The Man From Snowy River

We went down to Lance's parents house this afternoon so Lance could help his dad get up cows to take to the sale barn. The kids and I went in the Suburban and Lance took the truck and horse trailer to stop at the vet on the way down to get 3 horses Coggins tested. (that's a test that has to be done on horses to make sure they aren't carrying a specific virus that can kill horses)

The kids and I got to his parents' before he did and his dad and some friends had already gotten most of the cows penned up and in the trailer. Lance pulled in right as his dad was pulling out with the first set of cows.

Then we had some problems. Some of the cows got out of the trailer and had to be rounded up. One of them went way back in the woods. Lance got Luke's horse out of our trailer and went to round her up.

And this ladies, is one of the reasons I married him...

Missing Part of My Heart

We watched Oprah's special tonight where she interviewed Sean Penn at his J/P HRO camp in Haiti. My heart hurts tonight. I miss Haiti so much. It's been over a year since we've been there. And coming off of a year where Lance was there 3 times and me twice, going over a year not being there is hard.

Our adoption is progressing and it looks like we will be going down this spring. I CAN NOT wait. I felt it the second time we I landed in Haiti. I was reunited with the part of my heart that I had left there. I don't know that my heart will ever be whole again. When I'm home, part of it is in Haiti. But when I'm in Haiti, part of it is home with my kids.

When the Oprah special came on and we saw the poverty that is Haiti, I looked at Lance and said, "I miss that." Then I thought how strange that was. I miss something that looks like hell on earth. But I do. Haiti is a part of me.

Soon. That's what I keep telling myself. Soon I'll be there.

Corn Dogs and Stitches

Thankfully not our stitches. :) We got a call during dinner from one of our dearest friends. Their son had been bitten in the lip by a family member's dog. Bless his heart. Sarah Lauren called to see if Lance thought it needed to be stitched. It did. :( So they came out and we went to the office to get stitched up. I was soooo proud of Dixon! He did amazing! After it was all over, he got suckers and as many stickers as he could carry.

Speaking of dinner, I tried something new tonight. I got the idea on Pinterest. Home made corndogs. Why didn't I ever think of that?!?! It was so simple and a hit with the fam. Make cornbread batter and fill mini muffin pan cups about 3/4 full. Then put a piece of hot dog in the batter, bake for 10 minutes at 400 and voila! A corndog muffin!

Definately something we'll be having again. :)

Arghhhhh!

That's the sound of frustration. There is one illness that I hate. STREP. It attacks our house several times a year. Especially poor Sara. She gets it at least a couple times a year. She's already had it twice since school started in August.

Emma has been coughing every night when she goes to bed for the past week or so. Other than that, we haven't thought much about it. Then 2 nights ago, she coughed so hard in her sleep that she gagged. We gave her some medicine and Lance looked in her throat. He thought she had strep, so he told me to come up to the office the next day to swab her.

I was waiting yesterday for the kids to get home from school and I was going to take her up to get swabbed. As soon as they walked in the door, Luke said, "Momma, I think I have strep. My throat hurts to swallow." It's said to me (and a blessing) that he's had it enough to know what it feels like immediately.

So off to the office we went. Lance didn't even swab them. He looked in their both their throats and knew they had it. Joy. He joked about just starting them all on antibiotics.

Maybe he shouldn't have joked. :( Tonight I noticed Sara coughing and sounding a little hoarse when she talked. And the great doctor (by proxy) that I am, I looked in her throat and saw a white spot. I made my diagnosis and called her daddy. He backed up my diagnosis and we started her on meds. That makes 3 times for her this year. Double joy.

So 3 of the 4 have it. Anybody taking bets on whether Hope has it?????

Can You Tell Me How To Get...

My poor sweet Emma. I feel like I've deprived her! When Luke was a toddler and preschooler, Sesame Street and Blue's Clues were his favorite shows. Elmo was one of his first words. (well, Mamo)

And Sara and Hope watched Sesame Street pretty regularly. They can sing the songs, know all the characters, and still will sit and watch it if it comes on on the rare occasion that they're watching PBS Kids.

