Halloween Notes

• Kiran loved the trick-or-treaters that came to our house. She would run to the door and stare at them. Most of them were really great to talk to her, wave at her, etc. One guy said to Jonathan after receiving his candy, "Thanks and congratulations on the baby!"
• Someone was out in a golf cart totally decked out in spider webs. That is stylin'.
  
• Kiran went trick-or-treating at 2 houses and came home with 4 pieces of candy. Not bad for the first time. Plus she wouldn't wear her mane. She probably would have gotten more.
  
• I don't mind the big kids so much. I just wish they would make an effort and be in costume. I'm thinking next year of posting a sign that says

No Costume, No Candy so Don't Even Bother.

Big Wig

Last night, LP hung out with our kid while Jonathan and I hobnobbed with the big wigs of the conference where J works. I interacted with the president of Furman, Elon, ASU, and Wofford as well as others. By "interacted" (thats for you mert) I mean spoke to, sat at the same table as, stood behind in the buffet line, overheard talking to someone else, etc. I did actually speak with Furman's esteemed, Dr. Shi. He claimed to remember me but then he called my dad a saint and then I knew he was faking.

Kiran had a ball with LP last night and slept 13 hours without a peep.


Here is Kiran's crib! Today I bought crib sheets, washed them and put them on. I also picked out pictures to go in her frame and picked them up at CVS. I still haven't picked up the drill.

Pumpkin Patch

I don't remember ever going to a pumpkin patch when I was growing up but it seems to be the fad these days. We saw an advertisement for an apple farm/pumpkin patch so we stopped on our way back from Greenville one day. I guess the drought really got to the pumpkins because the patch was a little... dead. Kiran still had fun but we did actually buy our pumpkin from Walmart. I hate buying stuff like that from Walmart but we went to Lowe's first and they were all sold out.

Kiran found one!

I got it, Mom!Sad pumpkin patch :(

P.S. Yesterday I didn't do anything for Kiran's room. But today I got the drill and laser thing from my dad. Now I just have to go find my courage...

Graciousness

Alicia used to talk all the time about God's graciousness. She would point out things He'd done like providing the money for her to fly back to America to be in her best friend's wedding and just gush at how gracious He was. It was a little bit of a foreign concept to me- I'd never thought about those things that way. But this week, I really felt some of God's graciousness.

On Wednesday, Kiran and I took a road trip to Lancaster to visit Jonathan's grandparents, Grandmom and Granddad Helms. The day we moved into our house (early September) Jonathan's grandmom fell and broke her hip. She had surgery and then later that same week, she broke it again requiring another surgery. After staying in a hospital and a rehabilitation hospital, she is recovering at home with full time care.

Kiran with her great-grandmother

Kiran & I had the best time with Jonathan's parents and grandparents. Kiran was just a ham... talking, signing, getting into everything... and Grandmom and Granddad just ate her up. They loved having her around and Kiran loved interacting with them, esp Grandmom because she kept giving her fresh chocolate chip cookies! Grandmom and Granddad were in great spirits and we really enjoyed ourselves. Kiran was worn out- she slept from their driveway to our exit- almost 2 hours!

Kiran checking our her great-grandfather

Did I mention that they are both almost ninety and until last month lived completely on their own on their farm as they have for more than 60 years??? Anyhow, God was so gracious to allow us that trip on Wednesday instead of Thursday as we had first thought because the very next day, Jonathan's granddad fell and broke his hip. He had surgery today and it went very well. They are expecting him to even be able to put pressure on it as soon as tomorrow!

I just know that no matter the future or how many more trips to Lancaster we have, that Wednesday trip will always be one of the most precious memories I keep.

Accountability

I need some accountability people.

On getting Kiran's room put together. Sometimes I get so busy in maintaining our house and throwing the bouncy ball 563 times and going to Target that I just forget to work on some of my projects, i.e. Kiran's room. Then at night when I have free time, I can't do it because she is asleep and in bed. In her room.

So I'm asking you to keep me accountable to do ONE thing each day to her room. Ok?

Yesterday I washed the mattress pad and put it on the mattress.
Today I cut open the cool photo frame that Brenna & Geoff gave her. I can't hang it yet because I need a drill and I'd like to have some sort of leveling device mainly the cool laser level that my dad has. I attempted to find some photos to put it in but we haven't printed out pictures in years! So I opened Picasa to find some pictures to print. No good ones from the last few months. So we have to have a photo shoot.

