It is on its WAY!!!!

I got a phone call half an hour ago from the senator's secretary that my visa has been APPROVED!!!

Yippee!

It is in the mail tomorrow morning so my guess is that it will be here earliest Thursday. Probably Friday. :) I hope to be in Pocatello by the weekend!

We Love the Library

For the last month of the summer the kids and I have gone to the library once a week. It has been so much fun to introduce one of my favourite places to my kids. My aunt made Emily the cutest library bag because Emily wanted to go to "school". She carries it into the library puts her books in the return slot and heads to the kids section. She loved picking out a few movies the last time we were there as well. I have noticed that both she and Collin will grab the bag and read "their books." Especially the Dora the Explorer board book. Collin loves it. He now says: map, backpack, Dora (Dodo), camera, squeeze, bucket, Swimper; all because they are in his favourite book. Today I watched him bring me the book, Emily intercept and tell Collin she will read him the book. She sat with him and summerized each page with him watching enthralled. It was very cute!

No Visa

No Visa. I had talked myself into thinking it was coming today.

Maybe tomorrow.

How to Pass the Time so you don't give up...

Every day that passes with no visa arriving, my upbeat outlook loses a little bit of steam. Today I'm pretty much done. Landon and I have even talked about what happens if they don't give me the visa.

But I have tried to stay upbeat for the kids and here are some of the fun things we have done to try and pass the time.

Emily came in with a handful of dandelions for me. She was so excited that all her flowers bloomed outside. :) Its been so hot that my dad hasn't had to mow the lawn because it hasn't grown. But two days of small rain showers and suddenly their is a field of dandelions. We went outside and played in them.

Later we went to Donkersley Beach and played while my mom visited with a friend nearby. My kids love the beach. Emily likes to draw a circle around someone and "trap" them. You can't move until she "erases" the lines. They both loved running into and out of the water as the waves came up. I have some video that I will try and upload later.

Outdoor Movie = Fun

Our credit union in town does a movie night under the stars for everyone in town once every summer. Tuesday they hosted "How To Train Your Dragon." Emily was so excited to go! She even went down for a nap without too much fuss because she knew she would have to stay home. I love the atmosphere of having around 2000+ people get together to watch a movie in a field. The money made from the concession this year went to Therapeutic Riding Association which I am a big fan of so that was a plus. Emily was terrified of the two mascots of the credit union. I have never seen her so scared. One is "Super Savor" so he is a guy who looks like a superhero. The other is an eagle. Both have big smiles on their faces but they are costumes (like the A&W Bear.) Serena sought us out through the crowd so Emily was quite excited to have "her Serena" with her. Matt and Ashley were also there and Ashley was nice enough to let Emily sit with her as I ran to the concession to get Twizzlers. I was able to see a few people that I haven't see in awhile. All were surprised to see me still here. :) The movie started once it got dark enough (around 9pm). My mom ended up taking Collin to the car and drove him around till he went to sleep. He just wanted to run around, not so good once it got dark. Emily kept pointing up into the sky and trying to count the stars. Good memories. I love summer evenings.

Going to school

Emily comes in this morning to tell me good bye she is going to school. She says she has her mirror and she has to go. She come back a few minutes later and tells me that she is back. Then she says she needs to go back to school to read a book. I told her that if she is going to school then she might want to change out of her pajamas. She told me no. Maybe she will take after her mom who did wear her pjs to high school a couple of times a week...

Nailpolish and the bathtub

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you dumped a bottle of bright pink nail polish in the bathtub?

Emily has answered that long standing question for you...

It stains EVERYTHING.

Including herself, her little brother and the bath tub.

