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Snow is not a person but since she is the starring subject of headlines this weekend, she gets a capital S!
Snow has been our most frequent visitor since Fall skipped town. Snow even crashed Summer’s farewell party. (And overstayed her welcome last Spring too!)
Invited or not, Snow seems to really like our part of the country. She knows that many folks will fly here to drop inordinate amounts of cash while wearing designer plush suits just so they can slide around on Snow. Funny how Snow doesn’t seem to mind being stepped on, groomed or shredded because at first she does come across as a bit “touchy”.
Snow may look all airy fairy when she arrives but she turns into a monster when it’s time to move her out of the way. Snow likes my driveway most of all. She likes to camp out there and taunt my car to come out of it’s garage. However, yesterday Odyssey armed herself with new snow tires and feels ready to take on the fight.
Snow comes and goes as she pleases but lately she’s been hanging around more than I’d like. Snow is very messy and leaves behind her friend Ice when the temperatures drop… which is just about every day.
But on Friday, there was a brief moment when we all made peace with Snow since Sun was shining so bright. The girls only lasted about 30 minutes outside before their little hands turned purple, but as you can see Lydia particularly enjoyed playing with Snow.
Snow even thanked LeighAnna for writing her name like this instead of how the boys usually treat her.
Because Snow will tell you that she doesn’t look good in yellow.
I’m considering trying to escape Snow’s company this spring to hang out with my buddies Sand and Surf.
But today, since everyone is sick and no one needs me to be anywhere… I’ve decided to just sit back and watch Snow enjoy herself outside. She really is just showing off here today… while her cousin Blizzard messes everybody up back east. 
Image credit: NASA
At 4:39 AM EST Sunday, the space shuttle Endeavour will launch from Cape Canaveral. A friend of ours took his son to Florida to see the launch which will deliver the ultimate moonroof to the International Space Station…an observation deck called The Cupola that gives astronauts a panoramic view of space and Earth below.
However I’m guessing most Americans won’t even know about the launch. They’ll be too busy preparing nacho dip for the big game later in the day.
I find it sad that a generation of astronauts is slowing fading away leaving my children with nothing more than “space taxi drivers” blasting into orbit as though going into space were routine in ANY way!
Including Sunday’s mission, five shuttle flights remain to complete assembly of the $100 billion International Space Station, a project involving 16 nations, before the U.S. fleet is retired later this year.
U.S. President Barack Obama has announced plans to cancel the station’s follow-on program called Constellation, which was aimed at returning U.S. astronauts to the moon in the 2020s.
Instead, Obama wants NASA to seed development of commercial space taxis to ferry crewmembers to and from the station and to develop technologies to prepare for eventual human missions to other destinations in the solar system.
(Why does that last line feel like something out of Star Trek?)
If this news depresses you as much as it does me, I suggest renting The Right Stuff so we don’t loose sight of how far we’ve come in just half a century and the heros who got us here. Or if you’d like less drama and more fact, I highly recommend In the Shadow of the Moon.
These were the men who inspired my dad to think bigger than Nebraska. And these were the men that gave my husband dreams of being an astronaut. Dreams that took him into a career in Naval Aviation. Unfortunately, the closest he got was sharing a gym with them at NASA while stashed there one summer after college. And though it wasn’t the moon… I assure you he loved every minute of it!
Last weekend our church had a missions festival we were helping to organize. Although we were responsible for the Africa table, I put both my girls in their silks because we don’t have many opportunities to wear them. After convincing LeighAnna to wear hers (not her favorite outfit), we went in the bathroom to do her hair.
She took one look at herself in the mirror and said,
“With these clothes on, I look kind of Chinese!”
I laughed so hard and then reminded her that she looks Chinese every day regardless of what she’s wearing. I guess she doesn’t see it that way.
The good news is that I have another chance to photograph these pretty pink silks before she outgrows them. Our Chinese New Year celebration is coming up next Saturday!
To know that one (former) orphan is finally home, makes my heart rejoice. There may be millions of orphans in the world, but the only way to fix that is care for them one by one. Ronel is no longer an orphan. Praise God!
A wonderful story by the Houston Chronicle tells the story of his homecoming.
This week marks the beginning of an 8 week online photography class I am taking with Christi Nelson. Unfortunately, you won’t see any evidence of that in these photos.
Day 29
This was my sweet girl’s interpretation of her school “hat and tie” day. Please notice that her numbers are no longer reversed. She is the handwriting superstar of her class.
Day 30
January’s wolf moon from the Chick-fil-A drive thru. Night photography is not my specialty.
Day 31
I meant to take a photo of them in their church dresses. Instead I got this on the way home. We have had two very full weekends.
