daily random

i went wayyy overboard in my hair cutting adventure this evening. the overabundance of ringlets led me to cut at least 1 unch shorter than i anticipated. uhg. why oh why do i insist on going all rambo and chopping everything in sight?
put. scissors. down.
walk. away.

 foster made emery a christmas gift today, which included a lovely letter and a tissue paper flower. he might just be the first person in america to have an item crossed off of his christmas list for this year :) and i might just cry at his thoughtfulness.

our laundry basket doesn't quite know how to handle the traumatizing amount of pink that was introduced today. little ruffles and pink crazyness seems to be floating around everywhere. our laundry pile is a mixed bunch of boy meets girl. and i love it :)

after stalling and fretting over emery's blanket for months, i finally sat down and finished it tonight. i'm sooo pleased with it! the colors, the vibrance, the carefree essence...ok i'm reading too much into it. it's just a blanket. but, oh...i love it.
("hoot" by momo fabric)

and then there's this. foster has talked for weeks about wanting to find a caterpillar. to no avail. then today at a friends house, we found them swarming on the sidewalk. we carried this little buddy all the way home on our lap. not even an hour after bringing him home and making him a habitat, he started spinning his cocoon! what awesome timing! can't wait for the boys to wake up and see the progress he has made by the morning.

snazzy reds {rockin gift idea}

hands down, most creative little girl gift! i can't wait for my gal to dazzle in these sassy reds, just like this gift dazzled us! thanks chris!!

{cabled in & year of the rabbit}

we got word on friday that we are "cabled in" with the national visa center. i think it has something to do with our information being emailed to china, and i'm pretty sure it gets us to the next step of Article 5, along with a stack of paperwork that was couriered to china on friday. it is at this point that i realize i should have paid better attention to what all of the forms are and what all of this means. in all honesty, it felt like we would never get here, so when i saw anything about "after you get your referral" or "preparing to travel" i skipped over it. it felt way too far away and impossible. all of the sudden, we are one of the ones waiting. not for 75 steps, or even 10, or 5. as of right now, we are 2 steps away. Article 5 and Travel Approval!! holy smokes. this is really happening!

i'm sending a little something to emery for her birthday (may 26th). it's the year of the rabbit in china right now, so this little gift is a traditional item that commemorates the current year. we're sending a note and family photo and another camera, in hopes of capturing a shot of emery and her foster family or caregiver. i am  asking specifically for birthday photos, and i am praying praying praying that they take a whole roll of film. oh how i long for pictures of her with her caregivers. i want so badly to have a link to her past so she can have a visual of what life was like in china.

the tricky thing is, you can't just up and mail something to your waiting child in china and expect it to arrive. if you send a note it must be translated. if you want it to actually arrive, you must send to a third party and have them repackage it and send with chinese postage and writing so it isn't so obviously from overseas. after sending a care package and spending a whopping $50 in postage, not to mention the 3rd party fees, i decided to use a company in china who specializes in sending items to waiting children. there are several companies who provide the same service, but this one is really unique and special. they are a smaller operation, which gives them the ability to provide awesome customer service and really beautiful products.

 i got my jing liu (emery's chinese name) necklace from them a few months ago, and haven't taken it off since.

i got this photo from Jiayin Designs on friday, letting me know they were shipping emery's gift.

how many companies do that? they are fantastic to work with, and graciously met our request of adding a camera and family photo. if you are adopting from china, this company is a great asset!!

