Friday already?

Lol... well, it did feel a bit like a long week earlier, and here it is late Friday night!

I did call our adoption worker yesterday, and she said she has the letter of approval ~ if she got the time, she was planning to mail our file to our agency yesterday. If we haven't received our copy of the approval letter within a week i need to call again. So after our agency receives the package, it goes to wherever for legalization/ authentication (about 2-4 weeks for that)... and then off to Ethiopia and we officially begin waiting for a referral at that point. That could take 3-12 months. Exciting!

It really felt good to have a day off today. The kids and i went to our favorite second-hand store. We didn't buy a lot, but found a few treasures. Reagan bought a "Shmuzzle Puzzle" (all the pieces are the same shape ~ shaped like lizards ~ that all fit together like a jigsaw puzzle). We had fun putting that together ~ it was a regular scenery picture of water, trees, mountain and sky, but complicated because of the shapes.

Then this afternoon Jonathan & I needed to sign some papers for our mortgage, and took advantage of the trip to the city to do another "grocery shopping." Well, he looked so tired that i told him he could go sleep in the van if he wanted. (Getting up at 4:30 is a bit of an adjustment). Two hours later I was done shopping and packing $250 worth of groceries. I was thankful (at that point) that at least he'd be able to help me pack everything into the van. Lol... when i got to the van, he wasn't there :-) He'd come looking for me i guess, and he must have just missed me. So I loaded everything up myself (fortunately the hatch held itself open ~ it doesn't when it's too cold), and when i grabbed the last item out of the cart, he showed up ~ lol.

When I got home, i had an invitation to join a friend (two friends actually) for coffee (actually for me it was cheesecake and water ~ i don't do coffee), so that was a lovely evening out too. (Thanks ladies!)

Oh, and Jonathan's shift is changed back to 7:00 for next week. That's so much nicer. I love having him home at 2:30-3:00, but then he's always tired/sleeping whenever ~ not worth it.

Anyway, busy day tomorrow trying to catch up on some over-due house work... or maybe, i did suggest earlier to the kids that maybe we'd do some fun "school" stuff... but either way it's getting late.

Sometimes my blog must almost be boring... sorry.

This week with no school (Easter break, or spring break?), we have both Robbie & Andrew every day (except Friday because we've asked to have Friday's off). And mostly longer days too (starting at 9:45 ~ when Robbie has preschool he gets here about 11:30). Today it took me 2 hours to get Robbie down for his nap! I took a break after 1 1/2 hours while he sat in his chair for a bit, but then took him back on my lap for another half-hour before he finally gave in. So there's a reason i sometimes feel like i'm getting nothing done. I did some reading with Brenden today, but our "homeschool" has been very challenged lately! It's easier when it's just Robbie, so hopefully next week will go more smoothly again... but it's feeling like a long time til June ~ lol. Still trying to maintain a good attitude about it all.

Jonathan has an even earlier shift now ~ they call it "summer hours" (even though it's only March??). It's not a bad shift at the end of the work day (done at 2:00), but getting up at 4:30 (to be at work by 5:30) might be a bit brutal after a bit. The reasoning is ok ~ welding gets warm, so in the summer heat it can be unbearable ~ but we're still doing winter! We'll see... if it's too crazy, he might be able to come in a bit later.

I'm waiting patiently (so far) to hear from our adoption worker about our provincial approval. I'd like to call already and be sure she got all our paperwork and is working on it, but i don't want to be impatient either. She should've had everything last week Monday, so i think it's about time to call ~ maybe tomorrow if we haven't heard anything by then.

This week is going better. I'm pretty sure that (last week) i had swollen lymph nodes in my neck and head causing my head to feel yucky ~ and affecting how i felt overall. So I'm very thankful to have a clear head again!

So far Brenden & Reagan are doing pretty good with Robbie, but today looks like it could be a bigger challenge. We have both boys today since 9:30 because there's no school. And all of next week is the same.

I also have my other sister's boys today ~ my brother-in-law called at 8 this morning asking if we could watch them (just the older 4) because my sister is at the hospital with the other two. She took the 1yr. old (foster boy) in last night (i assume breathing problems ~ asthma or pneumonia?) and this morning they were still waiting for him to be admitted (waiting for a bed). She's got their baby with her too and hasn't slept all night! UGH! I don't know how she does it! Of course i can watch the other 4! (they don't have school today).

I guess i haven't "quit" after all. Long story short, my sister would still prefer to leave her boys with us, and so we will continue to have them, but hopefully not more than 4 days/ week. I just feel we need that little breather. Actually, Brenden & Reagan want to share the job opportunity and income, so they will be mostly responsible to keep Robbie entertained and/or out of trouble. :-)

And it might not be til the end of June... maybe only til early-mid-June, so that's not all that long. If we make a point of getting up at a decent time, we can get in 2hours of school stuff before Robbie gets here, and then we he naps we have a little more time for whatever. On the days when Andrew is here, well, i guess we'll figure something out.

