Babies having stomach problems...

The babies seem to be having a lot of digestive peoblems lately and are really cranky.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the new baby food we got for them.

Expirations

Time to start thinking of updating documents that will expire before we travel. CCAA has referrals out for LID's up to 7/22/05 (I think that's the last date) and we're still a month and a half away from these dates (which doesn't mean in 1 1/2 months we'll get our referrel). Our fingerprints expire October 29, homestudy November 25 and I-171H February 9, 2007. We'll definitely need another updated homestudy and our fingerprints redone. Our homestudy is going to cost us around $700 plus another $100 and something for the social worker to come to our house AGAIN. We'll also have to get physical's done AGAIN so more doctor's copays. Do they think we're made of money? Luckily I still have birth certificates so I don't have to order those again but we'll need criminal record check AGAIN and references AGAIN. Seems like we could use the same references but I'll have to check on that.

We're doubting Madelyn will be home for Christmas this year but we at least hope we have our referral by then.

Splish Splash

All the boys wanted to get in the tub together so I stuck the bumbo seats in there. I couldn't fill it up much b/c the bumbo seats float. They all three loved it. 

Home Times Three

I realized yesterday that I have three homes...the place I live now, the place I was living before now, and the place I grew up. I think I confuse others when I say sometimes "I'm going home" b/c I do have three homes. Yesterday was Homecoming at our church we left last year when we decided to sell our first home and move to this area. It was so wonderful to return "Home" and see everyone. I miss them so much. I miss my friends and Logan misses his ole buddies. We visited my ex-neighbor, the best neighbor anyone could ever have. We also visited our daughter's grave. (Today should have been her first birthday - due date was 8/28/05). We even fit in a birthday party while we were there. I would say we're lucky people to have more than one place to call "Home" b/c I'm sure there are people in this world that don't have that.

Friday and Today many people are getting their referrels. Watch this link for some of the families around the world receiving their daughter's photos. The owner of this website should be seeing her daughter's face for the first time today also.

One Year DTC

While cleaning Madelyn's room I got to thinking "Where's my official copy of our dossier?" I knew it wasn't in her room so I decided to look in my cedar chest where I keep lots of keepsakes. In there I found some things I needed to put in our fire safe. When I went to put those in the fire safe, I found our dossier. I had forgotten I stuck that in there last year when we got the official copy. I have no brains cells these days thanks to the three boys I've given birth to.

Anyway, it wasn't until I pulled out those papers that I realized TODAY is one year since we were DTC. We went to the beach last year the day we went DTC and got a call from our dossier consultant that the papers were sent to China that day... August 26, 2005.

So should we celebrate an anniversary or be upset that we're still waiting?

Because everyone needs to smile

I hope someone else out there remembers this classic from the muppet show. Melissa didn't remember it at all, but Logan thought it was hilarious. The Classics are always in style. :)

Boys Will Be Boys

Here's what can happen with a little rubber ball from a 0.50 cent machine.

Logan was upstairs with a neighbor across the street. The little boy is only three years old. His big sister (about 10 I think) was downstairs with me and the twins helping me get them to sleep. After I got the babies down, I grabbed some laundry that I had folded and carried it upstairs. I looked in the playroom and immediately saw this. I was furious. Neither boy would admit to it and they also blamed each other. Later Logan admitted he did this with his little green ball.

I think it was an accident even though then I was about to blow a fuse that he had done this and didn't tell me. What he did get in trouble for was lying to us about who did it. It's going to cost $45.73 to replace so his punishment is for him to help pay for it. He gave up $8.00 from his piggy bank to go towards the replacement window. The ball will never be seen again. Balls like this will not be entering my house again.

BPOH Week 3 - dining room

I thought about cleaning before taking pictures but then I realized those pictures would not portray the "real" dining room at the Hooker house. We do have a formal dining room but decided to use that room for our computers/desks and the adult time-out room. So, the only dining area we have is the room off the kitchen. This area stays dirty all the time. Logan thinks he has to eat every 30 minutes if he makes it that long. Our pitiful table came from a tent sale back when we first married and it was already scratched up then. Now it's even worse. Our chairs are falling apart. This is one of the next pieces of furniture we'll be replacing. It only seats four and we need at least a table that will seat 6 if not more. Luckily this space is big enough for that.

Here's our mess.....Like I said, this is the true Hooker house. What can you expect from a stay home mom to three boys 4 and under and two of those infants that are always demanding attention?

