Is It In His Blood?

My hubs is a cop. I could also use a variety of other slang words to describe his job. Fortunately, he is not the type to get offended and thinks that its funny when I complain about his "pig" friends who are disturbing my traffic flow by sitting on the side of the road.

One of the many things that I admire about Mike is that he LOVES his job. I mean really loves it. I think he must be insane. We can be out somewhere are all he has to do is hear a siren and he gets all excited to see whats going on. One night at dinner I told him that I just don't understand. I don't see an attorney walk into the room and get all excited. His response? "That is because your job is boring and miserable." I sat for a moment...should I be offended, hurt, ticked off, or should I just agree? You guessed it, I agreed! As a caveat, I love the people that I work with and am very proud of the career that I have, but the fact that I sit on my can all day really drives me nuts.

Mike's twin brother Jeff is also a cop. They are so alike and so different in so many ways, yet they chose the same path. In my office hangs a picture of Jeff and Mike around Harrison's age posing in front of a City of Roswell Police car. Was it their destiny? Funny thing ... Jeff's entire career has been with the City of Roswell.

Mike's Dad, Harrison's PaPa who died over a year ago, was also a cop. He was a Major with Fulton County, which I understand is a fairly big wig position. I can tell you one thing, he perfected throwing around that hairy eye look that a cop gives.

So, is this any indication of what is to come?

I hope not. Why? Just because I would like to wrap my baby in bubble wrap, even when he is 40.

Harrison's Preschool Graduation

Lately my days have been really busy. I have been working ridiculous hours and then sending the boys out of town on the weekend so I can work so more. I know that I have fallen short on being a great wife, mother and friend of the year this year. Typical with my schedule, I had forgotten (I know that is bad) that Harrison's graduation ceremony was the same afternoon I had scheduled myself to teach a class. Great, now what?

Fortunately one of my colleagues agreed to start the class for me and I would go to graduation and run a little late. Mike, Nanna - Mike's mom, and I all rushed to the school to get a good seat. We must have the best seat so we always come early. We usually create a spectacle of ourselves trying to determine which side he will be on. This year, my super smart hubs read the graduation certificates so we go the right side! Go hubs!

As we are waiting, I am looking at my watch, pulling out my Blackberry and doing all of the obnoxious things that coo coo work-a-holics do. Then, the doors opened and time stood still. For the next 30 minutes, my life was blissful and I had not another care in the world. What happened? All it took was to see my Little Mr. as the "caboose" of the line scanning the crowd for me. He couldn't find me at first, so I stood up and waived. Guess what he did....he winked. One wink and I melted. He then gave a shout out to his Nanna and took his position.

Keeping with tradition he threw in a little action into the routine. No crazy dancing this time, just constant winks and the pointed finger. He did it once he got on stage and realized that I got a kick out of it - along with 1/2 the room, and he continued to do it about 80 more times. So much in fact that he couldn't even sing the first song because he was winking, pointing, and throwing his head and hip around. Unfortunately I was so hysterical and moonie eyed that I couldn't catch it on camera. Then, my batteries went dead so I turned to hubs. He said don't worry, I have the other camera - took one picture, and his went dead. Yup, back to bad, unprepared and delinquent parenting.

I don't have a good representation of the entire event, but I can't express how proud I am of Harrison and what an amazing moment for me it was. Time simply stood still. After the graduation, we went to the lobby for cake, hugs and kisses. As I bent down to tell him how much I love him and how proud I was of him, he said "Mom, don't you have to go back to work?" Yup, moment over!

A Beautiful Sunday!

This post was originally from May 4th, but I forgot to post it.

This past week had been really tough for me. With Mike on night shift, I find that I often can't fall asleep until 1 a.m.or so. Mix that with a horrible week at work, working every weekend for the past 4 weeks because I am so behind and of course, the 7 month mark of when my mom died coming up was very draining. Oh and I forgot, my friend Heather and I started on this crazy morning shake from Jackie Warner's Workout show on Bravo - its actually really good, but I miss my morning cereal. I've just been bummed out and living in my own little pity party at times. We all have.

So instead of moping around, we decided to spice things up a bit and go to Falcon Field. Boy, was it a perfect day. The weather was stunning and much to our surprise there were planes galore! Pa really had a super time looking at the oldies. Apparently the Snoopy looking airplane is an old WWII plane that he had never even seen in real life. We got to see this one land and the pilot gave us a wave as he drove by.

