Wordless Wednesday: A Nice Warm Day At The Park...

....IN THE MIDDLE OF NOVEMBER!!! It's just not right.

See Ya All In December

Rich, Shiloh and myself are traveling up to Michigan next week for Thanksgiving. We don't leave until Wednesday evening but I think I'm going to try to limit my internet usage until then. I feel like I've been spending too much time on here lately. Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving. Later.

The Adoption Bug is Biting My Butt

...and driving me crazy! I've recently become aware of websites that advertise available adoption situations. Most "advertisers" are adoption agencies or facilitators but some actually have expectant moms "advertising" their pregnancy....kind of weird to me. Anyway, after spending a couple of evenings browsing these websites I now have adoption on the brain and it's driving me crazy! I don't think...well, maybe I know....we're not ready to adopt again. I'm still enjoying my one-on-one time with Shiloh, now is not the time be expanding the family with the economy the way it is, and we would LIKE TO move before adopting again......BBBUUUTTT who wouldn't love a new baby?!

With Andrea's due date barely over a month away and 2 friends from high school expecting I'm going to blame this all on them and push these feelings aside. For financial reasons adoption #2 needs to be adoption #1 all over again, so I'm just going to have faith that when our time is here God will lead us to our second child, just as he led us to Shiloh and her birth mom.

I've decided that the hardest part of adoption isn't the adoption itself...not that this is a news flash to anyone...but the lack of control. It is so hard to have basically no control over one of the most (if not the most) important aspect(s) of my adult life.

Wordless Wednesday: She Did This All By Herself

When she brushes her teeth she usually sits on the side of the sink with her back up against the wall....she has to be able to see herself in the mirror. On this particular day I guess she wanted to get a little more comfortable!

Is It Christmas Already?!

No. Of course not. But as usual you wouldn't know it if you went into a mall! This weekend I went to Perimeter Mall with a friend (to watch the Ohio State game at the official Atlanta OSU alumni bar...sooo much fun!!) and as we were walking by one of the stores we could hear Christmas music being blasted from inside! I'm pretty sure we both felt the same as we rolled our eyes at one another in disgust!

Feeling the way I do about the Christmas season beginning way too early, I am sad to report that I purchased Shiloh's very first Christmas present of the year today. I got sucked in. I've seen SO many people online (forums, blogs, twitter, etc) who are already done, or at least almost done, with ALL of their Christmas shopping...plus, I love buying gifts....I just couldn't resist. I will not, though, do anymore shopping until Black Friday. Which is when I do most, if not all of my shopping every other year. Love, Love, Love Black Friday! Anyway, back to Shiloh's gift. For anyone who is curious, I bought her an Aquadoodle Mat! I'm so excited! Since Shiloh turned one I've been thinking about when/how to introduce coloring to her....I myself love coloring. Crayons and markers are kind of scary to me at this age thinking about how much crayon she would ingest and how much of a mess I'm sure she would figure out how to make with both items. Then today it hit me...Aquadoodle! All the fun (hopefully), without the mess! Another great aspect is that after about 20 secs whatever was drawn disappears, so we won't be going through piles of papers filled with scribbles as she learns drawing/coloring! They should put me on an ad :)

On a very different note, as I stated above, I went out to Atlanta on Saturday to watch the Ohio State game at Hudson Grille in Perimeter Mall with Katie. Katie is my mom's college roomate's (Ohio State) daughter and is in Athens attending Grad School at UGA. Anyway, it was so awesome being surrounded by fellow Buckeye Fans, all decked out in scarlet and gray, and hear songs such as ""The Buckeye Battle Cry", "Hang On Sloopy", "Round On the End And High In The Middle", and "I Wanna Go Back" just to name a few. What wasn't so awesome was returning hom to this....

While I was gone Rich and Shiloh were out in the garage together with the garage door open. Rich looked down for a moment and when he looked back up Shiloh was out of the garage attempting to run DOWN our driveway. You get the picture...literally..haha. The above pictures were taken this morning (2 days later) so it looks better. Two days ago when I returned home it was still pretty raw and, well, quite frankly, just not what I wanted to come home to! But, needless to say, Shiloh is fine and I didn't even get upset with Rich! How could I? It could have happened just as easily on my watch, and boy am I glad it didn't!!

Shiloh Meet Potty, Potty Meet Shiloh

Today I bought a potty for Shiloh! Some of you may be thinking it's way too soon, but I'm in no hurry. The plan is to just leave the potty in the bathroom and see where things go. You'll see from the pictures below it was a good first meeting, though!

Giveaway

Grosgrain is giving away a free custom watercolor portrait of your child! Apparently, she has teamed up with an artisit who has agreed to paint a 9.5" X 11.5" portrait of the winners child. I feel it would be silly for me to enter as my child has no hair and I believe this kind of portrait would best for those with children who do have hair so I'm just sharing this information. All you have to do is create a link on your blog back to her post....so get to linking!!

http://grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com/2008/11/commissioned-watercolor-portrait.html