We had a homeschool Math workshop on Friday (at the school division office), and we rather enjoyed it. Kind of inspired me to pull out some games and such that we've sort of forgotten about. And i asked about testing... so i guess we'll probably be doing that about the second week of April. I'm looking forward to that.

On Saturday we all went to an adoption get together (for families who have adopted or are considering/ in the process of adopting children from Ethiopia). We enjoyed that, and met a few new families. This is the second time we've been at one of these events, so we're slowly getting to meet some of these families. It's a pretty big group (almost a bit overwhelming at first), but a wonderful support group!

We signed our revised homestudy on Friday, so that's going to the office today. I'm waiting to hear back from our adoption worker about one paper (whether or not she needs it, and if it needs the professional witness/signatures), and then i hope to drop of the last of the papers ~ the employment letters ~ today.

Jonathan's job sounds ok so far. He didn't do any real welding til Wednesday, and the hours have been a bit confusing (to me anyway)... but that's likely just with orientation and such. And i think they go in earlier for manditory over-time on Fridays?? We'll figure it out yet... not a big deal. I really like that he gets home so much earlier!!!

My week has been a bit more difficult... having Robbie here full-time has it's challenges, but my head has been feeling a bit yucky all week. I find that really affects me way too much and i need to find a way to cope better with those days. But yesterday when my sister asked about it (because i had mentioned to my bil that i was feeling stressed), she decided to see if daycare was still an option... so she's going with that. While it has been a relief to me, i feel really badly about "quitting" (even though i didn't "quit" but left the decision up to my sister so far ~ i guess she thought rather deal with it now than let it get to be too much??). And I guess Andrew had wanted daycare in the first place, so while i offered he could still come here, she decided to put him in daycare too ~ but more like a drop in so that she doesn't have to pay everyday just to hold his spot. And we'll be back-up for days when daycare doesn't work out. Oh, and the bus will continue to drop Robbie off at our house and we'll walk him over to daycare.

Of course, with that decision made, today is going pretty good. My kids haven't had this much fun with Robbie, probably ever before. ???

And there i break to put him down for his nap ~ and he fights me more than usual to go down ~ lol. I guess maybe all the fun equals "i don't want to sleep" today, and he put on a serious fight. But he did give in, and after 1/2 hour of holding/rocking him, he is sleeping now.

Anyway, I do feel badly about not having it all "together" enough to manage him full-time for 4 months... and it seems like i'm looking at everything in light of our pending adoption like "if you can't handle this, do you really think you can handle adopting two children?" Maybe i'm just afraid that's how others will look at it... and i need to stop thinking like that! It's God's voice and thoughts that I need to listen to!

Tired today

My head wasn't feeling great yesterday, but when my friend called to see if I might join her (she took her little girl to emerg because she hadn't been feeling well), i decided it could be a good thing to go out. It's been a while since she & I have had a good visit anyway ;-)

So three of her children stayed here (with Jonathan & our kids), and her 12yr. daughter came along to the city as well. We got to the hospital about 7pm, and finally left there about midnight. None of us really had supper (i'd been snacking enough that i really wasn't hungry though), so on our way home we did drive-thru at McDonalds which took dreadfully long too, and we got home sometime between 1 & 1:30am. We'd been in touch with Jonathan so everyone had gone to bed. (Well, one of the boys had kinds of "waited up" for his mom and went home with her). So i had two extras today, besides Robbie & Andrew who came at 11:30.

Today being the last homeschool skating for the season, we didn't really want to miss it (we haven't gone near as often as we used to), so we packed everyone up and went! We knew it would be an adventure with Robbie there, so I really appreciated how Brenden kept running after him. (After about 20-30min. of that I had Robbie sitting with me).

I'm waiting to hear how Jonathan's first day at the new job went. I'm not sure how much work they'll have done today since it was orientation... but i'm still anxious to hear how it went. He is taking a Perpsectives in World Missions class on Monday nights (in the city), so he hasn't been home yet. Makes for long Mondays!

But i'm tired, and don't get to sleep in tomorrow morning either... so i'm off.

Couple of pictures from today

Darwin has been begging all winter to do a wiener roast, and they've kept the fire pit in the backyard cleared of snow just for this... so i had to get a picture.

And my nephew Robbie ~ After telling him numerous times not to stand on the piano bench, and he doesn’t listen, we take the bench away… and this is what we get ~ lol. Reagan was just sitting there watching TV and Robbie squeezed between him and the piano, reached his hands up and began to play piano... and then eventually propped himself up to kind of sitting on Reagan's back and then climbed right up with his feet like you see him here ~ lol.