Bargain Hunter or Hoarder?

You all know from previous posts that I love a good bargain! So, I have been taking FULL advantage of some pretty amazing diaper deals to get ready for our newest addition! I have been carrying around all of these diapers in my trunk for about 3 months and finally decided it was time to take them out (the nesting has begun!). Pea decided to take full advantage and built himself a diaper house. I counted up the diapers and figured we are stocked up for about six months! Isn't that crazy?!?! Seriously, I got these diapers either free or under $5.00 a package. Who can pass that up?!

So, we are finally starting to settle in more at our new house. All of our floors are either newly carpeted or refinished (hardwood) so we have been able to start unpacking a little and arranging our furniture. Before the floors were finished, we were basically living out of one room! It feels so great to be able to spread out and really start to enjoy our house. We still have a lot of work to do, but we can relax a little more now.

Adoption news...we had our final home study visit last Sunday and we are almost ready to go "active." That means we will be ready to take a call at any time. Our agency has been informing us that we could be matched very quickly so we have to be prepared. Consequently, we had to delay our process a little bit due to our move (unthinkable, I know!). We could be matched with a birth mother who is due in 10 weeks (generally no longer that that) or we could be given a 24 hour notice to be at the hospital. This process has been completely different and the idea that it could possibly happen quickly is a little mind boggling! Of course, we all know that the adoption process is unpredictable so anything is possible. Even so, we are excited and nervous about the possibility of welcoming another child into our family in the next few months.

Pea is also starting preschool next week so that will be a very big change for him. But, I think he is going to love it!

This summer has been about big changes for our family...new house, new day care, and preparing for a new baby. Very exciting stuff!

Work hard, play hard

We really did not intend to buy a fixer-upper, but...that is what we fell in love with! And, it is A LOT of work. We will be spending the rest of our lives fixing up this house. Thank goodness I have a handy husband and some REALLY handy and creative family members! We have not really been able to unpack much, yet, but we should be able to settle in more over the next few weeks after all of our flooring is done. We also have our second homestudy visit on August 15th so we really need to get a bit more settled before then! Right now, our house looks like a construction zone.

Painting the living room.

Three layers of beautiful wallpaper in our dining room. (There were four layers in the upstairs hallway!)

Lovely, eh? All of this wallpaper is at least 50 years old.

In spite of all the work, there has still been some time for play! Pea loves his new backyard. Our yard is MUCH smaller than our previous yard so that has been a little adjustment, but we love it. Oh, the bike in the pool is what happens when daddy is in charge. :)

At the kids fest.
The highlight of our week....meeting PABLO!!!! I made the "mistake" of mentioning to pea that Pablo was coming to town and he asked about it several times a day, every day, for two weeks.

Coming up for air

The last few weeks have been caRAZY! Packing, moving, unpacking, ripping out carpet, tearing down wallpaper, and visiting with family! Oh, and throw a homestudy visit in there somewhere. :) We are TIRED and it has only just begun. We moved into our new house last weekend (FINALLY!!!) and we have A LOT of work to do. Jason's parents came in for the weekend to help out so Jason and his dad spent 12 hours ripping out carpet and then we had lots more help from my family the next day on the hottest day of the summer. It was brutal!



So, the next few weeks, months, years...will be spent working on our house. Even so, we LOVE it and we are going to be here a long time. Seriously. I am never moving again.



If you've got nothing to do this weekend, bring your scrapper and paint roller and come on over!

Ugly deer scene wallpaper...GONE!

Jason and his dad ripping up the living room carpet.

Pea running wild in the chaos.

A Rare Moment

A good head shot!! Very rare these days! Most of the time pea sees the camera come out and yells "CHEEEEEEEESE" as he's running by, so most pictures end up in a blur. Or, he turns his head right when I click. So this shot is truly a rarity! But, I admit, I had to work for it. I sat with the camera ready for quite awhile just waiting...on the hunt for a good picture. Patience pays off!

It was love at first sight...

three years ago today when I saw this itty, bitty sweet face for the first time.

