Thursday Thirteen

1. Happy St. Patricks Day!!

2. In roughly 3 days I will have a NINE year old. Holy Moly!

3. The weather this weekend is going to be AMAZING. So stoked! Need to remember the sunscreen!

4. We have a busy weekend planned for the birthday boy and I am so excited for him :)

5. Gavin is Mr. Dramatic with a capital D. He got in itty thorn in his foot just a little while ago and seriously the way he was screaming had all of us tearing thru the woods thinking he has ripped an arm off. He even completed it by yelling "Oh my god!" I mean there was a dot of blood on his toe and all...geez.

6. Last week proclaimed that he would be crying "for the rest of his LIFE" in between wails because Jakeb broke one of his toys.

7. There are a few pink buds on the azalea bush outside of my window...I cannot WAIT for all of the bushes to bloom. It was so pretty last year.

8. The very first thing we discovered last APRIL when we moved in was that apparently we had a tenant in the attic. We have tried evicting our non paying tenant and are really having a hard time getting him/her out. Mr./Ms. Squirrel will not take the bate and LEAVE. Very frustrating. We are pretty sure in the summer it was gone and hoped that just us being here was enough to keep it gone...apparently not.

9. I am still soda free. A few sips....but I am not counting them...because seriously it was SIPS. I am craving them only here and there.

10. I have also been fast food free....though I did request Taco Bell for dinner. BUT I deserve it. Trust me.

11. No news on the adoption front, still waiting for approval from ICBF and then we will find out more...maybe.

12. We finally painted the hall bathroom this past week...looks great! Now we just need to do the office, basement, master bedroom, and guest/new kiddo's room. Slowly but surely!

13. The boys are loving soccer....I need to get some pictures posted from their games. So cute!

12 on a Tuesday

1. The boys are outside playing....on this cloudy chilly day....it's not snowing and the water isn't frozen for that I am thankful. But a few degrees warmer would be oh so nice.

2. We installed an invisible fence for the dogs a few weeks ago. Amazing...wishing we had done this sooner. No more worry of dogs running away--or at least less of a worry. For 10 years of dog ownership we have chased down Bailey or dealt with him running away...no more!

3. Maddie (our 3 year old Boxer) however did manage to rip the shocker box off her collar the other day. Smart girl. Smart, frustrating dog....

4. I did my 2 miles on the treadmill today. And I am still Dr. P free. Though I will say today I have been craving it a bit more!

5. In the past 2 weeks several of my friends parents have had some sort of life threatening event--it's scary to realize we are getting to that point in our lives. Where our parents are older....take care of yourself parents!

6. I bought new laundry sorters (same style but not exactly the same) for the house a couple months ago and they are the best things EVER. We had a sorter before but for whatever reason didn't actually sort the clothes. Now we do and with these all I have to do is grab a bag when it's full--which is the size of a full load--and dump it in the wash. So much easier.

7. I bought 3. Not at the same time though--the first one I bought for Robert and I because ours broke but I loved it so much, I went back and bought another for us. And eventually one more for the boys.

8. Did you know that with proper medicines a person/child/baby with HIV can live a long and happy life--and live a normal life span. Didn't know that? Me either--until recently. Read more here! It's awesome how far medicine has come.

9. Did you also know that there are adoptable children all over the world who are HIV+ and don't have parents because of miseducation and misguided fear? This is also true. Something I recently learned. In fact there was a clip on the Today Show recently about just that.

10. Eating less junk is hard....I said that already but it is!

11. Oh! I have been doing the crazy coupon thing--well a lazy modified version and it's nice seeing the savings add up!

12. The boys have their first soccer games this weekend. Pray it doesn't rain them out Again!

12 1/2. ---I checked on the kids 3 times while writing this post....

Twelve for Tuesday.

Yet again...not in the mood for proper paragraphs.

1. Just received an email that our dossier has been translated....and that's about all. Hopefully sometime in the next month it will be submitted to one of the casa privada's (private "orphanage" or adoption house) our agency works with. The short explanation is that they need to wait because the Casa's don't keep waiting lists and right now there are several that are still waiting for approval.

2. It's still cold.

3. The sun should shine all week though--I will take it.

4. Zachary had a little program at school today--he looked incredibly bored and maybe sang 3 lines of the 2 songs the kids sang. He's not much of a performer. But he's still cute.

5. 7 years ago I was feeling rather large and uncomfortable unknowingly carrying around a 9lb 4oz chunky monkey.

6. I love that sweet squishy baby--even if technically he's not a baby anymore.

7. My neck hurts today--it's very frustrating. It's either from A)falling down the stairs at Gavin's school B)too much super bowl fun or C)sleeping bad.

