Why, ABC? Why?

Jeff and I watch like 2 TV shows a week, and this is one of them.

I'd have to say it's our FAVORITE show.

And guess what? Tomorrow night is the last episode ever.

ABC cancelled it after only one season.

"Underperforming" is what they called it.

Remember the 'good ol' days' when networks would give shows a chance?

Oh, and they wouldn't move nights and times and take a 6 week hiatus in the middle of the season?

Maybe shows "underperform" because people just can't find them, did you ever think about that, ABC? grrrr....

Anyway, Jeff and I are very sad that we'll have nothing to watch on Wednesday nights at 10:00 anymore.

Hey, wait! I'm sure there'll be some 'B-list celebrity/dating/reality show' to look forward to!

You know there's just not enough time in the schedule to fit them all in......wonder what Tonya Harding's been up to.......

At least I can take comfort in the fact that the full series DVD will be out this September (when I can watch it in my NEW house) :)

If you didn't get a chance to watch it on TV (and you're old enough to wistfully remember 1973), I'd recommend you watch the DVD.

New Home: Week 3 (Day 22)

What's this I see? Is that an actual house ?

It IS!!

Lili looking out our ginormous living room window onto the backyard

(if anyone has any fantastic 10' window covering ideas, please share)

Heading upstairs

The view from the back, or as we like to call it, Robot Head

And this is where the bad little children go :)

OK, so Jeff was so excited (and a little jealous) that we got to see such good progress on our house Wednesday, that we decided to go up again today to check on it.

We were all so very pleased and stoked to see an actual HOUSE!!

Brett couldn't wait to run up to his room and even get in his shower. He ran around in the basement and in the backyard.

Little Miss Lili was overawed by the whole experience. "That not our house" she kept saying and wondered why she could walk through the walls.

All in all, we are (so far) pretty impressed with the whole process. It's only been 3 weeks (in March...in Indiana) and we have a real house.

I think that's going to just make it harder to wait the rest of the weeks and months until it's done.

We really hated to leave. But! We'll be back next week ;)

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009 Enshrinees:
PLAYERS

Troy Aikman

Enshrinement Festival
July 17-18, 2009
The College Football Hall of Fame's signature event is its annual Enshrinement Festival. Fans have a variety of opportunities to meet and mingle with the Enshrinees during this spectacular event. From FanFest to the Enshrinement Dinner and Show, the Enshrinement Festival offers unparalleled access to some of the greatest names in the history of the game. The 2009 Enshrinement Festival will feature a week long of festivities and will culminate on July 17-18. The 2009 Class features, Lou Holtz, Troy Aikman, and Thurman Thomas; among many others who are being enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
Through participation in Enshrinement Festival activities, fans gain an appreciation for what the Hall of Fame and the National Football Foundation are all about: the preservation of the rich tradition and unique spirit of amateur football.

Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap.

Can you tell I'm (just the slightest bit) excited?

Nobody wanted to go when Troy was inducted into the pro hall of fame because it was "all the way in Ohio", but now there's NO excuse people!! Troy's practically going to be in our backyard this summer, so you better BELIEVE that someone will be going this time.

Tickets go on sale in April.......breathe, breathe..............

I can barely type, my hands are all sweaty...hee hee

New Home Update, Spring Break, New Braids and a Big, Cheesy Rat

I have to say, we were pretty disappointed when we did our weekly house check-up Saturday. It had been THE most beautiful week, and our hopes were high that LOTS of progress would be made. It looked like they had only damp-proofed the basement and installed the water/sewer line. Ho hum.

It was rather exciting, though, to see the big pile of lumber.....that made us feel better that things should be happening at some point.

I couldn't stand it, so I took the kids and went to check on it again today, since it's spring break. We went at 11:00am and they had 1/2 of the floor done over the basement. This picture was taken at 4:00 and it looks like they did quite a bit of work today.

Now that's more like it.

Just call her Pippi Longstocking. We realized her hair was just about long enough for some halfway decent braids, so now that's ALL she wants to do with her hair.

And also, since it's officially spring, no more sweaters, long pants, no more winter wear whatsoever! Only cute spring tops, leggings and skirts. PROMISE.

Since we were up near the new house, we decided to go to Chuck E. Cheese's.

The children were SO VERY EXCITED to watch the clock and see that it only took 10 MINUTES to get there from our new digs, rather than the hour and 10 minutes it took from Mee and Pee's.

Seriously exciting stuff!

Happy Birthday Lili!

I can't believe she made it through an entire school day knowing she was having her party tonight!

