Thomas's new song

This afternoon I overheard Thomas singing--it went something like this "Jingle Bells, we love God, God loves me."  The song stopped because I grabbed him and hugged him.  It was so sweet to hear his little song and the love in his heart. 

Happy Birthday, Therese!

Today our future daughter is 4 years old.  We are sad that she has to spend this birthday in the orphanage, but at least this should be the last one as an orphan.  To try to give her a little birthday celebration, we sent a care package to her, through Ladybugs n Love.  If the orphanage accepted it, she will get a cake, and these things in the picture.  We are sending the camera and film hoping that they will take pictures of her first birthday cake and give us the film when we go to China to get her.  We can't wait to meet you, little girl!

Hello, I am your camel.

I bought this book so I can learn some useful phrases in Chinese before we travel.  (I know travel is a loooonnnggg way off, but I like to be prepared.)

This book is simple and short, and it has all sorts of phrases you won't find in a regular travel phrase book, like "I am your mother"  "Do you need to go to the bathroom?"  "We will take good care of you."  The problem is that I am having a very hard time pronouncing Chinese words.  I still can't say Therese's Chinese name correctly, and I have been working on that for quite awhile.  Since Chinese is tonal, you could be saying a totally different word if you get the tone wrong.  I used to teach English to international students and remember how hard it was for them to pronounce certain sounds in English.  I have personally studied German, and a little French and Latin.  There are a few sounds in German I never got completely correct, and I had a bad habit of using German sounds when I tried to use French.  (I'm sure that French people would have LOVED that.)  My sisters will probably never let me forget the time when we were in Germany together, and I asked that my bread be circumcised, when trying to remember the word for sliced.  There are only a couple of letters different in those two words, which really make a different meaning, ha ha.   But, Chinese is by far the hardest for me.  I want to be able to say a few soothing phrases, and of course saying the poor girl's name correctly would be good too.  Unfortunately, I have noticed in my very limited study that the word for mama and camel are the same--they just use different tones.  I'm afraid that when I finally get to China, I will meet my child and say in a gentle voice, "I will take good care of you.  I am your camel."  She will be so confused.  Even though she lives near the Gobi desert, I'm sure she has never met a camel, and certainly not a camel that looks like me.

The best thing a Mom can hear....

The other day I was getting breakfast ready and a little boy in Thomas the Train pajamas came in, wrapped his arms around my legs, and said, "I LOVE you, mommy!"  So sweet--I love my kids.

Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Happy Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe!   Today is an especially important holiday for Hispanic Catholics.  You can read about it here or here.   In spite of marrying into a Mexican family, I have yet to get up at dawn to sing Mananitas, but this afternoon we will definitely be listening to some mariachi bands playing them.

Hooray for some good adoption news!

Our homestudy has been approved!  I'm so excited! I'm getting my immigration forms out and ready so they will be ready to go as soon as we actually get the notarized homestudy in our hands. 

Gaudete! The Third Sunday of Advent

My kids call this "pink candle Sunday", because this is the day we start lighting the 3rd, rose-colored, candle on the Advent wreath.  It is also called Gaudete Sunday because the Introit in Latin begins "Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete."  It is from Philippians, chaper 4--rejoice in the Lord always: again I say, rejoice.  Gaudete Sunday is a time of joy in the midst of our Advent preparations, because we know the Lord is coming!

We had a very nice evening with some friends who have 3 children adopted from China, and one from Congo.  Both of our families are working on adopting our 5th child, from China.  All together, last night, there were 8 children from 2-13, all playing happily.  My kids didn't want to leave, even though they were so tired and it was past their bedtime.  The van was full of gentle snores by the time we got home, and we could barely get the kids in their pajamas they were so tired.  It is nice to have fellow adoptive families who understand what going through this crazy process is really like!

Yesterday was just one of those days......

