I Could Use Some Prayers

Hi everybody. It's been 2 weeks since I last updated, so thought I'd better post. I've been having a rough time lately. I'm not sure why, but I've been "down in the dumps". When I get this way, I let my house get out of control and then that just makes me even more depressed. I feel powerless to stop it from continuing to spiral downhill. So, I'd appreciate your prayers. I just don't feel like doing anything lately and that makes me feel like a lousy wife and mother.

Kaden is continuing to grow and change every day. He is enjoying the warmer weather we've had lately. His favorite thing to do these days is to go to the park. Kaden is quite the little dare devil and it scares me to death watching him on the jungle gym to get to the slide. I get worn out after our trips to the park. He'd stay there all day if I'd let him, but usually after an hour I have to drag him home kicking and screaming because I'm pooped!

Ryan is enjoying his new job and the Telephone Company. He is working part time for them and part time for Denny. I have a feeling that we won't see much of him the next few months as both jobs demand a lot from him and both would like to have him full time. The plan is for him to go full time with the Telephone Company in October. I am looking forward to that in hopes that we will be able to settle back into a normal routine and also that we will be able to begin the adoption process again.

So how is everyone? I'm not sure who all reads this blog, but I would love to hear from you. I get very, very bored at home alone with Kaden all day. I practically live to hear my computer say "You've Got Mail." Kaden can say that very well by the way!!!

Update on Kaden

I realized it's been awhile since I've let you all know what our sweet boy is up to these days. He has changed so much in the past few months. It is truly amazing!

Kaden seems to learn something new each and every day. He has been learning his colors, shapes, and even numbers. The other day he pointed at one of our clocks and starting counting while pointing to the corresponding number. I was blown away!

If you go to DropShots you can watch a series of video clips of him showing off his new skills!

Play Dough

I want to share a picture of Kaden from Valentine's Day. He was introduced to Play Dough for the very first time. It was love at first sight! He had a great time. It's so cute to hear him say it because it he calls it "Bee Doe". Anyway, if you hop on over to Drop Shots, you can see some video clips of his playing with his "Bee Doe" too!

Romantic Weekend Getaway

I have a very wonderful, sweet husband! He whisked me away this weekend on a surprise getaway. It was our first time away from Kaden. Can you believe we've gone 18 months without spending a single night apart from him? It wasn't easy, but it was definitely needed!

Ryan surprised me with a hotel room with a hottub at the Grand Prairie Hotel in Hutchinson. The hotel features an indoor water park called Splash Down which is a lot of fun. Unfortunately, we ended up moving hotel rooms at 10:00. The room we had reserved was in a block of rooms reserved for a Ducks Unlimited convention. They were a little more than noisy. Even though the new room didn't have a hot tub, I am glad we moved. We wouldn't have gotten any sleep!

It was fun to enjoy the water park, a nice dinner without feeding a toddler, and a peaceful shopping trip to the mall. On Saturday, we went to the Kansas Underground Salt Museum. It was so neat! First they took us on a tram ride though the salt mine where we learned about the salt mining process and even got to "mine" for some salt ourselves. There are over 67 miles worth of tunnels down there. It's huge! After the tram ride, we were able to wander through the museum and gift shop. In addition to mining for salt, the underground mine is used for archival storage. All but 1 major movie studio keep their movie reels and other movie relics in storage in the Kansas Underground Salt Mine. It is a constant 68 degrees down there and there is very low moisture. They had a few of the movie cases and movie costumes/props on display.

Here are some pictures. I'm still contemplating on how best to scrap these. The subject is a bit unusual!

Is it really February?

Where did January go? If this is any indication of how 2008 is going to go, then 2009 will be here before we know it. I actually hope that is the case. Why? Because it doesn't look like we really will be able to start the adoption process any time soon as hoped. There's a lot of factors, but like everything, finances are the major one. We're trying to trust God's plan and timing, but it's definitely hard to wait.

And the walls came a tumbling down.....

No, I'm not singing the "Battle of Jericho" song. Unfortunatley, I'm describing our house right now. Last week, one of our foundation walls crumbled. So, our kitchen is now being held up by several boards. Ryan assures me it's perfectly safe, but it scares me!

