Luck o' the Irish

St. Patty's Day came and went, and I was working a late shift. How does one tell one's boss, "... but I actually have green to wear this year!" 

My little brawlers

As a young lass, I would look forward to St. Patrick's Day for weeks... and then forget to wear green; I'm cool like that. To prevent a generational repeat of this crime against festivity, I found the family special shirts to celebrate the day of green beer. Now, I don't think of my husband as particularly Irish, but apparently a shirt that reads, "Everyone's Irish on St. Patrick's Day" was not going to cut it. It offended his sensibilities. He even went so far as to say he was as Irish as I am... Poor deluded soul, them's fightin' words; thank goodness my Dad wasn't around to hear them. We had to take Brian's shirt back and get a cool one... something about "I (shamrock) beer". Because that's so much more Irish.


Either way, the only people who wore the shirts outside of the house were R and A... I think I'm going to go put my "Lucky Lady" shirt on right now!

OUR FIRST DONATION!!!!!

Our puzzle and it's wrapped-up form...

We set up our Paypal account today, and received our first donation right away!! Thank you, K R-G, you amazing woman, you :) K has purchased from my Scentsy page in order to support our adoption and receive a wonderful product. All of my commission from my sales of Scentsy products go straight to our adoption funds. Now, K has purchased our first puzzle pieces! Thank you, Thank you!

K R-G donated so we got to put the first pieces together!!

It was so exciting to pull pieces out of the box to find the first two pieces that fit together. Now, Those pieces have K R-G's name on the back and will stay together forever. We have officially started to put together our puzzle!

Brian and I got a puzzle keeper to protect the donated pieces, but we didn't think the felt sheet would secure our pieces. With a few modifications, we were ready to go: a simple foam-rubber shelf liner provided the base for the pieces and the felt went on top to roll around the puzzle-keeping tube. This should work a lot better.

Side note: All of our seedlings have started to SPROUT!

Puzzle Peace

Pulling open the puzzle to see
SO many pieces...

We have received our puzzle from Hammond Toys, Hobbies and Dolls. It is a beautiful image of a baby lying atop a teddy bear in shades of earth tones... SO excited. We received it on Saturday, hours before a positive pregnancy test and an ER visit to find I was miscarrying... again.

I'm a pretty good mom. According to my kids... when they are on the flattery track, I'm the best mom EVER. It makes me doubt myself completely when I cannot stay pregnant. Is there something wrong with my genes? Is God trying to run interference?

If it were up to me, I would take in every lost and hurting child I could find... There would be kids of all ages in sleeping bags on the couches and chairs; toddlers would make beds of the stairs :) I'd hug them and make each child see how truly amazing he/she each was.  Fortunately, my husband reigns me in *LOL*. I am probably only going to be allowed two more: one infant, one older.

Before anyone gets the hair on her back up, my husband is a kind and intelligent man and "reigns" and "allowed" were both tongue-in-cheek comments. Anyway, I think I can talk him into a few more older kids after the boys leave for college...

Soon, we will begin the puzzle fundraising... $5 per puzzle piece. We will write the name of the person who purchased that piece on the back of it. Later, we will frame it in a two-sided frame so the infant knows who helped bring her home. I'd like to see if we can somehow build it into a loft that she can sleep on into her teen years.

Our beautiful puzzle.

The seedlings for the garden have started to sprout. I've also been doing a lot of crocheting. I'm hoping to create things to sell on Etsy for the adoption. I have to up my stock before I open an Etsy store...

An Infant Headband with a Cloth Flower

An Infant Cocoon

Girls and Boys...

Does it make me selfish to want a little girl? I love little boys and am so happy that I'm raising two of them, but I would really like to braid somebody's hair. Every time I walk past a little girl clothing display area, I think one of two thoughts about which I am passionate: 1) why must we dress our pre-teens in the same manner as Julia Roberts when she portrayed a prostitute, and 2) AWWWWWWwww, Oh look!

Brian thinks we will be limiting our chances for adoption if we show a preference. Plus, he doesn't really have a preference. I do.

That being said, I would adore any child that came to join our family. We have a strong, healthy family, and we could be very happy as a four person crew... but I think we are missing pieces. I think there are kids out there that are going to join us, teach us, and make our family stronger. We will adopt older children in the future, but we wanted to start with an infant. At thirty-five and being the mother of a son who is learning to shave, at times I feel I am the perfect age to start at the beginning and at other times I feel I only have a few more years of starting with an infant left in me. That's why a baby is our focus today :)