Busy being fabulous

Maybe you've noticed that I haven't been writing lately...(maybe you've noticed that I start a lot of posts this way...!)  A bunch of stuff has started happening all at once after a quiet 'season'.  You know what that means...TIME FOR A RANDOM UPDATE!
- We just got back from a really awesome up north trip to see family!  It is always so refreshing to be outside up north and to build on the relationships with the people we love.  PS it was also the first time all 6 of us squeezed into a pop up camper and I'm not so worried anymore.  I think we can do it...still concerned about the food and storage aspect if we go on a longer trip, but at least I know we can all fit and be comfortable there.
- Moses can stop, start and turn on his bike!  Which means - he is completely independent when biking.  I cannot wait until he can join me for a morning run =)  He is a voracious reader and often finishes more than one book on the way home from the library.
- Dave is enjoying his summer off!  He did a few house projects, we have gone a few trips and we have had some special times w/our kids.  I think if you asked him, though, the one thing he would still like this summer is MORE.  Mostly trips!
- The garden is taking OFF - the heat has been a little harsh, but I (or a friend, when we were out of town) have watered every day except 2 since I planted.  We've eaten pounds of spinach, snipped up a lot of cilantro, enjoyed lots of peas, made pesto and added kale to our smoothies.  I really hope to make homemade mint chip ice cream!  There's a zucchini getting big and the cukes and pumpkins are not far behind.  The beans are a little slow...the bottom leaves keep dying off but the tops are going strong.  I see lots of flowers so hopefully the beans are coming!  The Brussels sprouts are holding their own...the store celery sort of got lost in the cilantro and spinach.  We found caterpillars on it!  Now that I pulled up the 'going-to-seed' cilantro and spinach we'll see if it bounces back.  Someone walking by told me I had beautiful food plots.  I think I glowed for a week!  That was the best compliment I ever heard bestowed on a vegetable gardener and I can't believe it was said to me!
- Curly Sue and Dewey are doing well.  Dewey is finally talking a bit!!  We were worried for a while...but now he loves to say car, ball, water and ARF!  If you are eating a sweet food (well, any food almost!) he will bat his eyelashes and say, "TASTY!"  Curly Sue (like all the other kids) misses gymnastics but cartwheels her way through life sometimes!  We play a lot of kickball with other families from church and not an inning goes by w/o at least one cartwheel in the outfield!  She likes to bike and see other parts of our neighborhood.
- Colleen!  There is a big post coming up about my sweet girl...maybe even tonight...She is really coming into her own.  Recently we had a follow up appointment at the children's hospital, the place where we first met her.  Being led down the hallway, being shown into a room, it was all I could do not to choke back the flood of emotions!  I don't ever want to go back to the way things were (I'm sure she doesn't either!), I am so grateful she no longer vomits or loses it as we cross the threshold of a medical facility, I can't believe how far she's come, I can't believe her legs are so long and strong, she's talking to me now, she holds my hand, she is so confident in herself!!!  AHHHHH!!!!  I swear I was going to explode from all the bittersweet joy building up inside of me! I had to remind myself to breathe!  The appointment went well and she never once seemed upset by it.  There may not be a spot in the baby book for "No longer freaks out at a medical facility, even if the appointment isn't for her" but if there was, I'd put that date down!
- Chickens - we went from 2 hens and a rooster, to 2 hens, 2 roosters and a passed-away-before-we-could-tell, to just the 2 original hens!  Pippa and Lois are such wonderful girls!  I have gotten so much more comfortable around them both - I've even been known to cuddle and carry them!  We would really like to get 2, maybe 3 more laying hens, but are just too busy lately to look into it.  Lately Lois has been taking breaks from laying - we have no idea why but so far she has come right back, so we assume she will do that again.
- Dave and I have been going to a small group at church again.  This time we are using the books based on the movie Courageous and they are geared toward making a commitment to the parenting style featured in the movie.  We've been looking forward to being able to attend and it hasn't disappointed us.
- It's one of the hottest summers...I haven't been running and I haven't been eating enough ice cream!  Don't scold me, I hate the heat.  How many days until winter?
-My hair is getting too long.  I had an appointment set up w/my favorite beautician stylist the-only-person-who-cuts-my-hair but is also my friend (what do you want me to call you??) and two weeks before that I had to cancel.  I found out she would not be available for almost a month after that *gasp!* but we got to spend a weekend w/some of the most awesome friends from college!  So the hair is still here.  I have not died in this heat w/my 4 pound pony tail, although I have considered cutting the darn thing off myself and just wearing a hat until she comes back.  Dave had to hide the big scissors.  I'd probably break one of the kid scissors trying to get through my mane!  I have already broken several heavy duty pony tail holders.  Do not stand close to me when trying to wrangle my head of hair into a small circle of elastic!  Or at the very least wear safety goggles!  I crack jokes but inside I am counting the days...the other day I had the weird CRAZY idea of just trying to hold out until Christmas...perhaps my hair would be the longest it's been in my adult life...and perhaps I would feel like Crystal Gayle or Rain Man (Gotta cut hair, gotta c-c-cut hair, yeah, 3 o'clock, time to cut hair)!  Who knows?!  I'm so boring w/my hairstyles it probably doesn't matter much either way.

