Starbucks Junkie

I admit it. I am totally addicted to Starbucks!!! A day without Starbucks is like a day without a shower. It's just not right. Sadly, my habit has worn off on my kids. Most kids look forward to going out for ice cream. My kids look forward to going out for a Starbucks frappacino. No worries, I don't give my kids coffee! That would not be good. They get cream based frappacinos without any coffee. We won't talk about the calories or sugar. As for me, I try to cut back on the sugar and calories, but I have to have the caffeine. Isn't that the whole point of drinking coffee???

I will have a grande, triple non-fat toffee nut latte, or a grande triple, non-fat, sugar-free, vanilla caramel machiato, Please. Oh, and the triple is for triple shot of espresso! Does this make me high maintenance?

Is it possible to feel happy, relieved and heartbroken at the same time?

Because that is how I am feeling today. I wasn't going to write about little Cai because she isn't my daughter. But she could have been. I love this child. It would be so easy for me to love her with the same intensity and fierce momma love that I feel for my other three children. Boy, did I ever want to. She will forever own a piece of my heart. So I will write about her this once, and then hopefully, I will hear that she is living happily ever after in her new life. We will move on.

Eric and I were sure that our family was complete. Until I saw Cai. When I saw her little face, I knew I could love her instantly. Cai is from the same orphanage that Linzi spent her first year in. She reminds me of Linzi both physically and from her personality description. They were even found in the same type of location - not the same spot, but the same kind of place. I told Eric about her and before he could say anything, I asked him to keep an open mind. Please pray about it before making any definitive decisions. He agreed. We talked, we prayed and I dreamed of our whole family going to China to bring her home. I even envisioned visiting the orphanage with Linzi so her caretaker could see what an amazingly wonderful little girl she has grown to be. Then we would claim Cai as our daughter and whisk her home, to a happily ever after life - in our house. Unfortunately, situations in our lives made it painfully clear that it was not meant to be for us. If things were different, I KNOW we would have thrown caution to the wind and followed our hearts.

I came to peace with the fact she wasn't coming home with us, and we continued to pray for her as a family. We prayed for her health, her surgery and a family of her own. Another Gansu mommy, the one who advocated for her surgery, loves her as desperately as I do - maybe even more. There was a glimmer of hope that they would decide to adopt her. I wanted this to happen so badly, for them, for Cai and for me. If I couldn't be her mommy, at least I could be a very small part of her life from afar. I could send her and her sister birthday gifts, Christmas cards and correspond through email. Because this mom is the one who saw her first, loved her for months and advocated for her to have her surgery, it was only right that she would be the one to hold Cai in her arms someday. What a beautiful story.

Our prayers have been answered, just not exactly the way I had hoped. Cai's surgery was funded and took place last night while we slept. She IS the perfect, happy and silly child I imagined her to be according to the LWB volunteers' description of her. And she now has a family!

Today I heard that there is a family who will have the great honor and priviledge to be Cai's family. I don't know who they are. I am sure they are lovely people. I am sure that they will love and cherish Cai and give her the best life has to offer. Truly, I am happy for them and for her. This is exactly what I prayed for.

Selfishly, I am sad. But I will get over it. It's not about me or what I wanted. It's about what is best for Cai. Somewhere out there, another family is anxiously preparing their home and hearts for little Cai. I hope that I will connect with them, somehow. If I ever have the opportunity, I want them to know just how deeply their little girl has touched me and so many other people who worked so hard to raise the money for her surgery. I wish them all the happiness in the world and hope that things proceed smoothly so she can be home as soon as possible. So with a heavy heart, I am so very happy today. Does that make any sense at all???

Sassy Girl

These are not the most beautiful pics of Linzi, but they are some of my favorite. They totally capture her sassy attitude and her impeccable sense of style. ;-)

I took these pictures on a rainy day back in January. Linzi was LIVING in this black and white tutu (literally, we had to pry it off long enough to wash it!). She is wearing this tutu in just about every picture I have from Dec 06- Jan 07, and since it was the holidays - I have A LOT of pictures of her wearing it! The ratty old thing has finally been retired and tucked safely away with all of her other special things.




It was a cold, rainy day and Linzi snuck outside to play. Bad Mommy for taking pictures, instead of shooing her back inside and wrapping her in a warm blanket - which I did do - after the photo session of course!

More fun at the beach!

Spring Break 2007

We had a wonderful, low key and relaxing Spring Break in Florida this year. Anyone who knows me knows I tend to plan action packed vacations every chance we get. Well, I FINALLY got a clue this time!!! We didn't go anywhere exotic, we didn't play tourist and we didn't even visit a theme park (much to Alex's disappointment!). We visited family in Orlando for a couple days and then we spent the rest of the week at Grammy's condo in New Smyrna. It was so nice! Thanks Grammy and Jim! We enjoyed it so much, that we decided to scrap our original summer vacay plans and stay there again this summer.

This was our view off the back porch. Every night, right at sunset, we would see dolphins off the dock. Dolphins are so magical, they always make me smile! That was probably the highlight of the whole week.

