It Just Got Personal

If you didn't know, my family moved to Florida in August from a small, close-knit town in Illinois. Today our town is grieving a terrible loss. Last week, two of our Illinois National Guard soldiers were killed in Afghanistan. One of the soldiers was from our town. He was a Christian, husband, father, son, brother, uncle, solider, student, friend and co-worker. Our town has only 1,000 people, so everybody knows everybody, and everybody is deeply affected by this loss. My thoughts are with my friends today. I can't stop thinking about them. By the grace of God, they will make it through this time together.

"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed."

~ 2 Corinthians 4:8-9

A little of this, a little of that...

I don't really have a well-developed blog post for today, but I have a ton of mini-could-be-blog-posts/observations/musings from our day out at the State Fair yesterday, so how about a blog sampler?

Everybody Loves a Show, No Matter Who They Are or How Many Times They Have Seen It Before...

The State Fair boasted a Shark Tank this year, and of course we went to see the show. As I stood there looking at the sea of people waiting for the small door on the "shark tank" to open, however, I was struck by something. All of us were in Florida, many of us live here, and the majority of those who live here have seen a shark before, either in captivity or in the wild. Personally, I have been to Sea World dozens of times and seen huge shark tanks in theme parks and aquariums, and I would bet that I wasn't the only one.

So, why were we crammed into this expo center?

To see this guy dance with a shark and then pretend to play it like a guitar, of course.

Anything Tastes Better Fried, Especially Things That Aren't Good For You in the First Place...

Deep-fried Oreo Cookies. I don't feel the need to elaborate any on that one.

I Guess They Have to Do Something to Pass the Time Between Acts...

I just don't think clowns are funny. We went to the circus, and this clown who strongly resembled Pee Wee Herman "entertained" us in between the actual acts. OK, I get it--you're a big guy riding a little tiny tricycle. Yay for you. Now can we get on with seeing people stick their heads into wild animals mouths, please?

Lemonade Is Magic...

Towards the end of the day our son started throwing a major fit. He was tired, and it had been a long day, but this was one impressive tantrum. We walked past a prayer tent, and I was seriously concerned that the evangelist might come out and lay hands on him because he was screaming so hysterically.

In a last-ditch effort to get out of the gate without being questioned for kidnapping, we stopped for lemon shake-ups. Suddenly, our screaming child morphed into content one, happily sipping on his "memomade" and counting the number of lemons on the cup. I'm definitely storing that little remedy away for future reference!

Kids Say the Darnedest Things...

This actually happened at the mall after we left the fair. Our son was still under the influence of the Vitamin C and sugar, so we felt like we could go in for a while.

I was looking at some pants, and our son walked over, took them from me and said, "No Mommy, no fit. No fit. Too [s]mall. Too [s]mall." He then hung them on the rack and repeated himself. Now, I'm sure he was just imitating me from our forays into buying his pants since they are usually too short. He couldn't have been calling me too fat to fit into the pants, could he???

Vintage Valentines, Dating Again, and Some Fun Valentine Ideas

At MOPS this week, we enjoyed hearing from a panel of experienced wives and mothers who shared their wisdom with us, along with some ideas to keep your marriage warm and toasty while raising very needy preschoolers.

One of the major things that everyone felt is important is to take vacations, with and without the children. Well, in this economy, going off for weekend excursions with my hubby for some much needed rest and relaxation just ain't gonna happen for us. But now, with the help of a friend, we have found a way to take "mini vacations." Before we got married, we just called them "dates." Now, as soon as we walk out the back door and get in the car, we feel like we've escaped on a mini vacation!

My friend and I are doing a babysitting exchange. Last night, Paul and I ate dinner with the kids, bathed them and got our youngest into bed. Then I rushed to get some fresh clothes on, spruce myself up a bit and grab my purse, while my friend settled in for storytime on the couch with our five-year-old. Hugs and kisses, exhortations to "be good for Miss Teresa and get right in bed after stories," and we were out the door. Free!

Dating my husband takes a lot more effort than it did before we had kids (I will be babysitting my friend's children one night next week in exchange for our lovely night out), but it's totally worth it! I'm happy to report that we did not talk about the kids at all while on our date!

Some cute Valentine Ideas, some from makeandtakes.com:

We'll be making heart pancakes for breakfast and Valentine decorations for the table (I have a pink tablecloth and white lace overlay that looks romantic and sweet with handmade Valentines scattered across it!).

For lunch, I'll make a heart-shaped pizza for my family with a message on the table that reads, "You've Stolen a Pizza My Heart!"

