This week is going to be crazy.

Tuesday I have a meeting after school and then we are going trick-or-treating at Byerly’s.

Wednesday I have another meeting after school and then house group.

Thursday Lexi is sleeping at a friend’s house (and going trick-or-treating again) so Kevin and I are going out.

Friday we are going trick-or-treating at the mall with another friend.

Saturday Lexi has gymnastics and I have dog class. After that it’s nap time and then another play date.

Sunday is starting to look like a day for sleep. Lots and lots of sleep.

Last Friday the kindergarten class was working on a project that required glue sticks. About 100 glue sticks are kept in a bucket on a shelf, the class is free to get a glue stick and use as needed. All the kindergarteners were working quietly in their seats, cutting and gluing away. And at clean-up time glue sticks were being returned to the bucket, with caps on (very impressive). Then it happened. On one of the tables was a giant purple smear. Not an oops-my-glue-sticks-went-off-the-paper smear but a creation of purple, an entire glue stick devoted to this work of art. I asked the class who did it and this pain in the butt kid named Not Me was apparently the culprit. So, I collected all the remaining glue sticks and declared that there would be no more glue stick use until the artist fessed up.

A week went by. A week of me planning fake glue stick activities just so I could give them all the instructions only to end it with “but we can’t do this fun project because we don’t have our glue sticks back yet.”

Today we had another project and this one the class really wanted to do. As I got to the part about not doing it due to lack of glue stick privillages one student raised his hand and asked, “Can we just sit here until the person who did it tells you? I really want to use the glue sticks again.” The rest of the class agreed this was a good plan. And so we sat. For 10 minutes.

10 minutes of students saying, begging, pleading, with the guilty party to just come forward. And she denied it up and down.

Finally another student shouts out, “Do you want to get into heaven? Because if you do you have to tell the truth. If you keep lying, they aren’t letting you in!”

And apparently, all it takes is a little religious guilt. Because the guilty party confessed, told the class she was wrong for lying and using glue the wrong way and promised not to do it again.

And with that the glue sticks were returned and all is right in the world again.

I’ve gotten a few squares from people (and a few promised squares are coming). I’ve been taking pictures of the squares and posting them to a page on my blog dedicated to the baby quilt.

If you still want to send me a square, please do. Here’s the instructions.

If you need my address, just leave me a comment and I’ll e-mail it to you.

It’s late but I’m still awake. And I’ve got a bunch of stuff I want to blog about but none of it is really important enough to have its own post so I’ll just mash it all together here.

• Kevin’s sick. Which means this weekend has been pretty uneventful. Lots of time spent watching T.V.
• I drove Lexi all the way to gymnastics class only to remember that there is no class on MEA weekend. D’oh. That was one pissed of 2 year-old.
• I’ve been getting a lot done on my Christmas present projects. I’ve finished four of them and have 2 more to do. After Thanksgiving, I’ll post pictures.
• I’ve been sewing like crazy for the last couple weeks. I’m trying to get my quilt blocks done. I’m finishing up an order for a baby sling. I’m meeting with a friend to pick out fabric for her sling. I’m working on Christmas presents. And in between all that, I’m trying to make a few things to have as “inventory” to open an etsy shop.
• I need a good name for my etsy shop.
• Lexi’s room needs to be cleaned out. I think that’s going to happen tomorrow.
• Speaking of Lexi, want to know what time she fell asleep last night? 11:45. Yeah. That was fun. Want to know what time she woke up today? 6:45. Guess how long her nap was? 1 hour. She’s been a real treat all day.

Hey, did I tell you people that we are #10 on the waiting list for our baby? Calm down, before you get all excited and think our phone’s going to ring tomorrow here’s what the really means. It means that there has been a lot of movement and we are slowly getting closer to the top of the real waiting list. However, it is good news because, while the number isn’t completely accurate, the closer you are to the top the more realistic your spot in line is. Before all the math geeks’ heads explode from that logic, here’s why - as more people get farther along in their wait they tend to start adding their names to the list. Lots of people ask to have their name added when they have been waiting 5 or 6 months already. So if you get added to the list as #100 it’s pretty safe to assume that you are actually #200 or #300. But if you jump on around #50 your probably only about #100 on the real list and so at #10 there’s a good chance we are actually around #15 or so on the real list.

