It's time!

Wes and I are excited to start our foster care/adoption classes on April 30th. They will run every Monday and Wednesday night through the end of May. Then, there's a sixth-month process during which we complete a home study (that's where the state comes to check that we are not dangerous criminals), then a few months longer for our children to actually be placed with us!

We are not certain at this point if we want to foster or foster-to-adopt, but at this time are leaning toward the latter. Once we become licensed foster parents, we have to take a continuing education course every year to remain licensed.

So, our paper pregnancy begins.

Anyone else been sick this week?

James was really sick Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. I stayed home from school to take care of him and by about 2 in the afternoon, Claire was throwing up too. They both seemed to be over it by Wednesday night so I went to school Thursday, but the sitter called during first period and said James wouldn't stop puking. So I came back home. By Thursday night, I was the one bolting to the bathroom. I stayed home Friday and was better by the afternoon. It seems to pass through the system fast, but man is it painful to the gut.

Brian/Johanna

The photo on left is Brian at age two months. Johanna's face is rounder, but otherwise I think the resemblance is pretty strong.

My 2 beauties

This may be my all-time favorite picture.

Johanna's dedication at church

We are going to have Johanna dedicated at church on Sunday the 29th of April. We would like the whole family to be there so consider this an informal invitation.

Princess pictorial units

Ok, ok. To everyone named Carrie, hold onto your panties (while "accidentally" snapping photos of them.) Here are some recent Johanna pictures.

I'll take "Things that are wrong but funny" for $200, Alex

http://borowitzreport.com/archive_rpt.asp?rec=6704&srch=

Supreme Court Gives Gore’s Oscar to Bush
Stunning Reversal for Former Veep

Just days after former Vice President Al Gore received an Academy Award for his global warming documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” the United States Supreme Court handed Mr. Gore a stunning reversal, stripping him of his Oscar and awarding it to President George W. Bush instead.

For Mr. Gore, who basked in the adulation of his Hollywood audience Sunday night, the high court’s decision to give his Oscar to President Bush was a cruel twist of fate, to say the least.

But in a 5-4 decision handed down Tuesday morning, the justices made it clear that they had taken the unprecedented step of stripping Mr. Gore of his Oscar because President Bush deserved it more.

“It is true that Al Gore has done a lot of talking about global warming,” wrote Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority. “But President Bush has actually helped create global warming.”

In another setback for the former vice president, a group of scientists meeting in Oslo, Norway today said that Mr. Gore was growing at an unsustainable rate.

“The polar ice caps may be shrinking, but Al Gore is clearly expanding,” said Dr. Hiroshi Kyosuke of the University of Tokyo.

The scientists concluded that if Mr. Gore continues to expand at his current rate, he could cause the earth to spin off its axis by 2010, sending it hurtling into the sun.

“Here’s an inconvenient truth,” Dr. Kyosuke added. “Al’s got to stay away from those carbs.”

Elsewhere, after foreigners received a record number of Academy Award nominations, CNN anchor Lou Dobbs proposed building a 12-foot high fence around the Kodak Theater.

August 1991

I include this photo simply because it is one of my all-time favorites. Carrie made this portrait of her baby sister as she was preparing to depart for her first year of college.

A Christmas present

Remember this? Ipper shot up a whole roll of film trying to get one good photo that we could frame and give to Dad for Christmas. We finally got one, but this isn't it. Margaret is about a month old here, and Carrie (9, going on 10) and Brian (5, going on 6) are just adorable. As for me...well, this photo is proof that I once was young and slender. Also that I wore very big glasses.

Steph at 3 months

Steph at 3 months. Nothing more need be said.

Hello! Who are you?

Steph comes home from the hospital and is introduced to big sister Margaret. Aren't they sweet?

Margaret at three days old

"What's this in my bed?"

Brian-three days old

Brian at three days old, eyeing his father suspiciously.

Carrie & Dad

Carrie at one month old. Dad and Johanna had this very same conversation last night.

Daddy & Daughter

Anyone see any resemblance here? Brian is one month old in the photo at left.

