"The Best Valentine's Day Ever"

I remember when this picture was taken feeling completely in love and on top of the world! And yet I love him even more today. How great is our God? Praise Him!

We praise God for the life He has given us and the family He has given us to share it with. I thank Him for my loving and patient husband, and for my 4 little munchkins who declared that yesterday was "The Best Valentine's Day EVER!" !!

The kids have really been excited about it this year and I didn't want to disappoint, but since we've never had any major Valentine's day traditions (except making cards), I wasn't sure what to do (still being sick and all).

Well, on Friday, Andy brought home a beautiful bouquet of tulips for me (my favorite!) and some sweet baby roses for the girls (they always get flowers too)... and they love them. Then, as soon as we woke Saturday morn, the girls already had their valentines laid out on the table for us all. We pulled out the "special" bagels for breakfast and the day started out great... or was it? Let's see, Andy was in bed sick as a dog and I was only out because someone had to monitor the troops. I really was not in such a happy Valentine's day mood, and yet the 3 older kids kept telling me "this is such a fun day!" (and it's only 9am). After breakfast, they got to watch a movie (twice, a believe) and then some time was spent with daddy rolling them up into cocoons (or raccoons, according to Zoe)...

...and getting small objects dropped on their heads and tummies. During this, mommy made an oh-so-special lunch of scrambled eggs (ooh-la-la). But that's when I pulled out the showstopper:

Yes, that's right, Valentine's Day plates & napkins ... the girls were squealing with delight and the boys were very excited too.

Ahh, the simple things... and all the joy they experienced for $1.98! And there were just enough to have them again for supper, which meant an entire afternoon in anticipation of another special meal!!

So, that night we had a party ~ complete with cake (well Charlie called it cake, but they were actually Ghirardelli brownies) and gifts (meaning some new pencils and twistable crayons). And the biggest hit of all was being in the basement with a fire going :)

And thus was born the best Valentine's Day ever ~ I love our family!!!

Operation Extreme Exercise

Yes, I mean extreme. As most everyone knows by now, I have done little to no exercise for the past several years (3 pregnancies full of bed rest and several invasive surgeries made it rather difficult)... except for one ½-year stint attending "Body Pump" classes at 5:30am with Roxi at Riviera Fitness (until I got pregnant -and sick- with Charlie). Wow, those were some early mornings for this girl!

Anyway, the resulting very non-muscular body is now experiencing the bad fruit of not exercising since my last surgery 1 ½ years ago. Apparently, not only have my limbs been weakened, but the very core of my body is - resulting in weak veins and vessels (not good). Therefore, I have been instructed by a blood specialist to pack on 10 pounds of (mainly) muscle... by next August. You've got to be kidding. It's taken me a week to soak this in - and I'm still not there. I mean, Andy & I have talked about me needing to exercise for my health, but to have a doctor look at me in the eye and inform me that I need to pack on the red blood cells like this was a bit much. What does he expect me to do??

Like I said, I'm a bit overwhelmed. However, I know he's right and I'm going to do my best! The only problem now is finding some exercises that aren't too strenuous for my body, but actually help. This is so much easier said than done! But maybe by the end of it all, this withered up woman will show life again and even gain some tone - who knows?!?

Ephesians 4:32

The other night, we were all saying our memory verses after dinner (which is customary) when I noticed Charlie saying a lot more of Eph 4:32 than usual... so, we asked him to solo... it was so cute we had him do it about 20 times when my brain finally caught up with my eyes and I ran for the camera. Here is what we saw:

Charlie - take 21 (roughly)

"And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you." - Ephesians 4:32

Well, he kept quoting and we kept videoing... when things suddenly took a turn for the worse. We asked him if he wanted to say his memory verse again, and right before I started the video he whispered "no" ... and this is what happened next:
Charlie - take 24

Who knew memory verses could be so much fun?!!

