Only One Book Left!

Chris finished the second book tonight and wrote his report! Woo Hoo! Now, we just have one left: Raising Adopted Children by Lois Ruskai Melina. We plan to read it together and it shouldn't take too long. All the papers should be finished and in the mail by next weekend.

Reading and Vacation

Chris is on vacation this week (if he doesn't take it by a certain time, he loses it) and has been reading one of the adoption books. He started yesterday and read on and off during the day. He took a break and went with me to my dad's house to water his pepper plants and got a lot read. As of right now (5:41 pm, according to the computer), he is about half-way through! Yeah! Once he finishes this book (Adopting the Older Child by Claudia Jewett, 1978), we will read the last book together (Raising Adopted Children by Lois Ruskai Melina). Since Chris set a 'want to be done by' date of the end of July, we don't have much time left if we are going to meet it! Personally, the start of next week is okay with me.

On a different note, I joined Facebook today. Yes, I have gone to the dark side... It is totally addicting and if I am not careful, hours will slip by and I will still be staring at the computer screen (like I did this afternoon).

Anyway, we are plugging along on the reading issue; I am so proud of Chris (he is not a big reader!). If I am not careful, he will finish both books and reports before me!

Please continue to lift us up in prayer: finances available when they are needed, preparing the house for our kiddos, getting ready to take on a second job again (Chris is planning on applying at Wal-Mart this week for a part-time job to help out with the finances), and me getting ready to go back for another school year (I am looking forward to meeting my new students!).

We are NOT crazy!!

Yesterday I spoke with the psychologist that did our adoption evaluation, and we are good to go (according to his report) for adopting! So for all of you out there that asked "Are you crazy?" in regards to adopting an older sibling group, according to a psychologist, we are not crazy!

Okay, maybe we are just a little bit, but who isn't (in some way or another). Anyway, he has sent in his report to Buckner, so the last of the paperwork is on us. Chris has been reading one of his 2 books and I have been working on getting the house back to normal (it still smells a little like paint).

Please continue to pray for our children and for our finances {we got the bill for the psychologist's paperwork (test scoring and report writing) yesterday}.

Whoo Hoo! The painting is done!

Yesterday morning the last 'touch ups' and such were done! Now I don't have to worry about being in someone's way while they are working (I actually got to sleep till 7:30 this morning). Now all that is left is to put everything back where it belongs. This is taking longer than it took to empty cabinets and such. I should be able to get the kitchen totally done tomorrow (started on it today).

Now, if we can just get the books finished...

Okay, last night the fumes finally got to me!

The kitchen cabinets were painted yesterday afternoon and the fumes were getting to me by bedtime! Nothing like waking up at 3:30 in the morning with a MAJOR MIGRAINE. Then Sheba started to bark at 4:00 for some reason (maybe because she saw me getting up for ibuprofen?) and didn't stop until about 4:30. I will be really glad when this is all done and life can get back to normal.

I think they are going to do the final walk-through/check this afternoon, so it should be completely done by tomorrow night. Sheba has been really traumatized this past week as she has been cooped up in her kennel most of the time (including yesterday evening because of the kitchen being painted). She has been 'talking' with the guys, and occasionally they talk to her. :)

Everything is looking great!

House looks great, not sure about us...

So far, they have completed the front 2 bedrooms, front bathroom, hallway, laundry room, dining/living room. They worked on Saturday getting the dining/living room done. We had Sunday off and they were back here on Monday to finish the 'touch-ups' in the dining/living room, move some of the furniture back in place (Yeah, I have the computer to work on), finish the laundry room and start on our bedroom & bath. We spent Sunday evening emptying our closets and I finished the rest of the bathroom stuff Monday morning. All of the ceilings are painted and they are supposed to finish our bath & bedroom today. Originally, they were supposed to have our rooms finished yesterday, but only 2 guys were able to work yesterday.

I get to finish emptying the kitchen cabinets today. I started last night, have worked some this morning and will finish the rest later this morning. I hope that they at least start on the kitchen walls today. There isn't a lot of wall space, it is mostly cabinets. Oh well. There is a 'Men's Night Out' tonight at BerryHill Tamales & Tacos in Sugar Land. I told Chris that he needs to go, if for no other reason than a good meal since I don't know if I can get into the kitchen to cook dinner. I picked up hot dogs & buns yesterday in case the kitchen was a mess. At least that is easy to fix (less than 2 minutes in the microwave which will be on its cart in the dining room). The coffee maker is being moved into the front bathroom so we can have coffee in the morning. Not sure if I will be able to make breakfast tacos for Chris, but I should still be able to make his sandwich for lunch tomorrow.

Hopefully I will be able to get some sleep soon. I haven't slept well since they started working last Thursday! Most mornings have been tolerable inside, but the afternoons and evenings have been really, horribly hot! The front door has been left open quite a bit with stuff being moved in or out in the afternoon. Our poor air conditioner has been working overtime (not to mention the HEAT Index!). It will be nice when our doors are back in place, then I won't have to go to the store to use the bathroom (didn't think about that problem last week!) during the day. Maybe I can get a nap this afternoon...

Living with Workers in our house

We are getting our house painted! The entire interior of the house! We have had someone offer to cover the cost, so we decided to get it started while I am home for the summer. We sat down with this company on Monday (we had a total of 4 different bids), liked what they had to say the best, picked out colors that closely matched what we had already chosen, and called them on Tuesday to confirm the agreement. We got an email on Wednesday morning asking if they can start on Thursday morning (we didn't think that they would start so soon!) and the crew arrived right on time at 8:30 this morning. Talk about short notice.

Chris and I started taking stuff down last night (realized that we didn't clean out as much as we thought for Joy's visit) and getting ready for the guys to start today. They are starting in the front 2 bedrooms (the kid's rooms) and the front bathroom. They are also taking all the interior doors off site to paint them (they need to be prepped before painting as they are vinyl and have never been painted). I told the crew chief (Manuel) that the only door they couldn't take was the front door! That one has been painted before, so they won't need to take it away with the others. Hopefully, we will have them back by Monday.

We are keeping our nephew overnight on Saturday so my sister and brother-in-law can go to his sister's surprise birthday party. It should be interesting to see how he is without doors in the house! I hope they get the front room completely done by Friday night so we can empty the stuff off his bed that we piled on it last night (I thought that he wasn't coming over until next weekend)!

Oh the things to look forward to next week: emptying all the kitchen cabinets & pantry, the laundry room, the bookshelves in the living room, figuring out if I have to empty the china hutch or if it can be moved VERY CAREFULLY from against the wall, emptying our closets (gives me a chance to sort though my clothes) and who knows what else I will have to do.

They should be completely done with the painting by next Friday, if all goes well. I think they are just prepping today and will paint the bathroom & kid's rooms tomorrow.

Two books down, one left to go (for me at least)...

I finally finished my second book (Adopting the Older Child) this afternoon and wrote my report! It took a while, but I managed to sit down, ignore the tv that Chris was watching and read the book. Now I have to read the last book, Raising Adopted Children, and I will be done with my required reading!

All that is left is for Chris to read the books and write his reports, then our part of the Home Study will be done!