Rain, Rain and more Rain!!!

I tried really hard to document the rain we are getting because it is so darn unusual for us. It has been pouring and pouring for days now. Yesterday we had to drive quite a bit to look at some used roller hockey equipment for the boys and we literally drove through 3 or 4 hail storms. We had thunder, lightening, hail and in the mountains we have a ton of snow. It has been so unusual for us so here is my pitiful attempt to take pictures from inside the house.

From our back door. You cant tell from the picture but our pool is overflowig. The lines in the concrete directs the water to the drains so you cant tell it is overflowing but it was.

You can kind of tell the water pouring off the roof in this picture. Totally pouring off the house. It came so fast that we didn't have enough time to take the patio cushions in the shed so they are still out there getting rained on.

This is our front patio in front of our house. Here you can see the rain pouring off the house.

Cant tell very well here but here is the hockey net Kevin made the boys. They literally play hockey everyday after school. They love it and are on a youth hockey league about 2 miles from our house. I am so glad we added this concrete area as it is very well used!!!

Play Area and Deals

I just realized this post that I posted this morning was my 501 post on my blog. WOW has time flown by!! The blog started when we were waiting for Mia-- a month or two before we got our referral-- and has turned into something much more than I ever imagined. Kind of an online scrap book. I love blogging and I enjoy all the wonderful people I meet along the way. Blogging has truly blessed my life.

So happy 501 posts to me--lol!!!!

The other day after we were done at the dentist with Owen Mia and I met auntie Cassie at the mall play area for Mia to play. It was a warm beautiful day so we took advantage of the nice conditions.

This slide is totally steep but Mia has no fear! Other moms always freak out watching her go down but she does a great job and as soon as she hits the bottom she runs back up to go down again. Brave little thing!!

And she's off!!

I love how she walks with her hands behind her back. It is so cute and she does it all the time.


Spinning and spinning!!

Getting ready to go!

Love her in this little outfit!

I was on my way home from work last Thursday and my friend Suzanne from church left me a message that CROCS- as in the shoes-- had moved into a closed store out by our house and they were having a clearance warehouse sale. Basically they had a TON of inventory and they were just liquidating it for next to nothing. Crocs of all kinds (mary janes, kids, adults etc) and styles were either $5 or $10. It was crazy!!! Also, Crocs makes clothes and they are really nice quality. They had all their shirts for men and woman (not much kid stuff but I was able to buy Ethan a men's medium and Owen a small-- pretty big but I will save them for next school year) but these nice shirts were regular price anywhere from $22 to $58 and they were $3 each. Yes you read right $3 each. I went crazy. I bought a ton of shirts for the boys and a ton for Kevin. They are really nice quality and I know they will wash well and best of all they were next to free-- holy cow $3!!!!

So here is the loot-- some of it-- not all

Here are all Mia' s summer crocs including a lavender sandal that is so darn cute. I bought each boy a new pair as well. They each already have a couple pairs. Notice the bag of jibs (little decorative things that go in croc holes). The jibs were $.25 each. I bought a ton of them because they are usually $5+ each. I got Disney ones for Mia and official hockey ones for the boys. I got so many and paid only $1 for 4-- love it!!

Here are some of the boys shirts I bought. Some had already been taken upstairs but here is a sampling. Notice the silver mary jane crocs on my feet. I bought myself a pair because they were $5 and how could I resist? I don't wear crocs often but they will be cool outside around the pool this summer.

Here are most of the shirts I bought Kevin. They look great on him and are wonderful quality-- $3 I swear it is crazy but really only $3!!!

So that was my excitement last Thursday. Kevin thought I was crazy for taking pictures of the loot but I thought my frugal bloggy friends would appreciate my find!!

Have a great week!!!

More Little Camera Fun!!

One thing I found on my little camera was a video of Ethan performing in his 5th grade play. He is the one in the green shirt that says Jack. He has speaking parts but then he sings a solo and actually is really on key-- he did such a great job. Don't bother listening to the whole song but Ethan's solo is at the very beginning so check out his great performance.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Remember when Owen broke off his permanent front tooth this past summer? It was bonded back on but sadly he bumped it in the perfect place last Friday and knocked the piece off. Our dentist couldn't fix it till this past Tuesday (he was out of town) so here are the lovely pictures from Owen and Mia at the dentist office.

Yes, very difficult to control a 2 year old from climbing on the cool equipment.

Chillin with the bro

And the cute smile picture-- Owen's tooth is not fixed in this pic but now that is is fixed it looks amazing. They did a great job and it looks totally natural. They didn't use the old piece of tooth (like before) but they created a tooth piece out of the bonding material and it looks great!!

Just kind of a cute profile picture of the chick!

And last but certainly not least, My pal Beverly over here nominated me for the "Fabulous Blog" award and I thank her so much for this award. I think her blog is also Fabulous as well!!

The next part of the award is to nominate others who I think are Fabulous.

First is Kim because I just love this amazing mommy!!

Next is Christie because I think she is amazing and I envy what she is up to right now-- you go you thrifty thing!!!

And to Rachel who always makes me laugh with her current daughters hat craze!!

And Tanya who is one of my Disneyland pals whose blog is always a joy to read.

And finally Kacy who is just an inspirational person whom I love!

There are just so many others who have private blogs and others whom I follow all the time I would love to nominate but I only can do the 5. Thanks again Bev for nominating me!!

Random Little Camera Pictures

I have a little Canon Digital Elph camera that I leave in my purse at all times. When we are out and about and I feel an urge to take a picture, I pull it out. Of coarse the quality does not compare with my Nikon but it is a good tiny camera to have around all the time. Anyway, I don't get around to downloading the pics very often so when I do, I always have a bunch of random pics-- but they are cute so I want to post them-- but they are random.

