Stephanie Adams – Page 40

February 20, 2009

The boys are excited!

I scored a lot of onesies off ebay last week and they showed up this week. What’s a girl to do with no babies to dress? Of course, try it on the cat!

Carter being a pretty good sport, Jackson would never have allowed this

Here he is with all of the onesies, I think he was upset his mom didn’t think of tucking the tag in.

Jackson checking out the clothes my mom bought, it was hard to get him to move for the picture (he likes to roll around in the clothes)

The matching outfits my mom picked out, fire trucks of course!

The matching outfits my dad picked out, love the overalls! (notice who is nearby)

I scored a free changing table pad yesterday and Carter just had to give it a try (it was brand new!)

The cats love hanging out in the nursery, they are making sure everything is just perfect for Tom and Jerry. By perfect I mean, small teeth holes and maybe a few claw marks! Oh, and a lot of cat hair!

February 18, 2009

So Very Blessed

That has been how Matt and I have been feeling lately. I cannot put into words how grateful we are for our boys. The wait while long and seemingly endless was worth it. Knowing how perfect they are for us makes me wonder why I ever questioned God’s timing. He knew what he was doing, in fact he even gave me exactly what I wanted, twin boys. How awesome is that?

It has been exactly one week since our referral and my head still has not come out of the clouds. I cannot believe I have already known their faces for one week, time is passing quickly. I hope it continues to pass so quickly as we wait to travel. Oh how we cannot wait to hold them for the first time. I do not think it will feel completely real until that moment, at least not for me. Matt already seems more attached which warms my heart even more. To see him so excited brings such joy to me. He never thought he wanted twins, let alone two babies at once, but he is beyond excited and it makes me love him even more.

(My darling boys I go to bed each night thinking of you and wake up doing the same. You are in my thoughts and prayers all day long. I hope you are eating well and being nice to your nannies.)

February 12, 2009March 2, 2010

The Call and some of your questions answered

My day did not start just like any other day. I slept in to about 9 am, not a usual occurrence, but this dang cough has been keeping me up at night, so the additional sleep yesterday morning was appreciated. I had managed to get up start my coffee, feed the dogs, and was settling into my morning blog reading. I had just started reading Sandi’s latest posted about her Mother’s day out when my phone began to ring (9:25 am). I assumed it was my boss, who I had spoken to earlier in the morning about some dogs I was seeing in the afternoon. I looked over at my phone and it was a 314 number, I started to get a little excited, but not too excited, I get wrong numbered a lot. I answered it and it was SHARON, I started to shake, she said something along the lines that they might have a referral for us. Our home study approved us for special needs but we preferred healthy so she wanted to know if we were open to a possible health issue. I said probably, let me call Matt, or something like that, I really have no idea. Matt and I spoke and I tried to call Sharon back. I knew Sharon was getting ready to leave the office in about 30 minutes, so I was trying to catch her because I wanted to see my babies! I got her voice mail, so I called the main line and spoke to a very nice receptionist, when I asked for Sharon I was told she was out of the office, so I then asked for Nicky (who was going to have the file since Sharon would be out of the office) and was told she was in a meeting, bummer! But the receptionist apparently went and found Sharon for me, so I spoke with Sharon and she told me the basics and asked if I had any questions, ummm no? That’s right I couldn’t even think to ask their names! All I knew was gender, weight, and health concerns. So, Sharon says she will email me their photos and info and we disconnect. Matt and I had been chatting on the computer and he was getting ready to have a meeting with a client and couldn’t come home and well I didn’t want to wait! So, we did what all Mac users would do and screen shared! He could see my screen and we could audio chat at the same time, such a nice feature. We were able to see our babies together for the first time and look over some of their information together. It was a very nice moment and nope didn’t catch a bit of it on film. Here is the shocker I didn’t cry, I still haven’t really cried, just started to tear up. I keep waiting for the bawling to began, but it is probably waiting for a really awkward moment when it all finally sinks in.

I then began to try to call people to tell them the news, but no one was answering their phones, I completely forgot about my brother (sorry Jason), but I did leave his lovely wife a long, rambling message that apparently didn’t make sense. Sandi was the only one to answer, and actually she had to call me back because my phone lost signal as I was calling her. Sandi and I had a nice chat, sorry I don’t remember much of it! The rest of the day is really a blur of phone calls, emails, dogs, and other random things. I know I kept asking Matt some pretty silly questions and almost drove to the wrong clients house yesterday, boy they would have been surprised if I had just walked on in to walk their dogs!

