Baby Purchases

I found these two items on ebay to hang in the nursery.







Probably once the kid has a permanent name, we'll get some wooden letters and spell her name somewhere on the wall. Just imagine....

S H A A K - T I

spelled out in pretty pink gingham letters hanging from ribbon over her crib. Won't that be cute?



Ok, maybe not.

I also bought some girlie clothes today. I found some great deals at JCPenney and Dillards. I could probably turn them around on ebay for a decent profit but then I'd have to go out all over again and buy more stuff. Girl clothes are so funny. Many of them come with these little built in panties.....so cute.

Jackson quote

"Maybe when I get to be like 48, I can defeat a gorilla."

Baby Names

We're trying to think of some baby girl names. Really, the truth is that I'm trying to think of some baby girl names. Phillip and Jackson are no help at all. Here are a couple of Phillip's suggestions:

-Shaak-Ti (from The Clone Wars)
-Symphony

And here are two that Jackson has suggested:
-Pippin
-Rock-Pa or Rock-Puff, I'm not sure which (I think his Granddad helped him with that one.)

Many more ridiculous names have been discussed but I can't seem to think of them right now. I'm thinking about maybe Claire or Olivia. I guess we'll have to see what name she comes with and see if it's something we can live with or not.

Nursery pics

OK, even though the baby won't actually be here for about a month and even though the bedding will need to be washed before the baby gets here, I couldn't resist putting it together in the crib to see what it will look like. I'm hoping to buy or get one of our moms to make a pink valance. I finally found the rug that we're going to get. It took me entirely too long to find one that will work. And where did I find it? Walmart.com of all places. I think it's big enough to cover most of the tattered wood floor. It still looks pretty boring in there, but I think it will come together.

Done Painting

Phillip and I just finished painting the nursery. We had to do quite a bit of detail touch up work to cover the remnants of the old paint job. We'll probably be getting the rest of the nursery together tomorrow excluding rug, pictures, etc. I still have to buy that kind of stuff.

I don't think the reality of having a new baby in the house has hit us yet. It still doesn't seem like it's really going to happen. I feel a little out of place looking at baby stuff at the store. I avoid eye contact. Like I don't belong there. Like someone's going to find me out and say, "Hey, what are you doing here?" It feels like a charade.

We won't believe it until that baby is in our house. A new baby. In our house. Cool.

Kilz = Nasty Stuff

I started priming the walls this evening. Kilz smells:

TERRIBLE!!!!

HORRIBLE!!!!

NO GOOD!!!!

VERY BAD!!!!

Erin came over to help me. Thanks, Erin.

As you can see in the pictures, I will need to do two coats to cover the insane paint job that was there. I told Phillip that once he got the room cleaned out that I would paint and he wouldn't have to help.

I have since changed my mind.

We're working out a deal. The details of the deal are not pertinent to this post.

Nursery Before

The room is almost ready to paint. I will probably tape it off this afternoon and start painting either tonight or tomorrow evening. This is the paint job from Jack's nursery. We had a really cute transportation border up where the red is now. But Jack began to peel off the border while he hung out in his crib. So I took it down and painted red where the border had been. It wasn't a very relaxing room as you can imagine. So, I'm hoping a coat of Kilz will get rid of this and then I plan to paint it "toasted almond." Which basically means I'm painting it a really light tan kind of color. Anyway, I'm hoping the room isn't too blah when it's finished. It looks good in my head but that doesn't necessarily mean anythinig. I may put up a border, but I'm not sure yet. Anyway, I'll be posting some pictures as we complete the room.

Nursery Stuff

I know that I haven't written in a while. There is really absolutely nothing going on to write about. I have no deep spiritual truths to share (not that I have many of those anyway). Jackson hasn't been doing anything terribly noteworthy except getting into trouble on a daily basis. Nothing catastrophic or amazing has happened in our lives at all that I know of.

I did order nursery bedding a couple of weeks ago though. We have gotten the room cleaned out that will be the nursery. So either today or tomorrow I'm going to begin to paint over the crazy paint job that is currently in that room. Here's a picture of the nursery stuff I ordered.



We're thinking of requesting a girl. Initially we weren't going to request a gender because you can't request a gender if you have a biological child. But almost nothing about this is left to chance anyway. We have to request an age and race, so we might as well request a gender too. We haven't decided yet exactly what we're going to do.....still time to think it over. But if we do get a girl, I'll be putting some pink stuff here and there like a pink crib skirt, pink valance, etc. Anyway, that's kind of where my brain is at lately. We've gone through a couple more classes since the orientation. We'll be going through about 7 classes during the first couple weeks of July. Fun stuff, let me tell you. Anyway, sorry that this blog has been almost as uniteresting as some of the other blogs I visit. Don't give up on it. Someday something amazing might happen and you don't want to miss it.

New Car...sort of

After driving back and forth to Pasadena twice, we have a new used truck. It's pretty cool. It has a V8 engine, not that I'll need that driving around Brazoria County, but hey, the more power the better. It's a '98 Ford Explorer with 58,600 miles on it. It's in really good shape considering it's 8 years old. Hopefully in a few months we'll be getting something else so we can ditch my falling apart, no air conditioning, no windshield wipers, hail damaged '96 Chevrolet Cavelier. We're thinking about a Honda Accord. The coupes look pretty dang cool. See.....

A two door is not real practical I guess. But we'll have the Explorer to drive kids around in. And half the time Jack gets in the front door and climbs into the backseat anyway.

