Just thinking.......and worrying........

From my blogs and for those of you who personally know me, you can tell we've had quite a bit going on in our household lately, mainly because of me. Between wrecks, major surgery, epideral shots, and a major strep infection (thought to possibly be staph-MRSA THANK GOD IT WASN'T) we've had some downs lately. But the way we are, we've laughed about it really. You just have to find a way to. Vince and I have not always had the best luck, well except the fact that we found each other. But luck aside ,we are soooooo Blessed by God in our lives together. We have a beautiful, smart, fun, and precious daughter who has brought us 7 years of amazing joy. We both have wonderful families, great friends, careers that we enjoy (for the most part), and over the past two years this incredible roller coaster ride of adoption.

Last night I should've been exhausted. I cleaned my house from top to bottom, when I was supposed to be home resting and recooperating, but it HAD to be done. In the midst of my manic activity I started thinking: Am I nesting? You know when you are in the last trimester of your pregnancy and you have these bursts of energy and start feeling like everything in your house needs to be Chloroxed before baby gets here, well I think I am in that mode. Now that I pretty much know we will be getting our referral next batch, I am freaking out! I don't know how to be a parent to "children". I wonder now how I will get things done between work, housework, homework, skating, etc. How will a baby fit into all of this? I know I felt this way when I was pregnant with Madison: How will I handle this and pay for daycare and clothes and groceries and get everything done that needs to be done? What have I done?-I even asked myself a few times. Of course all was fine, we easily fell into the parenting thing and I am sure that will happen again, but this time I have to fly to the other side of the world! That scares me to death! I get very very anxious of the unknown. Even if it's just visiting a new church, or going to a party where we only know one other couple, I get very uncomfortable. Going to a whole other country, that's HUGE! Everyone I know who has already traveled has given us great advice, and I shouldn't be so worried, we will probably be well more prepared than most people because we have such great friends who've been there to help us. But now that I know we will be traveling in the next few month, I am scared. I have so much to do and will be doing most of it during the holidays, which is hectic enough as it is. If I seem a little nuts, well more so than usual, please just bare with me! I'll be back to normal one of these days! I still can't believe I get to see my sweet baby's face in a matter of a few weeks!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Finally!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you God! You chose us for the journey, why I am not sure, but we are so glad that you did and look forward to it's continuation!

Halloween!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had never been one to want to dress for Halloween as an adult, but I have a husband who still likes to be as silly as a child and I have to admit it makes life fun. So starting about 3 years ago we began dressing up for Halloween. At that time we were the Spartan Cheerleaders from Saturday Night Live and Madison was Hilary Duff. Last year Madison was Dorothy of OZ, Vince was a man riding an Ostrich (which he wore to the dinnertable at Thanksgiving at my parent's house last year), and I was a Greek Goddess (hahaha). I wanted us all to be something that went together this year, but I was out-voted! Vince always wants to find the most ridiculous, crazy, goofball costume possible, but I wouldn't want him to be any other way. He makes me laugh hysterically everyday!And this year.... well, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Nice Passy! He stole it out of Zoey's room. What was so funny was watching him try to get into this thing!WONDER WOMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Madison, by the way, is Hannah Montana, but decided she didn't want to wear the wig.

It's not a real microphone she's holding, but I promise you she's really singing, and loudly at that!
Hope everyone had a fun Happy Halloween!

CCAA Update

Hello friends, the CCAA updated their website Monday morning. Referrals have been issued for families through December 8, 2005. We are logged in December 12, 2005, so it's looking like December 2007 will be our month!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a fabulous Christmas present to get to see our precious angels face. We can't wait. We will surely let everyone know as soon as we get the call! Happy early Thanksgiving.

Pumpkins and Jack-O-Lanterns!

Hello, it's fall finally, the weather is cool, it's beautiful outside, and it's my favorite time of year......Christmas is just around the corner and that means a special picture should be coming soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is Halloween time, so we had to get some spooky decorating done. We knew we needed to get some pumpkins and these were the only "pumpkins" we could find in Springville, so we headed to Hayden on Saturday (between ice skating practices) for some pumpkins at The Great Pumpkin Patch.We took the hayride out to the pumpkin patch. They have been open for several weeks now and although there were still alot of pumpkins left there weren't a whole lot of big ones left and Vince really wanted a big one. We still all found the pumpkins we wanted. There were alot of activities at the Pumpkin Patch to do: horseback riding, corn maze, trampoline, moon bounce, food, crafts, etc., but it was absolutely freezing! After getting our pumpkins Madison said she was ready to go, and frankly I was glad, I was so cold. Sunday after church Vince found a big pumpkin at Publix so now we had 4 pumpkins. We went home and each carved our own pumpkins and then all pitched in to carve the 4th one. Everybody's was unique. Vince went for the classic kindof scary pumpkin. Love the eyebrows and it has ears!Madison's is kindof similar to Vince's but it's features aren't quite as big, and Mom had to help her cut it.I went for a totally different one. I don't like scary ones, I like silly ones so I tried for that. It actually kindof looks scared itself.

