Getting Closer!

Nana helped the kids make valentine's cookies.

Victoria ate more sprinkles, decorations and cookie dough than cookies!

Danny was upset Victoria was being so messy :)

She is still feeling better, been sleeping better too!!

If you saw our countdown clock on the right you will notice that it changed slightly.

We were supposed to have our paperwork submitted tomorrow, but things change (as they always do) and now it will be Thursday. It turns out to be a good thing as we had to do a new form which should have been delivered overseas last Thursday and for some reason has been hung up in Paris and is now supposed to be delivered tomorrow. So we would not have been able to be submitted tomorrow anyway and if things had not changed we would have had to wait till the following Monday!

So in the words of our stateside helper, we are 4 days early, not 3 days late :)

Please pray for quick appoval and travel date issuance! We just can not wait!!

Thanks Sweetie!!

Ms Gerri Sveta received her very first piece of mail!!

Of course, we had to open it :)

Is this not beautiful!! I can not wait to see her in it!!

Adoption brings people together that would otherwise never meet!

I have met the most amazing people during our various processes.

The wonderful woman that sent this is adopting 3 (yes three) beautiful little kids!!!

She has s heart of gold and will always be a friend - even if we never meet in person!

We have big plans to meet overseas and we are both doing our darnest to make it happen :)

Thank you so much Shelly!!!

On the Road

Ms V is finally feeling better! Her fever has not come back. She still has her cough but mostly when she is tired. School really pooped her out on Monday.

Last night she helped me cook dinner, soup :)

Last night is the first night in over a week the she was NOT in our bed!!

Danny is always happiest when he is helping around the house :)

If you have a minute, please send some prayers to our friends that are overseas now. They are caught up in some changes that have happened and it may add some time onto their travel.

Jodi!

This post is for Jodi!
I know you can read my blog, but have not posted on yours yet.

Hi!!


So happy to hear you will have your appt at 9!! I will make sure I am up and praying and thinking of you all!

You need to buy minutes. They sell them everywhere. They also sell internet cards. Both sell minutes, the internet cards can be bought for a time period.

I bought our phone minutes and then had the vendor add the minutes to my phone since I couldn’t read the directions on the card or the phone 

Be safe, have fun. Chat won’t be the same without you guys tonight.

Anything about the Interpol clearances??

Send me your cell number and I will give you a call!! I am pretty sure incoming calls don’t use up your minutes!

Hugs,

Take care,

nancy

,ovv53x65te (that is hello from Victoria)

Finally feeling better :)

PTL! The fevers finally broke last night and have not been seen since!

She actually slept in her own bed last night and only woke up once.

Her cough is still pretty bad, but she is still on anti's and breathing treatments.

Yesterday Danny and his cub scout pack had a pinewood derby.

He got third place and gets to go race at the district level!!!

Here are our boots all lined up after waterproofing!

SSSOOOO Tired!!!!!

Little princess is still under the weather. The pediatrician had us giving her alternating doses of tylenol and motrin every 4 hours. She is so miserable, these high temps are just knocking her out. She alternates being hot and cold, does not want to eat at all, is breathing so heavy. The doctor told us to just ride it out. She is not sleeping well, which means Dan & I are not sleeping well. It is like having a furnace plastered against your side. She thrashes all around and talks ALOT!

Last night mom & I got away just the two of us!

It was awesome!! We had a great time!

When I got home Ms V was in our bed and once again buring up! Her temp was 104.5 again!!

Another very long night for us. At 4 this am I took her and went into the living room. I settled her on my flannel pjs on her back and she slept like a baby. As did Dan in the bedroom by himself :)

When I woke up at 7:00 she was still sleeping and my pjs were soaked with her sweat!

Her temp had finally broken :)

Or so I thought, 2 hours later it was right back up there and she had thrown up twice :(

Here she is relaxing and watching tv today:)

We called the pediatrician who asked us to bring her right back in. Turns out the poor thing now has double ear infections and the start of pneumonia!! We are not sure of a UTI yet, the sample has been sent off. So she is now on an antibiotic and back on her breathing treatments.

