Let's just say... I don't know any better.

And oh yea

We are naming him Kade.

And we have TWO!

So today... was pretty damn exciting.

There I was sitting at work looking up vacation cabins in Arkansas, reserving and planning when all of the sudden guess who calls? Emily Ferrel. Who is she? Only the BEST person I know working at DDC. She single handedly brought home our son.

She is the woman who is in charge of the home study division. Some might even call her, "The Woman" just plain in charge. She calls me and asks me " We have a 4 month old hispanic baby boy... interested?"

And I am all "Go on..." lol yea right I was so jumping out of my skin excited. I knew this call would come, I knew one day I would be running around the office screaming "Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God" and today was that day.

She continues to tell me that " he is an emergency placement, been in care since he was born, reasons unknown, has no visits with family, CPS is looking to place him in an adoptive home. He is healthy and on target... he has a cleft lip and/or palate and that will need to be scheduled for surgery asap. It is not effecting his eating nor health but is basically cosmetic"

Okay I am not gonna lie, the cleft palate is kinda scary... not to mention the fact I haven't seen a picture nor know to what degree it is. All I am hearing is baby with a hair lip. But non the less... BABY.

Dilema... Jeff is still out of town. What to do what to do? I call him and he says YES of course so I quickly call Emily back to reply. The next thing I know our home study is sent and we are approved within the hour. CRAZY? Yea pretty crazy. I feel like I have been pregnant for a day. He is coming home tomorrow. Supposedly.

Jeff's mom is on the internet right now trying to fly Jeff in tomorrow... kinda sweet. He has been gone two weeks and prob still has another week and 1/2.

I am pretty excited. There are so many what ifs? Like has the baby seen the Dr. Surely he has seen a Dr.? How many surgeries does he need? Am I gonna be all grossed out if its really bad? Am I gonna totally look past it and just see his big brown eyes? Or is he pissed at mother nature for screwing up his mouth and has a bad displacement? I am worried/excited/nervous/anxious/impatient/scared to death. Apparantly I AM a mother.

So anyways since he is so young we are going to just ignore his given name because its kind of rediculous and no its not "Jesus or Carlos or Jose" As a matter of fact I don't even know his last name. I don't know much, all I know is that he is 4 months, hispanic and has a cleft palate and needs a home who is willing to take him to get his surgery. Apparanly his last family could not comply. Sad really... oh well their loss. I do hope they have pictures.

So anyways Brittany keeps getting out of bed tonight and I am about to strangle her. But not really. lol

I told her today her baby brother is coming home and he has a boo boo on his lip. I am sure she is going to want to kiss it a million times. LOL ...creapy? We will see. I hope she isn't scared of it. I can't say for sure myself if I am totally okay with it... but how are you gonna say no to a baby with a cleft lip? What if I birthed a baby with one? Would I love him any less? Its not like it won't get fixed. Right?

Baby room is ready. I am ready. The house is ready.

And we have a treadmill!!!

So I finally went and picked up the treadmill I jewed this guy down on to $300. muh aha ha ha ha. He was asking 500 to 400 and sold it for 300. Yea that's right... I said hey buddy I got CASH and he said hell yea here you go. I was originally going to get this ladies 6 year old treadmill she paid 1500 hundred four (yea but like 6 years ago) and she said she hardly used it. But I just couldn't get over how outdated it was, plus it was like an hour away in The Woodlands and this guy just bought this one last summer and is brand new but joined a gym and doesn't need it anymore. He paid 1200 at Sears. Pretty sweet...for me.



Its practically the size of a small car. LOL no really its huge and couldn't fit in the back of my Sportage.... so what my car is itty bitty its still capable of folding down its seat and fitting large things in there. One time we fit a huge baby crib in there, I figured it was worth a try. So when we realized this thing wasn't gonna fit I called my dad and he came to the rescue. This thing weighs a ton and some how by the work of God I slid it across the floor and positioned it against the wall until Jeff comes home. I can't fit it thru my bedroom door without turning it sideways and its too heavy for me to do alone. SUCKS.





