This is what 35 looks like.

I woke up at age 35 with Hannah climbing on top of me. I pretended to still be asleep, hoping she'd decide to rest her head on the pillow next to me so I could lay in bed for another 30 minutes. Then the little squeaky voice whispered, "Mama, is it your birthday now?" I replied yes with my eyes closed.  She excitedly whispered more loudly, "Then you'll be five!" I opened my eyes land laughed.  Love that kid!  Kevin cooked us breakfast, and we eventually got out the door for a day of shopping and eating out.


    Checking out the used Wii games section at Game Stop.Picking out all of the Disney Princess, Dora, Diego, and Ballerina games to show to Daddy. This is what "like father, like daughter" looks like.    We had a fun day eating out, being together in the sunshine, and doing a little shopping. RETURNED all of the warm weather clothing in size 18 months that I had recently purchased for Hudson and purchased a few 2T short sleeved polo shirts and a shorts set at Old Navy and Target.    French fries, chicken strips, lemonade, and a play place for lunch.Knocking over a cup over and over on purpose to be funny.This is what happy looks like.
  Not working out or counting calories on my birthday.Love in my eyes as Hannah takes my picture with my iPhone.This is what 35 looks like.    A long fun day with Mama and Daddy and falling asleep in the car on the way home.Exclaiming "But I'm not tired!" when we wake her up to do potty and jammies before bed.This is what tired looks like. Feeling very blessed on my birthday.  Thanks to all of my friends for the well wishes today.

birthday present for me - a Hudson update!

On my birthday eve we received an email with SEVEN photos of Hudson.  He is a big boy!  At fifteen months he is 81cm and 13kg.  After reading the email on my phone at work, I'm doing the math and realizing that he's two pounds heavier than Hannah!  Tonight I broke out the CDC growth chart and realized that's over the 90th percentile for weight at 75th for height.  Going to have to take back the 18th month things that I just bought at Old Navy for him!  Hudson was described as being very social and not afraid of strangers.  He loves to play ball and is extremely happy when someone plays ball with him.  Such a contrast to our little shy flower that only talks to people that she knows very well.

good girl

Kevin's been talking a lot lately about how good of a girl Hannah is. She wants to please us, is very considerate of feelings, shares well, and accepts bad news well and rarely throws a fit. Telling Hannah, "Stop that. You're acting very naughty." is very hurtful to her feelings and will cause her to cry. It does get the point across that the behavior is not acceptable and must be stopped. She's so sensitive about the word naughty that we have to reserve it for truly bad behavior.

Lately when we're in a public place and Hannah observes other children misbehaving, she'll whisper to us, "That girl is being naughty." I find this terribly amusing!

Hannah rarely makes a fuss when it is time to go to bed. She's not happy about it and will sometimes tell us, "I'm not sleepy" a few times before jumping into bed, but that's about it.

We're certainly blessed with a very good girl.

video: biker chick

We went to the toy store Friday night after dinner



and tested several bicycles to see what size and style would work for Hannah now



and would give her some growing room for the next few summers.



Of course, a bicycle that is PINK with STREAMERS and a BELL
and decorated with PINK CUPCAKES fits the bill perfectly.
The baby doll with no hair even gets to ride along!



In case you couldn't tell, I'm very proud of our little biker chick!

when, when, when?

I can't help but analyze Taiwan adoption timelines again. From submission into court to adoption finalization often ranges from 1.5-4 months. We should have been submitted into court in early/mid January. That means if things are going smoothly, I'm hoping for some good news that the adoption is finalized anywhere from now until two months from now. And that's a definite maybe.

Thrilled to read facebook status updates about two adoptive family friends leaving today and meeting in Tokyo on the way to Taiwan to meet their sons!

care package on the way to Hudson!