Update on Kiran's Health

Last week, we had Kiran's hemoglobin checked again. Instead of being up like the drs thought it would, it was back down a little. After consulting with the hematologist, her pediatrician has decided to try iron drops for 2 months to see if it helps. It sounds to me like they can't really figure out why her hemoglobin is low. Anyhow, pray with us that the iron drops will help her body regulate the hemoglobin back into normal levers.

Ask and you shall receive: tresalejandros has put up a slide show of pictures from Meredith & Paul's wedding so you can go check it out!

MOPS

I attended my first MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group this morning. Everyone is assigned to a table and that is their group for the semester (year?). Groups are randomly drawn from a hat at the beginning of the semester. I was put at Annie's table. There were four other women at my table. All 4 of them had 4 children. Every one of them has a set of TWINS. Every single one.

About a half hour later, another woman joined our table. She only had three kids and no twins. Except the fact that she herself was a twin.

G105 Roommate Reunion 2007

Jill, Lauren, Merritt & I roomed together in G105 North Village at Furman U our senior year. Our initials were JKLandM. We told Lauren we asked her to room with us because we needed an L.
So anyhow, JKL&M reunited in the High Country to have girl time and throw Jilly a lingerie shower since she is marrying Mr. McPhail on Dec 31 (8pm wedding, dancing till the New Year, how fun is that??).



Friday night, after I tortured Merritt & LP by driving past Happy Valley Elem, driving through Main Street Blowing Rock and driving past my house, we arrived to Mexican Fiesta made by Jill. We just talked. It was wonderful. The four of us are so different, yet we really fit with each other. As someone said that weekend, we were close at Furman because of proximity, we are close now because we choose to be.



Saturday morning we headed to Moses Cone and hiked to the firetower. The views were amazing although we were just a few days before peak leaves. We had lunch at Jill's parents' home in Banner Elk, our High Country home. We visited Jill's future home and crammed in a little shopping. Then we threw Jill her lingerie shower.




Jill was awesome. Sunday we headed to Banner Elk Christian Fellowship to hear Jill's dad preach it. We were not disappointed. And so goes another roommate weekend.

Wisteria

Before picture from the doorBefore picture from the other side of the room

This weekend, two of my bestest buds (Jill and Lauren P (and Merritt in spirit)) came over for a sleepover and VOLUNTEERED to help paint Kiran's room.
We did one coat of Wisteria with a few touch ups. We finished in 1.5 hours. Then we sat down to some Edy's Loaded Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream and Grey's Anatomy.

after from doorafter from other side of room

Jonathan & I put together the crib that we generously passed on to us. But because of some complications, the mattress is too high so Kiran would flip out of it in 0.6 seconds flat. So we're debating
1) breaking the entire thing down and drilling new holes
2) moving Kiran into a toddler bed
3) letting her sleep in her pack-n-play until she's 12

I love the color and I really loved the help. THANK YOU GIRLS! It looks great but I still have so much more I want to do in her room before I consider it done. I need to hang the letters of her name (thanks brenna & geoff), hang the photo thing, set up all her bedding/room stuff (which I found at an awesome consignment shop- I really need to blog about that), find a white dresser or sand & paint the brown one, find a white glider, buy window treatments and put up, find a bookshelf, get storage bins/baskets, etc. So its a work in progress but at least its a purple work in progress.

Wedding Hopping

Tonight we went wedding hopping. First stop, Taylors FBC. For you Taylors folks, we went to Meredith N's wedding. For you India folks, we went to Paul Poe's wedding. It was very sweet. Meredith didn't stop smiling the whole time. And she wore a veil with sparkles in it.

Then we went another Kelley's wedding reception. It was fun because we got to see some people that I grew up with. That is sometimes fun, sometimes not. But tonight it was fun. I don't have any pictures because I didn't take any. Although that is not true. I did take some but they were all on Tommy's camera that I stole and took lots of pictures with. Because he has a digital SLR and I am guilty of coveting his camera. It was sweet. I totally want a digital SLR now....Christmas present? I'll add that to my list.

1. ipod nano
2. dyson vaccuum
3. nikon slr digital camera

I don't ask for much do I?

