So I've been thinking lately.
Yes, I hear all of your groans...but this thinking doesn't involve anybody having to listen to me rant about adoption, pick up a paintbrush or even buy me a pony. No, it's not that kind of thinking.

Because I've been thinking that I need a catch phrase... you know like my own "trademark saying".

Like- let's see...
Emirel has "Bam"
Joey Tribbiani had "How YOU doin'?"
Walter Cronkite finished the evening news with "And that's the way it is"
The bad guy on Scooby Doo always said " if it weren’t for you meddling kids!"
Spock parted ways with a "Live long and prosper"
Fonzie made "Aaay" popular
Who could forget The Soup Nazi and "No soup for you!"
The Terminator had "Hasta la vista Baby!"
And even my friends 4 yr old son enjoys bestowing an occasional " Bow Chicka Wah Wah" on us... it's "his thing"

So, I've been thinking that I could use one too!
But I need mine as a way of signing off, a way to wrap it up. I am at a loss sometimes for a good way to sum it up on this blog (and sometimes in life!). So I've been thinking of what a good "catch phrase" could do for me. I just can't come up with one...where do you even start when trying to create your own catch phrase?

Geesh, I hope all of the good ones haven't been taken!
Hmmmmmm, let's see.

"And that's all for now, folks." No, I sound like Porky Pig.
"Thank you and goodnight." No, too talk show host-ish.
"Peace/shalom. " No, I'm not a Rabbi

OK, seriously.
Do you all hear the empty silence of my brain?
.
.
.

Well, maybe I should just forget this whole thing, I mean...who really even needs a "catch phrase". I'm really not cool enough to pull it off anyway. And besides, it's just too much more to remember and we all know I'm sorta not great in that department these days (hellooo...all I can think of is where my one little ruling may be...72 days later...but who's really counting?)

So I think I'll just continue signing off as I always have...
J

I found my inspiration!

Years ago, gosh maybe before I even met Adam, I found this wall hanging that inspired me, made me laugh a bit. It went up in my little apartment bathroom and had been hanging in every bathroom I had for years after that.

And some of you may remember a certain wedding toast by a bro-in-law who's name begins with a T and ends with a d...hmmm. Yep this was the basis for his toast on Adam & my wedding day. Totally hilarious and obviously memorable!

Well, then Simone came into our lives and the guest bathroom became her jungle. When she turned 2 she wanted a jungle bathroom and so Mama's decorations came down and lions, giraffes and toucans went up!

So this weekend we were cleaning the basement-preparing for our newest arrival- and I was going through boxes of paintings and pictures we just never got through after our move to Tenn.

That is when I found my inspiration again!

Sometimes these days I need a little inspiration, a little something to laugh at, just like back when I first found it. So needless to say, my inspiration is back on the bathroom wall where I can giggle- or daydream- when I brush my teeth.

So here's to our inspirations, big, small and maybe even a bit corny...

J

July Updates!

FINALLY!!! July Updates of our little man!

We finally got our updates last night.

These were taken on June 30th, so he was 4 & 1/2 months. He weighed in at 13.22 pds and 23.62 inches. Doesn't appear from the measurements that he's put on much/if any weight but he looks like he's put on some- his cheeks look fuller. But isn't he so cute!

OK, some of you may remember Simone and the tongue, well looks like he's taking after his big sis! (her tongue was out in almost every photo for the first month or two she was home!)

I just love these updates! He is getting so big and I am really so in love with his sweet little face! Simone wants to know where his hair is...

I told her I am obviously destined to have hair challenged babies, as she was bald as a bowling ball till well after her first birthday!

I think he is trying to get that hand in his mouth as you'll see in the video...we may have a thumb-sucker on our hands! He looks a bit nervous also, just makes me want to scoop him up an love and cuddle him even more!

So there are our wonderful July updates. I can't believe how in love I am with my little dumpling! This really makes me pray for the ruling soon! (as if I wasn't before...)

So here's hoping for some good news this week, for us and of course for all my JOH buddies, and my blog buddies that are waiting for good news. COME ON referrals, hearings, RULINGS and travel appointments!!!!

I also want to give a big welcome to my new PAP (prospective adoptive parent) friend and her wonderful family...Welcome to the roller coaster, Gabi! I know you and your family will have an amazing journey and I am so excited for you all!

Happy update day to everyone!

J

Play Ball!!

Being the big baseball fan I am (NOT...) I was thrilled for the opportunity to go to a baseball game this weekend! OK, I was thrilled for the chance to get out of town for the weekend with my family...the game was just a good excuse! But it was fun and Simone had a blast. Well, until she fell asleep during the second inning. Yep, sound asleep from innings 2-6. Big ball fan like her Mama I guess.

Now being from New England (Go BoSox!!) we are not really fans of either team we saw play, but we cheered for the Braves since we were in their stadium. We didn't see a single player score and the innings we stayed for went very fast.