For dinner, I'm getting Chinese take-out. I could make a big special meal, but my gift to my family is my presence in our celebration. I want to be able to enjoy it, too!

Do you have any sweet Valentine traditions or ideas for your family?

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Wiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!

We have a Wii. That's just fun to say. Anyway, we're not big gamers. I mean, I can usually beat my nephew at Mortal Kombat, but I can't get into all this Halo/Call of Duty/World of Warcraft stuff. The Wii, however, is for those of us who are not gamers. You don't have to memorize combinations of buttons to press together at the proper time. If you want to play tennis, swing the remote around like a tennis racket. If you want to play golf, use the remote like a golf club. There's a game called Smooth Moves where you play all these silly mini-games and you have to use the remote different ways, like as an elephant's trunk or a steering wheel. You can also download old Nintendo games cheaply, like Super Mario World, which is definitely the best of the Mario games. It only cost me $8. 

I got a game called Wii Fit for Christmas. It's kind of a game/workout program. There's yoga, strength training, balance games, and aerobics. I really like the yoga and I'm surprisingly good at it. The balance games are fun - there's a ski slalom, ski jumping, and a game where you hit soccer balls with your head and dodge cleats and panda bear heads. The aerobics is good, too. You can do step aerobics or run or hula hoop. Wii Fit will do a body test if you want it to, which can be rather disconcerting, as it will tell you your BMI and your weight. It keeps track of weight loss and how often you exercise. One of the best things about the Wii is that it gets you up off the couch and moving around. 

Another feature of the Wii are the Miis. You can go to the Mii Channel on your Wii and create your own avatar. It's amazing how like you they can look. We have lots of Miis on our Wii - one for just about everyone who's ever played it. There's one for me, one for Todd, my nephew, his friend Tanner, several of our friends, my mom, and my dad. The one my dad made looks so much like him it's uncanny. This Mii has the same color hair, the glasses, the nose, everything. Many games use the Miis; like when you're bowling you'll see different Miis in the background or if you're playing baseball they'll be on your team or on the opposing team. I like running with the Wii Fit. It's not a long distance and Miis run by you, waving and smiling. They even cheer you on and are waiting for you at the finish line. It's really neat to be running along and pass by my dad. I know it's not real; I know he's gone. But it feels good to see him. Today I was running a longer distance than usual and I didn't see him. I was sad. Where was he? Had the machine malfunctioned and deleted his Mii? He was there, though, clapping and smiling for me as I approached the finish line. 

I really don't know how to end this. I could tell you I'm not crazy, but you may not believe me if you've ever spent any real time with me. I could tell you that this month marks a year since my dad died, but I don't want to be a downer. I just wanted to share my happy moment - playing a fun game and seeing an old friend. What's better than that?

Fast and Easy

No. I'm not talking about myself.

Actually, if you are like me, then you must like to cook fast and easy things. The best is if you can find a great, easy recipe that can feed a whole bunch of people at once without breaking the bank.

I recently made this when I had a friend over with her kids. The kids actually helped me make it and it came out delicious! It is so easy and so yummy!

Maria's Baked Ziti

INGREDIENTS

1 (16 ounce) package ziti pasta
32 ounces part-skim Polly-O ricotta cheese (whatever the big size carton is)

1 pound shredded mozzarella cheese
2 eggs, beaten (I use cage-free eggs)
1 1/2 jars (use the big, 3 lb. jars) spaghetti sauce (I like Prego Chunky Garden)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS
Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add ziti and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain and rinse.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

In a medium bowl, mix ziti, ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, eggs and 1 1/2 cups spaghetti sauce.
Lightly grease a 10' x 15" pyrex baking dish and spoon in ziti mixture. Top with remaining spaghetti sauce, followed by Parmesan cheese.

Bake in preheated oven for 35-45 minutes; let stand for 15 minutes before serving.

That's it!

Pair it up with a healthy salad and garlic bread and you now have a beautiful meal completed.

By the way, I got a version of this recipe (and most of my other recipes) from http://www.allrecipes.com/. Donna, I think you told me about this site -thank you! You can save your favorites in your very own online recipe box. I love it!

Happy cooking!

Oh crap. Seriously.

No, this picture has nothing to do with my post. I was just proud that during the King of the Jungle's bat-ma-tism (as THE Princess says) he did not scream bloody murder. This was just seconds after he made "the face" and I thought it would all go downhill from there. Luckily, it did not. Pheww....

So, now, the oh crap part of my post. (Doesn't it seem like many of my posts are the "oh crap" sorts?) Such is my life, I suppose.

