A New List

I am so happy to say that our agency has just received a new list of waiting children. Their last list came in June. As I mentioned in the "Update on our little Lia" post, we are part of the waiting child program which means that Lia will come to us with some type of "special" need. It is very unlikely that Lia will be part of this current group of children, as there are many people who have waited longer than us, but I can hope, right? So far we have only been waiting for 5 months. They generally get large lists every 2-3 months, which would put the next list in October/November. At that point we will have waited for 8 months, the average wait time for our agency. This new list puts us one step closer to Lia. I am so excited about this list and about all of the waiting families just days away from seeing their children. Maybe now I can give my computer a much needed break:)

19 More Wishes

I have 19 new wishes for the 100 Wishes Quilt. This brings my total to 61! I still have 39 to collect, but as you may have noticed Bob, the kids and I haven't even done ours yet. I am excited to get started on the book and the quilt. I haven't decided on a pattern for the quilt yet, but I'd like to do something simple. I only have pictures here of 18 of the squares, because no matter how many pictures I took, I couldn't get one of the squares to show up.

Here are our newest squares:

My mom


My brother, Kevin


My sister, Maura


My Grandma and Grandpa Geraghty


My Aunt Mary and Uncle Chris


Two squares from my cousin Jonathan, his wife Maggie, and their son Joseph



My newleywed cousin Molly and her husband Connor


My cousin Tim


Bob's Administrative Assistant, Monica


My mom's good friend, Ann


Another friend of my mom's, Anne


Donna, a friend of my mom's


Pat, another friend of my mom's


Mrs. Ward, my mom's good friend


Molly Ward, a childhood friend



And two cute kids!! I know that Garrett will not be happy later in life to hear that we put a bath picture on the Internet, but isn't he cute? He doesn't like the shower we have at the cottage, so we have to give him a bath in the sink:)



Caelan's newest favorite thing to do is give piggy back rides to Garrett.

Guess who's coming to China?

After a lot of discussion we have decided that we are going to bring the kids with us to China. We have always wanted to bring Caelan, but we were (OK, still are) worried about how Garrett will handle the trip. There is no way that we would bring one and not the other. I am so happy that we have made this decision, I want to be able to enjoy our time in China, and I know I wouldn't be able to do this worrying about the kids at home. I just kept thinking about what a basket case Caelan was while Bob was in Africa. Granted, he was gone an entire month, but she cried nearly evey day. And Bob may have been just as bad, I am not sure, what I do know is that he missed the kids terribly.

I am a stay-at-home-mom and the longest I have been away from the kids was last weekend when Bob brought the kids away for two nights and I stayed home to clean the attic. Sparkling, by the way:) Well, that worked out fine, but other than that I have been away from Garrett only a handful of nights (actually 4- when my girlfriends came to my parent's cottage last summer, Nora's wedding in September, Molly's wedding this June and one night while we were at our cottage I had to drive home for a doctor's appointment and steam clean the carpets). Only one of the nights I left him with someone other than Bob. I certainly haven't prepared him for life without Mom for two weeks.

Even my mother agrees that the kids should be there. That or she has realized after our 2 night visit last week that two weeks with the kids might put her over the edge. She has volunteered to come with us. And my dad doesn't want to miss out, so he will likely be coming as well. This will work out really well, since my parents can watch Caelan and Garrett whenever we need help. I know that once we have Lia, her needs will be our priority. I am also hoping that having the kids there will put her at ease more quickly. Our only problem now is that we have two more plane tickets to buy! Oh, and passports! Visas!

Oh, and I will bring the kids to a local class so they can learn some Mandarin! That starts in September.

We Did It!

Yes. We set up the crib.

Caelan was feeling sort of down in the dumps about when Lia would actually come home. I keep hoping that we will hear something by Christmas- this would be almost exactly 9 months that CCAI had our medical conditions checklist, but it could go a little longer than that. I am still hoping it will be sometime this fall. Caelan said, "Mom, last night I kept thinking about Lia and I wanted to cry. When will she come home?" So I figured that we should do something to add a little excitement.