It's Spreading

Sammy stopped her eye drops for pink eye a few days ago and the whole house seemed well ... until ... Wil woke up yesterday with some gunk in his left eye which made us a little concerned. We weren't sure, but started him on the drops anyway (just that eye though - we didn't want to go overboard). As it turns out, it truly was the pink contagion and we apparently should've gone overboard 'cause now his right eye is turning various shades of red too. Yuck.

Aside from that, we're doing well. We went on a walk today and it felt so good!! The weather wasn't just beautiful, it was amazing! We had to keep reminding the kids that this isn't going to stick. This is Illinois. It's not going to warm up for months! But we're enjoying it while it's here :)

Since we were heading off to tread in melted snow/mud puddles, we suited up appropriately!

From Charlie, to Mommy ... everybody in their Crocs for a wonderful walk (though Zoe ended up quickly changing into her fur-lined boots as we were walking out the door) ... and yes, I wore mine too :) Such fun!

The Application is DONE!

As I said in an earlier post, we finished our formal application for adoption on Friday, Jan. 30. Just a few words about all that - the adoption agency we've chosen is having to raise their rates (even though they're not-for-profit) and will be effective for applications sent in after Feb. 1, 2009. Well, once we decided we were for sure going to pursue a Chinese adoption, we realized there was a serious chance that we could complete our packet before the $1,000 increase deadline... so we double-timed it.


Many late nights and long talks were had in one short week, but there were still some complications (like medical visits, etc.) which couldn't be done. But God is so good!! They were very lenient on the medical stuff and said we could send it in as it was done ... but then there was the issue of them not receiving our packet until Monday, Feb. 2nd. Much calling and praying was done until they finally said we could complete a portion on-line by close-of-business Friday, and then overnight our packet on Saturday to arrive Monday. Well, since I was running Sammy to the dr that afternoon, filling prescriptions, and getting papers notarized ~ it left me with 1 hour to complete this semi-formal app (thankfully Andy had done a lot of preliminary work while I was gone!) ... but again, God is good (He's blessed me with fast fingers on a keyboard!). We sent it off at 4:56pm ... sat back, ordered Jimmy Johns, and settled in for a movie night with the fam :)

Sickness Abounds

Ok, I realize I'm a little slow on the draw over here, but it's been busy. First of all, let me say - we're done with the formal application! You have no idea what a huge load off our minds that is!! We do still have some blood work and doc visits to finish before we've completed the application process, but we've got to wait on some of that until all the kiddos are feeling better.

And what's wrong with the children, you ask? Interesting question. Well, last Wednesday I took both girls to the doc for their adoption physical and all seemed to go well. But then the next morning Sammy breaks out with pink eye, and a raging ear infection the morning after that. Did I mention Sammy has never in her life required a sick visit to the dr... ever?!! Well, back we head to the dr's office that Friday for her first sick visit and a double-dose of prescriptions. She is doing well with the med's (she knows when it's time for the next batch and heads for the kitchen - she's great!) and is definitely on the mend. She's just got some sniffles now.

So then on Monday I go to check on Zoe while she's laying down (she'd been down for ~15 min) and her face is covered in red spots/bumps. As I'm looking at her and talking with her, the bumps start molding together into one and I decide to check the rest of her body ... she had them from head to toe. I rush her downstairs to our in-house MD (aka. daddy) and we decide this must be an allergic reaction to something .... but what?!?? We've had hives in the family before because both of our boys have some peanut & bug-bite allergies, but we've never seen anything like this before! We quickly gave her some Benadryl and let her lay down to rest. During her nap, I did a little research into hives and find out that they can last 2-3 days and can be a sudden reaction to something (like a virus) they were exposed to up to a week prior!! Hmmm. Very interesting. Well, we're on day 3 with bumps ... though today was markedly less than before. Maybe the end of Benadryl is in sight! Certainly the end of "well visits" is :)

Scratch that. I've still got to take the boys in for their physicals. Can you even guess how really not excited I am about that?!? Let's just say my fear of taking a well child to the doctor hasn't exactly improved lately. Please pray for us!!