Its kinda dusty, I am about to clean it, give me a break. So I did work on it for like 9 min before I needed a drink, but I just lugged the dang thing in so relax, I am not done. It has 12 speeds and by number 3 I am RUNNING. It also has 10 inclines and I switched it to incline 8 speed 3 and almost fell off. LOL




It's SUPER quiet and the only noise it makes is the sound of your feet hitting the belt and a little click when the belt turns a full turn because where its sewn together I guess rubs against something and it makes this tiny click. But no worries. It also tells your BP when you put your hands on the bar, how many calories youve burned and how long you've walked and how far. You imput your height weight and if your male or female and I guess it just kind of knows. So far I burned off the quarter pounder I bought on the way to pick it up. HA HA HA HA. Brittany was hungry and I had to get something quick. But its okay, I only ate half of it. When you go on a diet and you eat lettuce and chicken straight for aout 4 days your stomach shrinks.

So anyways I don't know how much weight I have lost thus far. I only started Sat and I don't have a scale but I can tell my face is kinda not feeling so bloated, which is the first step. Did you know we gain weight from toe to head and lose it from head to toe? Kinda cool huh?

Oh and this is my work hole. I work on a double screen so I have time to work and play. heh heh

Toy Chest

So my sister Brandy gave me this pretty awesome toy chest. The lid was pink, it was her girls, but I spray painted it Blue with the Krylon plastic paint. It worked like magic and now I have the best little boy's toy chest ever.

And behind door #2...

Melissia gave us this awesome plate congradulating us for opening up our home to another baby. She is such a good friend, sometimes I don't know what I would do without her. Probably be overly obssessive...like more then I am now. Together we are OBA. (Obsessive Baby Adopters) apart we are just two crazy woman. Thank you again Melissia!







Ta-da!





And we have instant baby boy room. What do you think?














Pretty much only bought the paint, border, furniture and baby bed set. The rest we had or was given to us by family and friends. Even some people from free cycle. Very sweet.

Day at the Park

Today we went to check out Crosby Park where we will have Brittany's birthday party in April. We have never been out there before but it turned out to be really nice and I think it will turn out great for the party.



Brittany had so much fun playing with her Daddy. The playground isn't too tall so we feel good about her getting on it and playing all by herself.




Ummm I think Jeff had more fun then Brittany though.





There were a couple of times we basically thru her down the slide but she enjoyed it once she realized she wasn't dead.

Playing with her Daddy.

" I see you!"

This is a picture of the pavilion and bathrooms. The bathrooms are better then most parks I have seen and the grill that is under the pavilion is HUGE!

Here's a picture of the playground. There is two of them but this one is Brittany's size.

We left the park and went to check out Schott's park in Humble because we wanted to make sure that Crosby was good for us. It turns out is it. Schott's park has a GREAT playground like the one we used at Eva's Birthday party last year but the one by the pavilion that you can reserve freaking SUCKS and the bathrooms are GROSS. So its a big negative to Humble parks.

We did take some really good pictures there too though.

Thi-ii-iink...

Look how cute... daddy and britty sharing snacks.



She thought she was so cool wearing her towel on her head like Momma does.




And the results of the thinking chair! Pure magic. She knew exactly what it was. This thing is huge too!!! I had to rearrange her room!





Don't even think about sitting in her thinking chair!





And we THI---II----IINK....... SO CUTE! It was totally worth it.

In the Day of...

Kitty HATES baths. But she needs them. She is a dirty kitty. If I didn't bath and brush her, she would be nothing more then a giant dirty knot.



Brittany loves to be outside. She loves to play and mess with the dirt. Good thing, we have plenty of dirt.




I think she heard something "scary" in the woods.





Did I ever tell you how beautiful Mocky is?







Well she is...

Also Brittany loves to dress up like an old lady and shop for snacks in the kitchen.

I made cake the other day and cut the top off for her to eat.

She LOVED it!

YUMMMMMM!!!!!

Blues Clues Fanatic?

Perhaps......

