handsful

Randy has great memories of playing in forts as a kid.  His mom would help him and his big brother, Tony make elaborate forts complete with tunnels and rooms.  So, Randy and the big kids had their own fort building time and the kids slept in it last night.  Well, Abbey lasted almost all night, she got hot and went to her own bed. 

Here’s a good shot of it, with Payton cleverly showing us the front door.  There was a back exit too, and even a room that included the TV so they could watch a movie.  Major dad points! 

Lainey missed out on fort-building night, she had already hit the sack :)  Here she is showing the face she makes when we tell her to smile.  We might need to work on that a little. 

She’s still healing very well, no problems.  It’s been 4 weeks now and her next (and, hopefully last) post-op appt. is Thursday morning.  We found out this weekend that she does indeed know who we all are.  We spread out in the family room and Randy asked her “where’s Payton?”, “where’s Marley?”, etc. and she got it all right!  She also has another purposeful word now, other than pointing to her eye and saying it.  She’ll now approximate the word “more” rather than just signing it.  It comes out more like a “mo”, but we’ll take it. 

Now, that’s a better smile!  Wonder what we said to her that time?  As you can tell, it’s crunch time on the bangs or no bangs decision!  We’re pretty sure we’re going with no bangs, so I need to get a LOT of cheap hair clips/elastics since I anticipate losing them as quickly as I put them in. 

Can you say busy??  We’ve had our plates full lately!  I guess it’s been obvious, with the serious lack of blogging.  We’ve had many appointments lately, and renovations to the house and/or repairs (painting is being done from the roof leaks a while back) mean there is always someone here doing something. 

Last weekend, Randy’s dad and Kathy visited us for the weekend.  We had dinner out, dinner in, girls day-out shopping, boys day-in Wii playing, swimming, and presents!  They covered all the kid’s birthdays in one swoop (Abbey’s is in February, and when our kids were in NC while we were in China, they were both terribly sick and couldn’t see her).  There were also presents for R’s dad for Father’s day and for Kathy’s birthday. 

Nana and Lainey snuggle up for some light reading

I think I’m gonna really like this Paw Paw guy…

5 of their 17 grandchildren…Lainey is lucky #17 :)

Here are a few Before/After pics of our new counters and backsplash.  We’re so happy with how they look!

I’ll end with a few random pics from the week…

Payton has a little friend…see him?

Lainey admires Nana’s jewelry on her.  She’s a girly-girl for sure. 

Sisterly love! 

Who needs a mannequin when you have a baby sister?

I found Tracy and her company “Junkposse” (http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5208670) when I came across one of her creations on another blog.  I immediately emailed her, asking if she’d be willing to make a custom piece for me.  After talking back and forth, and deciding what we wanted, this is it.  I just love it!  I assume you can see it (I wasn’t able to zoom like I wanted to), but each of the kids names are on the fingers and the heart in the midddle says “blessings”.  We thought it worked well with our “handsful” theme, at the same time explaining that having our hands full isn’t a negative thing (as a lot of people seem to think), but truly a blessing from God. 

She totally surprised me by putting my name on the back!! 

Tracy is such a sweet woman who truly loves creating perfect pieces for her clients.  She’s also an adoptive mom herself and has made many pieces for auctions and charities that benefit adoption, as well as giving portions of her proceeds to adoption charities.  Go check her out, I promise you’ll be thrilled that you did! 

My favorite Gotcha day picture…this was soon after we arrived at the hotel.  We had taken off her coat, and were trying to interact with her on the bed.  Her little tightly clamped lips speak volumes, I think. 

This is today, 4 months later.  Her hair is getting so long, it’s getting down right unruly!  We usually try and keep it up in a tiny pony tail on top, or with a clip off to the side.  We’re in major “hairbow training” right now…she jerks it out, I put it back, she jerks it out…get it?  We’re not doing the bang thing, so she’s either gonna have to get used to them or get used to seeing through hair.  :) 

 

So, what do you think of our new place?  We’re still unpacking boxes (i.e. tweaking things here and there), but we’re thrilled with our new look.  Randy has worked HARD, making lots of changes to an existing WordPress design to make it look just like we wanted.  He always amazes me at how skilled he is in the “computer arts”…and, if he’s not sure of how to do something, he figures it out (or asks his college roomate Alan). 

One new thing you’ll notice is the button at the top called “Community Forum“.  We’re trying our hand at having a place where you can start topics (i.e. ask a question, make a suggestion, share an idea, etc) which others can then see and reply to.  By doing this, a conversation happens among those choosing to join in.  We think it’ll be great . . . as long as LOTS of people are there.  When you click the “Community Forum” button, a new browser window will open for that site, so you can shrink or close it to get back to Handsful.  Check out the post in the Admin section at the bottom, from Randy.  It’ll give more of an idea of what we’re trying to do with the forum.

