I did it!

30 straight days of blogging! I am sure you are getting tired of me by now. I will admit, it was tough! But I will say that this has made me a little more excited about blogging. And although I will save you from my daily rambling, I promise I will not go back to blogging once a month! Thank you guys for following these last 30 days!

This 30 days of blogging has gotten me to make some other challenges. Brian and I have started a competition to see who can work out for 30 minutes the most days in a row! I have really gotten out of the habit and need a little motivation. We are both competitive, so it will be interesting to see how this turns out!:) Stay tuned!

Oh my! I just say a commercial for American Idol starting in January! Can't wait!!!!!

Still thankful

Even though Thanksgiving is officially over, this time of year really gets me thinking about all the things I am thankful for.

- My savior who died so I might live

-A wonderful husband who makes me laugh, is my best friend, always puts my needs or wants above his and has a heart for adoption

- A wonderful family who I really LOVE to spend time with

- An awesome in-law family who has always treated me with one of the family.

-Adoption!!!!

-A house full of stuff we do not need

-A church family who loves us

-A job

-Our health

-The fact that I do not have to worry about if I will eat tonight

-Christmas!

-Freedom

-Rainy days

-Naps

-Clean water

The list goes on and on. We have really been trying to pay attention to the small things that we often take for granted. We know that there are parts of of the world, such as Ethiopia, that struggle for the very things that we waste. Thank you God for your grace and blessings in our lives!

Thanksgiving 2009

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Black Friday

Last night after Thanksgiving with the Plumb's, me and Brian, along with his brother and his wife and his sister and her husband, went out to find those Black Friday deals. We left at 1130 and headed to Toys R Us. It was crazy!!! It always blows my mind at how many people will actually cut in line! After waiting in line for about one hour, we hadn't even gotten in the store yet! We wimped out and headed to Walmart to get an early start. We shopped and shopped and shopped! We finally got home at about 9am. We probably in the end do not save a ton of money but it is just the thing to kick off the Christmas season!

Brian and I getting ready to head out. He has worn this hat the past 3 years on Black Friday! He honestly loves it!

Amy and Ralph getting the shopping plan together!

John and Kelli are ready to go!

I made them do a cheer for Christmas deals!:) They know I am cheesy. They are supportive!:)

In line at Toys-R-Us.

John was really excited to be out shopping at midnight.

Wal-mart!

We had a great day today and got a lot of shopping done. It's officially Christmas season! The most wonderful time of the year!!!!:)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone had a day full of family, friends, food and fun! Can't blog for long. We are on our way out the door for Black Friday shopping. Pictures tomorrow!

A Thanksgiving tradition

I love traditions! Every thanksgiving Eve for as long as I can remember, we have gone to a movie. This year we went to see The Christmas Carol in 3D.

I am not a huge fan of 3-D movies. They make my eyes feel funny and I have a hard time really seeing the little details. Anyways, the movie was a little creepy. Definitely not a little kids movie. There was some stuff that was scary! It also got a little long in parts. But it is The Christmas Carol! Such famous Christmas story! It def got me in the Christmas mood!

There is no place like HOME!

One of my favorite things about Thanksgiving and Christmas is the time that we get to spend with our families. Even though we only live about 30 minutes away, we always make it a point to come home to Shawnee for a couple of days.

Isn't it funny that after 6 years of marriage, 1 apartment and 2 houses of our own, I still think of my parents house as home. Brian feels the same way. It is sort of like a mini vacation. You can just relax. It doesn't hurt that we are majorly babied! I mean, my mom cooks our fav foods and does some of my ironing! I know! I am tempted just to move in!

And there is just something about being back in my parents house that totally makes me regress. There was a time about a year ago that we stayed with my parents while we were waiting to move into our new house. I am a little embarrassed even to admit this, but the first night we stayed, I managed to leave the oven onall night, forgot to lock the door, left 2 cabinet doors open in the kitchen and left my cup in the living room without a coaster. The next night, my mom left me post-its all over the house for reminders!

Tonight, when I walked into the room where we stay, I found a collection of things that my parents have started to buy to stock up for the baby! It is so exciting to see how excited our family is for baby Plumb!

Hopefully this time next year, we will have a little one to enjoy the holiday with!

Prayer request...

