Thursday, March 31, 2011

Parenting fail.



Confusion right from the start...

It all makes sense when you see Russ' profile pic as this:


Happy Opening Day, everyone!

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Are you kidding me?!

I'm never eating Chinese ever again.


Aaaaand..one MORE biggun'

Did you see this news yet? Pretty much everything you knew about the Mohr's of 2010 is not the same. Just start over.

Here's my pictoral tribute to my support system over the last 7 years (or a montage of FundiesUndies hair styles...)

The original 3...Shout out MB!

After this one, they're not in any chronological order whatsoever. Don't have the energy to figure out when each of these were!













I love these girls and the last 7 years wouldn't have been the same w/o them. It's no small task being the wife of a musician, and it's been an honor to experience it w/ them. Love you, Fundies Undies!

Monday, March 28, 2011

Raw.

At 6:15 a.m. I pulled into the cold parking lot, the only people around were delivering the day's meat to Pappy's next door.

I walked into the empty space, walked to the fuse box to turn on the lights, and took a deep breath. It was going to be a long day. A day we've been planning for a couple months now on top of everything else.

I've been living on adrenaline for the last 3 months and today would be no different. From the minute the volunteers showed up, I felt it. It was go-time, no matter the fact I only got 4 hours of sleep the night before.


While I was go go go all day, it was n.o.t.h.i.n.g compared to Jodie and Kim. They were a non-stop circus act every 20 minutes. Some of those kiddos were tough cookies to crack, and Jodie and Kim were resilient in making a good photo happen. I've worked w/ them for awhile now but seeing them in this setting w/ over 50 children was something I'll never forget. They are so gifted at what they do.

The volunteers were so ready and willing. Friends brought tables, donated stuff for gift bags, brought lunch, brought Starbucks. Each family that walked through the doors congratulated us on the adoption, some even bringing gifts!

Now, let me pause and give you a peek into a personality "quirk" of mine. When I'm in the middle of something, I tend to get goal minded. Once I'm in that mode, I tend to leave everything else aside (emotions, thoughts, etc.) in order to stay on task. This was me yesterday.

Until Eliot and Russ stopped by and Eliot asked me what all these people were doing here.

"To help bring the baby home" I answered.

and then I lost it. It all caught up to me and it took my breath away.

It only lasted a moment as I was needed with another family and I slipped back into work mode.

Surprisingly, I was in bed by 10 that night. The hour before was nothing short of deliriousness. Thankfully the only witness was Russ and he's stuck w/ me in sickness and in health, so we're all good.

This morning, having this experience behind us, having almost completed the home study, having the CD out and getting downloaded daily, making preparations for leaving work, having the due date get dangerously close, I felt raw.

A good raw.

The kind where my prayers are more genuine. My inhibitions are stripped. I'm no longer self-sufficient, but dependent. Again, in a good way. A healthy way. I'm not thanking God for "just the stuff I can't do" but for everything. I feel weak. I feel good.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

In case I didn't email or call you back lately, you should know...

Let's review 2011 thus far:

*Jan 3: Russ started a new job. Like, a big one. He's a designer. More on this later. Or not. We'll see. Not making any promises.

*Jan 4: Eliot bumped up his hours at pre-school to full time. I bumped my work hours down to 30 hours to add "Eliot shuttle" to my list of jobs.

*Mid-January: I officially start working w/ Fresh Art on the side as their stylist.

*Mid-January: we get THE PHONE CALL about the baby.

*February: Russ' job becomes official and he gets his first pretty big account. About 5 months early. No bigs.

*February: Russ records his own worship album as a fund raiser. We schedule the Fresh Art mini sessions and get an insane response.

*Mid-February: we find out our fostering home study won't work for this adoption and we start from square 1. Not sure if you're aware, but that's a lot of work. All worth it, just time, money and energy consuming.

*February: Russ travels to Vegas with his new job.

*End of February: we get a foster call. I say no, obvs, but tell Russ I said yes, just to see him freak out a little.

*March: I have outpatient surgery, where I realize how watching Grey's has drawn me closer to God. ("routine surgery" actually makes me pray harder...)

*Mid-March: Russ travels to NYC for his new job.

*March: My "rough post-op" turns out to be the flu. Double whammy.

*March: Russ releases worship album! (did you buy it yet?)

*March: A day we've been waiting on for 4 years arrives. More on that later. (unrelated to the new adoption.)


Aaaaaand coming soon?