Oh the joys of home ownership. There's several more hundred dollars down the drain. Thank goodness Ryan is a handy man and has handy man friends. I shudder to think how much all this would cost if we had to hire someone to rebuild the wall. It's going to be bad enough as is.

Other than that, life is pretty much the same. I can't believe that January is almost over though. Where did it go? Kaden is going to be 2 before I know it. It seems like we just had his first birthday and now it's almost time for another one. Man time flies!

Well, it's late and I'd better get to bed. Just thought I'd pop in for a minute and ask for your prayers for Ryan as the poor guy is working hard all day and then coming home and working hard on the foundation wall well into the night.

It's so cold!

Brrrrr........When is it going to get warmer? It's too cold to do anything outside these days. Kaden is going stir crazy and is taking me with him! Anyone have suggestions on how to entertain a 20-month old all day? Our daily routine consists of reading every book he owns 5 times, coloring, playing with toys, repeat. After the second "repeat" he is totally bored and I break down and let him watch a video. Then we start the whole process over again. It's getting really old. Is he old enough for play dough or something else new and exciting?

Remembering Mushu

Today was a very sad day. Today I found the body of my beloved cat, Mushu laying by the garage. It would appear that she was hit by a car and our other cat Naboo drug her body to where she lays now. I am so, so sad.

We got Mushu in December of 2001. She was always a fiesty little cat. She amazed us right away with her loving personality and dog-like tendancies. She was always carrying things off in her mouth and hiding them. She also loved to play fetch. I've never known another cat to retrieve an object and bring it back to you. I was really looking forward to spring so I could teach Kaden how to throw her favorite stuffed fish to her. He would have had a great time playing with her and she would have loved it too. Now, Kaden will probably not even rememer her.

I am just so disappointed that whoever hit her didn't have the courage to stop, knock on the door, and let us know what had happened. If we had gotten her to the vet in time, maybe she would still be alive. It's like losing a child. Mushu got me through a lot of rough times when we were trying to start a family. I cried into her fur more than once when a pregnancy test came up negative. I will always remember her and I miss her so much already.

I'll eventually get around to making a scrapbook page of her, but I just can't do it quite yet. In the meantime, here are some photos of her. Rest in peace Mushu. You are loved.

Hello

Nothing big to report here. Life is pretty much back to normal after the holidays. Kaden and I are back on our daily routine now that Ryan is back to work. Mostly I am a very bored SAHM! I can only take so much ball rolling, block stacking, and Elmo watching before I am longing for the prescence of another adult. Don't get me wrong, I adore Kaden, but he wears me out and some days I feel like my brain is rotting!

Anyway, at least I will have something to look forward to this semester. I am going to be teaching the Fundamentals of English class at the college. This will get me out of the house once a week and around people closer to my age than Kaden. I am looking forward to it.

Plus, the payment from this course will help towards our adoption of Cindy. I am excited to fill out our application and get the ball rolling. I'm hoping to make an appointment with our doctor to discuss the waiting child needs checklist to see what special needs she thinks we could handle and/or treatments are available in Pratt. Then once we have our tax refund, we will proceed. We are trusting God to help us come up with the rest of the funds as our tax refund and my class payment will only be a drop in the bucket.

Well, it is really late and I am stalling going to bed for some reason. So, it's time to shut down the laptop and call it a night. I'll be back to post more scrapbook pages and/or other items of interest in the near future!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody! I hope 2008 has started off good for you. It's been pretty uneventful for us so far. Ryan and I are still sick and Kaden is running circles around us. At the moment he is at my parents' house running down Tina & Ye-In. They have more energy to drain than we do!

Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone is having a very Merry Christmas! Kaden had a great time opening presents, but unfortunately got in the bad habit of saying "more." We're going to have to work on manners and gratitude once he can comprehend them! Here's a few pictures of the fun:

His eyes lit up when he realized the presents under the tree were for him!

Kaden posing with his gifts from Mommy & Daddy. Later we'll get a picture of him with ALL of his gifts from everybody. It will be a ridiculously large pile!

