One down...two to go!

THE DISHWASHER IS FIXED!!! Yea! It is quite an embarrassing story though. The whole problem was caused by a stopper from a sippy cup...it got caught underneath the float so the dishwasher was unable to fill with water. It took the service man about 2 minutes to fix the problem! OOPS! Actually I knew that one of the stoppers was missing and had looked through the dishwasher but never thought to look in the float. SO, 2 weeks of washing dishes, dishpan hands, lots of frustration, and who knows how much money later, the dishwasher is fixed! Now on to the coffee pot and the camera! Hopefully those problems are just as easy to fix! Ahhh, I love the whirring of the dishwasher. Life is good!

Have you ever had a week like this.....

First of all my dishwasher broke. It would go through the motions but the dishes would come out dirty. Huge bummer! Since we had so many adoption fees this month I decided to wait a week to call the service man, to avoid another bill. So I washed dishes for a week and was more than ready to have it fixed after that. So, last Monday Robb called the place where we bought the dishwasher (the place that sells their appliances based on their "great service") and after 8 DAYS we are still waiting for them to show up!! Robb has called them TWICE and was making another call this morning. Since it is busy time on the farm I am cooking up a storm for the guys and am tired of washing tons of dishes every day! I have reached the point of planning my meals based on what takes the least amount of dishes to prepare! (BTW this is the universal picture for dishwasher posts, right?? :-))))) On Saturday morning I woke up to 40 degree weather and couldn't get to the coffee pot quick enough! I NEEDED that cup of coffee to warm me up and get my mind off the fact that it is the end of May and temps reached close to FREEZING the night before! Well, you can imagine the tantrum I threw when I went to turn it on and NOTHING happened! I quickly carried it around the kitchen trying other outlets then doing a once-over of the appliance and then shedding a FEW TEARS! This CAN'T BE HAPPENING! Okay, after pouting for most of the day I decided I can at least blog about my BAD LUCK. So I grab my trusty digital camera that I LOVE OH SO MUCH and push the power button only to see BLACK and hear a little bit of a NOISE. I changed the battery and pushed a few buttons and......NOTHING. At this point I didn't throw a tantrum or shed a tear, I simply put it down and made sure I didn't say, "What more could go wrong?!?" Oh, what a week!

Quotes to live by

"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and I could say, 'I used everything You gave me.' " Erma Bombeck

****UPDATE****

I made it through ANOTHER trip to the lab! The nurse took ANOTHER 3 VILES of blood and called it good! I will get the results next week. I am 99% sure that the tests will reveal that I am in need of more iron.........I guess better safe than sorry. Thanks for all of your kind thoughts. I am glad to see that I am not the ONLY WIMP when it comes to needles! :)

A visit to the doctor...

For the adoption paperwork Robb and I both need to have thorough physicals done. Well, yesterday we went to do the lab part of it. When I called to make the appointment the lady at the desk asked what tests needed to be done. After about 2 minutes of reading off all of the things we needed to be tested for, she told me I better bring in a copy of the medical sheets so she doesn't miss anything. We needed to be tested for everything from HIV to Syphilis! After 5 viles of blood out of my arm, the nurse thought she had enough to cover all of the tests needed. Now, for those of you that don't know me, I am a TOTAL WIMP when it comes to giving blood! I have to lay down for the process and remain that way until about 20 minutes AFTER the procedure. Yesterday was a little different since they had to take so much blood. I tried to get up once but soon started seeing double so laid back down. Luckily Robb was with me, since he had already done his test without any problems. (go figure!) Honestly, I felt like crap the rest of the day, but was so relieved that the bad part of the physical was over and it meant one step closer to our little girl! Just when I started to perk up a little, the nurse called and said that my hemoglobin was low and they needed MORE BLOOD to find out what was causing the anemia. I told them that I had had trouble with this during my pregnancies and just needed extra iron. The thorough doc that we have still wanted to run some tests just to rule out anything else. So....tomorrow morning I am going back to that blasted lab and give a little more from my veins! Wish me luck!

Big Dreams....

Hunter: "Mom, do the Wiggles make money singing and dancing?" Me: "Yes, that's their job." Hunter: "I want to be one of them when I get older." **(His dad will be so proud!)**

Pregnancy Blog Filler

Frazzled Farm Wife posted this filler on her blog and thought I would share my answers. 1. Was your first pregnancy planned? yes 2. Were you married at the time? yes 3. What were your reactions? I was THRILLED! We had been trying to get pregnant for 2 1/2 years and had suffered a miscarriage 2 months before this, so it was a huge blessing. 4. Was abortion an option for you? Absolutely not--NEVER! 5. How old were you? 25 6. How did you find out you were pregnant? I took a pregnancy test. 7. Who did you tell first? My husband 8. Did you want to find out the sex? No, we wanted it to be a surprise. 9. Due date? July 24th, 2001 10. Did you have morning sickness? Yes. My "morning" sickness occurred every day from 4-8 pm for the first 4 months. yuck! 11. What did you crave? Peanut Butter Captain Crunch and fruit 12. Who/What irritated you most? I wasn't irritable....just very, very tired all the time. 13. What was your child's sex? male 14. Did you wish you had the opposite sex of what you had? no 15. How many pounds did you gain throughout the pregnancy? 19 16. Did you have a baby shower? yes, 5 days after he was born 17. Was it a surprise or did you know? I knew, my sisters-in-law and good friend threw the shower for me at our church. 18. Did you have any complications during your pregnancy? I was anemic, but controlled it with extra iron. 19. Where did you give birth? At a hospital 20. How many hours were you in labor? 10....5 of which I did at home. 21. Who drove you to the hospital? my husband 22. Who watched you give birth? my husband and my mother 23. Was it natural or c-section? natural 24. Did you take medicine to ease the pain? No.....but I learned my lesson! 25. How much did your child weigh? 6 lbs. 13 oz. 26. When was your child actually born? 1:10 pm on Saturday, July 14th, 2001 27. What did you name him/her? Hunter Ron (Ron was Robb's dad's name) 28. How old is your first born today? 5......almost 6 I would love to hear more pregnancy/delivery stories. Please share!

