by | April 5, 2012

Family Update

Hello!

I’m 17 weeks pregnant and feeling pretty good! A little tired, but not sick and feeling occasional little nudges and kicks. Sooooo sweet. It’s only about a week until we (hopefully) find out if it’s a boy or a girl. I’m mid change in clothing… don’t fit in non-pregnancy or pregnancy clothes well yet. We have an exciting month planned with multiple birthday activities planned for Anna and Easter. Two trips for visiting family are included in that and a whole lotta regular at-home days.

I’ve had two great months with my grocery budget… but I spent $160 of my total budget in my FIRST grocery trip this month. Ouch. I need bread, fruit, veggies, applesauce and more milk at LEAST before the month is up. There are a couple good stock up sales I want to hit too – butter for sure and bread if I can find it. It’s time for me to start watching for hamburger and chicken sales… though I’m not out of either yet. I have several big grocery expenses coming up and I really want to leave room in the budget for them – peanut butter in vast quantaties, a gallon of local honey, and we’ve been offered a share of beef that will be butchered in the fall, so that will be a big chunk of change there. Sigh. Well, we shall see how it pans out.

Brian was singing “Oh my darlin’, Oh my darlin’, Oh my darlin’ Maggie Rae” as he drove. Maggie pipes up and says, “Hey! That’s me!”
“Yes,” Brian says, “You’re my Maggie Rae.”
“No,” she countered, “I’m ‘oh my darlin’!”

These days decisions by Maggie are made with these words: “Yes. Actually, No.”

Anna has learned to whistle at 4 1/2 years old. She’s quite good now! Can’t do a song yet, but she can get pretty loud!

There’s this knock knock joke my dad told Anna:
“Knock Knock.” “Who’s there?” “Dwain!” “Dwain who?” “Dwain the bathtub, I’m dwowning!”
…
So fast-forward six months with me, because this joke still hasn’t died. It just sounds like variations of this:
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Fork!” (or other random things”
“Fork who?”
“Fork the bathtub, I’m flowning!”

Have I mentioned that Jordan is taking a step now and then all on his own?
Also – don’t sit on the floor if you don’t want a smiling, slobbery boy to come throw himself grinning in your lap. It’s equivalent to, “Hooray! Play with me!”

All for now!

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by | April 2, 2012

Rambling

Did our first post-placement report visit for Jordan this morning. Maggie has a fever again – was up much of the night last night with an earache and other sundry complaints. Hoping it’s just from her molars that are starting to come in on the bottom. I’m enjoying the snuggling. Dishes need doing. The first peas we planted are an inch tall out there. There are many other sprouts coming up… some getting eaten off by slugs… need to go treat those. I’m 17 weeks and feeling little baby nudges more and more often. Love it! Praying for good rest tonight. Feeling settled in and happy to be a mom. And I want some ice cream. Made some the other day and really love it. It involved raw eggs, but it is great! Going to try a new recipe soon as it runs out… won’t be long at this rate. 🙂 Yawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwn. Can you believe it’s almost Easter!? And Anna’s turning five years old this month. How time flies. Jordan will have been home four months tomorrow. She’s reading really well… not quick enough to want to read a book all by herself, but when we read together she does very nicely and I’m so proud of her! Maggie is talking up a STORM. You can only understand 20%, but that’s not because they aren’t real words she’s not pronouncing. 🙂 Jordan has taken his first steps! And he’s walking really well holding onto only one hand. So proud of him! He doesn’t go far yet, but that is going to come before I know it.

Ok, really, REALLy time to do the dishes. More sometime later.

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by | April 2, 2012

Deciding to Adopt

A blogging Mom who I’ve long admired for her positive, want-to-be-a-mom attitude, posted this blog a few weeks ago and I’ve been wanting to share it every since. It’s called, Deciding to Adopt and it spoke to me and I think it would speak really well to families who are pre-adoptive or hope to adopt “someday.” Here’s a snippet of the blog:

“Ultimately, making the decision to adopt is a multi-step discernment process, and one that usually involves a lot of back-and-forth and thinking through scenarios and ruling out others.

