tick, tick, tick

That my friends is my maternal clock ticking away. I know what you're thinking "But Mandi, you already have three kids."I know, crazy right!!!  Its really a strange feeling and most days I don't understand it. I always thought we would have three or four kids. Well I always thought that until I had two little ones at home that left me feeling completely overwhelmed. I will even go so far as to say that finding out we were pregnant for the third time wasn't the most exciting news at the time. The strange part is that having Laney and bringing another person into our family is actually what "planted the seed" as it were to having another one. Laney was only a couple of months old when I told Ben that I wanted to have another baby. At first he was really convinced that I was joking. My pregnancies were not easy, preterm labor started around 31 weeks with all of our children. I would spend the last six to seven weeks of each pregnancy on lots of meds to stop the contractions that came every 3-5 minutes. Then after many trips to the hospital they were all born at 37 weeks. Ben seems to have a much better memory of how miserable I was in those last few weeks before my babies were born. I on the other hand, seem to forget almost everything within weeks of giving birth. 

I am almost 100% certain that I will not be having anymore babies. It would take an act of God (which was pretty much what Laney was, so I know they happen) for me to get pregnant again. But my whole life I have thought that I would be one of the lucky women that adopted a sweet baby into my family. Its something I have talked about since Ben and I got married years ago. I'm pretty sure that he thought it was something that would go away after having our own children. But it hasn't, quite the opposite has happened. My internal nudge has been growing for some time now. I am lucky enough to have friends that have recently gone thru the international adoption process. They're beautiful son Josh is home with them now after a very long three year process. I feel like everywhere I turn God is reminding me that this is the path he has chosen for us. I don't know when our journey will start (some time after Ben actually has a new job) but we know now that it will. So for now the waiting begins, not because of any government agency (not yet at least). But just waiting for when we are where we should be in our life to start our adoption pregnancy. 

So for now... tick, tick, tick... I continue to listen.

The end of an era...

Some days it feels like our time in the Navy is flying by. Other days, well not so much. But this past weekend was on of those times that reminds us that it will all soon be over. Every year for the past 7 years Ben and I have been going to the Submarine Birthday Ball. Its kind of a big deal for us submariners. It gives us a chance to get really really dressed up and drink really really expensive drinks while enjoying a lack luster 75.00 meal. Now you would think from all this that we dont enjoy going, but did I mention that we get to get all dressed up? This year was better then some. Ben is no longer on a boat, so its not near the fun that it used to be. For the most part being on a boat is a lot like belonging to family and just like families, some wardrooms (what the group of officers on a submarine are called) are better then others. 

Being on shore duty left us with only one other couple to hang out with. So the evening ended kind of early. Which was fine since my camera battery died ten minutes before the whole thing started. Thank goodness some one asked if Ben and I had gotten a picture together yet. We got three and that was the end of picture taking for the evening. I would have been really bummed if it would have been a super exciting evening with no pics to show for it. Leave it to me to just have to have an extra battery and then forget it at home. Oh well, I did remember the camera! 

I guess next year I'll have to come up with a new reason to buy a fancy dress and new shiny shoes! 

PS. Sara if you thought the red ones were high, you should have seen the silver ones! Oh how I love shoes...

I'm George, not Georgie Mom!

So my baby boy is now 4 years old. When did that happen? I look at these pictures of him from when we first got out here and have no idea where the time has gone. He was only 3 months old when we moved into this house. He has learned how to crawl, walk, and talk in this house. He went from a playpen (which the poor boy had to sleep in for like two months till I found the "perfect" crib), to a crib (one I settled on from Wal-Mart after the "perfect" one never showed up) that would soon become a toddler bed because he hated being confined to a crib and now to his really big boy bed. He loves everything sports or race car related. Not to mention the wicked straight fastball he has been able to throw since he was about 18 months. Ben and I have both suffered a couple of ping pong size balls smack between the eyes. That hurts, really hurts. 

Now he is ready to go to school, loves wearing his crocs and will not go to sleep at night without me tucking him in. Some nights it would be nice to not have to be the one to do it. To just be able to take a break from the whole bedtime routine would be so nice, but then I remember that all to soon he will be slamming his door in my face and telling me that he cant stand me. 

So for now, I love my little cuddle bug and it will tuck him and let him carry that stupid whoopse around for as long as he wants. I love you Georgie. Oops, he just reminded me again "I'm George not Georgie, Mom." 

Things they are a changin...

