Forever Home

The animal hospital called this afternoon to tell us we could pick-up Beanie ashes. His box is so beautiful, it has his name engraved on the front just as we asked for. We didn't know what to expect with his box we didn't get to pick it out or anything. So I was teary when I noticed that on the top there are carved Daisies. My absolute favorite flower.

We picked out a really nice spot in our living room for him. We haven't nor are we going to tell the girls about it until they are much older. They won't understand so why confuse them.

As far as where everyone here is with it. I still have a hard time believing he is gone. Chris has his moments as well. He said that he had to do a password verification and his question was what is the name of your favorite pet. He said it made his eyes tear to read that. Lily is doing better with understanding that Beanie isn't coming home. We have been firm with that every time she tries to challenge it. She has been saying more and more that Beanie is in her heart. As for Guss is ok at best. He is still looking for Bean in the yard. Each time he goes out he has this happy anticipation that Bean will be there waiting for him. Then he goes out wags his tail and sniffs, you can see the happiness fall away. He just does his business and comes back in. We took the girls out this week to get him some toys. Lily picked him out tennis balls to run for. He likes that. We have even gotten him to oink a few times- that is his happy sound. Guss has always been closer to Chris, but this past week he has done things that only Beanie ever did. He will come up and out his head in my lap, he is now yet another guest in the bathroom with me, came to my side of the bed the other night as if to say good-night- he had never done that before, ever and he follows me from room to room. I told Chris the other day that Gus and I are going to get each other through this. He needs us as much as we need him.

Finally some good news!!

LILY IS GOING TO PRE-SCHOOL!!! :-) :-):-)

I am soo excited for her!! Here is the story, this past April/May I was looking for some kind of program for Lily to attend. Not for any other reason but to give her more social time with other kids and a school-like environment. Of course most were way out of our price range, even for part-time. I kept looking and stumbled onto our public school system's website and found a program. It is through the High School system and is like a work-study program on campus for High School Students who want to become early childhood educators. I called in to get more information.

The teacher in charge gave me all the info and told me to come to get an application and doctor record filled out. She also said that it was first come first served and there were a limited number of spaces available. I got right on it and dropped everything off for the doctor. Once I got it all back we went over again and turned it all in and began to wait.

We got this call this afternoon! We are going to be getting a letter in September and will have to attend a parent orientation. Lily gets to go too and will have her own orientation with the other kids. She will then start on Oct 29! It is Wed/Thurs/Fri from 730 to 12 noon. They will have 3 field trips throughout the year... I think that is so cute!! AND... because she will 3 when she starts she is automatically enrolled for the 4 year old program! So she gets to go for two years there and then begin normal Kindergarten!

Ok, now there are MANY great things about this, but it does all come down to the mighty dollar. For the whole year it is going to cost us $60! Needless to say we jumped right on that.

Lily is very excited and just smiled ear to ear when I was telling her what it all meant. Then we called Chris at work so she could tell him. It was really sweet to here her tell him 'Daddy I got into school, I am going to pre-school!' He didn't know that I had gotten the phone call so he was very excited for her to tell him!

Forever and Always

This afternoon I received a call from our animal hospital. They were asking what name we wanted on Beanie's box. A little back story...When we were there on Saturday, Chris told them that we wanted Willie-Bean. We were ok enough with this, but I didn't totally love it. In keeping with the tradition of us we gave him a nickname of Beanie because he looked A LOT like the Bush's Baked Beans dog Duke. Chris and I would always joke that Beanie would sooo roll on us just like Duke did!! :-) Over time 'Willie' headed out and Beanie became his name. Lily has always called him Beanie, even Charlotte had picked it up.

Anyway, it was fate that they called today. I didn't feel comfortable making the decision without asking Chris. I called him at work and he agreed and felt the same way as I did. I called back and we will have Beanie engraved on his box. I am hopeful that his ashes will be back on Friday and we can bring him back home for good.

As for Gus, he is slowly adjusting, very slowly. He ate on Sunday night a full bowl of food but has been picking ever since. I watch him in the yard and he just looks so confused. He did go a little further in the yard and made it just past our little hill yesterday. He even barked a little. If you know Gus you know it is NOT normal for him to not bark at the wind, or grass or anything that moves in the yard for that matter. :-) He will be headed to my parents on Friday to stay while we are away. He has friends down there to romp with so it will be nice for him.

Lily still says she misses Bean. If she talks about it then we talk about it, but if not we aren't in front of her. She is still too young to really get it. In her mind I know she thinks that we took Bean to a field to meet Jesus. When we were preparing her for this I must have a billion articles on how to deal with this. We avoided words like doctor,sick, or going to sleep etc. But we were firm that he wasn't going to be here when she came home on Sunday.