I so hope she starts to feel better soon!!
I am too old for lack of sleep 4 nights in a row :)

So Sick :(

We have been trying to get Ms V to settle down and go to sleep in her new room.

She was wandering around upstairs, waking Danny up and being a general nuisance till she passed out around 9:30 or 10:00!

So we started putting up a gate to keep her in her room:

Smart girl figured how to pile her pillows up so she could climb OVER the gate!

I searched high and low for her and finally found this:

This is the FIRST time she has ever crawled into bed with Danny. Funny thing is she fell right to sleep! and did not wake him up!
When I picked her up to move her into her own bed I realized she was burning up!
I brought her downstairs and took her temp - 104.5!!!!
Scared the heck out of us, she has never had a fever this high.
She spent the night between the two of us, sweating, shaking, getting medicine every 4 hours.
It was a long miserable night and her fever never broke.
This morning she saw the pediatrician who said she seems ok besides the fever so it must be viral :(
Poor thing is so lethargic :( hopefully the fever will go away soon and she can be back to her old self :)

Sleeping Angels!

Yesterday was a busy day with a birthday party for a classmate at Ollie Koala's. Both kids ran around and played for 2 1/2 hours. We got home and she told us bye and went and laid down on our bed. I should have known then that she was not feeling well :(

Nana came by and we had a full turkey dinner. The kids were so excited to see her and she had gifts from her trip.

I heard her crying at 3:00 am. I went up and she was wandering around the upstairs, crying and coughing, nose running. :( I laid down with her and she said, "momma I sick". Then she asked what would happen if Gerri was scared. I told her that if Gerri was ever scared she would have mommy, daddy, danny and her to keep her from being scared. She then asked if they could sleep together if they were scared and I said absolutely! That seemed to make her calm down. She rolled over and promptly slept till 7 this am.

This morning she has been miserable :( She is sick again, fever and a cough.

She ate all her lunch and then I told her she needed a good nap to feel better.

I told her daddy would help her get better:

That is Lexie on the couch next to them.
Danny is in the bedroom watching sprout and taking pictures of the work crew outside the window working on the new driveway.

I spent the morning getting the dressers upstairs in the girls' room. I sorted through all the clothes, put all the clothes away. Victoria was fascinated by their dresses hanging in the closet side by side :)
Since we don't know Gerri's size I have size 5 and 6. By putting the clothes away I discovered that she has LOTS of clothes!! So I think she is all set!!
Once my camera gets back from Nikon in the next day or so I will take pictures of the complete bedroom.

Getting there!

Here are the girls dressers. I have primed and put 2 coats of pink petal white on them. The new knobs will go on as soon as the paint is dry.

I bought some really cool rub on transfers but I can't get them to work. :(

Here are the girls initials to hang over their beds.

Danny has had his since he was little :)

Here are their name badges for their bedroom doors:

As soon as everything is put together I will take some pics. My camera is due back from Nikon Tuesday. I can't wait to get it back!

Nana is back from the cold north and the kids can't wait to see her on Sunday!

Keeping Daddy company :)

Our neighbor is having his driveway redone and widened. The kids have been fascinated with the dump trucks, dozers and such. The neighbor is getting a much longer culvert so they are cleaning out the ditches. They found the old culvert filled in with dirt and silt, so Dan decided that we needed to clean ours out. The kids thought it was just too much fun to help daddy with the stinky dirty mud. Every once in a while they would all cheer because a little fishy would get shoveled up and they would yell till Dan put it back in the water.

Here is a closer view:

In case you can't tell, Victoria is using her magic stick :) :)

Man did they all stink when they came in!!
But they had a great time!!

PS the first picture shows my new old car!! I listed m 2004 honda odyssey on craigslist and sold it in 4 hours!!! The buyer took a train down from NC!!
I then found this 2006 Honda Odyssey on craigslist too!! I have had it for a couple of days and LOVE IT!! It is loaded with everything :)

Such a surprise!!

This is what I found last night when Victoria finally fell asleep:

No that is not her bed :)

I guess she decided it looked too comfy :)

Nesting!!

