Paroled.

I am incredibly happy to report that our prints have been paroled from fingerprint purgatory.

Incredibly happy.

I last spoke with nice fingerprint lady(whom we shall from this point forward refer to as N.F.L.) on Tuesday. She said that it looks like it would probably take at minimum another two weeks as all of the Census prints were being expedited.

Hmmm...didn't Census taking already start? I dunno.

Anyway, a few days later as I was sitting in the living room pondering the possibility of hacking off my actual fingers and Fed-Ex*ing them to the FB*I to speed things along I decided to log on and check my status myself.

And there it was.

"Completed."

-sigh-I love that word.

So I called N.F.L. and she looks in her system and sure enough. Completed.

So then I call T. N.M.A.D.H.R.(the nice man at DHR) and he looks in system and sure enough. Completed. Told you I like that word.

He says that the letter stating that we are in fact not criminals(uhhh, I coulda told them that) was mailed on the 23rd. Yay! I thank him profusely and hang up.

And then I realized....

that today is April 30th. Hmmm....I live like 10 minutes from this guys office.....7 days ago he mailed me something and I still haven't received it?

Not cool.

So being the pest...or....errrr... concerned mother that I am, I call him back and he corrects himself to say that we were cleared on the 23rd and that the letter was probably mailed out a couple of days later.

Well lookie-loo what was staring up at me from the mailbox today.


Ahhhh, isn't it perty? (Disregard my messy counter. Disregard people, disregard.)

And my fingers? Well, they are pretty pleased that they get to remain attached to the rest of me.

Sooooo, in case you were wondering as far as our timeline goes here's what's next!

• On Monday our social worker will plug in our "all clear" date from this letter into our home study.
• She will then send the home study to our agency. Who hopefully will then approve it the same day as they have already seen it and made any necessary corrections.
  
• Our social worker will then overnight an official notarized copy to us.
  
• I will spend Tuesday sitting at the front door waiting for the Fed-Ex* guy so that I can tackle him, rip the package out of his hand, and take it and the rest of our documents back to the Fed-Ex office and mail a stack of forms to USC*IS.(United States Citizenship and Immigration* Service....I think.)
• They will then review our birth and marriage certificates, our home study, and our big fat check we have sent them.
• They will then send us a letter giving us another fingerprint appointment in our designated regional USCI*S office. Yes. Another fingerprint appointment. Joy. Just plain joy.
  
• Once those prints come back and they have reviewed our file they will say yes, you may bring an orphan or two into the country. We think you are cool people and are fit to parent.
  
• This entire process is projected to take about 4-6 weeks.
  
• Once that happens they will issue us some kind of form which is the final piece of the dossier puzzle.
  
• That form will arrive via Fed-Ex. I will sit by my door that day too(with my running shoes on this time because Mr. Ex knows the tackle and trauma that awaits him so a chase will ensue. I will win because nothin' stands between a momma and her kids.) I will yell out an apology over my shoulder as I run into the minivan to send our entire dossier to our agency who will then send it to China.
  
• And then we wait.
  
• And Fed-Ex* man searches for a new job, because this one is just waaayy too dangerous. Those housewives are crazy people.
  

The Joey Cornor

Homeslice has his own corner of the house already.

It's in my bedroom. Sorry honey. I mean our bedroom. You can sleep in there too, ya know...when there isn't a child barfing all over us...or snuggling up because of a bad dream...or complaining that his bed is uncomfortable and can he please sleep with us.

So anyway, the Joey Cornor is in our bedroom,

which means I walk by it a couple of times a day and that makes me smile.

I heart the Joey corner.

It's filled with all manner of things.

Things for the trip over on the plane.


Things for the kids to do while we are in China.


Things I have been picking up here and there for his care packages.



Even things to do and learn with once we are home.


Ahhh, the Letter Factory. It's magic when it comes to teaching phonics.


Yep. The Joey Corner. My favorite spot in the house.

Well....that could be helpful.

I am hardly ever, ever, never a sucker for commercials.

I would really rather keep that money that they are trying to extract from me in my own pocket thankyouverymuch.

But then yesterday I saw an iphone commerical talking about a new app that translates texts into audio of the designated language.

Hello.

Genius.

Did you know I am not fluent in Mandarin?

This could be incredibly helpful.

"Joey, are you hungry?" Yeah. No idea how to say that in Mandarin but text in English? Well that I can do!

So you can imagine my excitement as I raced to get onto iTunes and with the help of my husband...because I am a technological idiot......he found an app and installed it.

A free app at that.

That does not require an internet connection. I believe this is a good thing.

I've been messing around with it the last few hours. It's great! It's not the text to talk one but it has pre-made phrases that you can just touch and it will speak it out.

