Christmas in Florida

This year we will be flying to Florida on Christmas afternoon. We decided it would be nice if we were at our house Christmas morning. Not to mention the fact that Christmas at the condo would be very tight with 5 kids plus getting the stuff there.
We did do Christmas there last year and it was fun but crazy. We figure this way we can be home Christmas morning and in Florida for Christmas dinner. The Best of both worlds.

When we were in Florida we wanted to go ahead and put up our Christmas tree so it would be there when we arrive on Christmas. Dallas got the tree up and guess what? I must have brought all the ornaments home last year. So there the tree sat with no ornaments. Julia kept saying she wanted to decorate it, so I told her to go ahead. Next thing you know she had all her toys, pocketbook, and flip flops on it. It was still pretty bare. Fortunately I remembered some beanie babies a friend of my sister's had given us. Now we have a Christmas tree decorated with toys,flip flops, and beanie babies. It looked great to me. We don't have to worry about the kids breaking any of the ornaments.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kristopher took this picture. We said a prayer for anyone that may have been involved.

Kristopher also took this picture of the sunset on our journey to Florida

Maribeth and Grace

Working on the Gingerbread House

The Finished Product

Happy Thanksgiving to all! We had a great Thanksgiving with our family in Florida. My sister prepared a delicious turkey and ham. We both fixed lots of other dishes to go with it. We have so much to be thankful for this year!

On our way to St. Augustine the kids and I were able to meet my friend, Alexa for dinner. It was great seeing her even if it was only for a few hours. She was leaving the next day to drive to NC to see family.

Black Friday, Maribeth and I left the condo at 4:00. We arrived at our first stop, ToysRUs at 4:30. The line was already to the back of the building. We took our place in line and waited for the doors to open. We were able to get 3 out of the 4 items I wanted there. I spent a total of 25.00. Next stop Belk. A couple of items were purchased there. We refueled at Chick-fil-a and then off to Office Max. We stood in line about 30 minutes there before they opened. Maribeth scored her camera and printer she was dreaming about. We could have stopped here but it was still early so we went to Target to buy some medicine. Needless to say we found a few more items there. Then we just had to go by Kohls. Great sales going on there, too. We couldn't leave without buying a few more things. Stopped by the Disny Character Warehouse. No deals there so no purchases. Our last stop was Bealls. We did find a few deals there. We finished our excursion with my favorite Diet Coke prepared by Sonic(they really do have the best drinks)and a strawberry banana shake for Maribeth. We were home by 11:00 a.m.

Dallas' sister Libbie came to visit Friday. She built a Gingerbread house with the kids. They had so much fun!

We arrived home today after 9 1/2 hours of travel. It should have only taken us 8 hours. Traffic was heavy and our lunch took longer than usual. We started the day at a warm 70 degrees and ended the day at a chilly 44 degrees. The house was quite cold when we arrived. The gas fire has warmed the house up nicely.

Good to be home but we all wish that home was still Florida.

Fall Festival Pictures and Happy Birthday, Alexa!

Today is my friend, Alexa's birthday. We have been friends for about 7 years. Her adorable son Nijel was in my preschool class. The next year she became my assistant. As the years went by we became closer and closer. We are seperated by many years but that doesn't stop us from having a great friendship. I like to think she keeps me young. I hope she has a wonderful day and I am very thankful she is my friend.

Happy Birthday, Alexa!


I know it is almost Thanksgiving but I never got around to posting these pictures. These were taken at a Fall Festival we went to a few days before Halloween. I was planning to get more pictures on Halloween but with Grace's surprise surgery that didn't happen. I will be posting some pumpkin patch pictures,too.

Baseball Belle

Mickey and Minnie Mouse

Nicholas and Belle

Cutest Minnie Mouse

Correction to Tip of the Day

Correction- You can wash your cell phone in the washing machine and then dry it in the dryer. It just takes two days to dry out. It appears to be as good as new and sparkly clean.

Disclaimer:I take no responsibility if you try this at home and your cell phone doesn't fare as well.

Tip of the Day

Never wash your cell phone in the washing machine and then put it in the dryer. It will most likely not work when you retrieve it from the dryer.

Thank goodness, Dallas does lots of business with AT&T and can get me a free phone, again. The phone that was used in this experiment was only 3 or 4 months old.

Grace's Post Op Appointment

Thursday was Grace's post op appointment with Dr. Van Aalst, the plastic surgeon, and Dr. Drake, the ENT. Dr. Van Aalst said her mouth looks good, the openings in the side that occured when he closed the cleft have not healed yet but he said it takes longer in an older child. Thank goodness she no longer has to wear the No Nos(arm restraints). He asked us to donate them. He will be going to the Middle East to do cleft surgeries and takes them with him. Of course, we said yes. She can now eat soft foods such as noodles, rice, etc. No hard foods until we go back in January. Dr. Drake said her ears looked good. She does have some high frequency hearing lost but doesn't know at this time if it will cause any problems. She will be retested in 5-6 months. Now that Grace doesn't have to wear the arm restraints and can eat real food she is getting back to her old self.

We happened to be at the hospital on the day of the NC Promise telethon. It happens once a year and the money goes to the Children's Hospital. When we saw Bucky Covington(on a past American Idol)was going to perform we decided to avoid traffic and hang around the hospital a little longer. We first listened to Jason Micheal Carroll and then Bucky. Each one performed about 30 minutes. It was worth the wait.

Last picture of Grace with her No Nos

Jason Micheal Carroll

Bucky Covington and his brother

Bucky Covington

New Peditrician

The leave me alone look. Grace is doing this often lately.