On Friday morning she was asking her normal 3 million questions about Bean and Jesus. Chris says this is the reason he worked so I that I got to field all of this stuff on the fly. You never know what she is going to ask or say. I asked her what she thought Beanie's heaven was going to look like. She told me that it was going to look like our house. I told her that I thought Beanie would really like that. I asked if she thought Bean would have friends and she said 'yes a horsey' and then she stopped and said 'maybe a doggie too.' I told her again that I thought he would like that. Lily has been really into flowers lately, when they were so sick this month Chris brought them roses home- her self proclaimed favorite. Knowing this I asked her if she thought there was going to be flowers for Bean. At first she said no, then changed and said 'yes Mommy they be flowers.' I asked her what kind and she told me 'one red rose, just one. He like that.'

Last week once we made our minds that this was best for Bean I had a hard time keeping it together. I still do if I allow myself to think to much about it. This is going to sound strange but, when I try to stifle the beginnings of crying I let out this weird hiccup type sound. This freaks Lily out, she doesn't like it one bit when I am upset. So anytime I felt it coming on I had to really stifle it- thankfully it turned into a more of a true hiccup sound. Every single time this happened Lily would look at me with a very critical eye and say 'ohhh Momma you have those stinky old hiccups again!' It would buy me just enough time to suck it all back it up and smile back at her little face. I don't know how many times she really bought it, but she never questioned it once I agreed with her.

One day I do plan on writing out exactly what happened during Beanie's last 24 hours with us. I am just not there yet. I know it may sound strange I guess, but I don't want to forget it. It was truly a great last night we had with him.

Chris and I wanted to thank everyone who has left kind words here, facebook, phone message, phone or anywhere for us. It really means a lot to us. Thank you.

New Day

Wow, I just read back over my post from last night. It was my very first temper tantrum on blogger! I will admit though how great it felt get that out of me. Today is a new day. I am right now going to keep trying to move forward. I do need to go back and add updates in places that I missed. I will get to that soon I hope.

Today I am choosing to focus on a little Mouse and a Princess that brought great happiness into our house before lunch. I signed up for a pay-it-forward service on one of my Disney boards. Basically, you ask someone to be a fairy god-mother to your child/children. What that means is that while they are on vacation in Disney they will send a postcard from a character you ask for to your child. Well... the girls got theirs today! There was great excitement! Lily received hers from Cinderella and Charlotte's was from Mickey! I think that they were both very impressed! The messages were to sweet! Charlotte didn't put her down until it was time for lunch! Lily was just lit up from the inside out! I can't wait until we return the favor in a few weeks!

Also in the mail today was our baggage tags for the Magical Express, which will pick us up at the airport and take us to our resort. We have gotten all of our Mickey Mail now. We are in the final stretch now. I started packing us up this morning. Well, I had already started, but now I know better what is still needed for each of us.

We are still working on the autograph books for the girls. Chris and I are going to try to get them done between tonight and tomorrow so we can get them to Kinkos to have them bound. I will post pictures once we get them done. I love that they are so personalized for them! I have so much more to share but I am going to stop here for now.

VERY Glad August is almost over...

There is no nice way to say this other then this month really REALLY sucked. I am glad to see it go. I am counting down the days to September, 1) it gets us closer to Disney World, and 2) August will be OVER! :-(

No need to rehash the last 48 hours as it is pretty evident that they weren't full of sunshine and rainbows. Honestly Saturday tied the number #1 spot of the worst day of our lives. This past week has been one huge emotional roller coaster. Twice at least we talked ourselves out of it, just to remember why and who this was for. ARGH! I am just sooo pissed that he is gone. I am pissed that Gussy is so sad, and hasn't been past the top of our yard since Saturday morning. I am pissed that Beanie did nothing but be a good boy, and he had to be in this much pain and leave us so soon. I am pissed that Lily is so sad and reminds me often that she misses Bean. Tonight it seemed to all click and she told us that he is gone to Jesus, but he is still in our hearts. :*( I am pissed that I have to try to get past this ASAP to put myself in a Disney mood that honestly I am no longer feeling. I am just really REALLY pissed off.

Before this weekend happened. The girls had been very sick back to back. Lily's temp reached 104.9 at one point. Charlotte's wasn't that far behind her at 104. We ended up back at the doctor's again for Lily this week becuase it just seemed like she still wasn't herself. Thankfully it looks like her doc was right and she just needed a little longer to get back to normal. It looks like this is behind us now.

I have just been so wrapped up in the goings on that I haven't taken the time to write on here. I have missed several important milestones to write about. I haven't even written about my Grandma's Breast Cancer surgery. ARGH!

We lost a dear old friend today

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Today we lost a dear friend of the family. Well, really, he was more than a friend. He was our son. Willie "Bean" came into our lives 6 weeks after we got married and has been with us through the good times and the bad. There is no other person who knows us as well as he did. He has seen as at our best times and at our worst times, never once judging but always loving. It was his head who laid in our laps an d just loved us the day we lost Matthew. It was his kiss that we first felt the day Lily got out of PGN. He knew about Charlotte before Chris did.

Beanie was only 9 years old. He had severe hip dysplasia since he was born. He has been in constant pain for most of his life, though he never once complained. We managed it the best we could but last week his hips gave out once and he fell on the floor. Since then he was in a steady decline. When we first brought Beanie home we made a promise that we would not be selfish and that the day his pain became to much to bear we would let him go. Today was that day. He is pain-free for the first time in his life. Though our hearts are broken while he laid his head in our laps one last time, he still showed us nothing but love and understanding. We told him to run, to run as fast as he could cause he would no longer hurt.

