Happy Birthday, Evelyn Style

Bad mom confession time.

Here’s how out-of-town birthdays go in our house. Its someone’s birthday. Someone special whom we love very much.  The good moms of the world see that on the calendar a week in advance (or even have such things memorized, how is that possible???) and go out and buy a gift or a lovely card and pop it in the mail so that it arrives it time for the special day. What does this mom do? I see it on the calendar the day of, tell my child it’s so-and-so’s birthday, and she proclaims that she wants to color them a picture. I then take photos of said picture and either send it via email, Facebook message, or blog post.

Today really is Grandpa Bruce’s birthday. Evelyn really did want to paint him a picture. Fabulous! We got out the table cloth, paints, and paint brushes and let her get her creative on. She was painting a really lovely picture too. Lots of different colors. Beautiful.

Then it was as though this little voice in her said, “What are you doing? You are Evelyn! You can’t possibly just sit and make a lovely picture like this.” So while I went to get the camera to take a photo of her work, her true self came out.

See these paint brushes? She really was using them first.

Then she decided to turn the picture into one giant purple finger-painted project.  Whatever.  

Then in true Evelyn form, she became a work of art as well.  Sigh.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

My New Best Friend

I have a new best friend.  We've been spending a lot of time together lately and will continue to do so over the next couple of years.

No, it's not my camera that is refusing to not take an overexposed, blurry photograph right now.  It's my lovely breast pump.  Not what you were expecting to view this fine morning on my blog, eh?

I'm developing a love/hate relationship with this contraption.

So here's the deal.  I want to breastfeed our adopted baby.  But in order to do that I have to have a good milk supply.  Annabelle is still nursing 7-8 times a day, but also just started taking in a good amount of solid food.  I will continue to nurse her for at least another year, so the pumping takes on a couple purposes.

First, it keeps my supply up while she is taking in less milk as she takes in more solids.  Second, it builds a freezer stash in case I don't make enough milk as s/he gets older and we need to supplement.

So my freezer is going to slowly fill with boxes filled with bags of milk.  I pump about 8 extra ounces a day right now by pumping during both of Bella's naps and right before I go to bed for the night.

Sometimes I feel like mooing. 

Actual Conversations At Our House

Me: Evelyn, you need to put on some clothes.
Evelyn: We have friends coming over?
Me: No, we don't just wear clothes when people are coming over.  Most people wear clothes all the time.
Evelyn: Oh.   
Resumes running around naked despite my efforts to continually put clothes on her for the remainder of the day.

Me: Evelyn, if you have to go brown poopy you need to do it in the potty upstairs.
Evelyn: Why?
Me: That's the rule.
Evelyn: Why?
Me: Remember yesterday when Bella found brown poopy in your potty and started eating it...
Yes, that really happened.

Evelyn: I need something.
Me: What do you need?
Evelyn: Something to eat.  I can't say it.
Me: You can't say it?
Evelyn: No.  I can't say it, but I want it.
Me: Show me what you want.
Evelyn: Shows me the pistachios.  I can't say that.

Order Out, Updates, and Cuteness

I'm not going to lie, I love getting big orders for felt food.  They make me feel like we're getting closer to bringing our baby home.  This order is going out this week!

 

I've been emailing back and forth with our social worker and she thinks the rough draft of our home study will be done in a couple weeks.  We will then have to edit it for accuracy and send it back to her with the rest of our required documents.  Once she has all of that it won't take long at all to be finished up!

And because I think every good blog post has some cuteness in it, here you go.  

Words To End Your Week

 From Live A Praying Life by Jennifer Kennedy Dean

The Potter is shaping your heart so that it is the container for His desires.  He is creating a masterpiece of His own design.  He is forming a vessel into which He will pour out His heart.

           
From Divided By Faith by Emerson and Smith

The inequality is expansive.  So expansive in fact that even if all homes and vehicles were taken from white Americans, they would still, on average, have greater net worth than black Americans.

From Generous Justice by Timothy Keller

When black people do things in a certain way, you say, "Well, that's your culture."  But when white people do things a certain way, you say, "That's just the right way to do things."  You don't realize you really have a culture.  You are blind to how many of your beliefs and practices are cultural.

We begin to see how, in so many ways, we made our cultural biases into moral principles and then judged people of other races as being inferior.

From The Journey by Katie

I bend to sweep crumbs and I bend to wipe vomit and I bend to pick up little ones and wipe away tears. I bend over a big pot of stew and I bend to fold endless laundry and I bend over math books and spelling sentences and history quiz corrections. And at the end of these days I bend next to the bed and I ask only that I could bend more, bend lower.

Because I serve a Savior who came to be a servant. He lived bent low. And bent down here is where I see His face.

Blogs of Note

When I joined the ranks of adoption blogs at Circle of Moms in a race to be in the Top 25, I had no visions of actually making the Top 25.  I'm just happy to be in the top half of those listed. 

While perusing the list though, I found some amazing new blogs to follow.  The wisdom that some of these women share is truly enlightening.  I've started following blogs by moms who have adopted multiple times, those written by moms who have placed children for adoption, and those by adults who were adopted as children.  I love the multitude of perspectives it provides me as we start out on this journey.

Just this morning my heart felt so full as I thought about where we might be a year from now.  I truly feel that God gave our family a heart for adoption and has filled it to the brink with joy over the whole process.

One of the blogs I've really enjoyed is Storing Up Treasures.  This mom has 11 children (a combo of biological and adopted).  Eleven.  Some days having two rocks my world.  Ok, most days.

But anyway, on her blog she has a list of other blogging moms where I have found yet more blogs to follow.  And now Finding Mercy is going to get to be added to the list!  Excitement. 

How To Get A Sick Toddler To Rest

Toddler wakes up at 11:00 p.m. with 103 degree fever.

Snuggle in bed until she falls back asleep.

Wakes up twice more.

Have daddy go sleep in her room.

She runs around during the day as though she is not sick despite the 101 degree fever she is sporting.

By late afternoon she seems visibly tired despite a relatively good nap and her fever is climbing.

Cut a hole out of the top of Annabelle's new car seat box, place a blanket inside, tell her it's a nest and she's a baby bird, and turn on Toy Story 3.

Done.

P.S. If you haven't seen it already, I added some new stuff to Finding Mercy.  If your little one likes to bake you will want to check it out!