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Thursday seemed to be the start to a very busy last few days.  We did manage to get everything accomplished that we needed to do that day.  The day went pretty well, it was just a ton of stopping, unloading and loading back up in the car.  Cade summed up his thoughts when we pulled in the garage that evening - "boy, this was a terrible day".  I'm sure that it was awful for a 7 year old....

Friday evening we went to a Miller Football game and Terry spent the night with us.  The FFA has the concession stand again this year so Jay was really busy in there Friday night. 

The next morning Jay, Terry and Cade headed to Fayetteville by 8 am.  I went down a little later that morning - I think I left home around 9 am.  It was the first Razorback home game so Cade and I tailgated with Jay and Terry before the game.  Cade and I went back to Nana and Granddad's and watched the game from there.  It was a late game so Jay and Terry didn't get back until about midnight.

As soon as they pulled into Nana's driveway Jay and I loaded Cade into our car and we headed for Sheldon.  Mom had won Chiefs tickets for Sunday's game against the Raiders.  We finally made it to Dad's at 2:30 Sunday morning.

We left for KC about 9 Sunday morning and made it to our seats just in time for the kickoff.  I had never been to a Chiefs game before so I wanted to see what it was like.  Our tickets were really good.  We were on the 8th row on the Cheifs side at about the 35 yard line.  Jay was really excited about our location.  I have always heard that Arrowhead was extremely loud and it was.  I don't know if my hearing will ever be quite the same!

After the game, we headed back to Sheldon, collected Cade and headed for home.  We pulled in our drive away about 7:40pm.  Our little house has never looked as good as it did tonight. 

Have I ever mentioned I'm not a football fan????

Grumpy

On Tuesday I had some time alone at work so I started getting information together for our homestudy update.  I had a stack of papers of all this different kinds of information that they need this year.  Not only do we have to update the medical exams, beacuse they're only good for 2 years, they changed some of their other requirements.  Now instead of taking our word on our assets we have to verify everything.  I understand the changes, I understand why they have to do it...but it still makes me grumpy.  Like Jay's retirement...I haven't seen a statement on that thing in months.  I'm not sure if it's something we get yearly or exactly what the schedule is, but now we have to track one down.  Luckily I had just received a statement for my retirement account so that's at least one thing we can mark of the list.  Basically this all boils down to being a time consuming pain in the neck and it's making me grumpy!!!!

Today Jay and I are taking off of work to get some of this stuff done.  Here's our schedule for the day...
8:40 Jay dentist appt (non adoption appt)
9:00 Crystal dr appt
10:10 Cade dentist appt (non adoption appt)
11:50 Jay dr appt
After Jay's appt we'll have to go get blood work done, one of those being an HIV test that we have to have ran again, even though we had one done two years ago.  Then we have to head from Carthage to Joplin to take care of the rest of the stuff...
2:35 Crystal fingerprint appt
2:40 Jay fingerprint appt 
While in Joplin and in between all this other stuff we have to go to my Ob/Gyn office to request that some of my medical paperwork be sent to the agency.  We also have to track down the Social Security office because a new requirement this year means we have to send in copies of our Social Security Cards.  Of course I can't locate mine so I have to request a new copy.  That will probably also require some sort of blood typing or DNA test!  Oh, and we also had to get TB tests done earlier in the week so we could take the results with us to our doctor.  We also still have to schedule an appt with Cade's doctor so he can fill out Cade's paperwork.

So today, as I sit here typing this, It's making me grumpy.  It's also one of those things in life that isn't fair (just like a lot of other things that are a whole lot worse than our paperchase), but any moron can go out a get pregnant...except for us.  Anyone else who doesn't have any business having a baby can while we have to fork over so much money, time and effort into something that right now seems like it will never even happen.  Jay and I are pretty down right now.  We are so frustrated and fatigued by all of this.  We really hoped something would happen before we had to do this update and mess with all of this stuff...but it didn't.  This is turning out to be so much longer than we had anticipated it being.  When we first went through all of this two years ago I never dreamed we'd have to update the medical stuff since it was good for 2 years...I also never dreamed we'd be getting ready for our social worker to visit us for the 3rd time. 

But I did learn one thing while sorting through this paperwork.  I dug out our marriage certificate to take with me to the Social Security office.  Even though we've had it for almost 10 years, I finally really looked at it this weekend.  Ed, the minister who married us, filled in our marriage date as December 14, 1999 rather than December 18, 1999.  I'm not sure if the part he mailed in to the state has our date correct or not.  I guess that means I should tell Jay I need two anniversary presents this year...one on the 14th and one on the 18th????

Parenting Error #7,536

Jay and I made a major parenting mishap on Sunday. 
Somewhere along the way someone gave Cade a bracelet that has different coins hanging off of it.  I can't remember who gave it to him, but it was during his pirate phase a couple of years ago.  It was supposed to be "treasure".  This past week his pirate gear resurfaced, along with the bracelet.

That morning as we were getting ready to walk into church - We were standing on the front step and I was getting ready to turn the handle I looked down and saw he had the bracelet on.  Our boy had planned to wear a bracelt covered with old coins into church.  This is where Jay and I made some not so good decisions. 

We should've calmly suggested that he not wear it in because it would be distracting, or because we have the rule of no toys in church or he might loose it.  Anything except what we did/said....

I (with utter surprise in my voice because my son was afterall wearing a bracelet) said "Cade you can't wear that bracelet into church".  Then I started trying to pull it off his arm (I didn't even think to unhook it).  Then Jay pipes up and tells him that was really girly. I put the bracelt in my purse and told him he could have it back later.  Jay and I walked into the church and the incident was already forgotten in our minds. But there was one little mind though that had not forgotten the incident.  In fact it was being rolled around continuously. 

Cade got into church and he had the saddest look on his face.  I wasn't sure if we had hurt his feelings or if he was embarrassed.  It was probably a little of both.  We tried to get him out of his mood by having him tell Walter about his calf.  Instead of telling Walter once he got on the other side of the church he sit down and wouldn't say a word.  Since we go to such a small church and everyone knows Cade is the biggest talke there, this was extremely noticable.  I'm sure everyone thought that he had gotten in trouble and was pouting.  No, it was worse than that....he had terrible parents who made a very poor decision that morning. 

Jay told the high school class about it.  One of the girls said we should've told him it was too pirety not too girly.  Man, if only we had thought of that.  But sometimes it's too hard to think that quickly.....I mean our boy was wearing a bracelet.

Good Eatin'

A couple of weeks ago we finally got around to cooking one of the chickens Cade showed at the fair.  I think we cooked the big one that we called Blue Right.  We're not 100% sure that was the one we ate because their legs had been cut off, but that's what we told Cade.  Sometimes it's just easier that way.  Cade really enjoyed getting to eat it that night.  Look at the size of that drumstrick.  The whole chicken was almost 8 pounds.

Supreme Champion

The moment that Jay had been visualizing ever since we were in the ultrasound room and heard the tech say "it's a boy" happened last weekend.  We took Cade and Buttons to their first show.  They both did so well.  They were both very well behaved.  We were more worried about the cow than Cade of course.  We knew Cade would do well, Buttons on the other hand was the wild card, but he did better than we all expected.  We didn't win anything (the judge was blind!!!), but that really was ok with us.  After winning Grand Champion with his chickens, we didn't want Cade to thinkt that he'll win every time he shows.  The funniest part happened during the Little Tykes show.  All of the little kids won a trophy.  As soon as Cade saw his he threw down the halter and his show stick to grab the tropy.  Luckily Buttons didn't realize that for a few seconds he was free

Our second (and last show this year) occurred Saturday.  Buttons wasn't quite as easy to handle so Jay had to be a little more hands on.  That really didn't seem to matter though, because he won Grand Champion in the Hereford Bulls.  Then he went on to win Supreme Champion, which means he beat out all of the other breeds of bulls.  Cade had the biggest smile on his face when he realized that he got to bring home a pretty large tropy.  He kept saying "I won, I won". We kept trying to tell him to not say it so loud.  It was an exciting day for the whole family.  Even I am starting to get into it.  After seeing Cade's smile I knew that they money we spent on the embryos was well worth it!

Cade fell asleep on the way home Saturday still clutching his trophy.

Rest of Vacation

The rest of our vacation was pretty uneventful.  Except for the the horse trailer incident.  On I-95, a 6 lane highway outside of Baltimore, a horse trailer came unhooked from the truck.  This occurred in the lane that Lyle and Jay were in.  There was one vehicle seperating them.  There was nothing Jania and I could do but drive on by.  Jay jumped out, wtih the traffic rushing by at 70+ mph.  While that is commendable on his part, it scared me.  It scared me enough that when I called his cell phone back and Lyle answered I spoke quite loudly to Lyle, asking why Jay had gotten out of the truck, did he not know there was a van on kids stopped in the road, they needed to get the kids out of there, etc.  Lyle very calmly told me that he could leave the scene, but that Jay wasn't in the van.  Which would I rather him do?  Later on I found out that two vehicles did stop in the lanes beside the truck so the traffic at least had to slow down.  Everything turned out ok, but I had a few anxious moments.

On Friday we got to visit Corey and Kristy and see their boys.  As an added bonus we also got to see Jay's Aunt and Uncle, Mary and John and his cousing Megan.  We had a very good time catching up and eating the best meal that we had on the whole trip. 

Sorry that it took me two months to get them posted!!!

Vacation Days 3&4

We passed days 3&4 rather uneventfully (at least in terms of potential wrecks). We spent all day Sunday in NYC. One of the big things was getting a tour of CBS. We watched, from the control room, Russ Mitchell film the 6pm news. Jay got to sit behind the news desk and Cade got to control the cameras with a computer. It was neat.

On Monday morning we headed to Atlantic City. Jania drove and I navigated. We managed to make a couple of wrong turns and we ended up taking a different route to Atlantic City. We decided to stay on the highway we were on instead of getting pack on the Turnpike. I think we actually enjoyed our more relaxed drive. We even drove through a Jewish community, which was very interesting. The only time the guys really worried about us was when they got to Atlantic City. It was lunch time and they wanted to know where we at…not because they were worried about us or because we were driving with their children – they were starving!!!

Atlantic City was neat, the beach was nice, but I did not care for the people. I guess I’m too used to staying in Branson where everyone is friendly to their customers. I got the feeling in AC, that the employees felt like they were doing us a favor by waiting on us. We had issues with everyone from the gate keepers in the parking lot to the hotel staff to the people at the restaurant where we ate. It was a good place to experience, but I’m not sure that I’ve got a strong desire to go back.

I did manage to pick up one souvenir there. It was stuck on the side of the van the rest of the week because it wouldn’t come off. Cade was on an antibiotic that had to be refrigerated. We checked out of our hotel Tuesday morning and headed to McDonalds for breakfast. As soon as I got out of the van I remembered the antibiotic. I left everyone at McDonalds and headed back to the hotel. Luckily the guy who checked me out recognized me so he gave me another key without an issue. I ran up got the medicine and was back in the van in less than 5 minutes…and this was what I got??? They are so lucky they did not tow the van or you might have heard me screaming in Missouri.

My "you are parked illegally" sticker. I wish I could've pealed it off and stuck it in a scrapbook!






Toys R Us in Times Square. It was the neatest toys store that I've ever been in. This dinosaur looked real. It also has a Ferris Wheel with carts that look like the Little Tikes Cars and a Barbie car, etc. You can see some of the carts behind Cade in the next picutre. This was just a guy dressed up like Elmo, who after we took the picture, didn't say a word but jangled a sock looking thing in my face so I could give him money for taking a picture with my son. It's just a whole different world there.
Controlling the cameras at CBS

Atlantic City





This is what Ty and Cade did in the McDonald's parking lot while while waiting on me to get back with the van - they fed the birds. I'm not a germaphobe, but there is something about birds that really gross me out. This picture kind of gives me the creeps.

Vacation - Day 1&2

Since we left for vacation almost 2 months ago it’s way past time to post vacation pictures, but I’m going to do it anyway.

We left Miller July 10 and drove to the edge of Indiana the first night. The second day we drove all the way to NYC. We had a mini van that Jania and I drove with Ty and Cade. Lyle and Jay had the big 15 passenger rental van with all of the students and the majority of the luggage.

One thing about Ty and Cade is that they spend enough time together that they sometimes fight like brothers. Being cooped up in a van for several hours increased the possibility that they would fight. I think we made it to the Illinois state line before they started. Since we only have one child, fighting in the backseat was a new experience for me. Of course I participated in many fights while growing up, but it’s different when you’re the adult sitting in the front. Thank goodness I was driving at that point and Jania dealt with the fighting. She’s much calmer than me and handled it much better. Nothing fazes her while I on the other hand was clutching the steering wheel to keep from yelling at them to be quiet. I’ve never said that patience was one of my attributes. After we got back I asked Cade if he still wanted a brother…he said yes so I guess the fighting didn’t faze him either.

Saturday morning we headed for NYC. As we got closer to our hotel, that was actually just outside the Lincoln Tunnel, Lyle and Jania took the boys and the mini van while Jay and I took the kids and the large van. I will admit I’m a nervous traveler. I get really nervous when we are in charge of so many other kids. I think about the responsibility and what would happen if something were to happen, etc. It makes me a wreck. Then I feel that Jay doesn’t take his responsibility seriously because he makes fun of me, then we argue. I’m sure the kids always think we’ll be divorced before we make it home.

This time I was really trying to stay calm, but then we had the cone incident. Jay was driving (what I thought was a high rate of speed) and passing signs that kept saying Merge, Land Ends, Road Construction, etc. As we were getting closer and closer to the cones that were signaling the end of our lane he sped up to try and pass a RV, rather than slowing down to get in the other lane. We came so close to taking out one of the highway cones. Then he swerved and the van swayed. I think we all screamed. So then when I got irritated about it, Jay didn’t think it was a big deal. All he says about it was that we didn’t hit it and that I’m just too uptight. If anyone has seen the Pink Panter 2 there is a scene in there that is exactly like Jay and I driving together. I’ll need to see if I can find that on YouTube.