Sorry about all the changes guys, but everyone thought my blog name was "Life is just a bowl of Cherries". That just came with the last header, so I thought I would change things up a bit. New beautiful pics of the kids coming soon!!!!

In search of a prince...

Carolina has always been an animal lover. I am completely confident that she will one day have a job in either the environmental/zoological fields. She loves to be outside and she loves everything from Roley-pollies to earthworms. There is no such thing as to gross to touch, believe me if you have been reading my blog for long you know there is NOTHING to gross to touch in the animal world. If you haven't been keeping up with our blog check out this post to see what I mean. 

So when Lina told us she had found a frog we weren't surprised when she said she wanted to keep it. The frogs around here are tiny and fast so they are pretty hard to get your hands on. Well I guess for anyone except our little reptile whisperer. Carolina actually has a history with frogs. When she was 9 months old we had just moved into our house in GA, I mean really just moved in boxes every where just moved in. Ben had to go out to sea so I decided to take Carolina down to see my Grandmother. I put Carolina in her room with the baby gate up so that I could load the bags in the car. As I was walking back and forth past her room I noticed her chewing on something. At the time she loved to pull the paper tags off of anything and eat them. She was a paper eater to the max!!! I couldn't keep it out of her mouth. So I just assumed that she had found a tag and was eating it, I wasn't concerned. When I went into get her I decided it was time for her to spit it out. So doing like she was told she spit it out right into my hand. Only it wasn't paper... IT WAS FROG JERKY!!!! All we could guess was that when the movers brought the boxes in it must have been stuck to the bottom of one of them! OMG it was so freaking gross. I immediately called the Doctor (who laughed at me) and told me she would be fine. Then I called my mom (who laughed at me) and then told me that it was really gross but that if the doctor said she would be fine she was sure she would be fine. Then she processed to call her froggie for the next two years!

Here she is showing her love for the reptiles once again. I guess you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find Mr. Right. Hopefully we have a decade or two before it works. 

We have found a home...

Okay, I know what your thinking and no we have not been looking for a post Navy house and already found one. That would be silly we still have 192 days to go (not that we're counting or anything) before we can tell the Navy goodbye. But after 4 very long years of trying to find a "perfect" church fit and feeling very much outside of the fellowship we so desperately needed, we have found one. There have been many things working against us up here. Ben and I enjoy a more contemporary church which tend to be more nondenominational. Also the Navy hasn't made it easy on us. Getting three kids up and dressed and out the door on Sunday morning is a task with two people, let alone when Ben is out to sea and I have to do it myself. Its even harder to motivate yourself to do when you don't really feel that "click" with the church you are going to. Add to that a very anti-social baby and you have a recipe for disaster. Laney has always had issues with social situations and church was a bad one. Even as a baby, there was no "getting over it" she would just scream and scream until she was back safely with Mom or Dad. We now think that things might be improving because she usually has either her brother or her sister in the room with her. We started at Cornerstone on Easter Sunday and loved what a small quaint church is was. Laney made it through the whole service so I decided to try out a bible study the following Wednesday and she did great!!! Either that or the women in the nursery can see that I need a break to be in the word and are lying in to me ;) We have been back two times since then and even got to go to a welcome lunch to meet almost everyone from the church. It was awesome and a new peace seems to be placed on my heart. We have tried so hard to nurture our relationship with God even without a home church, but hearing his word and sharing in it with other Christians really has been something that has been missing in our lives. I'm sad to say that it is just another thing we will be leaving behind up here. But I must say that as always God's timing is perfect. There couldn't have been a better time in our lives to lead us to this new place of worship for Him. I feel so blessed to see miracles by Him all the time and I really do feel like He wanted to remind us that He is watching out for us in this time of huge changes in our lives and that He is in control of everything. We are so blessed to know His love!!!! 

'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. 'Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 'You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. 'I will be found by you,' declares the LORD...

Jeremiah 29:11-14

Its that time of the week again.

I am way behind on my posting and reading up on blogs. I would love to tell y'all a really funny great story about how super busy I have been, but to be honest besides going to see Beth Moore this past weekend (which was awesome by the way and will be covered in another post) I haven't been up to much. My drawing class keeps plugging along, slowly... I had to draw a large piece of furniture and I decided I might try my hand at a drawing the large leather chair in our living room using only the charcoal stick. I tried the charcoal stick in one of the other drawings and didn't really like it, but I think I've finally figured it out. 

Anyways, since I posted my other drawings I thought I would put this one up here to. Let me know what you think!