Random Contemplations

We had to say good-bye to our old friend Zoey today. Zoey was our beloved Lab, she would have been 13 on Valentine’s day. We have had her since our daughter was 3 years old, she can’t even remember a time without Zoey in our family.

This picture of Zoey was taken in October, on her way to the vet’s office. October was when she started going downhill, but it’s only in the past few weeks that she really took a turn for the worse. She loved going in the car, and even to the vet’s office!

My sweet Hubby took her to the vet today, in the car (her favorite) to have her put to sleep. He got the toughest job. I just stayed home and sat on the couch with Christine, all snuggled up, while cried together. Joshua was down for his nap during most of it, but he was up for the beginning of it. Christine crying, and Joshua laughing.

Joshua laughs hysterically when someone is sobbing. I don’t know what it is about it that he finds so humorous, but he laughs his booty off. It’s mainly a good thing though. It’s tough to be sad with Josh there laughing and so happy. During one of her sobbing spells today, Christine said “I wish I was like Joshua!”. He is our boy who is always happy! He does, of course, get hurt and cry, and he worries when mama leaves him with someone, but he’s oblivious to to stuff like the dog dying. He’s oblivious at this stage in his life, I don’t know if he’ll remain that way or not as he grows.

She was such a sweet girl, we’ll miss our Zoey!

Love one another,

Christine sewed this whimsical apron for herself, with the help of her wondeful sewing teacher! Thanks Lindiepindie for your guidance, we are both so grateful to you, for your help and for the picture! :-)

Thursday, April 26, 2007

My favorite two are the third and fourth from the left.  Joshua has been working hard to pick things up with a pincer grasp, and he’s getting sooo good at it!  He’s also been practicing his hammering skills on his pound a ball toy, he really had a tough time hanging on to the hammer in the beginning, but now he has a death grip on it and can is actually starting to raise him arm and lower it in a hammering motion.  I am so proud of him and how hard he is willing to work!  He amazes me daily with his wonderful attitude!

Love one another!~Yvonne

I have a sick little one again today, but we still went to a birthday party, for my nephew Evan, they are all snotty over there too so why not continue to share the germs? :-) Joshua isn’t running a fever though, just a very snotty nose, and a cough, a glaze to his eyes…poor Pooh Bear. I wore him in the Ergo for a lot of the day, and he was very content there. I am finding it to be more and more comfortable all the time, my body did have to get used to lugging my 28 pound boy around! Now we both love it!

Hubby spent most of the day at his mom’s house doing our taxes, and I’m so excited to announce that with our adoption tax credit we are going to be out of debt! A car and house payment only! Pooh Bear told Daddy he is hoping for a pony out of the deal, but Daddy wasn’t buying! Shucks! Just think of all the benefit of our own hippotherapy we get out of a pony! What a huge blessing, we are so thankful!

Mee Mee and Bubbie (my mom and dad) are in town and Christine is spending the night over at my sister’s house with them tonight. The cousins were thrilled! It’s quite exciting when your big cousin spends the night you know! Speaking of Christine, on Friday she began her volunteer position as my nephew Eli’s aide at the homeschool co-op that my sister’s family attends. Eli is 4, with special needs and still non-verbal, so he was having to attend the baby nursery with his mom and little brother all last semester and he was soooo bored in there. I suggested to my sister that Eli should have an aide to help him to be in the class with his peers, and my Christine volunteered to be the one. They both had such a great time, she came home so excited, telling me all about Eli’s teachers and who played with him and how he likes to eat crayons but she helped him to color like the other little ones. It is going to be so good for both of them, I just thank God for her servant’s heart for her cousins! I had wonderful big cousins who were awesome to me too when I was little so I really know how much she means to all those little guys.

I always end with “Love one another”…I just want you all to know that all your words of encouragment and your prayers for my Violet make me feel so loved! Thank you all! I will personally respond to all of you as soon as I can. I would have liked to have done so already, but recently I have been buried in Violet’s case file, which is only about a foot high!

