Slow down...

Why does life seem to move so fast? I swear this summer is a blur of memories that includes diaper changes (lots of them), fixing meals, road trips, beautiful boys, lots of reading and trying to keep the house clean. It went SO fast! I know it's technically not over but since school will be starting soon (not that it will affect us) it feels like it's coming to an end. And the biggest thing that has changed, my brain has turned to mush. It was slowly deteriorating but it's offically mush. I can't remember the simplest words like "fork, spoon, remote, computer" and I definitely do not call my kids by their correct names. If my sister and her family is around, her kids names get thrown into the mix and it takes me twice as long to call Conner by the correct name.

Today I was hoping to get a little cleaning done and since my youngest two have been extremely clingy I had to get creative. And the first thing that came to mind was 'cardboard boxes'. And since I haven't recyled in a while I had plenty lying around. Thank you cardboard boxes for your half-hour of entertainment. I am extremely grateful.

Back to the real world...

We just returned home from a trip back to Indiana for my brothers wedding. They had an intimate, beautiful ceremony at a local park surrounded by immediate family. A reception followed with extended family and friends. It was so wonderful to see everyone and finally introduce our boys to many of whom had not met them before.

The week included 2 days of preparing food for the wedding, 5 late nights staying up with my family, 1000's of pictures, laughter with 10 siblings and several sib in-laws, 5 games of kick the can (in which I discovered I am very out of shape), 4 snotty noses (myself included) and lots of delicious food. We had a great time and left with many of wonderful memories. Thanks to all!! Congratulations Q & T, and big Connor (welcome to the family)!

Photo captured by my talented sister Poe.

For the love of books...

Conner has always loved books. When he was just a few months old he would sit on my lap and read story, after story. After he turned 1 and was talking he was memorizing books. And over the past year I've found him with a stack of books, flipping page after page, book after book. I love it!

Biruk on the other hand took a little longer to appreciate them. I think it was around 10 months when he finally would sit still long enough for a quick read. And slowly, he's learned to enjoy them as much as Conner. And now I find Biruk, sitting with Conner, a pile of books between them.

And the littlest of all, has loved them for only one reason; to pull them all off the bookshelf. I take that back, 2 reasons. He used to enjoy eating them. But something happened today. He kept bringing Nathan book, after book, to read to him.

Finally, I have 3 little boys who enjoy reading time. I couldn't be happier. And today I got to enjoy this view...

(3 little boys, reading with their dad)

The New Do

Today I got a new haircut and my first highlights EVER. What fun! I was so sick of my last cut and needed something fun and hopefully easier.

I am loving the highlights. I didn't know they were so much fun! I figured I'd better document it now because I'll never be able to get it to look like this again. Ya know, that wonderful look after you leave the stylist with a hair full of product.

Friday Favorite

Iced Pumpkin Cookies

After reading my cousin James blog today I was left with my mouth watering and a strong desire to make some cookies! I put some butter on the counter to soften and continued on with my day. After dinner the sweet tooth returned and while I originally planned on making Chocolate Chip Cookies I settled for a delicious Iced Pumpkin Cookie I got from my mom. She had found it online and we've tweaked it a bit to our liking. These are one of my favorite recipe's. They are SUPER soft, fluffy, and one of the lighter cookies you can make. They can easily be modified to your liking and are delicious with or without icing. Lastly, they freeze great and taste just as soft and delicious after they are thawed. They are also fantastic cold!! Enjoy :)

First you need a helper; preferably one that has a LOT of enthusiasm for baking.


Next, we gathered all of our ingredients.
1 c. whole wheat flour
1 c. white flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
.5 tsp ground nutmeg
.5 tsp ground cloves
.5 tsp salt

.5 c (1 stick) butter, softened
1.5 c white sugar ***
1 c canned pumpkin
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

Yields approximately 3 dozen

*** Since I doubled my recipe (yields 6 doz) I used 2 c white sugar and 3/4 Honey - I could not tell the difference.




Next,
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, and salt; set aside.

