The Scouting Trip

Air Force life is never dull, that much is for certain. We've been at our current base for about 11 1/2 months now which can only mean one thing

we are going to be moving.....again.

We are currently in our 8th state in 12 years.

12 months from now a giant truck will pull into our driveway and about 6 men I have never met will begin packing all of our worldly possessions into said truck...including the contents of my underwear drawer...

...which can only be described as, well....awkward.

But you get used to it, really you do.

Thus far this AF ride has been a great one! We've seen and done so much with these kids that we otherwise would probably not have been able to. The kids have handled it smashingly as well.....

so far.

As we are approaching these older pre-teen and teen years we are acutely aware that this life could be more and more challenging as we go for these boys. It used to be we could throw the diaper bag and pack-n-play in the van and a tonka truck or two and everyone was happy. The big boys were happy because they got to play in hotel pools along the way and the twins were happy because my brea....errrr....milk producing vessels were attached to me. So they went where I went and that was enough for them.

So with the knowledge that the move is comin and having some idea of where we may go next we set out to do some reconnaissance....because we are a military family thus we I think we are supposed to use big official sounding words like reconnaissance.

One of our possible options is about 9 hours from us and with a long weekend in front of us we hit the road.

Results?
Survey says....




6 Thumbs up. Ok. None of their thumbs are actually up. You'll have to trust me on this. Every single one of us want to pack out tomorrow, underwear drawers and all and move here.

Here are the boys. At dusk. ON THE BASE.

I have arrived. Their own private beach....ahhhhh...I am in love. I am in love with a large government facility and I'm not ashamed to admit it. This beach is right down the sand from their own marina where we can launch our non-existent boat and our non-existent jet ski's.


Jason found about 5 crabs on the other side of the base. See those buildings in the background? That is the HOUSING that faces the water. Hello. I'm Sonia. And I am in love with you. Will you marry me? Can we co-habitate?

So all in all a great trip. This will definitely be on our dream sheet come fall and if we move there then I know four boys that will already be excited(which was the whole point of this reconnaissance mission...oooo, that was very military sounding wadn't it?!). If we move somewhere else then that's ok too... HE's got it all worked out.

Cuz we will go where He sends us.....which is a great song bytheway.
I'd sing it to you.
But I can't sing.
And the Bible says to make a joyful noise unto the Lord.
And, well.....though I am excessively joyful....the sounds of singing that arise out of my mouth.....wouldn't describe that as joy per say. More likes kittens wailing.
And the Bible don't say nuthin about singing like kittens wailing.

So you'll have to trust me. Going where He sends us?
It's a beautiful thing.

I've been rejected.

Whew! Just rolled in from a long weekend, had an amazing time. I'll share where we went and why tomorrow just thought I'd pop in and let you know that if you enjoy reading my dribble on this blog that you should know that you are in fact reading the dribble of

a reject.

Yep. That's me.

A reject.

I have been rejected.

Rejected by our Chi*nese Consulate. They decided not to accept my Fed Ex package full of dossier docs.

Nope. Not gonna take em. Didn't open them and then reject them. Nope. Just plain ole turned em around at the door. They apparently don't like Fed Ex this week. Even though their website says they do. Darn it I gotta get better at mind-reading.

-sigh- I haven't felt this rejected since high school when I was asked to the prom at a track meet by a boy from another school....who then brought another date to the prom with him.

Yep.

True story.

Not cool. Not cool at all.

So this reject will be contacting a courier tomorrow. Decided to spend the big bucks and go that route rather than the USPS...heard some horror stories there so I decided to not risk it...because really, if those documents get lost....

I'd have to start all over....

and the thought of that....kinda makes me want to spew all over my flip flops. And the thought of being rejected again brings me right back to that night at prom...and nobody wants to go through that again.

So according to the lovely lady that I talked to at Fed Ex who, by the way, I said, "yes sir" to in answer to one of her questions....when it turns out she is a female.....whoops........the package should be back to me on Wednesday. Which is actually ok since we are still waiting on immigration approval so no worries. It's all good.

The Halfway Mark

Jordan had his big day today. 6th grade graduation.

Buh-bye elementary school.

Hello Junior High.

