Such a Sweet Song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcPBA9-wyZE

I just played this (twice actually). It's such a sweet song and I admit that I cried watching it. I don't know the history behind the video but it shows three brothers waiting on their baby sister or at least this is what I get from this video plus Mom and Dad. Gotta see this and make sure there is tissue nearby.

Labor Pains

I think I'm having labor pains again!!!

Ending a paper pregnancy is almost like the last part of a 9 month pregnancy (or any stage of a twin pregnancy). I've had sleepless nights, abdominal pain, back pain and have overall felt like crap since last referrals came out and we missed it by one LID date. I can't sleep wondering if CCAA updated their site during the night or new rumors were discovered so I get up, go to the bathroom and get online and start checking. My back hurts from sitting in the computer chair and from tossing and turning in bed all night. Abdominal pain - need I say more when it comes to the long, stressful, nerve wrecking wait we've been put through waiting on Madelyn's referral? Oh, and weight gain........oh yeah, that might be b/c of the Holiday goodies but can't I blame that on the paper pregnancy?

Choo Choo

We've got to get this. I'm hoping I can find one from my Moms of Multiples club. Logan can pull and the other three can ride.

TROUBLE

I've always heard boys will eat you out of house and home, but no one said it started this early. They can hear the refridgerator door open from across the living room and immediately start crawling towards the kitchen.

Now that the two of them are crawling, they are into everything. So many people have commented that I have Double Trouble. It's the truth...and soon to be Triple Trouble.

What's really funny about them getting into the fridge, they always go for the Texas Pete bottle. Not the wine (that's been in there since we moved b/c if we're drinking it's usually something with caffeine) or anything else (however, in this photo it looks like he's going for the medicine but he's actually reaching for the Texas Pete).

One More Plane Ticket

We've decided to take Logan with us to China. He's very excited. Today we applied for a passport for him. He's not too happy about travel shots but when that time comes we'll try not to upset him too much. For now, he's forgotten about them. I'm not looking forward to them myself either but I'd rather take the needle than be sick.

Why did we decide to take him? Back when we started this process, Logan had just turned 3 years old. In the past 20 months he has matured into a smart and of course handsome little man. Yes, he's still a child but he knows exactly why we're going to China and is in love with his sister even though he's never seen her. We feel that this will be a great experience for him and he'll always remember it. He'll be close to 5 years old (if not 5 by then the way it's going right now). He'll also be a great helper. He's been around the twins and knows a little about babies. I can't wait to see his face light up on Gotcha Day when they hand over Madelyn to us. When Logan first saw the twins, I think I was more emotional over seeing him see them the first time than when I saw them the first time. He loves his brothers. He's always telling people he's the big brother, even today when we went out to eat at Olive Garden (first nice restaurant in a long time as a family) he told the host after I gave them our name and party of 5 that he was the big brother.

It takes 4-6 weeks for the passport to arrive. Since we still haven't seen any signs of referrals coming, I think we've got plenty of time for his passport to arrive.

Brotherly Love

Here's a quick snapshot while taking a break from unwrapping presents today.
I love these boys so much!!! Watching these three all day made my day so special, but we couldn't help but think if this is Madelyn's first Christmas too and she doesn't even know it. Santa left her a few presents including a baby doll. Oh how I can't wait to fill this house with dolls. Trains and transformers are cool too but it's time for a few pink girly things. 

Well, It's definately my kind of Christmas

Spent most of the morning putting together and trying to figure out how to work various Transformers.

Installed new Games for Logan on his PC.

For Lunch/Supper Had Chinese Takeout.

For Dessert? Homemade Apple Pie from my Mom.

(Yeah, Neither are the typical Christmas fare, but somehow it seems to fit this family.)

And Finished the day off with a couple boards of the Star Wars Lego game, and Read Logan one of my favorite books as a Child, "Where the wild things are".

It's been a good day. The only thing that could make it better is a referral later this week.

Merry Christmas Eve

The matching PJ's were a gift from us. This is their first pair of matching clothes period. I've had a shirt that matched and a coat and that's about it. I wanted them to look cute for their pictures opening Santa's gifts in the morning so I let Logan open all three pj's. They are just too adorable if I say so myself.

Santa is on his way so better get some sleep........zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

It's Official

The new official CCAA rules are in.

I had seen part of the rules before but the one thing that really caught my eye this time was the part saying the youngest child in the home could not be under one year of age. I'm wondering if that is at the time the dossier is logged in or from the time of referral or Gotcha. This shouldn't affect us since hopefully we'll be there and back before May 1, 2001 with our daughter but as long as it takes for the entire adoption process, I'm sure this will hinder many applicants from continuing the journey to their new children if they get pregnant in that long wait. It CAN happen. We're proof. There are many others like us too (except maybe not twins joining the family but lots of singletons).

I feel the sorriest for the single applicants. Majority of these are women and some of them may not ever want to marry or just can't find the right person to marry but do want children and would make the best mother ever but yet they are not believed to be the best family environment for children. I feel guilty knowing I have three beautiful children at home but yet a single person who wants to adopt and have a child of their own is now going to be turned down b/c she hasn't been married for two years.

And then there's the whole BMI issue. As Tony put it to me, many actors out there with great bodies have BMI's over 40 and are in great shape and excellent health. I've known really skinny people to be sick and not healthy.

These rules should not affect us but one day if we DID decide to go back to China for another daughter/sister (I'm talking years from now) we'll fall under these rules. Fortunately we've got the age limit in our favor. We could actually wait until one of the current children is out of the house and still meet the age limit and have room for two more in the house. Four kids is it though but you never know.....never thought I'd have four kids to begin with.

