So, it's been a VERY long time since I've posted. I guess posting every day was a little bit too hard to keep up with so I just ended up stopping entirely. I really need to find a happy medium! :-)

So, what can I say about the last YEAR? We're still waiting to bring Noah home, which is very frustrating. I have not been doing great with the wait lately. It seems that every time we get one step closer, a few months are added to the next step. We were sure that we would have had Noah home for his second birthday, which was in October. Obviously that didn't happen. Then, we thought maybe by Christmas. Now Easter has come and gone and I'm beginning to wonder if we'll have him home by his third birthday. A week or two ago, I read a post on the Haitian Angels board from someone who had been out of IBESR for 8 months and was still waiting. I broke down in tears. We've been out of IBESR since December 6th. 8 months would mean that Noah would be home in August. I just couldn't handle it anymore. I was sobbing. Jaden and Danielle looked over at me and said, "Mommy, what's the matter?" I told them that I had just read something that made me think Noah is not going to be home for a long time. They were so cute - Jaden said "I'll just change it, Mommy," and he started typing on my keyboard. He figured he would just change what it said on my screen and everything would be okay. Then, Danielle said, "Don't worry, Mommy, I'll save you. Noah will be home soon and Danielle will save you." It was so sweet! Who could ask for better kiddos?

Since that day, I've had my ups and downs. We found out that we are finally past the next stage of the process (Parquet), but it's still unclear where exactly our file is at or how long we may have to wait. I read a few things about MOI (the stage where they approve your child for passports) and why it is taking so long. At one point someone said that things were worked out, but now today I read something about the head of MOI being afraid that people are using children for body parts! How do people get these crazy ideas?!? So, now he's apparently going over parts of the dossier again. I was hoping it would only be a couple more months, but now I'm not sure again. It's been very draining! Noah WILL come home, but it's hard to imagine when at this point.

Well, I'll try and post more often again now - when there are actually things to say. That's all I can think for now. I'm posting Noah's latest picture - he's gotten so big!!

Well, I didn't send Jaden to school today because he seemed to be getting a little bit sick. He called to me from the bathroom this morning and said, "Mommy, why is my poo poo broken?" I went in and it didn't look like diarrhea yet, but it didn't look normal either. I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

So, instead I spent the morning collecting donations from some freecycle people for our garage sale. I had to drive a bit, but I got a lot of stuff from three different people. I'm excited about having the sale now. I definitely want to get as much as I can together before we have the sale.

Other than that, not much to say about today. In the evening, after the kids ate dinner, I decided to clear out the toys in the family room. Boy, do we have a ton of them! It took me a long time to bring them all up, but it was worth it to have a family room again.

I barely slept at all last night because of my headache, so I felt really miserable this morning when I woke up. Scott had to go downtown again, so I had to get Jaden all ready and get him to school - not fun! After I picked him up from school, we went and got McDonalds for lunch - I just didn't have the energy to make the kids anything. Luckily, eating seemed to help me because I felt a lot better after that. I put the kids down and Jaden actually napped! He's only napped a couple of times in the past few weeks. I was worried that Danielle wasn't even going to nap because she was in bed yelling at 2:00. But, luckily, they both slept, so I was able to sleep too.

This evening, Scott and I went to John's Garage and had dinner. He had been hoping to go our last night, but I just couldn't do it because my head was hurting so badly. So, I figured we could do it tonight. We had a really nice time.

I ended up with a horrible headache today, starting at about 2:30. One of those headaches that just won't go away. I really need to call a chiropractor, but I just haven't managed to do it. So, since Scott was downtown again and I wasn't feeling well, we didn't go to church tonight. Instead, we watched the new Harry Potter movie.

Today turned into quite a mess. I had to drive Scott to the train station because he was working downtown. The train left at 7:25 (or so we thought), so we had to be out of the house before 7:00 - I am just not awake enough in the morning for that. When we got to the train station, the train was just pulling up! I was really surprised because it was only 7:15. It turns out that the schedule we had looked at was wrong and the train was actually running a little late! It's a good thing, or Scott wouldn't have made it.

