two....

He has been such a cutie pie. I love him more and more and I wonder if I will ever be able to look at this guy without remembering the ride that we have been on with him.

He is talking more and more. Wait, let me rephrase that. He talks constantly. He is just a little hard to understand. He definitely knows what he is saying.

He has definite opinions. He love cars, trucks and choo choos.

For his birthday this year, we are skipping the party scene. He had a big adoption party and I think he would rather just watch Cars2 for his birthday. He is so excited about "ca chow, ca chow".

I love you, Patrick. You are a source of joy and such a blessing to our lives. I can't wait to see how God is going to use your life!

Almost two!

I can't believe my little guy is almost two years old.We received his birth certificate that has been revised. It has the date and the time and his doctor's name on it. And his mom and dad are listed as us. It's kind of surreal. I wasn't there.

In fact, I was in mourning. 4 days before Patrick was born, I had a miscarriage. I was less than 2 months pregnant, but it shook my world. I had had an easy pregnancy with Maggie and expected the same with this pregnancy. We had been through an emotional whirlwind with R and J. I looked back through my old posts to see what I was doing on his birthday. This was the closest post I could find to the day that he was born.http://coleminer77.blogspot.com/2009/06/remembering-to-praise-him.html I just re-read it and it makes me cry. The comments make me cry the most.

Two months later, we got the best phone call of our lives. There was a little boy who had been born on June 28th. He had been in emergency foster care and he was probably going to be adoptable. Were we willing to take the risk? Oh and he had reddish blonde hair. DUH! Bring it on!

I need some advice...

I want to decorate Patrick's big boy room with a Cars themed room. I really don't want to go too "cars" with it. Like the movie theme? I've been inspired since we went to the Grand Canyon and saw all of the retro route 66 stuff.

So far, I have:

This

and

This
(thanks, Jennifer Monroe)
and

This

I have a toddler bed that I can repaint. We are thinking of leaving him in the crib a little longer, but I was thinking of maybe a Lightning McQueen pillow or something. Maybe solid crib sheets.

I like Kim's idea about old maps.

Does anyone have ideas for bedding? Or seen any cute boys' room like this?

My kids' reactions to seeing the grand canyon

When we stepped up to the Grand Canyon, it was unreal. Such a beautiful sight.

Maggie was not ready to be impressed. She told Miss Lori on the phone that "we were gonna go see a big hole" that morning.

She walked up to the edge and said, "it doesn't look real. Are you sure it's not just a green screen?".

Patrick looked over the edge and said, "ca chow ca chow". I'm thinking that this had something to do with the cars looking over the canyon in the movie. Or maybe it's just his favorite word right now.

Good question

Maggie was watching tv with Steven tonight and a commercial came on. It was a commercial for medication.

Announcer: If you become blind or deaf while taking this medicine, contact your doctor.
Maggie: Wait a minute. If you're blind or deaf, how can you call your doctor?

Good question!

Birth Certificate

Today, we got a great piece of certified mail.

It was a birth certificate for this little guy!

My job

I have a love/hate relationship with my job.

Love: Flexibility, money, being able to work from home, keeping my mind from going to mush...

Hate: No interaction with "real people", feeling like a grading robot, feeling like a copy machine in some classes

Most days, I don't think about it too much. It's a job and it helps me to stay at home with my family and do ministry with Steven and that's a blessing.

Lately, I've been kind of burnt out on it. I get emails from students complaining about grades and how I didn't grade this fast enough (even though they turned it in 4 days after the due date and I've already graded the rest of the classes work and moved on) and http://coleminer77.blogspot.com/2010/05/dog-ate-my-homework.html
Or recently, when a student complained that I gave her too high of a grade. really.

So, today, was a good day. I got my annual review. A group of instructors randomly pick one of the classes that I was teaching and reviewed it. They picked out several students and reviewed how I interacted with them. I did really well. I honestly didn't know that they would be reviewing this class or these students. There are things to improve on, but it was a good reminder that I am doing a fairly good job.

I also received an email from a student who apologized for his late work this week. Instead of giving me a lame excuse, he just said that he was having a hard time with the material from the class. It is difficult material this week and can bring up a lot of hard emotions. I was able to encourage him to seek help and to explore the issues that came up. It was a nice reminder that there are "real people" on the other side of the computer. And I feel better

repost: June 1, 2007

Tonight, I clicked on my xanga and typed in June 1, 2007, just to see what was happening then.

This popped up!


Friday, June 01, 2007

we are alive. We made it to Minnesota last night. We stopped in Wisconsin and made this purchase!

We were traveling up America to Steven's graduation from seminary. We stopped to buy this princess cowgirl hat. This was the trip where she started fighting with her imaginary friends in the backseat.