Man, I used to be a better blogger.

Things are going here.

Busy as always. Crazy as always. And, I, am in the midst of more sinus issues–as always! These really knocked me out for a couple days this week though.

But, having to be “down” made me think of all of the things that I need to get done and blogging is on that list.

I don’t truly have much time today.. there are eggs to prepare, goodies to bake and cleaning that needs to be done. But, I will pop on and share a few photos 🙂 Those are the best thing about this anyhow!

 

Again, I have been away too long…

We are wrapping up Spring Break. We didn’t go anywhere. Instead, we had as much fun as possible here. We went to the zoo, the movies, the park, the pool, the museum, Chuck E. Cheese, Amazing Jake’s, the bounce place…

It has been quite a break.

V lost his first tooth. And the puppy was spayed. Oh, and B has been working 7 days a week.

I, for one, am ready for school 🙂

I have a bunch of blog post ideas, but they will wait for another day.

It’s amazing how quickly the kids turn from babies to toddlers to real life kids!

Bean just lost her first tooth tonight!

She is very excited and has informed us that the Tooth Fairy is going to bring her $1,000,000. I think that would be pretty cool, but I find it highly unlikely.

 

I still haven’t posted about B’s huge life changes, but I promise I will get around to it at some point. However, those huge life changes are what’s making tomorrow possible 🙂 Brian and I are going to run our first race together tomorrow. He’s been traveling a lot for work lately so our time together has been extremely limited. And when he has been here, I’ve been sick. From the sound of things, it seems that we have traded places and he’s now going to be the one not feeling well. But, I’m hoping that he’ll be able to hold it together for our run.

http://www.skirtsports.com/skirtchaser5k/tempe/

If you’re local and want to join us, I think that you can click on the link and still (barely) have time to register. It’s a 5k with a Valentine’s twist… The girls get a head start. So, Brian will be sprinting to catch me (although, I think it should be fairly easy for him!).

Do you have anything romantic planned for your sweetie?

 

So, right now there is laundry waiting to be folded, dishes to put away, floors to vacuum and mop, clutter to be busted, paperwork to fill out… and on and on and on.

Instead I am stuck in this chair. Not distracted my the lure of the Internet as usual, anchored, instead, by a snoozing pup. Mags is snoring away.

So, once again, I’m slow… Mr. V is now 6! Well, he’s been 6 for over a week, but I haven’t posted any photos yet.

On his birthday I took him to the park to take a couple photos. He’s such a handsome little dude.

 

 

To our #2!

Mr. David just turned 9.

And, once again we’re in my favorite time of the year (well, at least one of my favorite times of the year)… Yesterday, today, and tomorrow I get to pretend that I am the mom to two sets of twins. I have 2 five year olds and 2 nine year olds 🙂 And then, on Sunday, we go back to “normal” with the next birthday.

For d’s birthday, we got up a little early so that the kids could have donuts before school. And Bean and I took treats to his class. For dinner, he requested IHOP because he wanted the funny face pancake. Instead, we made our own funny face pancakes. I mixed some coaco into the pancake mix and made the pancakes big enough to fill the whole plate. Then the kids played with the whipped cream and cherries and made their own creations. I thought it was a pretty good substituion!

I’ve also started working on the party plans. Last year, we skipped a party because we’d just moved and life was just a little crazy. So, we’re planning on having a big party this year. We’ll be combining all of the boys’ birthdays together.

And with that, it’s off to clean up a bit.

Now I have to remember where I left off… Hmmm…

What we decided to do is leave the door as open as we can, while keeping in mind that the safety of our children.

We entered into an open adoption agreement with Bean’s mom. The agreement states that we’ll write to her four times a year and she’ll do the same. And both parties will keep an address available. So, we got a P.O. Box. And since we had the P.O. Box we decided to share it with the boys’ family. It’s pretty inexpensive and gives us at least a little more security.

For the first year after Bean’s adoption we wrote our letters and never heard anything. In fact, I tried sending one of them registered so that I could be sure that it was getting there, but I still didn’t hear anything.

And then November of 2010, we got our first letter from her. She asked about meeting with B and me. We were in the process of buying a house and moving and getting ready for the holidays and it was all just too much. I wrote her briefly and told her that she’d need to be patient and I’d reply to her soon.