In the afternoon, I took the kids to the library, thinking that today was the showing of Chicked Little. But, it turned out that that is next week. Oops! Jaden seemed so disappointed, but then, out of the blue, he suddenly cheered up and said, "Can I play with puzzles?" He's been very into puzzles lately. We played for awhile there and then we went to the other library because I had put a hold on a movie and it was in. Plus, we still had a lot of afternoon to burn because I had put Danielle down for her nap early, thinking the movie would be at 2:00.

Well, in the evening, while Jaden and I were working on a project for school, Jaden said, "Mommy, what's that brown stuff?" I looked down and there was diarrhea all over the carpet! It followed Danielle in a little path - she had managed to walk across the whole family room, leaking, and I hadn't noticed! I told Jaden not to touch anything, picked Danielle up and carried her into the bathroom. Well, the poop had gone all down her leg - all over her pretty new white shoes - it was a big mess! I ended up sticking her in the bathtub with her socks and diaper still on. I cleaned her up as much as I could with wipes, gave her a bath and then cleared out the tub and gave her ANOTHER bath. It was really disgusting! Luckily, Erin and Lisa were here, so they helped me out -Erin helped clear toys out of the family room and made sure that Jaden didn't get into anything and Lisa helped me get the dirty things out of the bathroom. I basically spent the rest of the night trying to get the family room carpet clean with moderate success. Ugh! I think we've decided this carpet has seen its last days. One good thing - Danielle's new shoes actually did come clean! Yay!

We didn't go to playgroup today because Jaden had a field trip at school. They went to some Dr. Scholl's exhibit about feet. Didn't sound that exciting to me and it must not have been because all Jaden would say was, "That field trip wasn't fun enough for me. It wasn't very enciting." Haha! Ever the critic!

In the evening, I picked up a pillow from someone who was freecycling it and then I took the kids to McDonalds. It was the perfect time to go because no one else was there and the kids had the play area to themselves for quite awhile. Danielle was having a lot of fun trying to climb up the slide and then sliding back down. After awhile, another little girl, a bit older than Jaden, showed up with her dad. She was a perfect match for Jaden and they had so much fun playing together! They pretended that monsters were chasing them and they pretended to have super-powers and they basically climbed around in the play area, chasing each other. Their personalities seemed so similar - it was great! Danielle really wanted to play with them - she kept standing at the bottom of the play area and trying to jump and stretch - as if she could possibly reach them all the way at the top. Finally, I decided to climb up into the tubes with her - pretty brave of me, considering that my claustrophobia makes the thought of those tubes might unappealing. We climbed around and then slid down the slide together. It was actually really fun. We were at McDonalds for quite awhile.

Jaden's new little friend's name was Maya and they had a really cute little interaction - Jaden started to say, "Do you want to..." and then kind of stopped because he couldn't get the rest of the words out (which often happens with him). She chimed in, "Be your friend?" He gave her a little puzzled look that told me that's not what he had been trying to say and started again, "Do you want to..." Again, he couldn't get the words out. "Be your friend?" she chimed in, eagerly. Another puzzled look. And then his little face changed as if he was thinking, "Yeah, yours is better. I'll go with that" "Do you want to... be my friend" he said this time. "Yes!" she cheered enthusiastically! Later, when we had to leave, another little boy had shown up and Maya asked him if he wanted to play with her. Jaden stopped and yelled, "No, you're my friend!" It was really cute. Poor kiddo didn't want to be replaced.

Today was the Promiseland Conference. I have been incredibly busy lately with rehearsals, so it was really nice to get to actually perform. We did a big musical number for the conference opener that was a lot of fun. And then, I did another drama that I also really enjoyed. It was relatively short, but I felt really good about it. It was about an ex-wife and ex-husband who are fighting about their son, while their son is standing there. I have to admit that I felt really good that a lot of people complimented me on my performance. I know that shouldn't be the driving force behind the dramas that I do at church, but there's a part of me that will always want the applause. I wish that that wasn't true, but it is. I sometimes feel so low about myself - and when I feel like I give a good performance, I can't help but appreciate when people notice.

Anyway, it was overall a very good day, but when I got home, I found out that Danielle was sick and had thrown up in the morning. Scott actually ended up staying home instead of leaving the kids with Erin. The poor kiddo definitely seemed out of it, but it didn't seem too bad. She was still her usual, sweet self.