First of all, I woke up with the beginnings of a cold.  I had those tell-tale signs--tired, achy, sore throat, runny nose.  I got everyone dressed and breakfasted, got our reading and catechism done, and then the kids wanted to draw with markers.  I set them up at the table and Fermin was writing everyone's name.  I was impressed.  Then he wanted to cut his paper with scissors.  So I let him have the kid scissors and decided to rest and check my email before getting lunch on the table.  As I was at the computer, I heard Fermin's voice say, "cut off another one, Catherine."  Those words got me into the kitchen to investigate without delay!  Catherine had cut off several of her little curls.  I know all kids give themselves some kind of a haircut.  I still remember when my younger sisters did that.  It is almost a rite of passage.  But I love my girl's curls.  I spend a lot of time fixing her hair.  It is so curly that when it is dry you can't tell, but when wet it goes halfway down her back, so each of these little locks are quite a length of hair if you stretched them out. 

Fermin gave himself several nearly bald patches, right in front where it is the most noticeable.  He also gave his little brother a patch at the crown that is almost like a tonsure.  We are one week away from violin recital, where the oldest three will be playing and also getting their holiday pictures taken.

As you can tell, Fermin was not embarrassed at all at his appearance.  Jose didn't snip much of his hair, but he suddenly was wearing a cap.  Hmmm.

So there was marker all over the table (marker, not markers, which were mostly on the floor) I had kids whose hair looked moth-eaten, and I had to get ready to leave for my physical therapy.  I had such a nice quiet break at physical therapy, but I worried about what my little zoo was doing, left with their very gentle Grandma.  It would help if she had a little more drill-sergeant in her.  Anyway, I came home and found the house a wreck.  There were toys everywhere and you could hardly walk in the boys' room because there were blocks covering the floor. 

Part two of the day was trying to get the kids to clean up.  I was on my own because Mr. B. was out of town for the day doing his simulator training.  The kids hate cleaning up their messes.  It would be easier to do it myself, but we put the effort in to train them to clean so they won't grow up to be slobs.  At least that is the theory.  I have trouble with kids going AWOL from their assigned task.  Once as I tried to catch an escapee, I slipped on the debris and fell, hard on the floor.  I landed on a wooden block.  It knocked the wind out of me.  You would not believe how much a wooden block can hurt when you fall on top of one.  The rest of the evening I felt a little shaken up, my ribs hurt, and anytime I lifted my arms I had sharp pains up my back and side.  I managed get the kids to clean up, gave shorter haircuts to the moth victims, and got them bathed and ready for bed.  When I combed out Catherine's hair in the bathtub, a whole handful came out.  They had been cut but stayed on her head all day.  She has some serious gaps in her hair.  I'm not going to attempt trimming hers yet.  I think making multiple braids will cover up the holes. 

 Mr. B came home about 9:30 to a clean house and children, but a somewhat sore and flustered wife.  I took some cold medicine and went to bed.  Jose's shorter hair cut took care of his self-trim, but Fermin has three nearly bald spots.  I wonder if I could fill them in with black marker for the recital?

November 30th--Toilet Tea

I finally got these pictures out of the camera, so this story is from a few weeks ago.

In the morning the older two boys decided they wanted some fruit tea.  They did some (unauthorized) rummaging in the cabinet and found some they wanted to try.  I said that if they were very good, we could make the tea after schoolwork.  Well, the tea got made, but I guess they didn't want to rely on good behaviour to get it.  They came up with a totally new way of entertaining themselves: making tea in the toilet. They used the herbal tea bags they filched from the kitchen, and when I heard a lot of laughing and went to investigate why all 4 kids were in the bathroom with the door shut, they quickly flushed it.   They had opened the tea bags to mix it in the bowl, so tea particles were all over the toilet and the floor. No one admitted to tasting the toilet tea.   The next day when I got around to cleaning up the tea, I found that tea particles stain grout.  So now the grout has tiny purple and pink spots.  At least they aren't yellow.  You really don't want yellow stains around a toilet.  I wage a constant war on those with Comet!

Life in an Orphanage

For an inside look at life in a Chinese orphanage, this book by Kay Bratt, Silent Tears; A Journey of Hope in a Chinese Orphanage, is a real eye-opener.  You can read an excerpt on the author's website.  I have been reading about adoption for many years, but I wanted to know more about what life in an orphanage is like.  None of our adoptions up to this point have involved at child who has been in an institution.  During our Guatemalan adoption process, we paid for our boys to live with foster families, and we brought Catherine home from the hospital where she was born.  Now that we are in process to adopt a child who has lived her entire life in an orphanage, it was important for me to understand where she is coming from.  This book is one woman's experience with one orphanage, but it gave me a good idea of what Therese's daily life could be like.  I'm glad that the other moms who have adopted children from Therese's orphanage have said that while their children were quite malnourished, they felt that people there had cared about them, and they have attached well to their new parents.  Children from poor orphanages who had loving caregivers do better than children from well-funded ones that didn't have it.