Day 32
I have a small addiction to Scholastic book orders. I get very giddy when I see those order forms come home. My new favorite is Splat the Cat.
Day 33
Our dear little fish finally got his tank cleaned out. I do this once a month around the 1st. I’m sure he’d appreciate a bimonthly cleaning as well. This has to be the least fun pet in the world!
Day 34
We ran out of wipes on Wednesday. Like completely out. It was not a pretty site. Faced with a very full diaper, I had to send my 5-year old out in the cold to scavenge through the car for a spare pack of travel wipes. Needless to say, we made a trip to the store for refills… and a bunch of other stuff I don’t remember seeing on my list.
Day 35
We don’t use the TV as a babysitter but we have spent the last year hoping that Lydia would find the least bit interest in some of the videos in our collection… because every now and then we need a break… just a teeny tiny break please. Enter Signing Time.
Long before Lydia entered the scene, we bought 3 of these DVDs to teach LeighAnna ASL. She loved it. We loved it! Then we adopted our hearing impaired baby and she couldn’t care less about Miss Rachel and Leah’s farm. We borrowed the Baby Signing Time videos from the speech therapist but still there was little interest on Lydia’s part. Over Christmas, we took a break for awhile.
Then a week ago, Lydia ran up to me in the kitchen and asked for Signing Time. She used both the sign and the words to make her request. I was ecstatic! If there was ANYTHING I’d have her watch, this was by far the best for her. It teaches her sign language, it teaches her new vocabulary words and it has music which she loves. Now every day she asks to watch and better yet, her big sister likes watching it with her! LeighAnna helps me remember the signs and they use signs with each other. The speech therapist has noticed a BIG improvement in Lydia’s speech and vocabulary since the videos made a comeback.
The only problem is that I’m so very tired of hearing these 3 videos play over and over again. We desperately need new variety but I can’t find any on Cr@igslist. I’m looking for the Baby Signing Time DVDs because we need to reinforce the words she is learning with the therapist.
If you know of anyone getting rid of these or find any online, please let me know!
My little legs are having a hard time running on this wheel that hasn’t stopped since Christmas! I realize that my posts are being reduced to photo summaries and Haiti updates… so here is my week in 60 seconds or less:
1. My tires are still bald but when the universe stops demanding my husband be it’s leader, he has promised to get snow tires put on. Costco is even having a sale on them this month!
2. Last night we walked out of the super market to see a very cold and gray sky. Lydia said, “SNOW!” This morning we woke up to 3 inches of the white stuff. My baby is a barometer! I wonder if I can convince her to say “heat wave!”
3. The weatherman on our local station said something in his forecast about winter arriving on Monday. Where has this guy been? Bermuda? Our winter/snow began on Sept 21st! I’m sorry but a high of 28 degrees and snow showers is NOTHING NEW around here.
4. I made a minestrone soup last night, but didn’t notice it was a 4 hour crock pot recipe until after I started at 6:30… so it wasn’t ready until 10:30… which is long after I fell asleep. 
**side note (I had weird dreams all night about messing up a luncheon I was giving for the DG Pastor’s Conference. Weird? Yes! My dreams have been very odd lately and I haven’t even watched LOST yet!)
When I woke up this morning, the first thing I thought of was the soup which was just fine because it was vegetarian. I should never cook after 6pm.
5. Lydia has finally decided to fully embrace being a 2-year old. Pray for patience… for her mother! She needs to learn to sit and to come. I’m contemplating perfect puppy school. (just kidding!)
6. I have a ridiculous desire to follow Chinese custom and have my house “swept out” by the new year on the 14th… but then I remember that thinking this way will only lead to disappointment. Does anyone have suggestions on how to contain the chaos that two small children inflict upon a house? Between LeighAnna’s “creativity” and Lydia’s clepto tendencies, there is stuff everywhere and it reappears within minutes of cleaning up. *sigh*
The good news is that I already did my 365 summary but you will have to wait until tomorrow to read it. In the meantime, here is how we are all feeling today. Just keepin’ it real.
After sleeping on the Embassy floor in PAP for a week, Ernest and Ronel Parker are flying home tonight! It has been a hard road for them with a lot of drama on the part of the Embassy folks. The good news is that last night they held a prayer and praise time with the other families waiting and some of the guards joined in.