But Emma has never really been interested in watching it when she's home alone without her siblings. She loves Disney Jr. and that's about all she will watch. And the big kids are past watching toddler/preschool shows. So when they are all home and can watch a show, they turn it on Disney or watch something on Netflix.

Today, Emma was watching something on PBS Kids and Sesame Street came on. She said she wanted to watch it, so I was excited! That's when it happened. I felt like a failure of a mother. My daughter pointed at the TV and said, "Look, there's Cookie Cutter!"

Oh my. We're going to have to watch a lot more Sesame Street.

Mid Summer Night's Dream

We have had the mildest January this year! Last year at this time we'd had 2 feet of snow! So these mild temps of 50s to 60s have been crazy. The kids had their 100th day of school last Friday. Last year the 100th day fell on Valentine's Day, so we are way ahead of the game. I do like a little bit of snow every year (and the kids are asking for some), but I have to say that the above average temps have been nice. It was in the upper 50s today so when Lance got off work and the kids came home from school we loaded up and went to the farm.

Once I got over my migraine (bummer), I was able to have fun with everyone else. Daddy and Lance have been working hard on our barn this fall and winter. They have made some great progress...

I love this picture of the two of them.

The big kids played for over 2 hours all over the land. They made forts, had sword fights, talked to the chickens, and were able to just be kids. :) Emma has developed this "fear" of things lately. She's terrified of the horses and the neighbors dogs, so she stuck pretty close to me. But she had fun throwing rocks and hammering boards. It was fun to watch her.

We are supposed to get some heavy rains and flooding tonight, so Lance was concerned about the little ravine that runs through the farm. Another heavy rain will just wash out the ravine, so he wanted to dump so rocks in a low spot. We all spent about 45 minutes loading the tractor bucket with rocks. I think Lance made about 5 trips in the tractor. That's a LOT of rocks! Even Emma was picking up rocks and throwing them in the bucket. We all had so much fun! It's moments like those this afternoon in life that I don't want to take for granted. :)

Revamped and Ready to Go!

Have you missed me???? :) I have taken a somewhat life-imposed blogging hiatus. I hadn't planned on it, but life got extremely busy this fall. And I was starting to let my duties as a wife and mom fall to the wayside because of all the extra "stuff" I was attending to. The blog being a part of that. So I took a little time off. And I'm glad I did. :) I feel bad about not keeping up with our family and the kids, but I feel refreshed now. So I'm back to blogging again. And I'm happy about it.

The kids are at really fun ages right now. We're having some very fun times together just being a family. And I have made a point the past few months to focus on my family and let all the other "stuff" fall away. Let me say that I have not regretted it!

So in a very fast recap, here are the highlights from the past few months just so I'll remember them in the years to come :)

October - Arghhh! The Faddises were a band of pirates for Halloween. We went camping with our friends at Branson for Halloween and Mom and Poppa initiated their new camper!

November - Sara turned 7!!! Oh my word! We went and say Happy Feet 2 and she got another Build a Bear. Right before our family prayer on Thanksgiving, my mom asked everyone to say what they were thankful for. When it got to Emma, she announced "lipstick." Haha!

December - We introduced an "Elf on the Shelf" to our Christmas traditions in the Faddis Family. :) The kids LOVED "Jingle!" We had soooo much fun with him! Can't wait til he comes back next year. And more importantly...the biggest thing that happened in December was that my niece, Hattie Vella was born! She's a tiny little thing, but has added so much to our family!

And that brings us to January. The big news here??? We've started the home study for our adoption!!!! We are this much closer to getting our son! There have been lots of developments recently. Not any that I want to share on such a public forum yet, but things are moving along very well. We are so excited!

So there we are. All caught up! :) And I'm really looking forward to the daily/weekly recaps of our family again!