The cake incident

Cake 911

That is what I get for bragging about baking a home made from scratch cake. What a disaster!! Can you see the picture, it was so dry I had to choke it down. There was no saving this puppy. So I tried again today. Here is the unfinished results of my cake today. It most likely is a flop as well as I couldn't get the egg whites to stiffen and then I added things at the wrong time and then my blender broke and I nearly splattered eggs everywhere, upon which time I used profanity that starts with s!!!! Those of you that know me know that I don't cuss but man alive I am covered it raw eggs and batter and who knows what. I have always been able to bake a decent cake but I think my bragging jinxed me or something. The frosting was a whole other issue, I didn't have syrup and enough butter, I even ran out of milk but you know what it is what it is. Currently cooling in the fridge. It is probably dry as the last cake and I won't know until Gary's whole family samples it. Did I mention it was for his birthday? Here are the pictures of my fiasco. Oh ya I forgot to add in the first cake and the first try Abby stuck her head in the batter. Nice.

Coolest Picture ever! I caught Abby's shadow

This a neat picture because in that brief second of running I was able to catch just Abbys shadow on the wall as she ran behind a tree. Like peter pan she needs to sew her shadow to her feet, it has gotten away from her.

Netsanet

She was opening the little doll I sent her. So cute.

okay love my camera!!

Approaching night fall
We stayed to watch the fountains
My daughter, all her girly charm. What is it with little girls?
The fountains at our lake
watching the fountains

More park pictures

I don't know, a bird?
This is the view from the lake in our community
run batman run.
There were moments of wander
father and son talk, very serious

A good day

Us out on what is probably the last decent day in Az. before the sun bakes us
Oh Gary thinks he is so cool
Look at my babies
Abby, always that hair in her eyes!
Except when she runs like the wind

Boys will be boys

Mason and Judah
They love wrestling
They are very close, gosh I have such handsome kids!!
We took out a little boat at our local yacht club, yes I we have a yacht club in our community. Pretty funny.

INTRODUCING NETSANET BRUYNS!!!!!

Here is our daughter, we passed court, I found out at 5:47 am. I am so excited I can't think straight, so I will still travel at the same time as I planned, I leave the 21!!

Justice was served today

The scene of the accident

Gary fixed the tail light right away but it was also busted out
you can see the scape, thank God no one got hurt.

For those of you that don't know Gary had a minor altercation with a VW bug during our garage sale fundraiser. He stopped on the side of the road to pick up a scooter that had fallen out of the trailer and a car with 2 girls being silly, waving at our husbands (Jen's and mine), ran into our Suburban. The bad thing was we got the ticket. Well Gary spent hours studying and planning to fight this thing. He got dressed for court today in his fancy church clothes, had pictures blown up of the road and the car, studied the law, made diagrams and read how to seem larger than life in the court room to make your presence intimidating. Well I guess it worked because when he stood ready to plead his case the officer sitting behind him seeing how well prepared he was just stood up and said he didn't wish to continue with this case. Gary never even got to say anything! I think he was excited and at the same time disappointed because he would have totally won. The officer was obviously in the wrong for ticketing him. Now we are contacting this girls insurance so they can perhaps pay for the damages. Ya for us!! Gary had fixed the light it was totally busted out. He stopped on an open country road with no cars at all in sight and plenty of room, but the girls were so busy flirting with our husbands they ran into the back of our car. Needless to say Gary felt pretty hot for a while.

we did not pass

need i say more, maybe thursday or friday

Are ya gonna tell him?

A very nice gentleman at church today asked which of my kids was adopted.
((((crickets)))))

then he asked if I was planning on telling him when he was older so he wouldn't be surprised.

okay he was so sweet, really.

Light saber

Me "Judah no toys at the table"

Judah "this is not a toy it is my light saber!"

It makes me laugh that in his world this light saber is serious buisness. He recently became extrememly fasinated with swords and karate type movements. He does these little flips and battle jumps and poses. It is so cute!!! He starts gymnastics on Tuesday. I can't wait.

For latest adoption news

check my living love blog there I do most my post about adotion related things. There is a more serious tone to it and this blog is to just be silly.

www.livingloveoutloud.blogspot.com

Matzo balls, chicken nuggets and vegetarians

Well I officially decided to go back to my vegetarian lifestyle after a five year reprieve. I feel more like myself deleting animal flesh. I am not saying I don't like it, in fact I do, it taste fine and I even managed to eat steak and crab with little barnacles on it, but it wasn't me. I am back to the way I truly believe I was created. After 15 years of vegetarianism and five years away I am back and I feel better than ever. Actually I am doing a whole food raw food diet inspired by friend who may travel with me to Ethiopia. She is doing it and feels great! But tonight I cooked Matzo balls and chicken nuggets, it is one of those dinners that don't even make sense. I was too tired to actually cook the carrots and celery so I just said we are doing raw it is better for you. But if I were getting graded for presentation I would have failed miserably. I doubt I cooked the Matzo balls the right way and it was not a hit to say the least. Gary who will eat anything said it took a couple of bites to get used to. Not exactly a shining dinner moment, but at least we have food and the way the gas prices are going up who knows, 3.77 a gallon!! At least the kids loved the Tyson chicken nuggets.