You can follow Ernest and Ronel’s saga in Haiti on Twitter @eparker77
Over the last week, the effort to get previously-matched children out of Haiti has slowed considerably. Extra steps have been added, redundant steps, steps that pose no added measure of safety since these children HAVE ALREADY BEEN CLASSIFIED AS ADOPTABLE BY THE HAITIAN GOVERNMENT, and since these parents HAVE ALREADY SUBMITTED AN EXTENSIVE HOMESTUDY/DOSSIER/BACKGROUND CHECK. This is effecting hundreds of waiting children. One such child is Ronel. I want to tell Ronel’s story, because I think it is a compelling example of the need for international adoption, and a tragic (hopefully only temporarily tragic) example of how UNICEF’s corruption affects orphaned children. (read more)
Taking advantage of a country in ruins, UNICEF has bullied it’s way into the adoption situation in Haiti and is causing pre-earthquake orphans to be trapped in Haiti. Ronel is just one child out of hundreds that needs to go home with his dad… who is now in Haiti pleading with the government to approve his pre-approved adoption.
I found Ronel’s story through the Livesay’s blog in the post titled “No Place for Politics…“
But adoption isn’t the only area UNICEF is controlling. Some of the patients being cared for at the Livesay’s clinic were able to have surgery on the USS Comfort last week with one of their staff members even assisting the Navy on the ship. However, after written confirmation that these patients would be returned to their community and to the Livesay’s clinic, UNICEF showed up at the dock and forcibly took these patients to a camp far from the family members waiting back at the clinic. Please call the resources listed and get this power player in the penalty box. This is no time for games.
The last 10 days have been so busy I can’t even keep my head on. So it’s no surprise that I almost forgot today is Friday… that is until I saw Laurie’s 365 post.
Just to be complete, Days 22-23 are in the last summary.
So let’s get moooving along shall we?
Day 24
We pass these guys on the way to church. I was very sad to see they will be leaving our area. Despite my pleadings, my husband would not allow me to buy them. He says the HOA won’t allow them outside. Who said anything about outside?!
Day 25
The surface of my desk hasn’t been this visible since last spring, but the real star of this photo is actually the “new” Time Capsule in the background… which was actually my birthday present last fall but just installed this week. If you think I was kidding about being bought with Apple products, I should point out that the iMac was my birthday present in 2007 and the Magic Mouse was my Christmas present.
Day 26
I used to take so many pictures of LeighAnna sleeping but realized I had none of Lydia… at least not in her crib. She sleeps this angelically for at least 2 hours every afternoon. The other big news about this day was getting all my Christmas cards mailed out… only a month late.
Day 27
This is the only time I can get a clear picture of Lydia because this is the ONLY time of day she is not moving.
Day 28
We’ve had these chains since 2006 when we lived in the Pacific Northwest. Les Schwab would allow you to buy them in the fall and then return them in the spring but we decided to keep ours since they are the easiest chains to put on… “easiest” according to my husband. Last night, in the dark and cold WITHOUT gloves, I got my first chance to put them on after getting stranded in a sunken snowpacked cul-de-sac. I can assure you they are not easy or “quick” (as the packaging states). But after 30 minutes, I was able to get them on.
I had my husband on speakerphone talking me through it and a friend’s husband tightened them up for me. With the chains on, I was able to easily drive up the hill onto the main road where I then pulled over and took them off after driving 1/4 mile! The remaining 30 miles home on icy roads confirmed how much I really despise winter. Having bald tires and no 4WD is becoming a problem.
Next week I hope to have a picture of either a new car or snow tires… you should probably bet on the snow tires.
Lydia had her 2-year well baby check up today. Technically she is now 26 months old, but it has been a busy winter and this was the soonest I could get her in.
After nearly skating through four traffic lights (thanks to a fresh snowfall and icy roads), we arrived at the pediatrician’s office. Lydia’s vitals were all good with a great heart rate, pulse ox and all that medical stuff that I won’t even pretend to understand. Our favorite pediatrician, Dr. B, looked her over and admired how healthy, strong and happy she looked. He suggested we look for ways to add iron to her diet since she despises red meat and then we left.
We got home and had a mid-morning snack including vitamins and water.
Then I got online and saw these children (admitted today to the Haiti Rescue Center).
And suddenly I became thankful for the every one of Lydia’s 23 pounds .
She may only be 1% in weight and 7% in height… but she is healthy.
Thankful Thursday indeed.
***UPDATE: Read While She is Bleeding…
This is a blog I found awhile back through Tim Challies but have no personal connection whatsoever to the author. All I know is that she is a pediatrician and she has a gift for seeing beauty in a place where the most horror exists… much like Haiti.
Some women can be bought with diamonds or designer shoes. Not me.
Introducing my cryptonite…
I thought I would be able to resist it… but now that I see it in action… I am a goner.
Dangerous fun was had last weekend…
Photos courtesy of Bear Trap Ranch
It’s Saturday afternoon. We just returned from a snow day up in the mountains. Picking up my laptop for the first time since Thursday night, I went to check Google Reader and noticed all your Project 365 posts. And then I realized that yesterday was Friday! And that I missed posting my pictures!