Tonight I need a favor. Prayer for the Stephens' family. The 2 girls are in our youth group and their dad is having some health problems. He is in need of a liver transplant. This whole family is wonderful. The two girls are the sweetest and their mom has been a great friend. Prayer is powerful. Please pray for healing for their dad.

The weekend..

What a busy and fun weekend! It seems like we did so much , but it doesn't feel like it is time to go back to work. A lot of time with the youth group, we like to share Pow's and Wow's of the week. Pow's are the lows of and Wow's are the highs. So I thought I would share our weekends Pow Wow's.

5 Pow's

1. Waking up early on Saturday.

2. Missing the Queen of Sheeba, an Ethiopian restaurant in OKC where families adopting or who have adopted from Ethiopia meet up occasionally.

3. Brian and I have both had sinus headaches today. Boo for allergies!

4.We were out of American cheese for our lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches today. Swiss cheese just was not as good.

5. I can't think of another Pow. It was a good weekend!

5 Wow's

1. Had a slumber party with our awesome nieces! They are just so much fun.

2. Got to spend lots of time with my mom and dad. I am so ready for them to move from Shawnee to the south side of OKC! They say just a couple more years!:)

3. Dinner with my parents, sister, and her boyfriend at Hideaway. Best pizza ever! We always laugh so much when we are together!

4. A nap!:)

5. Brian had the whole house cleaned and the Christmas lights up outside when I came home Friday from work! I know, I am so lucky!

Hope your week has more Wow's than Pow's!

Baby pictures

30 days of blogging. It is getting tough. I don't know if I can keep this up!:)

I was looking through some pictures on my computer tonight and thought I would share some pictures of Brian and I as babies!

He has always been so cute!

I guess my mom liked ruffles!

If you have any blog post ideas, don't hesitate to make a suggestion. If not, I may just keep posting randomness!:)

A few things I learned tonight...

So my four nieces spent the night tonight, and I thought I would share a few things that I have learned.

1. The quiet game is really just an invitation to yell at the top of your lungs for 5 minutes straight.

2. When sitting down with 4 kids under the age of 10 to eat dinner, there is a good chance that you will only eat half a piece of pizza, but still manage to have pizza sauce all over you.

3. 4 and 2 year olds are scared to death of life-size Santa's that sing and dance. (But their 10 and 8 year old sisters think it is funny.)

4. Spending $15.00 on tokens will win you 236 tickets that will buy 1 corn popper, 2 plastic rings and 1 rubber ring. (Which BTW takes 25 minutes to pick those 4 prizes out.)

5.A cartoon figure of Sammy Davis Jr can be mistaken for President Obama by a 10 year old girl.

6. There is nothing sweeter in the world than to hear a little girl say, "I love my Shannon". Precious!

7. You shouldn't laugh at a 2 year old when she keeps yelling at the top of her lungs at a restaurant. No matter how cute her yelling face is. It just encourages her.

8. 8 year old girls don't get sarcasm when you ask them to "please move over for your sister", they say "I don't want to",

you say "Thank you",

and they say "You are welcome".

9. It is really hard to take a good picture of 4 kids at one time.

10. It is never to early to open a few gifts under a Christmas tree!

Puppy Post

Ok guys, so I am really feeling this 30 days post. I am so tired tonight and can't think of one semi-interesting thing to post. So, I will leave you with a couple of pictures of Louie as a puppy taken about 2 years ago. I mean, who doesn't like puppies?!?!?:)

Ok people, off to bed. We have four little brown hair, brown eyed girls staying with us Friday night, and I have a feeling we are going to need some energy!

JunkPosse Jewelry

Christmas is right around the corner, and if you are anything like me, you are trying to find the perfect and yet unique gift for that family member or friend. (I kinda sound like a tv commercial here!). If that is you, you need to check out JunkePosse Jewelry. They have the cutest necklaces! I particularly love them because there are designs special for Ethiopian adoption. In fact I already have this necklace, Heart for Africa.

I also love this one. HOPE for Children.

The next one I have my eye on is this one, the Ethiopian Angel necklace. (The wing is in the shape of Ethiopia!)