1.) It’s not either/or.
2.) It doesn’t have to be a lifelong dream.
3.) It doesn’t have to be his/her idea too.
4.) It doesn’t have to be all mapped out.
5.) It’s not everyone’s dream.
6.) It’s okay to be afraid.
7.) It’s not about who you are.
8.) It’s about redemption (and redemption isn’t easy).
9.) It’s not all about the money (but it’s expensive.)
10.) But try to always remember that in addition to adding to your family in a pretty amazing way, adoption is about becoming a family to a child who needs one. ”

Read the whole thing here: “http://heldts.blogspot.com/2012/03/deciding-to-adopt.html“

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by | March 30, 2012

Mild, Correctable Special Needs

Amongst families filling out adoptive paperwork, there is a dilemma: How to answer the question, “What special needs are you open to?” For many, if not most of us, we have very little idea what different special needs entail, how they might affect us as a family, or even if we would feel (extra) awkward or uncomfortable around our own child. (let me tell you from experience, if you live with somebody, their quirkiness stops feeling uncomfortable after… you know…. 24 hours straight together!)

Usually, YOU REALLY ARE given a piece of paper with a list about a mile long of special needs and you are supposed to:
A. Know what all the unpronounceable medical words mean and
B. Mark whether you would/could/should adopt a child with that special need or not.

I might be too hesitant to select torticollis or strabismus. However, I have since learned that they just mean tilted head (which is usually correctable) and crossed eyes or lazy eye, which is also not necessarily permanent… and certainly isn’t very scary! Furthermore, I used to be totally uncomfortable with cerebral palsy – that is, until I met some people with cerebral palsy! Totally not intimidating any more.

Anyway, with that big undecipherable list in front of you, it’s easy to be intimidated and to just write, “We would like to adopt a child with mild or correctable special needs.” A friend of mine posted a blog recently that sheds insight into that phrase… and shares how being more specific significantly sped up their own adoption.

The blog post is called, “Let’s Talk Special Needs Adoption“. I was encouraged that maybe more people are willing to adopt children with “special needs” than they realized. A lot has to do with how you say it! Pop on over to her blog to think it through a bit more.

Let me do a hack job of summarizing her blog post: Something that is a special need to one person is not necessarily a special need to another… and it may or may not be a special need to the country creating the adoption paperwork. Each country categorizes different things as special needs… or not! Therefore, being specific in your paperwork/dossier can definitely make a difference in the time it takes for them to match you with a waiting child. For example, saying you would adopt a child with: mild mental retardation, strabismus, limb differences, Down Syndrome, ____whatever you decide to add____, will make it a lot easier for an official to match you to a child than the vague, “mild, correctable special needs” – since they won’t know what you mean by that. Do take the time to research the different special needs so you can list as many as possible. If you’re not sure, maybe say “yes” and research it later after you see that little face looking at you. Maybe you need that little kid with the unpronounceable diagnosis in your life just as much as you need them. 😉

Update on Bulgarian adoptions – 02/2013 http://martiniadoptionroad.blogspot.com/2013/02/news-from-moj.html
(images taken from http://www.mypedeyedr.com/EsotropiaR2.htm)

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by | March 28, 2012

March Meals – Keeping Within the Budget

Budget cycle: February 26-March 24 (4 weeks)

Our budget is still $200 a month (4 weeks) for groceries, though there is $25 set aside every month also for the summer produce… which I hope to begin spending on strawberries really soon!!! I didn’t do a good job of taking pictures this time, but blogging the meals has been fun. I think I’ll do it one or two more times. As soon as we have lots of lettuce available (May cycle?) then I’ll blog our beans and rice month.

March Meal Plan:
1. Turkey… plus potatoes and veggies – no pic, but just think Thanksgiving without all the extras!
2.

Pizza - topped with sausage or ham and pineapples (personal sizes this time)


3.

White Chili (from freezer) and corn bread (forgot to take a picture until this was all that was left!)


4. Meatball sandwiches on pita bread – Haven’t made yet
5. Pork roast sandwiches – no picture
6. Turkey & Pasta with Peanut Sauce – Haven’t made yet
7. Bean & Rice enchiladas – no picture
8.

Spaghetti... you've seen it before!


9. Tacos – no picture
10. Salmon and rice pilaf – no picture. But I’ll note that my favorite rice pilaf recipe is no good with brown rice.
11.

Big salad and fresh bread - topped with eggs, bacon, cheese, sliced almonds, broccoli, celery, carrots


12. Turkey Tetrazzini – it was really yummy!
13.

Kung Pau Chicken - yummmm


14.

Sweet & Spicy Chicken fingers with rice and veggies


15. When we got sick and near the end of this month, we had pancakes for dinner and more leftovers. That sick part of the month is right now… don’t really care about fancy food today!