I spoke with Sharon again in the afternoon and she said she could tell I was in a state of shock when she called in the morning and she apologized for it not being a typical referral call (they normally get your husband on the line too) and that she had to rush out of the office. Of course, that didn’t really matter to me, we got our referral and I was so HAPPY.

Okay that takes care of Meg C’s question! Now onto the others.

No Rick you cannot change your guess, Papa John does it again, seriously how does he know these things?

Gretchen and Erica they are not at the HOH yet, but I do have a friend that has been to their orphanage and she says it is a great orphanage.

Kim I can’t email or post pics, sorry. They are not officially ours until we pass court in Ethiopia, and I am guessing our court date will be in May.

Jennifer no we are not keeping the names Tom and Jerry, we will continue to use those on the blog until we figure out what we are naming them!

Tegan we have had a trailer for about a year now, pathetic I know, but we have used it to go garage sale shopping in the neighborhood.

Okay just a little more info. We cannot share too much about the boys on our blog until they are officially ours, but I can say they are absolutely adorable, identical, and born in my favorite month. I always wanted twins, seriously for as long as I can remember. Matt and I are still on cloud 9. Pray for a quick and successful court date, so we can bring them home early this summer.

Our wait was officially 11 months 4 days and well worth it. 🙂

Thank you all for your warm wishes yesterday and your support during the wait part of the process. It means so much to us. Thank you so much!

February 11, 2009

It's Twins!!!!!

We received our referral for twin boys this morning! Matt and I are super excited right now and cannot wait to bring them home. They are 2.5 months old and absolutely precious.

February 5, 2009

Defining Waste

No Impact Man wrote a post today about prioritizing resource use to improve lives. In his article he defines waste:

I’ve thought a lot about the definition of waste. The way I figure out, a good way of defining waste is the use of planetary resources that don’t improve quality of life.

I like this view a lot. Instead of environmental effectiveness being based on the restrictive view that we should simply “use less,” we should instead “use well.” This offers the intersection of environmentalism and human aspiration.

I like that he puts a more positive spin on thoughts about waste than most environmentalist. Most environmentalist just tell you to reduce, but he encourages prioritize what makes life worth living.

To what extent do we–as individuals and as a culture–prioritize what really makes life worth living?

How much time do we not spend with our kids or friends, for example, because we’re trying to get rich so that we can later, um, have the leisure time to spend with our kids and our friends? How much time–and resources–do we spend on big houses or better cars when really we just want to watch the sunrise?

On a cultural level, then, how much effort is spent on economic throughput when what we want is strong communities full of people that have the time and inclination to support each other? How much effort do we expend on making sure we can all have a third TV when what we really want is a great education for our kids or great theaters for our adults?

Which brings me back to my originally definition of waste. How many resources are we wasting–both as individuals and as a culture–on things that don’t even improve our lives? If we made a rule of targeting resources only at things that delivered quality of life, we would end up automatically saving the planet.

Matt and I have worked over the last couple of years at reducing, we still spend on stuff we don’t need every now and then, but overall we have begun to focus on what really matters to us and we are happier because of those choices. We are both more content then we have ever been.

I wanted to share this definition of waste, because a lot of environmentalist are a little extreme and that can turn off the majority of the population to environmentalism. I just wanted to remind people, myself included, that it is better to focus on what makes you truly happy. For most people that is not acquiring more stuff, but rather time with family and friends.

January 30, 2009

Friday Update – 01.30.09

Adoption: Still waiting! 47 weeks! Anyone want to take bets that we will get to 50? (I am thinking more and more that I was right with February 23) There was lots of good news this week. 12 infants were referred. Seven girls and five boys! Congratulations to all the happy families. We also received news that due to the extended wait from referral to travel our agency will be providing more photo updates for waiting families. Families were just getting pictures at referral and after passing court, but now they will get pictures ever 4-6 weeks.

Training: Training for the duathlon is still going well. I ended up taking two days off this week due to a little cold. I was also hoping to add some strength training this week, but it just didn’t happen. I hope to be back to full strength next week.

Gardening: The winter garden is still going strong. I have been snacking on snow peas all week. Yummy! My first head of broccoli is finally starting to grow. It looks like I will have some onions and garlic in a couple of months. It is also time to start seeds for the spring garden.

Biking: I still love my new bike, even if it tried to eat my pants today. Thanks to Keith and Erin I have a lovely sticker of Africa on it.

January 26, 2009

and the winner is

Sandi!

