Bathtub Conversation

I was picking up the house listening to Little Man talking to hubby while he gives him a bath. This conversation was initiated by Conner.

Conner: We gonna go pick up baby Biruk dad

Dad: Well mom & I are going to go

Conner: Me too dad.

Dad: I wish buddy.

Conner: I wish too dad.

Ahhh.... makes my heart melt. He keeps talking about picking up Biruk in Ethiopia and Africa. We keep reminding him that he gets to stay with G'ma & G'pa but he's not convinced yet.

Here's a few pictures of Conner playing out in the mud today. The deck wasn't good enough, he needed to get nice and dirty.






























































































And here our some photo's of him making coffee for dad and running through the kitchen in his little roo's.

We leave in 15 days!!!

That's right, we got the call at 1:15 that we will be leaving on the 19th for Ethiopia. We will be leaving two weeks from tomorrow. It doesn't seem possible but it is really going to happen. And I'm sure these next couple weeks will go by quickly. Just wanted to let you all know the wonderful news!! Here we come Biruk! Your big brother can't wait to meet you. Today we talked about how he's going to help feed you, change your diaper and he said "Biruk can have my cars, and Biruk can have my tricycle". He then informed that he will be singing you songs. We can't wait to meet you and have you home!!

So much to be thankful for...

• 70 degrees today and sunny
• watched little man play for an hour and took in some sun
  
• good food
• a new week tomorrow which hopefully equals a TRAVEL DATE
• my laptop and speedy internet
• a cozy bed
• family
• a visit from my cousin Em
• my handy and handsome hubby. Little Man. and sweet Biruk

Life is good

We can't wait to get him home!!

I received updated measurements of Biruk today with another tiny picture. It's actually from Feb 1st so maybe they thought they already sent it. Regardless, I am THRILLED. Here are his pictures (most recent first). You can see how much his hair has grown. He's the cutest little babe ever and we found out (thanks to my dear friend Christina) that he sleeps a lot, sucks his thumb and has a head full of hair. She was just in Ethiopia picking up her beautiful son and checked on him for us. We are so in love and can't wait to meet him! We are one week into the wait for his birth certificate so maybe we'll get it next week with a travel date. We are almost there....

It happened, it really happened!!!!!

Someone must have known I would be singing the blues (see previous post) today because it actually happened! I just received an email from our social worker at our agency that our case made it through court today in Ethiopia (it was actually yesterday in Ethiopia at this point). But regardless, this handsome darling Biruk Bekele is officially our little guy!! We are thrilled beyond words. It was such a great feeling reading the email and I was swept over with a wave of emotions. I love this guy more and more every day and I can't wait to hold him in my arms!!

What's next? We have to wait on a new birth certificate which should arrive in the next 3 weeks and then after receiving that we will be given a travel date (2-3 weeks from there). So currently we have an estimated travel date 6 weeks from now!! Woohooooooooooooooooo.....

Thinking of Biruk....

I'm having a case of the "mondays" today and badly want our little boy home. I want to touch his skin, run my hands through his head full of hair, kiss him all over and give him lots of love. This past week has been dragging and his court date isn't until Friday. If today is any indication of how slow the week will be I'm in for a LONG one... We most likely won't hear anything until next Monday. Just sending warm thoughts to sweet baby Biruk in Ethiopia (or Ethilopia as Little Man calls it).

We LOVE you Biruk!

Finally some pics of Little Man!

I love this guy...

Disappointing news...

I was hoping to post a picture of Biruk today since his court date was scheduled today. But this afternoon I received the horrible news that we did not make it through court (no idea why - it could be that they didn't see any cases today, mistake in paperwork or maybe I wasn't really scheduled). Who knows....

The rescheduled date is Feb 21st. Yes, it's only 2 1/2 weeks away but in the adoption world (one year into the process) that feels like an eternity right now. We have plenty to keep us busy though and hopefully the time really will pass by quickly.

