Two posts in one day!

You know life's exciting when I post to the blog twice in one day! I just wanted to add some snow fun. Kaden had a blast making snow angels, building a snowman, and jumping around in the snow. You can go to DropShots and check out some great video footage of Kaden and Ryan "snow diving". Crazy boys!

Today is Cindy's 9-month birthday. I wish she could have been here to enjoy the freak snow storm in March as well, but I hope she is snuggly warm and happy in Korea. Most of all, I hope she is coming home SOON!

Yes, this Smilebox creation says "Happy Holidays", but it's hard to find a snow themed card that isn't associated with the holidays. I guess you could say it's an Easter card 2 weeks early. LOL!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Winter Wonderland in March

I just cannot believe this weather! As soon as Kaden wakes up from his nap, we are going to go outside and build a snowman. I hope we can find a safe place to do that, because the snow is so deep, poor Kaden will be up to his armpits in it!

Here are some pictures of our winter wonderland. This is quite the sight for March. We've had snow in spring before, but never quite this much that I recall. The roof above our stairwell has a 3 ft. drift. This is the view of it from our upstairs hallway window. Ryan is going to get it off this afternoon because once it starts to melt, we will have major leaks!


This view is from our kitchen window. There is a 4 ft. bank of snow from the south side of our house that goes to our neighbor's house. There are actually two lawn chairs completely buried out there by the tree. You can see pictures of them from the night before at DropShots:


And here is Ryan's work truck, buried in a bank of snow:

Today the news of Cindy's neurology report has really sunk in. Although we missed out on yet another month of her life for this appointment, we have gained so much more in return. I was fully prepared to take her to the nuerologist, physical therapy, etc. Now we don't have to! We won't be rushing around from appointment to appointment, we won't be scraping to makes ends meet to pay big hospital bills, we won't have to find childcare for Kaden during physical therapy. We can just stay home and enjoy our perfectly healthy, happy, normal baby girl! Wow. God is so good!

Plus, one of my original goals during this wait was to have Kaden completely potty trained. I did not want to have two children in diapers. Well, guess what? We have finally reached our goal. Kaden has not had an accident all day and is even going #2 in the toliet! I am so proud of him. After months of trying to convince him that this was the way to go, he is finally motivated and willing to do it all on his own. What a big boy!

So this has been a really neat weekend. We are snowed in as a family, enjoying our news of Cindy, celebrating success with Kaden, and looking forward to the spring to come. I hope you have a great weekend too.

Exciting Update!

No, she isn't coming home yet, but I do have exciting news!

As you know by now, the reason Cindy did not come home right away after her paperwork was complete is because they were waiting on a follow-up neurologist's appointment. We had hoped to do that here, but our desire was never conveyed to Korea.

So, she had her appointment on March 18. We just got the report today. Cindy is no longer a "special needs" child! Everything that put her in the Waiting Child program has resolved itself. She is rolling over, sitting on her own, and even crawling. She is completely caught up developmentally. Wohoo!

I was not prepared to have a crawler already, so I need to recheck the house, but this is all excellent news. On top of that, she had her visa physical yesterday. We will find out next week if she needs a Class B waiver or not. Most children who are referred through the Waiting Child program need a waiver. The waiver is a signed statement by us that indicates that we realize she has medical needs and we will address them once she is home.

So here's the deal. If she needs the waiver, it will be several more weeks before she is home. If she doesn't need the waiver, she could be home as early as next week or the first full week of April. Since she has been "cleared" by the neurologist, I am very hopeful that she will NOT need the waiver.

Please storm the gates of heaven in prayer. I really, really, really want my whole family together for Easter. It's a very special holiday to me, and this mean the world to me. Let's pray her home!

Sportacus!

You're probably wondering what my blog title refers to. Well, that would be Kaden's latest fixation. We have a Nickelodeon DVD with several of their Nick Jr. shows. We bought it primarily for the Dora & Blue's Clues episodes on it. But, there is also an episode of a show called Lazytown on the DVD.

At first, Kaden was scared of the villian on the show and didn't want to watch it. Now, he is fascinated with it and wants to watch it over and over again. Since we only have this one episode, we all know it by heart.

He is particularly intrigued with the hero of the show, Sportacus. In fact, Kaden has decided that HE is Sportacus and wants us to call him by that name, not Kaden. He has given me the name Stephanie, the main girl character on the show, and has deemed Ryan as Robbie Rotten, the villian.