I think I’ve mentioned it before but the time line for what happens after a referral is this:

1. We get “the call” and a picture and the child’s history/medical info is e-mailed to us.
2. We jump around, call a bunch of people and tell everyone we know.
3. We take the paper work to an Internation Adoption Doctor to have it looked at and to have explained to us.
4. We officially accept the referral (steps 1-4 take about 3 days, sometimes less depending on your dr.)
5. We begin waiting again. This time we are waiting for a court date. At the court hearing the judge looks over our paperwork and officially declares us as his/her parents. (This is done in Ethiopia). It takes 1-2 months to get a court date after a referral.
6. We wait some more for the birth certificate to be issued with our names as parents. And we hope that there aren’t any mistakes on it or we have to wait some more. This can take 2-8 weeks depending on how backed up they are.
7. Once CHSFS has a copy of our baby’s birth certificate in their hands they assign us a travel date. It’s usually 2-4 weeks after they get the birth certificate.
8. We pack furiously and then unpack everything because the bags are too heavy. Then re-pack. Then unpack. Then re-pack.
9. We leave MN on a Wed or Thursday and arrive in Ethiopia on Friday. We meet our baby, sign a million papers, do about 2 hours of sight seeing and then after 7 days board a plane back to MN.
10. After 3 months home we file for adoption which finalizes everything. The baby is now officially ours in the eyes of both the Ethiopian government and the US government.

So as exciting as it is to be in the top 10, there is still a lot more waiting to happen before our baby is actually home.

Kevin is homeless tonight. He and a bunch of people from church are sleeping outdoors at the Fair Grounds to raise money for homeless shelters.

Lexi and I dropped him of just before dinner. Here was our conversation in the car as we were pulling away.

Lexi: What’s Daddy doing?

Me: He’s going to sleep outside tonight.

L: Daddy’s not home?

Me: Nope, not tonight.

L: Oh. (long pause) Okay. Let’s go get Chicken and fries and then when my chicken and fries are all gone I can eat ice cream. Chocolate ice cream with chocolates on top.

Me: That’s what you think we should have for dinner?

L: Yes. Daddy’s not home. We’ll go get chicken and fries.

And that’s when I realized that I need to stop taking her to Culver’s when Kevin is out of town (or sleeping outside). But she thoroughly enjoyed her chicken and fries and ice cream. And then fell asleep at 7:10.

Cathy tagged me…so 7 random things about me…in no particular order.

The rules are pretty simple:

Link to the person you tagged you.

List 7 random things about yourself.

Tag 7 new people and link to their blogs.

1. I eat M&M’s by color. I dump the whole bag into a bowl and pick out one color before starting on the next color. It makes a bag last longer and I usually don’t have to share because who wants to eat out of a bowl that I’ve completely pawed through?

2. I train dogs professionally. I work at All Breed Obedience and most the time the dogs are better listeners.

3. I can’t stand e-mail forwards. If you want to be my friend you will not forward me anything that will bring me luck within the next 7 minutes, days, hours, years, whatever. And you will also not forward me any warning or news story without checking it out on snopes.com first.

4. I can sew. And quilt. And smock.

5. I am not a stay at home mom. I enjoy spending time with my kid but all day, everyday is not for me.

6. My favorite TV shows include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gilmore Girls, The Office, and How I Met Your Mother.

7. I always think these memes and tags are cheesy but I usually fill them out anyway.

Tag. You’re it.
Limor
Dana
Dani
Jaime
Nicole
Elizabeth
Jean

Post #2.

Lexi and Daddy.

Piggy-back rides.

Post #1.

Lexi got her hands on my camera. Here’s the world through Lexi’s eyes:

The Laptop

Feet

Lines on the living room floor

Speak and Mazie (or at least part of them)

The living room ceiling - I think she was laying on the floor when she took this.

One of the many adoption blogs I read had a link to this family’s website. To be honest I clicked on it because the little girl and I have the same name. Then once I read the whole entry I realized I’d like to be a part of what they are trying to do for this family.

Princess Abby is fighting against leukemia and friends of her family are trying to help her keep her spirits up. They are trying to raise money to buy her a couple of wigs (which cost between $225-$500 a piece) and to send care packages to Abby (because what little kid doesn’t like random presents?!) to cheer her up when she’s having a bad day. So check it out and see if you want to help.