the beach, with a side of puke

my limp and now 7lbs lighter frame, is currently nursing a tall glass of ginger ale as i catch up on emails and my poor little lost blog. we headed out for a long beach weekend with 3 fantastic families. we all went to a fundraiser a few months back for our dear friends who just brought their son home from Ethiopia. it is such pure joy to be a part of a community of other families who are adoption minded. i know it will be more and more important as we go on in our journey.
anyhow, at the fundraiser, we all went in on a beach house. the 4 girls and 8 kids carpooled and headed down a day early. due to my directionally impaired skills, katie and i ended up making a slight (1.5 hour) detour in the wrong direction, chocking our in car total to just under 6 hours. as a point of reference, it took clint 2.5 hours to get us home today...but we won't tell katie, mmk? at least she's the perfect person to be stuck in a car with! i'll take another 6 hours, please, but this time, no stir crazy kids in the back seat :)
we had a splendid (and exhausting) day on the beach, and 4 mamas and 8 kids were really excited about the hubbies arrival, late friday night.
oh around 2 am, i woke up to a not-so-welcoming feeling. i'll spare you the details, but add in a large amount of puke that lasted through the night and well into the day. perhaps the worst flu i have ever encountered. and although i missed a great day with friends, including the boardwalk, and kids on rollercoasters, and the company of some of my favorite people, i must say, i'm thankful it happened at a time when i could have a day to be sick. puke at the beach = horrible. puke at home while taking care of kids = even worse.

i'll take the beach with a side of suntan next time, thank you :)

{emery's baby shower amazingness!}

last friday, my gal-pal laurel and i headed out for an evening of girl-gab dinner. after stuffing ourselves full of chatter, seared tuna, and outback steaks (our $70 meal was comped to $10 each! laurel, you rock!) we headed out for coffee, but made a quick stop off at church to "pick up her diaper bag." little did i know, as we snuck in the back door of the cafe, i was actually walking into emery's surprise baby shower! when we opened the door and heard "surprise," my first reaction was "oh no! we ruined someone's surprise!" thinking we were walking in on someone else's party! i was more than suprised...my heart was exploding! i couldn't believe they had done all of this for me and my girl. after calming down from the initial shock and sharing some tears of joy, i was so blown away by the love and amazing generosity of our friends and family. man, baby girl...you've got a whole lot of love coming your way!

and seriously? the most beautiful shower i have ever seen. the fashionable and creative lauren, of Paper Heat Studios, came up with the most amazing design and seamlessly thought of every tiny detail. she teamed up with my sister in love lauren and worked for weeks preparing to shower my sweet baby girl with love. i've dreamed of throwing someone a shower with lauren's creative juices...i can't believe emery and i were the recipients of such a memorable night! what a blessing the laurens' are :)

i am beyond blessed to be among these girls. my daughter has no idea what is coming for her, and i can't wait for her to be among women such as these.

and oh the little girl clothes. oh the amazingly cute little girl things. little boy clothes look dirty rocks compared to these gems! i can't stop looking at them! can't wait for emery to wiggle around in her fabulous new digs!

see the rest of the shower here. this girl rocks!

oh, and here's how she made Emery's beautiful "E" board!!



Chare', thank you so much for capturing emery's night! i'm so thankful to have all of the details documented to show her someday! :)

we went to china today...china town, NYC

on a whim, we headed to NYC with mr. clint for one of his site visits in china town. when the boys woke up, we unleashed our spontaneous plan, threw snacks and the camera in a bag, and headed out on a family adventure. it's exactly what our germ ridden status needed: change.

after taking a wrong turn and ending up in a most beautiful part of new york city (mansions with lush green yards and large blooming cherry trees everywhere...seriously? could this be new york??)

we descended upon canal street and china town.

it's so funny to me that the streets in china town are so much like the streets in the real china. little shops, all selling the same trinkets and bags and chinese chotchkies, people pushing strange carts full of strange things, torn and taped signage, baskets of un-named chinese variety food items, and the hustle and bustle. i'm always tempted to buy something just for the thrill of the bargain. the crisp sounds of chinese phrases floating about, with old men smoking pipes, babies bundled deep in their strollers and old ladies wearing ancient chinese style jackets...it beckons me and my heart throbs for china.

it was fantastic. the perfect new york afternoon, and you can't beat free :) seriously, there's no better way to jaunt to NYC.
just enough time to walk and eat and walk some more. there wasn't any whining (miracle?) or complaining...just adventure. wonder. delight. when we headed home we maneuvered through the hustle and bustle. just a block or two away, we weren't in china anymore. there was a hustle and bustle, but the style changed. the feel. sleek. modern. broadway.