We got a good deal on the Explorer. And the next car we buy will atleast 5 years old too. Well, anyway, that's what we did today. It was a really long day.

Stuff and Junk

I've had some things on my mind the last few days to write about but I just haven't taken the time to do it. We've had a lot going on.

The insurance co. declared our car totalled. So for the last couple of days Phillip and I have been looking at used cars on-line. We've narrowed it down to a couple that we're going to go look at tomorrow morning. We found what looks like a great deal on a '98 Ford Explorer. I know they don't get very good gas mileage, but we plan on just driving it around town. After Phillip's job situation is more secure, we plan on get something a little newer that gets better gas mileage.

We replaced the vanity, sink, faucet, mirror, and light fixture in our (only) bathroom. I say we because I picked the stuff out and watched as they actually put it in. We're hoping the sink doesn't leak tomorrow when we try it. It looks so much better than the junk we had in there. The wallpaper is still awful but we plan on doing something about that in the next couple of months.

Our dryer stopped working all of a sudden. It's fairly new so I have no idea what's going on there. We were already behind on laundry as it is.

Jackson has not been getting as much one on one attention lately with all this other stuff going on and it's starting to show in his behavior. Phillip's parents are out of town and they give him lots of undivided attention. And my mom used to see him about 10 hours a week and she hasn't seen him as much lately either. So, he's kind of stuck with us and we haven't been as attentive as we should be lately. I need to really make an effort to hang out with him more. Someone asked us recently if we would consider moving to Houston if Phillip got a job there. The answer: NO WAY! Jackson needs his grandparents. I'm not just writing this to kiss up to anyone. It is the truth. Phillip's parents and my mom are such a vital part of his life. It would take something completely outlandish for us to move.

Bounce U

Today was my brother's boys' birthday party. Garrett will be six in a couple of weeks and Kyle was four a couple of days ago. Anyway, they had their birthday party at this place called Bounce U. It's like this indoor bounce house place for kids and adults. It's pretty cool. Here are some pictures of my brother kicking my butt in the boxing ring.

But that's ok because I was laying the smack down on some little kids.

Nasal Pot

A friend of mine responded to my previous post saying that I needed to get a nasal pot to clean out my sinuses. Well, I decided to see what in the world a nasal pot looked like and this is what I got. Visit this website to get your own. Thanks for the suggestion, Lizanne, but I think I'll pass.



Just a thought: How in the world did they get this poor girl to pose for this picture. You couldn't pay me enough.

Sick again

I started feeling a little crummy Monday night. So Tuesday morning I started taking Zicam. Who knows if it really works or not but I figured it was worth a try. Maybe it has helped a little, but now it's Friday and my voice is pretty much gone and I'm fairly sure I have a sinus infection. I'm pretty sure about the sinus infection thing because of color and consistency.....would you like for me to go on? I could go on.....

Anyway, we were supposed to help with worship at a church in Pearland on Sunday morning and a church in Tomball on Sunday night. I don't think either of those things are going to happen. I hate to leave those churches in a lurch like this, but there's not much I can do about it. This will be the second and third time in the last couple of months I have had to bail because of being sick. Is it a sign? Maybe so.

First Class: complete

We went to our first class tonight with The Arrow Project. We watched a video that probably lasted like 45 minutes of the founder giving his life story. Phillip said it was all done in one take. I don't notice such things.

I have been reading up on this stuff for a while, so there weren't any real surprises. We will probably be done with our classes by the middle of July. We could be licenced as early as late July/early August. One thing I didn't realize though is that even if a baby is abandoned, CPS has to take every attempt to contact the biological family and terminate the rights. She made it sound like the quickest that can happen is about 90 days after birth. So, that's a little scary. And, then we can't start the adoption process until the child has been with us for six months.

We are just going to have to go into this knowing that we might not get to adopt. We will just love the baby to pieces whether we have him/her for 3 weeks or forever. Really, none of us are guaranteed that we'll have our kids tomorrow. The concept of being stewards of our children really hits home when it comes to foster to adopt.

Foster/Adopt Update

We have the first of about 10 classes tomorrow evening. Tomorrow is just orientation. We'll have 2 or 3 more classes in June and then 7 classes in July. We should be done with all of our classes by the end of July. In the meantime, we need to get our application finished and turned in, have our house inspected for fire safety, and take CPR/First Aid training. Once we have finished our classes, they will be do a home study and then we'll be licensed. July is going to be crazy and exciting getting the nursery ready and taking classes. So that's it for now.

Oh, yeah...

I forgot to mention that while we were standing out there in the rain waiting for the tow truck, we got attacked by killer ants. People who have been in a wreck standing out on the side of the road look stupid enough without frantically getting ants off their legs. I wish I'd had a bag to put over my head at that moment.

Wreck

Well, we were in a car CRASH!!! tonight. Ok, maybe it wasn't that bad, but it spun our car around and the impact hurt pretty good. Phillip pretty much summed up how I feel about it on his blog so I won't bother re-writing it.

Well.....I guess I'll write a little....

I really don't know how many glares, eye rollings, unpleasant groans, and WATCH OUT!!(s) I have to give him before he starts bothering to pay attention to what he's doing behind the wheel. Ok, enough said. I'm done. I'm glad we're o.k. It could have been much worse.

Isn't he cute?

I took this at the Sea Center a couple of weeks ago. I have no idea what kind of fish it is. Nor do I care. I think he was smiling at me.