November is Adoption Awareness Month

So, my blog has been purpled out for the cause!

Go purple for adoption in November.

Halloween 2007 - We're Diggin' It!!

First of all there is the first bit of good accreditation news on FRUA that we've heard in several months! The long awaited proper signature has been obtained and two confirmed agencies (and several others I'm sure) have news that their certificates will be issued within 2 weeks!

Second of all . . . we broke ground this morning on "the Land!!" The construction has begun on our new house. It'll be easy to remember the date! Hopefully we'll begin on Halloween and move in on Easter??!!

I missed getting a picture of the bobcat thingy ( I think it's a front end loader??), I just got a picture of the "after". I'm so excited to see this get started!!

Herbert Henry the happy Jack-o-lantern

This year we let D pick out the very pumpkin she wanted to make her Jack-o-lantern with. We usually have a little input, but not this year. It's all her! She drew the face and Daddy carved him. So, this is Herbert Henry the happy Jack-O-Lantern (he's a bit long in the tooth :o)

Little Girls' Tights Hanging in the Laundry Room

A few minutes ago, I turned around and this is what I saw. Little Girls' Tights Hanging in the Laundry Room. Even after 6 years 12 days since D came home, I am still caught anew with huge gratitude and thankfullness to see such everyday things in MY home!

We had 6 1/2 years of longing for a child. Those years went by quickly, even with the pain of yearning for a child. But the 6 years since D came home have flown by like the wind! I guess I'm nostalgic because my baby is about to turn 7- years-old in four days! Where did my baby go? Those tights used to be so much smaller!

Sometimes Hubby and I will lie in bed at night talking and say, "Do you think all parents love their children this much?" I don't think so. I think so many take their children for granted. After such a long, hard road to even having a child at home-I pray that we will never for a minute take our child for granted. I never want to lose this gratitude and thankfullness to God for bringing us to our child.

I hope I'll be blogging (or whatever we will be doing in 2017) in 10 years about Teenage Girl car-keys on the counter and being ever still thankful that I have a teenager.

It could happen.

Don't laugh!

p.s. You can see my funny mobile home laundry room in this picture with the sideways washer! Oh how grand it will be to have our new house - all the more thankful I'll be for it!

Bricks, Windows and Rooftops

Hubby and I had a great day yesterday. It was a gorgeous Texas Fall Day. Completely clear skies, breezy and nice cool temps. Perfect for a drive.

We drove a little over an hour away to one of the larger towns in East Texas to look at the brick yard and decide on the brick for our new house.

Oh my, we didn't realize how hard this would be! There were many, many blocks of bricked "walls" to look at. So, we chose our top two choices (we agreed fairly easily!) and went in and told the salesman. He sent us to the back room to get a sample board of each while he looked up on the computer some houses in that brick for us to drive by and see them enmass on a house.

So, next we drove about 10 minutes away to a couple of new subdivisions to see these houses. Our favorite brick from the "walls" was called Fireside (that's it up there in the middle). So that is the house we went to see first. Hmmm, we were a little disappointed, it looked brownish on the house

So, we drove on over to look at our second choice brick on a house. It was awful, we didn't hardly even slow down.

We decided to just drive around and look at all the houses until we found one we just fell in love with. Yep, we had high expectations. But just a few minutes more and we found it! It was great because it had the white woodwork on the front porch like ours will and it had the black trim like we'll have. We took a picture of it and wrote down the address to give to the brick yard and they'll research it and find out the name of the brick for us. So, here is a picture of our brick-to-be (up close on the mailbox with the house in the background.)

We continued to drive around looking at windows, and roofs (rooves? like hooves?). We're pretty much decided that the windows will have 9 lights on top and 6 on bottom like this house. We want a black roof with some "texture" to it, so we found this roof and took a picture of it. It's a little blurry, though.

The builder has the workmen scheduled to come and begin the pad next week. I hope it's early next week! I'm ready to get this show on the road.

Thursday in my life

Wood cottage in Smolensk
Originally uploaded by wetbaloney

The tummy bug hit me again yesterday, but so far so good this morning. It's going around the community like crazy.