- Dave and I have been staying up late working on puzzles.  We blew through a bunch of them!  The next one has 1500 pieces...
- We recently sat down w/2 families who sound pretty serious about signing up to do foster care.  Talking w/them really got us thinking about what to say to people who are serious and ask questions.  Most of the time people don't ask, or if they do, they really only want short answers...it's easy to point out a few good and challenging things and move on.  This conversation was different - there was a lot we wanted to tell them!  and they wanted to hear it!  I am planning a post including as much as we can think of about foster care soon...I really want to be prepared w/a more concise and accurate answer(s) for people who seriously ask in the future.
- This blog is coming up on 500 posts...I feel like I should do something fun or different to celebrate!  But oddly I've got nothing.  No ideas.  The only thing I could think of was an ask anything type of post but since I share a lot about myself and my life on here, I doubt there would be much left to ask!  I don't know...if you like that idea and have a question, leave me a comment here, on face.book, email or whatever...or if you have other ideas, let me know.  Thanks!
-PS about the post title - we are not too busy being fabulous like the song implies, I just thought it was a fun song title.  We are busy and of course fabulous so it fit in name only.  =)

Who knew?

Tonight at dinner, I busted out the unGame cards.  (For those that don't know - it's basically a bunch of cards w/questions.  There are no right or wrong answers.  You can advance along a board and everyone wins!  Usually we just use the cards.)  I thought it would be fun to hear the kids' answers.  Some of the questions start w/"If" while others ask you to describe something.  There are various types of cards and various versions of the game.  Some of the Mo's answers were surprises so I thought it would be neat to record/share them here.  (I don't feel comfortable sharing Curly Sue's and Colleen usually copies someone else's answer or makes up something she is thinking about.  She's a concrete thinker and this game doesn't work well for her!)
The first question was, "If you could have anyone famous for parents, who would it be?"  Without hesitation, Moses said, "Mick Jagger and Pepper Potts."  Um....?  I understood the Mick Jagger thing b/c of the 2 current pop songs w/his name in the lyrics, but who is Pepper Potts?  Ironman's girlfriend!  HA!  I must say I didn't expect either of those answers.  I doubt Mo knows who Mick Jagger is.
Another question sort of dated the game.  "If you could make any long distance call, to whom would you call?"  He chose some friends that we knew from college.  They used to live in TX (we got to visit them twice!) and have since moved back 'home'.  Again, I didn't expect that one, but I must say, I'd call them too!  We don't think much about long distance calls these days, especially since we can make video calls for free and our cell phone plans have a lot of inexpensive minutes.
When asked if he had to move, what 3 things (not toys, my addition to the question!) would you take, Moses said, "A weapon, food and drink."  Okay....I guess he was thinking like a survivalist for that one!
I thought this one was pretty special too.  "What makes a happy family?"  Moses immediately responded, "Compassionate people."  After a few moments of thought, he added birthdays!  =)