Let me give you the D.L. on what's been going on recently. Since I haven't written in here for weeks. It dawned apon me at the beginning of the week that Brittany's second birthday is slowly but surely approaching. April 25th. So I thought I should get on the move about this. I googled some ever so popular kids birthday ideas and came upon this fabulous site...

http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/html/party_ideas.html

It had some of the best ideas for birthday parties I have ever come across. Well their ideas for Blue's Clues were just so fabulous I had to steal them. In the past week I have reserved the pavilion at Jesse Jones National Park, reserved a Blues' Clues costume for someone to dress in, like the mascott costumes for pictures and fun, and reserved a cotton candy machine.

I have also like a crazy woman purchased a RARE Blue's Clues Thinking Chair. Yea it was freaking expensive. ($150) LOL But nothing compared to the only other one I saw on ebay for $400, which I actually thought about buying for a split second. ha ha ha

You would think one of the worlds greatest kids show ever would have millions of merchandise waiting for you to just purchase on whim....NOT SO. I think they actually stopped producing Blue's Clues merchandise back in 2004. This does me absolutely no good. Because now ebay is like a freaking seller's parade jacking up prices as they please. I am such a sucker for even looking....yet I do, day after day. I think I am actually obsessed at trying to locate a peice of Blue's Clues anything. Looks as though I will have to make everything from scratch for the party. Which is totally cool. There are a million ideas. As a matter of fact Beka is going to make the invites....such a good friend! Thanks buddy. lol

So anyways...guess I will go back to ebay now.

Falling out of Bed...seriously?

I have been sick for like a month on and off. I don't know what it is but I am either sharing germs with Brittany who has had the longest case of runny nose or its allergies, or perhaps allergies and germs have been tag teaming me for so long they have formed some kind of allergerms. Point is last night I was so tired and snotty and sick I fell asleep on the sofa, when I woke up and proceded to my bed to go to sleep I reached up to turn the light off above my bed, lost balance and fell backwards onto the floor. Jeff came rushing in and said all he heard was THUMP and "oh shit...." I don't even remember saying anything but laughing hidiously and crawling back into bed. LOL

So anyways, our porch is still missing its better half and things are back to normal otherwise. I schedule Brittany a Developmental Assessment with a Psychologist in Feb. We need this in order to finish wrapping up the paperwork and finalizing the adoption. Resources tell me (aka my social worker) that she will request an updated home study from my clinician sometimes in March and should receive that back by April. Once she gets that in she will write up the paperwork to negotiate subsidy with the state and we will sign the papers in agreement for that. Once that comes back we can go find us a lawyer to write up some more papers and set a court date where we will finalize in court. So yay! I am excited. Apparantly this assessment will give us more of an idea where Brittany is developmentally so we can negotiate more child care and support if needed. I don't think she has any delays though. The only thing really is her speech. She isn't saying anything very clearly and mummbles allot. Again I was told this is common for kids til they are about 2 but after being around my neice Makena who literally spoke like an adult at 12 months old it makes me worried.

hummmm what else is there to report on? I changed her PCP (primary care physician) to a Dr closer to our house. Last week I set an appointment to see her Dr in Kingwood but he wasn't there so we had to drive all the way out to The Womans Center down freaking town. That's really so much hassle and headache and takes all day. And what really tics me off is that when we get there he says "She has an ear infection" writes us a perscription and sends us off. He does nothing whatsoever for her cough and nevermind the fact she has been wheezing for two days and coughing so much she throws up. He says he is a minimalist and if its not killing her not to worry about it. What an ass. So I found one in Cleveland that my cousin and now my sister goes to for Aiden. I set up an appointment to follow up on the ear infection for Monday. We will see how that goes.

My throat is killing me, making me cough at the worst times on the phone and I can't even stop it.

Jeff has gout...again. I looked up some info on the internet yesterday and it says to drink coffee, tons of water, cherries and blueberries and soak your gout infested area in charcoal paste. So Jeff did all that yesterday, except the charcoal paste, and this morning said it was feeling a tad better....hum go figure.

Also my friend Melissia's baby London is 1 year old today! I can't believe how fast time has flown by. She got London when she was 7 months old and already its her BIRTHDAY!!! She should be finalizing her adoption around the same time we do. They also started at the exact same time we did. Pretty cool!!!