To say that yesterday was busy would be an understatement. We had our first small group (that we’re leading) and I was preparing the meal for 10 adults and 13 children. I can barely cook for my family of four! But thankfully I had one standby recipe that serves 16 people… which I doubled… which means I made enough jambalaya to feed a small village… or at least it felt that way. I don’t think I’ll double it ever again.
So, all of that to say that January is turning out to be a firestorm of activity for us… however looking at our pictures, you would never know that since they are all so incredibly dull and boring this week. But I added two extra days to thank you for your patience.
And so begins my pictorial essay of Project 365 : Days 15-23 (today)
Day 15
It would be so easy to post one of my extra pictures here, but the truth is I didn’t take a single picture on Day 15. Instead I spent most of the day (and week for that matter) monitoring the situation in Haiti. I’d like to encourage you to look through the lens of Troy Livesay.
Day 16
With Daddy on duty for the ENTIRE day, the girls and I headed out for pancakes. Because if you know me, you know I cannot make pancakes to save my life. However, waffles I can do.
Day 17
Curly Hair The Sequel… this time for church.
Day 18
You already saw my $1000 photo. This one is worth even more.
Day 19
While unloading groceries I snapped this picture, knowing it may be my only picture for the day… which it was.
Day 20
The elusive family photo is captured. This was taken with a self timer and flash (yuck!) around 9pm… immediately following Lydia’s bath and immediately preceding her bedtime. The only person who didn’t have to change into appropriate attire for this photo was LeighAnna. The red skirt is now taking a well deserved break in the laundry basket.
Day 21
Hello sunshine. I pass this field every day on my way to school. My house is somewhere beyond those trees in a cell phone black hole.
Day 22
I was so busy on Friday that LeighAnna had to carry a lot of responsibility for her baby sister including helping with a zipper and shoes. But I wasn’t so busy to let her helpfulness go unnoticed.
Day 23
We spent today tubing with our church community up at 10,000 feet in the wilderness. Although I didn’t let Lydia make a run down the slopes, she did enjoy her new snow boots (that cost me a whopping $2.40 during Target’s 75% sale).
We are standing witness to history. An event that will define how our world thinks and cares about orphans. Our government has a chance to be decisive and effective in caring for the least of these… but the bureaucratic roadblocks are numerous.
One of the main organizations advocating for these orphans (and their US families) is the Joint Council on International Children’s Services (JCICS). If you are not doing so already, I highly recommend following the JCICS blog which is updated frequently during the day. It contains all pertinent information you need to understand the current situation in Haiti for orphans without having to wade through all the mass media stories.
Of significance is a letter that was released moments ago by 50 members of Congress!
Their request was short, clear and determined. Please read it. You will see how part of our government is speaking up for the people… for the least of these.
Secondly, please pray that this letter would not fall on deaf ears. Please pray for red tape to be broken and “procedures” expedited. Understanding the potential of trafficking for new orphans caused by the earthquake, this letter is advocating for the children previously identified as orphans prior to the earthquake. They need safety. They need water. They need their parents, many of whom already have them waiting in the USA.
In this case… $1000.
We completed our 12 month post placement visit in December, our social worker had it written up a week or so later. The only thing needed to be finished with Lydia’s adoption… a family photo. You’d think this would be the easiest requirement considering it was Christmas time… the season of family photos. Unfortunately, the most current family photo we have was taken in July… by a 5 year old… which is still our favorite photo but not current enough for China’s requirements.
So this Monday, we got ourselves “dressed up”, set up the tripod and totally failed in getting a photo that was in focus. It was cold so we were rushing and didn’t set the aperture correctly. Lydia’s expression also made her look tortured in every picture… which is probably how she felt about the photo session but not how we want to portray her to China. Until we get this picture, we cannot submit our post-placement study and cannot get our $1000 post placement deposit returned.
So… we’ll try again today… or tomorrow… or whenever we can get all of us home at the same time.
Although we didn’t get the required family photo, we did finally get another photo that I’ve long desired. Just one good picture of me and my girls. Just one where I’m not making a weird face, Lydia is actually looking at the camera and LeighAnna… well she looks good in every photo.
This one photo makes all our efforts Monday worthwhile… and worth $1000 to this happy mama.
Lydia’s nose is red because she is so cold! There is snow covering that rock now.
Adoption Road is my little view of the world as a Navy wife and mom to two little empresses born in China. Although an expert at moving, I prefer to stand still long enough to photograph and blog the ordinary of each day. For the next few years, we get to settle down and enjoy life above 7000 feet in Colorado. 