We've got to get serious about the rest of our adoption/dossier paperwork. We've got to get a new letter from the people who own the house we're renting while our new one is being built. We've got to re-do our financial statement too. In January, our fingerprints will expire again. We had them done last October before our visit trip to see Viktoria. I just can't get motivated to get it done. This is SO unlike me! I'm usually right on top of it. It sounds like accreditation for a big batch is right around the corner. It's possible for our agency to be in this batch although they've given us no indication to that end.

With the new house, we've learned that the dirt-work and pad will be started next week. The builder called yesterday and told us to go out and mark where we want the two front corners of the house. Oh the pressure! What if we get it wrong and forever our house is crooked :O) He also told us to get busy finalizing our brick, roof and window choices so he can get them ordered to be ready when they get to that point. So - it sounds like we're about to begin! Yay!

Now that my big women's retreat is over, I can move on to these other things and focus my attention in other places. I didn't count on being down with the tummy bug, though for most of this week.

D's birthday is coming up and we've got to get that planned. We'll just do a family party in Dallas this year for her 7th. The next big party she'll have with friends will be her 10th. Some people go all out for their kids parties every year. But we decided early on not to do that. We had a big one for her 1st (of course! she'd only been home 2 weeks then); her 3rd (Dora theme); her 5th (Clifford theme) and the other big ones will be 10; 13; 16 & 18. She's chosen "Dogs" as her theme this year. So, we'll order a Dalmation cake and get 8-10 Dog themed cake plates and napkins & some balloons and take them with us to the restaurant to celebrate with family. She gets to choose a "theme" each year no matter if it's a family party or big friends party.

My friend (who is also our pastor's wife), lost her sister Sunday and I'll drive a couple hours this afternoon to attend the funeral. Hubby will pick D up from school today. Her sister died in her sleep, she was about my age. The autopsy report is still out, so they don't know the cause.

So, that's my day.

Till later . . .

Monday on Tuesday

Autumn Road
Originally uploaded by Yume_Love

I missed yesterday. If it weren't for a couple of Mommy neccessities (of which I have little memory) I would have slept the day away yesterday. But D required of me to pick her up from school and take her to dance classes.

So - today is Tuesday, but it feels like Monday. I had a tummy bug yesterday. Isn't it amazing how those little things have an exact 24 hour timer on them? I started feeling terrible about 11 a.m. yesterday morning and right about the same time today I began to feel normal again. Just like a switch were flipped, On goes the nausea . . . 24 hours elapses . . . Off goes the nausea.

We closed on the new construction loan this morning at the Title company. I never knew there were all these steps before hand! It's so different from just buying an already built house. We learned of a couple more "out of pocket" things we've got to get set up and paid for before or at the same time that construction begins. We had to go to the City Hall to pay for and order a sewer tie in and water pipe tie in. Then there are different size pipes you can choose. 3/4 inch or 1 inch for the water? 4 inch for the sewer or 6 inch? We lucked out and one of our church members who works there gave us insight. So, we chose 3/4 inch and 4 inch. That was $600. Then while there we learned that we are also responsible for paying for the city to install culverts since although it's in city limits, it's still a more rural neighborhood and culverts are neccessary. That'll be another $420 there. I hope there aren't many more of these little preliminary costs to pop up. I'm just glad we were able to sell our house for a good deal more than we owed on it so we have these monies available! We're definitely learning lots and I want to share what we learn so perhaps someone can learn from us. I didn't realize we'd need our builder's contract while at the Title Company this morning, so I've got to run that back to town before I pick D up from school this afternoon. I've got to just carry our new house binder everywhere I go from now on that involves new house stuff. I'll learn. I had given it thought before I left the house and though, 'nah!" But I did need it. Live and learn!

Maybe I'll have some dirt digging pix soon! I'm so ready to see some real action here on this house building business!

Oh, and fall decided to come to East Texas last night! Yay! It's in the low 50's today and got into the 40's last night. Sooooo much better than the 90's - I'm so tired of sweat!