking Bill was just calling to say he was running late or something. It was our agency. Would we be interested in a boy born in July (it was the middle of August)? Of course I'll go check my email right away. I knew, before even checking my email, that I was about to see a picture of our son. The world somehow felt completely different. I opened my email and anxiously opened up the email from our agency. Before reading the medical information or anything else, I clicked on the first photo attachment. A beautiful baby boy. Our baby boy. Our son. (Please note: He is also very much his birth mother's son. Please don't think I have forgotten about her.) At that point, Bill finally got home. (I had called him and told him that the agency called. No, I wasn't patient enough to wait until he got home to look at the baby's pictures.) I led Bill to the computer and silently showed him the pictures. We looked at the medicals. We both knew that this was our son. Calls were made to our families and to the agency. The next morning, we were faxing POAs and getting things overnighted to the agency.


In February, we finally got the call. PGN had approved our adoption. Sam was legally our son. In March, we met him for the first time and brought him home. Life has never been the same.




Finally meeting everyone after getting off the airplane.

Sam's first bath at home. Look at that face!

Our sweet boy five years later.

Why can't I figure this out???

In my quest to be a good photographer and all that good stuff, I am trying to learn Photoshop Elements. I can't figure it out for the life of me. Is it really that difficult or am I really that dumb???

Wow...

Things really have been busy here. Sam's "Gotcha Day" was on March 14 - 5 years home! (I'm not going to post on this now. It needs it's own special post.) Em is getting bigger and is a talker. (She just turned two, if you can believe that!) That kid is talking non-stop from the minute she wakes up until the minute she goes to bed. (and) Attitude. Sweet Jesus, does she have attitude. That's one thing we need to work on. She's spoiled and throws temper tantrums if she doesn't get her way. I suspect it's because someone, ahem, gives into her every whim. I am not going to mention any names but it starts with D and ends with ddy. Her Papa and Grandaddy are also guilty.

We also got a new puppy! Yay! Her name is Lacey and she is a "Shiffon", which is just a fancy name for a mutt. Her dad is a purebred Brussels Griffon and her mom is a purebred Shih Tzu. She is a 4 lb fluff ball. She is great with the kids and great with Fizzy. Fizzy is finally getting used to her. I guess he realized she is here to stay and he might as well give into her constant need to play with him.

Hopefully, I'll get to post Sam's Gotcha Day post this weekend.

New Home...

Ok, I promise to post more. I really do.

Thanks for following me to this site. I will post a real post later today...