Favorite Photo Friday

I am LOVING this wonderful weather we have been having! The kids and I spend most of the day outside running, swinging, playing and exploring.

So long Preschool....Kindergarten here he comes!

Yesterday was Hunter's last day of preschool. He brought his teacher some flowers to say Thank you for the wonderful year. Hunter's teacher was a retired principal and came out of retirement to teach preschool. She raised 3 sons so she understood the energy that Hunter has....thank goodness! The preschoolers put on a program for the parents. It was quite entertaining! The preschoolers taking a bow at the finale of their program. It's official...he completed preschool! Come Fall Hunter and Brylie will both be in school....I can hardly believe it!

Who makes these things?

Okay, the McDonald's happy meal toys are often cheesy, but usually keep my kids' attention for the 1/2 hour ride home so we splurge and get all 3 kids a Happy Meal and a toy. Well, last week we ended our trip to town with the usual McDonalds stop. They were excited to see new toys....SHREK toys. We pay for our food, distribute Happy Meals properly and start to enjoy our own lunch when we hear 3 SHREK toys start to BURP! Of course all 3 kids thought this was HILARIOUS, so they continued to push the button that caused SHREK to let out a gigantic BELCH. I tried to ignore it, turn up the radio, and just tune it out, but about 10 minutes down the road I yelled "Stop making SHREK burp! It is driving me crazy!" The quiet lasted about 5 minutes until the curiousity sparked again and so did the BURPS. I found myself questioning the insanity of the person that makes these toys to torture parents. It is obvious that the maker of burping toys does not have any children of their own. Although I would like to strangle the maker and distributer of these toys, they are successful in keeping the attention of kids. I will tell you that the BURPING SHREKS in our house will soon be disappearing one by one.

Mother's Day with the Arnold's

Here's the Mother's Day 2007 photo. Family photo at Grandma Corinne's house after church. Hunter and his best buddy Sage. Brylie playing ball in Grandma Corinne's yard. Kennedy loves to help take care of Gage. Daddy and his little girl. We ended the day by planting some flowers at home. All in all it was a relaxing, fun filled day with my family. Daddy was in charge of changing all the diapers...Yeah! (That's really my favorite part of Mother's day!) The weather was a little hot and pretty windy but we were still able to enjoy the day outside.

Mother's Day

Since Mother's Day is right around the corner I thought I would ask Hunter and Brylie a few questions about their mom. It's alway entertaining to hear what comes out of their mouth. What makes a good mom? Hunter: "YOU" Brylie: "Jesus makes good moms." What is your favorite thing about your mommy? Hunter: "I like to go for walks with you, eat with you, play with you, read stories with you, drive to town with you, help you make brownies and my favorite thing is snuggling with you." Brylie: "I love you because you are the bestest mom in the world, you play with me downstairs, make me lunch and take me to my favorite store, Claire's." What do you wish your mommy did better? Hunter: "She could give me more presents!" Brylie: "She could clean my room for me." What have you learned from your mom? Hunter: "about Jesus, and how the government in China doesn't let their people worship Jesus, and how to be a good person and that dinosaurs are all dead" Brylie: "so much, like how to make my bed and how to be good to other people"

OOPS!!

Don't ya love how I ask you to share your opinion and then don't have a place to comment!?!?! I was just so proud of myself for figuring out how to add a link that I didn't even notice that the comments were turned off. Anyway, I hope things are working better now. Heidi also brought it to my attention that Mommyzabs posted about this same article not too long ago....sorry. I found the article through other adoption blogs as it sounds a lot like what is happening in China. Pretty scary if you ask me!

What's your take?

I recently came across this article and wanted to know your opinion. I'm all for saving the planet, but this seems quite extreme!

Favorite Photos Friday

This is Gage's sneaky attempt at getting to the treat bowl! He was moving very slowly as to not get my attention. I had to capture it on film! :)

I caved!

I have to admit that I am not one of those nice moms who buys their kids the fun band-aids. It just drives me CRAZY that they cost twice as much as the boring brown ones and they mysteriously bring on frequent ailments that require band-aids to heal. Well today the kids and I went to Walmart and needed band-aids and the kids spotted the "fun" ones and REALLY wanted them. I immediately grunted at the thought but then noticed that they were on sale for LESS than the ugly brown ones. Well, you guessed it, I caved. I mean kids should be able to wear character band-aids on their owies right? I felt okay about my purchase until 5 MINUTES after arriving home Brylie got a scratch on her finger and "really needed a Strawberry Shortcake band-aid!" Oh, what have I done?

As I am knee deep in adoption paperwork I find myself getting so frustrated with the incredible process that adoption entails. There are over 1 million orphans in China and only a small percentage of them are getting adopted. Personally I don't think that it takes four months worth of paperwork and mounds of money to determine if a family is "fit" to care for a child! The love that I have in my heart for this child, that is yet to be born, is incredible. I try to focus on the end result, but some days I have trouble keeping my mind off of the fact that my 4th child will have to spend the first year of her life in an orphanage before her mommy and daddy are allowed to come and get her. Robb and I know that adoption is God's plan for us and we believe that he will carry us over the many hurdles along this very long path. Until the day that I get to hold our precious daughter in my arms, I will keep signing on the dotted line.