And, here is a picture from Sunday of Kaden in his Christmas suit:

Something for Moms Christmas Party

We had a really fun Christmas party for our Mom's group on Wednesday night. Lois is so good to us. She had a chocolate fountain and tons of fun presents! Wow! We stayed and chatted and laughed until 11:30. That's pretty late for us Mommies!

Here's a layout I made using pictures from Logan's camera. The kit I used is called "Visions of Sugar Plums" and is a collab kit by Danielle Corbitt's Star Studded Designs and Doodles 'N Dimples. It's available at Digital Candy.

Yesterday we went to Wichita to pick up Kaden's Certificate of Citizenship. Well, it didn't exactly go as planned. It turns out that his COC is in Kansas City. They're going to mail it to Wichita for us, but it still means we have to make another trip during the week. But, we got to have lunch with Jeanette at my favorite restaurant, Cheddars, and eat their wonderful Cookie Monster cookies, so it was worth the trip! We had a great time visiting and Kaden loves the giant aquarium in the restaurant.

Boy was it crazy in Wichita though. It was about impossible to do any shopping. So, we decided to wait and shop today in Pratt. Bad idea. A snow storm hit this morning and the wind is blowing so hard you can barely see. I'm hoping we can still make it to Pratt later this afternoon since we have no groceries and have a lot of things to make for Christmas and we're making breakfast for our Sunday School class tomorrow morning. That is, if we have Sunday School!

Well, I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas. I'd better get off the computer and start cleaning the house and/or wrapping gifts. Neither one sounds fun at the moment.

Will we ever get better?

My goodness. Kaden and I have been fighting a cold since early November. Ryan is coughing a lot now too although he says he doesn't have any chest congestion. Somedays I think I will never be well again.

Can you believe Christmas is on Tuesday? I am so not ready. I still have lots of gifts to buy and wrap and/or mail. Between the ice storm and being sick, Christmas has snuck up on me this year.

Well, if I don't remember to post on that day, I want to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas! Here's a card I created for Mom. It features Kaden, of course, with his two youngest aunts, Ye-In & Tina! They are exchange students living with Mom and Dad for the year and they spoil him rotten with attention. He loves it!


Card designed by Retrodiva Designs

Also, I feel as though I am slowly starting to recruit a few of you to the dark side! No, really it's the good side. What am I talking about? Putting away the scissors and paper and taking up digital scrapbooking!!!! I would really like to hold a class sometime to teach the basics. We'll see what the new year holds in store.

In the meantime, I want to let you know that the Scrap-Shop.fr where Kalanice's Designs are sold has changed their name. They are now Digital Crea. In honor of the name change, they are giving away a FREE Mega kit called "Dreadfully Happy". So, if you are wanting to get started with digital scrapping, this is a must have. You'll have plenty to keep you busy for awhile!

Merry Christmas!!!!

What a week!

This was a crazy, crazy week. It all started Monday night when an ice storm hit us. We lost our power and didn't get it back until 70 hours later Thursday evening! Needless to say, it was quite an adventure keeping Kaden happy with no electricity. He did pretty well during the daylight hours but was not a happy camper when it was really dark. He kept pointing at the lights as if to ask, "Why don't you silly people turn the lights on?"

I got so bored without electricity. I really do rely on my computer way too much. I kept thinking of things I could do, but they all needed the computer somehow. For example, I thought I could get my Christmas cards ready to send. But, where's my address book? On the computer!

Before the power outage, I got a few scrapbook pages done. The first one is a winter kit by Danielle Corbitt called "Winter Blues" at Digital Candy. This is a picture from last year because at the time I didn't have a winter picture from this year. But now I have a lot more pictures to scrap with this kit!

Our Adoption Testimony - in PRINT!

We got a really big surprise today, actually TWO surprises! The first came in the form of a book. Back in August, Shaohannah's Hope sent out an e-mail to all the families they've given grants to over the years asking us to share our adoption testimonies and some photos with them. Each year they create a book called "Miracles: Testimonies of God's Faithfulness in Adoption". I believe they send these out to donors. Anyway, I wrote out our testimony and e-mailed it with a few pictures, but I never heard back from them.