Swiffer

I have some coupons for Swiffer that I don't need. I have 5 sets of 2 coupons each. One is for $3 off any Swiffer Starter Kit and the other is $0.50 off any Swiffer refill. I'll give them to the first people who comment or email me and want them.

Friendship

Our willingness to take risks and trust in each other
brings meaning and joy to the journey of friendship.

- Steven B. Wiley

Its HERE!

My blog book appeared on my back porch last evening and it looks awesome. I am really impressed with it and I'm totally motivated to format We've Been Outsourced: The Second Year.

I would recommend this to anyone thinking about turning their blog into a book. The pictures are quality and the writing looks professional (the style not the content). Next time I'm going to pay a little more for a few more pages so I can make my pictures bigger. The pages with six pictures on a page and text (it was the default page- it may have changed by now) are a little cramped for my taste.

I used Blurb and my 200 page, hardback, book cover included was only $40 with shipping. I did have a coupon code giving me $15 off. They did not pay me to recommend this to you. Although another coupon code would be nice :)

Blog Posts

I've been having trouble posting pictures to Blogger; hence the absence from blogging. Because really I'm not an interesting writer. And I no longer live in a mysterious country. I just have a super-cute baby oops toddler that you keep coming back to see.

Actually I think the problem may be fixed now but I've already written this blog post in my mind so out it comes.

My mom commented (to me not on the blog) how she was impressed at how I made a blog post out of hamburger buns. My life is really not that exciting now compared to our daily mishaps in India so I have to get creative. I told her I could make a blog post about anything. Whew was that a challenge?

Like my new hair dryer. I got a new hair dryer today. Why do I need a new hair dryer? Because my hair has decided that its going to be curly now. It won't dry straight anymore. I'm not sure when this transformation occurred but I'm pretty sure my hair is about 4 years behind the gel-your-hair-wear-it-in-curls trend. Anyhow, I used a diffuser this weekend and my hair curled up. So on my weekly pilgrimage to Target, I picked up a hair dryer with a diffuser in hopes of making my hair presentable to people other than my toddler.

And no, I did not pay $5 more simply because it was purple.

We love books

Yesterday Kiran and I joined the Spartanburg County library (yep Kiran got her own card; she can check out 25 books also). On the way home, we drove through the bank to deposit some money. The sun was shining right in Kiran's face so I took a library book and read it to her/blocked the sun while we were at the bank. When we drove off, she was doing good holding the book in her hand and flipping through the pages. I got a phone call (from a new local friend yea!) and kinda forgot that she had a library book back there. When we got home, she had indeed started eating the book. In fact, she had book stuck between her two front teeth.

I hope they don't charge us for a damaged book.


p.s. Its daddy/daughter weekend because I'm heading out the door to Roommate Reunion 2007 in the High Country. I'll be thinking of all of you mortals while I enjoy a little piece of heaven. You can see the forecast here.

Neighbors

We met another set of neighbors yesterday. Turns out the wife's dad is the Chancellor at USCUpstate and her stepmom is Dr. Vecchio, a history professor at Furman. That's for all your Furman history majors who read this blog. J was a history major but he never had her.

Breakfast Snack

This morning right after Kiran got up, she found a bag of puffs in her diaper bag. She decided to have a snack before breakfast. She opened them and ate every last one of them off the floor.

Hamburger Buns

Last night, Jonathan and I were packing up dinner after eating a pork roast that my crockpot had made. We had lots of pork left over and Jonathan commented that it would be awfully good with some barbeque sauce on a bun. But we didn't have any buns and we've already spent our grocery money for the week. I'm trying really hard to stay under budget for October so no hamburger buns. I walked into my mom's house this afternoon (did you get that- i still love that I can say that- i walked into my mom's house this afternoon) and she said, "Hey we have some extra hamburger buns we aren't going to use. Do you want them?"

Happy Birthday to my Favorite Brother!

We left the birthday balloon up for you Will! Happy Birthday! Its your last birthday as a single man..... enjoy it!

I Added New Blogs

I added two new blogs to my blog list on the side.

Ewing Family is a friend from high school who married a friend from college and they now live in Hawaii with their too cute for words son. Yeah you heard that right. Hawaii.

I also added A Posse...Ad Esse which is my friend Erin from Furman. She was on my freshman hall (isn't that where most long lasting college friendships are made?) and she just had a son in July. She's the only other cruiser to have a baby so we bond over projectile vomit and nap schedules and milestones that no one else cares about (oh my gosh she just pinched her fingers together- did you see that? Genius baby).

