SO.............. I think I will be awarded with the "Bad Mother of the Year"!!

All last week, Frank and I kept saying that lily sounded stuffed up, like she had a cold. She would even whistle through her nose! LOL
I tried to blow it, pick it, clean it, but to no avail. She still whistled!
She kept telling me that she "had a beetle in her nose", and I kept saying, "no you don't"!!

Finally on Thursday, we were out to lunch with her teacher and her daughter, and the daughter started to laugh and said , "look Lily put a rock in her nose!" I took a look and there was a bead, just at the entry of her nose.
I easily took it out and then gave the "Don't ever put things in your nose" danger speech.
The next day, in the truck, I could still hear her "whistling" 2 rows back! Then it dawn on me, she put 1 in there....maybe.......
well, I took out the flashlight, and after some cleaning, way way way up her nose, just on the verge of dropping into the sinus cavity, was a BIG CLEAR BEAD!
There was no way she could of blown this thing out, it was stuck!! All you could see was the little hole were the thread goes, and that is why she was whistling.
Even the Emergency room doctor didn't see it at first. After waiting 6 hours, with no supper, no nap, DVD out of batteries and now bedtime, she was so good for them! She just laid there, not moving a muscle, with her gluckie over her eyes, and with a tug, they were able to pull it out!
WHEW!!
What a day!!! Not one that I want to relive any time soon!!! I still can't believe that she had a bead up there for 1 week! Yup, Bad Mother of the Year award!! Should arrive anytime!

I thought I would stick in a couple of updates, since I have a minute waiting for the laundry to finish, before I hang it on the line.

The kitchen is slowly getting finished. The sink and taps are in, and so is the edging. At least we can use the kitchen now!
I've decided on a mosaic for the back of the stove.
Frank and I finished the mosaic, I drew it, Frank cut out the tiles, and I am putting them onto the board tonight.



We are calling it the "Tree of Life" The main tree has 2 leaves that represent the "Parents" and 4 of the branches coming off main stem have a small "Plum", that represent each child. I'll post a picture of the completed one, I thought I had one, but I guess I haven't taken it off the camera. yet.

Lily's last day of preschool was last Thursday. I had her all dolled up, but she absolutely refused to wear the matching hat with the outfit! What a little bugger, she thought it was so funny!

Here are some of the tiles that will be used as accents on my back splash in my kitchen. The bottom right picture is a mosaic that Frank did for the apartment for the entry way. I really like it and would like to do a similar thing on the back splash behind my stove.
I like that the "plum tree" has plums, one for each child.
But I'm not sure the mosaic "tree" would match the rest of the tiles. I do want a mosaic pattern there, maybe I should just re-create one of the tiles? But I want to have something almost hidden, that represents the 4 children.
Any suggestions??



Here a picture of the tiles. They are Terra Cotta 12x12 on the counter, and 6x6 on the back splash. Here we laid the back splash down on the counter for the photo.

This is a picture of the edging of my under mount sink. It is about 16 of those tiles long.

Here is a mess of tiles, laid out trying to figure what the heck I'm going to do with them.
I like those Cocopelli guys, but not sure I'll use them.

You need to go and visit my friend Tammy's blog!! She just received her son, Evan!
Oh he is so sweet!!

Too bad she couldn't visit Hanlin while she is in China!! ;) Ohh man do I ever miss him!

What is with this kid and things on her head???

UPDATE

This is what I found out today:

Yes, as far as we know, our file is still in Department#1 (our agency isn't notified when it moves from #1 to #2).

Once it moves to Dept #2, it can be there from 4 to 6 weeks, then our Letter seeking Confirmation is issued. We sign it, the province and our agency does something to it, then back to CCAA. Again another 4 to 6 weeks.
From there our Travel Approval will be sent, and we can travel a few weeks after that.

So.........will be TRAVELING in late September/ early October. If we count the weeks, (guessing weeks of course..) it would be October 1st, but we all know how the CCAA works.

The "high" season is over October 15, so Frank would like to travel October 16th! LOL

I know this isn't huge news... but for us it is a huge relief to be able to stay, "no not this summer, early fall for sure" when people ask. Now if CCAA need more paper work, I don't have to run like a mad woman getting it to Ontario, now we can "make plans" with the kids, check out places we want to visit with the kids while in china, do a count-down, save money, send another care package.....

and just generally.......breathe...............

On another note, no new pics of the kitchen yet, as they are working on the plumbing today, and those pics are quite boring. (and my dad told me to stop taking so many pictures!!LMAO) He said it might capture one of his mistakes! ;)

SO?? How do you think we are spending our time while we are waiting for our coveted letter from CCAA?

WELL.....................

We are spending time with wonderful friends!!!!!!!!!!
*** Shelia and XZ *** Thank you for coming to visit us! It was so wonderful to see you and you really cheered me up!! Thanks! ***********

AND
we decided to do a major kitchen reno!

Goodbye old yucky counter tops and sink

Hello new under mount sink and terracotta tiles!
Welcome home!

I'll post more pics tomorrow as the works progresses!
Stay tuned.....

sigh.............

Holy dear god..... time is crawling by .....
so slow, why so slow!!!

We are at 2 months, 2 weeks, and 3 days... (not that I'm counting)

COME ON CCAA GET THE PAPER WORK DONE ALREADY!!!!!

We haven't heard if Hanlin's care package has arrived in China yet... should be any day now.