8. Yes I fell down the stairs at Gavin's school--yes it hurt, yes I am ok, yes I will no longer rush into the building particularly on rainy days. Duh.

9. Jakeb wrote a story for a 3rd grade writing "competition". It's 3 1/2 pages and pretty darn good. I am impressed.

10. I cannot wait to be in Colombia hugging on a new little one or 2.

11. There is a possibility that we have one new little one and not 2. Obviously we are cool either way. Again duh. But also got pretty set in our heads we would be bringing home 2 cuties. Again with the unknowns.

12. Patience. The End.

Thirteen for Thursday

1. I can't think of any specific things to ramble on about so we are going this route today.

2. The sun is shining today, this vastly improves my lackluster mood.

3. We have lots of family coming in this weekend...I am expecting quite a busy weekend.

4. I am very ready to see some color outside--when we first saw our house this past March there were buttercup's peeking thru the leaves all over the yard. By the time we moved in they were gone so we didn't get to enjoy them. However, the day we closed we rushed to the house very excited to be in our new house and discovered that there were over a dozen beautiful pink Azalea bushes all over the front!

5. There are men here installing a pool table as I type. We were gifted a pool table and entire "man cave" room from a complete stranger. I still can't believe it. My Uncle's friend was giving these items away and we said we would love to have it and Wow. It was way more stuff than we thought and we are very, very grateful.

6. The pool table has to be installed because it's a real deal table and Robert couldn't lift it--even with help. It's in near perfect condition. This along with 2 hi-top bar tables with matching bar stools, a couch, a big screen tv, 4 additional bar stools, and a neato schmeato holder thing are now in our basement looking mighty spiffy. And were all given to us. Again Wow.

7. Gavin and I sat down this morning and wrote our thank you cards for Christmas gifts....Jakeb and Zachary can do their soon. My family is big on Thank you cards. In fact all 3 boys received them as gifts.

8. My brother and his wife are moving to the Atlanta area. This is awesome.

9. Oh yes, our dossier is on it's way to Colombia to be translated. Today. This is very awesome.

10. It could be done by the end of next week. Awesomeness.

11. My computer desk is mighty rickety after being moved so many times...it's bouncing as I type. Though computer desk is really a craft table....it gets the job done.

12. Gavin is waiting on me to read him a book....

13. I published this before I added in a 13....oops.

Tuesday Twelve.

1. This past Thanksgiving week was fantastic and much too short. The boys were out of school and family visited everything was wonderful.

2. I seriously canNOT believe it's almost December. I have been saying that all year.

3. My Zman will be 7 in 3 months. Wowza.

4. Gavin has been calling us Mom and Dad. No Mommy and Daddy...Mom and Dad. Cute, but so big. His older brothers are not catching on just yet.

5. I am so excited about bring 2 new little ones into this house I can't hardly stand it.

6. Speaky of...I tossed a little "donate" button up over there. I am mentally working on a way to help soften the blow of some of the costs we will be hit up with over the next year or so. Using my skillz.

7. I am not sure how I really feel about that little donate button over there. But it's really no secret how much adoption (or childbirth for that matter) costs.

8. It's cold here today...like 40's but seriously it feels like Alaska out there--ok not really but this southern girl this so.

9. I have worked my hiney off today getting sessions edited. One more to go and I can get working on my own Christmas cards.

10. I love Christmas Cards. I have sent them out since I was in high school.

11. We put up our tree this weekend. Awesomeness.

12. I love Christmas, but wish the buy buy buy could get toned down a little bit. I love me some shopping but for real folks we get a little crazy about it.

Tuesday Twelve

Because I want to be here but don't know what to say.

1. I met up with a new friend and took the kids to the park today--kids? yes kids and yes it's a school day and Jakeb and Zachary are at a school.

2. It's a long story but my cousin's baby has been staying with us for a little while....and will be for at least a little while longer. If not longer than that.

3. She is a really good baby, very busy...but good. It's a lot of work.

4. The boys are adapting to school wonderfully. Well I say wonderfully...Zachary says every single day "I don't want to go to school." It's a work in progress.

5. It's nice to have a friend here to talk to some...it's really needed this week.

6. I am pretty much at my limit as to what I can handle. I may in fact be over it....but I am still handling it so that's something.

7. Tonight we have curriculum night at the boys school and it's pretty much a parents only sorta night--we will be bringing 4 kids. Rock on.

8. Gavin started school yesterday. It's an easy 3 hrs. He had a good time.

9. I can't believe this is his last year at preschool.

10. One of the dampers of moving is we have absolutely no sitters. Even for little stuff.

11. There's too much sucky stuff going on lately. Oh wait I basically said that already.

12. Can I say it again? Except my kids and my awesome husband who are all pretty much rocking awesome and reason enough for me to keep on trucking and quit my whinin'.