Last week while looking for a dresser for Gerri we found a used furniture place right nearby.

In the back of the store was a really pretty antique bed set and a race car bed. Danny fell in love with it and promptly asked for it. We told him that he would need to sell his bunk beds in order to do that and he said do it!!  I asked if he would be ok switching bedrooms so the 2 girls could have the bigger room and he said yes!!   So I listed it on Craigslist. Every day when Danny came home from school he would ask if anyone bought his bed yet? We had several people inquire and a couple came to see it. Unbeknownst to Danny we had bought both bedroom sets. :)

Friday afternoon Dan picked up Danny from school and headed back to the used furniture place because Dan needed the key to his antique rolltop desk. Danny quickly ran to the back of the store looking for the race car bed. While Dan was talking to the owner Danny came running up all upset saying Daddy the bed is gone!! Dan calmed him down and told him that as soon as his bunk beds sold we would find him antoher race car bed :(

Saturday morning a couple came to see the beds, paid cash, paid full price and took the beds!!

The kids had fun playing with their 2 yr old while all the adults took it apart and put it into their truck.

As soon as they left I told Danny that it was time to empty out both bedrooms, vacuum and steam clean the carpets. I told him to help daddy get the carpet cleaner out of the garage.

The next thing heard in our house was him screaming!!!!

He came running into the house yelling "mommy my bed is in the garage"!!!!

The look on his face was worth everything!!

So all day Saturday and Sunday was spent getting everything set up.

Here are the two playing in the play room, eating snacks.

Ta da - here is the new girls' room!

I just love this bed and can't wait to see Gerri in it!

This futon is used for company, but I think it will come in handy when Gerri has procedures and we need to be nearby.

Ms V loves her new room!

Danny's new boy room!

The infamous Bed! He is in heaven!

The amazing thing is that the money from the bunk beds paid for Danny and Gerri's new beds, new bedding and her new dresser!!!! God provides when needed :)

Gerri's new dresser is not in the room yet as we have to refinish it and put on new knobs.

Busy Busy weekend!!

I just don't think so!!

The weatherman said we have a chance of flurries Saturday and Sunday morning!!
SAY WHAT!!!!!!!
for all you smart a**e* who want to tease us - this is FLORIDA!!!!

Poor hubby is so afraid that something might freeze!!

For anyone that wants to  say poor baby - all I can say is BITE ME!  :) :) :)

WHAT THE HEY!!!!!!!

I don't know if you can read the outside temp - but it says 31!!!!!!!!!!
Doesn't mother nature know we live in FL!!!

Happy New Year!!

We lit sparklers and a couple fireworks off last night. The kids had so much fun! We have never done sparklers before. Sorry the pic is so bad I had to use Danny's fisher price camera as my new camera has to go back to Nikon to be fixed :(

Here is a pic of a dinosaur firework. I didn't think it would do anything much as it was 3 for $1. But they were really cool :)

Ms V took a bit before she would hold a sparkler. But Danny was having so much fun that she finally broke down and held it. Then kept saying more!

The camera batteries died as I was taking Danny's pic :( Besides he was running around so much that it would have been a blur. I had him writing letters in the sky with his sparklers.

Both kids were sound asleep by 8:30 even though we told them they could stay up late. :)

Every day the kids have been asking if today is the day we are getting Gerri:)

So I did what we did before we left for Guatemala. We made a paper chain to count off days.

The kids take turns ripping a chain off each morning. This helps when we explain not today :)

And no we do not know when we will be traveling.

So once we know for sure we will add links, but that is for later and when the kids aren't looking :)

Here are Gerri's gifts waiting for her. The kids talk about her every time they walk by them.

This pic was taken today of the kids playing Trouble. Danny was holding school and Victoria was his not so willing student. While she napped he had her Dora dolls set up in the chairs and having a grand old time, as they don't talk back :)

Hope everyone had a great New Years! School starts back up on Monday - woo hoo!! We can tell Danny is bored. Victoria will have a new teacher so hopefully all goes well.