She also carries adorable necklace like this one. which I will def need in the future. (I hope Brian is catching these hints I am throwing out!:)

The designer of the jewelry is actually donating a portion of sales of some of the Africa adoption designs, such as the Heart for Africa and HOPE for Children, to help another family travel to Ethiopia to pick up their second child! In fact, if you mark "Bottomly baby" in the notes section when placing an order, you get a free pair of earrings. Can you really pass that up!:)

Baby names

Ok, so this blogging everyday is getting tough! I am having a harder time everyday trying to think about what to blog about! How about baby names!

Growing up, I always kept a list beside my bed of baby names I loved. I would cross one out, add a new one, add one I have already crossed off...you get the picture. Names are one of the most fun things to talk about, yet one of the most frustrating. It is a lot of pressure. The name we choose will be with our son forever! Luckily I have Brian, who can think of any bad nickname, or looks at abbreviates or initial. (This can be a useful and then again annoying talent he has.)

We have decided that we are not going to finalize a name until we actually see baby Plumb's face and find out what his birth name is. But that has not stopped us from throwing around a few name so we can be prepared.

One of our names on the list is Alex, meaning defender of mankind. To me it sounds strong, yet cute and cuddly. (Does that even make sense?)

Another name near the top is Isaac, meaning he will laugh. Doesn't that just sound like a name full of joy and happiness. I hope our baby will laugh a lot, so that seems fitting...

Caleb, meaning brave and faithful, was a favorite, but we have pretty much scratched that one. Caleb Plumb. I just don't know if the double B's flow well. Do you see what I am saying?

I really like the name Casen, but Brian isn't a big fan. I don't know what it means, I just like it!:)

Some others that we have thrown out there are Joel, Elijah, and Aaron.

A name is really something that is hard to pick out. The funny thing is that whatever name we pick, in a couple of years, we won't be able to imagine him with any other name!

So I am just going to randomly open the boy section of the baby book and point to a name to make the decision for us. So it looks like the baby will be named.......Norbert! LOL!

CAN"T WAIT TO MEET HIM!

Tme to reveal yourself

So, I will admit it. I am a blog stalker. I have many blogs that I visit frequently without ever saying, "Great post" or "Right on". (Cheesy, I know.)

I am trying to be better about leaving comments on blogs. I know it makes the blogger feel like someone out there is actually reading what they are saying. When someone leaves me a comment, it is like Christmas! I really do get so excited!

So now it is your turn. I would love to see who out there is visiting our blog. Especially if you are adopting from Ethiopia! Maybe we could be friends!:) You wouldn't want to let a girl down would you!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Ev'rywhere you go

Take a look in the five and ten glistening once again

With candy canes and silver lanes aglow

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Toys in ev'ry store

But the prettiest sight to see is the holly that will be


On your own front door

Brian finally talked me into putting up the Christmas stuff today! He has been trying to get me to put it up since Halloween! But it is now up and I am in the Christmas mood! Love this time of year!:)

Clean water

I saw this on a friends blog yesterday and had to share. It is amazing to me that something so simple like clean water is something that so many have to go without.

Brian is doing a bible study with the youth group right now from a book titled, "Stripped Clean: Down to Nothing But the Cross". In the book, it states that according to adventconspiracy.org, an average of $450 billion is what Americans spend on Christmas presents every YEAR! They estimate that it would take only $10 billion to provide everyone clean water.

Right now, 1.1 billion people do not have access to safe, clean drinking water. That is one in six of us.

Charity:water is a non profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations. 100% of the money raised goes to direct project costs in areas of greatest need. Just $10 can give one person in a developing nation clean water for 10 years!

"Stripped Clean" challenges to drink only water for two weeks. No Sonic drinks. No Starbucks. After the two weeks, donate that money to the cause of clean drinking water.

Click here to be directed to the secure donation site of charity:water and click on the Yellow donate button. $10 could change someones life.

Do you floss?

My mom was always to great at taking us to the dentist. Every six months we were there for our cleaning. When I got married and we were in school, the dentist is just one of those things we cut out. I had never had a cavity, so I wasn't too concerned.

Brian and I finally made an appointment for both of us to get a check. It had been 4 years!. I was in shock that I had SIX cavities!!!!!! I will admit it, I have kind of slacked off in the flossing department. I had six small cavities in the back between my teeth that needed to be filled!

I had my appointment today for the left side of my mouth, top and bottom, to be filled. And I was numb! My face felt so swollen. It was so funny!

This is my "smile" face.

The "kiss" face.

This is me trying to show my teeth.