Love one another!~Yvonne

Do you ever click to my blog and wonder if you are in the right place? I feel the need to change the look of my blog yet again. We are in the midst of the winter blahs here in Texas, probably the longest one that I can remember in a very long time. I’ve already moved all the furniture I can, so now the blog gets a dose of change too, as much as possible without having to pay someone to do it for me. I have looked all through all the cool blog designs at Bluebird Blogs, but I don’t forsee any spare money lying around to do that anytime in the near future. Susie sure does create some fabulous looks though! Maybe one day!

Joshua is doing so well tonight that you would not even know that he has the flu! Christine, while she has stopped throwing up, still is running a fever that is keeping her quite uncomfortable. At least she is young and doesn’t have to still keep up with a toddler right? :-) Instead she gets to lie in bed and watch Sense and Sensability, and Pride and Prejudice all day long. Hey, that sounds pretty good to me right now!

I started reading a book called Holding Time tonight. If you have read it, I’d love to know how it worked for you or your opinion of it. I have heard many mixed reviews, but bought I bought it mainly in preparation for when/if we get Violet, and attachment issues.

Speaking of Violet…we will hear on February 13th if we are the chosen family for her or not! The month is already feeling very long and it’s only one day in! Still praying for her transition to a new home and for God’s will. It will be difficult to accept if we are not chosen, but I know that God will hold me up throughout what will feel like a loss. I have dreamt of her, envisioned her in our family, kissed her little picture good-night even, I feel as if she is here already at times. May God’s will be done, and my will be in sync with His.

I spoke too soon, my baby girl is sick in the bathroom once again…I guess I don’t want to be her afterall today! Of course I would gladly trade places with her for her to feel better. Off to hold a cool washcloth on her forehead!

We had an absolutely wonderful Christmas eve celebration with Hubby’s family tonight.Every year someone in the family stands up before the Chinese gift exchange begins and reads something they have either found or written that tells of the true meaning of Christmas to them. Hubby was chosen this year and I cannot tell you how proud I was of him, he chose the topic of adoption, our adoption of Joshua-telling everyone more about him-and then tying that in with how we are all adopted sons and daughters of God. We are brothers and sisters of the Christ whom we await to come again, the Christ Child whose birthday that we celebrate tomorrow. My Hubby was so emotional while speaking to everyone, he has such a soft heart, I just kept thinking how I love that man. His love for the Lord has always, from the very beginning has been one of the most beautiful and attractive things about him to me. I thank God for him!

Everyone else is in bed, and I just finished preparing our breakfast, a baked french toast casserole that has a praline topping. Sounds delicious, but I have not ever made it before, so I really hope that it’s a yummy one! I’ll make some bacon and hash-browns to go with it in the morning. It’s a surprise to everyone, I didn’t want them to know what it is until they wake up in the morning. :-) Hubby grew up with his mama making homemade waffles every Christmas morning, but try as I might, I can get them quite right, I never get my egg whites fluffy enough or folded in quite the right way. So I am hoping this new recipe will be a hit, and that after almost fifteen years of married life that we can have a new tradition! Ha,ha! A gal can hope can’t she?

Christine and I have discovered a new love this week…the movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. What a hoot! We love it, and I can’t believe that we haven’t seen it until now. We have already watched it four times! Check it out if you haven’t seen it yet and let me know if you liked it or not. Of course, if you don’t like musicals it won’t be your cup of tea. :-)

Here is a Christmas funny a friend sent me from the comic Family Circus, I think I remember that feeling as a kid. :-)

Well, I better get myself off to bed with the others. We have another day of lots of family. I can’t wait, it’s one of the best parts of Christmas to me!

Love one another! I pray that you will grow closer to our Saviour in the coming year!

Much love,

Yvonne

 

 

My birthday girl and her friend Rae, originally uploaded by Adrienne2.

My sweet, beautiful, intelligent, caring, compassionate, loving Christine turned fourteen last Saturday, the fourth of November. I absolutely cannot believe the time has gone by the way that it has, right through my fingers. It makes me stop, and wonder and pray that I have not wasted a moment of it, but I am sure that I have, and vow to live more purposefully, because I know that all too soon, in the blink of an eye, she will be leaving our home to go to one of her own. I believe that even if she is 20 or even 30 when that happens, it will be all too soon for this mama. :-)

I love you baby girl, and I am so proud of the little woman that you have become!