If all goes well on Feb 21st then Biruk will officially be matched with us and they will order his new birth certificate. That is taking around 3 weeks right now. Once they receive that we will be given a travel date (3-4 weeks after that). So we will be traveling in approximately 8-10 weeks at this point. Maybe longer...

I just wanted to update some of you who are following along. There are a lot of unknowns and surprises with adopting. You just have to handle it all the best you can. It could always be worse and I'm trying to remind myself of that.

Thanks for listening,
Chatter

What started as a rough morning....

has become a glorious evening. My day started off on a rough patch, continued down hill through lunch and finally turned around by afternoon. We left the house and headed out for some serious comfort food (chips & queso, oreo ice cream, laffy taffy, twix, dots, pull-n-peel twizzlers, chips, etc). Then rented several movies and now we are back home watching big snow flakes fall from the sky. The day has completely turned around (thanks to food and snow of course). I hope to watch the snow fall all night (with the help of the yard light) and to turn my brain off for the next few hours and watch some movies. And just to clarify; I LOVE snow. Jamie, you can send all your snow my way because nothing would make me happier (with the exception of getting Biruk home). This is our first snow of winter and will probably be our last. I'd better take as much in as I can. Time to get a stomach ache and rot my teeth. Jealous?

C'mon Passports!

I finally did it! I mailed our passports and they should be arriving there by tomorrow. Woohoo! We had them expedited so if we filled out the application correctly and our photo's meet the requirements we should have our new passports in approximately 3 weeks. Talk about procrastination. Yikes! We are cutting this a little close but hopefully there won't be any problems.

It's 10:35 pm, I'm finally showered and exhausted. The office (middle bedroom) is officially painted and the baseboard is up. Hubby rocked it on the trim work while I painted my heart out. The only room left is the laundry room. And we have some finishing touches but nothing too intense. It feels great to have that behind us.

Good night to all!

It's Monday....already?

Where did the weekend go? We were soooooo busy this weekend it was insane. Little Man fought his illness very quickly but has a few leftover symptoms (cough/congestion). I won't go into details as to why but we needed to have the rest of the house trimmed this weekend. So we were super busy. Saturday hubby bought the baseboard and painted all of it while I primed all the new closets and the ceilings (where the texture splattered). Then I painted 2 bedroom ceilings while hubby completed all the trim in Little Man's room. WOW! It's amazing how different it looks with the baseboard and the closet trimmed out. We made some quick dinner and watched 3:10 to Yuma. Great Movie!

Sunday started at 8:00 w/waffles, news and back to work. I painted one bedroom (ran out of paint so I'm going to finish that today) and also painted the bathroom. Hubby finished trim in both rooms. Again, it's amazing!! I love our house now. We also rearranged the king bed in our room so it now feels HUGE (keep in mind it's probably a 10x12 room). I also did laundry, cleaned my kitchen, vacuumed and who knows what else. I finally crawled into bed about 9pm and my whole body just ached. I'm not used to this physical labor. Wheww...

But, it felt so good to get so much accomplished in such a short time. And all I kept repeating in my head was "this is work you won't have to do once you get Biruk home". So that's my motivation. The more I get done now, the less I have to do later. It brings me so much peace. Today we are going to buy more paint and then we need to finish our bedroom, all of hubby's room and touch up the laundry room. And then we will officially be done painting. The deadline is Wednesday so the next two days will be busy but productive. This trim work was hanging over us since it was the last big project to tackle on the house. Once I get all of the rooms completed (hopefully in the next 48 hours) I will post before and after pics. Yikes. Brace yourselves because this will knock your socks off.

Off to the store for paint and passport photo's on the way. Yes we are procrastinators. We are expediting the passports so they'll be back before we travel.

Have a great Monday! I normally hate Mondays but we have so much going on I didn't even think about the fact that it was Monday today. We are getting ready for you Biruk!!!

My baby is sick...

