Have I mentioned I loved my neighbors and neighborhood?

I really do love my neighborhood and have the most thoughtful and friendly neighbors around.

This past month three different neighbors have offered to loan me costumes for Halloween for Spencer. Just this afternoon Spence and I were out watering the flowers and my next door neighbor was getting her front yard decked out in Halloween. Her boys ran up to us and announced they were going to be vampires for Halloween, one was even wearing a cape and had a plastic jack-o-lantern ready to be filled with candy. I started chatting with the mom and she mentioned that she had an alligator costume that was a size 2 and might work for Spence. I said, it would be great to try it on and see if it fit. She ran inside and returned with the most darling costume. We tried it on. . . and we have a winner!



P.S. Spencer is currently obsessed with that phone. He takes it everywhere with him. . . Ah simple pleasures. I only cringe as I wait for the day that he will insist on a working cell phone. . probably an iphone at that.

Election 2008

My sister sent me an ABC news link. This link lets you read comments made by both presidential candidates and pick the statement that you agree with. The statements cover the economy, healthcare, the war. . . etc. At the end it reveals who said which statement and whose policies you prefer.

I really enjoyed it. Here is the link:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/MatchoMatic/fullpage?id=5542139

Another Project

This weekend we wallpapered! Dave purchased a gorgeous world map way back before we met and it sat in a tube in the basement for 5+ years. We finally found the perfect place for it. We wallpapered it on the wall in the family room. We plan to frame it with a dark finished molding. It looks great. . . It is about 6’ x 4’, quite large and it has been fun to find all sorts of places on the map, our missions, Dave’s favorite places in Europe and of course Spencer’s birth city. The colors go well with the room and since our family loves to travel and is slightly obsessed with geography it is a perfect fit.


This weekend we also had a date! This is our second “official” date since Spencer came home 8 months ago. Grandma and Grandpa came and watched Spencer. We went to the temple and out to dinner. It was so nice to get out and just be together. Now that we are finally settled . . .it has been crazy these past 8 months. . . we plan to go out more. I guess I just have lots of questions about leaving Spencer. . . How do we find a good sitter? How much do baby sitters make? It has been awhile since I was a babysitter and I am pretty sure they get more then $1/hour nowadays. (That’s right my neighbor with 5 kids paid $1/hour.) Well, we will hopefully go out again soon and enjoy an evening out.

We are still cooking an adoption plan for our second child. . . I might be posting something soon on that front. . . until them, cheerio.

Weekend Warriors

So, Friday during dinner my cute hubby said, “Why don’t we paint the family room.” My response: “What? Tonight?”. . . “Sure, why not? You already know the color you want.” Before I knew it I was dashing off to the store to pick up a few gallons of “Balsam Beige.” We already painted the living room, dining room and office in this color back in 2006 and I love it. (We painted the kitchen a soft French Vanilla color that is subtle, warm and soft.)

By the time I got home with the paint, Spencer was in bed and Dad had all the furniture moved and outlet covers removed. We were up until 1 AM painting. We did a second coat and finished up on Saturday. Within 24 hours the look of the room really changed.

I am posting some photos, although the color in the “after” shot is not quite accurate it’ll give you the idea.

I love home improvements projects and this was kind of a sneak attack, I wasn’t really expecting it. . . but LOVE it!

Little Helper


Dave



Karla (at 1 AM mind you)


Before


After

Blurb: Review

So about a month ago I asked for some advice. I was looking for a company that converted blogs into books. A couple of you recommended Blurb. Today I just got my book. . . I love it!

It was a simple program to use. I was able to “slurp” all my blog entries, pictures and all up into the book. It was so easy. I was afraid it would be this tedious job, but it was simple, and also allowed me to pick fonts and formats. I also inter-spliced blog entries with private journal entries to make the journal complete.

I did a book for the year 2007. Now I have a hard copy of all my blogs and journal entries together. This site was sooooo easy and the quality of the book was great. I was totally impressed. I will be completing a blurb book at the end of every year. This was definitely a quality product and I would recommend it to anyone that wants to have a hard copy of their blog.

Uncle Spencer

Uncle Spencer was in town for business and we all got together for dinner and some story time : )

Adoption-Land

I have been having a ball reading tons of adoption blogs lately. We hope to start another adoption sometime and bring home another son or daughter and a sibling for Spencer. Before we started Spencer’s adoption we did tons of reading and talking with friends and follow adoptive parents. It was a great experience to feel the support of this unique community. The first blog I started reading was “Looking for George” and 2 years later am still a faithful reader. I have met myriads of wonderful people in this process too. Adoption-Land has lots of perspectives, advice and emotional support.

I am curious as to how our family will grow. We loved our experience in Vietnam. Our agency was amazing, caring and informed. We loved the people and the culture. The 3 weeks we spent there as a family holds perfect memories for me. In January 2008 we just assumed that Vietnam would be the birth country of our next child. Just a few days ago the agreement between the US and Vietnam for international adoptions ended and there is no plan in place to renew it. Although this was not a surprise, it was sad to see nonetheless. A lot has been written about this in Adoption-Land. I just feel the heartbreak for so many families out there who deserved to be united.

With Vietnam closed to international adoption we are again faced with lots of options. As we are faced with the questions of how to build our family, we are considering domestic adoption and also looking at international adoption and researching countries with stable programs. It seems there are so many different choices out there. There are lots of things to consider. We are looking at all aspects. We are considering our family dynamic (especially as a transracial family), we are also looking at wait times, costs, reputation of agencies, birth parent facets. . .all the angles.

I know that in the end with all our logic, research and excel spread sheets, it will be a spiritual confirmation that will lead us on the path to our next child. With Spencer, we did all the research we could and in the end we prayed about it and we both felt that we had a child in Vietnam that was supposed to be in our family. So, we do our part to find out all we can and then we take it to the Lord.

As a side note:

We also have a Chinese adoption underway. We started the adoption in June 2007, we got our Log-In Date (LID) in March 2008. Many people are aware of the situation there, it is a crazy long process. We assumed when we started (15 months ago) that the wait times would be around 3 years. The times have lengthened and we will just see what happens.

We have been on the official China waiting list for 6 months now, they just posted the stats for September 2008. When we finally got our LID there were 789 days worth of LIDs to be matched before us. In the last 6 months we have moved from 789 to 756. So, at the current rate we are looking at about 11 years before our referral is given to us. Things could slow down more, speed up or the program could close before we get a match. I don’t feel too coo-coo about this. It either will or won’t happen, only time will tell. So, we hope our 3rd adoption is from China, but it is 100% out of our hands. All we can do is wait and see.