It has been trying at times watching this show over and over again and going by the names Stephanie and Robbie instead of Mommy & Daddy. BUT, we have discovered some great perks. Since Kaden is determined to be the REAL Sportacus, we have found that we can use that to our advantage. For example, we often remind him that the REAL Sportacus would eat only healthy snacks, go to bed on time, pick up his toys, etc. Guess what? It works!

Kaden has been aboslutely delightful this week. We have not had any tantrums, he has not been in timeout, and he's even been going pee pee in toliet. Once we convince him that Sportacus does not poop in his diaper or constipate himself, we will have hit a home run!

Last weekend we took Kaden to the zoo, bowling, and out for pizza. It was the trip there and back that sparked the Sportacus pheonomena. Anyway, we had a really great time with him and enjoyed a fun weekend as a family of 3. You can see lots of pics on my DropShots account. We met up with some friends and had a really great time. Kaden can't wait to bowl again.

There's nothing new to report on the adoption front. I am slowly getting over my anger and frustration with the unncecessary delay that was caused by our agency's unwillingness to communicate our wishes to Korea. There's nothing we can do about it now, so we're doing our best to forgive, forget, and move on. We have no idea how much longer to expect the wait to be. I'm still hoping Cindy will be home by Easter.

Calming Down

A big THANK YOU to everyone who has e-mailed words of encouragment and provided prayers. I really appreciate each and every one of you. Now that I've had time to calm down and put things in perspective, my outlook is much better!

I am doing my best to put a positive spin on this. The past few weeks have been very stressful around here. You can read my previous blog posts to see why! We're still dealing with the aftermath of the credit card issue. I want Cindy to come home to a peaceful and calm environment and not a home filled with stress and anxiety. So, I think God has just provided us with a few extra weeks to get matters taken care of so we can enjoy our time with her when she gets here.

At least now we know where we stand! There's not much of March left, so if they do still make her go to the neurologist's appointment, it will be in the next two weeks. There is still hope that she could be home by Easter. I am clinging on to that hope. It's been MY desire to have her home before she turns 9 months old, but if that is not GOD'S desire, then I need to let it go.

Poor Kaden didn't know why I was so distraught today. He knows I am sad because Cindy is not home, but he thinks that she just doesn't want to come home. I'm afraid he blames her for my sadness. It's hard to explain it to him. When I was very upset earlier, he came up to me, hugged me, and said, "I'm sorry Cindy won't come home Mommy, but don't be sad. I'm here."

So, thank you again for your prayers and please don't stop praying!

I'm so upset!

Cindy had a nuerologist's appointment back in January. It didn't tell us anything we didn't already know and were open to. I noticed a note on the neurologist's report that said, "Follow up in 2 months." By the time we got this report, we were already well through the process and Cindy's P3 had already been sent to the agency. So I knew we weren't far from her being ready to travel. So I contacted our agency and asked them to please ask Korea NOT to hold up travel because of the follow-up neurologist appointment. I let them know that we would do the appointment as soon as she was home.

The response I received basically brushed off my conccern. I was told that she would likely not have everything needed to travel by then anyway and not to worry about it. But, when we found out that she got EP on February 17, I did worry about. So, since it's been a full MONTH since everything has been "paper ready" for her to get her visa, I asked our agency to please contact Korea and find out what was going on. My worst fear was confirmed.

They've been waiting on the neurologist's appointment this ENTIRE time. I don't even know when it's scheduled for, but the response I got was "after her nuerologist's appointment, they will do her visa physical and then apply for the visa." I am just so upset to know that my message was never conveyed to Korea. Granted, they could have said they would not let her leave until she had that appointment. But, they also might have said, "ok" and gone ahead and applied for her visa. She could have been home for WEEKS by now!

Thank you for letting me vent. I have no idea how much longer to expect the wait to be now becuase I have no idea when her appointment is or when the next visa physical will be. But my dreams of having her home by the time she turns 9 months and/or by Easter are shattered. I'm trying very hard to trust God's timing on this and to believe that this holdup happened for a reason, but my faith is very tested right now. This is not the lucky St. Patrick's Day I'd hoped for. :(

We've been hacked!

