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Sunday, December 7, 2014

A little bit of this, a little bit of that...

We have been some busy busy little bees over here lately, hence the lack of posts, sorry about that! Wow, so I guess the last time I posted we had just been officially approved aka "paper pregnant"! So here's a quick rundown of what's gone on since then...

The kids turned 4, yeah I know, I don't know how that's possible either - weren't they just fetuses like a minute ago?! So in lieu of a birthday party, we thought we'd take the kids to stay at Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine for a night. Well once Gram heard about that, she insisted that we stay 2 nights and that she would pay for it! OK, twist my arm! Naturally, that Friday night before we were to leave, I started feeling bad, and by Saturday morning I was full blown miserable! What the heck?! I literally NEVER get sick - even as a kid, So I force myself to drive the 1 mile down the road to the CVS minute clinic and wait for what seemed like an eternity (I was the second person there when they opened), just to find out that for the first time in my life, I had strep throat! I really wanted muster the strength to sit in the car for 3 hours on the ride up to Grapevine, but it just wasn't going to happen - I was in baaaaad shape. I pretty much slept ALL DAY on Saturday. By Sunday morning, I was feeling pretty good! Not 100%, but definitely a 180 from the day before! So, we loaded the car and set out for our birthday vacay! GWL was AWESOME! The kids LOVED it!





Uuuuuntil Emma came down with strep Monday morning :(

My miserable baby girl :(

Oh and did I mention that Monday was their actual birthday? Yeah, fun times. We spent 3 freakin' hours and the Care Now - I'm thinking they should reconsider the name of their business, maybe CPT Care or We Don't Really Care Now. And furthermore, since it was considered "urgent care" (again, not so urgent) it came at a higher premium - I totally should have just gone to a minute clinic instead! Poor thing just wanted to go back to bed. No sooner did we get back to the room, did Emma say she needed to go to the restroom, which really actually meant that she needed to throw up... which she did... all over me, the hallway, the bathroom floor, and herself... again. Not 5 seconds after walking out of our hotel room, she puked all over me and herself (I was holding her). So this was a second set of clothes for us. We got our diagnosis and script and cruised over to the CVS in Coppell our old stompin' ground :) While waiting for her prescription to be filled, I decided to take a stroll down memory lane and drove by our old house. Sometimes it seems like we just bought that house and brought our babies home from the hospital there, other times it feels like a lifetime ago. We got the meds and headed back to the hotel where daddy and bubba had been tearing up the waterpark all morning! Max was is heaven! Emma crashed out for a couple hours and after eating some lunch, Max and I headed back out to the waterpark while daddy took over nurse duties. For the first time ever, Max and Emma spent almost their entire birthday apart - so weird! After a couple hours and 2567 stairs later, we headed back to check on sissy and take a little break before daddy and Max went out with Gram and Poppy for a birthday dinner at the chop 'em up restaurant (think Benihana's).



I was so sad that Emma and I had to miss it :( But we managed to hunt down some mac 'n cheese, which she didn't even end up eating anyway, and by the end of the night she was almost back to herself. Jason picked up some cupcakes on his way back to the hotel, and we sang happy birthday Max & Emma blew out their candles putting an end to their 3rd year of life. tear. Of course, they didn't eat the cupcakes - weird kids! 

The next day Emma was right as rain and we were going to soak up every second we had left at Great Wolf Lodge before we had to checkout! So, we were first in line when the waterpark opened at 9 and we didn't leave until 12! We rode every,single, ride! This nice old lady who measures the kids decided that Max and Emma could be over 42" for the day - thanks lady! Annnnnd, my legs were soooooo sore! Even despite the many miles I've been racking up with my half training, there are def some different muscles workin' when you have to climb all those stairs! Even despite the sickness, we all managed to have an awesome time! 

Naturally, Jason started feeling bad on the way home (Tuesday), and by the time we made it home around 6:30pm, I made him go straight to CVS. Sure enough... strep! So... just like Emma, Jason was completely miserable on his birthday too :( No sickness or virus or anything has EVER made it's way through our family! I figured Max would for sure get it, but the kid never did! It's amazing really... for ONCE Max caught a break! On a side note - Emma finished her meds in 10 days, and 4 days later got strep again or rather it never really went away - so that was fun.     


On October 25th, Jason and I along with 11 other sweet friends, cousins, and 3 total stranger ran in the Chosen Marathon For Adoption (half marathon, y'all, I only went full blown crazy once!)



One of the awesome strangers that joined our team! #teammiksovsky


Amazing views throughout the race!

Somehow, despite not running ANY of the race together, Jason finished just 8 seconds before me!