So imagine my surprise when the book arrived today and we are one of the FEATURED families! They chose one story from each family to feature for each country. We are the Korea family! I have sent an e-mail to Shaohannah's Hope to find out how I can get more copies for family and friends. I am also hoping that they don't mind that I have scanned and posted it here on the blog below. I was just so excited to share it! To be able to READ it, go to DropShots. Click on the thumbnail on the homepage and it will be bigger, about the size of this one. But, if you then click on THAT photo, you will get the full resolution version which is easily readable.

The second big surprise was also from Shaohannah's Hope. They have a promotional DVD, again, I think it's sent to donors, that features the music video to "When Love Takes You In" by Steven Curtis Chapman. But, this isn't the regular video you can watch on YouTube or elsewhere, it's the version he shows at his concerts. The middle section features video clips of families meeting their children for the first time. There is about a 1 minute video clip of US!!! Thank you Uncle Mark for the great footage -you're a famous videographer now - ha, ha! Again, not sure how you can get a copy of the video, but it is definitely a tear jerker. Here is the regular version (minus us) and I will post the other version if they ever put it online or I can figure out a way to.

EDIT: I found out how to get copies of the book and DVD. Here's the info I got from someone at Shaohannah's Hope:

We are so glad you enjoyed the Miracles Book. If you would like to have more, you can order additional books for $3 a piece. If you need more than 5 at one time, could you please then include 5 dollars for shipping. You can send in a check to us, and we would be happy to send that to you. Please also let us know the address where to ship to. Blessings, Chris Chesbro chris@shaohannahshope.org (615) 550-5600 ext. 108 Shaohannah's Hope Po Box 674 Franklin, TN 37065

Back from Indiana

We had a great time over Thanksgiving with Ryan's family in Indiana. Kaden enjoyed all the attention from his cousins and all-in-all I'd say he did fair adjusting to the time zone and still getting plenty of sleep. He got some great early Christmas gifts (I'll have to show you those sometime soon) and we bought ourselves an early family gift while out there.

We got a minivan! Yep, that's right. We always said we'd never own one, but now we do. It was just time for a family sized vehicle. Poor Kaden was smooshed in the back seat on our way out there and we knew we'd never make it back with all his gifts. Plus, since we hope to expand our family it the near future, it was just time.

Ryan's brother is an expert in the art of haggling, so we took him car shopping with us. He helped us secure a great deal on a 2005 Chevy Uplander. We are loving it! It even has a built-in DVD player with Bose stereo surround sound. That was a lifesaving feature for Kaden on the long, 16-hour trip home and we are hearing things on his DVDs we've never noticed before because of the amazing sound quality. I'm sure Ryan would have other features to mention, but for me, the DVD player takes the cake!

I finally got that picture of Kaden playing in the leaves put into a scrapbook page. Kalanice's Designs "Forestia" kit features beautiful fall colors. It's also perfect for kits related to camping, hunting, and other outdoor activities and has tons of great elements that I didn't have room to include in my LO. Be sure to click on the link above to check it out.

Glitter border by Danielle Corbitt.

I also had a lot of fun using Danielle's Pink Xmas kit on this LO of Kaden with Santa. It was so hot on November 17 when we saw Santa. It think it was over 80 degrees! Kaden was sweatig to death in his sweatshirt. There were kids meeting Santa in their shorts. Poor Santa had to have been dying in that suit!

You can get Pink Xmas at SOTB or Digital Candy. Be sure to check out the great additional frames while you are there!
Scraplift of 2Santas by mlewis. Font is comic sans.

Recent Scrapbook Pages

Today was a beautiful 70 degree day. I can't believe it's mid-November already. I'm sure we'll get the cold weather soon enough.

Anyway, we enjoyed the nice weather and played outside in a pile of leaves. Kaden had a great time. He loved to crunch the leaves and "swim" through the pile. Between Danielle Corbitt's "Simply Fall" kit (and checkout the brag book I made!) and the Fall kit that Kalanice's Designs is working on, I should have plenty of options to get these pictures scrapped! Here's one of my favorites:


I have done a few scrapbook pages lately and have a lot more to do in the near future. I went through my picture folders the other day and estimated that I am about 25 pages behind. Yikes! Here is my most recent page using Harvest Spice by Shabby Princess:


I also recently did a layout using Kalanice's Designs' new "Gardenia" kit. It is very feminine, but is versatile enough for a variety of subjects. As you can see, I used it to scrap pictures of a very unhappy, very tired Kaden!