2. In a medium mixing bowl, cream together the 1/2 c of butter and white sugar. Add pumpkin, egg and 1 tsp vanilla to butter mixture and beat until creamy. Mix in dry ingredients.



3.Drop on cookie sheet by tablespoonsfull; flatten slightly (I don't really do that).


4. Bake for 15 minutes (I prefer 14 min with my oven) in the preheated oven.


5. Cool cookies and then drizzle glaze with fork.

To Make Glaze: Combine 2 cups powdered sugar, 3 Tbl milk, 1 Tbl melted butter and 1 tsp Vanilla Extract. Add milk as needed to achieve drizzling consistency.




At this point, admire your beautiful cookies, eat a dozen of them while typing up a blog post and drinking a cold glass of milk.



Note on Icing: You can see from the photo's how much icing I put on the cookies (this is after eating about a dozen of them before I iced them). This is one single batch of icing to a double batch of cookies. So if you were to make 1.5 times the recipe you should have plenty.

A big thank you to my adorable little helper. After the first batch came out of the oven he said he wanted to help me make the icing. It was almost 8:00 at this point and I told him I thought he had stayed up late enough but he could eat one with icing on it in the morning. He said to me "That's okay mom. Thanks for letting me stay up this late". Of course I squealed with delight, covered him in kisses, told him how proud I was of him for handling my response and I gave him a couple cookies and a glass of milk. I love this little guy!!

It just gets better...

"Mom. Maybe I can play music in high school"

"and wear my glow stick glasses. I bet I'd look pretty cool".
quote taken from Conner this afternoon just before he had a jam session with Landon.

fits like a glove...

Biruk usually wakes up 1 or 2 nights a week calling for us. And once you go in there he will not lie back down. And for fear of him waking the others and because I love any opportunity to snuggle with Biruk he gets scooped up and brought to our room. And then the most wonderful thing happens, he snuggles himself up on my chest ands stomach and falls back asleep. And I get to lie there, his body fitting perfectly against mine, soaking in all his beauty. I rub his unbelievably soft skin, play with his tight ringlets all over his head and squeeze him tight. All the while, so grateful for his presence. Biruk is definitely my least snuggly boy. He will fuss throughout the day and hold his arms up to be held but when you pick him up he doesn't collapse in my arms and snuggle. But then at bedtime the cuddler in him comes out and I try my best to soak it all up. As I type this letter I can still feel his petite, soft, precious little body of his snuggled up with mine. A feeling and memory, I hope I never, ever forget.
Love ya Birukee

Officially Private

I am happy to announce that I have officially gone private. I am not sure how long I will keep it private but for the moment I will enjoy the freedom of posting pictures and now worrying about the boys' privacy. And what better way to enjoy it then by posting 3 recent pictures of the boys. These are my favorites from this past weekend.

Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom.

I promise it's worth 2min 28sec of your time. I caught this on video tonight while eating dinner. His expression after screaming "mom" every time just cracks me up. And the ending is too precious for words. Love these boys!

Strange stuff...

For those of you who haven't read my previous post I am going private. And I feel I need to explain creepy craigslist guy. Here's the deal. We still have our remodeled house on the 40 acres. We just had it surveyed and we are hoping to sell some of the land. (Currently we are renting it out since we couldn't sell it last year). Anyway, I saw an ad on craiglist where some guy was looking for land. Since we are hoping to sell some of our land I replied saying we had acreage available... blah... blah... blah...

