Happy Easter!

The munchkin’s first Easter egg coloring and hunt. Warning: tons of cuteness below.

Look at that concentration, dedication, determination.  Just like her mom and the quest for the most beautiful egg.

Licking the vinegar eggs – not like her mom.

But at least she has followers.

She didn’t stop with the eggs.

The next morning we were pleasantly surprised to find she is a great seeker.

Typically if she is trying to find something right in front of her face, she can’t.  So we anticipated a lot of “coaching” and a great deal of patience on our part, but she did great and loved it (and so did we).

Eat, Sleep, Play

“I have ICE CREAM!”  The sweet pea is VERY fond of ice cream.

Bowl-lickin’-good.

On a completely different note, Chunky Monkey (the little guy I watch) played himself right to sleep the other day.  Sweet Pea has been playing pretty hard herself of late.

She loves her slide right now with a passion.  Please ignore the ridiculously long grass.  This is what spring in the Willamette Valley does to grass.  My husband doesn’t get 5 o’clock shadow but my lawn does.

I’ve also been enjoying myself.  I love the nice days, and we’ve made it a point to spend as much of it outside as we could.  Good thing too, since cold and rain are always right around the corner.

“Pregnancy” Pains

I had forgotten how much I find the paperwork for the adoption to be:

1) tedious

2) ridiculous

3) hopelessly bureaucratic

Today, because it is spring break and because I’ve left it entirely too long, I decided I would (with the “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can” mentality) get all the last paperwork needed to have our packet for our home study complete.

My first stop was the bank.  All I needed was a letter on bank letterhead that said how much was in our account, whether we have any loans with them and if so if we are paying on time, and how long we’ve been customers.  The form letter we had as an example from the adoption agency ended with ” To the best of our knowledge they are responsible, respectable, and honest people.”  We have been banking at this institution for 11 years.  I was there for OVER an hour.  Why?  Because they had to call and get permission to write the letter.  Because they had to discuss what could and could not be put in the letter. Because the person who was supposed to write the letter was also the notary so it had to be decided who would be the proper authority to sign the letter (a notary cannot both sign and notarize a document).  It was a three sentence form letter.  Over an hour.  Yep, gotta love that.  Oh, and they couldn’t include the line about us being responsible, respectful, and honest as far as they know.  ‘Cause, you know, we could come back with a lawsuit and say, “See they said we are honest?!?”  Wait, huh?

Next on the agenda, I was trying to get state police clearance.  Basically the state needs to provide our criminal record in this state (of course we have none).  So I call the state.  They tell me that only agencies can request that, not individuals, end of discussion.  I call International Family Services, our agency (who is great!) and they explain what we will do.  We have to fill out a form and go get our fingerprints done in McMinnville or Beaverton, then we bring our fingerprints and the form back to IFS, then they mail it to the state.  Redundant much?

And this is just the beginning.  This is for the home study.  This isn’t yet for any country but ours. Le sigh, le moan.  I look at pictures of waiting kids though (see them yourself here or here) and I remember why we do this.  They inspire me to try harder, to do more, to get this paperwork done, regardless of how I feel about it.

So, What do You do Again?

My current title is Science Outreach Administrator.  The title is in no way helpful to explain what I do.  What I do is rather hard to explain because it covers a lot of areas, and each area needs its own explanation to really understand what I do.  I, in no particular order:

• supervise college students (this semester there are 13 students I’m supervising) who teach younger kids (from six-year-olds up through high schoolers)
• travel and do presentations with our portable planetarium
• host (mostly middle and high school) groups and do presentations in our cadaver lab (this year so far I have hosted over 630 high school students)
• educate educators on how to more effectively teach science and loan equipment to help them along the journey
• and a whole host of other things.

This post falls into the “other things” category.  Tuesday, the culmination of many hours of work paid off.  I certainly couldn’t have done it without the help of many, many people.  There were five departments involved, around 150 people attended, and a few hundred dollars spent to make the Science Open House a success.  The open house is a “show and tell” event for George Fox families put on by all the science departments (physics, engineering, math, biology, and chemistry – we even snuck in a little earth science).  Here are some images from the night.

There was the cute and fuzzy…

…and the creepy crawly.  This is our campus chaplain’s hand.  Way to go!!

There were many willing volunteers, albeit crazy.

And “science” food.  I know you want some of that.

Ice cream a la liquid nitrogen.

A very popular demo of ferro-fluid and microwaves.  If you haven’t seen the ferro-fluid, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

Fancy machines, big boy toys really.  Big and small boys liked stretching the rod (in the middle) until it broke (that’s steel, folks).

Professors were animated and excited.

Heart rates were measured and changed using a flip table.

Chemisty was in the air.

Pyromaniacs were encouraged.

Volcanoes were set off.

I was a giant dork.

The finale light show really took my breath away.

And the laser light show was excellent.  I kept expecting cell phone swaying since everyone was singing along with Fireflies, by Owl City.

I couldn’t have asked for a better night, or for better help.  So many people made this night great.  For example, as I was checking to be sure everyone was finishing up, the students who had been serving food all evening had started cleaning up and were DOING THE DISHES ALREADY.  Although I was beat, I was also unbelievably blessed.

Not That Kind of Indian

This kind of Indian.  The “real” Indian.

A salwar kameez.  Of course she looks good in that color.

And a drop dead gorgeous dress.  She looks so grown up.

Some friends recently traveled to India (their home country) and were kind enough to do some shopping for grandma as well as pick up some gifts themselves for the Indian Princess.  We are blessed to have such amazing people in our lives.  Their generosity makes us more thankful than words can express.