Since I am married to a geek who has millions of t-shirts I am going to guess 84.
We hang everything over here. I think hanging takes so much less time than folding and you can see everything. I hang everything.

Matt actually has 83 t-shirts! Yes he does hang most of them, but he also has some in a dresser drawer. (I am like Sandi, I prefer to hang over folding.) We had a good laugh the other night when he counted them up!

BTW Kendall in this house I believe the boy clothes out number the girl clothes.

In all honesty he did not buy the majority of his shirts, quite a few are ones he has designed for clients and other miscellaneous freebies.

January 25, 2009

25 Things about Me

You can thank Meg for this boring post!

These are in no particular order.

1. I thank God every day that I married the perfect man for me.

2. I am painfully shy. Matt was seriously shocked I used the blog. I have to be fairly comfortable with the majority of a people in a room to even say a thing.

3. I absolutely love the ocean. It is one of my favorite places to be.

4. College took me 5 years and several summers, because I could never decide on a major. The sad part is now I would choose a totally different major.

5. I never really wanted a career, being a stay at home mom was the ideal job to me.

6. I used to dream of playing in the NBA. I figured if Muggsy Bogues could do it so could I.

7. I do not like to do my hair. I hardly ever do much to it and do not really use any products. So, the pictures you saw last Wednesday, my hair stylist did that and my hair will probably not ever look like that again and I don’t care.

8. I love coffee and could not imagine starting my day any other way.

9. I don’t really care to go see a movie and I pretty much never want to see a movie more than once.

10. Bridges over water seriously freak me out!

11. I find it very satisfying to eat food I have grown myself.

12. I would own many more animals if we had more space and if Matt would let me.

13. Close-minded people seriously annoy me.

14. I think there are better ways to argue your point then attack the other person. Not that I am all that good at arguing my point, but I don’t see how attacking someone would make them see my point.

15. I am not much of a morning person and I am definitely not a night owl. What can I say, I love my sleep!

16. I seriously thought I might die when at my first retail job they told me I had to greet customers that came to my register. Now I am thankful for that job because it helped me in so many ways.

17. I never thought I would want or use a blackberry, but now that I have one I am so addicted.

18. I cheer for the Cardinals and the Cowboys. Most people just know me as a Cowboys fan because that is all I would admit too, but I have cheered for the Cardinals at a Cardinals/Cowboys game and almost got myself into a fight with a Cowboys fan, luckily my college roommate saved my butt because I didn’t stand a chance. I am not very good at being a one team person. In fact, I usually have multiple favorite teams. (Also, I feel extremely guilty for all these years of pretending to not be a fan of the Cardinals, sorry guys.)

19. If none of my teams are playing, I will always cheer for the underdog.

20. I wish I could sing, but I am absolutely horrible.

21. My desk is almost always messy, which drives my husband nuts.

22. I don’t shower every day. I also don’t think it is necessary for the majority of Americans.

23. I used to think I couldn’t get through the day if I didn’t have a Dr. Pepper, now I hardly ever drink pop.

24. I am a big time procrastinator. I even wrote a paper in college on procrastination. Of course, I wrote it the night before it was due.

25. I now love to cook, but when I first got married I hardly knew how to boil noodles.

That took me way too long, Thanks Meg!

(I will post the t-shirt guessing game results tomorrow, so please guess if you haven’t already.)

January 24, 2009

Guessing Game

I have been teasing Matt about how many t-shirts he owned lately. He always just brushed it off saying that it wasn’t REALLY that many. Well he finally broke down and counted all his t-shirts. He was shocked by the number. I decided it would be fun to have all our blog readers guess on how many t-shirts you think Matt owns. There is no prize, well maybe a t-shirt or two!

Not all t-shirts are shown

Start guessing!

January 21, 2009

New Look

Today my hair was finally long enough to donate! I am so excited to have short hair again. I actually love having my hair both ways, but it always makes me happy to cut it off! (especially with summer apparently right around the corner)

(my hair last Saturday)

(Today)

(from the side)

January 19, 2009

Food Waste Reduction Challenge

More than 40 percent of all food produced in America is not eaten, according to research by former University of Arizona anthropologist Timothy Jones. That amounts to more than 29 million tons of food waste each year, or enough to fill the Rose Bowl every three days. Nationwide, food scraps make up 17 percent of what we send to landfills.