And it stinks. I just started feeling good last night and woke up this morning to a sick Little Man. He has a fever and hasn't eaten all day. He woke up for not even half an hour to read books and then wanted to lay in our bed. He took a 2 hour nap and now he's watching Veggie Tales. He is taking some sips of Apple Juice for me but I just tried applesauce and he's not interested. Poor kiddo. And he just requested to pee on potty. What a trooper! I put a diaper on him thinking he'd take the lazy way out today but he's not interested. Hopefully I'll have better news to report tomorrow.

Our weekend plans include painting and finishing all the baseboard in the house. Boring stuff! I am so excited to put this chapter of our life behind us. It will be one year in Feb that we started remodeling this house and we are proud to say, "we are almost done"!!

Gotta run. Happy Friday to all; enjoy your weekend!

8 things about this & that....

I was tagged by my buddy Julie last night who is a hoot so if you haven't checked out her blog yet, Journey to Family, than you MUST. Anyway, it's 8 things about all this good stuff.

Crazy 8's

8 Things I'm Passionate About...
1. My boys (hubby, Little Man & Biruk)
2. FOOD (who isn't?)
3. Candy (eating purple skittles as I type this)
4. My siblings (see photo above)
5. Traveling
6. Taking pictures
7. Laughter
8. Living a fulfilling life


8 Things I Want To Do Before I Die...
1. Travel abroad (anywhere and as much as I can)
2. Snowboard at Whistler with Hubby
3. Do volunteer work abroad, possibly at an orphanage (when my children are older)
4. Raise well-rounded, polite and caring children
5. I'd love to be on The Amazing Race with hubby
6. Endure wearing braces (I have a missing tooth that needs pulled down and a gap between my front teeth)
7. Participate in a triathlon (one of the mini ones, not the Ironman)
8. Take family vacations often and hit all 50 states (preferably pulling a camper - ya know you love it Nater)


8 Things I Say Often...
1. Love You
2. Thank You
3. Do you want to go to bed?
4. You make me crazy!
5. Hello (answering my phone)
6. Don't Touch That!! (usually when I'm anywhere in public w/Little Man and usually I'm yelling it b/c he's going for the toilet seat or something just as gross)
7. Paper, Rock, Scissors (the way hubby and I determine who has to get up and do something)
8. I'm hungry


TV Shows I Recently Watched (keep in mind we do not have cable)
1. The Amazing Race
2. Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader
3. American Idol
4. Wheel of Fortune
5. Local News
6. Brothers & Sisters
7. Jay Leno
8. Sesame Street


8 Songs I Could Listen to Over & Over...(and over)
1. Little Miss Magic, Jimmy Buffett
2. Unknown Legend, Neil Young
3. Rosie, Jackson Browne
4. Leather & Lace, Stevie Nicks & Don Henley
5. Hero, Phil Collins
6. 7 Towers, Oxygen
7. That's Why I'm Here, Kenny Chesney
8. Treat Her Like A Lady, Jimmy Buffett


8 Things That Attract Me To My Best Friends...
1. Humor (most importantly)
2. Honesty
3. History (our history together, not their history)
4. Comfort
5. Sincerity
6. Love
7. Laughter
8. Trust


8 Things I've Learned Or Been Reminded Of This Past Year...
1. All the many talents and skills my hubby possesses (I didn't know I married such a handy man :)
2. That I can be on the verge of insanity one day and the luckiest woman alive the next (remodeling a home will do that to you)
3. That living at a Super 8 with a baby is a TERRIBLE idea
4. Take things one day at a time (or in some cases, hour by hour)
5. Sometimes in the worst situations all you can do is laugh (that crazy, we've gone to a bad place, laugh)
6. That I could NOT have gotten through this past year without my hubby!!
7. I need a social life, friends and a babysitter if I'm going to live hundreds of miles from my family
8. For 2008 (and 09,10,11,12, etc) to not pack so much excitement (or stress) into one year (or two)


8 People I'm Tagging...
1. Manda
2. James
3. Tesi
4. Lisa in KS
5. Heather
6. Stie
7. Tarah
8. Lisa in Canada

Much better....

