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J was very kind and gave the kids a great explanation of how the machine works which is pretty cool. I thought that it would be all computerized but it is not. She actually stands behind the quilt and guides a red light over a template of choice (we chose ladybugs, of course!) The machine is a foot or so away from the template and light and mimics the pattern onto the quilt. I might be able to describe the process better after a good night's sleep...;o)
Anyway, the quilt should be done minus the binding (Bless Betty's heart-She is going to do that too!) and tag(will have that embroidered this week) my mid August. We are getting so close-what a fun ride this has been! We spent the drive home talking about all of the things that we did in anticipation of the rest of the chidren which was fun. Granted, with my early deliveries, we only had about 7 months to prepare for each of them!
When Matt showed up at church this morning with the boys, this is what I saw. Now, I've seen some interesting ensembles come out of the Bouton home but this one has to be the trophy winner. First, those are Xander's pants which means they are 2-3 sizes too small for Noah! Yes, the poor kid is named Noah-HE DOES NOT NEED TO HEAR ANY MORE FLOOD JOKES!!! Second, with pants that short, how could you miss the white socks??? And these aren't just any white socks. These belong to his 9 year-old SISTER, folks!
There was a day not so long ago that I swore I would never own a pet. Now, here we are making homemade dog biscuits for our spoiled pup! These were good! Peanut butter flavored-just like a peanut butter cookie with no sugar. I'm on the hunt for a dog bone shaped cookie cutter. These seem to border on canine-cannibalism. 
It's been almost 2 years in the making but the squares have been united and Meili's quilt is almost done! I think that Betty did a wonderful job. It turned out even better than I had imagined it in my head! I love the red and black fan border!
Here's a closeup:
It is so cool to look at each of the squares and think of the people who sent them along with their wishes for Meili. What a treasure! I can't wait to look at it with her one day and talk with her about all of the people who were thinking of her and waiting for her along with us...
After I spread the quilt top out on the floor to snap a few photos, the kids had a great time looking for each of their squares and finding the squares from their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. I so appreciate all of the squares from friends we know and friends from blogland!
On Monday morning, I'm off to an appt with the long arm stitch lady. She is hunting for a ladybug stitch design for us. If she can't find one, I may just opt for a meandering 'red thread' design. I'm also hoping to have a small tag embroidered that says, "100 Good Wishes for Meili-2007" to stitch into the binding on the back of the quilt. It could be done as soon as late next week-I'll be sure to post more pics!
Well, we're back from vacation and slowly yet reluctantly readjusting to reality. I am gearing up for a monster post about all the fun that was had so stay tuned... I spent yesterday playing catchup with work. I don't talk much about my job here because I want to respect the privacy of my clients, many of whom I now consider friends. Many if not most of my home study clients have returned home with their children and are ready for readoption and post placement services which I truly enjoy. It is one thing to talk and speculate about attachment/adoption issues with families as they are preparing to adopt and quite another to sit down with them and their child(ren) and talk about what reality has been for them. I love that it always seems as though the child has always been a part of their lives even though I knew them when they weren't yet a family. It is also nice to have that reaffirmation that babies come home and ours will too. My favorite sw moment yet was when I showed up at a family's home for another follow-up visit after the adoption of two older children and was greeted at the door with hugs from them. I write tons of reports and shuffle lots of files but my job is so not about the paperwork.
Ours turned out like this:
It looked so pretty in the picture. I'm not sure why ours turned out looking like a placenta. We haven't laughed so hard in a long time! The freaky think is that I put the layers in the correct red, white, then blue order and somewhere along the way the blue and white layers inverted... Noah had a fun time decorating it anyway:
and the finished product, though not aesthetically pleasing was delicious!
At around 5:30, on the way back from a caramel apple run, both boys fell asleep in the car so I postponed BBQ plans and called the caramel apple dinner. Worked for me! I hope that everyone had a good time!
Audrey is in CA with her grandparents for the week and we sent Taylor off to scout camp at 4:30 this am. He'll be gone until Saturday. So, down to two kids. What to do...
I decided to try to make Clean Mud (unravel 6 rolls of toilet paper in a large container, cover with water, add 1 1/2 cups borax and 2 flaked Dove soap bars. Let the kids mix it with their hands. Cover when not in use.) for the boys to play in and invited the neighbor girls over to help. It was fun but not so clean. There will be scraps of it all over the house for days. If it wasn't 111 degrees outside, I would have had them do it on the table on the back porch. We may have to do this again in the Fall.