Adam's company gets tickets every year for their clients and we got to the stadium well before the game to chat with other folks and eat yummy ball game food, hence Simone's exhaustion by game time!
Oh and how cool was this! They had race cars that did a lap around the field! Adam and I really had fun and just wish Simone had stayed awake to enjoy also.


And here comes the part about getting away for the weekend. My stipulation to going to the game (Atlanta is a 3+ hour drive...) was that we got to make a weekend out of it and stay in a hotel and swim and eat out and not have two little stinky dogs following us around. (Yes, and I missed them still) So we stayed downtown and got to do all of the above mentioned things (plus we went shopping...yipee!) Here's our beautiful view from our room. OK, so not all that lovely, but we weren't in the room that much and again...we were out of town on a fun family weekend. Hopefully it's our last family trip without Wei-Che.
I'm just saying.


And my "shy" little girl decided to wow the crowds at the Hard Rock with a little song and dance number. Daddy got on stage too. My little hams! Really, this is in the middle of the restaurant. Simone actually is fairly shy, but Atlanta brought out the wild child... She was up there for a good 20 minutes and would have stayed longer if it wasn't time to eat!

Our waiter took a family picture of us. Do we look like we'd had a busy day? I think we headed back to the hotel and passed out within a 1/2 hour of the picture!

So that was our fun weekend in Atlanta.

Oh and for the shopping part...we stopped at the outlet malls on the drive home. What fun! (yes my other stipulation to going was that) We got Simone some new school clothes and a big girl back pack for Kindergarten. And we got quite a bit of cutsie little clothes for my little Wei-Che. Not knowing what size he'll be when he FINALLY comes home we opted for mostly 9-12 month outfits, with a few 12 months in there too. Fun Fun Fun! So he now has lots of little outfits in his closet!

So nope, no news on the court ruling and NO UPDATES yet this month! See why I needed to just get away..? Not getting updates on Friday made it a tough night, but I am holding out hope we will get to see our sweet little dumpling soon this week. Like today would be great...

J

OK, I am definitely ready.
For the baby to come home I mean. No, really. I am ready.
So now I just need one or two little things...like my rulings! But other than that I am ready.

You see, I had this...

On Sunday my Aunt Jody and friend Starla threw a very nice shower for me & the little guy. It was so much fun, but odd since I don't know when he will be home! They didn't want to wait too long though...just in case.
Well, that and the fact that somebody over here who's been a bit high strung these days has been hitting the baby store pretty hard lately and they were worried that I, umm -I mean that person would buy it all up!
And yep, that is the only picture I have...I forgot to take more during the shower (did I mention the yummy Sangria that was served...uh-hum). Starla & Jody took a bunch though, so I'll post them when they send them to me. So you see, I am now officially ready.

Thank you for the wonderful shower!

And last week we sent out another care package to Wei-Che. We kept it small, three little outfits, a package of onsies and a few toys. Oh and a camera. Below is my little wonton modeling the goodies.

And another view of the same stuff...

And speaking of "care packages"... Last night I received one myself! My dear sweet blog buddy, Lisa, sent me a little package of goodies for Wei-Che! I knew she was sending a sample of a bottle, but boy was I surprised when I opened up the pkg and found these adorable items!

Ohhhh...how so very thoughtful! Thank you so much Lisa! You made my night - my week- and I will think of you every time Wei-Che uses these wonderful items! The snuggly blanket is definitely coming to Taiwan with us and I love the color of the onsie -perfect!

But.........not only did I get a surprise, Simone did also. Her sweet "bestest log buddy, Lauren" sent her a way cool big sis shirt that had Simone just thrilled to the tip of her toes!

Simone says Thank you, Thank you, Lauren!!! You are so sweet to think of her!! She LOVES the shirt and was thrilled to show off her big-sis status officially!

And even though I am ready, I have not gotten my ruling today. Therefore I will be hoping very hard for our updates! I need something here... Hopefully my next post will be some adorable new pictures and a video of my sweet baby!

J

What summer fun...catching fireflies!

We have so many of them this year, maybe because of all the rain we've had. So Friday night we decided to try to catch them. Simone was pretty good at it. We believe in the "catch and release program" so they were only contained for a few minutes, and then she'd catch the next one! Who knew you could make an evening out of catching bugs? And a fun one at that!

Ah-ha...caught it!

I caught a big one myself....see!

Still no news on our first ruling, but I am holding out hope that there will at least be updates this week. I need my Wei-Che fix, and I want to see how big my baby boy is getting!

Oh, and I guess I'd take that ruling too, I mean I'm just saying...

J

Baggage

Yep, that's what I've got...baggage. Excess baggage to be honest. And I'm not speaking of a bunch of luggage filled with bricks, although it sure feels that heavy!