We will always love you Beanie. You were the best dog, and friend, anyone could ask for.

PLEASE PINCH ME!!! Disney Update....

This afternoon I was checking my email during nap time. I was going through deleting all the spam mails, and I got to one that I did a double take on. It was on of those emails that you ask yourself 'do I chance this being a virus filled email and open it or not.?' I didn't, but I didn't delete it either. I left it and once I was done clearing all the adds for 'extending this and tucking that'. I went back and looked at it again. Hmmm?

I am sure by the title it is obvious that I opened it...

It was from Disney! It was informing me that we had been upgraded.... AND we could pick from either Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa OR Old Key West. Both of these are deluxe villa's. The offer was for a studio villa. All I could think was ok yeah right suuuurrreee. I thought for sure this was just another email from a travel agency. But then I looked at the phone number, it was the same first six of the normal Disney numbers. Chris and I talked and we decided to call in about it.

Now let me back up a little. Chris and I had a nice long talk about Disney and WHO this trip was really for (nooo, not us!!)... the girls. They won't care where we stay. At the end of that very nice talk (it really was!) I called and moved us back to Pop for good. We both were at peace with this and had NO intention of making anymore changes.

Where did I leave off... ok we were calling in. In the meantime, just in case this was for real we started researching both resorts. We had never ever given them a second glance as they are way WAY out of our price range. After about 10 minutes on hold Chris got through. He told the CM what the email said and gave him the PIN number we were given. He looked us up and IT WAS FOR REAL!!!! We were allowed to choose between the two. Just on the general lay out we picked Saratoga Springs.

Ready for the best part?!?!?! We got an upgrade on the upgrade, he put us in a one bedroom villa! ! ! We asked if we had to give up anything for this and we were assured that we kept everything the same including the FREE DINING!!! In fact at the end of the phone call Disney ended up owing us money! Apparently the Disney property sits between two counties, one has higher taxes then the other! We got $3.00 BACK!!

Here is how the numbers for this work out: This is unbelievable!!

8day/7night stay at Saratoga Springs
free dining
7 Day Hopper tickets

Drumrolll please......

$1793.00 -I rounded up because I forgot the exact change!

The same package full price is well over $5000!!!

Holy Crap right?!?! Chris and I have been in a state of shock since 1pm. Lily was so excited by how excited we were she thought we were going there right after nap!! I think it is going to take a few days for this to sink in fully.

Ohhh after we hung up and sat looking at each other, I asked Chris if he asked for them to send an email he couldn't remember. So we called back, on the number that we have used for other questions in the past. I guess we thought this would be the way to make sure it was really for real! Chris talked to another CM who did confirm the changes and sent the email for us.

Later I checked the Disney board I stalk, oops I mean follow! It turns out we were one of many who also got these PINS! The CM we talked to said it was due to overbooking at the values. I just checked to see if our week was sold out and it wasn't. I don't know nor care! I know for sure we are good to go for an unbelievable vacation!!!

For Grandpa

15 new photos... 5 minutes to upload, 2 new videos in one.... 10 minutes, Making a good Granpa smile... priceless!

So today while Chris was talking to his Dad on the phone he gently reminded us that we have not had a good picture update in a while. Ok, Ok I have been a little lax I admit.... so Grandpa these are for you!! :-) We love you and will see you really soon!!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Back to Normal Soon!

We are ok and doing well. Things were a little crazy last week. Chris had a trip for work and the girls and I went to my parents for the week. Then Lily stayed behind this week to enjoy a 'big girl' vacation with Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop! This Friday we are meeting up again with my parents. Charlotte will join the party in Va until Monday when I go to collect all of our babies! WHEW!!

I have tons to share, and lots of pictures to update.

A little teaser...

Miss. Charlotte is saying her name now, and she is singing the EIEIO of Old McDonald! It is more like IIIIIoooooooOOOOO! I am going to try and get both on video! It is sooo SUPER sweet!!

Saturday in the Park

Well it was really a Zoo! But I had that song in my head...



It didn't matter where we were because we were surrounded by friends that we have 'known' for many years, Chris and I had never met any of the families. We are all joined by a strong common bond and have shared in some of the brightest and darkest days. It was like meeting old friends! I was talking to Chris about our day and how important it is for Lily to have ties to other children who have also been adopted. It was also nice for us because our family doesn't 'fit' the typical mold. We are the minority in many social settings, but on Saturday we were just one of the group. It was wonderful and I can't wait to do it again!



OK on to what you all really want... the pictures!! We took a TON!!

Lily and Rudy

Dog Pile!!!

Out....!

Look at that smile!

Rudy, Jaidyn and Lily

Bubble Time!!

Kathy and Lily

Lily G and Jaidyn

Charlotte was eveyone's little sister!

Long day!

Charlotte didn't make it out of parking lot.