Well, this is my big weekend for cleaning and reorganization. Bob is bringing the kids to the cottage, and it will be my responsibility to reorganize the attic. It is really bad:( Caelan's bedroom also needed a major overhaul, so we did that yesterday. Just as I had everything out of her bedroom I had the bright idea of setting up the crib. It makes sense- I had to clean the attic anyway, and the crib was in the attic- right? SO here it is:




We love our house. We live on the Saginaw Bay. We have a lot of birds and other wildlife. But, we have a small house, especially the kids' bedrooms. Caelan's is small, maybe 8 x 9 or 9 x 10 or something like that, and good intentioned people (my mom and mil) questioned whether we would be able to fit another body in Caelan's bedroom, but as you can see it was a success! Now Garrett's room is much smaller than Caelan's and there is probably no way that we'd ever fit two beds in there.

Neither Caelan or Garrett were very interested in sleeping in the crib as babies- they much preferred their mama :). So needless to say the crib is in very gently used condition and even if we don't have a baby to put in the crib for another year, maybe we will get some use out of it with the kids playing in there.

I am so glad that we did it. Caelan didn't stop smiling all day, and she went to sleep very easily. And she made her bed today. Wow. Last night as I was reading her stories we were pretending to say goodnight to Lia. The crib has just made the adoption seem even more real. Someday (soon, I hope) there will be our sweet baby looking up at us from that crib. We can't wait!

The New Washing Machine

This probably doesn't warrent its own post, but we recently made a big purchase that I couldn't be more pleased about. Here is the washer we bought.

Now, I must say that our washing machine that we had been using came with us from our Delton house. We have lived here for 2 years, in Delton for two years, and that washer was in the Delton house when the previous owners moved in. So at least 11 years, likely longer. We replaced the belt on the old washer twice in the past 9 months. It stopped agitating the clothes and leaked an enormous abount of water on the floor. I was pleased to finally say to Bob that the washer has finally washed its last load.

On to the purchase. I hate doing laundry. With three kids (OK- ALMOST three kids:))and a semi-regular jogging husband, we have a lot of laundry. I feel like there is always laundry to be done. My friend Karin once said something about if there is something that you dislike doing, figure out how to make it easier. Well at the time, I didn't like to put the clothes away. No wonder- all of our drawers were busting at the seams- did Bob still need that concert t-shirt from 1990? Probably not. SO once the drawers were cleared, putting clothes away was a breeze. My new washing machine really saves time and energy. I have found that I can do two, maybe three loads of clothes a week and be done. I was doing 10 with the old washer.

Now my second reason for choosing this washer is that it has an ENERGY STAR rating. Last year during lent, my lenten resolution was to make at least 10 changes to how we live that will lessen our impact on the environment.

Here is my list:
1. We recycle. I am even embarrassed to put this down, as we have lived here for two years and just started recycling. The garbage company picks it up curbside. Too easy.
2. We now compost our kitchen waste.
3. Turn off and unplug all appliances, lights when not in use. (Mom, if you are reading this, you know how hard this one has been:)) Did you know appliances can use up to 40% of power while plugged in, even if they are turned off?
4. I use a Divacup.
5. We almost never purchase processed foods. My exceptions to this are breakfast cerael, bread, pasta. We also buy canned tomato products (Salsa, spaghetti sauce, canned tomatoes) and canned beans. Oh and condiments- I eat a lot of salad and love the convenience of prepared salad dressings. But for the most part we eat fresh, whole foods. This cuts down on boxes and plastics and we all feel much healthier.
6. We are buying organic foods, when possible. I joined a local food co-op which was a great way to purchase organic foods at lower prices. I would love to do all of my shopping there, but it is a little too far, which sort of defeats the purpose as I was spending too much in gas, so I have gone back to Meijers and our local fruit and veggie stand. I always go to the organic section first and purchase from there, though there isn't a huge selection. I sure wish we had a Whole Foods around here.
7. Any appliance we buy from now on must have an energy star rating. Not all appliances can get this rating (like dryers), but for those that can we will stick with the energy star.
8. Our next vehicle will get better gas mileage. We are currently driving a gas guzzling SUV. Our lease runs out in March and we will be looking for a smaller family car that will still be able to accommodate 2 adults, three kids and our two big dogs.
9. We are trying to use less water.
10. I will try not to purchase any more books. I am definately a book junkie. In fact yesterday, I picked up a box full of maybe 100 children's books from a freecycler. This doesn't count, though, since I am simply reusing someone else's old books.
11. We use non-toxic cleaning products. I usually use a mixture of vinegar and water for most of my general wipe downs. I also use Simple Green.

So anyway, my list has finally generated an energy star rated appliance- Yeah!