Then the one we all did together turned out a little differently. It has two sides to it. One side turned out scary, the other has "Zoey" carved into it. We started out deciding that it would a pumpkin for Zoey, but the carving went awry (sp?) so it ended up with two sides.Hope everyone has a very happy, safe, and fun Halloween.Look for Halloween post with pictures of EVERYONES costumes! It should be very interesting!

VACATION, FINALLY!

Wednesday October 17th we checked Madison out of school and headed to the beach. We sooooooooooooo needed a vacation. We haven't been anywhere, just the 3 of us, in a long time, and we just needed to get away. We went to Destin, FL for several days and had a ball. We got down Wednesday night about 7:00, checked into our condo, then headed to Mellow Mushroom for some pizza. After a wonderful night sleep, we woke up to thunderstorms, which honestly we didn't mind, we were just glad to be away. We went to the Donut Hole for some yummy breakfast and then headed to the outlet mall, where else do you go when it's raining at the beach. The only problem this day was that we spent most of it under tornado warnings, so we couldn't leave the outlet mall until that lifted, so we really were there all day. That night we headed to Pompano Joes for some delicious crab legs, my favorite. Madison actually ate some too and didn't gag. Friday we woke up and again, rain. Oh well, lets do some more shopping, this time we headed to Destin Commons. Saturday morning we woke up to a beautiful sunny, clear, and cool day. It was only about 75, a perfect day on the beach. Vince and Madison had a great time running and playing in the ocean. I got sit, relax, and read a book. Oh darn, doctors orders to take it easy! This is the condo, Sterling Sands, it's awesome if you are ever looking for somewhere to stay, very nice! Also a perfect day for Alabama football, ROLL TIDE ROLL. Alabama beat Tennessee, what an absolutely wonderful October day! You can't beat that beautiful ocean sunset! That night we headed to the TRACK for go carts and Putt-Putt golf, and guess what, I won!!!!!! Madison was a little worn out after such a fun filled day. We were still watching the movie, she was watching the back of her eyelids! Sunday was beautiful as well, until the afternoon , so our beach time was cut to a half day. Madison entertained us by showing us her clogging moves that she has learned in her beginner clogging class. We at least had the morning on the beach and then played another round of Putt-Putt because Vince wanted a rematch. And what do you know, I won again!!!!! (Seriously, I never win at anything so this what quite an exciting time for me) We had a great vacation, it was too short, but isn't it always!

Sleepover Chefs and Nerf Dart Wars!

Saturday October 13, Vince and I went to see Phantom of the Opera at the BJCC. If you haven't seen it, it's amazing! I had been wanting to see it for a long time and Vince agreed to take me. It was very different from any musical he had seen with me before, not as upbeat and song/dance like. It's creepy, eerie, and operetic(?), but the sets and the performers were absolutely outstanding. I loved it. That night my nieces came over for a sleepover. On several occasions when they have spent the night Vince will get up in the morning and make a big breakfast. Usually Emily will help him cook. This time they all wanted to help, well the younger ones, Michela, who is almost 13, would rather get a few more minutes of sleep! So they pitched in with Vince and made pancakes, sausage, eggs, bacon, and cheese grits. I don't have enough aprons so Suzanna opted for my bathrobe. They played waitress and short order cook to present a fabulous A.M cuisine!
After eating, no one wants to help clean up! Instead lets strike a pose, vogue!

Sunday afternoon, after church, Vince and Madison had a Nerf dart war in the front yard. Don't they look fabulous in their gear. Vince looks especially good, the vest fits him so good since he's eight years old. It was so funny to watch them. Of course they ended they war with mom as the target, and I had no gear, I just got pelted for about 20 seconds with nerf darts. Scout got a few too, accidently, she doesn't get that she has to stay out of the way. She just wants to be in the middle of the action. Oh well no one was hurt, amazingly, and everyone had a blast, literally.

Brownies and Boo at the Zoo

I am so behind in my posts!!!!!! Several weeks ago Madison's Brownie Troop went to "Boo at the Zoo" and we all had a ball. The girls even got to be on NBC 13 News with Jerry Tracy doing the weather report. This is Madison's first year in Brownies and mine. I didn't do it when I was little so this is a new experience for me as well. Of course everyone had to get their face painted. Madison and Neely picked this beautiful green witch. Some girls got their whole faces painted like a candy corn. We saw all kinds of ghosts and goblins. We even saw superheroes and some characters from Harry Potter. This creepy skeleton pirate danced. The scariest thing I saw was the big bird poop on my shirt. Honestly, that is the 8th time in my life that I have been pooped on by a bird. Of course there is always time to pose with cute ghosts! We all made tye-dyed shirts and had our Brownie Troop number embroidered on them. They turned out really cute. This particular night was one of the first chilly nights we had so we HAD to stop at Starbucks before going home for some hot coffee and hot chocolate!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everybody say CHEESE!!!!!!!!!!!! Madison already has several friends in Brownies and I know will make many more because of being in the troop. They get to do all kinds of neat and fulfilling activities to earn badges. One they have already done is to make placemats and put together bags of toiletry items for the prisons. On their placemats, they were to draw ways that show Gods love for you. Next weekend, we get to go to Camp Coleman to learn how to take care of horses and how to ride them, which should be really interesting! Madison is scared of them and I don't really like to ride them, not a good mix! I will be sure to post some pics.