I love how she's making the same face as Spongebob :)

Bah-dooooooooons!!!

Awww! Brett made Lili a very special card

You can give her a Spongebob party, but you just can't take the princess effect away

Guess what's coming up?

Lili's birthday is in 2 days, or as she keeps saying "2 weeks".

She wanted a Spongebob birthday this year, which is good since we did the whole Princess thing last year. (and Spongebob is so stinkin' cute. how can you look at that face and not feel good?)

I just can't believe she's going to be 6.

6 sounds so OLD.

5 was 'cute' but six is just all grown up.

sniff.....sniff....

Tanba Town

Lili was found in 'Tanba Town' which is an area in Wuchuan District, where her orphanage was. From everything I've been able to find about the town (which isn't much), Tanba seems to be a 'wrong side of the tracks' area of the district. Very poor, kind of rough.

Lili was abandoned outside of the police station in Tanba. I'm not sure if any of the pictures I received are of the police station, I'll have to ask. These, and other, pictures were taken this year and posted on a group site.

Below is an excerpt of an email describing the area:

"Tanba has 10.000 to 15.000 inhabitants and a string of villages attached.

It is a very agricultural town, with a few factories outside the town along the main road from Wuchuan to Dianbai.

Wuchuan District in total has one million inhabitants, 250.000 living in Wuchuan City. There is a string of towns around Wuchuan like Tanba, Huangpo, Tangzhui, Zhenpu, Zhenwen, and so forth, and hundreds of villages. "

It's been 2 YEARS since Lili's referral

Wow...I can't believe it. We found out that we were accepted to be Lili's family 2 years ago today.

The special needs program at our agency works differently than 'regular' referrals. We were emailed a list of available children on 3/8/07, we requested more information on Mei Xiu Yuan, so this was the day we actually saw our daughter's face for the first time. Then we wrote a letter expressing our wish to be chosen as her family. And on 3/15/07, we found out they matched us to her.

I don't know if I can compare it with the day you find out you're pregnant, or the day you give birth, or what, because there are so many 'special' days with an adoption, especially a 'special' one.

Suffice it to say, it was a day that I'll never, ever forget and one of the most surreal experiences of my life.

Below is my blog excerpt from 3/15/07:

Thursday, March 15, 2007

WE HAVE A DAUGHTER!!!!!!!!
I am shocked, amazed, dumbfounded and in total awe!!

I walked in my house at 4:25pm today to a ringing phone. It went to our answering machine, but I figured I'd answer it anyway. It was our social worker. She asked how I was doing and if Jeff was home or still at work. I told her that he was away on business in GEORGIA! FOR THE NEXT 8 DAYS!!! She said "Oh. Well I have some exciting news for you".........[loooong pause] "You have a daughter."

HOLY GUACAMOLE!! I HAVE A DAUGHTER? SERIOUSLY?

Here I am ALL ALONE!! My husband's gone. My son is outside and I'm FREAKING OUT!! Am I really on the phone, or am I completely psychotic, wanting this SOO badly that I'm imagining it, playing it out in my head?

Thankfully my son came in and heard the rest of the conversation. I had to ask him later if I was insane (by the way, he said "yes") but he did confirm that the phone call did indeed take place!So, I try to call my husband. Who has a work phone, a cell phone and a hotel room phone. No answer on any of them!

WHAT?!?!?! He PROMISED me that I could reach him ANY TIME!!

I tried calling him for AN HOUR! AN HOUR! FINALLY, I got ahold of him. He was at a book store. I asked him if he found any books on adoption. He said "no, not really, I didn't really see anything....blah....blah....blah" I said "Honey, I was hoping you found something because you have a daughter!"[crickets chirping]

Me: "Honey? Did you hear me?"

Him: "Are you serious?"

Me: "Yes"

Him: "We're not supposed to find out until tomorrow."

Me: "Um, sorry" (???)

Anyway, he was just as dumbfounded as I was (and still am!)

So, here's the story of our Liliana Laura-Mei.Our agency receives a special needs/waiting children list a few times a year. We applied for a girl last time the list was out (in January). We were not matched. So, this time we were leary. Should we really get a picture of this little girl and put our hearts out there for potential disappointment? Well, thankfully the answer was "yes". We decided to write our agency a letter stating our desire to be matched with this girl.

The list came out last Thursday afternoon. We spent all weekend praying about it and researching her special need. Tuesday I emailed our social worker our letter. They were supposed to review it today and notify the families tomorrow. Supposed to. WOW!!

This post is ALL OVER THE PLACE, but I am just a mess! A LONELY mess! AAHH!