I do love my hardwood floors. They are very easy to sweep and clean (if I get around to it). We also have two highchairs lined up for the twins. I think once we get a bigger table I'm going to get the small highchairs that attach to a chair at the table and this will definitely save some floor space especially since there will eventually be three in highchairs here once Madelyn comes home.

I found these stools very cheap - 3 for $5 total. The downsound is that they have very worn, ugly crochet tops on them. A friend told me I should recover them, something I've never done before. I bought the upholstery fabric from Wal-Mart at $2/yard and tried my best but this job is definitely not my calling in life. It will work for right now until we replace with better barstools.


This week a flyer came in our mail that cracked me up. On the front it says "The wrong people are cleaing your house?" and then at the bottom is a picture of a lady saying "especially since it's me!" I might just call and get an estimate of what they would charge to come in here. I need sone good cleaning to get me caught up and maybe I wouldn't get so far behind again. Couples with one child can keep up with a house, but when there's more than one and they are young children, forget it unless you have an obsessive cleaning problem (which I don't). I'm still catching up on sleep deprivation.

Yep, they are my sons.

Well, Last weekend, I ran up to Lexington to get some real barbecue. (None of the stuff down here in the Charlotte area counts.)

Nate and Andrew were both really fussy, so Melissa decided to give them a tiny piece of barbecue. Both of them loved it. Definately my sons.

Now I just need to market some Lexington Style Baby Food!

Babysitter's are Wonderful

This is Alexis. She's the best. The kids love her especially Logan. Logan used to say she was his girlfriend. I found them all laying like this after I took a relaxing shower this morning. She's staying with me until sometime next week.  

Bloggy Parade of Homes

I decided to participate this week even though I didn't clean it up. This week is featuring living rooms/family rooms.
Here's the few from standing approaching from the foyer. The twins are laying in the floor playing down on the bottom left.






I had to add this one in to show Logan. He snuck down sometime during the night with his sleeping bag. I had fallen asleep on the couch and when I woke up around 2 I found him in the floor.

My curio has some of my pottery collection in it (the rest is in the kitchen). The wood floors lead to the kitchen. It's open up so I can cook (ha, ha....like I cook) and see what's going on in the living room. We don't have a formal living room. We wouldn't use it if we had one. I guess you could call this our formal one and our playroom informal only b/c formal to us is t-shirts and shorts and informal would be pj's.


Here's Ling Ling (name compliment of Shannon - the creator of BPOH) sitting on our loveseat. The little hall-way to the right leads to our bedroom. We put a changing table in that little hall-way (my wonderful idea but unfortunately it stays a mess there as you can see the box of diapers laying in the floor). The steps behind lead up to the three bedrooms upstairs and the playroom.





Here's the few from the kitchen. The bookshelves were one of the features that attracted us to this floor plan. I have an empty Asian decor frame waiting on Madelyn's referrel picture on the left side. Our tv was too small for that TV hole in the wall so we made a stand which also serves as a place to put our cable box and dvd/vcr plus Logan's V-Smile. We haven't used that gas fireplace yet but maybe this winter it will get some use. There's still tags on the logs.

Project Playroom cont

The playroom walls are almost complete. The wall with windows is yellow. Wal-Mart sells these letters with sticky stuff on the back. Logan loves them and helped me stick them up on the walls. The yellow letters look better than what the picture shows them up against the yellow wall. The two side walls are green. You can see some of the green in one of these photos. The best wall is the one the tv is on - yellow, green and red stripes. I have some touch up to do on this wall and we're also going to tie in some blue, maybe stencil some blue down one of the stripes. All the furniture and toys are still in the middle of the room so I've got to work on rearranging that today. It's such a cute playroom. I wish I had had one when I was a kid.

My Little Men

Have I ever mentioned before how much I love these boys of mine? Well, I do. Here's a photo from playtime tonight.

I've heard many people with Chinese Daughters talk about inappropriate comments made to them. I get similar comments made to me with the twins. Today I got asked a first while at Chuck E Cheese....."Are you sure there's one father?" I was taken off guard and just smiled and said "yes" but now I'd like to say a few more things to that man. Yes, they are twins, and no, they don't look like twins. They are completely different in looks and personalities. And yes, I can prove they were not switched in the nursery at the hospital. I did come home with the same babies that came out of me on March 3rd this year.

