I don't know why I haven't thought of this before now but I took Lily to an Asian Market today. Last night at the New Year Party they had some shredded dried squid (sounds yummy doesn't it?) and Lily loved it. I found out it came from a little market not too far from our house so I told Lily I would take her soon. She bugged me all day today so I took her when I had to pick up Noah from church. She was so excited. She laughed and ran around the store picking stuff up saying " in China I had that" and "it's yummy". I let her get most of what she wanted and ended up with some pretty interesting stuff. On the way home she had a few jelly sticks, some cookies you dip in icing, some corn snacks and a sesame candy. As soon as we got in the door she started in on the dried sardines, shredded squid, spicy crunchy radish and topped it off with a green bean Popsicle (I am not kidding). Next she started fixing her school lunch. Filling it with all her goodies including some chrysanthemum tea, strawberry panda cookies and some more squid and radish. I have not seen her this excited in a long time. I don't know why I waited so long to take her there but I sure am glad I did.

Sunday was not only Valentines Day but it was also The Chinese New Year. This year is the year of the Tiger. We were invited to spend the New Year with some wonderful folks we have met through the adoption community. We drove a little further south and all had a great time. We did crafts, ate Chinese food, the kids played, the grown ups talked and the kids finished the night off with sparklers.


Mason and Lily making lanterns out of jars. I ended up making most of them because the snow was a little more exciting and there was still plenty to play in.

A bunch of wet clothes and boots are why I am glad we don't get snow very often.

Lily is so excited to see her first snow. Can't wait to see the total accumulation. It has only been snowing 1 1/2 hours with this much! More tomorrow.

The kids could hardly wait to get home and dump there bags...

All I wanted was one little picture...So everyone could see

we had a very important appt. for Lily yesterday. we had to meet with a geneticist. apparently that is the speciality that holds the answer as to whether or not she has a bone disorder. i picked lily up from school and barely made it there on time. Greenwood Genetics is downtown and it has been a long time since I had been there so I underestimated how long it would take. the office was very nice, friendly and on time (yeah!). first a genetic counselor came in and asked a bunch of questions. sadly many of them i don't know. the first 3 years of her life are a mystery. soon after that the geneticist came in. she was wonderful. she developed a good rapport with lily right off. matter of fact lily was quite charming at the office and she was asking me about adoption before we left! we went over all the facts, she took a close look at lily physically and then said the best words i could have hoped to hear, " I don't think she has either". I was shocked because i was convinced she had OI (brittle bone disease). we still are not a 100% . her xrays are in route to the WORLD'S most renowned radiologist in Germany (i think-maybe Switzerland). Based on what he says we will either be done and know that she is healthy or we will have to get DNA and do genetic testing to check for the mutation. I am very encouraged. Either way we will be fine but it would be great if she was perfectly healthy.

One of my favorite series to read the kids are the Llama Llama books. They are fun to read and have cute stories. I don't always think about the fact that the littles may not understand all the words so last night as I read the word fret I asked them if they knew what it meant. Wyatt paused and said "yeah I know, it means to freak out". I have no idea where he heard that....

Today is dreary and I feel weary. Our weather overall this winter has been colder, cloudier and wetter than usual and it is wearing on me. I long for the days of sun and warmth! To top off my dreary day John got the news that he is not getting the job we had hoped for. He was actually going to be offered the job today but someone within the company decided they wanted their job back. That means no opening, no job for John. My first reaction is weariness. This whole unemployed thing is new to us. I am ready for it to be over. The uncertainty of it is hard. I try so hard to rely on my faith that God will provide for us and deep done I know it will be ok. But right now I just want to get in the bed and pull the covers over my head until the sun comes out.

Why Punxsutawney Phil six more weeks? Maybe you need glasses!

You gotta love kids....

Lily, Wyatt and Mason just ran in the room laughing and handed me two notes. One from mason (with help) that said, I lov you mommy and one from Wyatt that said, I love you YoYo (I think it is supposed to be XOXO) I Love you SBR mommy! (SBR=Super) Man, a pick me up just when I needed it. Thank you Jesus for these sweet children!

Notice Lily isn't using chopsticks anymore. She pretty much always uses a fork. Also, she constantly tries to stand while eating. It drives John nuts, you can hear him ask her if she stood to eat in China. I guess we will need to work on manners soon a little harder. I think she's just so darn cute!

1. John had an interview last week for a great job in the same territory he had before. He wants this job soooo bad. On Friday the manager called and told him to relax and have a good weekend and not to worry. We hope that means a job offer tomorrow!!!!

2. I overheard Lily trying to teach Wyatt about the calendar and heard her say "tomorrow February, no January, January die".

3. I finally figured out why so many Suburbans are parked on the outer edges of parking lots, those buggers are hard to park and back up. I traded my Honda Odyssey in for a Suburban and well let's just say I love it but I am adjusting.

4. We have the crud going around at our house. Thankfully short lived and not too bad. But anything takes a while to go through 5 kids and maybe 2 adults...

5. We had a little ice here in SC over the weekend, something many Southerners panic about. That could be proved by the long list of churches that cancelled services today. Thankfully our church just posted that all services would remain as usual but please use your judgement as to whether or not to drive. No problem, ice was minor.

6. If you are ever in the hospital, seriously thank your nurse. It is a hard job. I cannot tell you how much it means to me to be thanked and surprisingly it doesn't happen enough!

7. I joined the Great Weight Loss Challenge at work last week. Hopefully it will be the motivation I need to get this weight off. I have such a hard time sticking to something so I hope this little contest will help. The winner takes home almost $1000 bucks! Now I can think of a lot of things to do with that.....maybe a HS?

8. I am going to have my first contest this week ever! Stay tuned for details......

Have a great and Blessed day!

When men stop believing in God they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything.
—G. K. Chesterton

Want to know what someone is thinking about before being deployed to the Middle East? Then check out my brothers blog at Intheworldnotofit.wordpress.com . It just makes me appreciate our servicemen and women more, knowing what they have to go through.

Want to know how the family left behind is handling it? Then check out his wife's blog at janieboots.wordpress.com It makes me appreciate their familes sacrifice more, too.

Last week I celebrated a birthday...

Per my request John made me the Pioneer Women's Best Chocolate Sheet Cake Ever. It did not disappoint.

But the best part was sharing it and celebrating it with my family.

I am so blessed to have such a wonderful family. Thanks for a fabulous day.

Next year my birthday will mean something totally new...for I will be 40!

I finally updated Lily's Website. We only have 4 more updates until our One Year Gotcha Anniversary, so hard to believe. Just click on her picture on the left sidebar if you want to check it out. If you regularly check this block it won't be a lot of new stuff.