emily {gone} and the dishwasher repair guy

Well, life with Emily is so yesterday.
(see my previous post if you have no idea what I'm talking about)

She was up to no good anyway.
And didn't lift a finger to help with dinner.

What.ever.

I called USCIS to report the intruder on our paperwork.

They got RIGHT ON IT.
And even seemed embarrassed that it happened.

No big deal at all,
I told them.

Human-ness happens.

If there's one thing I've learned going on our third
adoption (and other life drama),
it does zero good to stress about things out of
our control.



**Can someone self-appoint themselves to refer me back
to this post in the future, as needed?
Thanks.



~*~*~*~*~*~



And for ALL who asked,
all two of you...

my exclusive Sesame-less Sesame Chicken Recipe
will be posted soon.

But for now,
I need to get ready for the dishwasher repair guy to show up.

It's the most exciting thing that will happen around here
today so the kids and I need to make
the most of it.



Perhaps it's time to plan a field trip or something.

approval {woot woot}

We got our immigration approval on Saturday!

Woo hoo!

Only trouble is...
they have listed that we have an additional
adult living with us.

Someone named Emily I.

Not sure what this means for us regarding our approval status.
I'll give them a call this morning.
Please pray that they will re-issue our correct approval
right away!

But in the mean time,
I sure wish Emily would pull her weight around here.

I think I'll put her in charge of dinner tonight.

that made me happy

You simply MUST check out these
two sites!!

First, my dear friend Karin's daughters
are doing THE
most amazing sweet little projects
to raise money for my
most favorite orphan ministry...
Morning Star Project!

THEN...
my darling friend Connie is making some
super cool candles that would
make THE best gifts.


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

This morning we got up

bright.and.early

to get our fingerprints done at H*meland Security.

It was extra special because Lucy was up even earlier than
need-be so that helped my mood greatly, as you can imagine.
Bless her heart.

Being obscenely long before the sun made its daily debut,
I just grabbed whatever I could find quickly
for Lucy to wear.
Which was a new little outfit my mom just bought her.
Well,
little did I know until we were an hour from home,
the shorts were way too big so in order to keep
them from falling down,
we had to carry her everywhere.
Nice.
Oh, then, only after we had been there for an hour,
I discovered the size/clearance sticker
still plastered across her backside.
Thank goodness she's not a teenager yet.
Can you imagine the embarrassment?

I shudder to think.

ANYWAY,
I must tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed our visit
to this obscure little office.
No really, I did.

Seeing a room full of faces gathered from all around the
world just made me happy.

I sat myself down right smack by the table full
of clipboards.
Everyone needed one, so I self-appointed myself
to be the official hander-outer of clipboards....with a friendly
smile, of course.

That made me happy.

Then I noticed a young man who was just starring blankly
at a form he was trying to fill out.
I couldn't stand it.
He obviously notice me looking at him with my,
please-let-Mama-help eyes,
and I jumped on the chance to ask if he needed help.
Indeed he did.

That made me happy too.

Then we got all printed by the loveliest gal.
And of course my prints
took way longer than the average person.
But I didn't mind in the least.
It was the closest thing to a manicure I've had
in a very long time.


Again, happy.

You have no idea how tempted I was to see if
she'd print my toes too.



I know, I need to get out more.





Now leave me a pleasant little comment then go
check out my friends' sites, okay?

Woot Woot!!! I800 APPROVAL!!!

GOD IS GOOD ALLLLL THE TIME!!! And today I am doin' a glory dance because USCIS (immigration) just called and we got our approval!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yippee, yippee, yippee!!!!! Thank you to EVERYONE who has been praying!!! You guys ROCK!!!

More Fingerprints

We are off early, early this morning to get our fingerprints done for immigration. Our Senator petitioned on our behalf and USCIS has agreed to expedite our case....in my mind that means we will get approval really soon but who knows how quickly it will really happen. The manager (who is the one handling our case) said they are as far as they can go until they receive our prints....I REALLY hope that means they have already reviewed our homestudy!!! I'm praying that we hear good news some time next week.

I have a super busy day today so I may not post anything else today...so sorry!


Lucy saw me kneeling down so K-man could take my picture (for Shu Li's album), so of course she had to pose the same way (sorta)!

Sparce on Chocolate Chips

Adoption Update: TODAY our I800A application & homestudy are being sent to USCIS!!! We have requested that they expedite getting us our case number. Once we have the number, our state Senator has promised to help us get through quickly (that word is relative of course!). But my friend Patty said she just heard of two families that got through in about 6 weeks without any help. Six weeks would be awesome!! In the meantime, I'm working hard on our dossier. Thankfully, it's not near as much work as the homestudy. Please pray that everything goes smoothly!!

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Lucy LOVES to help in the kitchen....I have to sneak to unload the dishwasher if I don't want here right there with me! Any task I'm doing she'll say, "I help you Mama!" Sweet little pumpkin!! But, we all know that she will outgrow it.


The minute she got word that I was going to make cookies, there she was, all ready to go. How could I turn down such an adorable helper??

It would appear here that I have just planted my elbow in Lucy's sweet little face, but I assure you that I did not! Here we see Lucy sneaking a cookie...she had no idea I was watching her until she saw the flash from my camera!

Everytime I make cookies I always make a double batch. I bake about a dozen or so then roll the remaining dough in balls & put it in the freezer. That way, we can pull out however many cookies we want at any time and plop them on a cookie sheet & have hot, fresh baked cookies at any time.

Well, this time when I added the chocolate chips I apparently didn't get them stirred through the dough well enough & my first batch was a little sparce on chips. :( As Brenden sat down to eat one last night he started to bite it then examined it...."Mom, I only see one chip in this cookie...*sigh*" Then with his charming sarcasm he says..."wow, I'm sure excited to finally get to the chocolate chip...(bite, chew, bite, chew)...I'm getting closer...(bite, chew)...look Mom, I'm about to get the chip!...yumm, that was great!" Smartie pants.