***Nuttin***

No referrals today. Our hopes at seeing Madelyn's photo before Christmas are not coming true.

Merry Christmas Baby Girl! Santa is still coming to leave you some presents at our house. Mom and Dad have a few for you too. We promise next Year's Christmas will be extra special. Lots of Love to you.

Christmas Survey

Gotta do something while hitting refresh looking for new rumors on when referrals are arriving.

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?? Hot chocolate Never tried egg nog and don't want to
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Wraps them and each kid has his/her own pattern of wrapping papers
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? colored on tree, white on stairs, red on porch, color on trees outside, white on train outside
4. Do you hang mistletoe? fake, yes
5. When do you put your decorations up? I had them up before Thanksgiving this year
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?candid yams
7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? sneaking in the living room to find Santa's gifts before waking up parents
8. When and how did you learn there was no Santa? my step-brothers told me in 3rd grade
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? yep
10. Snow! Love it or Dread it? I love it & wish we had more of it. Never had a white Christmas
11. Can you ice skate? Haven't done it in a while but I could way back when. Probably couldn't now without falling over several times
12. (this one was lost in copy/paste)
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Nope
14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? My kids
15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Pumkin roll
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Hanging out with family opening presents Christmas morning and playing with the toys all day
17. What tops your tree? star
18. Which do you prefer: Giving or Receiving? Both, but would rather go shopping for everyone else and buy stuff for them.
19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? O Holy Night (don't care who sings it) and Mary, Did you Know? by Kenny Rodgers and Winona
20. Candy Canes- love em or leave em? good for hanging on a tree
21. Favorite Christmas movie? Rudolph

Referrals This Week????

Could we possibly get our referral this week? Maybe so, fingers crossed.

Christmas BPOH cont...

Had to decorate my mailbox for the mail lady
The engine also has a few cars and a caboose. We also have outside lights on the front porch and our two little trees.
My wreath is covered in Christmas cards. I got two more today after I took this picture. Below it is our Advent calendar. Logan is in charge of changing the day every morning after getting out of bed.

Christmas BPOH

Merry Christmas!!! Shannon is listing another BPOH for the Holidays so I decided to participate this time. I didn't put out all my decorations this year. Why? b/c of the youngest Hooker boys in the house. Need I say more?

Logan wanted to pose for this picture. I made this wreath in my Circle of Friends group from our church we moved away from. See my doorbell cover? It has a slide over it that says "Please Knock Thank You." People are actually starting to read it now and knock instead of ringing the doorbell and waking up the babies.

Yep, Our tree has been baby-proofed. Unfortunately it's not Andrew-proofed. He crawls over and reaches his hands through the little open slots on the gate and pulls off ornaments and has even ripped some wrapping paper. Our tree's ornaments are all different and have either been given to us from special people, made by Tony or myself in our earlier years, special ornaments bought for our children and some made by Logan. Many of them also are from places we've visited such as Disney World, Biltmore Estate, Gatlinburg, etc. We didn't take a vacation this year so nothing was contributed to our tree this year except ornaments for our kids. I also have my Dollar Tree Christmas village displayed beside the tree. I love the real villages but the Dollar Tree village is more in my money range.

The stockings were hung by the stairs with care. You can't see most of the names but from left to right it's Mom, Logan, Nathaniel, Andrew, Madelyn and Dad. We don't have a mantel in our new house over the fireplace b/c of the TV niche and I couldn't hang them too low b/c of Andrew crawling everywhere so I attached them to the stair rail with twist ties. Yep, we're classy people. Twist ties work wonders just like duct tape. (will post the rest later)

Got a Babysitter...

for Madelyn. Mrs United States had lunch with my mom today. She's also adopting from China. Mom was all excited and called me and said Madelyn had a babysitter if I needed one.

Too Cute to Not Share

Next Referrals and Christmas Vacation

We just received an email from our agency saying they were taking off the week of Christmas and did not expect referrals that week. If they are right, that means we may not see Madelyn's face until after the New Year. We'll be watching for more rumors and predictions but I'm going to try not to get my hope up of seeing her before Christmas.

Christmas Cards

My plan this year for my Christmas Cards was to have a photo card that included all the boys and our referral picture of Madelyn. However, that didn't happen this year since we were missed by one LID last week. I also never made it to have professional Christmas pictures made of the three boys b/c we've been battling strep, wheezing, coughs and colds, and ear infections. So, yesterday I decided to dress up the boys in Christmas colors and try to make my own photos. There's a reason why photography studios were made and there are people other than yourself out there available to take photos. It takes a parent plus some just to get the kids in place and keep them in place. Tony was out running an errand and I tried to take this on by myself. Bad idea!
I got a few shots the best I could do by myself. One of my favorite Christmas photos of Logan's first Christmas was him at our fireplace playing with wrapping paper wearing pajama's and a Santa hat. I took that same idea except no PJ's and tried to get all the boys positioned by our fireplace. Nate blinked everytime the flash went off or looked away, Andrew wanted to crawl away or cry, and Logan just wanted to make silly faces. The props included the Panda bear Tony gave me for my birthday. It was definitely a distraction. She no longer has her headband and the clothes were ripped off by Nate and she got drenched in drool.

Here's a link to my not-so-professional photos of my three sons.

I did sign all of our names on the card even though there's no photo of Madelyn (nor their parents). I did include a drawing of the map of China. We'll celebrate Christmas with Madelyn in our hearts and minds and she IS already our family.