No, it's all this excess stuff my brain has to keep track of - general information, adoption time lines, birthdays, phone numbers, work deadlines, grocery lists, play dates, passwords, code words...

What can I get rid of, what bit of baggage can I just forget? Well if only it were that simple. But alas, my brain with its baggage is much like my five year old and her toys. We can do a "keep pile" and a "get rid of pile" but the keep pile grows while the to go pile remains empty. My brain tries to keep track of it all but unfortunately is too overwhelmed to do a very good job. It thinks if it tucks away all the information it can pull it back out at just the right moment. And sometimes it does. At just the right moment it goes "here Jen...you need to know this right now" but then other times it remembers too late, sometimes even hours too late. Like at 2:30 in the morning when it screams "oh no, Jen...you needed to know this for that very important client today, um actually yesterday I guess...remember?"

Well then, I guess I am partly to blame for this mess we've gotten in, me and my brain. I keep testing it, putting more and more stuff in there.
And this adoption isn't helping, I've really thrown my brain for a loop this time. Too many what ifs. My brain likes precise data and dates. None of this maybe in a month, maybe in two or three. It needs concrete time lines so it can plan accordingly. (remember...type A thing) And the new rules I've had to instill just to keep my brain from overloading too much at work. No email checking or even any Internet from 10 to 2, so I can stop hitting the refresh button and then getting super disappointed that the magical email hasn't appeared saying the first ruling is in and we're one step closer. My brain just gets too involved in the whole thing and sadly my work is suffering from it!

But there is some hope. I read an article in one of our local magazines the other day. The writer is pregnant and was talking about "placenta brain" (ya, sounds pretty icky doesn't it?). So I've been thinking about that, how can I apply this placenta thing to me? I know it's not hormonal for me but I tell you my symptoms sound eerily similar. So I've set my brain on a new task...I know, I know, more work for the poor thing. But it is in charge of thinking of a way to tie this all together so I at least have a name for my forgetfulness. When people say "Gee Jennifer, you seem so distracted, so scatterbrained and absentminded lately, what’s up?", then I can have an actual name for my situation. Instead of the 20 minute explanation, complete with a few tears and nose snuffling, I can just say..."Oh I've got ________ brain, it's really quite common".

Obviously no news on my Taiwan baby. And yes, the wait is really starting to get to me, and we're only on day 51 of the estimated 1-3 month wait. And then we have two more wait times before we finally go get him. Ugh!

And people ask if we'll ever adopt again! Ha ha...what do you think.
OK, ya maybe
J

Celebration for the Fourth

First I want to take a moment to reflect on the amazing freedoms we have here in the beautiful United States of America. We just celebrated Independence Day, the day we remember those brave men who fought- and those who died- for us, as well as all of the women who helped the cause and aided in the revelution in 1776 so we could be permitted such freedoms. And I would like to thank all of those men and women who are still serving our Country so that we can keep those hard won freedoms. Our Heroes of the armed forces... the people who knowingly put their lives and personal freedoms last to ensure that we maintain ours. God bless you all.

We had a three day weekend here, and we have been taking full advantage of an extra family day.

We have lots of farms around our house and one of them has acres and acres of berry fields. So we decided to go blueberry and blackberry picking! We had a really fun time too!

Here we are heading out to the back fields. This property went on and on, it was so pretty and quiet. And I think Simone ate as many berries as she put in the bucket!!

Look how ambitious we were starting out...three buckets!

And an hour later....

It doesn't look like much, but I tell you we have a lot of berries! We didn't fill all three buckets but we have enough berries for the week, plus we made a real nice pie.

The farm also has very cute brown cows. We left very full of berries and very tired from all of the walking! Good thing there was a cool breeze.

And of course what would a holiday weekend be without family and friends? We had a fun cookout with some of our family and our dear friends.

Oliver was just exhausted from all of the activities, but of course had to be in the midst of it all anyway!

And our friends...

We are so lucky to have great friends that moved here from Florida. It is like having more family here and the girls get along so well.

And Simone's Auntie.

We watched the fireworks from our upstairs deck. It was so cool to see them all around. Plus our neighbors put on a great show of their own! It was a very fun evening!

So that is how we celebrated the Fourth of July.

We have an odd history with the 4th too, Adam and I met on the 4th of July, ummm lets see...11 years ago.

We've had some losses and some personal gains all on the fourth too. We will always remember the loss of our dear friend and neighbor Dan (and the best darned BBQer in the South!).

And yesterday we welcomed the newest member of our family, the birth of a new baby boy by Adam's cousin. Congrats to the whole family on that!

I hope you all are celebrating with family and friends and...

Happy Birthday USA!

Simone has been making up songs for her baby brother.... She said she was really really ready for him to come home. Really? Umm, ya me too!

Cute, huh?

J