Hot For The Holidays - week 2

OK, I was down another pound yesterday ... and then yesterday happened.

Put simply, yesterday was the single worst day in my parenting experience, and it did not end til 5:03 this morning when Sophie FINALLY fell asleep.

It is a well proven fact that I am an emotional eater, so yesterday was a baaaaaaadddddd diet day. We had made oatmeal raisin cookies this week (wheat flour and Splenda people, a girl's best friend!!! Of course, there IS the 2 sticks of butter!) and I had been resisting fairly well, but by 8pm last night, they were all but gone. And then they just kept disappearing. Hmmmm, wonder how that happens?

So, I am only down .5 from last week, making 2.9 total. Not great, but doable.

And the cookies ARE gone now - temptation bye-bye!

There ya go!

Any suggestions? Ideas? Anything? Bueller?

Caution - she's cooking

So, the other day I was making dinner. Yes, me!! And, in an effort to live up to my title of "homemaker" and/or Domestic Diva (as my man likes to call me), I thought I would do it all from scratch and go for something complicated. Something like, oh ... ya know, spaghetti. And, if that were not fancy enough for ya, I went for the whole baked spaghetti thing. And then I thought I would put it all in the crock pot and add some chicken and call it a very (VERY!!!!) non-traditional version of chicken parmesean. How very domestic of me huh?!?!?!

And, in this endeavor, I began to let my mind wander and came up with this:

Suppose that a person were making crock-pot-baked-spaghetti-chicken-parmesean-wanna-be-dinner, ya know, HYPOTHETICALLY. And suppose that person, hypothetically, decided that partially cooking the noodles on the stove top was a good idea so that they would, indeed, be DONE by dinner time.

Now, if supposed person were cooking on a gas stove with, ya know, flames and stuff, and the uncooked spaghetti noodles got away from her and fell down into the flames .... Hypothetically, do you think that the noodles would actually ignite?

AND, if the supposed noodles where, oh let's just say whole wheat noodles, do you think - hypothetically - that said supposed whole-wheat-and-ON-FIRE-noodles would stink?

AND, if supposed flaming noodles DID stink, do you suppose that, hypothetically, the smell would linger and, thus, ruin the aromatic loveliness of said crock-pot-baked-spaghetti-chicken-parmesean-wanna-be-dinner? So much so that when said domestic diva's hubby came home he would, maybe, have a very strange expression on his face, followed by actual fear when he realized that the smell emanating from the stove area was, in fact, a meal he would be expected to ingest? Hypothetically speaking, do ya think that that would be, at all, a plausible chain of events?

Not that anything like that would ever happen here.

I'm just askin'.

Ya know, hypothetically.

Answers

So, after yesterday's post Kelli asked how the girls get along. I then realized that, while many of you three readers know the scoop, the other 1.3 of you do not know all of it. SO, for those of you who have not been here since the beginning (or know me IRL), here is the Bug's story:

Sophie is, indeed, a twin. Her birth parents chose to parent one of the children and make an adoption plan for the other. I know that this does not sound conventional and many people are not a fan of this choice. And, I admit, I was not at first either and the reason we agreed to be linked to this family was in the hopes that they would change their mind and decide to let us adopt BOTH of the babies.

And then I got to know Kim.

Kim is a great lady. She has made some unfortunate choices and feels badly for the effects that they have had. That is all I am saying about that. So, when she learned she was pregnant, she was determined to do the right thing. And she was VERY excited to become a mom. THEN she learned it was twins. She knew - they both knew - that they could not "do" twins. They had neither the finances or resources to parent two babies. Kim immediately felt that God was using her to be able to Bless a couple who could not have their own child. She prayed hard about the choice and instantly, and consistently, felt peace. She chose Baby A without knowing anything about the twins - gender, size, personality, ANYTHING! And she began to pray that God would tell her who Baby B's parents would be. When she saw our picture, she says, she just knew it was us.

By the time we were close to the birth, I could no longer pray for both babies - because I knew that would hurt Kim - so, I simply prayed for God's will. And this is was what we received, so I have to feel that it was in His plan.

So, about the girls ...
They are very similar in appearance. Seeing them in person, you can see the differences and you can tell them apart easily. Their mouths are the biggest difference - they have similar smiles, but the mouths are shaped differently. And Sophie has a bigger smile in that she smile with her ENTIRE BEING, whereas Breauna is more reserved. Not that that is a bad thing at all, I am just partial to Soph!!!

They also have similar mannerisms. They both like to squeal - for no apparent reason! - loudly, drum on the table, point at random things and touch people's faces. They both shake their feet when they are excited. And they both like to eat "puffs".

They completely enjoyed studying each other. I have seen Sophie with other children and this was different. It was like they were trying to remember where they knew each other from. They would hold hands and laugh together and touch each other's face and just LOOK at each other. It was so sweet, and sad at the same time. Like they SHOULD be together and can't figure out why they are not. Bittersweet, I am telling ya. I had to fight not to cry.

All in all, we had a good time. It is so rewarding to see Kim love on Sophie and to be able to take pictures for Sophie to see later. For her to SEE the love in her Mama Kim's eyes and know that the choice was made for SOPHIE to have a life that she deserved. It was not made for Kim's convenience, but for Sophie's benefit.

And we were Blessed in the mean time.

If you have any questions, please ask. I will do my best to answer them. I know that the situation is not conventional, and in some eyes, is questionable. But Kim felt God's leading, we are completely Blessed (as Kim says, she is) to be a part of it all and the girls seem to be happy and healthy through it all. I know that some may not understand, but ours is not to reason why. Ours is just to TRUST God's plan.

Picture Perfect Monday - Gettin' Together

On Sunday Sophie and I went out to lunch with her Mama Kim and Breauna ...



... and we had a BLAST!!! (Hubby and Hattie didn't get to go because Miss Hattie woke up sick, poor baby, and Daddy stayed home with his girl.)

***Sophie is in the flowers and Breauna is in pink***

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