I think I will always crave having a 12 year old in the house. Well, I guess I could say that about every age if I were being honest but this boy and the boy before him when they are 12 are just

F
U
N.

So without further ado, the graduate himself.
I call this one,"The congressmen."
I don't know why. It just looks like something out of Capitol Hill.
I call this one, "My tie is so soft!"
I call this one, "Let's see if your old mom can still make you laugh." I knew all of those knock-knock jokes that have been lodged into the recesses of my brain since 3rd grade would one day come in handy.

I call this one, "Jordan, what are your thoughts on the economy? The health care debate? Global warming?"
Hmmm, nuthin? Ok. We'll move on.

Gracious what on earth happened to this kindergarten baby?


Jordan and I after the ceremony.


Yes. Yes he is almost as tall as me.
No. No this is not ok with me.
Note the non-full length shot.
I have one.
But I ain't gunna show it to you.
Because if you go too far south in this picture you will see what can only be called my
..gasp..
permanent post baby/ies bump.
-sigh-
After 8 years I have resigned myself to the fact that it is part of me now.
And since I really, really like to eat
And really, really don't care much to exercise
The bump and I have made peace with one another.

And hey, I can always look at the bright side. This is what the babies bump used to look like. ;)
Yep. A bump/hill/mountain fueled by 9 months of peanut butter milkshakes, grits and frozen waffles with rivers of syrup.

But alas, good things come from the bump/hill/mountain. So that makes it ok.


Ahhh, I feel better already. Now where did I put my cheeseburger?....

Congratulations Jordan! We are so proud of you!

May the Pancake Be With You.

So to recap,

Sonia lives with lots and lots and lots of boys.

Sonia likes living with boys. Overall they are very entertaining creatures, relatively low drama, easily huggable, high energy and well....just plain goofy.

Sonia likes goofy.

Sonia also apparently likes referring to herself in the third person.

Sonia has figured out that if you keep boys well fed and keep some sporting equipment in their hands they are essentially quite pleased with life.

Sonia likes the simplicity of this.

So because Sonia has already been over the battle with dirt in many, many previous posts she will forgo the dirty results of aforementioned sporting equipment and move on to food.

Ahhh, food.

Sonia likes food.

Imagine her delight when she stumbles upon these from one of her Facebook friends

Luke, I am your breakfast.

I'm pretty sure that with 6 boys these are some type of parenting requirement. I'm also pretty sure I should call my social worker to get a home study update so that she is able to note the presence of Star Wars Pancake Molds in the home.

This is big news. Big, big news.....ok, I don't actually have them yet...but nonetheless, this is outer-galactic.

I'm off now to fight/bake/cook the forces of one D. Vadar.

May the force be with you.
Sonia out.

In other Adoption News..

Please pray for wisdom for us in regards to kiddo #2/#6. There are some details being worked out as to how and where we go from here and to be honest. I'm not sure which road is best to take at the moment.

I can see a couple of different avenues we can take to bring this all together, they both are good, and they both have their drawbacks. Argh. Not sure. Just not sure.

Wild Olive Adoption Tee!

First let me say THANK YOU to all of you that have ordered or helped to spread the news via your blogs or on Facebook and please keep spreading the word! We are incredibly appreciative!!

The ladies over at Wild Olive have asked that we pass on that when you place your order please use the code MARTADOPT in the Coupon Code/Family Code section as well as in the Comment Section at checkout. This will help track the funds.


Only a few weeks left to order this precious new adoption tee that brings a verse from

Isaiah 1:17 Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

Love that!
...it doesn't actually say, "Love that!" that was my analysis of the tee. Ahem. :)

And they have moved the Hope tee over to the adoption side of things as well!


And I should stop typing in italics now!

Ok, that's better. Oh wait, it keeps going back to italics...ahhhh....that's weird. Oh no! There it goes again....anyway, whilst I try and unitalicize myself ya'll have fun ordering a tee! God bless ya!

Well.....that was a mistake.

See this man?


I married him.
I like him.....a lot.
He flys muti-million dollar jets for a living oftentimes just a few feet from another jet

but

this man
cannot

under any circumstances

be trusted at the grocery store. Yep. Technical airplane stuff at 30,000ft no prob. But the local food store. Not on your life.

ESPECIALLY

when accompanied by our offspring.

