Lindsey's New Look

Lindsey had some dental work done last October - 2 crowns, 1 extraction, and about 6 cavities filled. We had a bridge made for her for her missing tooth. We went in at the end of November to have it put in but it wasn't made right and they had to try again. A few weeks ago they finally got the new tooth put in. She looked so cute with her missing tooth, but I think she is even cuter now that she has her new tooth.

Before

After

Jay has been wanting Lindsey to have bangs for a long time. I resisted but finally gave in to letting her get a few wispy bangs. I am SO glad I did because she looks so beautiful! I love her new look.

Lindsey with an attitude

Checking in!

To whoever still reads this hapless blog, thanks for checking in! I've been obsessed with book blogs lately (including my own! come visit and leave a comment!) but I thought I'd take the time to post a few new pics here. Have a great weekend!

Messy baby!

Playing around in my crib

I'm so cute


Dr. Lindsey

I'm pulling up to a stand now (all the time!)

Crawling too - what's under here? (aha! my sister's box of (mostly) junk!)

Happy New Year!

I got it!

I've been driving myself crazy trying to come up with a name for my new book blog. I asked for creative ideas (and got a few, thanks!) then I realized that if it's too catchy/creative, then it doesn't feel like "me". So I was almost all set just to call it "Eileen's Book Blog". LOL

Then I started thinking about how I want to get back into crocheting again. I've done some here and there since we brought Lindsey home, including making her and Allison afghans, finishing the afghan I started for myself years ago, and a few other small projects. I doubt I'll be able to crochet every day or even every week but I want to get back into it.

So I thought why not combine the two interests - reading and crocheting. Then I can talk about what I'm crocheting as well as reading. I was making lunch today and a name came to me.....

.....Books and Hooks! It may sound dumb but I like it. So I created the blog, don't bother going there yet though because I'm still working on setting it up.

Gotta run, I'm off to the library! :-)

Creative people - HELP!!!

Despite the fact that I am trying (and pretty well succeeding, with some work to do yet) to spend less time on the computer since we've come home with Allison, I want to start a book blog as of the first of the year (which is only a little over a week away!). I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE to read and I've seen so many great blogs about reading out there, I'd like one of my own.

Anyway, I want a cool name for it, and I'm not that great at coming up with things like that. The name of this blog proves that. LOL If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them. I was thinking of calling it something in Latin since I'm learning Latin with Ben (and I LOVE it!) and it feels very studious. LOL Otherwise something having to do with coffee and reading, LOVE coffee too. Drinking a cup of coffee curled up with a good book is a little slice of heaven you know. Or neither of those things, just something totally cool. :-) Thanks!

It's been awhile!

I don't plan to disappear completely but haven't really had much time to post. I'll upload a few pics for now. Everything is going GREAT here! Allison is awesome! I LOVE having 2 little girls!

Home!

We've been home a week already, time flies! It's so great to be back. I don't think I'll be blogging much but I'll try to check in. Everything is going well. Allison is a very happy and content baby and so far sleeps all night. :-) We are falling in love with our little girl more and more each day. Lindsey is doing well other than the usual challenges you can expect from her adjustment to her new role as big sister. Here are a few pictures of the girls in China:

This is it!

Hi all, This will probably be my last post to my blog until after we get home. We leave in just 4 days and I'm going to wrap up all my "computer stuff" and get this laptop packed up and ready to go! I can't believe the time is almost here. I've been walking around with butterflies in my stomach constantly! I have a terrible cold, hoping to get rid of it before we go! I am almost packed, not sure if everything will fit! Here's a pic of all the "stuff" not including any clothes! Don't worry, this is before I took things out of their boxes and consolidated and all that. (Note the dog on the left *G*.)



I'm going to be journaling from China on my password protected website. If you want the info, email me and ask. If I don't know you from Adam you'll have to give me some info about yourself first! I won't have time for any chit chat, just the facts ma'am. If you email me after Tuesday I doubt I will be able to get you the info.

And one last picture of Princess Lindsey (she was at a princess birthday party):



Zai jian for now!!!

One more, and two more

One more Thursday, one more Friday, one more Saturday, one more Sunday (after today)

Two more Mondays, two more Tuesdays, two more Wednesdays!

Before you ask, let me save you the breath.....NO, I'm not packed yet. :-)

I do however, have in my possession Allison's new carseat:



and the double stroller:




We finally picked those up last Thursday. I knew what I wanted, we just had to go buy them. Lindsey has a Britax Marathon too and I love it (she has the denim cover, Allison's is houndstooth) so that was an easy choice. I also love our Graco Quattro Tour single stroller, so it made sense to just buy the double. I'm looking forward to pushing the girls in it! I'm not looking forward to buckling 2 girls in carseats. :-)

Happy Sunday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALLISON!

