You're Taking Chances If You Spend the Night with Us.

Emma & Ryan have two older half brothers who are quite a bit older (28 & 23) and they were here this past weekend. Jesse, the oldest, stayed through Sunday and had told us that he wanted to go to church with us, however we could not get him to stir come Sunday a.m. For some reason he always sleeps in the basement when he is here even though we have a fairly nice guest room. I think he probably stays up late watching tv or surfing. Anyway, Brian had tried to get him up - I had tried getting him up (talk about memories of when he was a teen coming flooding back) and even Emma had tried to get him up. But nothing was getting him to stir so we just let him be and headed on out the door for church. We went out to eat after church, visited a while and basically took our sweet time and didn't get home until later in the afternoon. We had just changed clothes and had sat down to read the paper when we heard a knock on the door - but it didn't sound like our regular door, it sounded much closer. Emma had a funny look on her face and we sent her to see who was there. As she rounded the corner we heard another knock and I asked her if it was coming from the basement. It indeed was ...

We have no idea what possessed the little 3 feet of full stinker, but she had LOCKED the door to the basement and poor Jesse was stuck there until we got home. He could have exited through the garage I suppose, but the front door was locked. So for all intents and purposes he was in lockdown.

So, if you want to visit the Hunter clan - make sure you go with us when we go or make darn sure you're not hanging out in the lower portion of the house when we leave.

League Champions!

Ryan is #7



Ryan's basketball team played in the championship game this past Saturday and played a team that had previously beaten them twice during the regular season. In fact, the green team had gone into the last game undefeated. But the kids came out ready to play & ready to win! They won by 1 point in the last few seconds of the game!!!

Go Team Go!

Something about watching those kids play basketball renders me tongue-tied. In the playoff game I was getting all wound up because Ryan's shots were just not going in and the game was neck in neck. Brian ended up giving me the speech about not getting wound up, it's just a game, etc. and I told him I understood but that if all those shots had gone in we would be 12 points ahead and then I followed that up with "yeah, but if pigs had flies they'd wing". Then while discussing another team I mentioned that one of the little players was a "bog haul" ... I tell you, I just can't carry on a conversation with a good ball game going on in front of me!

Circus Time

We took the kiddos to the circus last week & had the best time! Ryan & Emma both were mesmerized by the show and really enjoyed themselves. We had joked that we may not want Emma to see some of the acrobatic parts thinking she might just try something wild in gymnastics! But we asked her if she wanted to try some of those things and she told us "No Way!". Thank goodness.

Emma's favorite part of the evening were all of the pretty colors in the different costumes as well as the "swinging stuff". She's now saying she liked the clowns but she didn't want them any where near her when we first got there.

Ryan's favorite part was a big ol' round iron cage thing and had 4 motorcyles riding around in it. Then they added one more motorcycle rider ... and then TWO MORE! It was amazing to watch. I just know that had I been involved, all the bikes would have been in one big heap in the bottom! I just can't imagine the timing and precision involved to make something like that go off without a hitch.

Oh ... and from my perspective, their favorite part of the evening:
Ryan: Caramel apple
Emma: Cotton Candy (she had it EVERYWHERE)

Fick Nickins

Fick Nickins - that's what Emma calls Fig Newtons.

That was days ago & I'm still laughing at her mispronunciation!

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

Happy Chinese New Year!

Emma is so excited about celebrating CNY, her preschool class has been celebrating all week. The sensory table has been decorated in red and gold and also has a dragon on it and they have made lion masks for a parade. We brought in envelopes for her to give her friends. Instead of placing money in the envelopes though, we added chocolate kisses. I'm thinking 3 and 4 year olds will prefer chocolate over money!

This morning as we headed out the door, Emma made a quick trip up to her bedroom and brought down her "China bear" to bring to school. This is something we sent to her after we received our referral but before we traveled to China to get her. Much to our surprise she did have the little bear with her on the day we became a forever family. The orphanage director gave us pictures of her taken at the orphanage and she has the little bear with her in most of them. I asked her why she was taking "China bear" today for CNY and she told me it was because I had sent it to her in China. I thought it was really sweet of her, even if it doesn't have anything to do with celebrating the new year. My sweet little dumpling ...

Why?

Yesterday was a particulary difficult day adoption wise. My day started out with news that the CCAA has had staff reductions as well as changes to the special needs program such that the agency we work with may not be participating in the new program for special needs adoption any more. That was followed up by some more news that basically said the slow down will continue.

The news hit me pretty hard because in the back of mind I keep thinking it's going to get better. But yesterday I really questioned myself, wondering why are we doing this again when we have such a perfect family and I even went so far as to tell Brian that I was sorry I had even asked that we adopt again. At lunch time I went driving around and spent some time in prayer and asked God to please show me if we were supposed to just forget the whole thing, or to somehow let me know we are doing the right thing. Probably not the best prayer in the world, but I was so discouraged. After the initial few hours of worry and concern, I knew deep down that somehow - someday - some way, it will all work out according to God's plan and that I just need to keep the faith.

This morning I was reading through my email and had a link to this video from a fellow adoptive parent that lives in Washington that I had met during the process of adopting Emma. This pretty much confirms for me why we are doing this again. I just need to be patient ...

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcmz_adoption1

Birthday Card from Emma

Emma's daycare teachers told me that on my birthday Emma wanted to make me a birthday card and that she started in on them early that morning asking them to help her. She asked them to write down what she wanted to tell me (is there a little CEO in training here?). When I went to pick her up that evening they were all very tickled with the card and with Emma's insistence on making me a card ... and they were very, very tickled with what Emma wanted to get me for my birthday. See if you can pick out what it was that was so funny to them, it took me a few minutes to get what they were saying:

“I Love My Mommy’s Birthday Party”

I love you so much. We go on vacation. I like her birthday party so much. She is going to be 22. I love my dad so much too. We go to Chicago. I want to give her a big coffee pot and a big tree and a big big momma screwdriver.

All the giggling and carrying on had to do with the screwdriver. They wanted to know if I really wanted a screwdriver. Of course I do, I replied! Which brought on more giggling with the teachers. You see, I want my own personal screwdriver that lives in the house, preferrably the kitchen and no one else is allowed to use. I would really prefer a small set that has both the flat thingy and the phillips thingy and in several sizes. A set in it's own cute little container would even be better. I had my own screwdrivers & even a hammer before we married but somehow post wedding and several moves, my tools have ended up with his tools and live happily ever after in a garage that I can't find a confounded thing in. So, there it is - I desired tools for my birthday. I suppose that's what happens when you get old. And the reason the teachers were carrying on ... their thoughts were more along the lines of an adult beverage of that name! Like I said, it took me a few minutes to figure out what they thought was so funny.

My favorite thing about the card - my precious baby thinks I'm 22. Now that's good!

And the thing I thought funny - was the "big big momma screwdriver". How do you ask a 3 year old where the comma was meant to be? Is that a "big, 'big momma' screwdriver" or just a "big - big" screwdriver? hmmm ...