BPOH - Foyer/entry

I didn't get any pictures taken today for the BPOH but I'll tell a little about my house. Right now as you walk up our short sidewalk, you will find on the right empty holes where I pulled up dead shrubs. I guess the builders thought we could remember to water those plants while attending to twin babies at home. I decided it looked better to have holes in the ground instead of dead boxwoods. On the left side, however; I have planted two new azeleas. Hopefully they'll live. I plan on putting more of those in. Right now it's so hot outside I'm not sure how anything new survives outside. My bench I bought is sitting outside also waiting for a new coat of paint. On our front porch we have a table we bought from Lowe's a couple months ago. I really like it. We turned over our formal dining room to an office so I thought adding a table outside our front door would give a little extra eating space. I still have an empty space to the right of the porch. I'm not sure yet what I'll do about that area.

Unfortantely when you walk into our house, all you see is a mess. Our foyer stays clutter with two infant car seats, items brought in from stores, shoes left at the front door and laundry baskets b/c the laundry room is right off the foyer and it's not big enough to keep all the baskets in there. I wish we had a larger laundry room. On the bright side, I did vacuum today so there is clean floors past the foyer.

I want to buy something to sit on in the foyer that opens up so we can store all the shoes that collect at the front door in it. We don't wear our shoes indoors so they stop right at the entrance of the front door.

My foyer is open up to the height of the 2nd floor ceiling. There is a plant ledge over the front door that still needs some decorating. I also want some sort of window dressing for that window b/c it's on the East side of the house and in the mornings we get blinded by the sunlight coming through. However, I'm a bit scared of ladders so I'll have to con someone else into hanging a curtain and rod for me.

Project Playroom is still in the works. Today I got the two green walls painted and I also got the area connecting the playroom to the bathroom, attic and closet painted in red. The red paint was not easy. I put two coats on and I think it could still use another. I've got to hurry and finish this room up for two reasons 1) Logan wants it back to a playroom and all the mess cleared up in there from painting 2) Leia will not walk on plastic laying in the floor. She decided she'd use the bathroom on a blanket instead of walking across plastic to her litter box. This cat has issues, but I still love her.

 

 

 

Project Playroom

Just wanted to show off some photos of the playroom project I'm taking on. Right now I have yellow paint on two walls. The other two will be green. There's also an area that leads to the bathroom, attic and closet which will be painted red. One of the walls is going to have red, blue and green stripes on it. We're also going to make designs on the other walls. (When I say "we're", I mean my friend and I.) I wanted to make this room colorful and a great place for the kids to hang out. It has our old furniture in it to sit on, TV, computer and lots and lots of toys. It's also the biggest room in our house. I think all families with kids should have playrooms. It's one of the most functional rooms in our house. All the toys can spread out in this one room instead of everywhere else. I've attached two photos of the yellow walls and also one of the clutter in the middle of the room right now.

Bloggy Parade of Homes

Shannon has decided to start a Bloggy Parade of Homes. This week is entry/foyer week. Well, no photo will be up for mine for a while. My foyer is covered with all kinds of stuff right now. It's a mess. The pictures should go up Friday so if I get started cleaning, I might be done by then. Most of my spare time these days is spent resting b/c I need it after caring for three kids and that's normally very short amounts of time a day. Most of my computer time, like now, is spent holding a baby and typing at the same time.

I am excited about something I bought today for my porch. I will share a picture of it later when I get it cleaned up. It's a nice wooden bench. My friend that shares the same name as me found out about this lady who has a company that goes in and cleans out homes after people move. The people moving out leave lots of stuff like furniture, household goods, etc. Today I bought this bench, a practically brand new upholstered chair, large floor rug, large mirror, utility shelves and three stools for $38. I'm going to paint the bench and used it outside on my porch. I might have bought more but the warehouse all this is stored in had no a/c and we had all the kids with us and everyone was miserable in this hot weather.

I have started so many projects around the house and it seems I never get around to finishing them up. I'm working now on taping up the playroom to get it ready to paint. I've bought shelves and have painted them but haven't hung them. Logan and the twins got some old trains from my recently deceased grandfather and we are going to put these up on display in their rooms. I'm hoping to have some help next week from a friend of mine's teenage daughter. If she can help me entertain the kids, I'll get more done around the house. Maybe then I can take more pictures for the Bloggy Parade of Homes.