I remember that day like it was yesterday! The long awaited call finally came. The call announcing the arrival of our son. At last! I remember trying to write down everything our adoption coordinator was telling me as my hands were shaking and tears were streaming down my face. Then, Jason and I took a deep breath and held hands as we laid eyes upon our son for the first time...in an email. Most people get to meet their child for the first time in a hospital room. They get to watch their child take that first breath and hold their bundle of joy within minutes of entering this world. We didn't have those first moments with pea, but his "birth" into our family was equally eventful and exciting. We instantly knew this was our son. No doubt about it. Of course, little did we know that this was just the beginning of an amazing journey that would change us forever and open our hearts and minds in ways we never could have imagined. It has shaped so much of how we view the world, how we parent, and our priorities in life. I wouldn't change a thing.

And, when I look at this face today, my heart still skips a beat and I sometimes wonder how I got so lucky.

3rd Birthday

Pea had a great 3rd birthday on April 11th. We celebrated with a family party at our house. In fact, it was the last party at our old house! I still can hardly believe he is three already! What happened to my baby? Well, he's still my baby, though a very big one! He had his three year wellness appointment a couple weeks ago and he is 40" tall and weighs 38lbs. This places him in the 97th percentile on US charts. It's amazing to think that he was only in the 10th percentile for the first 6 months of his life. I am afraid of what my grocery bill is going to be when he is 14!

Pea has such a loving, sweet spirit and is so full of fun and adventure. He is so inquisitive about everything and his imagination has exploded! I love watching him explore and come up with new adventures. He keeps us busy catching sharks, climbing volcanoes, fighting fires, fishing, going on train rides, and more. Who knew we could do so much in one evening?!?! What a fun, fun age (so far!).

One of pea's many obsessions is sea life. He initially wanted a Barracuda cake, but...thankfully he changed his mind to a whale. (Remember when he REALLY wanted to be a giant clam for halloween?!?!?!)


Pea and his boy cousins. They have so much fun together running wild.


Checkin' out the birthday loot.


A bike!!! Doesn't he look GIANT on this bike?!?!


The bubble maker was a huge hit!


Playin' some birthday golf.


And...my mom and her broken elbow. She actually broke her elbow a few days before pea's birthday. She was carrying pea and tripped on the sidewalk. They both went down hard. Pea was okay though he went through a period of shock after the chain of events (possible minor concussion) and my mom ended up in surgery the following week. She is on the mend, but it will be a slow process. Can you believe it? (Well, given that pea is already about half her size, it's really no surprise he could take her down!)

Life in a box

We are FINALLY done with move #1!! We are currently renting a duplex until we get possession of our new house, which will hopefully be in 6 or 7 weeks. So, everything you see in the garage is staying in the garage until move #2. We are living out of boxes and living simple right now. Hopefully move #2 will go a little smoother and a little quicker since most of our stuff is already packed. And, hopefully this will be our last move for a very loooooooong time. Pea has been amazing throughout this moving chaos! He has taken it all in stride and the transition has been virtually seamless for him. I think he is handling it much better than we are! Pea is a pretty laid back and easy going boy. I wish I could attribute these qualities to our amazing parenting skills (hehehe), but it is just his personality. He finds fun and adventure in whatever we are doing.

So now we are just going to take it easy until round 2 of the moving frenzy. We are also taking the next 6 or 7 weeks to get our adoption profile completed so we can move forward with the adoption once we are settled into our new house.

Hang in there with us! I may not be updating as often this summer, but I will do my best!

Crazy Times!!

Hello???? Hello??? Hello???

Is anyone still out there???

Please don't abandon us...we're still here!!! The last few weeks have been CRAZY at our house!! As you know, we sold our house and then I was presented with an amazing opportunity that would have meant a new career and relocating across the state. It was an opportunity we had been waiting on for a very long time, but...after much stress and deliberation, I decided to walk away from it. We were so excited about the idea of moving to a new place and I was very excited about this career opportunity, but the timing just wasn't right. After the initial waves of excitement, we started to think about what we would be giving up...family, friends, great jobs, our community, and more. Being faced with the chance to walk away from everything we have right now, made us appreciate and value even more the life we have built. We're just not ready to give it up. It was an extremely difficult and stressful decision, but we made the right choice.

After making this decision, we frantically started the house hunt! That in and of itself was nutty! Our realtor found a house for us that was not even on the market, yet, and it is PERFECT for us!! We made an offer last week and it was accepted. The catch...we will not have possession until the end of June and we need to be out of our house by May 1st. AAAACK!!! At this exact moment, we still don't know where we are moving on May 1st. AAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!! We hope to have that all figured out in the next couple of days. If anything, we can always move in with my parents!