Probably not as funny to you, but me and Brian had a pretty good laugh!

BTW, I am now a regular flosser. You should be too!:)

What to Expect...

While organizing one of the closet's tonight, (one of the task on our baby list), I ran across this book.

I actually purchased this book about a year and a half ago when Brian and I were thinking about starting our family. (Kind of funny that I bought this book when I am a PA for a OB/GYN! ) It really got me thinking about that time a year and a half ago.

At that time, Brian and I felt that it should be time to start a family. I mean, it was apart of out "plan". I had graduated school and had been working for a few months. We were looking for a bigger house. It was just time.

When it didn't happen right away, we were really ok, which was actually shocking to me. I had always had a feeling it would be difficult for us. I thought that this would be something that would just devastate me. It honestly didn't.

After we had been off of birth control for awhile. Brian and I began talking about what the path was that we wanted to follow. Adoption or fertility? We always knew we wanted to adopt. I remember having conversations about it when we were dating in high school. The more we started talking about it, the more we started just talking about adoption . I can't really even explain it, but we didn't even think about anywhere else other than Ethiopia. It felt right in every sense of the word. We decided to go on a little camping trip and take the time to pray about it.

When we got home we decided to take a few weeks and listen to what God would say to us.

Shortly after that, Brian went to a lunch with some youth ministers in Edmond. At the lunch there were two women in line in front of them. They started talking and it turned out it was this family and they were leaving in a couple of day to pick up their son from Ethiopia!

At work, one of my patients was adopting through the same agency as we researching. As time went on, we knew this was our path.

We had dinner with the Silvestri's, who were kind enough to answer all the questions that we had. The next day we sent in our application and here we are! The waiting list!

Looking back now, at that time when I purchased the book, I had no idea what God had planned for us. He was already beginning to shape our hearts. We have no doubt that the son we were meant to have in our lives is waiting for us in Africa.

Bizarre dream

I had a dream last night that a muskrat was trapped in our bathroom. (I am not exactly sure what a muskrat even looks like but I knew that's what it was. When I Googled it, I was grossed out. The muskrat in my dream was not a rodent like) I was bravely able to get it outside.

Then a dog appeared from underneath the tub and while Brian took it away, I noticed a rabbit under the bed.

The whole time in the dream all I could think about was that I needed to take some pictures of these things to add to the blog :) I guess my subconscious was trying to help me out with some blogging ideas! Random, I know. But that is what you get when I have to blog 30 days in a row!

The Baby List

One of the most common tips we hear when people learn that we are expecting our first child, it to enjoy these couple of months together before he comes. That got Brian and me thinking and we have started a "Baby List".

A list of all the things that we would like to do before he gets here. Some of the things on the list include preparation tasks such as decorate the nursery. Other things include place we would like to go. So stay tuned for posts as we check off the tasks!

Oh, and we are open to any suggestions!:)

My new favorite song

I have a new favorite song. My neice sings it the best. I think you will like it too. :)

Parenting Tips from a Guy with a Dog

A couple months ago, Brian did a parenting class at church as the youth minister. We took some pictures to illustrate some of his points, and I ran across them today. I had to share.

(This also serves the purpose of adding our dog Louie to the blog. Brian thinks he is not mentioned enough. )

So here they are. Parenting tips from a guy with a dog!

Tip #1 Show them that you Love them, even if they act annoyed.Tip #2 It is important that they know that you are in control.

Tip #3 Show interest in their environment

Tip #4 Share your faith

I wish parenting were that easy, to master it with just 4 tips! I'm pretty sure there is a lot more to it!

Feed the Children

Excuse the blog design. Two hours ago I thought I would do some quick blog redesigning. Let's just say I am now frustrated, uninspired, and ready to go to bed! It may be a few days before you see any result and I am not promising that is will be anything magnificent. :)

Today, we traveled with the youth group to Feed the Children. It was an area wide event where several other youth groups in the area came to do some service. for the community. It was tiring, but we were able to pack up several hundred boxes of tolietry items to be shipped out to people in need. Oh, and we had a little fun too! :)

Just to show you how dangerous it was, I was injured by a box. :)

What a great day! Packing boxes is right up my task oriented personality and we had a great time with the youth. Brian and I feel truley blessed to be apart of these kids lives. They impact us in so many ways and we really just love hanging out with them!