Here are his responses:
email 1
Hey!!!!
Yes call me xxx-xxx-xxx ... i dont usually go to bed till 12:30 or 1:00
I would like details! thanks! (harmless right?)
email 2 (8 minutes after the first one)
Well if you dont check your email till tomorrow please call me ASAP!!! 18.7 acres would be perfect for what we want! Again my number is xxx-xxx-xxxx ... please call me once u get this (starting to seem a little strange - why the urgency)
email 3 (17 hours later)
LOL still waiting for you to call!! xxx-xxx-xxxx
email 4 (22 hours after the first email)
If you can Chandra please give us a call wether or not the land is still available..
Call or email us ASAP my numbers are xxx-xxx-xxxx CELL or my house is xxx-xxx-xxxx
or email xxxxxxxx@hotmail.com ..... anyway we are still waiting to hear from you... let us know one way or another ... i dont usually go to bed till around 2:00 in the morning so i'll be waiting for your call
thanks!

Somewhere after email 2 or 3 I realized his name sounded familiar. So I searched my inbox and found an email from December from him. It's when we had our home listed on craigslist and this guy had emailed trying to "sell" his aunt and her real estate company. Told me I should at least call and give her a try instead of selling it by ourselves. And that he had remembered our previous real estate agent and that we had a cute house and property. WHAT THE ????? Strange huh. So immediately this alerted me into thinking maybe this guy was just looking for another client for himself or his aunt. However, what a strange way of doing so. After the 4th email I decided to send him a reply:

Hi xxxxxx,
What would you like to know about the property? It's 18.7 acres and we are asking $xxxxx(firm). Do you have any questions in particular about the property?
Thanks,
Chandra (this was sent last night)
Tonight I was greeted with the following emails from him.
Email 5 (5 min after I sent the previous response)
Can i call you??? I'm seriously interested
Email 6 (10 min later)
whats your number so i can call you? We are looking to buy really quick
thanks
xxxxx (finally signed his name) (wouldn't he have SOME questions for me at this point?)
Email 7 (40 min later)
Chandra,
Do you have a cell phone or house phone number i can CALL you at??
We are really interested in looking at the property
Thanks (why does he want my phone # so bad?)
Email 8 (capital letters is considered screaming right?)
CHANDRA,
I've EMAILED YOU LIKE 7 TIMES.... IF YOU ARE SERIOUS ABOUT SELLING THIS LAND PLEASE GIVE ME A NUMBER SO I CAN CALL YOU PLEASE.... IF YOU AREN"T SERIOUS ABOUT IT THEN LET ME KNOW SO I CAN MOVE ON... I"M TIRED OF WAITING AND I"M GETTING UPSET.. I"VE GIVEN YOU MY NUMBER LIKE 5 TIMES SO THAT YOU CAN CALL ME AND I STILL HAVEN"T HEARD FROM YOU.
PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE REALLY SELLING THE LAND
(creepy, creepy, creepy).
Email 9 (yes, a ninth email. crazy huh)
Ya i cant find your property in the country records, i had a realtor try to find this property. IF YOUR A SCAM then why r u wasting my time?????? If your real give me your NUMBER??? I've asked like 10 times
(that was the last one at this time)


So I am getting bombarded with these emails and I don't know why but they send chills down my spine. I know this guy has no connection with my blog and there should be no way for him to connect the 2 but it's a reminder of all the scary people out there. I don't want to worry about that stuff anymore.

In regards to the emails, what do you guys think? Seriously, what the hell does this guy want. If he's interested in the property you would think he'd actually have some reasonable questions (i.e. - where is it located?). I have not replied to his latest attacks and I don't intend to. And I will definitely not call him for fear of him having my number (or name).

That being said, this blog will officially be in lock down next week. I have sent out invites to anyone that has contacted me so far. You need to accept the invite and if you don't have a google account - you will need to create one.

Off to lock my front door now :)

It's time to go PRIVATE!

Why? Because I have come to the conclusion that sooner or later I am bound to attract some sort of perpetrator and I'd rather not take that chance (hello if you have already found me). And my family and precious children are too important to me. Why now? Because after replying to an ad on c r a i g s l i s t I have been bombarded with emails from this guy (8 emails in 24 hours) pleading with me to call him (he has left 2 phone #'s). The whole thing just bothered me. I am well aware of all the typical scams but this one was rather strange.