We went to the new peditrician today. I really liked him. He was very friendly and concerned about Grace's health. We are going to go ahead and switch the other kids to this practice, too. He obviously has experience with adopted kids, cleft palate and the team we are using for Grace's surgeries. They did a finger blood test today and Grace is anemic. Dr. Artman checked Grace's records from the hospital and let us know this evening that it is better than she was in the hospital. They are expecting it to improve and since she is now playing and not listless, they aren't concerned. She is on iron that is helping her body increase red blood cells.

Grace is Better

I am happy to say Grace is finally feeling better. Yesterday(Saturday)she finally started acting more like herself. Thank goodness, I was starting to get really worried. She is still very moody but much better. I was really starting to wonder if our sweet little girl would ever be the same.

Tomorrow we go to a new peditrician that was recommended to us by her surgeon. It will be nice to get his opinion on a few things. Hopefully, this peditrician will be a good match with our family. He has 5 kids himself, with another on the way. He, also, attends a local United Methodist Church.

I Didn't Expect It To Be This Hard

We knew Grace would have to surgery as soon as she could once we got home. We were told it is a rather easy surgery. One night stay at the hospital, limited diet per doctors instructions, and No Nos for as long as the doctor deemed necessary. No big deal, right? Wrong! First Grace had the additional trip to the OR and the night in the Pediatric ICU. Now she is refusing to eat and drink. We finally called the Plastic Surgery Doctor on call. He said she shouldn't be in much pain. We thought when she was crying and fussing she was in pain. He said that she is dehydrated. We need to force fluids in her. If it isn't better by tomorrow we have to take her to the hospital and let them hook her to an IV. So you better believe I will be forcing her to take the liquids today. I wonder if we will ever get our happy little girl back. Her main activities are sleeping and crying. I know it will get better and it could be much worse but right now it is hard. It is heartbreaking to see Grace so unhappy all the time. Would this stop us from adopting another little girl with the same need? Probably not. Would we be better prepared? Definitely. We are so thankful to have Grace here and to get her the surgeries and services she needs. She is our daughter and we will do everything it takes to get her what she needs.

Julia's Last PPR

Kristopher and Julia at our hotel in Russia, November 2004.

Leaving the orphanage for the last time,November 27, 2004.

Julia a few weeks ago in a dress my Grandmother made for my niece many years ago.

When you adopt a child part of the agreement is that you will complete Post Placement Reports once you have the child home. For Russia you have to do 4 of them at specific intervals. The last one is done the month that the child has been home 3 years. Your social worker comes to your home and does a report about your child and how she is adapting in her new life. Julia's last one was done last night. Once our social worker has completed it we send it to our agency and they send it to Russia. It goes to the MOE(Ministry of Education) of the region where Julia was adopted. We,also, have to include 12 pictures that we took since the last PPR. The last one was done a year ago so that will be no problem. It is hard to believe it has only been 3 years. It seems Julia has been with us forever. She has changed so much!

We are Home

We have been home since Friday. Grace has been improving everyday. Tonight she is the best she has been. She is almost her old self.

Paige came for the weekend. It was great having her help. We didn't get to go anywhere but it was so nice having her here to talk to and she kept Julia entertained. She, also, made Nicholas a great baseball cake. It almost made up for me not being here for his birthday. The kids all love when she visits. Of course, I do too.

Check out my Slide Show!

Happy Birthday, Nicholas!

Happy Birthday, Nicholas! Twelve years ago, today, our second son was born. Nicholas is such a great kid. He is truly the All American Kid. He gets along well with everyone and has no problems making friends. Everybody is his friend. He loves being outdoors. Baseball and Golf are his sports of choice.

Poor Nicholas, it will be the birthday he always remembers. He had a birthday dinner Tuesday night at Red Robin just in case we didn't get out of the hospital. Good thing because we didn't. His dinner on the night of his birthday was at Wendys in the hospital. Dallas brought the boys to visit Grace and I took them and Julia to the Wendys for dinner. Dee bought a cake. The kids ate dinner and then we sang Happy Birthday to Nicholas at Wendys. We didn't want to take the cake into Grace's room because she didn't feel good plus she couldn't eat it. Nicholas only had one present to open on his birthday, too. I gave him the choice of me going and buying him some surprises or him going to Target and picking them out himself. I only did this because I didn't have much time when we found out Grace's surgery would be the next day. Nicholas was alittle sad about the situation but he handled it well.

I will post pictures tomorrow.

Grace's Surgery

Grace came out of surgery about 5:30 on Wednesday. Dr. Van Aalst reported to us that all had gone well. He even gave me the rotten tooth that he took out of her cleft. I think she deserves something good for the tooth. Around 6:00 they came and got me to go to recover. When I arrived Grace was very upset and the blood coming from her nose and mouth started increasing. They kept suctioning and it kept flowing. The nurses decided it was time to call the doctor on call. Once he arrived he quickly called Dr. Van Aalst and it was decided Grace needed to go back in the Operating Room. The doctors arrived and surgery began again. They believe an artery was clipped causing all the blood and they fixed the problem. An hour later Dr.
Van Aalst was back in the waiting room telling us they had stopped the bleeding and they were going to keep Grace in the PICU for a night to make sure she was O.K.

She did well last night. They are keeping a close watch on her blood due to the blood loss. Her vitals have remained good. Today we were able to move to a regular room. Before she can go home she must be eating and drinking. So far she has only drank 6 ounces. We are praying tomorrow will be the day that she decides to eat and drink more. We are ready to go home.