Beyond that, the app people have the phrases divided into categories. Greetings, People, Travel Information, Dates, Numbers. How fantastic is that?!

And then there is a category entitiled, "Travel Safety". Well. This could be helpful. Preparedness is key after all....at least that's what the Boy Scouts say.

Under the heading of "Travel Safety" it gives you a list of helpful emergent words. Police, Doctor, Hospital,.... Stop Theif!" I'm sorry, what?

Yep. "Stop Theif!" is on there.

Funny right? Yeah. I thought so too. But if you keep scrolling down you get more intensive travel help. With this


"Don't Shoot!"

and my personal fav



"Those drugs aren't mine!"

And let me just tell ya. If I end up needing to know the phrase, "Those drugs aren't mine!" whilst we are in Ch*na. Something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

I'm off to pack my bullet pr*of vest and unpack my drugs*. Busy day. Busy day.

The Bunk Bed Purchase

I was thinking the other day that Joey and his new brother will need a place to sleep.

I know.

Go ahead and say duh.

I can take it.

I live with teenagers.

You can even roll your eyes at me and it won't hurt my feelings.

So that brings us to the impending purchase of yet another set of bunk beds. Lately you can find me in various furniture stores drooling over a few sets of them that I love. (You can then find the sales staff getting aggravated at me cuz they don't like drool on the new furniture. It apparently is not good for business.)

Initially I was thinking a simple twin over twin concoction with the intention of each twin(the people, not the bed) getting a new buddy in their room. Definitely don't want to just put the new fella's together, I think putting each of them in a pre-existing twins room will work out wonderfully.

But which twin one?(the beds now, not the people.)

This one?





Nice. Cheap. Matches the other set we already have. It'll work.

But then there's this:


Which I adore. I like the option of the full on the bottom for the first few nights when I can pile them in there and snuggle up as they are adjusting to their new home and family.

You can't so much do much snuggling in a twin.

Well. You could.

But someone would probably end up on the floor.

And nothings says, "Welcome to the family!" like shoving your kid outta bed onto the floor at 3am whilst you are sleeping.

It's not cool.

And not recommended.

So, as previously mentioned, I am digging the idea of the twin over full. And don't even get me started on that trundle underneath that can either house another mattress for sleepovers(holla!) or can be a large drawer for storage(holla...again!)

Now if I can get that money tree to bloom in my yard I will go from drooling to purchasing this bed at the store.

And won't that just make the sales staff so happy.

Exscuse me sir, you dropped something.

Dear Mr. Baseball Field,

I enjoy your friendship. Really. I do. You are incredibly hospitable, entertaining and you have provided SO many great memories for our family and for that I am most appreciative.

I do feel, however, that we have come to a point in our relationship that we need to clarify some points in how we spend our time together.

Well.

1 point really.

You see, I have decided that our relationship just can't be reciprocal.

It can't.

We have tried.

It doesn't work.

Therefore, from this day forth I am respectfully asking that you not come into our house anymore.

There. Whew. I said it.

You are not welcome here.

And if you want to know why....

Well, here....let me just show you.

There.



See that? That's you.



And that's a mess. And dude, I have four/five/six boys. If there's anything that I don't need it's another mess.

You stay where you belong, I'll stay where I belong.

I mean come on man, you don't see me all up in your biness with my perfume and cleaning products. So why do you feel as though you can intrude on my space?

Thanks for your understanding.

Oh, and take your seedy friends outta my house with you.

They bother me. And beyond that, they somehow end up in my lint trap in the dryer.

Sincerely,
Me

The Question Mark.

See that question mark up at the top of the header?

Wondering what sweet face will fill up that space?

Yeah.

Me too.

If there is anything that we kinda know, it is raising kids in pairs of two.

Jason and Jordan are 12 months and 14 days apart.

Justin and Jack are 6 minutes apart.

4 boys in 5 years.

1 kid?

We don't know how to do 1 kid.

So two it will be.

Whether on one trip or two, we know that two is what we are lead to.

For now. ;)

This much we knew from the beginning of this journey. Whether we would adopt two was never even a consideration for us. In fact, I venture to say John and I barely exchanged words on this specific part of the adoption process. It's a given around here.

He knew it.

I knew it.

Two is what we do. And after this many years together, we didn't even need to discuss.

So recently there has been a little more urgency being placed on who #2 will be.

We had found another boy whom Joey knows(they go to school together) that we were preparing to officially ask the CC*AA for. He disappeared from the list today.

PRAYING that it is because he has found a family!!

But I will admit. I am having mixed feelings. I am almost mourning him as weird as that sounds. This kiddo had been on the list for so long that I guess I just kinda assumed he'd still be there for another month until we could ask for him.

Don't get me wrong, INCREDIBLY happy that he has a family, but I think what has me feeling discouraged is the thought of starting all over again looking at files.