As if we aren't busy enough, we attended our state required two day adoption training this past weekend so we are well on our way! WOOOOHOOOO!!!! Life is crazy hectic right now, but life also feels better than ever. Life feels really, really good.

And...the highlight of our weekend...Pea turned THREE on Sunday!!!!

Happy Birthday, Eli!!!

Where to now?

We sold our house!! Well, we haven't closed, but we are under contract. We are amazed and incredibly lucky that our house sold so quickly. We will be moving out by the end of April and, at this point, we have no idea where we are going. YIKES!!! A lot has been happening over the past month that may mean some unexpected changes for our family, though we are not sure how it is all going to work out at this point. We should have more answers over the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, the packing has commenced. We are excited, a little freaked out, and a lot stressed right now!

Movin' on up...

to a big boy bed. Well, sort of. We decided it was finally time to take down the crib railing. Sniff. Sniff. Pea has been climbing in and out of his crib for quite some time now, but we just weren't ready for that next step! We have been very lucky in that he always stays in bed when it's time to sleep so why mess with a good thing, right? Well, I kept having images of a broken leg or arm so we figured it was probably time. Plus, we are going to need the crib for the new baby so we might as well get him transitioned out of it soon.

He was so excited to see his "new" bed. He kept sneaking in and out of his room on his tiptoes to look at it. It was very cute! Here he is right before he jumped off. Sigh...there still may be a broken leg or arm in our future with the way he jumps on his bed.

Getting ready to snuggle in for the night. And, yes, I am happy to report he has stayed in bed!


Now we need to start thinking about getting a real big boy bed!

FFF - Spring Forward

In our family, the beginning of spring is marked by my birthday! Woohoo! Spring is definitely my FAVORITE season. Having been born on the first day of spring, I like to think of myself as a breath of fresh air! Hehehe! Actually, my parents claim it snowed on the day I was born. Definitely more fitting. :) We celebrated a day early at my parent's house tonight and it was a great party. My mom cooked my favorite meal and we topped it off with homemade tiramisu. Yum!!

Me and my pea (with his first sidewalk scrape of the season. check out his nose!)



Licking the candle ends. The best part!

Pea definitely thought I needed lots of help opening my cards.

Princesses and Firetrucks

Little pea is definitely a rough and tumble boy. He loves all forms of trucks (especially firetrucks!), likes to get dirty, climbs like a monkey, thinks body slamming is funny, and already throws like a little leaguer.

But, my rough and tumble little boy also loooooooves princesses! He frequently asks to watch the Dora princess episodes and begged me to buy him a princess toothbrush last week. "PaLEEEEEESE, mommy! With a cherry on top?!" (whoever taught him that is EVIL!)

So, whenever pea pulls out the blocks, it usually involves building a princess tower. Today's princess tower had a super "cool" garage for the princess's car.


Mr. Cheesy. He is definitely into making a cheese face and immediately saying, "Let me see the picture!"


And, as much as pea enjoys constructing his princess towers, he enjoys destroying them even more. Thank goodness the firetruck was close by to "put out the fire" and clean up after the destruction.

Fun in the Snow

We have had a lot of snow this winter! At least it has been sticking around for awhile. And, we have all been suffering from some serious cabin fever. I am ready for spring, how about you?

So, until spring arrives, we enjoyed a little time playing in the snow last weekend. It was finally warm enough to be outside without getting frostbite or windburn and the snow was perfect for snowballs and snowpeople! Pea LOVES being outside regardless of the weather so he had a blast.



He especially enjoyed body slamming the snow. No joke. He literally threw himself on the ground attacking the snow. He is extremely physical and he has definitely taken it to a new level lately! He especially enjoyed sticking his face in the snow. Is there a WWF for toddlers?


Snow angels.

Grrrrrrr....the Abominable snowman!


On top of the world! (or at least on top of frosty's body!)




It was a fun afternoon, but I am not sad to see the snow melting! Come on spring!