So, in my little world, February has turned into quite the eventful month. I had planned on not doing a lot. But, more quickly than I imagined, it has become busy. The one thing I had planned on was this coming weekend. This weekend, my grandparents, turn 88 and 90. My PopPop has his birthday on Friday and my Mimi (or GG for Great Grandma - now) has her birthday on the 17th. Valentines is sandwiched right there in the middle. And, my own anniversary is also on GG's birthday.



How slick is it that I get to squeeze 2 holiday's and a couple of birthday's together? Mostly, because for valentines and our anniversary, I must get gifts for my darling husband. That sounds like something I don't want to do and really, I do want to get him gifts. Really.


The thing is that I never know what to get my husband. He likes airplane stuff. Not, airplane themed items like clocks and signs. No he likes actual airplane items. Like, for use or installation on an actual airplane. Altimeters, gyroscopes, wires and other technical items. The last item he requested was a digital scale for weighing out the components of his aviation glue. (I swear this is not made up.)

In fact, after using the camera this weekend this is a small sampling of the pictures I found.

There were like 150 various shots of this sort. Engine components and parts along with an engine mount (I had to ask to find out). Not a living soul (not even the dog) in the bunch.

It's not exactly romantic. And neither are socks and underwear, which is my default gift for his stocking at Christmas.

But, my husband has made it easy on me, finally! He now buys his own gift. Seriously. A new airplane something or other. He even let me see a picture of it. It pretty much looks like one of the pictures above. And it has a fantastically technical name that I can't remember. I just call it a "thingy" or "whatyamacallit."

That makes my life so much easier. That leaves me trying to figure out a unique Valentine my children can give to their friends. That is something I can do.

THE Princess gets tired of making valentines after about the second one, which last year, left me with about 30 more to make.

The package arrived this weekend. I ordered personalized Fruit Roll Ups with my kids pictures on them and the message, "you are so tweet" with a little birdy graphic. I was trying to stay away from candy (not that a fruit roll up is much better) and have something fairly personal.

They actually look better in person...who knew that taking a picture of a fruit roll up would be so difficult. (The shininess of the fruit roll-up does not help my sad photography skills at all.)

Okay, so even if you don't order any, get on over to My Fruit Roll-Ups and design your own. It's pretty fun!

So, I am a bad, bad wife. No gift for my hubby on Valentines/Anniversary. Well, not a gift actually picked out and paid for by me. Or, maybe it's his way of giving me a gift. Sort of. I think. Heck, I don't know. I am just glad I don't have to pick out a gyro-aileron-triple beam balance for him. Seriously.

OK girls, get comfy. It’s gonna be a long one. “See, we have this depression goin’ on” and I cain’t afford no counselin’….

Today is one of those I hate everything kind of days, which is really sad because the day started out great. My husband let me sleep in. I had a few minutes to catch up on reading my Bible. I checked my email. I even logged on to Facebook. There it was, the stupid questionnaire that threatened my day: First born. Here are some of the questions:

WAS YOUR FIRST PREGNANCY PLANNED?
WERE YOU MARRIED AT THE TIME?
WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION?
WAS ABORTION AN OPTION FOR YOU?

For me, infertility was a seven year battle filled with pain, despair, sorrow, anger, crying, hopelessness, more crying, more anger and guilt. I hid in bathroom stalls and cried. I cried in airports, and I even ran out of a college class crying. Fortunately I was taking the class, not teaching it. Looking back, that one was kind of funny. A girl was giving a report on abortions and how bad they are, and I just couldn’t take it anymore. The other students in the class probably thought I had had one earlier in life.

During that time, people said the worst things to me in an attempt to help. My coworkers would complain about their kids and then say, “See, aren’t you glad you don’t have any.” That resulted in the bathroom stall episode from above. My husband and I tried each medical breakthrough once just so I could have the peace of mind that I did everything I could. This involved me carrying expensive, injectible drugs (our co-pay for one week of drugs was over $1,000) through an airport and shooting up in the bathroom between flights. My husband even had to learn how to give me shots. BTW, the medicine itself is hormones, so you can just imagine my emotional state of mind.

Then there were the failures. I never got pregnant, and each time I had to tell my husband that it didn’t work was harder and harder. I will never forget the day I found out our In Vitro failed. This In Vitro was our last ditch effort, our final try. My brother Brad just happened to come to work to see me right after I got the news. I was devastated. Thank God he was there to help me. Sadly, trough it all, I was one of the lucky ones. God protected me from a lot of pain. I never miscarried. My mom had several miscarriages just trying to have the three of us. I have two close friends who had ectopic pregnancies, which are devastating. God knew I couldn’t handle those types of loss.