old and new merging together in city style. i must say, i love the feel of downtown Manhattan. lofts, tall boots, scarves and styled accessories at every turn, trendy and fashionable tall windowed galleries. there are times i think of the city life with awe and wonder. it would be delightful to try it on for a year or two.to be city-folk and have city-jobs and a city loft. i could be an artist or a writer or a lawyer :) but then again, such a lofty new york lifestyle probably wouldn't allow for me to slouch around in my comfy pants (after having slept in them) with my hair-a-wild and crazy, and the boys running amuck in their rain galoshes with pajama shorts and bare skin bellies. where on earth would we find mud? that's a deal breaker :)

so we are home. exhausted. delighted.
me, editing photos with a glass of red wine. clint playing softball with the guys. and the boys...oh the boys. they practically put themselves to bed. in fact, they begged to get in bed. it was adorably cute. we talked for a while of new york. they wondered why there is so much trash on the streets. they remembered the pigeon we chased on the sidewalk. they tucked their new york city cars into bed and dreamt of high rises and china town. dumplings and real chinese noodles. and sister. we always talk and dream of sister.

coffee and my gal

in the midst pneumonia x 2, antibiotics, steroids and lots of these...

plus a zpack, piles of tissues and 3 nights of going to bed at 8:30 for yours truly...

i met today's morning less than enthusiastically.

the boys have brought whining to a whole new level, and i (trying to catch up on the millions of things i have let slide in the past few days) felt the pull to tackle my mounting paperwork this morning, which (rightfully so) induced more whining. it was amidst the blitz of paperwork and coughing, that a dear friend stopped by to bring me this.

ah, she knows me well. oh the joy of a mocha late. a surprise that will perk up a morning, no matter how much chaos it's surrounded by. 

then, oh about 11:15, in the rush of granny and the rover and breathing treatments, i got the best gift of all... UPDATE PHOTOS OF EMERY! oh my goodness. since the photos wouldn't open on my phone, i was off at a sprint, jumping over 1 boy, around the kitchen island and lept the length of the remaining hardwood, nearly crashing through the computer chair. gmail has never loaded so slowly in all my life.
oh the pure joy! and she's smiling! the last ones i got of her (nearly 5 months ago) she was definitely NOT smiling. it made my heart ache to look at them.
but THESE....oh my. smiles. sitting up. i could stare at them for hours. and she looks so much older, thankfully a bit chubby, and, in true chinese fashion, dressed to the hilt in an array of layers upon layers. her hands look teenie tiny compared to the thickness of her mounding sleeves.

(see what i mean? layers galore. even her one shoe falling off is adorable. oh, i want to squeese her so bad!)

i can't wait for this baby girl to donn a summer sundress. oh the thought of her running in the grass and chasing her brothers brings me to tears.
another chinese tradition (much to my chagrin) is the shaving of little a girl's hair. yes, that's right. SHAVING. several friends of mine brought freshly shaven baby girls home, as chinese caregivers feel it will make their hair grow in thicker. as of now, my little girl still has a most lovely head of hair. i'm hoping it will still be there when we meet :)

on a day when i feel like going back to bed...nursing the worst bout of sickness we've ever endured all at the same time...i'm all better now. coffee and my gal. a great combo :)

we're a whole lot of hot mess going on around here.
i've got one with pneumonia, another one who probably has pneumonia, and i'm nursing a migraine the size of texas, matched only by the throbbing and ringing in my ears. it's a daily coughing competition around these  parts, and foster takes it upon himself to announce the winner of the most horrible sounding barks.

oh the many things i haven't accomplished lately. the list is extensive, and larger than i'd like to admit.
photo editing? blogging? what's that? time seems to disappear faster than the snack cabinet. you know it's bad when there are piles of papers and boxes and randomocity so deep that entrance into our bedroom appears to be more of an obstacle course than an entryway.

it will all have to wait another day. maybe two.

i'm currently quarenteened in bed, with my dear husband putting the children to rest for the 3rd night in a row. then to the doctor's in the am. hoping for something strong and powerful to get me on my feet again.

and then we are going to hide away in a germ free bubble zone for at least a month. either that, or i'm going to bathe us in hand sanitizer each night, hoping to wisk away all lingering germs...and while we're whisking, lets take a gander at the stink bug population. we could do without them as well :)