Today was awesome!! My massive head pressure and back ache disappeared leaving me with only a nasty sore throat. Which was such a minor pain compared to the day before. So I'm back on my feet and feeling the love. In fact, would you believe that I did several loads of laundry, washed all of my flooring (we don't have carpet) and have fresh bedding to crawl into tonight. Yeah for me! Also, the drywall professionals were here today to complete the texturing. I am happy to announce that we are "officially" finished with all drywall projects. Hubby had framed and drywalled two closets that needed textured. We now have baseboard and trim work a head of us (by us I mean, Nathan).

So what am I doing after a hard days work? Chilling out. I have french fries in the oven (I already ate my veggies and dip), little man is asleep, the house is clean and I'm about to watch a movie. I'm not sure when the last time I had such a relaxing evening planned.

Thanks for all the "feel better" thoughts. I'm back folks!

Mr.Mom

Hubby had to play Mr Mom today b/c I was a bit under the weather. Chills, sore throat, cough, aches, pains, etc.. Being sick sucks. I love our weekends and we had planned on heading to Kansas City for a day of fun but it didn't happen. Hubby made me breakfast and lunch, took Conner with him to the store to get me some cough drops and OJ and they tried all day to be quiet. So finally at 4pm I ventured out to the sofa to sit with Little Man so hubby could hit the road for KC. He hesitated and promised he wouldn't mind staying w/me. Of course I wanted to beg him to stay but I put on my happy face and sent him out the door. Little man is being a little pal becaue he knows momma is sick. I'll put him to bed in an hour and hopefully I'll be able to sleep much better tonight.

Thanks babe for taking such good care of me today!!

Don't talk on the phone momma...

Little man and I were lying in bed reading books when my phone rang. He says to me "don't talk on the phone momma". Mind you, I hadn't talked on the phone all day except to one sister for a mere 5 minutes. It was my mom so I answered it. So he punished me by climbing on me and bashing his 30 lb head against mine laughing uncontrollably. Finally I left the room. Then he followed me out to the living room only to pick up his sippy cup and dump his juice out on top of me. I quickly ended my phone call, put him in his crib and shut the door. This was followed by five minutes of "I'm sorry mom. I'm sorrrrrrrrrrrrry". So I went in there and he just grins at me; an extremely big 'I'm too cute to be mad at' grin and says "I'm sorry momma". What's a girl to do? He is now up playing with toys and wants nothing to do with me. It reminds me of his father...

Blanket party 2/1/2008....

Many of you in the adoption world are familiar with Owlhaven (mom of 10 - including 6 adopted children, 4 from Ethiopia). Anyway, she is a wonderful woman and has a great post up over at her blog. Please check it out - and this is for everyone - not just adoptive families. Thank you.

http://owlhaven.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/for-want-of-a-blanket

You may have to copy/paste the link.

What's in a name??

My sister and brother-in-law are looking for a name for the puppy. She asked me to post a picture of their (female) puppy and they are hoping to get some suggestions from all of my loyal readers (all three of you). What do you think this adorable, little puppy should be called?

Edited to add: My sister Keely decided on the name Kaya for their sweet little puppy. Thanks for all the wonderful suggestions. Maybe if we ever get a dog I can look back on these.

Flashbacks

I was looking over pictures of Little Man from this past October and realized how much bigger he has gotten since then. Time sure does go quickly. So here's a quick recap of the past couple years. Just for fun. It's funny to think that my days of taking pictures of just one little one will quickly be coming to an end. I've really been trying to savor all the time I have with Little Man lately. He's such an easy kid (for the most part) and he's becoming quite the companion during the day; making me laugh, having some conversation with me and so very independent. I think he is going to adjust well when our next little guy comes along. Well after starting to post pictures I realized I had several just from the first 2 months of life. I'll continue to add a few more over the next few days.

Enjoy.

Happy Birthday Bryson!!