If you'll recall, I told you about a challenge we were hosting at The Star Studded CT blog. For challenge #3, I created a template. I made a page using my design and Danielle Corbitt's "Mandarin Mint" kit. It turned out cute!

I think that's it!!! I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving and safe travels.

New Family Photos

What a day! We had a 9:00 appointment at Portrait Innovations to have new family photos taken. I set it so early so that we would beat the crowd and Kaden wouldn't be overwhelmed by the chaos. But, it backfired on me. We needed to leave by 7:00 in order to get there on time, so I set the alarm for 6:00. But, I apparently forgot to turn it on! Ryan woke up at 6:40.

So, we frantically got everything together and rushed to Wichita. We had planned to have our pictures taken in cowboy hats. I didn't have one, so we were going to stop somewhere before our appointment and pick one up. We didn't have time. So, that was disappointing to start with. Then, we get there, and Kaden suddenly decides he is hungry and cannot sit still or smile. We ended up only getting the advertised special package and one other photo because there literally were no good ones to choose from. It was so frustrating. It wasn't the studios fault, just our bad luck.

Anyway, here's what we got. I've done some major editing to this first photo. Too bad the actual prints aren't edited. I had some major bags under my eyes and there was some weird black splotch on the background originally.

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No editing necessary here. Just pure cuteness!

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Luckily, the rest of the day was not a dud. We actually had a GREAT time the rest of the day! We met some friends at Chucky Cheese and our boys (all 4 of them...heee...heee...) had so much fun. Kaden just loves rides. He also enjoyed the arcade games. Anything with a wheel to turn, gun to shoot, water to squirt, or a hammer to pound with caught his eye! He's definitely all boy.

Here's a picture of Kaden in his Chucky Cheese bib with his good friend Noah. Aren't they the cutest?

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And here's Kaden on a ride. Ryan was just thrilled to death about this one!

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Is it really November 6 already?

I haven't even adjusted to the fact that it's November yet, and it's already the 6th! Yikes! Life has just been such a whirlwind lately. Kaden and I are both very sick and that takes all our energy away. It seems like I haven't had time to do any scrapping or blogging since I spent the weekend in bed.

I hope everyone had a great Halloween. Kaden had a lot of fun. He figured Trick or Treating out right away. He watched us knock on the door, saw that someone would come with a bowl of candy, we'd ask him to pick one out and put it in his basket, then we'd say Thank You and leave. After a couple of houses, he was going up to the door, pounding on it until someone answered, getting a treat, then flashing the homeowners a smile while trying to sneak a 2nd piece! The bad thing is, he's so darn cute that they'd usually say, "Oh, he can have another piece. That's okay." Then I'd have to be the big mean Mommy and tell him, "Only one!"

Hopefully I'll get all our Halloween pictures scrapped soon. I've created two Halloween-themed quickpage albums, you'd think I'd have time to plop the pictures into some of them! The problem is that my pictures are on my laptop, and the albums are on my external hard drive which is hooked up to the desktop computer. One of these days I'll get organized now that I have my desktop computer back. It's on it's last leg, so I need to get everything important that I didn't lose when it crashed, off of it and onto the external hard drive. Then I need to wipe the slate clean on it and use it only for games and internet. That means the laptop will be my scrapping computer, so I need to get the scrapping stuff on it! So much to do, no time to do it.

We'll in the meantime, here's a cute picture of Kaden on Halloween. Stay tuned to see it scrapped!

I've got a job!

I got a job designing quickpages for Randi Oh and Danielle Corbitt. It's so much fun and a great way to make a few extra spending dollars for scrapbook supplies.

Kaden is growing and changing in so many ways these days. Today he learned how to say Ye-In. Ye-In is an exchange student from South Korea and she is living with my parents. We've had so much fun getting to know her and Tina, a girl from Germany that Mom and Dad are also hosting.

I made this page of the two of them using Randi Oh's "Chalked Flowers" available HERE.

Chalked edge overlay by Nancie Janitz.