 

Date night: Lady In The Water last Saturday night. I really enjoyed it. Click on the link to read the Focus on the Family-Plugged In review.

Reading:

Consuming:

Fresh, raw goat’s milk. Joshua is lactose intolerant, and his new program at the NACD suggests that he be taken off of all dairy because of his chronic congestion and ear infections. I found a local woman who sells fresh raw goat’s milk, and this has been our second week of drinking it around here. Joshua has has NO symptoms of his usual lactose intolerance, the lactose in goat’s milk is much different than in cow’s milk, and much easier to digest, plus I am giving him a good pro-biotic which helps with lactose digestion also. Joshua loves the goat’s milk and seems to be putting on some needed weight also. We buy it in the half gallon canning jars, but I found them much too hard to pour from, so I found the neat half gallon glass jar on the left from The Container Store tonight, I love it!

This is a picture of Joshua at the hospital on Wednesday. His ENT put tubes in his ears that day. There was a little boy in pre-op in the very next cubicle who was pretty loud and upset beforehand, so I put my headphones on Josh, with some classical music playing, and he seemed to really relax and enjoy listening. :-) I am SO blessed to have a Hubby who will take the day off of work to be with us for events such as this!!! The procedure went very smoothly, but he was VERY upset when coming out of sedation, he woke up and didn’t know where he was or who the people around him were…Hubby and I asked the nurse if we could please just take him home right away, for he would not calm down while there, thankfully she consented. Sure enough, in the car on the way home he calmed down with a good bottle of apple juice, Mommy kissing his hands (one of his FAVORITE things) and some Wiggles in the car stereo. After we made it home, he ate a bit of baby cereal, and quickly went to sleep once in his crib…four hours later, he awoke and you would never have known by his behaviour that anything had happened. Thank you Lord!!

Christine and my nephew, Sam, left yesterday to spend the rest of the week in San Antonio at my mom’s house. Tomorrow they are going to Sea World! I am so jealous :-) I told them to kiss a dolphin for me and to bring me home a penguin, they are so cute! I am missing my baby girl and my Sweetie!

I am bird sitting Christine’s bird, Lydia, while she is gone. Christine actually wrote instructions out for me of what to do with Lydia, and one of them included “Play with her for at least 30 minutes and day. You can either just cuddle with her, or you can play some ball with her.” He,he,he,he,he!! :-)

Love one another!~Adrienne

This is Christine and her new baby, Lydia. Zac and Suki, after their former bad parenting, hatched 5 more babies and this is the one Christine has picked out to keep. Our friend, Marlain, now has Zac and Suki as her new breeding pair. Marlain handfed all of the babies, so that Zac and Suki wouldn’t get a chance to do anything bad again, and now they are very docile little birds from being handfed by her. I am typing with her on my shoulder right now. :-) Christine is thrilled and excited to have a baby that will bond with her. Zac and Suki only had eyes for each other, they didn’t want much to do with her.

Off to feed everyone dinner!

Bathtime is a favorite time of day around here, Joshua is probably his happiest while in the tub, he even loves it when you pour water over his head!

Christine, wearing some of her Tinkerbell duds. She LOVES Tinkerbell right now. Yesterday she got a pair of Tink slipper socks and the pink scarf at Wal-Mart and was tickled pink all day because of it!

We are really trying to get back on track with schoolwork now that Joshua is here and we are getting settled into what the new “normal” is. We got behind a few weeks during the end of the adoption saga, it was hard to focus when something new was going on with that each day and I was on such an emotional roller coaster. So, now, mom guilt has officially set it, and I am doing my best to get our nose’s back to the grind stone. :-)

I am going to nap now while he naps though, and Christine gets caught up in her math work, her teacher Marlain went over all of the lessons in her Saxon book with her yesterday, so she should know what she is doing. :-) Thanks Marlain!!

Love one another~Adrienne