Because though biologically they are part of me, with my fresh fruit snack choices, non-sugar cereal lovin, wheat bread totin self...

they are part him. Junkfoodaholic.

Case in point,

this is what I came home to shortly after they had an excursion to our local super center.

see the look of pure glee on their faces?

Yep. That's 12 boxes of cereal, 3 different kinds of chips, a case of Cherry Crush, dip and a box of popsicles.

Umm....excuse me boys...big and small. Are you new here?

I think that they thought that if they lined it all up around the table that it would all look a bit more appealing to me.

It didn't work.

Jack, the one child who was not part of this junk food party harty hoe down was pretty perplexed by the whole thing. Poor kid didn't know what to think.
You can just see it in his bulging eyes.

Should I touch it?
Am I going to be able to eat any of it?
And more importantly how on earth were they able to talk daddy into this?

Well, don't get your hopes up kiddo.

Now hand mommy the brussel sprouts, it's almost dinner time.

Wild Olive Adoption Tee!!

I am so incredibly excited to announce that Wild Olive has launched their first ever adoption fund raising tee! We are so blessed to be one of the chosen families to participate in their kick-off of this great program and we need your help!

A portion of every adoption tee sold over the next four weeks will be donated back to us to help off-set some of the adoption costs! How great is that?!

So you get a cute tee
& you get to be part of the journey of bringing these kiddos home!

Are you ready?!

Me too!

All you have to do is head on over here, select your size and style and then during checkout be sure to enter the family code MARTADOPT.

*Please know that if you do not enter our family code in the box, we will not receive any donations from that tee. So we would be incredibly appreciative if you would enter it!*

There are two tees that are part of the fundraiser!

This one



And this one!

Got a sister or a mother or a daughter or a friend or a dog or a pigeon?

Well then they need a tee too!

So click on over here and stock up for Christmas, Birthday's, Casimir Pulaski Day, Tuesday, Saturday, Dental Hygenist appreciation day, whatever! You need some tees!

Thank you for helping to bring our boys home and lookin good while doin it! We appreciate you now go get your cute on!!

*Remember MARTADOPT on either of these two oh so adorable tees and feel free to link back here to spread the word to bring our boys home!*

I think I sound like an infomercial so I'll stop talking but if you order now I'll include a free set of knives for only $19.95 plus shipping and handling!......just kidding.

Today they said YES.

They said yes.

Agency #2 that has the file of our 6th son has agreed to release his file to our agency.

My God moves mountains.

My God is faithful.

My God rocks.

As we sit here day after day watching this story unfold before us I am constantly humbled by His goodness.

Wow.

No words.

I have no words.

Now we wait. We get what will hopefully be some speedy immigration approval and we send our dossier across the pond and wait for a final decision on this precious story of these two brothers and friends. As I have said before if they say yes we will rejoice in the Lord's plan and go once!

If they say no we will rejoice in the Lord's plan and go twice.

It's all good.

The plan is good.

The plan is good because HE is very, very good.

And that's enough for me.

"For this boy I prayed, and the LORD has given me my petition which I asked of Him."
1 Samuel 1:27

Yes.

I-800A Submission Day!

In all of the excitement of last week I forgot to blog the big I-800A day!

We drove an hour and a half up to our home study agency to pick up the completed home study and then right over to Fed Ex. I pulled Jordan out of school for the day so he and I could have a special day together.....unless you are one of his teachers reading this....in which case he was sick at home all day that day. And I most certainly did not take him up there with me and out to lunch
where he proceeded to eat a sandwich the size of his head..

and to Barnes & Noble to pick out a new book.

Nope.


Not me.

I would never do such an irresponsible thing.

Here is me sweating nervously as I checked and re-checked that packet of papers 8 gajillion times hoping I hadn't screwed anything up.

Fed Ex lady and I had a moment where she was trying to take the packet from me and I wouldn't let go.
It was a moment of tug o' war. I was trying with all that is within me to quell the urge to check it all just one more time.

She won.

I have no upper body strength.

All in all, a good day. A big step of a day.

Twins Birthday Party Day!

Note to self: When planning a pool party for your 8 year old twins, check the forecast.

When you wake up the day of the pool party and notice that it is extremely foggy outside grab your phone and see what the Weather Channel has to say.