The grocery trips:

March Grocery Trips:
Winco – 02/28/2012 – $108.10
1.96 – 2 lbs. of thin spaghetti
1.96 – 2 lbs. of fettucini pasta
.96 – 2 boxes of hy-top mac & cheese
6.17 – bag of 40 flour tortillas, Mission brand (went into freezer)
2.66 – 2 cans of pineapple tidbits – store brand is cheaper, but not as good so I buy Dole or something
6.52 – 4 big containers of strawberry yogurt
1.42 – 8 count hamburger buns
8.15 – 5 big containers of peach yogurt
.58 – water chesnuts. You read me right. They have next to zero nutritional calories. Why did I buy them????
.45 – store brand water chesnuts. Because crunchy water might be better in the expensive brand?
5.16 – 2 gallons of milk
8.72 – 4 lbs. of butter (went into freezer)
1.88 – 1 pint whipping cream (to put in Jordan’s meals for added calories)
1.76 – 2 bags of frozen peas
1.25 – bag of frozen mixed veggies
1.88 – big bag of frozen broccoli
.88 – bag of frozen corn
1.56 – two packages of frozen chopped spinach
4.29 – 7.14 lbs. of bulk oatmeal… should last us a month or more
.70 – .92 lbs. of bulk wheat germ for some muffins I like
2.40 – 4.29 lbs. of long grain brown rice
1.11 – 1.26 lbs. of oat bran for these other muffins
1.78 – big tub sour cream
7.04 – 4.19 lbs. of bulk raisins. That’s alotta raisins
1.58 – A bag of bagels I’ve been really wanting. Not sharing if I can help it. 😉
1.91 – 18 count eggs
2.00 – about a pound of deli ham
1.62 – about a pound of deli ham
2.67 – about a pound of deli roast beef
2.13 – 1.94 lbs. bulk black beans
1.73 – 1.99 lbs. bulk lentils
2.39 – .83 lbs. roasted salted peanut (for a stir fry)
2.28 – 10 lbs. potatoes
2.00 – chili paste (Melissa, I’m making that Kung Pao Chicken)
1.38 – Cream cheese (for the bagels)
.99 – 2 lb. bag of carrots
1.58 – Head of lettuce
1.29 – 2.22 lb celery (one big bunch)
1.09 – 1.11 lb. broccoli (three small heads)
1.54 – 3.21 lb. onions (four big onions)
.58 – one bunch green onions
.68 – cucumber
3.32 – 3.77 lbs. apples (about 8 small ones)
1.94 – 3.35 lbs. bananas (8 bananas)
.58 – two small yellow squash
.51 – two small zucchini
.96 – 2 green bell peppers
.12 – four dried pitted dates for the girls for being good.

03/02/2012 – Fred Meyer – $43.16
$4.49 – experimenting with cheap big tub o’ vanilla ice cream
$1.76 – experimenting with cheap small tub o’ vanilla ice cream
$4.95 – five loaves of Country Oven bread on clearance
$.99 – 8 hamburger buns on clearance
$9.98 – 4 lbs. of tilamook cheddar cheese on sale
$4.53 – one whole chicken at $.79/lb.
$14.87 – one whole wild caught Alaska salmon, about 3 lbs. I had them filet it for me
$.49 – one bunch cilantro
$1.00 – 1.01 lbs. asparagus

03/02/2012 New Seasons $9.98
$9.98 – 4 lbs. Tilamook cheddar on sale

03/03/012 Cash N’ Carry $17.27
1 gallon of cheap olive oil and two pounds of butter

03/04/2012 Fred Meyer $13.18
Twelve bottles of beer. Yep. It’s good with enchiladas, though! Six with alcohol, six without. First time I’ve ever bought beer from the grocery. And I wasn’t carded.

Still going to need some fruit and veggies… how much do I have left? $8.41? AGH! Panic! 2 1/2 weeks to go.

03/15/2012 Fred Meyer 10.79
OVERSPENT! Argh!
$1.69 – Crackers that were supposed to be a gift but didn’t need them so now we’ll eat them
$3.86 – 5.68 lbs. of Fuji apples at $.68/lb. (that’s about 10+ apples)
$2.69 – 4.21 lbs. of bananas at $.64/lb. (that’s about 10 bananas)
$1.98 – two loaves of bread on clearance… should have just left them. Oh well. They freeze.
$.57 – two medium onions at $.49/lb.

03/22/2012 Fred Meyer 4.58
Couldn’t finish the month without yogurt and milk…
1 gallon milk and 1 tub yogurt

Overspent by $6.96

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