To my godson, on his 8th birthday -

You light up a room with just your eyes
and a big heart that could make you cry

You are always concerned with others
and take the time to show you care.

You love to help your mom cook and clean
but most of all you love to sing.

I am blessed to be your godmother
and wish so much we lived closer.

Wish I could have shared Taco Bell
Did you get the hard or soft shell?

Thinking of you on this day
sending happy birthday vibes your way.

Happy, happy birthday Bryson!!
You are such a wonderful little man!

Our sweet baby Biruk

Yes, that's right, I'm finally getting around to announcing the referral of our new baby, Biruk. It was love at first sight when I saw his picture. He has the most beautiful brown eyes, gorgeous skin and tiny little fingers and toes. Biruk was born 9/26/07 putting him just over 3 months old. We were not expecting him to be so young so this was a lovely surprise. We will get a court date in the next 8-10 weeks and he will "officially" be ours and I will post a picture then. Travel time is 12-16 weeks after referral which puts us traveling late March, early April. It is going to be hard but we just keep looking at his picture and are doing everything we can to prepare (which includes sooooooooo many things). I miss him so much and can't wait to have him in my arms. And he has a big brother who can't wait to meet him. What a joy it is to finally to know his name and what he looks like. Biruk means "he is blessed". We are very, very blessed and look forward to an exciting 2008! Happy New Year!

Cozy and warm

What a great day! The heating repairman was here today and after 30 minutes we had heat! Nice, toasty, warm heat!! We are loving it! And around five we discovered we had electricity. Woohoo!! So, we are back in business. Fixed furnace and no more running our generator. Life is good. Now, if we could hear from our adoption agency that would make everything perfect!! Little Man continues to ask about his "baby brother" and when he gets upset with me he dramatically cries "I want my baby brother". Today I asked him who he was going to call on his phone and he said "my baby brother". So, I think he's ready. We are sooooo close. And yesterday actually marked the 7th month waiting (we were told 5-7 months) so it's only fair we get a call soooo very soon.

In other news, I researched the local YMCA membership and it's fairly inexpensive for a family (only $10 more than a single adult membership). There is an indoor pool so we can start swimming laps and they have a couple racquetball courts. Maybe we can even get Little Man in swim lessons. Anyway, that will hopefully be part of our plans for the new year! Along with eating dinner by 6:00 every night instead of waiting until it is getting late and we can't think of anything to eat.... Plus that will help me get on a schedule for when we have two kids and it will help to get them to bed earlier. Little Man is usually down by 7 (and up between 7-8) and I'd like to keep him on that schedule.

This weekend we have hubby's work Christmas party. I still need to get all the laundry done and get things packed for our trip home. I can't wait to see my family again. All of the siblings will be home and I'm looking forward to seeing them. I still need an idea for the gift game ($40). So email me if you have any ideas!! Please....

Good night!

Where to begin?

Well Saturday I thought I would have plenty to blog about while running the hopper while we blew insulation into the attic.
The temp was in the 30's, it was raining and I had to slice open these awkward, rectangular shaped, compact, squares of insulation, and bust them up and run them through the hopper. Hubby was up in the attic doing his thing. We took a break to eat, got the Little Man to bed, and got back to work. About an hour later (8:00pm), we were down to our last bag and I was out cleaning up and heard a beeping. I figured it was the machine and went about my business. Finally I realized it was a smoke alarm in the house. I ran inside, hubby is running down at me and then I realized it was coming from Little Man's room. I'm pretty sure my heart stopped at that moment. I ran into his room (completely forgetting any education I've received - check for smoke, feel the door to see if it's warm, etc). I got in there, had the alarm blasting it's warning at me and immediately smelled smoke. I grabbed Little Man and his blankets (myself all covered in insulation), screamed at hubby and ran outside. Hubby is running around and realized that insulation was falling down the cold air return (from the attic) and must be going through the furnace. Meanwhile the house is filling with smoke and he's running in and out. I got Little Man laid in the back seat of the car, grabbed hubby's phone and called 911. Hubby is doing what he can (turning off furnace, fan, etc). We let the operator know that there wasn't any flames or anything and then we hear the sirens. By this point we were just embarrassed. I stood at the end of our driveway to flag them down and see not one, but two firetrucks and an ambulance. Oh My!! The ambulance left pretty quick and a couple of the fireman helped clean out the furnace and try to fire it back up. It's vibrating/shaking terribly and has been out of commission ever since. They leave shortly after but leave us a nice present before they go. They were trying to help take the smoke out with this HUGE fan only to sit it on the porch and blast all the insulation that fell out of the hopper, all over the living room (on the furniture, the fireplace, Christmas tree, everywhere). By this point we thought we'd have to stay at a hotel due to no heat and the smell but after spending an hour cleaning up all the insulation we decided we were too tired to go anywhere. We put a small electric heater in Little Man's room and called it a night.

