Wednesday, February 27, 2008

To be a mom...

A friend emailed this to me... I love it... so funny! Talk about some serious talent, I couldn't sing all this! Thanks Leslie for making me laugh!

Monday, February 25, 2008

Our life... the whirlwind

(21 days until court - including what's left of today!)

Yep, it's official. Our lives now seem to be a whirlwind of activity. While on the one hand, it feels as though court and meeting our little angels is still so far away, we have plenty of things to keep us busy. I need to get a more extensive list together so I can check items off as I go. It's become more than my brain can manage on its own, I think.

Over the weekend, I did manage to get paint colors selected for the nursery, and hope to begin painting in the next two weeks. Before I paint though, Joe needs to put a skim coat on the area of wall where the mural will go, so the wall texture doesn't show through the mural. I picked a light, off-white/cream color for the top half of the walls, and below the chair rail is a light yellow-green that I will use for the base color. Over that, I'm planning to use the two darker greens to create a grass type of effect, hopefully somewhat like the grass in the Serengeti. I'm no artist though, so I hope it turns out OK! If not, I'll have to paint over all of it and stick with a solid color. How boring! :) The mural will go up after the room is painted, and then lastly we'll stick up the chair rail. Whew, what a lot to do!

I finished the tops of the baby's quilts a week ago, and just need to find a border/backing fabric I like. Then, I can finish assembling the quilt and actually quilt the layers together. I also need to get busy and finish up making some baby blankets. I got some adorable fabrics when out with my mom a couple of weeks ago, and want to make some baby blankets - both for Olivia & Ezra, and to take and leave at Toukoul when we go. If I find the time, I also want to get busy making the sock dolls I've been slowly gathering supplies for - they're too cute, and apparently not too difficult to make.

My mom and I went on a small shopping spree Friday afternoon, and returned home with bumpers for the cribs, 4 ADORABLE wall hangings, two great children's books, and a number of cute outfits! Yeah, it was so much fun! Shopping trips like this help make this craziness feel a bit more real... I'm going to be a mommy in 3 weeks! Exactly 3 weeks from today, we should get word of our successful (please, oh please let it be successful the first time) court appointment, and we'll be Ezra and Olivia's parents! Then, a couple short weeks later, we should be in Ethiopia to meet them! WOW!

At this point, I'm not anticipating the nursery furniture will arrive before we head to Ethiopia. If it comes in earlier than anticipated, that'd be great... but I'm not counting on it. The anticipated date is April 10th and they give a window of up to 1-2 more weeks! So, I think we'll try and do two pack'n'plays in our room initially. We've been considering having them be in our room for a while anyway, so it's easier to get to them at night. We'll see... I know it'll all be an experiment until we find what works!

I also had a blast this past weekend beginning to work on their life books. So far, I've just been able to create a few pages in each of their albums, so there's lots left to do. I still have to fill in things on the pages and add pictures once we get them. I really need to spend some more time on this in the coming weeks, as it's something that I'm sure I'll have a hard time FINDING time to work on once they're home! I think the pages I have so far are a great start though, and I'm really pleased with how it's turning out! Many thanks to my teacher and guide in the process - Sabrina! I couldn't have done it without you!

On Sunday, I spoke with a travel agent and he's going to start helping us come up with a tentative itinerary and give us some airfare costs for the approximate dates we're thinking we'll be traveling. I also emailed the guide that comes highly recommended from a friend I met online through the WONDERFUL Ethiopian adoptive family forums, and hope we'll be able to use him for our trip south to Awassa. I definitely need to do a lot more research and make some decisions on where we want to go during our extra time in Ethiopia. Joe may not be able to join me for the first week now due to his work schedule. I'm so bummed. I can't imagine seeing Ethiopia without him, but we may have no choice. I think it's so important for at least one of us to see whatever we can while we're there, for Olivia and Ezra. I don't want to see only Addis Ababa, as I know that won't give us a good picture of Ethiopia in general.

The last big item is that this morning I had an "impromptu" interview and will be starting on site for "H" tomorrow morning. This new client is in Torrance, so I'll be on the road a bit and will lose a lot of productive time in the mornings and evenings because of this. Such a bummer with all I have to get done! But, it'll be good to be billable again, even though it's not a long term solution for my job. I'll be on this project for the next 5-6 weeks, basically until we travel. Then, whenever I come back to work, I'll be looking for another contract or job transfer - ugh! My hopes are still that I will get another job lined up so I will be remote again and be ready to hit it hard when I come back from leave! Wish me luck... it's been a LONG time since I've had to work on site anywhere... no more loungy clothes workdays! Super bummer!