Finally...a decision

Finally, after much searching and reflection, we have decided on a new domestic adoption agency and are moving forward! Initially, we had decided to stick with our first agency, but we kept putting off the application. I kept telling myself it was just because we were busy focusing on other things, but I did not have that pull, that motivation to get it submitted. Now I know that my heart was sending me a message and holding me back for a reason. Our child is meant to come to us in a different way. We had a notion of what our next adoption would look like, but that is starting to change. As I have said before, adoption is truly a journey of the heart. And, this adoption is already proving that as we are opening our hearts once again. Even though we have moved in a direction we didn't expect, it feels RIGHT. My heart feels at ease and that pull and motivation returned instantly after connecting with our new agency. I just know this is where we are meant to be. It is exciting and scary and full of unknowns, but our hearts are opening wide and we are ready!

The next step in our process is to attend our agency's training in April. At that time we will be matched with our social worker and our homestudy process can begin. I anticipate we probably will not be "active" until mid to late summer. We are excited and we can't wait to see what kind adventure and miracle is waiting for us this time around.

What do you think...

The next Sid Vicious???

FFF Redo

WOOHOO!!!! Thanks to some awesome advice, I was able to recover all 500 lost pictures!!! I used a card recovery program online and it worked wonderfully. I had no idea that was even available! So, let's redo this FFF thing...pea thought it would be a great idea to suddenly start coloring on everything but paper right before we listed our house. We were all in the basement cleaning when pea found a permanent red marker and started coloring all over a rug (thank goodness we were getting rid of it) and he colored on the panels of a cabinet. Jason took some Goop cleaner and the red faded a little so it is not as noticeable, but STILL. He just HAD to color on something right before our house was listed!

In this picture, you can see he managed to color all over his hands and face. He also colored on the carpet in our basement. Good grief. At least this time he was using a washable marker.



So, you think coloring on the wall is bad...

Pea enjoys "cleaning" in the basement with an old long feather duster. The other night I decided to exercise (what????) in the basement while Pea was playing. I was in the middle of this very important obstacle course when I heard some interesting noises behind me. I turned around and there was water all over the carpet. I walked over to discover that pea was dipping the feather duster down the sewage drain and sprinkling the lovely smelling water all over the carpet and the cement floor in another area of the basement. DISGUSTING. And, of course, this was JUST after we had finished cleaning everything up in order to be prepared for any short notice house showings. Needless to say, sewage is not really the smell we want to greet potential buyers when they walk in our house. Oh, I was mad! And, to be honest, I was more mad because I finally decided to dedicate some time to exercise and it was interrupted! Luckily we were able to get it cleaned up quickly and the house is back to smelling "normal."

And such is life with pea...always an adventure!

FFF Disaster!

So, I inserted my memory card to find the perfect picture for this week's FFF theme. And, I found it! Pea had managed to color all over his face and hands with a green marker. It was priceless. And now...it is gone. Forever. Sniff. Sniff. Sniff. I have no idea what happened, but somehow I managed to delete my entire memory card. Gone in an instant. All 500 pictures. Luckily, I recently uploaded a vast majority of them, but I lost all of November, December, and the few I had in January. Yes, that means Christmas. I have maybe 3 or 4 pictures saved from Christmas Day at our house. How depressing!! Sigh....

So, here are two pictures from LAST January since I don't have any from THIS January to share. Sniff. Sniff.

It's amazing how much he has grown! These pictures were also taken with my old camera and they look awful compared to the quality of my current camera! Who knew?!?!

Check out more FFF on Hannah's blog HERE.

Here we go!!

It's official! Our house is on the market and we already have a showing scheduled for Friday! Of course, we realize this could take awhile so we are not getting too excited, yet. We spent the entire weekend cleaning, organizing, and decluttering. My parents were a TREMENDOUS help! Our house looks amazing thanks to them! Now we just need to figure out how to maintain our clean and organized house with a wild two year old who enjoys destroying the house in under 2 minutes. So, we busted our hineys over the weekend and now we wait......

Adoption news...or really, lack of news. We are currently reevaluating our choice of agency. We have not been getting the warm fuzzies from them and we also received some negative feedback from someone on an adoption forum. Granted, that is one person's experience, but we have already been starting to feel a little uneasy about our choice. So, we're thinking our gut feeling may be pointing us in another direction. This feels all too familiar because this is exactly how pea's adoption journey started. And, it worked out perfectly. So, we are going to be calling a couple of the other agencies that were on our initial list and then make a decision. And so it begins!