Just a note that when you have music start up automatically on your blog that it scares the wha-whooy out of me when I come from a page with no sound!!!! It has actually awoken my children on a few occasions when I am up late at night getting my daily portion of blogginess. So please for the sanity (and clean underwear) of your readers, leave your player but disable the autostart!!!

So today Carter's disdain for school was kicked into overdrive as he refused to leave the bathroom this morning. I had to piggy back him to the car to get him out. I asked him if he wanted me to take him to class and he said (the little stinker) "It won't help...I will still hate it!!!" So I took him in anyway...gave him lots of kisses, snuggles, and encouragement but he stood there with hands over his eyes refusing to move. I took care of his backpack and lunch and the teacher basically said...you don't have a chooice you need to sit down....so I left him sitting in his chair with his hands over his eyes....of course you know I cried for the next 2 hours. I called Wuby's preschool to see if there were any more openings in thier "enrichment" class for kids who have already had 2 years of preschool and are 5 but not ready for Kindergarten. They do have a spot open in thier 4 days a week 1/2 day program. So the option is open if we need to take him out. I have struggled with sending him since January and as you can see it isn't over yet. We waited the extra year with Noah and he has done wonderfully (though bored at times because they don't progress quick enough in math for his taste) and Wuby will have an extra year at home because of her fall birthday but we sent Carter because he really wanted to go....however, he didn't really make an informed decision as I forgot to include the fact that you do have to actually be quiet and do LOTS of work. So all week it has been a struggle to get him to school. He comes home exhausted and moody (more than before) and begs to not have to go again. Our school district only offers full day Kindergarten so it is a huge transistion for Carter who still really needs a nap. So please pray for us as we decide what to do!!!!!!

Last night was my first PTA meeting as PTA President!!! It was incredibly nerve wracking!! I kinda of got shoved into the position be default. I agreed to do VP this year thinking that all I would do was help the President with a few projects. Well the very next day the President quit!!! And nobody else would take the position...so there you have it. God apparently has some plan for me at the school this year. I definatley don't feel like I have what it takes on my own to do this so I am completely relying on HIM for wisdom in all of this.
Anyhow, the point of this post is to say that my husband is the very very very best ever!!! I left him with a house full of children who needed bathed, snuggled, homework done, and off to bed and a GIANT mess including a sink overflowing with dishes (broken dish washer), clothes and toys all over the floor, and I came home to a SPOTLESSSSSS house....not just man cleaning....a really clean house. I felt like he just handed me a $1,000 bill (do they make those?). Plus he had just finished working a 36 hour shift! If you see my man thank him for being great (he doesn't read my blog)

So courts are closed in Ethiopia so referrals are slow...well non-existant right now. We have been waiting a whole 16 days now and well I am already obsessed with the unofficial list. I don't know how people wait 9 months to a year for a referral. The 4-6 months I am estimating seems like forever!!!! Now that all the big kids are in school and we are setting the schedule for the preschoolers, all I can think about is Maree will be sitting here and while the 3 year olds are at school then Maree & I can do ______. We are #100 on the unofficial list kept on the forum but there are 285 families waiting so are very likely #285 on the unofficial list. However, most of the families are skipped over when an older child is referred because thier age range is 0-12 months. So.....okay I have nothing....except endless ramblings.

Somehow I forgot until the last minute that the kids have to put away their Crocs for school. So on Monday morning when we were getting ready, Carter was freaking out because the Ironman shoes that we bought for school last month were TOOOO TIGHT (insert whiny voice here). So in a frantic search for shoes all I could come up with were his big brother's exta pair. He really wanted to wear them but they were a bit floppy so I had him prove he could run down to the stop sign and back without falling. He was okay so off to school he went with a promise of the shoe store after school. The boys have VERY VERY wide feet so we have to shop at the expensive Fred Toegnes here in town that specializes in odd sizes. We have been able to hold off on Carter until now because he only wanted character shoes. So after all the daycare kids left we were off. And wouldn't you know we ended up with a size 2.5 XXW's! Now they looked huge but fit perfectly. However, when we go home and compared them to Noah's shoes they were only 1/2 a size smaller!!!!! Now if you haven't done the math...the boys are almost 3 years apart in age and Noah is a head taller!!!

So as a part of my 10 step program I am going to admit that I am a Forum Addict. In particular I spend way too much time on the CHSFS forum and have decided to have my hubby block it from my computer for a few months. We will see how things go. Basically I was spending too much time fretting about my children on there and not enough time actually enjoying my children. I plan to blog of course because I like to document our lives...just a warning that if you have a blog I might be overloading it with comments as I get some of this obsessive forum posting out and seek to transition out of this computer chair and back onto the floor to play more CandyLand!

So Monday the boys head to school!!! I know I have blogged about this alot (obsessive parent I know)! So we had a "Kid's Day" on Friday to celebrate their last day of freedom...I mean summer break. And at the request of the boys I did not take any pictures...you may have noticed that I always have my camera in thier faces which is probably why most of the recent ones include crazy faces and upturned bottoms. So we basically did whatever the kids wanted...Chuck-E-Cheese, Fazoli's, and another trip to the beach at Fox Island. It was soooo fun and relaxing..... It is days like this when you are so thankful for your family!