Grrr.....On Saturday I got a strange e-mail from Netflix telling me that we had a duplicate account and I needed to delete one of them or our credit card would be charged for both. I called them and they told me that the 2nd account was opened in Ryan's name, but with the same credit card they already had on file for me. Of course, Ryan had no idea how it happened since we've always just used the 1 account. We shrugged it off.

Then today, we got a package of medication in the mail from Pet Meds. We did not order anything from them. The invoice showed that it was ordered by Ryan on Friday and that it was paid for with our credit card. Again, Ryan had no idea what was going on! He called Pet Meds and they gave us the e-mail address that was connected with the order. Ryan told them it was a fraud, they are refunding our account, and we are sending back the medication. Why someone would order something and have it sent to us is beyond me unless it was done as a joke.

So, then he called Mastercard and they checked our account for fradulent activity. They were already suspicious and were trying to contact us for verification. Someone booked a trip with an online travel agency today and the total cost was over $2,000. Because this made them suspicious, they denied the payment without verification. I am so glad they did. Way to go Mastercard! They have immediately closed our account and will be sending us new cards with new numbers. So, in the meantime, we are without a credit card. It's the only one we have. I guess that will keep me from doing any more retail therapy while we wait for our travel call!

I'm still trying to figure out how this happened since we both still have our cards in our possession. Well, actually they are shredded now! It was obviously done online. It has me worried wondering which website the leak came from. Most of the things we do online go through PayPal, and the breach doesn't seem to be there. I can't think of any time recently that I would have just entered our credit card number as payment. I think I'll blame Ryan. Hee...heee...heee.... :)

Anyway, once we get our new cards I'll have to go through the hassle of changing a lot of our automatic payments to the new number. I can think of at least 3 accounts that are connected to it. Luckily, most of those payments aren't withdrawn until the end of the month, so I have time to resolve it before our accounts are closed for lack of payment. That is, if I remember!

So, that's the big excitement for us around here today. No phone call yet. I'm going crazy waiting for it. In the meantime, I'm also battling a bad sinus infection. At first I thought it was just allergies, but medication doesn't help and it doesn't go away. So I have a doctor's appointment Wednesday afternoon. I really hope an antibiotic will do the trick. While I'm over there, I can stop by and visit Dad. He's having his hernia surgery Wednesday morning. Then Thursday morning, both Ryan & I have dentist appointments. So I guess it's a blessing we haven't received Cindy's travel call yet.

I think that if we got the phone call on Friday and went to pick her up on Tuesday the 17th, that would be just about perfect. But who am I to say? No matter what date God has planned, it will be perfect. Let's just hope I can hold on until then!

LOTS of praises!!!!

We just found out that Cindy has her Emmigration Permit! Praise the Lord! And, get this. She has had it since February 17. So, our travel call could literally be any day now. I have a friend who predicts it will be tomorrow. Can you believe it? Cindy should definitely be home sometime this month. I'm still in shock!

Plus, I have even more good news. Trista is doing well and is basically cancer free. They believe they got all of it when they removed the tumor and her lymph nodes. She can return back to school and doesn't have to see the doctor again until May!

Also, Dad's biopsy came back that the mass on his lungs is benign. It's not cancerous! Has this been a great day for good news or what? I'm feeling quite giddy!

The Nursery is Ready!

Despite being sick this weekend, I finally got the nursery finished during a few moments out of bed. It feels good to have it all put together, ready for Cindy to come home!

We went with pale green walls and a pink and purple butterfly theme. The nursery had been done in Winnie the Pooh for Kaden. I knew it would take several coats of primer to cover the mural I had painted for him, so I left it and just "girlied" it up with some butterflies!

Here's a view into the room from the doorway:

This is my favorite corner, the reading nook. The butterfly quilt was hand pieced and quilted by my mom. I made the wall plaques with simple 99 cent wooden craft squares and 50 cent wooden shapes:

There are butterflies on the dresser knobs I made too:

Here's the mural I did for Kaden. I'm glad I found these butterfly clings at Target so I didn't have to paint them on. The pillow in the crib was also made by Tisha. Thanks dear friend!

Here's a closeup of her name, another simple craft project:

The dolls on the shelves were made by my friend Tisha. The boy doll is actually Kaden's, but he wanted his baby to sit on a shelf too:

If you want to see more pictures, you can check them out at DropShots.com. Contact me if you need the password by e-mailing me at starwarsfans98 at gmail dot com.

Come home Cynthia Sue. We're ready for you!!!