Enjoy their blogs.

Now to Him...

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." Ephesians 3:20-21

We saw the hematologist today. First of all, it was quite a humbling experience to sit in the pediatric oncology waiting room with many other families. I couldn't help but look at each of them and wonder why they were there... knowing for most of them, it came down to just one word: cancer. I was, however, thoroughly impressed with that waiting room. A teen and his mom were playing Life in the corner. Jonathan took a few turns on the NBA Jam video game. As soon as Austin, maybe 5 years, came in, a nurse came out with fish food so he could help feed the fish in the aquarium. You could tell it wasn't the first time he'd done that. They had a scrapbooking room and a computer lab. There was a bucket full of knitted hats from a church down the road.

I felt so out of place, not worthy to share the space with those who are going through so much more than we are. I can't imagine the heartbreak of the journey of a child with cancer, especially my child. Today was one of those reality days. The reality is that families deal with cancer in their kids. And they do it with strength and courage and a smile. And the reality is that those families didn't expect it to happen to them just as we don't expect it to happen to us. I'm so thankful to serve a God who can do exceedingly more than all we ask or imagine.

Today was hard. But thankfully, it wasn't hard for the reasons we were scared of. The nurses took 4 vials of Kiran's blood and it wasn't pleasant but they did a fantastic job. It was much less traumatic than last time. We met with the hematologist. He looked Kiran over and said, "If I had seen her for a physical, I would declare her a very healthy child." Her hemoglobin was 10.9 today (it was 9.9 last time). The normal range is 11-15. The hematologist looked at everything and his conclusion was that she had a viral infection that suppressed her bone marrow production for a while but that she is pretty much over it. Nothing to worry about. Thank you, Father. We'll have to check her hemoglobin in 2 weeks (with just a finger prick thankfully) to make sure but the hematologist was certain her levels will be up even higher.

As we caught the elevator, the receptionist that checked us in rode down with us. She asked what the dr said and we told her. She breathed a sigh of relief and said she was so glad the news was good. I could tell that most times the people that come there don't receive good news.

So maybe Kiran had a viral infection. She never acted sick- no other symptoms. Maybe God healed her. If we were in India when this happened, no doubt we'd be praising God for his miraculous healing of Kiran's body. Either way, I think His power is at work within us- maybe within Kiran's physical body, maybe within my spirit- and He continually does exceedingly more than we ask or imagine.

Pro Pictures

I can't believe I forgot to post about this. My SIL, Beth, and I took our little ones to get real professional pictures made at Furman a few weekends ago. We did it as a surprise for our Mother-in-Law. The photographer is our friend, Jana, and she is amazing. If you need a photographer in the Upstate, you need her. Except not in October because she will be popping out baby #2. If you want to see some of the pictures go here. You can click to see the slide show too which has more pictures.

Your Blog

So if you have a blog and you want me to link it on my sidebar, just let me know and I will. And if you see your blog on there and you'd rather it not be, again just let me know and its done. I forgot to include Merritt's blog originally so don't take it personally if yours isn't on there. I made the list a few months back when I first created this blog and obviously I didn't do it too carefully (Don't worry Mert's blog is on there now- Pura Vida- after only a few harshly worded reminders from her!).

The Office

Jonathan & I bought magnets at Target in Virginia. They were only $1 for 4 and they were right as you walk in the door calling to us. Well Dwight was calling to Jonathan and Michael was calling to me so we spent $2 and walked away with 8 awesome The Office magnets. My fave one has a picture of Michael saying, "I want people to afraid of how much they love me."

Tonight we watched the season premiere of The Office that we Tivoed last week. (We don't really have Tivo- we have whatever free DVR came with our dish network subscription but I think Tivoed is a really fun word.) I pretty much crack up at every single thing that comes out of Michael's mouth- but I have to listen very closely to catch it all. I've decided on two shows for this fall season- The Office and Extreme Makeover Home Edition. But I'm kinda getting over EMHE so if you have another show you think I'd enjoy, make your pitch to me and I'll try it out. I'm planning to limit myself to only two shows this season. I have plenty of other things to do. Like finish unpacking. But Jonathan thinks we should watch Grey's Anatomy since we invested so much time in it last year getting caught up on all 3 seasons.