*Mini-sessions this Saturday! So stinkin' excited!!!

*Russ travels to CHINA for work. (Yes, China.)

*Oh, and ya know, baby due in APRIL!

*I get to work hourly from home, as desired, and take care of the babe! I'm sorry, what?

If you would have told me even 3 months ago that my life looked like this? I woulda toldya you were 12 kinds of cray cray.

Monday, March 21, 2011

So be it...


Anyone wanna download the newest Russ Mohr album? Go here!

It's 5 songs, 2 old hymns + 3 originals. I've been listening to it for a couple weeks now and I love it. Even if I had no bias at all, wasn't totally in love with the artist, didn't find him wildly attractive, I would lurve this CD. That's my official recommendation. ha!

Okay, for reals, peeps. Here's the deal:

1. After we send a little "we insist on paying you for your time" to the guys who recorded, mixed and mastered the tunes, your money goes to the adoption. The CD is downloadable for $10. Yes, it's only 5 songs for $10 and that's more than a normal CD but it's our second and last fundraiser. And it's gooooood.

2. I need you to spread the word. Lots of you are bloggers and 99% of you are on facebook. We could use any word-spreading means you have. We made huge progress on our adoption expenses with the day of mini-shoots but we still have a ways to go. Any shout out you could lend would be awesome!

Spring Break '11

It is to my advantage that Eliot has no idea what people do on spring break. (Dear future-Eliot-reading-this-many-years-from-now, look, we had a lot going on. You were happy to just chill and play and stuff.) We did hit the Science Center and a really awesome movie. Here's a peek at our Science Center trip:

Raise your hand if you have a favorite planet! Woot!


We made an arch!

Saturday, March 19, 2011

St Pats edible craft...

My SIL Amanda came up last weekend for a visit. She watched E all day Friday and when I came home from work, they'd done St. Pat's fun all day. She made layered rainbow pudding and green kool-aid pops and had all the supplies for these cute hats! Here's a pictoral step by step:

One part marshmellow, sucker stick, vanilla wafer, candy melts, black string licorice and mini m&ms. (btdubs, we couldn't find licorice in the peel-n-string variety so we just used black gel. I don't recommend it. It added unnecessary mess.)




Friday, March 18, 2011

Not paying attention...

Real quick, just a head's up since I know a lot of my readers are moms/nannies/aunts/whathaveyou. Made a last minute decision to see Rango with Eliot today on his last day of spring break and couldn't have been more disappointed.

The movie had "language" all through out including a scene where one character yells, "SIGN THE DAMN CONTRACT" and the other characters yells, "HELL NO!". Besides language it had a whole lotta violence. Not a fan.

My least favorite thing besides those elements were two particular scenes that I found irresponsible of the film-makers.

1. There's an owl mariachi band throughout the movie acting as narrators. In one scene they're playing their song hanging from nooses. Really? That's appropriate. They do realize that kids mimic what they see, right? Especially if it's presented as funny and entertaining? Just checking.

2. There's a scene when a little kid takes Rango's gun out of his holster as he's addressing the crowd and the child spends the rest of the scene pointing it at his own face and talking about it being loaded. And it's played off as being funny. REALLY?!

(not to mention Rango punches an old woman in the face, asks a Barbie if "those are real?" and walks across a busy highway with no natural consequence...)

I posted a quick status about it after the movie ended and got a couple recommendations to start using PLUGGED IN. Done and done. To take some blame, it was rated PG and I did no research beforehand on what it was even about. I'm still shocked at what the film makers deemed acceptable for their "kids" movie.

All that to say, skip it.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Monday, March 14, 2011

Well hey Scott Baio...




(Don't worry, folks, the haircut happened promptly after this photo.) (Eliot, not Scott.)

Testing?

Trying out my new phone with Blogger. Had to get rid of R off our family plan so Sprint offered me shiny new things to stay with them.  Any apps that are a must have, let me know. Don't worry, Angry Birds is already here.

Okay, now I'm testing the pic options.


Tuesday, March 8, 2011

2011.

Dear 2011,

You are a beast of a different nature. You've thrown more at me in 2+ months than in the last 3 years combined. Thankfully Girl Scout Cookie season was right on time to aide in my emotional/stress eating. Unfortunately, given my new hobby of eating GSC, I seem to be slacking on blogging. Boo. There's so much to share, some not ready, some overdue. Back soon. (crunch crunch)

Your happy recipient,
Katie