Here is the family photo we settled on after 15 tries to get everyone to smile! (I took this on Thurday before Kid's day of course....for Maree's photo book we are sending to Ethiopia and to include in our Shaohannah's Hope Grant testimony)

10 years ago while I was still in High School and Torrey had recently moved out of his parent's house, we met at work. Aon Innovative solutions have long since shut down be we still remember the fun we had together as we immitated Monty Python together and everyone made fun of my sticky note doodles to my crazy haired crush. Our first date was a movie and Torrey later reported that he loved me instantly because I showed up in a ponytail and baseball cap! After the movie you took me for a ride in your awesome Suzuki Samari!

Here is a pick of Wuby's new hair style. These braids started as 2 weeks ago's large section box braids which I further divided into at least 4 sections each. I only got the front done and the back is still in about 20 larger box braids but after the 2 hour front of the head braiding session we are going to take it slow and do a few sections every day. I have to say that the tiny sections have not frizzed at all so far after 3 days. Wuby has a soft texture to her hair so it frizzes quite easily. I got my inspiration from a little girl at the park who had a million tiny braids beaded to the scalp with clear beads...it was absolutely beautiful. Next time I think we will try the clear so her hair matches more of her clothes.

This picture reminded me of our family picture session last Sunday. It was rather impromptu as I realized before church that Wuby's hair was done rather nicely AND the boys' hair was cut nicely...and I had time for a shower BEFORE church.....Usually at 2 of the 3 fall in in line but never all 3! So I found the most beautiful dress for Wuby passed down from my friend Dee and we made a quick appointment at JC Penny for a photo shoot after church. We bought ketchup free non messy lunch food (fries and nuggets) at the food court at the mall and let the kids sit at the kiddy tables with a few other kids from church. And wouldn't you know it but Wuby still come back with sauce of some kind all over the front of her white satin dress!!! She had been apparently eating other people's food!!! So I ran off to Target across the street for some Tide to Go. It kind of took away the bright red of the stain but left a dull orangey stain. So I skimmed the little girl section for a replacement dress and all I could find were horrendous 80's inspired frocks for $30. Torrey turned up his nose at their hideousness and we decided that Wuby is 3 and she makes messes....who cares if she has a little mess on her dress. So there you have it....if you get a pic in the mail...please keep in mind we are real people with real (really messy) kids! Anywho the reason this picture reminds us of that session is that we only had 2 poses to choose from at the end because Wuby kept making this face in all of the pictures because the photographers made the mistake of laughing at her making this face...which fuels her little comedians heart to keep doing it.

Here are our new wedding rings. We made them out of bubble gum wrappers in church (bad parents). I lost mine because when I lost alot of weight it didn't fit and fell off and Torrey has gained so much weight that his cuts off his circulation. He does however have a permanent "ring" because when I fell down the stairs in exhaustion carrying Wuby when we first came home from ET and sprained both ankles he heard me screaming and jumped out of bed. With is extreme..and delayed reflexes his startled awakening caused him to slam his fist (and wedding ring) into the dresser really hard which cut into the skin all around his finger leaving a huge scar most of the way around.
So there you go....

So over the last year I have become so OCD. I realized this at the grocery store last night as I was SO overly (embarrassingly) excited because the no limit self-checkout was open!!! that means you can bag your own groceries the way you like them!!!!! Yeah!!! But low and behold the check out lady did not get the hint that I like to do it myself (maybe she didn't see me pass 4 empty, manned lanes to come to the self-serve). The whole time I was checking out and she was bagging me groceries (not my way of course) I was hoping one of the other lanes computers would malfunction so she would leave my bananas alone! I as so relieved when she finally got called away to another kiosk so I could repack everything the way I like it. This got me thinking about my other sudden idiosyncrasies. Like last week when I couldn't stop myself from taking the paper french fries bags home from Burger King so I could recycle them. Or that I have been guilting my poor mom for not recycling. Then there was the night last month that I couldn't sleep (which is the norm now) and decided that I wanted bangs and proceeded to cut my 1 length hair with kiddy scissors into too short front fringe. Please forgive some of my strange new behaviors...its me not you!

We checked out Fox Island in Fort Wayne for the first time yesterday. It was so awesome!! It only costs $2 for everyone over 6 years old or a year long pass for $20 a family. The best part is that hardly anyone knows about it so it is not crowded at all! They have a nice beach and clean lake (as far as lakes go...I personally can't make myself get in a lake but the kids loved it). The best part was the super clean bathrooms!!!

Wuby, Carter & Landon digging a hole to Ethiopia.

Landon, Destiny, Noah, Carter, & Raina having tons of fun in the sand

So we recieved word today that we are officially on our agency's waiting list for a little girl age 18 months to 3 years old!!! We had a little snaffu with the paperwork but the agency let us go on the list anyway as long as we submit the new paperwork ASAP. Basically the papers I had been waiting for in the mail all last week from the Secretary of State of Indiana were Apostiled instead of State Certified....so I have reresend it and make extra sure that I am very clear that we need state certification this time. No biggy....though my heart sank when I recieved the email from our specialist saying something was wrong...I thought for sure they would make me wait until everything was turned in perfectly....CHSFS is AWESOME!!!! Wuby is so very excited about having a little sister! Tomorrow we are going to work on little sis' photo album that we get to send after we get a referral.

Noah had a blast at his birthday party at Lazer X! The boys kept saying this is the coolest birthday party ever! They all enjoyed playing lazer tag together and a few video games. I know I had fun leading my sect of our little army to defeat the Blue team.