Silent Tears shows what it is like to be a small child who was discarded by their family, living in an institution where there are too few nannies, sometimes not enough food to go around, and where some children just lie in their cribs, only to be taken out for baths.  I have heard that the death rate for infants in many orphanages has been up to 80 percent.  For a child with a disability like a cleft lip/cleft palate that made feeding difficult, simple starvation was more likely than possible.  Many children are abandoned because they need medical care, and orphanages often lacked the funds to provide surgeries, or were forced to choose only a few to send to the hospital.  After reading about the babies in the book who had heart problems, many of whom died because they did not get surgery, I am thankful that Therese's orphanage sent her to the hospital for repair of her spina bifida.  Lack of heating and hygiene issues caused illnesses to spread rapidly among the babies, especially in the winter.  Of the many sad things in the book, the most tragic lack for the babies was lack of love.  Some of the children just gave up their will to live, with no one ever touching them or showing them love.  In many orphanages, conditions have continually improved, partly because of the required orphanage donation that all adoptive parents pay.  Only about half of orphanages in China are involved in international adoption, so information about conditions in the others is probably inaccessible.  Since we just finished orphan awareness month in November, it is important to make people aware.  I recommend this book--not all of it is easy to read, but it shows how a group of expatriates living in China were able to make a difference for many of the children.  Not everyone is called to adopt, but we are all called to do something. 

Collect for the Second Sunday of Advent

Excita, Domine, corda nostra ad praeparandas Unigeniti Tui vias: ut per ejus adventum purificatis tibi mentibus servire mereamur: Qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti, Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum.  Amen

Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to prepare the ways of Thine only-begotten Son: that through His coming we may deserve to serve Thee with purified minds: Who with Thee liveth and reigneth in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.  Amen.

The First Sunday of Advent

Excita, quaesimus, Domine, potentiam tuam, et veni: ut ab imminentibus peccatorum nostorum periculis, te mereamur protegente eripi, te liberante salvari: Qui vivis et regnas cum Deo Pater in unitate Spiritus Sancti, Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum.  Amen.

Sitr up Thy power, we beseech Thee, O Lord, and come: that from the threatening dangers of our sins we may deserve to be rescued by Thy protection, and to be saved by Thy deliverance: Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.  Amen.  (Collect for the First Sunday of Advent)

The Holy Season of Advent: Preparing our Hearts for His Coming

Today we begin the season of Advent.  It is one of my favorite parts of the liturgical year.  The readings are often from the book of Isaiah, and are filled with expectation.  We know He is coming, and we have this season to prepare our hearts. 

The kids love Advent--like most kids, they love fire, so Advent candles are very exciting!  When I got out the advent wreath yesterday, there was a burst of cheering.  Throughout Advent, we light the appropriate candle(s) and we pray the collect from the liturgy, usually the one from the preceding Sunday.  Then starting on the 17th of December when the "O Antiphons" begin, we add those as well.  We conclude with the Angelus and then the kid's favorite part, when everyone gets to blow out a candle.  Until the 4th week of Advent, we have to re-light candles until everyone gets a turn.  For now, we have 4 kids and 4 candles.

Another way to celebrate Black Friday

If anyone out there braved the crowds to do some Christmas shopping and saved a lot of money, and is looking for something to do with a little of the money you saved, you can go to http://reecesrainbow.org/ and make a donation to help some of these children get home.  Little Olga

 has a family who wants to adopt her, but since they just did another adoption earlier this year they don't have the money yet to bring her home.  If they are unable to get their documents submitted, she faces being transferred to a mental hospital (yes, a mental hospital set up to warehouse adults with psychiatric problems) when she turns 4 in December.  In Eastern Europe, children with mental or physical disabilities are usually moved to these horrific places when they turn 4.  Most will die there within a year.  Reece's Rainbow is an organization who tries to bring some of these children to our attention.  They are finding more and more families every year who want to bring these children, who especially need families, home.  I didn't go shopping this morning, since sleeping was much more appealing, but I've made a donation to a family who is raising money for another adoption.