In the beginning of this process I thought this would be the most "fun", the most interesting.

Uhh. No.

Can I tell ya. It's HEART-WRENCHING. Absolutely heart breaking to look at page after page of these kiddos knowing that most of them will stay in those orphanages until they age out and then be turned out on the street.

It makes me queasy just thinking about it.

So the thought of starting over in that process doesn't exactly get me jumping up and down with excitement.

Ugh.

Anyway, kinda random thoughts today I know. But in truth, it's where my heart is right now.

Waiting to see what God is up to because what I know for sure is that HIS plan is infinitely better than my plan.

Praise the Lord for that.

Fishin

Fishin'.

Never done it.

Never been interested in it.

Until yesterday.

Hello.

What have I been doing with myself my whole life?

F
U
N

Fun. It was sooo much fun!

Thanks Grandpa John for showing us how it's done!

What a day!

So without further ado, I give you FISHING DAY 2010 in pictures.

The pre-brief:


Waiting.


Did you know that if you give a child a fishing pole and a chair they will actually sit still for longer than 2.5 seconds?

Especially this child. It's really an incredible phenomenon.

Jordan kickin it old school with a stick and string. (turned out to be the one that caught the most fish!)


And let the catching begin:

Jordan trophy shot


Jack reeling it in!



Justin in his way cool french fry pj's and "Don't Croak without Jesus" T-shirt.




& finally Jason(who had to leave us for awhile for baseball practice).









Uhhh, yeah.

His picture is on my cell phone.

I have no clue how to get a picture off of my cell phone.

As far as I know they are there to stay.

Signing off from our very first day of fishing!

Until next time!


Over and out fishies.

A Bath

A Twin Bath



The Aftermath.

-sigh-

They're so cute.

They're so fun.

They're so filthy.

Which just further illustrates and validates this that adorns the game room wall:



Yep.

It's truth.

I speak truth.

Gotta go now, Mr. Clean Orange Scent All Purpose Cleaner and I have a hot date...in the bathtub....ooo laa, la.

Jack the Sequeal

At the risk of sounding repetitive.

This is Jack.


Jack and I had another fantastic evening outside today.

This is Justin.


Justin did not.

He has been feeling yucky the last couple of days. ;(

Jack and Justin and Jordan all have field day tomorrow so whilst John and Jason and Jordan were on their way to baseball practice today; Jack wanted to practice his field day skillz.

Well that we can do.

First up! Egg on a spoon!



Well. That is unfortunate.

Brief...and unfortunate.


Next please!

Sack Race! This we can do!

.....well, this HE can do. I gave up sack racing during the 6 minute interval between child #3 and child #4 emerging from my loins.

I think if I tried sack racing now, my uterus would fall out. And no one wants to see that.

And uterus kicking is definitely NOT a field day event.

But I digress.

Hello Spring weather.

My name is Sonia and I like you. Like, like-like you.


I could eat him up.

Next up. Kickball!
(It's similar to uterus kicking but a little more appropriate and much less painful.)

Standby for results of field day 2010!

Interruption Take 3!

Sheesh! I may need to start a sports blog to keep up with these boys.

Remember this boy

and his HUGE baseball milestone two nights ago?


Well, because he has been having a lot of 7:30pm start time games I decided to hire a sitter to come and hang out while the twins are sleeping(they go to bed at 7) because that many late nights do not make for two happy 7 year olds.

So that's what I did tonight. Arrived at 7:42 to the game.

And.

Well.

He DID IT AGAIN! A 2 run homer, OVER THE FENCE.

And uh.

I missed it.

Ugh.

But in better news, here are pictures of big hit #2!!



And the video!:



Ok, no.

Just kidding.

Still no Flip video camera....and....as previously mentioned....I missed the big hit.

I am purposing to be better prepared next time. Camera, video camera, cell phone camera, and all other applicable recording devices.

Bout time to bust out my mammarazzi moves up in here.

Interruption Take 2!

We again interrupt this blog for BIG, breaking sports news!

This boy
who rarely makes a blog appearance these days....due to the fact that he is a 13 year old boy....and they don't fancy having their picture taken very often.....

because really, there are only so many times I can show you the side of his head before
it


gets



really

really


redundant.

Now, I'm his mom.

So I could stare at that uncombed head every moment

and never tire of it. But I do understand how others could become weary.

But I digress.

He


after 3 days of tryouts

made the 8th grade basketball team!



Wooot-Wooot!! We are incredibly proud of him and he is pretty darn excited himself!

Way to go Jason!! Hope you are enjoying your celebratory peanut butter milkshake!

Love ya bud!

PS Confused as to why basketball tryouts for the fall occur in April? Yeah, me too.

But nonetheless, we'll take it!! Yay Jason!!