RANDOM THOUGHTS AND SHOTS

The big girl is earring crazy right now and being the mean Mommy that I am, told her she couldn't have any until she was 12. She made her own...out of stickers. What a kid!

HER SWEETNESS:

HER SWEETNESS ROARING LIKE A DINOSAUR:

TWO CUTIES:

RYLEE ASKED FOR THIS HAIRDO LAST NIGHT:

PLAYING IN THE SHELVING UNIT:

JAYME TURNS 2

Well, the birthday girl's day didn't start out so great, but it ended okay. J's been sick for the past 5 days and yesterday she fell asleep twice while I rocked her. She NEVER lets me do that anymore, so I held on for dear life, knowing it will be one of the last times!! She just wanted to be cuddled for most of the day...coughing and nose running...poor little thing! She perked up around supper time for a few hours to have her birthday "do", but she certainly wasn't her usual spunky self.

HEY WHERE DID THESE COME FROM:




I CAN'T EAT WITH BALLOONS BEHIND MY HEAD:

YUMMY:


TWO-FISTED TEAR:


ASSEMBLING MY OWN TOY:



THE PACKAGING IS A GOOD GIFT TOO:

**REPEAT POST** GOTCHA DAY

I can't believe that I've been Jayme's mommy for a whole year!!

At noon on November 12 2007, your whole world turned upside down.

Your Foster Mama took you to the Orphanage, never to be seen again. A strange Nanny carried you onto a bus to begin your next step of your journey. After 2 1/2 hours, you arrived at the Civil Affairs Office where you wait in the lobby. A small group of parents enter this lobby. You don't recognize anyone. I don't recognize you. The strange Nanny carries you to the elevator. Four women are waiting to get on. You are 3 feet away, looking at me...at my glasses. We all laugh and guess who you belong to.

At 3:15, I hand an official piece of paper to an official lady. Then the strange Nanny hands me YOU. You don't cry. You just stare at my glasses and gently reach up to touch them. I say "Hi Jayme, I'm your Mommy" and we slowly walk to the center of the room. Time slows. You are so tiny. Just a bird in my arms. You are hungry, you are tired and you want your Mama. A sob fills your tiny mouth, huge drops of tears stream from your eyes. You moan "Mama" and I ache for you.

You are so sad! You have not waited 2 years or even 2 minutes for this moment. I thank God for you, this child. You can only cry and look desperately around for your Mama. I try to console you. You try to fight back. Finally you give in, rest your tiny head on my chest and sleep. Partly from sheer exhaustion and partly to escape this nightmare.When you wake up in that strange hotel room in a strange bed, to hear strange voices, you cry again. The moaning for your Mama starts again rhythmically. This will take time....

Over the next few days I will learn how to hold you the right way. Your way. I will learn that you need to sleep next to me holding a small cloth for security. I will learn that you are a real ham, a happy and laughing, cheeky little character. I will learn that you only drink water or juice from a glass. And you will learn that the lady with the glasses will drop absolutely anything she is doing to scoop you up when you call her "mum mum mum".The memories of these days will fade for you. But I will remember them for you. And be able to tell you just how courageous you were!

PITY PARTY

Oh my day didn't start out that way....no, I had a plan....I had a list and by golly I was sticking to it to finally get some things accomplished around here. So there I was busily cleaning (Mom, you can stop laughing) the bookshelves in the playroom, tossing magazines into the recycle pile, organizing CD's and books when I saw it....a lovely little piece of memorabilia that I haven't viewed in some time...it dared me to open it. I slowly placed the DVD into my laptop and was transported to 2004. Video of the first few moments after Rylee was placed in my arms. That room in China is in utter chaos - lots of other parents receiving their long-awaited children too - everyone's crying.

The tears haven't stopped over the past few years....tears for Rylee's biological mom and all that she will miss...tears for stubbed toes and skinned knees...tears of fear when she fell down the stairs...and over the past year, tears of loss....as I've watched this hideous disease called Autism take over my big girl. That video showed happier times, when Rylee was still mine. And that "loss" gripped me yesterday. I just couldn't shake it!

And then a friend sent me this:

Welcome to Holland
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may even learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland".

"Holland?", you say, "What do you mean, Holland? I signed up for Italy! All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for awhile and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills. Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

Tomorrow will be a better day....

FOG, BOTOX, AND WITCHES

What do these 3 things have in common? They all add up to one trip to the Dentist with Rylee!

FOG:

We had a 9 am appt with our wonderful, caring and best-needle-giver Dentist in the world! I love this guy! He is amazing with Rylee!! Anyway, we are heading to the appt when we run into foggy conditions....I mean, I thought we were headed into St. John's kind of fog....when all of a sudden from the backseat comes this little nugget of wisdom. "It's foggy...guess God has to vacuum the sky." Too funny!

BOTOX:

After sniffing a couple tanks of that bubble gum gas and getting her tooth filled, Rylee bit her lip - real hard - and she was bleeding pretty good. At least she was still in the Dentist chair when it happened...Dr. P. gets her all fixed up and then puts one of those cardboard splint thingies in her cheek to keep her from doing it again. He gave me a prescription just in case her lip ballooned up to gigantic proportions and was infected. Well, by the time we got home, she looked like Angelina Jolie right after a botox injection....her bottom lip was HUGE! And there's a huge chunk out of it. Poor little thing! Gonna hurt in the morning....

WITCHES:

One really great side-effect to the bubble gum gas is that Rylee is really calm. If only Dr. P. would write me a prescription for a tank of that. lol She just sat and drew pretty pictures all afternoon....get a load of this one....remember she's 5.

..

LET IT SNOW...

Can you see it? Yup, it started to snow today. WOOHOO!

JUST DO IT!

Have you ever had dreams of doing something...even got to the planning stage...then just...STOP?! Well, we've talked and talked and talked about doing something on our 100 acres for 7 years now...it was time to DO SOMETHING!!

Soooo, we mixed in:

1 eager Dad (mine)

2 pieces of heavy equipment

3 days work

4 bajillion dollars

And got:

1 dug well

2 good roads

1 farm field ready for planting

1 verrrry excited Mama

My advice to anyone who has talked a plan to death....just pull the trigger and get on with it....

BIG DADDY AND UNCLE BILL CLEARING THE WAY:

CAN YOU MOVE IT OVER THERE NEXT?:

GRANDPA EASING THE TILES ON:

GRANDPA BULLDOZING A NEW 401:

TIME FOR A DRINK:

NAPPING IN THE BACKPACK:

CIRCUS DOG:

J CHANGED HER MIND ABOUT RIDING WITH GRANDPA:

THE MOOSE WALKED THROUGH DURING LUNCH: