Nurse Bump-It!

Not only is my friend Katie bumpin' it but she's also a newly certified RN! Congrats Katie, you chose a fantastic way to celebrate.

**It should also be known that she was challenged to a triple bump-it, hence the height. I've never been so proud.

mi CASA es su CASA

Have you heard of CASA? Just like lots of things in the fostering system, I hadn't heard of it until a few months ago.

Here's a little tidbit from their website:

CASA is the only volunteer organization that empowers everyday citizens as officers of the court. In an overburdened social welfare system, abused and neglected children often slip through the cracks among hundreds of current cases. CASA volunteers change that. Appointed by judges, CASA volunteers typically handle just one case at a time—and commit to staying on that case until the child is placed in a safe, permanent home. While others may come and go, CASA volunteers provide that one constant that children need in order to thrive.

How incredible is that? I love it. I love the team. I love that *ideally* when a child enters the system, the team springs into action. And this CASA person? Incredible. I am blown away by what people do as volunteers.

If you've followed my blog at all in the last couple years you know of Jodie from Fresh Art. Her father's company did something really amazing for a fundraiser for CASA lately and I didn't want to miss the chance to brag on people giving to that organization. Jodie blogged about it here and of course, included great pics. Check it out.

Also, if you know of anyone who might be a good fit for CASA, send them to that website. And then hug them. And buy them chocolate.

Bits of my weekend, Vol 18

Well, hey, farmers market of joy...

ugh.

E-beast and I made cookie bugs. The recipe calls it "Honeybee" but uh...we renamed them cookie bugs.




Might be my favorite picture of all time.


(All photos done on manual! Ah! I can't believe it! I'm *sort of* getting the hang of it. Oh man do I have so far to go, though.)

Fresh Moms...

Jodie and Kim of Fresh Art Photography offered a class to moms w/ a good camera that don't quite know what they're doing. I thought this was a fantastic opportunity. We invested in this Rebel and gotten much better pics than our 'point and shoot' but I was still treating it like a glorified 'point and shoot.' I had no idea what equipment I had and it's potential. So, I thought the class would be a good investment in our investment. Every day since that class I've taken pics (except about 2). I've only switched back to "auto" a couple times just to see what the exact same shot would look like and been really happy to see my manual settings get the better one!

Practicing:





During our class, Jodie encouraged us to take pics of the day-to-day, not just the big occasions like birthday parties. While it's fun to see who was at your parties, we tend to get curious at some point what the day to day looked like when we were kids. So, that recommendation led me to this photo:

Eliot constantly plays on this window sill with his cars. Constantly. Sometimes crashing into each other, sometimes having "circle time", sometimes saying words Eliot's not allowed to say and getting time-outs for it, and pretty often he gets distracted by a cool car or firetruck driving down the road and becomes so calm and sweet, just staring out the window. Then monster-mommy comes and eats his little cheeks right off. (picture not included.)

E-man has become my little assistant. He is BFF with the camera but I have to be subtle about it until invited in. So, while I "practice" getting to know my camera settings, he will often set up the shot for me. Then when a toy accidentally falls and he cracks up, I snap the real picture I want. Sneak, sneak.

Friday Link Love

Remember this post on how I display my earrings? Well, puh-lease look at this post of Heathers. Amazing. I will be re-doing mine very very soon.

I take your dare, from your dare. And I'll raise you (not really) this photo:

Anyone else? I'd love to see your links...if.you.dare....

I know I've sent you here before, but have you added the newest addition to the awkward blogs? Amazing. Uncomfortable, but amazing.

Surely you've seen this blog by now? Added it your reader, no? Following the lives of Elaine and Gary? I heart it. A delight to my day.

Might do this w/ E-beast this weekend. It's been awhile since the third-grade-science-teacher had a run.

This blog is quickly becoming one of my favorites. She hands-down has the best grip on what I fear and look forward to the most in fostering.

Bringing Guatemala home one tortilla at a time.

If you kept up with my adventures on our last trip, you may remember my learning how to make tortillas by hand. Back in the day Sharon was a better Guate-mama than me and took full advantage of her time there with cooking lessons on authentic dishes. Me? I did score a great recipe for Guac but that's the extent. And Russ makes it, not me. So, for whatever reason, I got really passionate about making tortillas.

Like if I were writing a personal ad it would read, "Loves long walks on the beach, dairy, and making handmade tortillas." There's no cell phone plan on the planet that could handle the amount of minutes that ad would draw. Good thing I'm married.

I digress.

So, Amanda and I searched the Bodegona to find the mix to make them stateside. We each made room for the extra 2lbs in our luggage and successfully brought Guatemala home with us. And after two days, Guatemala looked like this:

Thank you, Daisy. Hope you liked your tortillas.

However, don't despair friends, this is a story of redemption. The STL has a few ethnic grocers and the one closest to my office had the exact same brand. The real stuff! Guatemala was here the whole time!

Cheesy yet happy. Speaking of cheese: I made a mini quesadilla with this sweet little guy. Take that, dairy-accountability-friends.

The smell took us right back to the streets of Guatemala, in a good way. (ha!)

You should Gleefully Bump-it.

Thanks to Sarah!

Happy place. I'm there.

We missed it.

One of our favorite anniversaries. The day that ties for ABSOLUTE.FAVORITE.DAY.OF.MY.LIFE. anniversary. Two of them, actually. No, wait, three. Wow.

Event 1: Gotcha day, May 31. Cue volcano, mud slides, tropical storms, and whatnot. June 1 we realized we "missed" Gotcha Day. Awesome.

Event 2: July 5, the day we met Eliot (2006).


Event 3: July 9th, Homecoming Day. I've said it 900 times if I've said it once, a day I will never forget. There is nothing like that feeling on the planet. If you haven't watched the video or seen the pics, click here and you can navigate your way through it. It's worth a few minutes of your time.


To be honest though, I think this is a good sign. We didn't just miss it by a day or two, but well over a week. The first year anniversary of these dates, I thought about it non-stop, the second a little less and now on the third it was an afterthought. Not because the magnitude of the situation was any less, but because life has moved along. We're not 100% focused on the adoption.

I actually dreamed of this day. As the other moms and I would watch our kids scoot around the tile floors we would dream of a life not centered around the process, the money, the foreign country, the paperwork, the margaritas, the lawyers all the while we knew these kids were ours and were waiting for a bunch of official people to figure it out along with us.

So, here it is. Real life. Real life. And it only took 3 years.

Happy anniversary(ies), sweet little man.

Bits of my weekend, Vol 17

Great, great, great weekend! Topped off with blogging while watching Mr. Mom with the hubs. Love all the early 80's references! Amazing!

Saturday started with a little Woody and Buzz...

Yes, I cried.


Mohr from the SMohrs.

Oh, friends. Saturday night was un.real. Lisa, Carrie and I had 3rd row seats at the Lady Gaga concert. This is 2 of the same girls with me at this concert:

Gaga was amazing. I've always wanted to see Madonna, so this was a great alternative.



Sundays are for reading. Love it.


Taking an evening walk w/ a four yr old boy looks a little something like this:





2 minutes of pure fun right here, peeps.

For more bits from around the country, click here!

So, do you have a kid yet?

I've gotten this question 26 minus 17 times lately. Here's the skinny:

* YES, we're officially on the call list. any. moment. now.

* NO, we haven't gotten a call yet.

* YES, we're excited.

* NO, the phone call I just got wasn't them.

* YES, we've gotten tons of donations from friends who are "done" having kids. (Good luck w/ that one...)

* NO, the room isn't ready. Ready? For a 3 yr old girl or a 6 month old boy? Oh, a sibling set? huh. So, no, not ready.

* YES, I feel heavy knowing that in order for us to get the call, that means something somewhere isn't going the way it should, something tragic and life-changing has happened.

Public Service Annnouncement (s)

A: When I took Eliot to the dentist, they had a few things to say that I'd never heard. They asked if E brushes his own teeth or if we still do it. Don't you hate it when you proudly answer something and only to realize it's wrong. Apparently they don't recommend allowing your children to brush their own teeth until they're about 7, until they've mastered handwriting. They won't have the fine motor skills to accurately and effectively do it until then. She recommended letting them do it by themselves in the morning but before bed we should still be doing it for them. AND! You're supposed to brush them for 2 minutes, not 1 and they gave us a 2 minute timer. News to me.

B: This is what a reenactment of the picture on the sign would look like, according to this guy. "Look, Mommy, he's doing this!"


C: IMPORTANT(ish) FOR ALL BLOGGERS:::Not sure if you've been a reader/stalker/follower for awhile you may remember this post? If not, that's not important other than I want you to notice how many time I said "St. Louis Science Center." Then I even said, "Hi Beth!" Then "Beth" made a comment. That's because our friend works for the SLSC and part of her job is to weed through all the hits on the internet that refer to it and she actually found our blog after we posted about a trip there (we know her from church). She gets a daily report from a program and whatnot. Before realizing this, I had no idea people were paid to do this kind of thing.

The reason I bring this up is for those of you who assume no one is reading your public blog, or that's it's only family/friends. There have been 3 instances now (in my circles, at least) of some kind of drastic actions taken based on what people write on blogs, one girl got fired from her job for venting about a bad day, one girl accidentally got a girl fired after a very funny post about a bad massage, and there's another one from this week. All of these blogs wrote specific names of the places where this stuff occurred. That doesn't mean you should stop writing, just be more discreet with proper names. Even slight variations are found easily for larger companies with people/programs set up to find what's out there. Just be aware, friends, that when I write, "Target, I love you." that someone working for Target will actually read this. Even when I write T@rget, t.a.r.g.e.t, etc. They'll probably dismiss my affection, but still, it's part of someone's list today. (Hi Target employee. You look lovely today.)

Bits of my weekend, vol. 16

I should probably apologize for the crazy amounts of photos from this weekend, but I think I do that every Sunday, so consider this a blanket apology from hence forth. However, I do have a special surprise from Russ' show Saturday night. It's at the very bottom...

More family in town this weekend! First we were off to the zoo!

To the sting-rays!



So very many monkeys at the zoo!

The cute Howard family!

This penguin was SO CLOSE to Macy and just kept getting closer.

The heat + lots of walking like a big boy + staying up too late = this face.

"Psst! Hey eliot, let's go to City Garden since it's so h.o.t.!"

Get it, Eliot, get it!

Saturday night Russ had a show downtown St. Louis. (photo stolen from Mike R.)



Fundies Undies!

Who doesn't match their nail polish to their ice cream? That's good planning, folks.

On Sunday we got out and Eliot tried his new bike. We're moving up around here...new bed, new bike! Ahhhh! Somebody slow it down!





And without further ado...it's a DOUBLE BUMP-IT!!!! Julie, that's for you!

For more Bits from around the country, go here!