I came running when Collin started screaming. When I first came in I thought that they were covered in blood. Then I saw the empty bottle. Emily had already climbed out of grandma and papa's bathtub. I told her stand in the shower until I cleaned Collin off. He was in the process of rubbing his eyes. I quickly grabbed paper towel and nail polish remover to get it off his hands. Then I wiped it off his eye brow which made him scream and I was worried that I had gotten the remover in his eye. So I flushed it with water and used water soaked paper towel to get it off his face. Luckily that worked. Two days later he still has a little pink tinge to his right eyebrow. I cleaned both Collin and Emily off and then surveyed the damage to the tub. I should add that my parents had to wait till we all moved away so that they could build their dream bathroom. It is gorgeous. And now their beautiful tub was pink. Due to it being dumped into the water and then the water drained, lots of it rinsed away. (If Emily hadn't opened the drain the cleanup would have been much easier.) I called my dad to ask what I should use. (My parents had just left so that my mom could drop my dad off at the ferry because he had to leave on business for the federal United Way for a couple of days.) He told me that he was sure only acetone would take it off and that would take the finish off of the tub as well so when he got back he would call someone to come and refinish the bath tub. Not cool. So since the remover I had was acetone free I spent the next 35 minutes scrubbing out a bathtub with it. Problem was that Collin did not have a diaper on so I had to clean up messes of number 1 and 2 while cleaning out the tub. Oh the joy. After 35 minutes, a bottle of remover used up, a massive headache from the fumes, soaked in sweat from the wonderful heat and humidity and the bathtub was mostly cleaned out. A light pink color was on the bottom but I was out of remover. As I was finishing my mom got home. She said it looked like the finish was gone but hopefully it would be covered under home insurance. I wasn't too happy with my daughter. But on inspection the next day after my mom bought a new bottle of remover and got rid of the last of the pink we think that the finish is still there. My dad will have to be the judge of it when he gets home tonight.

Now you know the answer to the age old question of nailpolish in the bathtub. And now I can mostly laugh about it. I wish I could say my daughter has learned her lesson but only this morning she stole grandma's good felts and drew circles on the outside of the basement door.

Life is definitely not boring with Emily around.

(No pictures because I was in panic mode and my camera batteries are dead and the charger for them is in Idaho. Did I say lately how much I love living out of a suitcase?)

Big Sisters

Matt would appreciate this entry.

I have maybe seen an example of how he remembers his childhood...

Emily and Collin were racing a couple of days ago. Collin started to pull ahead so Emily lightly hip checked him. Unfortuneately not too unsual since Emily has decided she must win at everything. (Don't know where that is coming from... Really!) Usual Collin will stumble and get back up. This time he fell hard, and started to scream. I came running into my parents tv room to find Collin laying on his back, blood on his forehead and a goose egg rapidly growing. From the straight line of broken skin my guesses are that he fell into the edge of the door, edge of the wall, or the one piece of unfinished moulding on the floor. My mom grabbed Collin and some ice and immediately started putting in on his head with a wet cloth over the freezie. I ran to get some tylenol for the headache I knew would be on its way. The blood stopped quickly but the goose egg kept growing until it was over an inch. I felt sick to my tummy. Collin kept screaming because he did not want the ice on his head or the tylenol. Emily was quite sad and I brought her in once Collin stopped screaming. She kept saying she was sorry. By the next morning and even today he has a scab and a little bruise. (Side note: We didn't end up going to the hospital due to the three visits I had taken to the emergency with Emily over goose eggs. I always ended up being sent home before seeing a doctor and told to watch for signs of a concussion. So we watched for the signs and saved ourselves a two hour wait in the emergency room.) My dad and Matt gave Collin a blessing as well.

If I had been hoping that this was just a random act than my hopes were blown the next day BEFORE LUNCH. I walk in to see both of my kids looking behind the couch for all the toys that Stephen has put back there. They are both leaning too far for my liking. As I start to tell them to sit back down I watch as Emily looks over at Collin and lifts his foot an inch higher with her foot. And over he went. Luckily lots of the toys were stuffed animals and no more damage was done to the still existing head wound! Yeah she didn't even ask to come out of time out after that. She sat quietly in her chair and waited for me.

As I have talked with a few other people there seems to be a pattern I am finding. All of the people have one or more older siblings (boy and girl). They all have memories of the older siblings doing something to them. I am hoping it is a stage. The part I don't get is that none of the acts have been done maliciously. She thinks she is being in funny and is sad when Collin starts to cry.

(And don't get me started about the trampoline. Needless to say they do not jump on it together anymore.)

I hope I survive my children's childhood. Matt - I am truly sorry for my behaviour growing up. I believe you now.

A mouse in the fridge?

Yesterday Collin comes walking into the tv room grinning from ear to ear. In his hands is the block of cheese from the fridge. With bite marks in it. It seems a very large mouse was hungry and ate the cheese in my mom's fridge. It had rather large teeth.... :)

Forgiveness

This little video has touched me so deeply. I now need to relook at a few of my actions and put them more in line with what the Saviour would like me to do.
Please click here to see an inspiring story of forgiveness.