That evening we made it into NYC. It was really neat seeing Times Square at night. It is such an interesting place, at least to visit. I don’t have any desire to live there. I was amazed by the crowd of people there. It was so packed that I couldn’t imagine being there on New Years Eve when they drop the ball. It would be so overwhelming. One of the students who went on the trip has an Aunt that lives there. She met us that night and walked us around to a few places. Having someone guide us along cut down on our time tremendously. We’d still be trying to get from Times Square to Rockefeller Center.

Guilty Pleasures

There was a segment on the Today Show Saturday morning about those things we take pleasure in even though we shouldn’t (like candy) or embarrass us (like Elvis singing Here Comes Santa Claus on your iPod).

One of my guilty pleasures (besides Elvis Christmas songs) has always been listening to rock music a little too loud in my car. That’s probably the only thing I’m missing since I’ve changed jobs – that long drive home where I could listen to music really loud. One of my favorites has always been Aerosmith. I discovered them when I was in the 8th grade. Their song What it Takes came out then and I’ve liked them ever since. There’s something about their songs that can make me happy, especially when I’m trying to clean the house. It’s just one of those things.

Last April my mom called me and said that Aerosmith would be in KC on September 1 with ZZ Top. She ended up surprising me and my sister with 3 tickets to tonight’s concert. I don’t know how many times over the summer I told Jay how excited I was to see Aerosmith. But, in the back of my mind I had this “feeling”. You know those feelings you get that you can’t explain, your not being negative, it’s just a feeling. I knew something would happen and we wouldn’t get to go. Even though mom had the tickets in her hot little hands I knew this wasn’t going to work out. Of course I thought it would have something to do with one of us or my grandpa.

About two weeks ago mom e-mailed me to see if I’d heard about Aerosmith cancelling their tour. I got on Aerosmith’s website to find out for sure. Steven Tyler fell off the stage at Sturgis and broke his shoulder. I’m not an expert, but at 61 I’m guessing that’s not going to be an easy break to recover from. Due to his injury Aerosmith had to cancel the rest of their tour.

At first I tried to stay positive about it. We were being considered for a situation and the baby was due around this time. Maybe that was why we weren’t going to the concert. That idea got shot down last week when we found out we weren’t picked. I guess there’s no ulterior motive, no exact reason why this happened…except Steven Tyler danced to close to the edge of the stage (someone should tell him at 61 he may need glasses) and now I’m looking at this

When I could be looking at this

I’ll sign off now and turn up my iPod. September 1st isn't too early to start listening to Elvis singing Christmas songs is it? I don't think Elvis songs ever go out of season....do they?

2nd Grade

Since the first day of school was actually 2 weeks ago today I thought it might be time to finally get the pictures posted.

So far things are going ok. He seems to like this year’s teacher better than last years. Last Tuesday we did get our first note home – Cade was talking too much and not finishing work in a timely manner. We weren’t surprised because his mouth seems to be on overdrive all the time. It never stops. I’ve thought if he keeps this up he’ll need jaw replacement surgery by the time he starts 3rd grade.

The last two years his teachers method of discipline was taking sticks away from the kids. It was a highly traumatizing and embarrassing event. No one wanted to loose a stick. I hadn’t heard him say anything about sticks so after we got the note I asked him what kind of punishment Mrs. H uses. He said that this year they walk laps. I asked him how many he’s walked to so far this year….13 as of last Tuesday, the 7th day of school. I had wondered if he’d put on some weight after his tonsillectomy. If he keeps getting in trouble I don’t think it will be a problem.

Of course when I was asking him about why he’s talking I got several different stories. One was that it was the girls he sits by fault. Then it changed to someone else’s fault then finally he told me it’s because he gets his worksheets and panics. He doesn’t know what to do so he asks the girls for help. Then the girls get mad at him and tell him too look at the board where Mrs. H wrote down what they are supposed to do. He told me again it causes him to panic.

I barely made it out of his room without laughing that night. But then the more I thought about it, then I started to panic. Is there something wrong with him? Does he have a learning disability and were missing it? Why is he panicking? Jay just looked at me and said “I wonder where he gets it?”

Luckily Mrs. H gave us her e-mail address on Thursday. By 9:00 am I had already e-mailed her. I needed to know if he was handling his work ok. By her 10:00 planning period that day she learned that I’m an overprotective nut. Oh well, we might as well get the year started off with her understanding that I’m crazy. Maybe it will help her understand Cade’s personality a little better. Actually the more I think about it, the funnier the e-mail becomes. I explained to her his anxiety problem and how he’s panicking at school. I’m pretty sure my e-mail sounded a little panicky….That apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

I wonder when his previous teachers will start warning his new teacher about the e-mail they’ll receive the 2nd week of school from the crazy Shepherd lady. So far only his kindergarten teacher was spared…I didn’t know her e-mail…

If your curious about how much he’s changed the last two years here’s his Kindergarten first day of school and First Grade first day of school.