Hoping to Adopt

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Perhaps you noticed the new button I added on the right side over there? It is for my very sweet-more-delightful than I can say sister-in-law and her husband.

They are waiting to adopt their very own angel baby. Oh. Oh. Oh! I cannot wait for that baby to get here! Okay, I know it's not about me, but I just want that little bundle of niece or nephew SO badly. I want to crochet booties gosh darn it! We all do.

Well, Ellie, actually, is slightly against the new and as yet unknown baby...because right now when her lovely Aunt and Uncle arrive they always come bearing presents and patience.

Patience to teach her to ice skate (Troy), and curl her hair (Becca). Patience for marathon long board games (both of them), and midnight movie premiers (Becca). They will play hide and seek and jump on the trampoline and read stories past bedtime.

It's fine, I know I rank way lower on the funometer. I just wish adoption was faster...I think I could be the fun aunt.

Maddie and Katie are excited though, they want to spoil a cousin the way their Aunt Becca spoiled them the whole time they were growing up.

So if you know a brave birth mother who is looking for the perfect parents, please tell them about our Becca and Troy. They are kind, smart, fun, talented, and devoted to each other.

What can I say more than that if anything happens to us, Marc and I would be honored to have them parent our children?

Bad Monday

I don't love Monday. It means laundry and groceries and recovering the house from the weekend. It means another week away from my sweetheart. This particular Monday will include a trip to the store to exchange Jonathan's new shoes with the soles coming off which I find annoying.

I wish I could write like CJane who is thoughtful.

I wish I could write like Shawni who is inspiring.

I wish I could write like Kacy who is funny.

But all I want to do is go back to bed, and instead I have to make it!

Healthy Cookies?

One of my less favorite parts of back to school is back to school lunches. I always wonder what parts of the lunch my kids actually eat and what parts they are throwing away; I think they eat the cookies.

Actually, I'm pretty sure they eat the cookies.

So instead of sending them with chips ahoy and nutter butters, which we love but know are full of nasty chemicals and whatnot, I decided to try to make a healthier cookie.

They came out so good I thought I'd share. These are actually tips I got from my cousin Lori who is a favorite vendor at the San Francisco Underground market for her delicious and ubber healthy energy bars and cookies. Click here for her website.

Okay, so here's what I did, using my regular chocolate chip cookie recipe as a guide:

1. Substituted 1/2 of the four with whole wheat flour. Lori said whole wheat pastry flour from Whole Foods is the best, but I just used what I had.

2. Substituted 1/2 the butter with Smart Balance.

3. Substituted 1/2 the white sugar with Xylosweet.

And that's it. I just mixed these up and the kids all ate their dough samples without noticing any difference. If all goes well I'll increase the "healthy" substitutions. I also followed a recipe that has oatmeal in it.

And yes, I do realize the better parenting option would be to teach my kiddos that they don't actually need a cookie in their lunches, but I like to lead by example and I'm not ready to go there!

Looks Like We Made It

Last month Marc and I celebrated our 20th anniversary. We spent a week in Playa del Carmen...*wistful sigh*...it was perfect.

We swam with giant sea turtles.

Visited Chichen Itza.

Snorkled through Dos Ojos, some amazing caves, or "cenotes."

Visted Tulum

Zip lined over a lagoon and canoed back across it.

Scootered around Cozumel.

Snorkled off the beach and around beautiful lagoon.

Ate copious amounts of shrimp tacos, ceviche, chips and salsa, fish.

Got massages on the beach.

Relaxed.

Shopped.

Slept.

Swam.

and kissed.

It was perfect. Dear Marc, I love you more than ever.

Make a digital slideshow

The Mormon Trek

There are certain pictures that it would be a true shame to miss posting. I speak, of course,of trek.

This is a particularly Mormon activity where the teenagers dress up as pioneers and reenact the journey that the Mormon pioneers made from Illinois to Utah. They spend the long weekend pushing handcarts, sleeping under the stars, and learning about what the early pioneers endured to secure their religious freedom.

My own little pioneers. Love these girls!

The kids have to take turns carrying live chickens in crates, flour sack "babies" and each other when they are marked as "injured or sick." Heh, heh. I know. It's a wonderful character building experience. It still makes me laugh.

Maybe it's because James, one of their amazing youth leaders, had all of the girls convinced they would have to kill and eat the chickens if they wanted any food and that there were no latrines along the trail they would be walking. You should have heard those girls scream. Heh, heh...I love being a mom.

There are some advantages to lolling around as an invalid all week:

Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross = very good

and

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier = very very good