Happy 15th birthday, baby girl!
You’ve grown into a such a smart, fun, strong, talented, beautiful girl and we’re totally captivated.
We love you to the moon!
And…
…congratulations on beastin’ it through this grueling weekend of volleyball tryouts!
You’ll be a great asset to your new team and we’re so proud of you.
Spike on!
SAM: Mommy, how come you snowman ohney habs one baw?
DADDY: Because, Sam, two balls is more than any snowman will ever need. ((ba-boom-sisssss))
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I haven’t sent Christmas cards in years. Okay, never. I’ve never sent a Christmas card. I have no good excuse, but this year I’m making up for it big time. Not only am I sending cards, I am…*wait for it*….stippling my own pen and ink designs. I hope to have six different designs, but I’ll be happy if I can get two more finished in time for printing (I have two ready). Before I can print, though, I have to work out my scanner issues—the issues being that I (1) no longer have one that works and I (2) can’t afford the one I want right now, so I (3) have to find somebody who has a decent one I can use. Does Kinkos do that kind of work? Hmmm. Unfortunately, I put more than 10 hours and a bazillion jillion layers of dots—no lines, only dots— into Mr. Snowballman alone. Then, by the time I took his photo and corrected shadows, I lost most of his charming detail. My ornament design didn’t fare much better. Frustrating, but I still have some time to work things out.
BTW, Sam and I are feeling better. Sam still has a horrific, croupy cough, but he’s back to school after missing everyday last week. Eli has already had whatever we’ve passed around and Susie is in the recovery phase which means Keith and Annie are the last two standing. And I’d like to keep it that way. I haven’t seen my sweet Ellie in almost three weeks and we’re finally well enough to have her later this week. I miss her!
One year ago today, we arrived home from Vietnam with our sons in tow. I truly can’t recall feeling happier (or more exhausted :)). The whole lot of us~Keith, Amanda, Annie, Susie, Sam, Eli, and I~were finally in the same hemisphere together and, as corny as it sounds, we knew our family was complete. For those of you who followed our travel journal while we were in Vietnam, you’ll understand when I say that this first year home with our boys has mimicked our time in their birthcountry: overwhelming love and joy grounded by threads of grief, anger, and frustration. Even through the hard times, there is no doubt that we belong to each other, we love each other, and we’re growing and healing together. As we celebrate our first anniversary as a whole family, we are looking forward to all the years, days, and minutes to come!
Here’s a little peek of the boys over the past year…
:: Referral Photo dated December 20, 2007 ~ This was the first of more than 100 photos we would see of Sam and Eli in our grueling 10 month wait to travel; we fell in love with those little faces the moment we saw them ::
:: October 12, 2008 ~ First sight, first hugs ::
:: October 13, 2008 ~ Last moments, new beginnings ::
:: October 14, 2008 ~ Studying the 'new family' album just before our Giving & Receiving ceremony ::
:: Fall 2008 ::
:: Winter 2009 ::
:: Spring 2009 ::
:: Summer 2009 ::
And finally, all of our kiddos…
:: From front left ~ Sam, Eli, Amanda, Annie, Susie, Ellie, and Dave ::
I feel so much more comfortable here at WordPress. It’s good to be home!
Along with getting settled into the new digs, I began a project this week that I’m super geeked about. I left a hint about it in the drawing above if you have time to kill (we all have so much of that, don’t we?) or if you’re one of those people who just can’t resist trying to solve a riddle. The project is still in the R&D stage, but I do hope to share some pen and ink designs soon that I’ll be using for it. Also, we’ve been celebrating a very special family anniversary since the beginning of the month that I’ll be sharing—complete with photos—in just a couple of days. I know you don’t want to miss that, so don’t forget to check back in!
What this page from my moleskine doesn’t show are herniated discs L3, L4, and L5 smashing gelatinous matter into my sciatic nerve causing pain to radiate from my lower back down both legs through my knees and ankles into my toes. It doesn’t show the spasming muscles either. Or all the drugs I had to take to get through our marathon day on Saturday. I don’t really even know what I did to aggravate it, but if I had to guess, I think it might have happened as I wrestled a soapy, slippery baby Ellie in the bathtub. It just doesn’t take much. Leaning over at a bad angle, twisting just the wrong way, anything. Anyway, the pain started to let up on Sunday and Keith and I were able to salvage part of the afternoon that we had planned to spend at a winery in Augusta celebrating his birthday. Not wanting to be that far from home if my back seized up again, we had lunch and took a long walk on Main Street sans kiddos.
I do have a couple sketches from the afternoon that I hope to be able to put up soon (not that anyone is holding their breath). As my luck goes, the day that I got this blog up and running, my scanner crapped out which means I’ve had to photograph every doodle and drawing posted over the last month and a half. I haven’t mentioned it here, but I’m totally inept with my camera. It takes me f o r – e – v e r to get a half-decent shot and then I still have to edit to correct the colors before I can post. I get lucky every once in a while, but for the most part, my. pictures. suck.
Near the top of my list of favorite fall things are the beautiful wildflowers that spring up along Missouri’s highways. Anything that can distract me from my usual passenger seat pasttime of envisioning every manner of fiery crash with each lane change rates high with me and I find those sunny, leggy Black-Eyed Susans a particularly good distraction. Maybe it’s just the route we took on Sunday when we went to The Best of Missouri Market at the Botanical Gardens, but I thought I noticed fewer of them. And I was looking. I think they’re only around through part of October, so these might be among the last of the season.
On a side note, when I decided to make a daily habit of getting reconnected with my long-shushed inner artist, I bought my first hardbound moleskine sketchbook. I’ve always only sketched in spiral-bound, not-very-important-looking, rip-out-the-page-if-you-don’t-like-the-work books and because of that, I have very little evidence of the work I’ve always loved to do. I got my moleskine about two months ago and it has been calling out to me, but I’ve been terrified to make a mark in it. What if I were to make some horrible mistake with my pens? I can’t very well rip out the pages or throw the whole book away. Finally I got over myself, I cracked it open, and made the Black-Eyed Susans my first contribution (hence the page transition line running across the middle). I did make mistakes just like I knew I would, but I’m alright with them. Just like most creative endeavors, the first blank page is always the hardest.
I’m not even going to try to explain how my hair got that bad. Moving on…
I had hoped the colder temps might kill these little bast, um, little beasties or at least encourage them to go underground or do whatever it is they do in the winter when they are not living in my garage. They move in every summer, but I swear they multiplied after Keith sprayed in August. I can’t even take the trash out at night anymore because they come out of hiding and cover the entire floor. And why can’t they just jump in a predictable pattern? Like I dunno. Forward maybe? But nooooooooo. They act like hundreds of mini-footballs dropped on end. You never know which way they’re going to bounce. I had to go out there last Monday night to pick up Annie from voice lessons, so I bolted from the door to the van and the little bast…little sons of, um, they got all freaked out and bumped into my ankles trying to get away from me. Stupid little…crickets.
