Of Urgent Matter...

As some as you know and some of you don't, the adoption situation in Vietnam is very scary right now. There have been changes made that were supposed to make adoption safer for orphans and also for the adoptive families. This is not what has happened. Processes that were supposed to take maybe 60 days to complete have now turned into 60-90 WORKING days.
While all of this is happening there are thousands of babies laying on hard mats in a cold orphanage with not enough medical support and not enough food to sustain these little ones. 12 babies have recently died from not getting the simple medical attention they should have. I am fighting back tears as I think of my little one who may or may not be born yet, that she will be stuck in an orphange for several more months than necessary. There are many many families that got referrals in and around October and should have been able to travel and now are still waiting to go get their little ones. Rather than picking up a 3 month old they are hoping to get them at least before their 1st birthdays.
Not only is this sad for the families but its completely COMPLETELY heartbreaking to think of these babies still being in an orphanage when they have a warm house, food, medical, and family waiting for them here.
Well I have been asked by quite a few of you what you can do to help and I finally have an answer. We need to all get involved, we need to save the lives of Gods children. I want to be able to bring my baby home and see and read the stories of all these other families bring their babies home.
Heres what you do. Go to this website and click on how to help. There will be 3 different letters that you can easily print off or at least give you ideas of what to write and please send it to your State Rep. There is even a link where you can find names and addresses to your State Rep.
I will be sending letters along with Rich and anyone I can find to help.
I appreciate all the support that my friends and family have given me and now we have an opportunity to make a change by bombarding congress, if thats how we need to do it WE WILL!!
Thank you so much, all of us in the Vietnam Adoption Comunity appreciate the time you will spend by mailing off this letter.
Love,
Kris

The package has landed!

Well Im in LOVE with FedEx! Our papers have made it safely to Vietnam and now they will be translated and HOPEFULLY finally logged in to the DIA! I appreciate all the thoughts and prayers. Im really hoping that March will bring some excellent news for all of us at our agency.
*Note that these papers are our medical papers that we had to redue GRRR*

A Healthy Kick

Well I have decided to try to get my family to eat a little more healthy. Its not that we eat out a lot or even that we eat totally unhealthy its just that we dont eat as healthy as we could.
I think that especially when it comes to snacks I have had a hard time finding healthy snacks that my kids will eat. They both have peanut allergies so a lot of the "healthy" snacks have traces of peanuts. So Im at a little of a loss as what to get because lets face it every time they want a snack (especially Maddie who is my grazer) Im not going to run to the kitchen to make something.
We always have fruit in the fridge but I also always end up throwing it out because it doesnt get eaten and I know that is my fault for not pushing it but I cant eat fruit or veggies so I think its kinda out of sight out of mind.... also a fruit snack in the cubboard is sooo much easier.
So I have bought new fruits and veggies and Im really hoping to try and do better at this healthy thing.
Last night I even made fish EWWWW but it actually turned out pretty good (even without the tartar sauce).
Any of you have any great healthy snack ideas for me???

The DREADED gray hair!

I have never been afraid of aging I actually have been excited about it. For me almost getting to 30 seems like such an accomplishment and I cant wait to be 30-something. The only thing that I have dreaded was gray hair! After (and sorry for outing you Bec) hearing my sister has found some gray hairs last year I freaked out! I do NOT want gray hair, for whatever reason it bothers me. I color my hair regularly so it wont matter to much, but with the whole aging thing this is the only thing that I am not looking forward to. So imagine my shock when I find not 1 but 2 gray hairs............. and they werent even mine! Thats right people they were Madisons!!! Im not even kidding, a few weeks ago as I was combing her hair after her bath I noticed this wirey little hair poking straight up from on top of her head, and I was shocked that it was either pure white or gray. Then about a week later I found another little hair poking off the side. SHOCK! Am I giving my daughter gray hairs already?? Is she going to be gray buy the age of 10??? Or even 5 YIKES! So last week as this hair was taunting me I grabbed it to take a really close look and pop out it came with NO effort, she didnt even notice. So I studied this sucker and I swear it had to be gray the texture and the color. So Im a little freaked out that my poor daughter is going gray.... am I giving her gray hair? Maybe all my gray hairs are jumping right to her head.... perhaps the adoption is stressing her out too?? Kinda funny and I guess we will see if I finda anymore. BUT if it is stress (LOL) Im feeling like that will go away, our papers finally left San Fran on Friday night and Im hoping that our Dossier will FINALLY get logged in this week! HURRAY