The weather was sunny and warm, but still a little too chilly for swimming AND there was a shark attack at this beach a few days earlier, so we just played in the sand and let the sound of the surf wash away all of our stress. I remembered for the first time in several years what it feels like to be relaxed!

Eric, my dad and Jim cooked up some tasty burgers by the pool while the kids swam.


Burrrrr! Of course I had to get in too because Linzi was not going to sit out!


We had a house full - Grandpa Dale, Nana, Granny-great, Grammy and Mr. Jim for Easter dinner on Good Friday. Here's Granny-great watching Alex and Linzi paint Easter eggs. Mandi was busy supervising what was going into the plastic eggs for the egg hunt.

Linzi showing off her beautiful eggs!

Hunting Eggs

The egg hunt was a little impromptu, so I didn't have a proper Easter basket on hand. Linzi made do with Grammy's silverware holder!!! :-)

Linzi was so cute hunting eggs. This is the first Easter that she really understood what she was supposed to do. Grammy had put some loose change in some eggs and candy in others. Linzi has no use for money, she wants CANDY! She would shake each egg before she put it in her basket. If it sounded like money, she would put it back and keep looking for candy eggs!

What a great week! Frances, this is where we will be this summer if you want to join us! Our little girls would have such a great time and us big girls would too! Let me know.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!!! We had a wonderful, low key Easter. We just got back from spending Spring Break at the beach. We had a great time and I have lots of great pics that I will be posting in the next couple of days. Since things have been so chaotic and then we were out of town, I never even had a chance to shop for new Easter clothes for the family. Our church is pretty casual, so we just made do with some of the girls' cuter dresses. It's just as well that I never bought new spring dresses because it was FREEZING in Atlanta! This weather is crazy! We came home on Saturday to outside temps of 44 degrees!

Linzi was very excited that "The Rabbit" came. She interrupted our breakfast prayer to ask how he got inside the house. I tried to shush her so we could finish our prayer but she was busy answering her own question. She said he was as tall as the clouds and came down the chimney. LOL She also noticed that her big brother and sister's chocolate bunnies were bigger than hers. She tried to snatch Alex's bunny and I had to laugh at the site of a 13 year old and 3 year old playing tug of war with a chocolate bunny! The humor was totally lost on Linzi.

The girls at church.

Can I PLEEEEESE have some more candy mommy?

Teddy is a natural poser and just plopped himself right in front! Annabelle wanted to be a part of the family portrait too.

Sister love!

Easter Candy

Our little neighbor came over to share the bounty of Easter candy with Linzi. We jacked him up on jellybeans and chocolate and then sent him back home! :-) Here's a little snippet of their conversation. For some reason, Linzi doesn't refer to the Easter Bunny as the "Easter Bunny" or even a bunny. She simply calls him "The Rabbit". I have no idea where she gets that from! The first thing she said this morning was "I want to see The Rabbit". So here she is telling Si about "The Rabbit". Look closely at the very end . . . she has a big wad of gum in her mouth that she is trying to show off! We have some work to do in the manners department!


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Egg Tosses and Egg Races

Alex and Mandi had an Egg Toss contest and egg race contest while I was cooking dinner. Linzi was crashing from her sugar high, so she stayed in during these festivities. Notice our lovely backyard? Now that spring is finally here, we will be doing some work on those patchy places and flower beds!




That is a real, uncooked egg in his mouth! Thank goodness it didn't break. Ewwww!

America's Next Top Model

What do you think?

My son is a Juvenile Delinquent!

Last week, we were in FL visiting the Grandparents for spring break and enjoying Grammy's condo at the beach. We stopped by Grammy's house to say hello on Monday morning. One of Alex's favorite things about visiting Grammy is riding his bike through all of the endless bike trails in her neighborhood. His favorite is the "Bat Cave", which is a tunnel sidewalk that goes under the street to the local elementary school. Alex was begging to ride to the bat cave and at first, we said no because we were trying to get out of town and to the beach. He kept begging, so I finally told him he could ride straight to the bat tunnel and back. Since we were on spring break, it didn't occur to me that the schools in that area are not on spring break. So, Eric and I are sitting on the porch, visiting with Grammy when Eric's cell phone rings. He answers and all I hear is a one sided conversation:

"Are you okay?" (WHAT??? Is my baby hurt? Eric waves to me that everything is okay. Then he bursts out laughing.)

"Do you need me to come get you son?" (What is going on??? Is HE HURT???)

"Do I need to talk to someone?" WHO???

"Okay son, come straight home and call me if you need me to come."

Then Eric hangs up the phone and is laughing so hard, he can hardly get the words out. . .

Alex was picked up at the bat cave by the school Principal. They thought he was skipping school!!! The principal agreed to release him after he called his dad on his cell phone!!! OMG! We were laughing so hard, but at the same time, I was worried that he might have been scared. What kid wouldn't?

After we had our laugh, I went outside to wait for him. When he finally pulls up, he has this goofy grin on his face. I asked him if he was okay and he says. . .

APRIL FOOLS MOM!!!

Boy, did we fall for that one!!! Yes, we have two comedians in our family. :-)