I have endometriosis, and I had three surgeries within in two years to try to remove the damaged tissue. In 2007, I finally had a hysterectomy. After adopting Alex, I would say that I am mostly cured from the sorrow of infertility. The pain and anger sneak up on me every once in a while, but I can now say I am so glad things worked out the way they did. Alex is awesome. Thank you God for having enough faith in me to find Alex and for planning such a wonderful child for me. When we went to Russia, we were paired with the Ribeiros, who have become great friends. I remember asking Carrie why God gave us such a desire to have kids when we physically couldn’t. She explained it best. God has to give some women that much desire so that these kids can have homes. Think about it, if you could give birth, you would. Who else would be willing to jump through all of the adoption hoops? She is just so smart and another fantastic gift from God.

Even being mostly cured, there are days when I get tired of looking on the bright side. I get tired of being positive. Today is one of those days. In response to this questionnaire, I posted a note that some people might have said was snarly, but darn it, I am tired of pretending like it didn’t hurt. Most importantly, the extreme hurt is what makes God's answer to the hurt so wonderful. Selena, one of my first friends in life, wrote a note back to me saying “You could just be creative.” Isn't she great and wise? I am so glad to be back in touch with her. She is right, but I just needed a minute to have a pity party.

Now that I am over it, I am asking you all to read my answers to the questions. Thanks for letting me vent. I really appreciate it. I do want to add that the girl who sent me this questionnaire is supper sweet and would never want to hurt anyone’s feelings. I also need to say again, I am so thankful this was God’s plan for me. I can’t believe he gave me such a wonderful gift as Alex, and I would never want Alex to think I would have it any other way. When I was so desperate and going through infertility, I didn’t know that God was going to work things out for me. He did not have to give me a child. I knew God could help me be joyful in any circumstance, but I didn’t know how great the plan was.

WAS YOUR FIRST PREGNANCY PLANNED? More than you can imagine, but not my plans, God’s.
WERE YOU MARRIED AT THE TIME? Yes.
WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION? Sheer joy – see picture.



WAS ABORTION AN OPTION FOR YOU? Never, and praise God it wasn’t for his birth mom either!
HOW OLD WERE YOU? 32 – only about seven years older than I thought I would be.
HOW DID YOU FIND OUT YOU WERE PREGNANT? It’s complicated.
WHO DID YOU TELL FIRST? My dad – my husband was with me.
DID YOU WANT TO FIND OUT THE SEX? We travelled to Russia on a blind referral, which means we did not know anything about the child we were meeting, and then found out that our child was an 11 month old boy!
DUE DATE? Sometime in November of 2004.
DID YOU HAVE MORNING SICKNESS? More than you can imagine due to the blind referral. Thank goodness Prilosect came out OTC that spring.
WHAT DID YOU CRAVE? Homemade brownies on top of homemade coffee cream topped with whipped cream and chocolate sauce.
WHO/WHAT IRRITATED YOU THE MOST? Pregnant people – I am sorry, but it was kind of true back then.
WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CHILD'S SEX? Boy.
DID YOU WISH YOU HAD THE OPPOSITE SEX OF WHAT YOU WERE GETTING? No. I just wanted a baby.
HOW MANY POUNDS DID YOU GAIN THROUGHOUT THE PREGNANCY? About 10.
DID YOU HAVE A BABY SHOWER? Yes.
WAS IT A SURPRISE OR DID YOU KNOW? I knew.
DID YOU HAVE ANY COMPLICATIONS DURING YOUR PREGNANCY? Yes, the Russian government changed a lot of their requirements during our adoption. We had to be examined by seven or eight different doctors while in Russia.
WHERE DID YOU GIVE BIRTH? Alex’s birth certificate says that I gave birth to him in Astrakhan, Russia. He was actually born in Kamyzak.
HOW MANY HOURS WERE YOU IN LABOR? I call our flight home my labor, so 23 or 24 hours.
WHO DROVE YOU TO THE HOSPITAL? My mom and dad drove us to the airport.
WHO WATCHED YOU GIVE BIRTH? A team of social workers, lawyers, a judge and a few translators.
WAS IT NATURAL OR C-SECTION? It was far from natural.
DID YOU TAKE MEDICINE TO EASE THE PAIN? Not enough!
HOW MUCH DID YOUR CHILD WEIGH? 1K and 900 g – 4 pounds and 3 ounces.
WHEN WAS YOUR CHILD BORN? September 25, 2004.
WHAT DID YOU NAME HIM/HER? Alex (this is part of his given name) Jacob (from the Bible) Carver.