Help A Blogger Out

Manic Mariah has an equally manic teen aged daughter who wants to travel to Japan and fight off dolphin killin fishermen on her surfboard. True story! So she talked said daughter into staying home in the good ole USA until after graduation. Now all Mariah has to do is raise money for the cause. She's not asking for your money, she simply needs us to win free Ugg boots....Now for some people that might be a little painful but really, it's not so bad. Free is good!

~Till They All Come Home~

Adoption in the Eyes of an 8 Year Old

I just asked the boys if they knew what adoption meant and Tate replied "yeah its when you buy a baby!"

No baby, that's illegal!

An Innocent Moment

I'm sitting here minding my own business. Well actually I'm doing language arts lessons with Korbin and Tayton is on the floor in front of me working on math.

Out of the blue Tayton turns to me and he says "what does presence mean"?

I was confused because I didn't know if he meant "presents" or "presence" so I said "what do you mean"?

He looks at me with his innocent little face and very serious look of wonder and says: "like if someone says "never scratch yourself in the presence of a lady".

I'm struggling not to laugh and he says what does that mean? At first I wasn't sure if he meant the scratching part of the presence part because I was so caught off guard. So rather than answer I asked him where he heard that. He said "on Home Alone".

So I went on to explain the word presence instead of how to act in front of a lady!!

Thanks a lot Macaulay Culkin!

~Till They All Come Home~

Hinder & Saving Abel, Cracker Spelling and Hunters Bags

Each year the Fort Leonard Wood hosts a concert. Last year we went to see ZZ Top and Bowling for Soup. I love love love me some Bowling for Soup! This year we got Hinder and Saving Abel!! I love Hinder and only knew a couple of Saving Abel's songs but I loved it!

I'm too old to be so close to the stage and deal with the nonsense of others. I was "accidentally" groped, fondled and even dry humped more times in that 2 hour concert than I have ever been in my life! And I yelled at so many people and made use of my being a bossy, pushy witch more than my share of times. It got to the point that I was intentionally taking up more than my one square foot of space just to be able to block people who thought they could squeeze in a little closer!

Hinder

Here's Saving Abel

Buying a concert ticket is like buying permission to reach back into your closet where you stashed all of your bad 80's clothes and squeeze yourself into them and think you look great!

Here a few examples. Since were stuck so close to others I only got a few pictures this year as opposed to last year when I could actually turn my head from where I was sitting.

Yep the blue leopard print, skin tight skinny jeans!

And then we have the horrible zebra-ish print stretchy capri pants with a too short skirt and sneakers. I'll be finding me a pair of these so soon!

These three girls were some of my favorites! First is the hot pink skinny jeans with white sneakers and a stripped sweatshirt...weird. And Then the girl in the middle with her skinny jeans in red and flip flops...interesting. But their buddy takes the cake with her mini skirt with a tulle tu-tu under it and sneakers.

Here's a picture of some oddly dressed people. Weird, t-shirts and tank tops and blue jeans that aren't tapered, weird. Or hot! I think HOT! Aren't we cute? If only I could've fit into some skinny jeans.....wait I still wouldn't have!

Enough of that nonsense! Here's what we've been up to on the home school front.

I found these great Scrabble Cheese-It's at Wal-Mart (don't judge me, it's the only store within 30 miles. And even then there's only a K-Mart. The nearest Target is 70 miles away!)

The kids were each given 30 crackers and had to make 5 words and write them down. It was fun to see them asking for the letters they needed to complete their words from their friends. We had another homeschooling family over for group day.

We're studying the Revolutionary War right now and have this awesome book:

It inspired us to make these really cool hunters bags like they used during the Revolutionary War to hold their ammunition and the kids think probably a sandwich for lunch!



We also made these cool pierced tin lanterns yesterday.

Tomorrow is another group day and I'm gonna have my camera charged this time! We did other activities last week and I missed out on pictures because mine and Tayton's camera's were dead!

~Till They All Come Home~

We had a great weekend with great friends, great music compliments of Saving Abel and Hinder, good food and drinks. Tons of laughing & I made a fool of myself!

They Are Gone

With the move to New York in our future and the fact that I'll be spending about a month in Michigan with my family waiting for our baby to arrive, we had to let go of the chinchillas.

We loved them but knew that they couldn't live in a tiny travel cage for a month while we're in transition. Kirke's going to be taking the dogs and going on to NY to get us a place and get settled in a tad while I go to the last few baby appointments before he/she is born.

It was a tough decision but I guess it was the right one. We placed a free classified ad online and we got one call and they were sold. The family has an 11 yr old and 6 yr old boy as well as a 1 yr old girl. The chinchilla's will be loved and we'll miss them terribly.

~Till They All Come Home~

I Think It's A Girl

I think this baby is a girl. People say they carry differently with different genders right?

Well I'm certainly carrying this baby differently than the first two! It's gotta be a girl!

~Till They All Come Home~

Come Inside My Head

It's been a crazy few days inside my head. Ever since we decided that we are 100% sure that we want to adopt this sweet baby, life has been interesting. We're looking at things a lot differently. We are very very excited!

We're hoping for a little girl. We'll be happy no matter what but can you imagine adding a little girl baby to our wild house! And imagine being the baby sister with two brothers in this family! My mind just keeps going and going! My mind is consistently going back to thoughts about our baby.

I figured it was just me who was thinking about our baby this much but tonight Tayton made a comment about the baby. I can't remember what it was but it was something happy cause I can remember the feeling of knowing this is the right thing for family. Earlier today he giggled and asked "what if we end up with more than one baby"! It was cute.