We are slowly being overrun by stuffed animals.

I'm fighting a losing battle against little fuzzy creatures!  The kids get them as gifts and they spent the money Abuelita sent them on still more stuffed animals.  For a long time I managed, by discreetly sorting them and hauling off a sack of them to donate, to limit stuffed animals to what fitted into one laundry basket.  Now there is a laundry basket in the girls room and one in the boys room, and stuffed animals are lurking all over.  Under beds, under the couch, falling out of the bookcase headboards in the boy's room, etc.  I even woke up a few days ago and found a stuffed frog wedged in my armpit!  Thomas still sleeps in our bed, and I guess Mama and Papa were not enough.  Last night we were joined not only by a very large almost three year old, but his bear named Corderoy, a small tiger, a dolphin, and another blue bear he borrowed from Fermin.  We only have a queen sized bed, so it gets a little crowded.  I don't think I played with stuffed animals much at all when I was a kid, but of course we had an assortment of them.   I remember my mom trying to devise new ways of storing them out of the way.  One time she rigged up a clothesline and we were supposed to clip the animals to it.  That lasted less than a week.  We were not tidy children, especially me, and the animals ended up all over the floor again with all our other stuff. 

My kids, who are also born mess-makers, do love to play with stuffed animals.  Each child usually has several in bed with them, and they take them on car rides.  Their favorite game with my grandpa is when they show him a tiger or iguana or something and he pretends it is attacking him.  The last time my grandparents were here they just couldn't get enough of that game.  Since I'm a mom, I love to make my kids happy, and I can't get rid of any of their favorite critters.  The problem is that the list of favorites is getting longer and longer.  I'm such a pushover that I actually have recently purchased 3 stuffed animals as gifts.  Catherine doesn't have a stuffed cat.  She has all sorts of other ones, but she looks longingly at Fermin's cat, as he pets it ostentatiously.  Thomas adores penguins and has a special penguin dance he does.  Fermin always tells me that he needs (another!) doggy.  So, I have purchased a dog, cat, and a mother and baby penguin set.  I will probably have a penguin in my armpit on Christmas night, but the kids will be thrilled.

We are sending a care package to Therese for her birthday, which is in December.  Hopefully the orphanage lets her have it, since they are not very open to contact outside the official channels.  I figured it was worth the money to try to send her something, since she has a family but we can't go get her yet.  We chose a fleece blankie and a stuffed animal to go with the birthday cake.  The options for the stuffed animals were bear, panda, rabbit, dog, or goat.  Yes, I had to stop and read that one over again--goat!  I thought that was so funny that when I go to China next year I'm going to be shopping for stuffed animals.  I have never seen a stuffed goat before, and my kid's collection is definitely lacking one.

Pregnancy vs. adoption

I read this funny post today.  I have to agree about the stress of not having a due date.  It is hard to be expecting a child when"gestation" is more like that of an elephant, and you really don't know when you will get to see your child for the first time.  Of course, when I was pregnant with Thomas, I looked like an elephant.  I outgrew 2 sizes of maternity clothes.  If the pregancy was any longer I would have been unable to fit through doorways, and would have had to shop at a tent and awning store for something to wear.  Chocolate really helps with adoption stress, so I have always gained weight while we are adopting--just not 50+ pounds like I did while pregnant!   I will let everyone know sometime next year whether a c-section (after 3 abdominal surgeries) is easier than a 20 hour trip back from China.

Finally, our homestudy is done!