Matt came home from work and wanted to take the boys out for pizza for family night. First we hit the pet store, then headed over to a furniture store that was having a sale. There is a bedroom set for Audrey that I've had my eye on for a while. She has never really had her own bedroom furniture. Long story short, it was on sale and we got two twin beds (one for Audrey and one for MEILI! since they will be sharing a room.), two nightstands, a dresser with a mirror, a chest, and a bookcase for a total of ...drumroll please....$1300!!! It looks white but is really a light wood whitewashed with a cream colored paint if that makes any sense. I really like the scrollwork on the pieces.
When I was 8 years old, my grandparents bought me a matching set of bedroom furniture. It has always been very special to me and several of the pieces are still in the family. In fact, Audrey uses the dresser now but it is on it's last legs. I hope that she and Meili will enjoy this furniture as much as I loved mine.
We rolled into town and went with the whole fam damily to a Chinese buffet. Interesting. I'm embarrassed to admit that it was my first time actually sitting in a Chinese restaurant-we usually do takeout. I really enjoyed being able to try a taste of the different foods. Most were good. Some not so much. There were bones in just about everything which I am not used to and not being a fan of seafood limited my choices by about half but we had a great time. Brice (BIL) showed up fresh from the Apple store with his iphone. That thing is pretty cool. I took a turn and went to my blog and linked to RQ (of course!) Weird to have it in the palm of my hand. It would be far too dangerous not to mention expensive for me to own one. I had to get a picture of my dad feeding Xander Jello with chopsticks!
On Saturday morning we enjoyed a delicious crepe breakfast at Matt's mom's (our parents live blocks from each other) with Mitzi and Elna (Matt's great aunt and cousin) who were visiting from Utah and Pennsylvania. These two women kept my husband alive when he was in college in Utah. (They fed him on the weekends while he used their laundry rooms.) Good food and good company! The plan for the day was that Matt would stay with his family and attend a memorial service for an Uncle that passed away several months ago. He played the guitar for the service and I'm told did a great job. I took the kids and my Mom drove us out to Long Beach for the Anime Expo where my brother had a booth. He is an amazingly talented artist and can do just about any medium. He is best known for his minimalist 'emo' comic strip-Pon and Zi. I was able to line up with his hoards of fans and listen to them gush about his art talent and watch them ask for his autograph. I was very tempted to shout in the middle of the crowd, "Hey, I changed that guy's diapers!!!" but refrained. Jeff sent us home with tons of merchandise-thanks Jeff!
After that, we headed to a beach near the Queen Mary where the kids frolicked in the water and Taylor took a skim-board lesson from Uncle Jared who is only three years his senior. T really looks up to him and I could tell that he was more brave than usual trying out the board not wanting to disappoint his uncle. He actually did pretty good for a first try. Poor Noah took a skim board to the head and bled all over the place. Grandma Judy threw us a towel I applied pressure and tried to calm him down. The bleeding stopped but I still wasn't sure if he was in need of stitches or not. I took him over to the lifeguard station and Lifeguard Brent (first day on the job) cleaned and bandaged him up and declared him good to go-no stitches necessary. Noah was mortified when I brought out the camera. The battery was dead so Aunt Julie retrieved her camera/phone. I'll have to get the picture from her later.
After a quick and action-packed weekend, we hit the road early Sunday morning minus one child. Audrey is staying with my parents for the week since we will be down again next weekend. On the way home, Grandma received a gas-pumping lesson. She is 74 and until this day had never pumped her own gas. Recently, the gas station near her stopped doing full service and she has been driving miles away so someone could pump the gas for her. Not if I can help it! Poor Grandma. I have a twisted interest in getting her to do things that are out of her comfort zone. We have taken her on a hike. She has danced on the Ellen DeGeneres Show...you get the idea. She's a good sport!
After
I did something crazy yesterday. I sent off an I-600a application WITHOUT A FEE! I don't know if we will get a free extension or not but this is the only way I know to find out for sure. When I called our USCIS orphan officer back when the fee increase and free renewal were announced and spoke to him and asked about whether the free renewal is effective immediately or only for those applicants whose forms expire after July 30th (ours expires on July 7th), it was the first he had heard of either. Nice. He said to send it in and 'see what happens' so I did. I also included a cover letter thanking them very kindly for listening to adoptive parents and attempting to streamline our process somewhat. I also quoted to them the part from the Press Release dated May 29th that states that adoptive parents may now receive one free extension of the I-600a approval if they have not yet filed an I-600. To me, that means us. Keep your fingers crossed! If I haven't heard anything by mid-July, I'll call and see what's up. Worst case, I'll send a check in before the fee increase takes effect on July 30th.
Front Porch-Boring. I need a fun mat and some larger decor items, I think. Rabbits and javelina keep eating any plants that I try to put here. Ugh.
So tough to get all 4 kids to sit still for a picture! We tried to get the dog in on it, 
The Hip Hop Girlz-Audrey's on the far right
and the ballerinas-Audrey is back-center.
You did a great job, Audrey. We are so proud of you!