Now this girl has some GREAT hair so Im hoping the gray is a fluke.

A Scouty New Year

To celebrate the scouts organizations birthday we have what we call the Blue and Gold banquet. This year the theme was Chinese New Year, I was excited about anything asian. So the father and sons had to decorate a cake ALL by themselves for the evening and Rich and Kaden did a great job! They decorated a chinese dragon and it ended up super cute!











Kaden got a couple of awards during the evening along with 20+ other boys and boy was it a LONG evening.


Isnt he a cute little fella! I cant believe how quickly he is growing up and becoming really a great little dude!


After the evening was over I cant even tell you how glad I was to have it over! As a scout leader there is a lot of effort put in to get an evening like that going. And I think we did a pretty good job and the boys had a ton of fun!

My Wife

I would like to thank my wife for just sharing some of the good stuff in her valentine blog! Thanks for keeping it clean hon!

Seriously though, I have really lucked out in life...cant complain about family, friends or where we are in life. There are for sure some anxious stressful times but overall......GREAT!

I could not ask for a more caring loving spouse, she really does take care of it all. I have the great excuse of a job that can take me out of the house. There is no way I could do what she does everyday and take care of home, kids and all the tedious work of adoption. There is three full time jobs in that description.

For the record the only reason I stood Kris up on our first date was because it was my 5 yr high school reunion. It was either that or take out a Young woman that was still a Jr. in highschool. Looking back I should of just gone on the date!

She was great pen pal while I was in Kuwait, that is where our relationship really started to take off. We both (i think) were unsure of the relationship unitl I came home for good. Then our realtionship was in fast forward, and never looked back. I followed her and her family when they moved out to colorado. ( i had no roots any more in utah) Within three months we where engaged, and married a month 1/2 later. Now 10 years later we are getting our second wind! No stopping us now! I am thankful everyday for my family. The kids are a blessing and I love the weirdness that flows thru them from time to time...if I had a video of all the weird stuff, that would be my golden ticket for funniest videos. And since my wife never puts a pic of herself up, i'll do it for her. How could you not love these two models?

I wish I had something clever to quote to end this with, but I'm not a big talker....But if I had to leave with some words of wisdom it would be the following:

If you're too open minded, your brains will fall out.
Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.
Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you a mechanic.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you've never tried before.
My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.
Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.
It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite government program.
If you look like your passport picture, you probably need the trip.
Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.
No husband has ever been shot while doing the dishes.
A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.
Middle age is when broadness of the mind and narrowness of the waist change places.
Opportunities always look bigger going than coming.
Junk is something you've kept for years and throw away three weeks before you need it.
There is always one more imbecile than you counted on.
Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
By the time you can make ends meet, they move the ends.
Someone who thinks logically provides a nice contrast to the real world.
When you eat a candy bar or have a wonderful dessert, have a diet drink. The calories are cancelled out by the diet drink.
I love deadlines...especially the 'whooshing' sound they make as they fly by.
When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail.
What was the greatest thing before sliced bread?
A flashlight is a case for holding dead batteries.
The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.
Is it possible to be totally partial?
It's not an optical illusion. It just looks like one.
Is it my imagination, or do buffalo wings taste like chicken?

and if you want a good laugh check out this youtube commercial...this is who I want to model myself after... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlnojyrSx_g

More of previous post

On Valentines Maddie took a Valentine to her Valentine, Silas. It was so stinkin sweet!