Now, we wait for our agency to review it.  If it needs any revisions, the homestudy agency will have to do them and then send it back to the agency again.  When it passes inspection, we will submit the I-800A form to USCIS to get approved to bring an internationally adopted child into the U.S.  Since we are adopting under the Hague treaty, Therese will automatically become a citizen when she enters the U.S.  I know I complain a lot about the tons of extra hoops the Hague treaty adds to the process, and the fact that it adds about a month to the process at the very end--which will drive me CRAZY--but the automatic citizenship is a good thing.  So, we submit the I-800A, our homestudy, a large fee, and some other documents, and then we wait again.  Then they will send us an appointment to go get fingerprinted at our local USCIS office.  They will have the FBI run our fingerprints.  After they confirm we are not serial killers or some other types who should not get to adopt children, we will wait again for our approval.  It takes about 3 months.  I should be better at this, having ridden the international adoption rollercoaster before, but I'm not good at waiting.   For now, I'm celebrating that we have made one more step toward bringing home our little girl.

She has no idea....

Last night I was thinking about Therese.  She really has no idea how her life is going to change, that she is going to have the most important thing--a family.  She doesn't know that her photo is on our frig, tucked above our fireplace, in our wallets.  I have stared and stared at her picture, trying to get to know that little face.  We have fallen in love with her, and all her future brothers and sister talk about her all the time.  They even have arguments about who will get to play with her.  She doesn't know that we have picked her, and that she has a family who is eager to come and get her.  She was abandoned as a baby and has lived in the orphanage all her life.  As far as we know, she has only left the orphanage twice since she was brought there as a 3 month old.  Both of those were trips to the hospital, once to repair her spina bifida, and once to have her medical exam so her file could be prepared to make her available for adoption.  It must have been very scary to be 6 months old and left alone in a hospital after surgery, with no family to stay by her bed.  She has never had a birthday party.  She has never had a mommy to dress her in pretty clothes and kiss her owies, or a daddy to toss her up in the air, and no sisters and brothers to play with and fight with.  Before Christmas, she will turn 4, and if all goes as planned that will be her last birthday as an orphan.  We already have a little pink backpack to take to China for her, and I let the kids pick out small toys to put in it.  It makes it seem more real to have some stuff ready for her.  It is strange that she is so much a part of our lives, but she is going through her normal orphanage routine on the other side of the world, not knowing we are already her family in our hearts.  We just can't wait to make it official!

The Cupcake Mystery

Today I made cupcakes, and I had a helper who licked the spatula and cup that I used to put the batter in the pans.  That way they are nice and clean when they go into the sink:

Hours later, the frosted cupcakes are sitting on the kitchen island.  Mama leaves the kitchen for just a few minutes, and when she comes back, this is what she sees:

Several of the cupcakes had bites taken out of them, with little teeth marks that looked like they were made by a small mammal:

So, Mama went looking for the cuprit.  A suspect was located who had frosting on his nose.

When he was asked if he ate the cupcakes, he confessed immediately, and said, "they were good!"

He did say he was sorry.  Who could resist that face?

They don't look like they could ever do anything to cause trouble....

How many children is too many?

Lots of people have been talking about the Duggar family, especially since they are expecting their 20th child.  I haven't watched their show in a long time, but I think they are a great example of a family who is very fiscally responsible and who are truly open to life.  We could use more families like that in this world--we wouldn't have a social security crisis, for one thing!  I find it very interesting to see how people react to them.  Some people get so upset about them having so many children.  I think our culture needs to be reminded that life is a gift.  Certainly it wouldn't be prudent, or possible, for every family to have 20 children, but we can all celebrate every human life.  Every child is created in the image of God. This is an excellent posting on the topic.    


It can be a lot of work to have a large family. I only have 4 so far, and this picture perfectly portrays how I often feel. Multi-tasking is an understatement!

 I rarely take all 4 of mine out on errands by myself, since it is so much easier to beg my mom or sister to watch a couple of them.  It is faster to do my grocery shopping with just a delegation, and they get some more personal time with Mommy.  When I do take all 4 of mine out, if I had a dollar for every time someone said, "you have your hands full," I would be able to pay for several more adoptions.  Yes, it is a lot of work to have 4 kids 6 and under, but it is so much more than that.  They are 4 unique individuals, not to mention very cute (I am not biased at all!), and I am very blessed that 3 other women chose life, and that I was allowed to become the mommy to these children.  I usually try to answer in a way that emphasizes the good part--we are never bored around here!   And once they can dress and feed themselves, and you get a few out of diapers, life is sooooo much easier!  Yes, I do more laundry than I can keep up with, and yes, they do get into a lot of mischief, and yes, I do hear myself saying things I never thought I would say, like "do NOT pee on your sister," and "get your foot out of your brother's ear," but at the end of the day, especially once they are all fed, bathed, dressed, prayed, and tucked into bed, I think I have the best job ever.