Will You…

be our …

Sunita’s college friends, “Sessh and Britie”, are getting married this summer (congrats!!).  They kindly asked the munchkin to steal the show.  =D

Crash Course on Radial Head Subluxation…

…What Every Mom Should Know.  Well, every physician mom should; the rest of us can call it a dislocated elbow.

Last night I was “helping” the munchkin hug her daddy and pulling on her hands (NOT hard) and then she made a face like this.  Prior to the face we all (especially her) where laughing hard!  And then disaster!

She cried and cried and her arm hung loosely by her side.  She refused to use it, even for chocolate.  We knew something was terribly wrong.  And I knew I was a terrible mother.  It is a horrible, no-good, rotten feeling, knowing you hurt your child.

I didn’t think it was broken because she COULD move it (but did not want to), there was no swelling, and she didn’t complain when I put gentle pressure on the bones.  She did cry if we tried to bend it at the elbow.  I googled pulling on toddler’s arm and found (right away – thank you Jesus!) “nursemaids elbow” a fairly common injury for children younger than five.

Then I googled how to treat it and found the blog Hold it Up to the Light (ironic) with an excellent explanation of how to treat it, with pictures.  Now, I wouldn’t normally try to diagnose or try any medical “fix” at home (nor do I suggest others try).  But in this case, I really felt like it was worth a shot.

The fix worked after just a second or two.  After not wanting to use her arm at all, I thought there would be some pain left.  But she got better right away, and a day later I can say all is good in her world.

I feel so blessed.  I am thankful to live in an age where you can “google” answers to almost any question.  I am thankful the Lord gave me enough background to understand what was happening.  I am thankful the Lord gave me courage to try.  I am thankful fixing it took seconds.  I am thankful we didn’t have to go to the doctor and we didn’t have to wait in the ER late at night (for her) waiting for entrance.  Mostly, I feel blessed the munchkin was alright in the end.

I just am so thankful!

Happy Valentine’s Day

To avoid holiday crowds, we typically celebrate a day or two early.  This morning we all went out to Coffee Cottage for brunch.  It was a sweet and loving idea from my wonderful Hubby.  I had a croissant filled with marionberry jam, prepared french toast style, and topped with whipped cream.  It was delicious.  Hubby had blintzes filled with mascapone and topped with strawberry syrup and white chocolate.  They were a work of art (and also delicious).  Unfortunately we didn’t get pictures.

After brunch, we tried out the munchkin’s snowsuit, or as she calls it, “snowflake”.  We traveled up to Mt. Hood and sledded, played, and generally made fun.

It was great weather and we all had a really great time.

Some of us may have needed a nap afterward.

I hope you all have a Valentine’s Day filled with love, fun, and joy.  I hope you feel the care of those who surround you.  And remember, not just today or tomorrow, but everyday – say what matters to who matters.  I sure felt loved today and tried to give it back!

Chunky Monkey and Petita

I’ve started watching this sweet chunky monkey along with my sweet petita.  They weigh about the same (right around 20 pounds), are the same size, and are a year and a half apart.

O, and they like it when I pick them up at the same time – HELLO biceps!

Start, Spark, Begin

As the New Year resolutions begin to wind down and become tangled in the day-to-day operation of good intention (in my case it often stops there) I can’t help but think that is why I don’t think 2010 (or any other year) will be THE YEAR that makes me or others truly different.  But, I can’t stop hoping to start again either.

For me, the changing of the year doesn’t hold the promise it does for some.  It’s the middle of winter, I’ve gained the holiday weight, and it’s raining outside with little chance of stopping until May.  So I think I really prefer my new beginnings in the spring.

In the spirit of the season (even if it isn’t stirring my soul) there is a spark of positive change in the wind for us.

We are hoping to make some changes in this household.  We don’t have the resources we need to live the life God is calling us to live.  We live comfortably, lacking nothing, and are pretty spoiled in many ways.  But, we need to change our spending habits.  We need to change our home.  We need to change our lifestyle.  All that if we want to add another member to our family through adoption, if I ever get to be a full-time stay at home mom, or if we ever want more room in our house.

So, here are some of our activities this month and some of our intentions for the year.

This month we’ve been doing the “Eat From the Pantry Challenge”.  We have continued to buy milk and eggs, but otherwise we are trying hard to just eat up what we already have.  It’s surprising how much we have tucked away and how easy it has been.  Not all the meals have been stellar, but all have been edible.

We are cleaning the garage and I wish I had taken pictures.  It went from trash-heap to a usable workspace.  Now to start using the workspace to create some things to make changes around our home.

We are beginning to use coupons again after a hiatus of not using them (partly because we stopped getting the newspaper and mostly because I am lazy). Now Hubby is getting them online.

We hope to begin living on only Hubby’s paycheck. We haven’t done that in years past and we aren’t sure yet if it will be a reality for us in the future.

We hope to pay off Husband’s school loans.  They aren’t overwhelming (like mine), and we are tired of having them around.

We hope to begin volunteering in our community once a month, in ministries we believe in and are drawn to.  As Christians, I thought we probably should know who the “least of these” are in our community.

We hope to have less screen time in our lives.  Less TV, less browsing, less blogs, less phones/iPods/games, just less.  And to replace it with relationships and fruitful labor.

This year, I hope to live my priorities.

I would love to hear from those who read this (family and friends) how do you save?  What have you done recently that was fulfilling? Challenging? Helpful to yourselves or others?  What goals top your list?