The boys were the hit of the airport with their Pearl Harbor Society Hats.

Harrison was even invited onto a private jet. Of course, I had to stick my head in after him as it will likely be the only time I get inside of one. Boy, it was swanky. A tad tiny, but super duper nice. It sure would be fun to cart our hineys around in that one day!

I really think the pictures say it all. Look at the smiles on everyone's face. Since I am late posting this because my pictures would not upload, I can tell you that we surprised Pa by blowing up and framing one of the pictures for Memorial Day. We used the first picture on the top, which wethought was kind of artsy. Pa was very touched.

Zoo Atlanta and My Little Monkey

For Mother's Day, I bought myself a family membership to Zoo Atlanta. It turned out to be the perfect day to go. There were not a lot of crowds and we had so many wonderful moments with Harrison. Here are a few shots of my little monkey....

Where Oh Where Is Baby Sissy?

Things have been pretty hard lately and to say that I was in a "funk" would be an understatement. We were up for a referral for China's May list and we were skipped. For some reason I just had a feeling that we were not going to hear anything.

When it was finally confirmed that the list came out around the 13th, I emailed our agency at the end of the week to find out what happened. I thought maybe there were no children that fit our profile or that there were more people ahead of us than I thought. Nope. Turns out with China's new system there is a stressful rush to lock in a child's file when it hits the system and while our agency tried to lock in "a couple files" for us, another agency got to them first.

Two months ago our agency (the largest) was the only one to get up in the middle of the night to hit "opening time in China" and grab the kids on the list. Two months ago, our agency placed 36 kids. This month, they could only get 16 because all of the other agencies were up too.

I know that when we find out who Baby Sissy is, that we will be so grateful that we were skipped, but for now I am living in my own little pity party.

The boys headed out of town this weekend for some relaxation and fun while I stayed home and worked. Needless to say, I haven't been all that productive. I did hit Target last night for a few things for Baby Sissy, which I thought would make me feel better. It actually did and hopefully when the boys get back, we can talk about starting Baby Sissy's room. That should be fun.

Please keep your fingers crossed for us around the 15th of this month when the new list comes out. If we get a referral, we will have a very short period of time (24-48 hours) to decide whether or not to accept the referral. Once we accept the referral, we must send a Letter of Intent to China asking for approval to adopt the child. About 15-25 days letter, China will send a PA back to us saying that they located our file and have put it together with the child's file. Our file will then be reviewed and we really cannot really be guaranteed until China approves our request to adopt Baby Sissy. The whole process from reviewing the file to going to China is taking about 3-5 months.

Another downside is that with China's new rules, we cannot post anything about the call or Baby Sissy until we get the PA back from China. This could be a month after we get the call. Although I cannot officially post anything about the referral, I will be happy to post again if we get skipped so everyone will know if we are keeping silent for a reason :)

Do You Have a Few Hours and a Big Box of Tissues?

If so, I would like you to meet someone who in the few hours that I got to "know" her, made my world a better place.

When you go to meet her, please start first by going to the top left of the blog and click on start from the beginning.

You will be so glad that you listened to her story. It's a story told by her amazing mom.

Trust me, she will make you a better person. You will soon read why.

Please take a moment out of you life, to meet Audrey Caroline.

Introducing the Drama Mama....

When God closes one door, He opens another!

Meet the "Drama Mama." She is beautiful even with icing colored teeth!



The Drama Mama is the nickname I have lovingly given Harrison's new friend who just moved in a few months ago across the culdesac. She has become Harrison's new sidekick and they love meeting every night on the long driveway for a couple hours of play. Were we so hoping that Harrison would find a new little playmate to become best buds with and we are so grateful for the Drama Mama. Yes, and you probably guessed it....she is a bit dramatic, but we love her!



When we heard that The Little Mrs. was moving to Australia, we were heartbroken for Harrison (and ourselves). She and Harrison had been best buds for a long time and I just wasn't sure how Harrison would do without her around. While we wish she was still here, we are thrilled with the newest addition to the Drama Mama to our lives. Nothing is better than pulling in the neighborhood and seeing the Drama Mama calling Harrison's name from the top of her driveway. Also, she actually comes over to see if Harrison wants to play. For those of you that know our house, we don't have many people that make the long trek down the driveway!