As I went through old photos, it was very depressing to realize what a lousy photographer I was (am?). There are numerous shots of you kids as babies, featuring acres of sofa, wall, window, floor, etc. with a blurry little image in the center that appears to be a baby, but it's too small to tell. Very difficult to make out distinguishing features.

I Can Read Your Mind

I saw this on a David Blaine special, and I think I've figured out how to do it, so I want to try it out on everyone.

I want you to think of a number between 1 and 50. It can be any number between 1 and 50, but both digits must be different odd numbers.

Have you thought of a number? Okay, concentrate on that number.

I've got it. I know what number you're thinking of. I'll post it in the comments section.

We Now Return You to Your Regularly Scheduled Blog

Okay, hearing all the problems people have been having, I think I've figured it all out. You may or may not know that Blogger is owned by Google, and Blogger has been going through an upgrade for the past few months. In addition to upgrading the entire Blogger system to a kind of "Blogger 2.0," one of the upgrades was to merge Blogger and Google accounts, so you only need one account/password to sign in to either account. Unfortnately, I didn't realize that I had to upgrade our blog before any of the other changes could take place. So Blogger was asking for Google sign-ins, but then wouldn't allow them.

With the new Blogger 2.0, you'll notice a couple other changes. Most importantly, you can now add labels for your posts, so it'll be able to find a post about a particular topic. For example, I'm going to file this post under "Admin."

Long-story short--I think I've fixed the problem. You should be able to post again normally now, by loggging in with your Google account information. If anyone continues to have problems, please ask me directly to look into it.

Put the pictures on the blog and no one gets hurt

I demand pictures and updates on the newest doings of our newest niece. Inquiring minds want to know what fun new trick she has learned (where "trick" is a broad term that can encompass everything from learning to suck her thumb, to getting her first cold, to peeing on someone other than herself, etc.)

What we're up to

We have a meeting next week with our contractor to lock down the final details and determine a start date for our latest home renovation project: a carriage house/workshop (for our horseless carriages and our work and our shop ;-), a mudroom breezeway connecting this to the kitchen, moving the back door around to the west side of the house, installing some windows in its place on the N side, and framing/roughing in a master bath addition off our closet (which will become a walk-through closet).

Mr. Bun John has also said that he can install a much-needed new asphalt roof for us on the second story, plus shingle the carriage house (I am calling it that because the word "garage" is like fingernails on a blackboard to me - unless someone else can come up with a better name - but the design is like an old carriage house) roof, plus shingle the master bath addition.

We will be doing all the electrical work, plumbing beyond the rough-in, rock, mud, tiling, and finish carpentry work ourselves on all these things. Plus (don't know if this will be this year or not) building a deck-with-pergola/patio combination off the back of the carriage house, replacing remaining east kitchen windows with french doors as access, dividing the existing first-floor bath into two rooms and turning one into an office and refinishing the other as a 3/4 bath, and turning my existing "office" in the kitchen into a pantry area.

Then of course we'll need to remodel our closet and bedroom to go with the new master bath.

And when all that's done, that'll leave only the Bowman guest bedroom as the last remaining existing room to remodel!

Then of course there's the fact that at some point we want to finish off the attic and turn it into a small en-suite plus a box room.

And oh yeah, the contractor's project may include a potting shed/greenhouse/mower storage area, depending on how much home equity loan money we have left when we're done (and how much of our sanity....)

Yeah.... Looking at this list, this isn't all going to get anywhere near done this year, but for sure the new garage, mud room, and framing for the master bath, and the roofing.

Just thought you might like to know that eventually we'll have covered parking. Too late for winter of 2006-2007, but ooh, next year will be grand.

Update on Claire

We saw the Dr. on Monday and here is what we think: She was running high all afternoon and evening on Saturday and we couldn't get her sugar down. I changed her port and this fixed the BG. The problem is that her body was getting used to being high so the rapid drop in her blood sugar made her feel hypoglycemic, even though she wasn't. When she hit 98, her body reacted like it was bottoming out. We don't need to do any further testing and she has been fine since Sunday.