새해 복 많이 받으세요 Happy Lunar New Year!!

The year of the rabbit has commenced!

We celebrated with some traditional ddeokguk, paired with yakimandu and some radish and cucumber kimchi! Yummo!

I took lots of pictures since it was my first time making ddeokguk, which is rice cake soup, but I'll post all that tomorrow as I have about a million orders for my Etsy store to process before going out of town this weekend to, of all places in this weather, the beach!!

It's supposed to be nice and sunny, so I'm hoping to at least get some time with the kids playing in the sand!

In the meantime, read this great article about the Koreans and how they celebrate Lunar New Year!

새해 복 많이 받으세요 Happy Lunar New Year!!

Brrrr!!

I know no matter where you live across the US, you are cold!!!

But us hot blooded people down here in Texas do not do cold!

See that temperature?!?!? Too cold! (and yes, my car has 101K miles!)

You should not leave your dog bowls outside in weather like this...


and you should remember to turn of your sprinklers!

I wish I had a picture of the house I saw this morning with the grass, sidewalk, driveway and car, covered in ice and nothing else around it!! It was pretty funny!

We also don't own winter coats, because we just never use them.

So we just layer on our hooded sweatshirts for warmth!

Tights and Crocs work too!

Layers and color, layers and color! That's what it's all about!


This is about as winter-ed out as we get!

My favorite is the rolling black outs we've been having throughout the day to conserve energy from all the heaters running! Again, heaters aren't usually on here in Texas! I actually do remember before having kids, my husband and I didn't use the heater the entire winter!

And yes, I do still have a son, but he's always at school when I have my camera out!

He stayed warm too! With this weather expected, they did an extra receses at school on Monday since the rest of the week, they have to stay inside. Good thinking!

Everyone stay warm and safe!

Off to drink the rest of my cider!

A blogger funk.

Lately, I have felt like this blog needs a major overhaul!

Am I right?

Totally feeling like I'm in a blogger funk!

I used to have something to share or say every day, sometimes twice a day!

But not lately.

And I feel like I'm boring my 90 followers! (if you're still out there!)

Maybe our lives are just super boring right now!!

I must say there is a lot I wish I could share right this second, but I promise those things will get interesting!

I started this blog to catalog our adoption journey, my feelings on being an adult adoptee, and enjoying every day life with my family.

Have I accomplished that?!?!

So, I'll open it up to you...

what would you like to see on this blog?

More on our adoption journey and adoption in general?

More on my feelings about being an adult adoptee?

More pictures of my dogs?!?! (that's a joke.)

A Q&A?

More on parenting a crazy toddler?!?! (that's sort of a joke.)

More fun giveaways?

I am open to suggestions, any and all of them!

In the meantime, I am back to my crochet cave...

Two weeks ago I launched a brand new Etsy store, called Fresh Outta the Oven (or FOTO for short!) which features photography props for newborns!

I secretly wish I was a newborn photographer! I really think that is my dream job!

But since I'm not, I will live vicariously through the many, many fabulous photogs out there and help create those precious pictures!

It has been a lot of fun so far creating all these products and the store has been very busy since opening!

Click HERE to check it out!

The Bean Bin.

What to do with a bored two year old on a lazy afternoon?

Give her some beans and a bucket!

And maybe even some measuring cups!

And let her go to town!


It might get a little messy...

which is why this giant bin came in handy. :0)
Everybody fit quite nicely in there!

Bag of dry pinto beans=built in babysitter!

Happy Birthday Shiloh!

After finally realizing what the date was on this incredibly crazy, busy day, I remembered our sweet and fiesty little Shiloh turned one today!

She's gone from this:





To this:


She's crazy, hyper, in your face and jumpy, but she is the sweetest, most lovable little bagle (half beagle, half basset!) we know!

And yes, to those non-dog lovers...I really did just type an entire post to celebrate a dog's birthday. :0)

Some big news. No pun intended.

Well, I think it's big anyway.

You may not! Maybe it's just news!

You might remember me mentioning in a previous post that my dad and I started our New Year's diet two weeks ago and we have a bet going to see who can lose the largest percentage of weight by the end of June.

After two weeks, I am proud to say I am down 10 pounds! (and several inches)

I have a lot more to go, but truth be told, we are eating better now then we did before the diet! As in, better tasting and more of a variety and quality of food!

We drink two protein shakes a day, plus two protein bars as snacks and then eat super healthy, low carb, low fat for dinner. My dad is down 16 pounds!

We are using the same program that everyone in my family has probably used at least once, if not more! And it's also the program that everyone used to slim down for my wedding, where mostly everyone in my family was at their healthiest weight! (Well, except for me anyway, I was waaaaay too thin at my wedding! I had a size 4 dress that had to be altered! I'm not bragging, I'm just wishing I had that problem instead of my current one!)

Without getting too personal, because this is a bit of a touchy subject for me, my weight is something that I am super self conscious about. And have been for the past several years since having my son. Before that, I never had a weight issue. Ever. So this is all very new to me and I am still learning how to adjust. I know that I will never be the size 2 I was, but I actually don't really want to be. I know that sounds dumb, but now being both extremes in my life (too skinny and too heavy) I realize there is such a thing as too thin, and well, I was.

I must say that I don't really have a number in mind of where I would like to be or how much weight I want to actually lose. I throw numbers around sometimes, thinking it would be nice to be such and such, but really, I just want to be healthy, and feel good about myself. If I never fit into my wedding dress again, that's okay. (I don't need to, I'm already married!)

And maybe one of these days I'll start posting more pictures of myself on this blog!

So, there you have it. Some big news. Big to me anyway!

I'm still brainstorming on what the bet will be when I win in June! Any thoughts?!?!?

The Ever Popular DS.

Braedan got a N*intendo DS for Christmas and I tell you, this thing is pretty darn popular around our house!

Yes, I have been known on occassion to be playing it all by myself while the kids are napping or asleep, and yes, there was one night, that in all fairness, I couldn't sleep anyway, so I played DS till 4am.

And yes, I just admitted that!

Every time it gets turned on, Zoey is so interested, but she's the one person in the house we won't allow to play with it!

(This girl can break anything, even when you think it's unbreakable, so we've learned our lesson!)

She was particularly interested the other night when Braedan was playing and I just had to pull out my camera and capture her arm around her brother, watching ever so closely!

Big brother was not thrilled and according to him, she not only caused him to 'die' several times, she also licked his ear!

Yes, I believe it!





Let's just say he finally got fed up with it!!