What I just finished reading

Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Treasures of Central Asia, by Peter Hopkirk

This book was so fascinating I had a hard time putting it down.  It is the story of several Europeans who excavated ancient cities in an area that was called Chinese Turkistan.  They were vibrant trading centers on the old Silk Road, and then were abandoned and swallowed up by the Taklamakan desert.  This part of China was so remote at that time, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, that it was almost like visiting the moon today.  The conditions were brutal and dangerous but the discoveries were amazing--ancient manuscripts, silks, and art.  There were ancient Buddhist monasteries where piles of old books and writings were found preserved, including some ancient Christian ones.  Many of them were in languages that had been lost to history.  If you are interested in archaeology and exploration and the ancient civilizations along the Silk Road, you won't want to miss this book. 

We got an updated photo!

This evening I got an email with an updated picture of our little Therese!  It was so wonderful to see a photo which was taken just last Friday.  I can't put it on the blog, but anyone who wants to see it (and even people who don't, ha ha!) can see it in person or by email.  The other photos we have of her are from when her file was prepared to make her available for adoption.  That was in the summer of 2010, when she was 2.  In the picture, her head is still shaved.  I think it is shorter than a military cadet.  But, she is so cute, kind of smiling, and is standing up holding a fuzzy toy bunny.  It hurts to see her standing on her bent feet, but good to know she can stand up.  It must be an omen, because early this afternoon my sister brought a gift today for her future niece, a tiny stuffed bunny. 

You know you have been a mom for awhile.....

when you no longer get all worked up over messes!  This afternoon, Thomas had an altercation with one of the older boys.  I went to see what was the matter, as Thomas jumped up and down in frustration and rage.  I smelled a very strong and unpleasant smell, and noticed that as he jumped his shirt moved, revealing poop halfway up his back!  It has been a long time since we had one of those epic poops to deal with.  I led him to the bathroom and noticed brownish streaks all down his jeans.  Then when I peeled his clothes off, and took them to the laundry room, I found suspicious spots on the couch in the living room, the sofa pillows, the floor, etc.  I didn't even get excited.  I've been around kids long enough now not to be surprised.  I sent out a team of sniffers to locate any more contaminated areas, bathed and dressed Thomas, and cleaned up the couch and the floor.  I think I may have to throw out the sofa pillow though.

Our newest little girl

Our 5th child is a girl!  She is waiting for us in China, somewhere on the old Silk Road.  I'm not supposed to post her exact location, Chinese name, or photo until we get further along in the process.  She is a very beautiful little girl, one day younger than Catherine Rose, and has some special needs.  We plan to give her a saint name in addition to her Chinese name and our last name, so in posts I will call her by her future saint name, Therese. I saw a resemblance between her picture and a picture of Saint Therese, the Little Flower, and it seemed fitting because St. Therese wanted to be a missionary, and even though she lived as a cloistered Carmelite nun, she sent her prayers out to the whole world.  I think that giving a little girl from China her name is somehow very special.  Our little Therese is a very small girl and part of her Chinese name means orchid.  She was born with spina bifida and clubbed feet.  Her spina bifida was repaired as a baby but her feet have not been corrected, so she cannot walk much and is very delayed in her gross motor skills.  She was on the waiting child list for over a year before I saw her picture on our agency's photolisting. 

It is very hard to choose a child from the waiting child list.  There are so many, and so much to think about--whether we can handle various medical needs, what age of child, etc.  Most agencies choose a selection of children to feature on their own list, with pictures and a little profile of the child.  There are so many darling little faces, and they all need a family!   I was looking more at the boy's pictures since I have always wanted to adopt a little boy from China, but Catherine has wanted a sister so much, I decided to look at the girls on the list too.  For some reason, her face looked familiar to me, and I kept going back and looking at her information.  She has a cute little half smile in the corner of her mouth in the photo on the listing, and a completely shaved head.  Somehow those pictured eyes went right through me, but I kept looking at other children for awhile because she was older than we were thinking of, and our homestudy agency is opposed to out of birth order adoptions.  Eventually I did request her medical file and got our homestudy agency to agree, and we submitted our LOI (Letter of Intent) for her.  We got our PA (pre-approval) from China very quickly.  PA just means that her file is assigned to us and now we have 6 months to get all our documents in.  We are waiting on our homestudy now, so we can submit our immigration paperwork.  If all goes well, we will just make the deadline.

