Now A Family of *gulp* Six.

I venture to claim that the country - nay, the world - will be a different place after tomorrow . Historically, economically, it will be an interesting beginning... and ending. Personally & economically speaking, it could certainly make our summer plans do a little shimmy. Already Doug's company is preparing their employees to brace themselves - GM is close to 50% of their business. Around these parts, it's like someone we all know and love is dying, and we're just waiting for the last breath. Interesting that gov't officials are calling it a "rebirth."

This was taken a couple days ago. Roman showing his "pirate dance." And the above was while camping. Our first realization that Charlie is saying yes to us, with a nod of the head & grunt.

Just very busy. Crazy short week, but long in oh-so-many ways. Oldest child is being handed off to his grandparents' Thurs. night for a trip to Chicago with them and his cousin, and hopefully Thurs. or Friday I will have a chance to upload pictures and videos to the camera and share some of our camping fun. The surprise was pulled off, generally speaking. I can say that Charlie now has 4 consistent words: uh-oh, hi, da-DEE, and bubble. Bubble is just the most adorable, but darned if he wouldn't say it on video. At all. Roman is having a hard time calming down at school due to all the excitement that is sandwiching his weekdays, plus new tougher karate class and t-ball games starting next week. But we will get by, luckily even being a pistol he's really adorable. All right. So I promise, some pictures in the next couple days.

(whisper!) We're going camping this weekend, but don't tell anyone! Especially Doug's parents. They think we're just visiting for a Sunday picnic, but we actually got the site next to them for the whole weekend! (*end whisper!) Should be cool. Of course, I'll be doing some grad project work here and there, but that's okay. It has a bathwater-like heated pool from what we can remember, and for those chilly nights we have a new camping space heater for our camper. We just hope and pray that Charlie sleeps past 6:30am. 7am would be fine, really. What do you do with a cranky baby at 6 in the morning in a campground?! We're bringing the DVD player and Baby Einsteins just in case. And on this Memorial weekend, take more than a moment to honor the fallen heroes.

I went to the allergist last week for some hive rash issues I've been having. Ro went with me, and when the doctor prescribed some meds he asked about my family history. I replied as usual, "I don't know, I'm adopted." Roman looked at me like I was from outer space and said "No you're not." Well, that got me to thinking. We thought we had been doing a pretty good job of keeping adoption in the conversational loop, but clearly he was unaware that I am adopted too. Which got me to thinking that as he approaches 6, it's a ripe age to start misinterpretations of what adoption is, what it means, and the fantasies can start. I thought I better get into his brain to see what was going on. Because of the incident at the allergist, I asked him if he knew I was adopted. He said no. The first thing he asked me was, "What was your name before Baba & Grandpa owned you?" (such a funny way to put it!). I told him that I didn't know, but I kne...

Finally decided to take a break from my grad project and upload 2 weeks' worth of pictures. And when you take at least a picture a day, let me tell you, that's a lot of pictures! So let's just get to it. First, I graduated. Kind of. There was lots of fun in-between like Mother's Day & the scrapbook convention, but I prefer to show off the pirates who have invaded our house: Quite handsome, aren't they? Had to be careful taking Pirate Squishypants' picture, as he's pretty wicked with that sword. Pirate Jedi, however, was very willing to pose. Today was a momentous day in our household, too. Roman tested for his orange belt last week and received it in a ceremony today: And then Charlie got his first haircut this evening. Before (above... look at those curls! I love them!) After (below... so sad, but at least he looks like a boy now.) I wasn't one to rush cutting off those adorable curls, but people were calling him or asking if he was a girl for abou...

I have begun my last class, the "action research project" phase of my Master's degree. As such, the next 4 weeks are going to be stress-filled and sometimes tear-filled. Along with, I daresay, curse-filled moments. I also will be muttering things like "action implementation," "triangulation of data," "making the change systemic" alongside these curse words. Therefore, I am not going to be blogging much, unless it's to vent about the above-mentioned mutterings. The mantra in our house currently is "it's only 4 weeks... it's only 4 weeks..." although I suspect it will seem like much longer than that by the time my class ends June 24.

So in my last post I was feeling crunched for time, no dedicated hours (or even minutes!) to catch up on the little things in life. And then came... THE CALL. An automated service compliments of my district, informing me that we will not have school Monday or Tuesday because of the SWINE FLU (h1N1, to be more animal-correct). A probable case at one of the high schools prompted the county health department to shut us down in order to disinfect every school. We're waiting today to discover whether we will be closed for longer or not. So. Wow! 2 days with my kids at school. Yesterday I did 5 loads of laundry while scanning, organizing, and playing with my photos. Today I am screwing around a little more on the computer & doing a little scrapbooking before meeting up with a couple coworkers for a movie. In a theater! Popcorn and everything. Then, back to real life with some grocery shopping before I pick up Ro from school. Speaking of school, I was recognized on Sunday as completin...

I am so far behind on scrapbooking my 365 Project. I caught myself all up when I went scrapping in March, and haven't done a thing since. That's 7.5 weeks. I've taken the pictures, all right. I've even sorted them into folders and am keeping a running list of which picture goes on which day. I just can't seem to open Photoshop and actually put it in layout form. Which then starts to hang over my head, like something else I have to do. And I hate it when one of my joys in life gets stuck in the head-drawer with everything else, like "grade papers, make some phone calls, and scrap." No good! Doug's birthday - the kids & the Indiana Jones DVD 4-pack! It's also been too long since I've posted pictures here. Gladly, though, I received a digital photo frame for my birthday which I think is just the coolest. Got it up and running tonight with 64 pictures on it. Most from our Disney trip, but I threw in some random everyday ones too. It's very...