Happy Birthday my sweet baby girl! I wish I could be with you on your birthday, but we'll be there soon! Your big sister Lindsey is ready to play with you! I love you!

Thank you!

SO many people have commented or emailed me to congratulate me, wish me well, all those wonderful things. I want to thank each one of you from the bottom of my heart. As you can imagine life is super busy right now with homeschooling, one very busy 3 year old, and of course an upcoming TRIP! So I can't always respond to everyone individually, but I have read each message and saved them all.

As you can see from my new ticker, we leave 4 weeks from tomorrow! I know that time will go FAST but it also seems like forever! Thanks again to everyone for everything.

WE GOT OUR TA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YES! We got our Travel Approval yesterday on Day 34! I doubt that's the fastest ever, but it's the fastest I've heard by one day. Another October LID family got their TA last summer in 35 days, another family a few weeks ago on Day 40, and another just this past Monday on Day 39.

So, without further adieu (or is it ado? hmmmm)........here she is......

Miss Allison Lingyun Kunstman!!!

All good things....

....must come to an end. And so must this blog. But not yet! :-) I am, however, going to phase this out before we go to China. I'm switching to a password protected website for the rest of our journey. I just feel like I want to keep some things private. If you're with AWAA, you will see the website with username and password in my signature line of my (infrequent!) posts to the email group there. If I personally know you or you've commented in my blog and really want my website info, I'd be happy to give it to you. You'll find my email in my profile. If you're just a lurker, well, I don't want to shut you out necessarily, but I have to draw the line somewhere. Maybe you don't care about my little life anyway. :-)

Another reason for phasing out this blog besides the privacy issue, is the time I spend on the computer. Once we get Allison home, I want to cut most of my computer time out and focus on my family and other things. I know many people are able to keep up their blogs, etc. once they get their child home, but I know myself and I know I haven't the discipline to stay off as much as I'd like to. I have a vision in my head of what I want my days to look like. I want to start them out with breakfast with my girls (and Ben is he's awake LOL) and not start it off on this computer. I want to get outside more, play with them more, and GET CONTROL OF THE CHAOS around here! :-) Will it happen as I envision it? I don't know but I hope so.

I leave you with a few pictures from last weekend when we went up to a friend's cottage. I love the brother/sister pics. Oh Lindsey can annoy Ben and vice versa, but there's also times when they make me go awww and warm my heart.

We made it to Day 30 of the wait for TA. That went pretty fast! We're really hoping to travel early November.

AMAZING RACE starts tonight! Woo hoo! Oh, and the Packers lost. Woo, big surprise, not.

I'll write again a time or two before I close this blog. It's been fun but as I said, it's time is done soon.

We are in t-r-o-u-b-l-e!!!

I volunteer in the church nursery once a month. Lindsey does so well in her class, I don't want to be in the same room she is in and have her think that is the way it is going to be. So when she was in the 1 year old room, I served in the 7-12 months area, when she moved to the 2 year old room, I served in the 1 year old room. Well this fall she moves to the 3 year old room, so I signed up for the 2 year old room (well of course). Except the children don't move to their new classrooms until next week, but the new fall/winter volunteer rotatation began yesterday. SO, I was in the same room with Lindsey. First it was just her and I, she was showing me the toys, and then a little crying boy came in. I went to pick him up and Lindsey had a FIT. I was the only volunteer in the room at the time and I had to tend to this little boy (thankfully he stopped crying immediately when I brought him to the train table). But the rest of the morning went well....NOT! Oh that was difficult. She is SO jealous of sharing our attention. So like I said, we are in TROUBLE when Allison comes! Eeek!

On another subject, Lindsey slept in her crib until she was almost 3 years old and then moved to a toddler bed (thanks Dawn!). That was to be temporary until we could find reasonably priced matching twin beds. We just bought matching headboards, put one in the basement for now, and set the other one up on Saturday. (We'll set the crib back up probably next month.) Her room still needs much decorating. Whatever we got done before she came home is what is done today over 2 years later. I can't believe some of the elaborate nurseries some of my fellow adoptive parents have created! Lindsey's room has been pretty bare. Hey, we're slow, what can I say?

Goodbye LID Ticker!