And I just tried to put it aside and deal with life. But, as life often does, it threw us a curve ball. In June of last year, we received a letter from our boys’ mom. She told us that one of the biological dad’s was very ill and hospitalized and wanted us to take his son to see him as he had a 50/50 chance of surviving. B can tell you where he was when I called. I stood outside of the car while the kids were inside listening to music and talked to him about this turn. We had no reason to ever expect to get a letter like that. The letter had been sent several days earlier (we don’t get to the post office everyday), and it didn’t have very much useful information. Add to that, we had no way to call bio-mom to find out more. So, we tried calling the hospital, but they wouldn’t give us any information other than to say that he wasn’t a patient…

I think that that letter was one of the things that pushed us to get back into contact with Bean’s bio-mom.

So, we did.

We contacted her and worked on setting up a meeting. She provided us with a medical history (This was *huge* for me… I hate filling out medical forms for my kids and having “unknown” be the only thing that I can write). She tried to let us into her life as much as she could.

Last fall we met with her for lunch.

It was a painful, beautiful meeting. There were tears and there was laughter.

It’s a very odd balancing act. We didn’t want to hurt her. We can only imagine how painful it would be to know that you’re missing out on the everyday. But, we also wanted to share our daughter. We adore her and we wanted her mom to see that.

I think it was good.

We have been working on another meeting, but it’s hard with two different families and busy schedules to plan.

And it’s hard to know what should be next. But, for now we’re taking baby-steps and getting to know her and letting her know us.

 

So, that’s *this* end of our open adoptions. There is a little more that I will share about our boys in the future.

Today I feel like I need a friend.

Honestly, I’m hoping that it’s hormones. I’ve been a complete wreck lately. Friday I was sidelined with some stomach issues. But, I was very happy to have B back home after a week away. Saturday we took on the world (or at least that’s what it felt like). And then Saturday night I didn’t sleep. And yesterday I was just in a really, really bad mood. Last night, again, I struggled with sleep. And the sleep that I did get was filled with horrible nightmares.

Today, I was going in the right direction, but a road bump has me in a puddle of tears.

And I *do* have a dog. Heck, I have 2. But, they just don’t seem to be enough.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.

O.K. So, I’m not really in Illinois. But, on my jog across the country I crossed my second state and am now into Illinois. I won’t tell you how many years it’s taken to get this far, but I will share the cool site that I use to log my runs.

http://exercise.lbl.gov/index.html

This is a completely free site that you can use to log your miles ran/walked/biked. You can pick teams or partners or just log your own path. It shows you a photo each day of exactly where you are along the path. I love seeing my little dot move and make it’s journey.

And this week that little dot made lots of progress because on Sunday, I completed my second half marathon. I didn’t really blog about this one because 1-I haven’t blogged about anything lately and 2-it was a pretty last minute decision to run this one. One of my best friends from college flew in for the weekend and I decided to go for it. I honestly didn’t train for this one. I’ve been running 3-4 days per week at about 3-4 miles a day, but I hadn’t been ramping up my distance like I did before the previous half. But, this time around I was far more confident. I knew what to expect and knew that I could finish. I also finished a good 14 minutes faster than the last time around! My goal was 3 hours, but a long line for the port-a-potty and a wait for a train (?!?) made my time 3:01:10. I’ll take it though! I will tell you, I was far more sore this time around. I was hobbled for a couple of days. But, I think that I’ve caught whatever it is that makes these runs addictive and I’ve already planned out my next 2 half marathons and one of them is even paid for.

So, I guess I should quickly update on other things since I’m actually sitting here typing. The biggest event here has been B’s weight loss. I will post before and after photos (if he will give me permission..) at some point. But, for now I’ll tell you he looks amazing. And I feel like I’m married to a totally different person. He has more energy and drive and I often lose him in a crowd (yes, he does look that different).

Second to that huge change has been what I posted about last time.. we have our new pup, Maggie. Next time I post, I’ll tell you about my exciting adventure with her the other night. For now, I’ll just say that she’s a joy and a handful and we’re all (well, at least myself and the kids!) in love with her.

All of the boys are chugging along in school. V celebrated his 100th day in K today. Big D recently got a 90% ( 🙂 ) on a book report. And little D asked me yesterday if he could invite his teacher to his birthday party–so, I take that as a good sign that he’s enjoying school. Miss Bean is still a drama queen. In fact, she’s crying right now. Sigh.

So, with that I’m back to “Mom” duty.