So, if you'd like "permission" to view my blog please send me an email @
pu_2003 at yahoo dot com . I assume I know most of my readers but if you have never commented please explain yourself or allow me to view your blog.

Thank you!
Chatter :)

Updates...

-Last Tuesday I got the call that my gpa died. (it was expected at 92 years old and my dad had just visited and warned me that it was possibly approaching)
-Wednesday drove home with just Landon while hubby took off work to stay home with older boys. Picked up sister from airport and arrived at my folks at 10pm
-stayed up visiting with siblings. Spent a couple hours playing with iphoto. Many laughs as a result.
-Thursday 2 more sisters arrived and visited with them. Stopped by in-laws and left Landon. Went and watched movie with all of my sibs and parents. return to van to find a dead battery. Gave dad my jumper cables (compliments of my bank). My dad asked "where did you get these? Mcdonalds?" Cheap jumper cables would not jump battery. Found second set in back of van. Jumped van but vehicle still acting crazy. Went to auto store and had them check alternator. Bad alternator, bought new one. Dad came back into town and followed me home. My dad changed my alternator in 1hr15min (night before his dad's funeral). Big thanks to my dad. Test drove van, but it was still acting crazy. Postpone until next day. Late dinner with family.
-Pleaded with my siblings to go to bed so I could sleep. I don't like to miss anything so I stay up as late as everyone else does. Finally went to bed around 2 a.m. and missed out on more girl talk.
-5a.m. Friday woke for funeral. Showered and got ready. Woke Landon at 6 for bath and left for funeral at 6:30.
-Drove to Ohio. Reunited with family I haven't seen in a few years. Said g'bye to Gpa at funeral home. Set off my sisters car alarm in parking lot while trying to get Landon to sleep.
-Funeral mass and burial. Lunch. Back to cousins. Wrote thank you cards and visited with family. Said goodbye.
-Drove back to Indiana and laughed all the way (tired and slap happy).
-Dad went and picked me up new battery and van fixed. thank you!
-Bed by 11:30.
-Saturday chilled with family, visited in laws and stayed up waaaay too late.
-Sunday, my sweet mother in law offered to ride back with me and stay the week and then fly home on Friday. Yeah! Speedometer temporarily quit working. Thankfully 1 hour into drive home it started working again. Yeah!
-Came home to incredibly clean house (including hardwood floors and bathroom). thank you honey!
-Monday, got groceries with Biruk while Jeanne babysat and Nathan and I took Conner to a movie while Jeanne babysat again. Fun times!
-informed by hubby after movie that renters (out at farmhouse) want to break the lease and move out.
-sat on floor for an hour feeling sorry for self.
-drank 2 beers and decided it could be worse. much worse. slap myself for being a baby. life goes on. Figure out stupid farm house later.
-11:12 pm conclude this hasty update and get some zzzz's. Say thanks for all the wonderful blessings in my life!

More Mehaber

The family headed north to Minnesota this past weekend for a wonderful Mehaber celebration. For my readers who are non "Ethiopian adoption families" Mehaber is amharic for a social gathering. It's was nearly 600 miles to Minneapolis but well worth it. Even if the 400 miles back to KC took us 10 hours. It was definitely worth it. The kids did fabulous on the drive up. And they slept well every night in the hotel (I now have a taste of 2BR hotel suites and I'm hooked). It was a suprisingly relaxing trip. We were able to meet up with 3 families from our travel group. It was so nice to meet all of their children and see how much all the kids had grown since last March. We hung out with 2 families prior to the Mehabar and then afterwards everyone went to the hotel and then a park to hang out. It was such a nice visit!

Another added bonus was meeting some of the families I've met through blogs, adoption groups and our adoption agency. I was finally able to meet Tesi. We had checked in on her son Tariku when we went to Ethiopia to pick up Biruk. I still remember the first time I met him and saw his beautiful, beautiful face. He let Nathan and I hold him and he LOVED Nathan's sunglasses. He wore them the whole time and showed them to all of his friends.