How do you know when you are ready to adopt again?

I was thinking about this recently, because earlier this year when my sister asked me if we ever planned to do another adoption, I told her that it was too much paperwork, and I just didn't know if I could do it again.  But this past summer, since the kids are getting older and I have actually ventured to leave the house with all 4 by myself, I started having a funny feeling when I counted heads to make sure I had the same number of kids I had left the house with.  I would count all 4 of them, but still felt like someone was missing.  Hmmm.  From the very beginning of our family I have felt drawn to the idea of adopting a waiting child.  I didn't bring it up to Mr. B. for quite awhile, because I thought he would think I was crazy.  I did a lot of praying about it, but the feeling didn't go away.  Eventually, we did talk about it and decided to start the adoption process again.  Since we have done 2 international adoptions and 1 domestic adoption, we have a lot of experience with the process--a lot of paperwork and a lot of waiting.  I'm pretty good at the paperwork part, even though it can be frustrating, but I'm not very good at the waiting part. 

A 2-year-old's perspective on orphans...

Last week, while Mr. B and I were getting ready for bed, Thomas was already in bed waiting for us.  (Yes, he still sleeps in our bed.  :) )  He got very serious and said, "Papa, my baby brother is in an orphanage.  He's crying.  Need to go get him."  It is all very simple to a 2-year-old!  Thomas has been insisting we have to get a baby brother.  We are actually in process for a girl who is a year older than he is, but he is very set on getting to be a big brother and talks about his baby brother all the time.  He is even planning to share his toys.  I've promised him that the next adoption will be a boy.

Why The Laundry Mountain?

Every blog needs a name that sums up your philosophy of life, who you are, and what your life is like. So, The Laundry Mountain was the obvious choice, in honor of the piles of clean clothes that go from the dryer straight to the couch in our family room. Evergrowing, it rarely gets completely removed. Sometimes we have those days where things are so hectic that the laundry mountain is more like a range of mountains, some of them with the distinct square shape that comes when you leave the clothes in the laundry basket overnight.  Yes, that is a picture of Mt. Everest, and no, my laundry mountain isn't nearly that tall, yet.  (It doesn't have any clouds around it either, even though it does attract climbers.)

Life is precious

Read the story behind the picture in this article from Lifesitenews.com

November is Orphan Awareness Month

Sometimes the many types of awareness months make me roll my eyes, but this one is very near to my heart.  I can't say it any better than this:

Reckless abandon...from No Greater Joy Mom

All Hallows Eve at our house

The kids and Mr. B were handing out candy at our door to trick or treaters, and suddenly I heard the sound of scurrying feet.  The kids who had so happily run to the front door when the doorbell rang were scattering to the far corners of the house.  Catherine came running straight to Mommy, crying and screaming, saying, "There are bad people at our door."  Apparently there were some kids out there in scary costumes.  It was hard for her 3-year-old mind to grasp the idea that the kid with "scary, big teeth" was just a normal kid in a costume.  The most amusing part of the evening was Jose and Fermin's reaction to a kid dressed as a sniper, complete with gilly suit.  They thought that was one of the scariest costumes they saw, and wanted to know what it was.  That explanation led to questions at supper about whether it was bad to be a sniper or not.   Watching Mr. B try to explain Catholic Just War doctrine to two 5-year-olds was priceless!

I finally decided to try it.....

Yes, after many years of reading and enjoying other blogger's work, I have decided to try it myself.  I can't promise I will post on a regular schedule, but I do have lots of things to say on occasion.  :)  This will be a blog mostly about family life, since I'm a full time mom, and lots about adoption since it is a topic very close to my heart.  We have 4 beautiful children, 3 by adoption and 1 "homemade", and we are currently in the process to adopt our 5th child.