Now, back to regularly scheduled blogging…

Since we last posted, Lainey had her 2 week post-op check for her cleft palate surgery and all is well!  She’s healing perfectly, no problems there.  She was able to kiss those no-nos goodbye…woo hoo!  She’s still not able to have a sippy cup (dang) yet, and has to wait until her next post-op check at the 5 week mark to see if she gets her swimming privileges back.  Not sure of the delay on that last one, but I guess I’ll trust the surgeon knows what he’s doing.  Here’s our happy “I can bend my arms now” girl getting caught doing something she loves…climbing anything and everything she can find. 

Oops, she sees me…

We had a rather eventful day last Thursday.  We were driving home from Lainey’s appointment, when the big kids called us on Randy’s cell phone.  They’re hysterical, telling Randy it’s raining in the house.  Huh?  We assume they’re exagerating (most kids do) and there must be a leak in the pool bathroom again.  He tells them to get a pot and put it under the leak, when Payton says they’ve run out of pots!  Oh dear…so we race home, walk in the door, and hear it raining in our office.  Water is literally POURING from the roof, around the chandelier, and filling up the glass fixtures which are overflowing and also pouring water on the floor. 

The picture doesn’t do it justice

Remember when we mentioned we were having our roof re-done?  Well, the leak started when a tarp they had laid down flew up during a big rainstorm (yes, it has indeed rained EVERYDAY since they’ve been working on the roof) and water rushed in under it.  After putting more pots, etc. under the office leaks, we walked around and found others…about 7 rooms total had either break-through leaks or water obviously pooling on top of the ceiling and bleeding through.  A water/humidity removal company arrived that night and set up 17 (yes, that many) industrial sized fans in the areas with the most damage, as well as 4 HUGE dehumidifiers to try and dry us out and get the moisture out.  Have you ever tried to sleep with the sound of helicopter blades whirring beside your ear?  Of course you haven’t, and I hadn’t either until that first night with those fans.  I mean they are LOUD.  I had to wear ear plugs!  As of today, they’re still here but we were promised yesterday that they’ll be here today to take them out, our air/walls are showing acceptable amounts of humidity now.  Whew.  Next, we’ll have carpet cleaners come and take out the water stains, and then the painters will come and repaint those areas that need it.  I took a picture of Lainey with the fan in her room, and a shot of Marley beside one of the dehumidifier “beasts”. 

Not exactly a gentle breeze!

Our floor is a tangle of about a gillion cords…loving that. 

So, that’s been our excitement of late!  But, we’re seeing the light…the roof should (ha) be done today, the fans will be packed up and out’a here, and we can get back to normal.  Well, our normal. 

We did have a nice Father’s Day with Randy on Sunday…he spent a lot of it messing around with this new website, but he loves that kind of stuff.  He got a bunch of “Pop” goodies…Pop-Tarts, popsicles, Corn pops…get it?  And, I made him a collage picture of the kids at Shutterfly.  Here he is with his crew of 5. 

Glad to be back!  Now, I can finally catch up on all of the blogs I read! 

In case you were wondering, no . . . my wife has not left the country, taken a vow of computer silence, or forgotten how to type.  handsful.com is going through a pretty major renovation (new hosting site, new look, new features / functions), so she has “been on the shelf” for the past few days.  Figured I had better post this before someone alerted the authorities.

The Good News:  We are almost finished with the new site !  Woo Hoo !  Within the next day (or two at the most), handsful will have a fresh new look.

The Bad News:  In the middle of this, our internet router croaked, so D can’t get to, well, anything.  No internet, no email, no chatting.  I gave her the number for a local support group.

No real “theme” for this post, just tid bits on what we’ve been up to. Since Lainey can’t get in the pool, we ran the sprinklers for the kids to enjoy. She wasn’t quite sure what it was, kinda just stood there and let the water spray her face. Abbey and Marley tried to show her the “ropes” of sprinkler fun!

Lainey has a new best friend…a white tiger. She swiped him from Abbey’s huge stuffed animal collection and there’s no sign she’s giving him back anytime soon. Tiger HAS to be there at nap/bedtime, HAS to ride with us in the truck (though, she’s fine to let him nap when we get where we’re going), and she HAS to hold him when I hold her.

A few pics I took while we all hung out in the driveway yesterday…

It can’t be summer without?some time sitting in the grass, doing hand rhymes.

Good defense, Payton!? Yes, that’s a big dumpster in our driveway. We’re having a new roof installed.? It’s been miserably dry here for weeks and weeks, hardly any rain to speak of. So, what did it do today?

Torrential rain, buckets and buckets. It rained for literally hours, with lots and lots of wind (see the roofers broom that blew off the roof and into the pool?). Randy saw them trying to put a tarp down and the wind nearly carried one of the men off…yikes. Funny thing is, when we got the roof job scheduled, Randy said THAT was when the rain would come. The roofers might not have appreciated it, but I know our grass did.

Tomorrow is our last day of regular school, and I promised the kids a trip to TCBY (yum). Thursday, Lainey has her 2-week post-op appt with the surgeon and we’re really hoping that she can take off those no-nos. I guess we’ll fine out then :)