XXL care package and a book about our family for Hudson's foster family is on the way to Hudson. Contents: baby photo album, two outfits, socks, two sets of jammies (including space jammies from Auntie Lora), ball, teddy bear, tooth paste, tooth brush, Bumpkins bib, and chocolates for his foster parents. So happy to ship this that the comment "Do you have a new grandbaby?" from another customer at the shipping store just rolled off my back. Seriously?!? Kevin finds this extra funny. Not fair that Kevin is 6.5 years older than me and hasn't been mistaken for Hannah's grandfather... yet.

adoptive parent blunder for the evening

I sent Kevin out to pick up a movie that I reserved on Redbox tonight titled "The Shunning." I used to work one day a week in a community with a lot of Amish and enjoyed learning about this group of people. It was a made for TV movie and I assumed that it would be family friendly. Anyway, I had no idea that the film was about a woman who was adopted by an Amish couple and never told about the adoption. Hannah picked up on it right away, about five seconds after I did.

In my head alarm bells went off. Oh no! We have to talk about what's going on in the movie. We stopped the movie and talked about why the twenty year old young woman was so upset because her mommy and daddy never told her about her adoption story until she was a grown up. This made the young woman feel very angry. I reminded Hannah about how we talk about the baby house and Taiwan family and she has seen lots of pictures of herself in Taiwan. I emphasized that we don't keep secrets about her adoption in our house, that she can talk about it anytime she wants to, and that it's okay to feel happy or sad about her adoption. I shared that I would be very angry, too, if my parents kept secrets from me about my adoption.

I asked, "Is there anything you want to talk about?" Hannah replied, "My baby brother is in Taiwan and he's going to be coming home soon. I'm going to share my toys with him."

I love that girl dearly. Movie resumed. Ding ding! Text message. One new Hudson photo! Hooray!

Godspeed (Sweet Dreams)

"Godspeed (Sweet Dreams)"
--Dixie Chicks (2003)

Dragon tales and the "water is wide"
Pirate's sail and lost boys fly
Fish bite moonbeams every night
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Sweet dreams

The rocket racer's all tuckered out
Superman's in pajamas on the couch
Goodnight moon, will find the mouse
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Sweet dreams

God bless mommy and match box cars
God bless dad and thanks for the stars
God hears "Amen," wherever we are
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Godspeed
Godspeed
Sweet dreams

6 months, 1 week, and 1 day since we first heard of you and saw your photo. I think of you every day, little man. Every day.

frequently eaten foods

If other dieters are interested, here's my frequently eaten foods list from my Lifestrong My Plate app. Calorie info is all from the app. Note that I'm not recommending this diet. This is just what my log says I've been eating.

blackberries - 10 berries - 10 calories
red raspberries - 1 cup - 64 calories
Philsbury Egg Scrambles Sausage (in the frozen section) - 280 calories per package
Subway Turkey and Ham 6" on wheat with provolone cheese, veggies, and sweet onion sauce - 370 calories
Subway 6" Black Forest ham, egg whites, and provolone cheese on flat bread with tomatoes, green peppers, and onions - 350 calories
Apple Snapz - 50 calories
Fat Free Crumbled Feta - 1oz - 30 calories
Foldit Hungry Girl wrap - 100 calories
cherry tomato - 3 calories
Jif creamy peanut butter - 2 Tbsp - 190 calories
CVS almonds - 30 almonds - 180 calories
apples
asparagus - 10 stalks - 27 calories
Lean Cuisine BBQ chicken pizza - 350 calories
half BLT cobb salad - 230 calories
bananna - 110 calories
butter flavored popcorn oil - 1 Tbsp - 120 calories
popcorn (unpopped) - 3 Tbsp - 120 calories
canned peaches with Splenda - 1/2 cup - 35 calories
chicken breast
diced ham - 2 oz - 70 calories
steamed edamame - 1/2 cup - 110 calories
fat free cottage cheese - 1/2 up - 80 calories
strawberries - 1 cup - 77 calories
Oikos plain Greek yogurt - 1 cup - 130 calories
CVS animal crackers - 14 crackers - 140 calories
skim milk - 1 cup - 80 calories
light mayo - 1 Tbsp - 45 calories
Edy's pineapple or strawberry fruit bars - 80 calories
Splenda
lowfat granola - 2/3 cup - 230 calories
salsa - 2 Tbsp - 10 calories
imitation crab - 85g - 80 calories
CVS whey protein - 1 scoop - 140 calories
Aunt Millie's whole grain light bread - 1 slice - 35 calories
Kroger Rice Bitz - 1 and 1/4 cup - 120 calories
honey - 1 Tbsp - 60 calories
coffee
tuna fish
pork chops
lots of various brands of thinly sliced lunch meats
lots of various Lean Cuisine meals
baby carrots
broccoli
various lettuces