The above excerpt was taken from the article, “The Food not Eaten – Food Waste: Out of Site, Out of Mind.” Food waste is and has been one of my biggest focuses over the last couple years. When I have to throw food out, I feel extremely guilty. I think about all the energy and effort that went into the production and transport of that food, and it is all such a waste. I also think of the money I spent on that item, a dollar here and there does add up! If you are throwing out just 14% of what you bought think about that in comparison to your monthly food bill! (The 14% is from the study linked in the quote above from the University of Arizona and includes just food thrown in the trash, not food composted, put in the garbage disposal, or given to the family pet.) We have made marked improvements in the area of food waste, we compost significantly less than we did last year at this time and we hardly have to ever throw out items in the pantry or freezer any more, but we still do :(. My goal is to throw nothing out, this seems like a very difficult and challenging goal right now. Sometimes you forget about items, they get shoved to the back of the fridge or pantry, and sometimes you just can’t take another night of leftovers!

If you are interested in wasting less food and less money please join Food Waste Reduction Challenge. Green Bean also offers some great tips on her blog.

In truth, stretching meals and reducing food waste is not much of a sacrifice. It only requires a pinch of organization and a teaspoonful of effort.

Reducing food waste also makes a positive impact on the environment.

There’s also a large environmental impact as well if your food waste gets sent to a landfill. Food waste is the largest landfill contributor to methane gas production, so unless your municipality has a landfill-to-gas capture, your rotten bananas and forgotten pickles are contributing to global climate change.

There you have it, you can save the earth and some money by simply reducing your food waste. Anyone interested in joining in? Please feel free to share any of your recipes that use up leftovers or any other tricks you may have.

January 16, 2009

Friday Update – 01.16.09

Adoption Update: 45 weeks down! I am trying to feel better about the wait, but it was difficult this week. The wait for referral is one thing, but the wait from referral to travel has been extended and is now expected to take about four months. It used to only be about two. The increase of adoptions in Ethiopia has burdened an already overwhelmed system, please pray for the Ethiopian government and that they are able to do what is best for the children. Also, pray for the adopting families to have patience as this part of the wait is the most difficult. To know your child but not be able to hold, comfort, or love on is a very difficult time.

It has been a month since the last round of referrals. To be honest I always knew in my heart there would be a drought of referrals before we received our referral. I do not know how long that drought is going to last, but I am hoping that this is the last drought we have to make it through.

Duathlon Training: I have been doing very well with my training. I either bike or run every day and some days I do both. I am improving little by little and happy with the results so far.

Gardening: The garden is continuing to thrive.

First snow pea!

Life: Is going great. We are going to see Abby tomorrow and Matt is doing a little photo shoot with her. I am sure we will have some cute pictures to share. We are also going mountain biking. I last went on my birthday so I am long overdue for a ride.

With the duathlon training Matt wanted to buy me a road bike, but I opted for a new (to me) commuter bike that would also make a decent road bike for the few times I will need it as one. I got to ride her for the first time today and am loving her. My old commuter was a little small, plus this new one has a few more gears. Needless to say it is much faster and easier to ride.

Matt still needs to attach my panniers and my basket then I will be all set for running errands again. Oh and that suspension seat post has got to go!

January 13, 2009

2009 Goals

As promised here are my 2009 goals. I thought I should get around to posting them before January was over!

1. This one was originally run a 5k and possibly a 10k sometime this year, but I have already changed my mind. I am not giving up on running instead I have (as has Matt) decided to train for a duathlon. Yep biking and running. Matt is definitely doing this one, I am considering it, but 8.4 miles of mountain biking is a lot to me! I am training for the Duathlon For the Cure. If travel still isn’t in our future after those we are going to the beach.

2. Focus more on the first two R’s of Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. I didn’t know until I read this post that they are actually listed in order of importance. Matt and I have already made improvements in this area, but we are looking to do more. I have committed to only buying used or handmade clothing for myself (excluding undergarments) and will more than likely do the same for Tom and Jerry. Overall we will both work on just buying less, consider what we truly want and really need. Reusing is actually harder for me, my brain just doesn’t seem to think that way, but I am working on it, before I throw something out I try to think of any other possible uses for the item.

3. Make gardening, preserving, and making my own a priority. My little garden is growing more ever year, Matt is telling me I am out of space, but I don’t think so, I still want to add more. Having more home grown goodies will lead to a need for learning more preservation methods, so I can have home grown goodness all year long. As for making my own, I will continue to make my own bread and just started making my own yogurt (surprisingly easy).

4. Continue with my goals of 2008, mainly eating more vegetarian and wasting less! I would like to get down to less than 75 gallons per person per day of water. Continue eating just one to two meals that include meat a week.

I will keep you updated on my goals as I remember.