We arrived at the Mehaber at 10:00 and checked in with the boys, said hello to some families and by 10:45 we headed to the auditorium for the opening ceremony. By this time the 2 babes were getting extremely tired, hungry and irritable. We handed Landon off to our friend Steve b/c I knew it would calm him down if a stranger was holding him. Sure enough he chilled on Steve's lap and danced to the Amharic music. It was quite adorable. Biruk we bribed with food and Conner was his usual self (pretty easy). Finally after 5-10 minutes of a prensentation we had to sneak out and get the kids somewhere to sleep. Nathan and I quickly fed the 2 little ones in the van and then he took them back to the hotel for naps. Conner and I headed back to the party hand and hand laughing about Nater. For the next 2 hours I enjoyed being responsible for ONE person. I wasn't constantly searching for 3 boys, worried about who was cranky or changing diapers. I was able to eat Ethiopian food, chat with friends and randomly help Conner with his food. Next, I peacefully watched Conner play in the bounce house, slide down the slide and video'd as he tried learning an Ethiopian dance all while visiting with dear friends.

Before I knew it over 2 hours had passed and while turning the corner in the basement I was greeted with 3 beautiful faces. Their stood Nathan with one baby on his back and another in his arms smiling at us. And I then realized how much I had missed them. And they had missed me. And how much I loved my Nater. We headed upstairs, grabbed some AHOPE tshirts and headed back to the hotel for an afternoon swim and visited with our travel group.

It was such a fun trip and I hope we are able to make it again next year. Minnesota is beautiful. But the real beauty was all the wonderful children from Ethiopia smiling, dancing and enjoying the day. Some held tightly to their parents while others couldn't stand still. Some more cautious, others fearless. But all of them stared back at you with their big, bright, beautiful eyes. I couldn't stop smiling. It was so wonderful to be surrounded by so many beautiful, amazing, magical children. If only every weekend we had a Mehaber to attend.

Cast Away...

Nathan decided he could no longer handle his cast anymore. So his dad offered his assistance and the two of them got to work. They first attempted to cut at it with some tin snips. The cast was putting up quite the fight.

Next they decided on something stronger and opted for a box cutter (most likely one with a dull blade) and got to work. At this point I was certain they were merely snagging it and he was going to be stuck with it until his doctors appointment.


So I grabbed a magazine and sat down to eat my lunch at the table. Next thing I know they were tearing at the outside of the cast and I was greeted with this
view.



And poor Tom had this view. And as he ripped it off he was smacked in the face with 2.5 weeks of dirt and odors tucked under the cast. And Tom was much more thoughtful and polite then I would have been!

Come out, come out, where ever you are!

Last night I temporarily changed my blogger permissions to "invited readers" only (still working out the kinks) while wondering what exactly I was going to do with my blog. For various reasons I would like to have the blog private (protection of photograhs of our family, more freedom with what I'm writing and most importantly - privacy). Anyway, my husband got an email this morning from a co-worker who said how much she has enjoyed reading the blog and seeing pictures of the boys. I was flattered. I have just assumed that I have maybe 20 people who follow the blog. And I have an even smaller amount of people who actually comment (thank you).

So I will currently leave the blog open and I would greatly appreciate if my readers would come forward and say hello. I look forward to meeting you!

Chatter

riding on a rollercoaster...

How do so many parents resist the temptation to get on their blog every single day to complain? 80% of the time, I enjoy staying at home with the kids. I love waking up with them and watching them eat breakfast together. I love hearing the 3 of them laughing. I love listening and watching them communicate. I am so grateful for being able to see their first step and the many that followed. So, so many things I have been blessed with in my life.