So, I'm not so hot at incorporating vegetables. I watched Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead on Netflix this week. Thinking about doing a juicing reboot for 10 days, and my cousin has offered to let me borrow her juicer so I don't have to invest in a couple hundred dollar machine to try this out.

I started some krill oil to try to raise my HDL. I've been so frustrated that this low number hasn't improved with exercise, diet changes, weight loss. Then I did some research and learned that the krill oil dose that I've been using is the anti-inflammatory dose and not an HDL raising dose. Arg! I've done some research and I'm going to try Neptune krill oil at the 1500mg dose for several months and we'll see what happens.

my journey continues

Just a little update on my weight loss journey. Today I'm at minus 57 pounds and 2-3 pant sizes from where I started. I think I started some dieting in January 2011 but it didn't get serious until we joined the YMCA in March 2011. There's been some ups and downs these past couple of months. I had a goal of meeting my first weight loss goal by Christmas. LOL! That was crazy. Did I really think I was going to loose weight during the Christmas season?!?! My inlaws visited for a few weeks. I ate whatever I wanted and didn't go work out, spending time with family instead. Several pounds slipped back on. Grrr! Messed up all of that hard work. I got back on track in January, took the pounds back off... that is until I did all of that baking of cupcakes for Hannah's birthday and then the dragon cake. Having icing and cake sitting around my house is a horrible idea. A few pounds slipped back on again, and then I had to work hard to get them off, once again.

Right now I'm at minus 57 pounds. At this point, this is the lightest I've been in at least eight years. While trying to get pregnant for a year and then starting the adoption process, I lost about 30 pounds via diet alone and no exercise. While waiting for Hannah to come home I gave up, and the pounds crept back on because of eating whatever I wanted and not exercising.

In the past two months I've added lap swimming and water jogging to my exercise routine, heading to a middle school pool once or twice a week. Swimming is not hard, burns so many calories, and my body feels all stretched out and great after 50 minutes of swimming. Water jogging is especially fun to do with a friend, as one can girl gab while doing this. Lap swimming just leaves me and my thoughts to entertain myself. Sometimes I can't help but wish I could have my iPod and headphones on while in the pool. I wish my schedule worked out so that I could get into the pool more often. When I'm on the treadmill I'm continually thinking "When can I get off this thing?" I don't think the same way when I'm in the pool.

I had some nice feedback last time I posted about this, so I thought I'd fill my readers in on how things have been going. I'm in this for the long haul.

iPhone photos from this week

Daddy is feeling a little under the weather tonight.
Hannah and I went out for dinner to give Daddy some peace and quiet at home.
Hannah requested to go to see our friends at "Peng You's Restaurant," our neighborhood Chinese restaurant. She likes noodles, chicken on a stick, shrimp, hot and sour soup,
and spring rolls. We learned how to say restaurant in Mandarin. cān tīng



When we opened our fortune cookies Hannah's asked, "What's it say?"
I replied, "You need to clean up your room. It is too messy!"
We both laughed!



Our little artist has been busy making masterpieces this week.
Rainbows are a recurring subject in her work.



Hannah also drew my portrait. I had no idea that my complexion was purple!