Panic slightly when they tell you that there is a 60% chance of thunderstorms and showers throughout the day beginning at 11am when the party starts at 3.

Realize that you are going to have to make the best of it as your home will soon be filled with lots and lots of little boys.

Now watch how God is faithful even in the little things. Cuz though you forgot to check the weather, HE did not.

Enjoy your pool party with absolutely perfect 80 degree weather with a lovely cool breeze blowing by....not a rain shower in sight.

Jordan, fresh off the baseball field, was our designated diving board monitor.

He was very focused on his job.

Wait. Hang on.

Jordan.

Dude.

You are supposed to be watching...put the party food down.


Hello?!

Jordan?

You're fired.

We had a great time, giant cupcakes were a hit,



water balloon fight was in full swing





and finally my favorite moment, when Justin interrupted everyone singing Happy Birthday to them insisting on a round of "Oh he's a jolly good fellow" instead.




Hysterical.

Simply hysterical.

And less I read this blog 20 years from now and want to remember that I always had it all together...here is Jason getting his 13th birthday cake.

Mmmmmkay. . His birthday was in January.

It's May.

I had the flu on his birthday so I never got to make his favorite cake.

Note to self: I have not had some kind of crazy 4 month long flu everyday since January and have had ample opportunity to make in the meantime. But alas. I did not. So this is my redemption of the lost birthday cake.

Whew. I feel better already.

3 Month Re-Cap!

1 Month Re-Cap here
2 Month Re-Cap here

3 months! Times is just sailing by I tell ya...well, it sails unless you were waiting on some fingerprints....and then it crawls....nay...slugs along.

This last week or two has certainly been the most interesting and unexpected that much I can say for certain.

Month 3, unlike the previous 2 months was much less about completing form such and such and much more about growing in the virtue of patience. Can I tell ya,

I'm about 10 feet tall at this point. I have grown more than I cared too...

but I digress.....

Much of this month was spent waiting for fingerprints to be released from fingerprint purgatory. And then in a completed unexpected turn of events, well, we all know....

He found us.....again.

So now we wait! We wait and see and we watch as God's plan for our lives and the lives of two best friends across an ocean begin to intersect in a mighty way.

Home study completion and I-800A submission happened this month so now we are in the holding pattern and our days of scrambling for paperwork and sending documents across the country are definitely slowing.

I have signed my local Fed-Ex guy up on an internet dating site.

He is missing me something fierce.

I'm hoping he can find some fellowship outside of taking enormous amounts of my money and filling out my overnight air bills.

We'll see.

So that's that! Month 4 will prayerfully include just about...or if I'm pushing it....have USCIS approval to adopt 2 kiddos! The form that nice government worker man will send us is the final piece of our dossier and then we will pass it all across the pond and wait.

...and wait.

And I will grow.

..and grow.

Waiting on a decision....

Well, I had hoped that we would hear a decision before Friday afternoon.....ya know...so I can perhaps slow the things flying through my brain at Mack 2 down to somewhere around 800mph. But alas, we did not.

Agency #2 is talking to our social worker and our agency about us...well, they tried to talk to them. A privacy release is really what held up a decision late this week. But now they have full permission to ask away so that is somethin!

Sooo, at this point we are anticipating their decision sometime next week.

To be honest...

we are hopeful.

Like, really, really hopeful.

There have been some encouraging signs throughout the week so now we wait.

Wait and see.

Gracious I love watching God work.

It's my favorite hobby. Scrapbooking and knitting ain't got nuthin on this.

*I'm off to go practice my grammar now because I think that I really did just use the words, "ain't got nuthin" in a sentence. Oh my.*

Wheat and Wildflowers

So in case you are new here.

I live with boys.

Lots and lots of boys.

And though I love them.....I sometimes find that I am slipping away from my girl side and plunging head first into their realm of fart jokes, burping, buggers and wrestling matches.

Mmmm. Yep. I am slowly slipping away....

because sometimes.....

I think they are funny. I know right?! Gone. I am gone.

Which is why I was so excited to stumble upon Wheat and Wildflowers. SUCH cuteness going on over there.

Girly cuteness.

Not a jock strap in site.

Ahhhh, it's girl land. I wonder if I'm too far gone to join their club.