BRR

It has gotten cold!! We even had enough snow for the boys to go sledding last Thursday night. Zach was thrilled with the snow - even the new boots, snow pants, heavy gloves and ski mask - Steven had the job of getting him dressed for the outside and it was fun to watch. I think Steven will make a good dad some day - he has a lot of patience with Zach. This weekend the temps will go back up again, and I plan to use that time to get some of my outside Christmas decorating done- yes, Dad, I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet.

I am getting ready to host Thanksgiving this year. The last time I hosted Thanksgiving, Steven was 2 months old. I know my mom and sister will remember how chaotic things got after everyone had a chance to hold and feed the baby - I took him to bed and boy was he sick!! Let's hope this time is not so memorable.

Back To Work

I got called back to my part time receptionist job at H&R Block. It is only a couple of weeks for 2011, then 3 or 4 weeks in 2012, but all that money goes directly to our Chinese Adoption fund! I really like this job, wish I could find something like it to do all year long.

Swallowing our Pride

As the adoption of Zach procedes, the bills are adding up. I never realized the hefty expense assiciated with adoption. First is the adoption agency fees. Silly me, I thought this is all that there would be when we started this process. Next was a fee to China just to consider our pre-apporval. Then the cost of the Home Study to the agency that sent the social worker. Fees to the Chinese consulates and Currier services to take our documents in and save us the money of travel. I just sent off the check (ouch) to the Dept of Immigaration/Homeland security. Once that is apporved, there is another round of fees to China. Then our travel expenses for 3 of us for 16 days. When we get to China, there is the payment to make to the orphanage for raising Zach as long as they did.......taking a hard look into our financial situation, we decided to apply for some grants to see if we could get a little help. Unfortunately, many of those require we do community fundraising ourselves first, or pledge money we can get donated for matching grants. So, we are biting the bullet and putting together a couple of fundraisers. One strictly for the town we live in - flocks of flamingos will be landing in yards - people will then call us and pay us to take those ugly things away, or to place them in a yard of their choosing. Flamingo insurance can also be bought to make sure they don't land in your yard. This will require early mornings for me to move 2 flocks of birds around, but this should be lots of fun. I am also going to do a gift wrapping day for Christmas gifts and hoping to get some stores to offer me a reduced price on wrapping and then ask people to donate for the wrapping of their gifts- don't be surprised if I call on some of you to come help me wrap........I'll bring the cookies and Christmas music!!

My Resolution

I have been a bad, bad blogger. I am making my resolution now, instead of waiting until New Year's Eve, to blog at least 2 days every week. I had under estimated the toll it would take on me to add a child to the house hold. He may be 6 chronilogically, but emotionally he is more like 3 or 4. He tries to stuff all the love he didn't recieve up until now into the time he is spending with us. While I melt a little every time he sweetly asks me for a hug, it gets tiring having him hanging off my leg, holding onto the pocket of my jeans and following me around the house, wanting me to cuddle in the chair or read him a story. When he a couple of weeks after he came to live with us, Ke Ji seemed to bond with Mike. Everywhere that Mike went Zach would follow. That was fine with me, boys need a good male role model and Mike has infinate patience with kids. But the last month or so has turned that around and he is my little shadow. I know from past child rearing experience his parent of choice will flip flop many times, but isn't it Mike's turn again yet?

Adoption

I have added an item to the side of the Blog, documenting our adoption journey, so those of you asking how things are going, have a reference to refer to. It is a tedious job of gathering documents for each agency needing things, many of them redundent, but everyone needs their own copies. Several things had to be the official Court House copies, but the ones we had in our files weren't good enough, because they had to be dated within the last 6 months. Things then need to be notorized, then off to the appropriate Secretary of State to have the Notary Authenticated (credentials checked) by the State. Then they go off to the appropriate Chinese Consulate (different zones in the country must use certain Consulates). The Consulate will then Authenticate the Secretary of State's credentials. So, Mike's Ohio birth certificate needed to go off to the New York Consulate (which has been Consulate Authendicated now), and all our other documents will need to be sent off to the Chicago Consulate. I am getting ready to send everything I have ready off to the Secretary of State on Monday. Then the only thing that will need to be finished is our approval from the Dept of Immigration/Homeland Security, to State Authenticate and send everything off to the Chicago Consulate. After that, all our documents (our Dossier) get sent in to the Adoption Agency for final apporval, and translation to Chinese. They will then bind it all into a nice report and send it, along with several pictures of us, in to China. We then have a chance to breath while we wait for China to give us their final approval. We will then get 1-2 weeks notice that it is time to travel. Mike and I will then have to take Zach and head to China for approximately 16 days. When we come home, Zach will be adopted and a citizen of the United States of America. Wish us luck, and for speedy government agencies!!!

Sold

Darling Hubby and Darling Oldest went to the rental house yesterday to pick up the walnuts (poor squirrel, his good fortune gone as fast as it came). They took them over to the house that does the walnut hulling. So, they had to dump all the barrels into the "huller" which takes off that outer hull. They said that after they get done doing walnuts, those hulls get ground up and put out on their fields for fertlizer. Once the hulls are off, the walnuts get weighed and then they pay per pound. Last night we had 126 pounds turned in and they gave us a check for $13.83. For those of you not wanting to do the math, that's 11 cents per pound. Guess we're not going out to Red Lobster on our earnings, but it will buy us a pizza. The boys dreams of hitting it rich by planting a grove of walnut trees on our land here, are fizzeling.

Walnuts

I have accepted the fact that I am getting old. I turned 40 this year and things I used to do without much thought have required more effort. Things that didn't used to bother me required a good dose of ibuprofen to survive. Last night we went up to the rental house to mow. We have 2 big walnut trees in the yard and this week they did the big nut dump, so we had to pick up walnuts before we could mow. We started with having the 2 big boys mowing while Zach and I worked under one tree and Mike worked under the other one picking up the nuts. Wow, there were a ton of them. And the leaves that had started falling were not helping. We picked up a bunch, feeling under the leaves as we went. Then Mike came to get a rake. Great idea. I raked lightly, which moved the leaves, without picking up the nuts, and uncovered way more than I thought could possibly be left. The big boys mowed what they could and then started helping with nuts so they could continue. Zach was a little nut collecting machine!! He matched me bucket for bucket, everytime I was ready to dump my 5 gallon pail into the trash can, he was ready to dump too. We all picked up about 4 1/2 trash cans full of nuts and left them in the barn until we can come back for them with a trailer tonight and take them to an Amish place in our neighborhood who husks walnuts. (We figure the squirrel who is living in the barn is going to think he died and went to heaven - his winter supply right there, without any work!) They also buy nuts people collect and bring to them. We are hoping for enough money out of them to pay for a nice dinner for a family of 5. Last night there was a line in front of me when I got out the bottle of ibuprofen, everyone except Zach already aching. This morning, another line after everyone stiffened up over night. I think I actually feel a little better than the teenagers did this morning......