Silas also had a Valentine for her.... a cute flower
Also on Valentines day Maddie went to a Princess Tea Party at a friends house. She was pretty excited about dressing up and getting to wear a little makeup!
Cinderella is her favorite right now so that is who she dressed up as.

So it was a pretty fun and crazy week, we are still waiting for Fedex to show that our new medical papers are done in San Fran, so until then I am stocking the FedEx site once again and I even have the # memorized. So if you wanna join in some prayers for a quick and safe trip to Vietnam for the papers please do!!

This Weeks Wrap-Up

This week in the kids school they had spirit week. The first day was crazy hair day, and we usually color Kadens hair but since its already colored black right now it made it hard.

We decided to try the blue color anyways and put lots of hair ties on top!

Maddie had a blue faux hawk!
This week we also had our end of the season basketball dinner. We actually had a winning season which was so awesome!! The boys ate and got awards and we all had a really good time!
Of course Valentines was also a blast....
For school they just had to wear pink, red, or white so Kaden thought red would work
There was also hat day and dress like a teacher day and those are pretty lame, and then school pride day but I cant show that pic cuz it has the name of the school on there.

My Valentine

So I think what Krisbee did was so cute and I decided I would follow along but wait until today to share about my Valentine!

HIS NAME

Richard Charles Jeffers

He goes by Rich though because of his first and last name WAY to many people end up calling him Jeff. He gets emails or phone calls asking for Jeff Richards and he takes it in stride BUT when people that have known him for years call him Jeff I think it gets to him.
(My sister and her friend..his ex used to call him Dick Chuck because of his name and he HATED it).

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN MARRIED?

We just celebrated 10 years last month and you can read all about it in my January 16th post.

HOW LONG DID YOU DATE?

Umm lets see 2 years kinda. We met when I was just 16 and married 2 months before I turned 18 (I know super young and kinda sounds ghetto) but we both knew we were ready and in love awwww and now look 10 years later suckas!! He proposed on Halloween of 97', its a great and easy date to remember the anniversary of that. He was very sweet and simple about it, he sat on the floor pulled me on his lap and showed me the ring and I giggled said yes and ran out to show my family.

WHO SAID I LOVE YOU FIRST?

For sure he did, he was saying it for quite awhile before I was ready to. I guess I had trust issues with men because of watching my mom go through relationship after relationship and never really thought I would bother with marriage and even though I knew Rich was a stand up guy and that I loved him so much it took me a long time to trust him and myself enough to finally say it back, and when I finally did I was in Utah and he was in Texas so I said it over the phone!

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed?

Well our positions have changed with houses but I am always closer to the door so that I can get to the kids fast because "he doesnt hear them." LOL But right now if we are laying down I am on the right side.

WHO MOWS THE LAWN?

He usually does. I actually enjoy mowing the lawn but when it gets hot my body does not handle heat well so ya Rich does the mowing and I do the weeding.

WHO DRIVES?

LOLOL Well when we are together as a family he does and I sit in the passenger seat the whole time staring at the spedometer and giving him a hard time for being so slow. It drives me nuts that he wont go 5 over and I constantly have to push on his leg to get him to at least go the speed limit. I should just drive Im not sure why he still does.

WHO IS STUBBORN?

HEHEHE well I for sure am more stubborn and he is the easy going one. He always says sorry and I always let him LOL ooo dont I sound mean on paper?!? I love that when he knows hes messed up he right away will say sorry and I have been working on letting it go right away. Thanks hon!!

WHO KISSED WHO FIRST?

While we were dating he was coming home on leave from the army and was going to stay with my sister so I went and stayed there to and it was sooo awkward because we really didnt know each other to well yet we really had only been writing letters to each other, and so he was leaving to go buy dinner and leaned over and gave me a peck and I thought OO well that was smooth NOT! LOL then after hanging out with him for one more day we went to get dinner together and I had decided that he really was a really awesome person and I had planned on making out with him all the way home at every street light and then the dummy ended up taking the freeway home so there were only like 2 lights but those two make out sessions were AWESOME! (So teenager right)

WHO ASKED WHO OUT FIRST?