By this point I figured I had plenty to blog about right??? There's more....
So the house got very cold through the night and we wake in the morning only to realize that the ice storm they were calling for REALLY did come and we were out of electricity. This was somewhere between 7-8a.m. Sunday morning. All the trees were coated with ice and we had a few limbs down.





















So we spent the morning brainstorming what to do and thought we had settled on a hotel when we found out Lowe's was getting some generators from their other stores and people had started to wait in line. Hubby started waiting while I brainstormed what to do. After figuring the cost of a hotel for potentially 3-4 nights we decided to fork over the cash and go the generator route. An hour later and we had our generator, got some gas and headed home. 30 minutes later hubby had it running. We had electricity!! Woohoo....
We were able to get our fridge running and 2 little electric heaters.

Fast forward to this morning; our yard and driveway look like a warzone. There are tree limbs and gigantic branches everywhere. You can just stand outside, listen for the cracking and watch the smaller limbs and huge branches come crashing down. It's definitely not safe to stand outside near any trees. With a little chainsaw work hubby was able to get us an alternate route to the road since our driveway is definitely out of commission. It should be interesting to see how different it looks tomorrow morning. Above I posted pictures of day 1 and below is day 2 to give you an idea of what 24 hours can do. Anyway, all is well now. We got a little bit better heater today and the house is now up to 59 degrees (it had been at 53 for the first couple days). We are warm, well fed (grilled out tonight) and we are obviously spoiled with internet and lights. We were even able to take a hot shower today (gas water heater).

We hope the rest of you are as lucky and doing well!! I'll try to give an update soon. This morning there were 48,000 customers out of electricity with our Electric Company. It may be awhile until it's back up and running. Oklahoma City has over half a million homes without power (setting a record). Enjoy the pictures. These are from today.

We are almost there.....

The siding guy is here today hoping he will get it all finished. It is 40 degrees, raining and cold. With freezing rain expected tonight, tomorrow and maybe early next week. So hubby rented the blower for the attic insulation last night and we will be spending the day insulating the attic. I wish the weather would cooperate but it doesn't look like that is going to happen. So the roof is complete, the new siding matches awesome. We'll be all finished on the exterior of the house after we paint the old wood trim. As for the interior. Hubby framed in both closets so we need to put up drywall and get that finished. Then we have to finish all the baseboard and trim work. Then we will about be finished!! Woohoo. Maybe by January/February it will start looking complete.

Little man has been cracking us up. He speaks so clearly and it's hilarious to hear him talk. Hubby has been working around the house and every time he goes up the attic, little man yells; "you up high daddy. You okay daddy?". This morning he said "you are making me crazy daddy" (not sure where he learned that). LOL. Every morning he tells up he sleeps good and then asks each of us, did you sleep good mommy? Did you sleep good daddy? He loves the lights on the Christmas tree. He's 100% pee potty trained (where's a diaper to bed though) but is totally not digging the whole pooping on potty thing. No matter what we try to bribe him with. I'll be glad when we get over that hurdle.

We have an ice storm headed our way while our family in Colorado is getting dumped on with snow. What I would give to see some snow right now!! Oh well, maybe the freezing rain will look like snow......