How cute is Tim's girlfriend?! Seriously bro, put a ring on it ;)
Poor George (Jason's dad), had every intention on running, but came down with some gout (I'm not even sure what that it, but apparently it's painful :( But he sure was an awesome cheerleader!

My sweet, sweet friend Jenn - love her!


Sweet friends from church - love these ladies! And shout out to Hillary running and finishing strong in her very first half marathon!

Speaking of first timers - check out these studs who trained together, drove 4 hours,  and completed the whole 13.1 miles together ON THEIR ANNIVERSARY! Couples that train together, stay together :)

We haven't gotten word on our official grant amount from ABBA Fund yet, but I know that we at least raised about $1200 from the race! So blessed with amazing friends and family, y'all seriously, my cup runneth over! (see what I did there?)

After the half, we had Halloween...

Spiderman and Elsa, of course, would you expect anything else??


She froze daddy

raising superheros since 2010 y'all!


October was also the start of our own "7" Challenge, as inspired by Jen Hatmaker's book "7". The idea is to choose 7 areas in which you need improvement and/or spiritual guidance in and work on cutting out all the clutter, noise, distractions, etc so that you can focus on listening to what God has to say to you in those areas. I am keeping most of her same 7, but changing a few. Month one was giving - which coincided nicely with our church's One Mission Giving Campaign also going on at the same time. So for the month of October, the goal was to give away 7 things everyday for the whole month. I was pretty excited about this and ready to really do some deep purging! Y'all, I lost count (stopped counting) after 300 things. You just can't imagine - we had all the stuffs. And honestly, we have gotten pretty good at purging, so I don't even want to know what it would have looked like a few years ago! The other thing that was important to me was giving our stuff intentionally, as opposed to just dropping it off at Goodwill or having one of those donation places pick it up for you. I felt that was too disconnected. So I set out to find local places that could really use our "stuff". We collated, separated, and hauled stuff off to several different places. Texas Baptist Children's Home, STARRY Foster Care - a children at heart ministry, Life Bridge Job Corp and Compassion Services, and REVEAL ministries all received our stuff. And at some point my wedding dress will be made into gowns for sweet babies who never made it home :( Better my dress be made into something beautiful to help others than sit in my closet, right? Anyway, we totally killed giving month, but we still need to be careful that we do not fall into the trap or allow our kids to fall into the trap of storing up treasures on earth. Matthew 6:19

November was a blur, honestly! I know we made a crap ton of signs - even one sent to ALASKA! Max finished up soccer and Emma finished up ballet.



The giraffes! For the record, Max was not a fan of the name, and maintained that he was a "shark" not a giraffe, which is interesting because he's never been on a team named the sharks before! Boys! But seriously, the giraffes? Come on! I guess it was better than the other option... the bumblebees.


This is Max and his buddy Dane. My kids are obsessed with Dane and his little sister Rachel. Emma seems pretty convinced that she will one day marry Dane and thinks Max should marry Rachel. Um, can we slow this train down just a little? I swear girls must be born predisposed to planing their wedding as soon as they can form sentences! Slow down baby girl!
    
Let's see... oh November's "7 challenge" was food. Can I just say, I LOVE FOOD, so I knew that this was going to be a hard month. My goal was to make it 3 weeks (to Thanksgiving basically), only eating 7 (plus 1) different foods (yeah I totes added in another food, sue me!). Our foods were: beef, chicken, sweet potatoes, broccoli, eggs, bread and bananas. And it really wasn't THAT bad, probably because I gave myself a cheat MEAL once a week, because, well,,, I am weak and have no self control! Let's just say, we ate ALOT of rotisserie chicken! I will say though, that I did take away some things from this month that I plan to keep - like the whole keeping it simple meal time thing - some of the meals we had will def hold their spot in our weekly line-up! And bonus! I lost like 6 lbs! Another bonus... this challenge coincided with a health challenge I was doing with some girlfriends! Holla, look who won $45! Don't worry, I've already gained like half of that weight back... thanks alot Thanksgiving!

So yeah, that brings us to December. We are still plugging away at some signs... I have to ship one out tomorrow headed to North Carolina, then finish 2 more for some local friends and then 2 more as Christmas gifts. I also just finished 3 wreaths. Like I said, we have been buuuuuusy! And tired. A few other things of note that I will have to expand on later, cause well, I'm tired and ready to go to bed...
-Max will be having tonsil/adnoid/sinus surgery likely on Jan 6th (4th time going under)
-I started taking BCPs and Domperidone as part of a re-lactation protocol so that I can *hopefully* breastfeed once placed with a baby!
-We are actively looking for a new house to buy

Oh yeah, and my sweet, generous, extremely talented and very pregnant friend Becky took these amazing pics of my family! I freaking LOVE them! It's a little bittersweet thinking that these may be the last family pics we take as a family of 4 :) 




















Almost 2 months down in our waiting game! Praying that they Lord will provide a sweet child for us in 2015! May you all have a VERY MERRY AND BLESSED CHRISTMAS and A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

-Candice 


Tuesday, September 2, 2014

You've got mail...