I left my "days since our LID" ticker up there for awhile, for some reason couldn't let it go. Dumb, because it no longer matters how long it's been since we have our referral for our precious Allison. I'm moving on! :-) (Had you noticed our Allison's birthday is only one day before our LID?)

I'm not crazy about the white backgrounds on the birthday tickers but it's the only way the text will show up.

That's my exciting entry for the day! 8 days down, ? to go!!!

Whirlwind Days

THANK YOU to everyone for your wonderful congratulations! I will be saving them all.

I just got caught up reading everyone's blogs that I have links to on the left and will continue to keep up as best I can. I probably won't be able to comment much anymore but I will be there behind the scenes cheering you on! After being in "shut down mode" for so long with the wait getting longer and longer, I now have SO MUCH TO DO! Not only do I have to finish up my lists of things to do to get ready for the trip, and then actually DO THEM! But I have things to get caught up on around the house, and most importantly, before we leave I have to make sure our homeschool year is up and running smoothly (okay as best as we can!) so that we don't lose too much time while we're gone. I remember all too well how hard those first days/weeks/months post-China can be and this time I will have TWO little ones AND it will be right in the middle of the school year. Last time we got home June 10 so I had most of the summer to adjust before starting school. And Ben is a Junior this year so no slacking off allowed! I still have to finish a little planning and getting things ready to start the day after Labor Day.

So crazy days ahead for me, wonderful, wonderful but crazy days! Thanks again everyone for taking this journey with me.

REFERRAL!!!!

Yes, you read that right! Last month we filled out the SN application with our agency. We received our referral last Friday, August 11!!!! It's been a bear keeping it secret this past week! But I wanted to wait until our LOI was offically going out. It's being sent to China today!

Here's the important info!

Chinese Name: Cheng Ling Yun
Soon to be: Allison Lingyun
DOB: 10/11/05
Kunming City CWI
Yunnan Province

She's only 10 months old! We had requested 18-24 months but God had a different plan! I am thrilled. Time to dust off the crib again! Woo hoo!

I can't post pictures until we get TA. Believe me when I tell you that she is adorable! :-)

Prayers going out to all my fellow blogger friends who are still waiting...and waiting.....and waiting.

Happy Birthday Ben!

Ben is 16 today! Happy Birthday my #1 favorite son! :-)

Sixteen years ago at this very moment I was in intense pain LOL and would be until 6:12 p.m. when Ben was born! He was 7 lb. 2 oz. and 19.5 inches long. Quite the adorable baby too if I say so myself.

I am so proud of the person Ben has become. He's a wonderful son. He likes music, his iPod, music, church youth group, music, hanging out with his friends, music, Civil Air Patrol, and music! He wants to go into the field of aviation after graduation.

I love you Ben!

Homeschooling!

Shannon asked about being a home teacher. I don't really talk about homeschooling much if at all on this blog, but it's a HUGE part of my life! You might not be able to tell with all my talk and pics of Lindsey, but I do have *two* kids :-) and I've homeschooled my older one for 10 years now. I love it! Well, sometimes planning for it, reading about it, and talking about it is more fun than actually doing it LOL but I do love it. While I will stop short of saying it is the best method of education for everyone, it IS a wonderful way to educate your children and my first choice. I am a HUGE believer in homeschooling!

This year we are trying something new for history. Trisms This curriculum includes not only history but writing and composition, humanities, economics, logic/critical thinking and more.

We will start the day after Labor Day as we always do. I'm looking forward to another year of homeschooling. Other curriculum we are using includes:

Video Text Algebra

Apologia Biology

Latin Road to English Grammar

Rosetta Stone Spanish/

I also love Sonlight curriculum. We used it last year for world history, and planned to use it again this year but I decided to go in a different direction with Trisms. I do hope to use Sonlight with the girls when it is time to homeschool them. I am so looking forward to that!

PLEASE do not write me and say "I would never have the patience to homeschool." Big pet peeve here! WHO in the world does have enough patience....for anything? Certainly not me! I don't understand how patience is the one thing that everyone thinks you need to homeschool. Not that you don't need some, but it's not the number one thing! Yet that seems to be the number one objection most people have to doing it themselves. If you don't want to homeschool, that's fine! But if you have any desire at all, don't let your perceived lack of patience stop you!

You know, *I* don't have enough of anything to be a good mom, to homeschool, to be a good wife, friend, etc. But GOD has everything I need! So if God calls you to homeschool, He will give you the ability to do it. NO saying "I don't have the patience" or the this or the that.

Stepping off my soapbox now! Have a great day!

More pics

Just a few more pics from Saturday...

Lindsey....

New Packers coach Mike McCarthy