Well he asked me out but really it was prompted by my mother and I think he did it more as a favor or to be nice because he really was quite a bit older than me and then ended up standing me up the first time and came the next day. (He made up for that later)

WHY DO YOU LOVE HIM?

Because he really did come in and rescue me! He was and IS my knight in shining armor. I adore the goofy looking grin when he is feeling frisky and love that when he knows Im upset that he will try anything to make me happy again. I love that he loves his kids and I love that he isnt the kind of man that would ever punish with corporal punishment, or ever hurt me. I love that I can trust him in any situation and I love how knowledgable he is and can surprise me still with stories of experiences that he has had. I love that he already is in love with our little Malia and I love that I know he will treat her as he does our Bio children. Hes pretty darn good lookin! And I love him because he puts up with me and loves me through sickness through stretch marks and any struggles we have or ever will have. And I love that he treats me as an equal even though he is the bread winner he doesnt think of it that way. And I love the faith that he has and that he is a man who goes to church every Sunday and will serve without complaint in a calling that I know I would. You go boy! I love you so much and thank you for choosing me Im so greatful to be your eternal companion!

I wanted to add some pictures of him from back in the day but they are all in the garage packed away while we are finishing the basement and its WAY to cold to go look right now, so I will have to add them later.

Valentines Party

Year of the Rat

So usually a rat would freak me out, that being said this year will be the year of the rat and my daughter may be born this year so I will celebrate the rat! Tet is the Vietnamese New Years Celebration. It is a celebration that for most spans 7-10 days. They start preparring early by cleaning the house and even painting it. It seems to be a lot about getting rid of the old and in with the new and hoping for a great year of good luck. They surround themselves with family and friends and make sure that 1 certain day is filled with only good as to not bring bad luck into the new lunar year.
I am excited to be able to add one more holiday on my calendar. We are planning on celebrating somehow, we just arent sure exactly how yet! I think I will maybe make an easy Vietnamese dinner and discuss with the kids what Tet is all about. I think next year will even be more exciting getting to celebrate with Malia and start her on a path of knowing all about her culture and background (which means I have to learn to).
I may have to follow some of the traditions they have to ward off evil since in the last 2 weeks our house has been a sick one starting with Kaden and ending with Maddie. So if you see a new Cay Neu tree in the yard for 7 days or even a Hoa Mai, dont think much of it!
O arent I fancy knowing these things right! I am really looking forward to finding some beautiful
Ao Dai's for the girls while we are in Vietnam and hopefully they will get to wear them on special days like Tet. So while Im excited for Tet I am very excited for it to be over so our Dossier can get logged and hopefully referrals will move foreward!

My poor little Princess

Sick Girl

Saw the camera and gave mom a smile
This is how her last 2 days went

So little miss has been very sick since Friday night. I thought it would be a 24 hour bug but it just wont go away! Today she seems to be quite a bit better but definately not 100%. Right now she is resting on the couch. We ended up staying home to watch the Super Bowl yesterday and she kinda had been a zombie all day but once Alicia Keys started singing this song all of a sudden she had joined in it was the saddest yet cutest thing because she had 0 energy but still couldnt help herself, the girl has music in her soul! So here my princess is in all her sadness but I think youll agree that its still adorable!

The list...