Kirke is happy too and he's just quieter about everything. He has been telling his friends at work and that makes me happy. Kirke is such a good daddy and he loved having babies and it won't take him long to fall in love with this baby just as he did the boys!

Korbin is just Korbin. He's funny and optimistic. He says that "babies are adorable and so cute." Both boys will be great with a baby around!

Jane is doing well. She and I talked for a while the other day and there is no doubt in my mind that she is 100% in this. She doesn't consider this her baby and we already talked about the birth plan! She wants me in the room because she wants them to hand the baby to me when he/she is born. We still have lots to do to get things legally ready but I feel like we're on track.

~Till They All Come Home~

Here's Something to Think About

We didn't know we'd ever have the opportunity to have another child. So we didn't think we'd ever get to name another child.

What to do with the extra names in your head that you didn't expect to get to use?

Name a pet of course!

Some may be relieved we won't have be naming our baby Allie or Sawyer. But I'm a little sad.

Allie

Sawyer

My Advice is to never name your dog something you would possibly want to name a future kid. Even if you THINK you're done having kids.

Now we're starting fresh with the name game......

~Till They All Come Home~

Wonder if He Still Loves Yellow?

We went fishing yesterday. We decided to try out a new pond because we weren't having any luck where were started.

We got to the pond and Tayton decided he needed to use the restroom (tree). He was only about 10 ft from where I was fishing. He saw a hole in the ground and thought that would be the perfect place to pee.

These guys disagreed!

He started screaming and running and flailing his arms. I dropped my pole and I knew right away what was happening. When I got to him he had four yellow jackets on the back of his shirt and some on his pants. I ripped off his shirt and we threw it down. Kirke managed to get to us and lifted Tayton up and I ripped off his shoes and pants.

Meanwhile Amber was grabbing her bee sting/snake bite kit from her van.

Christian came over and helped us get the venom extractor onto his ONE (that's right only one actually managed to sting him) sting in the middle of his back!

(these two pictures were taken in July when Christian got into a nest of something or another)

He spent the rest of the time in Amber's van in his boxer shorts watching a movie!

Yellow WAS his favorite color............

~Till They All Come Home~

Surprise! We're expecting!!

Wait a minute...... I had a hysterectomy nearly 5 years ago. Oh yeah and Kirke had a vasectomy two years before that because me+pregnancy=horrible! I didn't handle being pregnant so well. so while we always wanted more than two kids we knew that I would not handle another pregnancy especially with two naughty little blond boys running around.

So you are probably wondering what on Earth I'm talking about then right?

Well we have a family member who has found herself in a situation with an unexpected pregnancy. There is no way she can keep this baby as she struggles to make it work with the two small children she already has.

My mom has been the communication link between me and this family member, we'll call her Jane just to keep things straight. Mom told Jane that we would like to adopt the baby. Jane was very happy about this and has already told her doctor that she is giving this wonderful gift of being able to add to our family!

Our baby is due in March. Jane and Kirke and I will be communicating and working together to find an adoption facilitator in their area that will help us with the process. Due to this being a direct placement adoption between relatives things will be handled a little differently than a regular adoption.

I'm excited, and scared and most of all grateful that Kirke and I will be adding to our family and the boys are very excited about having a baby brother or sister! I'm scared that Jane might change her mind. That's really the only thing I'm afraid of at this point. I'm praying Jane is taking care of herself. She is giving us a wonderful gift and I'm certain that she will do her best to make sure this child healthy.

We weren't expecting this opportunity to come up and many of you are probably shocked by this news but we're excited and happy and we know in our hearts that this is right for us!!

**Please reserve any negative feelings/thought/opinions for somewhere else. We have been talking this out for a few weeks now and come to a decision that we believe is right for our family. Thoughts, prayers, well wishes and other positive comments are always welcome and much appreciated!

~Till They All Come Home~

We're Still Kickin

Just wanted everyone to know that we got back on track and homeschooling is going great now. We remembered everything we love about it and we adjusted and we're back full force!! Which also means I'm super busy and there's lots happening around here. I catch everyone up soon.

~Till They All Come Home~

Room For Rent

For Rent: A newly repurposed remodeled home. This classic stone covered home is perfect for anyone hopping along looking for a new place to call home. The view from this home is fantastic and it will be perfect for one or two occupants and possibly a few little ones. It's simple yet elegant and placed snug in an up and coming area. The neighborhood is very secure and the home comes with it's own security system. We are an equal opportunity housing for toads manufacturer .

This is the toad house we made today after visiting one of my favorite blogs here.

Then I found out she was guest blogging here with homeschooling tips. Her tips were for homeschooling a teen but still apply to all. That post led me here , We decided we could do this!

And then we did. And now I have this rock house front of my house that is the perfect home for a little toad or three! We had fun fitting the rocks together to cover the outside of the flower pot.

Then they added their own little touches to finish it off and this is the finished product!

~Till They All Come Home~

Avoiding Alzheimer's

Kirke is home for lunch and we're watching TV. A commercial for an organized walk supporting something or other just came on and Kirke turned to me and said:

Kirke: There's an Alzheimer's walk coming up here I heard about it on the radio.

Me: Oh really? When is it?

Kirke: I don't remember.

I busted up laughing and he didn't realize why at first.

I'm pretty sure this is a cause we REALLY should support.....

~Till They All Come Home~