I have so many people to tell and so much to do. My son doesn't have a passport yet. We should be traveling anywhere from 3-5 months from now. Unbelieveable. I still can't get over the fact that we're just going to be going to China! WOW! we never go ANYWHERE!

OK, so, our daughter is going to be 4 years old on the 20th. That's much older than we thought. BUT! God obviously knows that our Lili was born in 2003 and has been waiting for us all this time. Before we even knew we wanted to adopt. She's been there. Just for us. And, since our son is almost 10, the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of them being closer in age. Otherwise, there'd be a 10-11 year age difference. That's quite a bit. She'll be in kindergarten when he's still in elementary school. That will be nice. The thing that bothers me the most is all the time we've missed with her. All the milestones that she hit when no one really cared (not as much as her parents would). So, we have a lot of lost time to make up for and the rest of our lives to do it! I consider that a fair trade! :)

"In a moment what has been is lost in what will be"--Steven Curtis Chapman "When Love Takes You In"

Boy, reading that just takes me right back.

We have been so blessed throughout this whole journey. Every day just continues to be another blessing. Sure, I have my moments where I want to change my name from "Mommy" to anything else, but when I think about where we were just a few short years ago and where God has led us, I'm just in awe. We were meant to be the family that we are from before time began.

whoa, huh?

We love you Lili!

Week 2

Here you can see the kids and me looking out on our backyard.

This is the backside of our basement, where our windows are going to be. (doesn't the basement look teeny tiny--like we couldn't even all fit in it? yikes)

That's the latest update on the progress of our house.

Most of these posts are probably going to begin with 'Jeff said', since I have no idea what most of these pictures mean.....

'Jeff said' that over the next week, they should be getting all the drainage, sewer stuff in as well as backfilling all the dirt (sorry kids). They should be able to start laying the floors and framing the house 'soon'.

To Make Up for the Lack of Cute Kid Pictures...

You might be a redneck if......

you live in your parents' basement and you buy a 52" TV

(I could almost feel bad about it if the 3 Stooges didn't look so darn good)

yee hah!

Well, thank goodness someone's on the ball!

Lo and behold, I got an email update from our homebuilder today and saw that they took a picture of our excavation (and the picture is dated 3/01/2009, 4 days before they were supposed to start!)

I'm so excited since I dropped the ball and forgot my camera and thought I'd never have a chance to capture this.

I didn't know they took pictures for us. I think I love them.

I visited the homesite yesterday and saw that not only was our foundation dug, but they had done the footers and the forms too. More progress than we had expected. Yay!

See our trees in the back? I think those should be staying. Can't wait to see nice green leaves. and the house in front of them :)
This is our pile of dirt. Brett and Lili asked if that was staying because they think that's the coolest part. And it's pouring down rain right now, so it's even cooler yet today.

(I had to take a quick picture from the car because one of my future neighbors was behind me and I didn't want to look like a freak....not from the get-go anyway, they'll learn in time, right Karen?)

Our plan is to go check up on the house every Sunday afternoon.
Wonder what next week will hold?

Ho Hum...

Seriously, I have nothing to say.

I figured though since people actually keep coming back (thank you), I'd at least give you a new post to look at.

Since this has become a 'house building blog', I'll update you on that front:

We had our 'pre-construction meeting' Wednesday, where we went over our home plans yet again to make sure they're going to build our house right.

One exciting thing: WE SAW OUR EXCAVATED SITE!! That really, really was pretty exciting. We've driven past it a few times not really being able to envision a house being there, but this time (the ONLY time I haven't had my camera with me...grrr), was actually pretty cool. They didn't start the actual basement digging till yesterday, but they had the site cleared and excavated the day before.

I really do feel sorry for the neighbors. That's a lot of noise, mud and inconvenience.

Yeah, people, just wait till we move in! :)

On a Lili and Brett note:

Lili had some kind of infection-type thing last week, starting Day 1 of living at Meemaw and Peepaw's. She missed 3 days of school in a row. Her first absences of the year.

Poor little thing, the ONLY time she cried was when we told her she couldn't go to school. She wailed about how much she missed Mrs. V and Mrs. Z and all her friends. She had a pretty nasty fever (103-ish) and sore throat and ears and a rash. But, she's all better now.

And now, Brett has some icky stomach thing. I don't think he'll be crying about not being in school today though ;)

So, that's that. We're planning on going to the new house site once a week or so to take pictures of the progress. MUST remember the camera...

The weather has been really nice the last couple of days, hitting above 60F with sun :O

so that should help them get our house up ASAP.

and I thought I had nothing to say.......