Received this email today from our agency:
Hi Candice,

We got both results from the FBI checks today.  Looks like we are ready to move forward.  I'll let the caseworker know so she can schedule your home visit.

YAY!!! So excited! #onestepcloser

Friday, August 29, 2014

Adoption Training... Check

 So... we had our training last Saturday (the 23rd). I've made no secret of my displeasure with the lack of communication that we have received from a certain individual ("Bob") at our agency, and I am fully aware that when you are a "waiting family" nothing can possibly go fast enough, and I probably need to work on my patience, but y'all, what happened on Saturday, I just... I just have no words! The day started early at 5:30am. We got up and got ready to go, and woke the babies up and threw them in the car with their jammies on, and for some reason they were WIDE AWAKE and chatting up a storm the whole way to Memi's house! We got them all settled with a movie and some snacks and hit the road around 6:45, northbound 35. About an hour later we were pulling into a Whataburger for some breakfast, then we headed over to the agency for our training. We had plenty of time and pulled up about 10 minutes before the training was supposed to start... the parking lot was empty... the doors were locked. Awesome. I KNEW for fact that the training was that day, but clearly it was not at the agency. I did not have a cell number for "Bob", only his email, and we all know how good he is a respond to my emails in a timely manner, so naturally, I was freaking out on the verge of tears thinking about how totally screwed we were! By the grace of God, "Bob" called me mere seconds after I pushed the send button, praise the Lord! He was all, "The location was in the email I sent", and I was freaking out frantically trying to find said email and coming up empty, cursing myself for letting something so important slip past me, while also feeling pretty confident that he never sent it. He gives us the location, and after a slight detour thanks to google maps sending us to some random person's house, we finally made it there 5 minutes late. I was disgusted with myself for having to walk into a room of couples all sitting there waiting for us and in we walk, late, like a couple of inconsiderate a-holes, which only fueled my anger more. We got settled in and "Bob" went through the round of introductions and pleasantries, etc and then had us all "open our training manuals to page blah blah blah"... uh, yeah we didn't have one of those. Half the couples in our training printed theirs out and put them in binders, and the other half had their laptops are ready to go in front of them, and again, we look like the unprepared a-holes sitting their twiddling our thumbs. Anger continues to build as I continue to search for the mysterious "email" that was sent a month ago. About an hour into the training, we were given a break. I told Jason I was going to get my sweater from the car and he needed to talk to "Bob" about this whole email situation and have him re-send the manual. I came back in, and sure enough, Jason tells me that "Bob" scrolled through his emails and realized that we were the ONLY ONES left off the group email with details of the training, the training manual, and a few other paperwork items. Can someone please tell me how the hell that happens?!?! We have been signed up for this training since DECEMBER! I was so furious! I seriously think "Bob" hates me, and I can't for the life of me figure out what I have done or said to offend him. So, he apologized to Jason, and resent, or rather SENT me the email so we could follow along the rest of the training. And can I just tell you, nothing irritates me more than assigning something to read, and then proceeding to read said assignment to class - I mean it worked out for us since we hadn't read it - but seriously come on - BORING! and such a waste of time, right?! Anyway, we also discussed the two books that were required, and then heard from a doctor, which was also pretty pointless, as he really didn't tell us anything. Then, just before lunch, we heard from a panel of adoptive families, which was cool, because you got to hear a little bit of their story, although I would have liked more details of their own journey, but whatever, Next was lunch. We were looking forward to eating at Schmaltz's for lunch since every time we go through Waco they are closed! But, instead we got to pay $10 A PERSON for a chic-fil-a sandwich and a bag of chips with a cookie. Seriously? Do they not realize that you can get 2 meals at CFA for about $10 total?! So frustrating but whatever. During this break, "Bob" had plenty of opportunities to come over and apologize to me for not sending the email, but do you think he said a word to me?? NOPE! After a quick lunch, we watched a video and then heard from some birthmothers about their experiences. We watched another video about trans-racial adoptions, talked about the manual some more and were all done around 3:00. Before we left, we shook hands with "Bob" and I told him that we were so sorry for being late, basically setting him up to be able to apologize to me, and I GOT NOTHIN'! Really? Really Bob?! I was floored, and hurt, and pissed! I just could NOT believe that he didn't apologize to me for such a big mistake on his part. Unbelievable. The whole day, I had to chant the phrase, "extend grace" in my head, and even now I am trying hard to think of a sincere way to return an insult with a blessing but am coming up short. We made it back to Memi's house just in time to catch the end of the party and hang out for a little while. We were exhausted. The kids were exhausted. And we all crashed after some much needed baths. 
So, we checked it off the list. We have been officially "trained".