Abby's new word is "propriated" she says things like, "mom is it propriated to scratch my name in the soap?" (appropriate)

She also told me she liked my fat belly and I am so comfortable like a giant walking pillow. Nice. Thank God I am loosing weight. It is not propriated for me to be so heavy.

Mason taught Judah how to count to 7!!! we couldn't even get him past three but somehow Mason was able to reach him and in just a week had him counting to seven!!! I am so proud of both of my sons, the teacher and the student. Mason has a gift and a special way to relate to Judah. Poor Abby is in need of a sister currently she wants to play stuffed animal birthday party and Mason is making a myriad of strange noises and smacking Judah on the head with his animal.

Do You Speak English??

So on this nice spring day we were at the park in the below picture. A lady came up to us and we began to chat, she of course asked if all my kids were mine. I of course said yes and looked away to field any further questions. Then she continued on, "oh, cause those two look....." I stopped her before she could say "like each other, and he doesn't" "Yes they were born here and are biologically related, my youngest son was born in Ethiopia, and we are going to get our daughter in a few short months as well"

She looked at him and said really loud "DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?"

Judah just looked at her with a strange look and said yes, then she looked at me and said

"Does he speak English?" I said yes.

Then the topic changed to something else, I don't know.

But later I was laughing with Judah as I pushed him on the swing, I told him next time someone ask him that he should start to just babble with intermittent clicks and strange noises. I am so bad.

Check out my friends latest story that prompted me to write this http://godadoptedyou.blogspot.com/

One very nice spring day!!

Well after a scorching 110 degrees we had an unexpected, beautiful day of wind, clouds, thunder! Currently all the windows are open and the kids are just enjoying the weather. We went to the park and played all morning it was so nice. We played tag and while we were running around Abby stopped to inquire about my bottom, she was very serious about it and mildly concerned. I thought I had sat in something but when I was able to catch my breath she looked at my bottom and said "yep it is shrinking" I guess I should exercise more. :)

Adoption news

you can go to my adotion journal to see the latest

www.livingloveoutloud.blogspot.com

Goodby to my friends

While we were at our previous church the Lord led us to a really great family and they have become like our family. They recently had to leave, to be stationed elsewhere I am happy they are not going straight back to their home of Singapore but rather Alabama so goodbye doesn't seem so far away right now. These are the kind of people you just love. Two years flew by so fast and now I am left with memories. I hope we can visit sometime soon and I know we will be going to Singapore in the future or at least meeting somewhere in the middle!! Love you guys with all my heart!

The beach in San Diego
Every birthday party
Singapore Chile crab
Watching our kids change in the 2 years we had together
Gary trying to learn Mandarin
Never getting around to Ethiopian food
Bar B Que pork
Sunday school
Sitting together at church
Never getting around to getting your pictures to you
I promise I will
Your support of our family with this adoption

You guys have been so good to us in every way I know our friendship no matter the distance will continue to grow. Love Kim

The Famous Playground that Gary built

The playground has a cool tire swing, major heavy duty it will make you sick as a dog if you spin too long on it.
this is the completed deal, we used rubber tire chips to put underneath, since Gary built it so huge and we needed something soft to pad a big fall. The base alone is over 6 feet. There is a Jacobs ladder, disk swing, tire swing, two saddle swings,monkey bars, rock climbing, ladder, trapeze bar with a buoy ball that we can switch out for the swings.
We had Mason's birthday party so that is why there is streamers hanging from the monkey bars. There were about 15 kids romping on this thing. It held up nicely.
A happy mom with someplace for her kids to finally play other than the previous cactus garden.

Play Ground Gary built, no order

Eric and Gary taking a break, haveing a manly cup of tea
Mason trying out the new rock climbing wall
It was so beautiful and stormy, we had to cover the wood though as it hadn't been protected yet
This all took place around Christmas of 2007

Playground, no order sorry

Gary and his dad trying to fit the base together
Gary and his brother in law working into the night
Abby testing the slide, you can see it was muddy and cloudy out but that didn't stop her.