Erica started this and I have put it off thinking there is NO way I have 100 interesting things about myself, so lets see how it goes.....
I...
1. Love my kids so much
2. Love my husband a whole bunch too
3. Cant believe Im so lucky to have such great friends
4. So excited to add to my family
5. I love to take bubble baths
6. Hate when Maddie interupts my baths
7. I love good soap and lotion
8. Usually from Bath and Body Works or VS
9. Love feeling girlie after not being most of my life
10. I love shopping
11. Mostly love shopping for the kids (of course more fun with Maddie)
12. Am a complete car snob
13. I have yelled at Rich for parking a van in my driveway (sorry to all you van drivers)
14. O I hate how Rich drives (so slow!)
15. Love beating people off the line
16. Wish I could drive race cars
17. Wish I was braver
18. Love kissing my kids goodnight
19. Feel misunderstood sometimes
20. Think Im funny
21. Crave food I cant eat every day
22. Eat a whole box of Ritz every week
23. Miss my sis and the kids
24. My 5 year plan is to win the lottery
25. Wish I had a green thumb
26. Ive been in a horibly cheesy commercial
27. Love to have the gospel in my life
28. Love to hear my kids pray alone
29. Get strength from my good friends
30. Wish I knew how to say no sometimes
31. Hate my teeth
32. Always feel like Im trying to be better
33. Want my kids to have more than I did
34. Am in awww at those who have to wake up to an alarm every day
35. So greatful to my husband for being one of those people
36. Wish I liked to excersize
37. Wish I could sing
38. Taught myself how to play the flute in middle school
39. Wish I could have lunch with Oprah one day
40. Am sad when celebrities lives go downhill
41. Love to go boating
42. Not to fond of water
43. Terrified of cruises
44. Loved taking the kids to Disney and hope to go back soon
45. Love the color red in my house
46. Wish I was more interesting at this point lol
47. Love a clean house
48. I appreciate how well behaved my kids are
49. Always beaming when I get complemented on them in public
50. Ok cant STAND when parents dont pay attention to their naughty children
51. Also cant stand buggers on babies
52. Love a clean fresh soft baby
53. Addicted to blogging
54. Wish I would have stuck with art classes
55. Would love to be a photographer
56. Wish I could fall asleep sooner
57. Love a good funny movie
58. Actually enjoying the Wii
59. Really cant wait for my Malia to come home
60. Surprised how much Faith I have had through this process
61. Love the sweet comments people leave on the blog
62. Wow 62 already
63. Wont let people talk bad about my kids
64. Cant stand uneducated people discussing adoption
65. Wish public speaking didnt make me want to puke
66. Love getting in a warm bed
67. Really enjoy and need those ladies nights out
68. Have really come to love reading good fun books
69. Wish I could move to Hawaii and Kaden could be a surfer and Maddie could be a Hula girl
70. Hate needles
71. Learned to drive a stick shift first and after 3 years drove an automatic and was SO scared
72. Love Maddies hair, love doing new things to it love the color love it all
73. Love doing different things with my own hair even if it puts me in the "crazy file" for some people
74. Hate most jewelry
75. Finally have gotten Rich to realize I hate jewelry and flowers
76. Wish I was a better cook, and baker
77. Think I could be a therapist sometimes
78. Am super sensitive to peoples emotions
79. If I offend someone I can guarantee it was not on purpose
80. Think I would love to have a little "work" done
81. Am way to chicken and I dont want my girls to want that
82. Really hate swimsuit season
83. Am proud of where my life is
84. Love non school days where I can sit and be lazy
85. Have a hard time letting my kids venture off with other people
86. Cant wait to be a world traveler
87. Think my eye sight isnt as good as it was
88. Sluffed school trying to "be cool"
89. Love being crafty
90. Thought my stuffed animals were real when I was little
91. Enjoy when people are genuine with me
92. Hate HATE being used
93. Love being part of the adoption community now
94. Have to be watchful of the OCD part of myself so I keep parts of my house dirty on purpose
95. Cant wait to be in my 40's
96. Wish I didnt doubt myself
97. Am so very proud of my kids
98. Love when Rich can surprise me
99. Hope Im a good friend
100. Am a lover not a fighter.....sometimes

Wow I cant believe I finished that and Im sure when I read it in the morning I will want to erase most of it. But I can blame it all on lack of sleep!