Now we are just awaiting clearance from our FBI background checks (including the fingerprinting which I have yet to hear back from yet on whether mine were acceptable or not, 2-7 days my arse!). Once that goes through, we can schedule our homestudy, so we are really hoping to get that scheduled early next week, so we'll see. Last night we had our Noonday Trunk Show, but I'll have to post about that tomorrow, as I have 3 miles and some strength training to do :) #teammiksovsky #chosenmarathonforadoption

Friday, August 22, 2014

These are a few of my favorite things...

Ya'll I am super pumped about the Noonday fall line! It was tough (and don't count, b/c it might not be exactly ten items), but I manged to come up with my top ten, check it out...



Soooo, what are your favorite pieces??

*If you are interested in ordering, please use my friend Michelle's account, and a donation will be made to our adoption! Holla! Just be sure to indicate Miksovsky Trunk Show at check out :)

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Update on #teammiksovsky & T-SHIRTS!!!

Things have been pretty crazy around here lately! It's wild how we have gone from everything being slow and taking forever to everything moving so fast! I'm sure we will be back to everything be slow and taking forever again as soon as we complete our homestudy! Oh the roller coaster that is adoption!

Sooooo... exciting stuff is happening! My "0.0 I don't run" hubby has completed the first 10 days of half marathon training with me! Woo Hoo! Way to go Jason! And of course, he's faster than I am! You seriously rock my face off! We currently have 4 people officially registered for the race:


But, we have about 13 that have all expressed interest and/or are dedicated to running and just haven't paid yet! So, shout out to Jenn, Michelle, Charlotte, David, George (my father-in-law), Jennie, Tammy, and random guy from my RunJunkees Club on Facebook! And then, my parents are supposed to sign up as "sleepwalkers", meaning they will pay the registration fee and then sleep! Ha! As long as they are there with the kiddos when we cross the finish, they can sleep all they want! Although, if it's up to Max and Emma, they will be up at 7am on the dot! Y'all that's over $1400 going toward our adoption if everyone registers! And often ABBA will award more than what was raised! Still, I would LOVE to see more peeps added to our #teammiksovsky! I just started running with a women's running group hoping to maybe get some sole sistas to join us ;) But for reals, if you or someone you know is a runner and looking for an awesome race to do this fall, please share our team info! I will love you forever!!! 

In other news.... we have started pre-orders for this totally rad adoption shirts!



ORDER YOURS TODAY!!!! Here's the link! Buy one for your friends and even your kids! They're awesome, right?! BIG thank you to Keight Duke from Put Up Your Dukes for the design idea and for letting us use it! And to Blake over at Big Frog Custom T-Shirts for bringing our vision to life! We have two styles to choose from, either a standard crew-neck tee or a ladies v-neck, and both are made of super soft, tri-blend cotton from Bella/Canvas! Super pumped about these shirts y'all and can't wait to order them so I can wear mine all the time! Every person who buys a shirt or registers for the race will also be a "piece" in our adoption puzzle, literally and figuratively! I haven't ordered the puzzle yet because I am crazy indecisive and can't decide on the photo to use. I have these two options:



Which I LOVE both of them, but then I was also thinking of taking a photo in front of the "I love you so much" sign on the side of Jo's Coffee shop on SoCo, 


with something like this:


or this


maybe with all of us, or just the kids in the chairs... I don't know, like I said, I am crazy indecisive! I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions on which one we should do!   

We are 10 days away from our training!!! Eek! I'm so excited! I am praying that we are able to schedule our homestudy for sometime that last week of August or early September - so my prayer warriors, please help us in that! It's difficult to pray for things like this because I KNOW God's timing is perfect, but at the same time, we have to have our homestudy completed and turned into the people at the Chosen Marathon for Adoption by September 25th, so it's a pretty tight timeline and it's making me a little anxious! 

So, that's pretty much where we are with things right now, but I am looking forward to updating you soon with news of an ever growing team for the Chosen Marathon, and massive amounts of t-shirt sales ;) Thank you all so much for your continued support! 

-Candice