So, here are some random pictures for your enjoyment.

In honor of Chinese New Year Mia wore her traditional Chinese dress to Church. I totally forgot to take any pictures of her in the outfit until after church and lunch. So she is a little dirty in these pictures but she still looks cute!!

Our Chinese little princess!! By the way she loved wearing the dress and kept spinning around (not the best dress for that) as she is doing in this picture.

The other day we were playing with Mia's hair and decided to "try" little pigtails on top. I think they are totally cute but I am not sure I am ready to put her in this style-- I love her clips too much. This was a very remedial try at the pigtails. I need to learn how to do girl hair-- I'm not too skilled at this point.

And the low pigtails-- cute!!

So I made Chinese food last week (had to point that out :) and this is how Mia ends up everyday in her high chair. It is as if this is comfy for her. She is the most flexible kid I have ever seen. She can completely do the splits (middle splits) without even trying. She literally can bend herself in the most freaky positions and I don't think she is double jointed so I'm not sure what to thing-- crazy!!

Do we have the next Olympic Gymnastics champion on our hands??

More random pictures coming soon.

CNY Lunch and the Park!!

I wanted to let you all know I got the results of the MRI and everything looks good. So, it appears the headaches are associated more with the iron than anything else. It blows me away how many things hinge on the iron in my blood-- wow!!

As promised I got the pictures of our adoption group "The Lucky Mommas" Chinese New Year lunch with the kids. We had just a great time and loved our time together. 

Here is beautiful Becky eating her food

Ryan looked so handsome in his traditional garb!

Karen and Kailee looked beautiful as always!!

Mia's half attempt at a smile :)

Ryan and his mommy Michelle had so much fun!

The first attempt at a group shot

Mia and Ryan

Another attempt at a group shot

This picture had horrible color but it looked great when I turned it to sepia.

After our lunch we went to a park near by that Michelle takes Ryan to all the time. It was a fun little park with great toys for the kids to play on.

Beautiful Kailee getting ready to go down the slide

Mia getting ready to go down the slide

And shes off!!!

Becky took her turn at the slide as well

Miss Georgianna loved the teeter totter

Kailee enjoyed it as well 

Swings are fun as well

Little sweet thing

I didn't get many pictures of Ryan at the park because he was so on the go and is such a boys boy-- digging in the sand-- jumping on any little ledge--  he is all boy!!!

Georgie enjoyed eating the wood chips-- yummy- fiber!

Karen and Becky on the teeter totter

Mia loved going up and down as fast as she could

Mia and Kailee having fun

We had a great time and I so appreciate my group of Lucky Mamma's!!!!

Missing in action

Sorry for both my lack of blogging but also my lack of commenting on my blogger friends sites. I really feel like a horrible friend but I just have not had the energy to go online at all-- really I swear I have hardly been online since last week-- but also I have been kind of busy and every second I get to lay down I am trying to take advantage of that time.

FYI I had my MRI on Thursday night and holy cow did that suck. I totally thought it was lay in a tube and put earphones on and listen to music-- not a chance. It was like they found the loudest station they could and then cranked the volume as high as it would go and then played static in pulses and long riffs for the next 25 minutes. I had no idea what to expect and no one told me to expect what I did so I must say I hated every minute of that test. Oh ya, and one second before they shove you in this tube with the loudest pulsating static noise you have ever heard begins, they tell you that you cannot move or it will screw up the test-- oh sure-- that's fine-- I can hold still and not have any itches while my whole body is pulsating and tingling due to the crazy loud magnetic field pulsating through my brain. Oh that was easy!!! Anyway, I made it out of the tube with very little movement after 25 minutes and tried not to fall asleep while I drove home at 10pm. Lovely!!! I should get the MRI results tomorrow and hopefully it will be fine.

With regards to the other tests, as I mentioned all the liver indicator tests were normal and I got the abdominal ultrasound results back and everything seemed to be normal. They said that I have on the large size (not out of normal limits but on the larger side of normal) spleen but that was about it. Liver was OK and all other stuff was good. Glad to hear that!! So, it is looking like my headaches and exhaustion and other ailments are pretty much due to the lack iron- hence a lack of oxygen moving through my body because there is no iron to transport it. I knew I needed iron but holy cow I didn't realize how much I had to have it in order to function. Just a quick recap, iron is supposed to be between like (I'm pulling this out of my head so I may be a few numbers off) 55 to 155 and my iron was a 4. A 4!!! That is like non existent!! I called the pharmacist that use to send me all my pills way back after gastric bypass and I told him my levels and he was shocked and horrified and was surprised I was actually functioning. Needless to say my pills will be here tomorrow! I guess it all caught up with me now and now I have no choice to take my pills. I tell you, I rather take a handful of horse pills than to feel the way I have been feeling. I cant wait to get back to the old me that actually has energy and is not having to pop Excedrin's to take the headache away 5 times a day.

Sorry for the long update but thought I would let you know where my health currently is. I will let you know the results of the MRI tomorrow.

The other thing is I have some cute pictures I have yet to download but I met my adoption moms group on Friday in Anaheim Hills at a wonderful Chinese restaurant. We dressed all the kids in their Chinese garb and sat around a large round table. It was great and we had a blast. After we went to the park and let the kids play. I have a ton of pics I will hopefully post tomorrow. I tell you, I love having this wonderful group of moms and kids. They have soooo blessed my life!!

Have a great week and I will post pics soon!!!