We watched Superbad last night. And I thought it was Super Bad. I'm sure there are plenty of people who will argue with me but aside from a few good chuckles I thought it was kind of stupid. Maybe I'd like it better the second time (that's how it went for Napoleon Dynamite). I won't share my favorite part of Superbad b/c then some of you will figure out how sick I really am.

Happy Saturday to ALL!
Chatter

Crazy, crazy....

Well if I'm looking at things correctly we are No.5 on the unofficial list for an infant 0-12 months. 3 people ahead of me are waiting for girls and one is open to gender. There are also about three other families waiting for sibling groups. I honestly can't believe we've come this far. December 11th will be the day we hit the 7 month waiting mark. Will we have to wait that long? We shall see...

Oh happy day!! Have a wonderful weekend (especially you Emily - She is second on the list for an infant and lives 2 hours north of us).

Tis the season to be jolly....

Thanksgiving has come and gone and now I can start listening to Christmas music without hubby giving me a hard time. I love the Christmas season, as do most of you I'm sure. I love the colder weather, I will hope for snow, I love all the Christmas lights, the smell of pine needles (although we haven't bought our tree) and I love have the tree lit at night with the rest of the house dark. It's so peaceful. I love time spent with family and I love holiday food. My family doesn't do gifts but instead save our money for family vacations (currently every 18 months) so for the holiday we do the gift game. Everyone brings one gift of a set dollar amount and we draw numbers. No 1 goes first, the No 2 who can steal No 1's gift or draw from the pile, No. 3 and so on. A gift can only be stolen 3 times and then that person is the keeper. The higher the number you get the better off you are. So if any of you have some good gift ideas for guys in gals ranging from 17-32 years old let me know. The limit is $40 this year. However, please email me b/c my siblings will read the comments. I need some ideas for my hubby and I so start sending them my way. It would be greatly appreciated. Little man is sleeping so I'd better get some more work done. Happy Holidays!!

Chatter

Gobble, Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving to all my blog readers. We are back home for the holiday week visiting family, feeding my face, staying up way too late, getting up way too early and eating way too much. I'm loving every minute of it!

Enjoy the turkey.

Hmm... I'm surprised you didn't know that.

I've never done one of these post and since I'm running out of ideas I thought I'd share a list of stuff you may not know about me (except my siblings).

-I have four brothers
-and six sisters
-Licorice is my favorite candy
-my hubby picked me up on the side of the road once after I wrecked my scooter
-I was fourteen (he was sixteen)
-I wrecked it because I was reaching for candy (I think hot tamales) and hit gravel
-I was a cheerleader in Jr High (who'd a thunk?)
-I backpacked in Australia after I graduated college
-I hung out with the Queensland Rugby Team while over there
-and went scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef
-it took me and two other people to help get my wet suit on
-that was funny
-I've owned a dirt bike (Honda XR250)
-it was stolen :(
-I've owned a street bike (Honda Shadow)
-I snowboard
-I've had a homebirth
-I have a fear of buoy's (those anchored floating things in lakes, ponds, and oceans)
-I have no talents (unless you count talking as a talent)
-I once totaled two cars in the same week (neither accident was my fault)
-I prefer swimming laps to any other exercise
-I love to laugh
-I hate shopping for clothes
-we live on 36 acres
-I have a strong sense of smell (although I think I've been passing it to hubby - he smelt a poopy diaper through a closed bedroom door)
-my favorite pop is Cherry Coke
-I very rarely wear make-up (and definitely don't know how to apply it)
-I wash my hands a lot
-I love McD french fries
-my favorite ice cream is cookies n cream
-I'm missing a tooth (see all photo's) and people feel the need to say "did you know your missing a tooth". Really??
-it's not really missing so much as it refuses to descend into it's position
-I would like to get braces one day
-I drive a Subaru Forester
-I poop regularly


....and I'll save the rest of my little secrets for another time