But on the flip side of that is the stuff that I can't stand. Dirty diapers. Biruk, thank heavens began potty training a month ago so I'm preventing half of his dirty diapers. And cloth diapering and poop do not jive well. Which is probably why I switch back and forth between disposable and cloth. Next on the "strongly dislike" list is baby food. They never want to eat it and in turn they spit it all over themselves or on you. Teething. Landon is on his 10th day of being a complete crab because he has 2 teeth coming through. And they are taking their sweet ass time. Therefore most of the day Landon is ticked off about every single thing I do. He's mad if I sit down, or if I stand up. Or if I try to feed him or nurse him. Seriously ticked off. Again, it's not the whole entire day, but a lot of it. And for every second that is miserable, it can erase 9 seconds of joy. And next thing you know - you are having a bad day.

I really try hard to restrain myself from venting too much on my blog. For various reasons of course. The most obvious one being that for those of you who don't know me, I'm sure I sound like a heartless *&$^%. Secondly, I don't like to complain. I know how fortunate we are to have 3 healthy children and I worry that I may offend certain people. I know I shouldn't care, but I do. Third, I'm terrible at putting my emotions into words. I'm not a writer (hence all the photos) and when I do try to explain myself it usually comes out as bunch of mumbo jumbo. For example, today's post might as well say "wah wah, wah wah. i hate baby food and being covered in shit. wah wah. wah wah".

I know I'm not alone but at the same time it's seems no one really talks about it out loud (for fear of judgment possibly).

But I will not leave you without a happy ending. The in-laws will be here in approximately 4 hours for a visit!! And that my friends, will get me through the rest of my day :)

p.s. as I wrap up this blog post I am listening to Conner (back in the bedroom with Landon) say to him "This is in the barn, man" in a weird voice and Landon is laughing. Meanwhile Biruk is sleeping and I all of the sudden find myself relaxed and calm thinking "what was I mad about again?" Ahhh... the highs and lows of motherhood. Sometimes I think I need help...

Blueberry Babes

Sunglasses needed

Please excuse the reflection coming from my greay hair. Apparently I should have showered the night before instead of cleaning the house. At least the boys can look back at this and say "Well at least mom read books to us even though she should have been taking a shower". Priorities people. Thank you to my hubby for capturing such a beautiful moment!

Ramblings...

It's 11:00 p.m. and I have one hour to get a blog post if I want to achieve my goal of posting every day this month. Something I wasn't even going to bother sharing with my readers since chances are, I will fail very soon. If it weren't for Cathy's comment in my inbox, I would have forgotten tonight. So here I sit, rambling away while munching on some gummi bears (truth be told I'm eating them rather quickly while I should be taking the time to chew them and savor the flavor).

Life has been good lately. Really good. Unfortunatly I'm still left with this brain of mine that runs 100 mph with ideas. So many ideas. Currently I am painting the boys' bedrooms and the hallway. Fresh coat from top to bottom. It's amazing what a difference it makes. Oh how I love painting. I just wish I had more time to do it. I will post pictures when I have officially finished their rooms. I've never really decorated a bedroom before. I guess because Nathan and I move before we ever get that far.

I'm also finishing up the rest of the comfypacks. I have 40 something left and 20 of them need blankets. I went to the store to look tonight and apparently fleece blankets aren't a real hot item in June (duhh...). Hopefully with some online shopping I can find them. A big thank you all of you who participated in making the fleece blankets. It was so fun packing up the bags and squeezing the big, fluffly, cozy, fleece blankets inside of them. I hope these children really enjoy the blankets. I think they were the best part! I wish I had the time to make 20 more blankets for the remaining bags. I'll just have to find some super cool ones instead. I will also post pictures and updates on that soon! I am very excited to have cleared out a couple closets and our basement storage room from all the bags and goodies for the comfypacks.

I should probably be sleeping right now so I will wrap this up. Nathan has been in his case for over a week now. Only 2 more to go and he'll have to start changing dirty diapers again (I'm sure he's thrilled). I don't think he'd mind having a cast if Conner didn't tell him it smelled 5 times a day. "Dad, your cast STINKS".

Landon is up crying, he's teething and up for a feeding so I'd better go. More to come tomorrow. G'night.