The Reindeer have Arrived!

Okay, so this post is largely for my mother and my brother, neither of whom believed when I spoke with them on the phone that plain sugar cookies could quickly become reindeer! Also, this is a neat trick for the rest of you, who I'm sure have about 80 school parties, church functions, cookie exchanges, and other happy Christmas activities all requiring you to bring something cute - because we all have tons of baking time right now! :)

So here's how it works:

1. Take plain sugar cookie dough and cut out circles. (I used a sugar cookie mix, rolled, and cut them with a cutter, but only because my grocery store was out of the slice-and-bake sugar cookie dough.)

2. Pinch each circle in the middle to form the shape of a peanut.

3. Add chocolate chips for eyes and a red M&M for a nose. Break sections from regular-sized pretzels to make antlers and add. (Expect to have to sacrifice a lot of pretzels in this process to get good sets of matching antlers, but who ever uses a full bag of pretzels anyways? Come on, they live in your pantry for too many months and then they get thrown out, right? That's what happens at my house!)

4. Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for about 8-10 minutes. Cool completely. I put mine in the freezer for about 5 minutes to really set the chocolate chip eyes before I packed them in the cookie jar. I hate doing all this work and then ending up with chocolate shmears all over my cookies! :(

5. Enjoy! Ours turned out to be tasty and quick! We mixed up the dough early in the day (takes maybe 10 minutes including doing the dishes!) and then we made about 4 dozen in an hour this afternoon. Will did all the decorations himself - always a favorite at our house! Sure, the antlers aren't exactly straight and a couple of cookies were sacrificed in the process, but, hey, that's part of the holidays, right? Joy in the journey not just the destination is my motto right now!

6. By the way, I'm thinking you could get creative with this idea, too. I haven't tried it, but I bet you could cut out an oval and pinch it twice and have a great snowman. Maybe decorate with a chocolate chip eyes, M&M buttons, a red licorice scarf, and a pretzel broom? We might try it - probably in January when we have a little more baking time! :)

7. Have fun!

Home for the Holidays!

We had sooooo much fun on our vacation! We've posted a few highlight pictures below, but they really don't do our week justice. We had such a great family time, with a few days of just our family of three, and then the second half of the week with Paula's parents coming to be with us. Will was in heaven - from meeting Mickey to a whole store of Legos to parades and fireworks every single day! Oh, and let's not forget those rides - this boy can plunge with the best of 'em! He rode absolutely everything that he was tall enough to ride - most of them more than once!

Sorry we've been neglecting our posting time here, but by the time we dug ourselves out of our laundry mountains, it was time to think about the holidays. We spent Thanksgiving at home - just our family of three. Wonderful, relaxing, football-filled, tree-decorating, non-shopping weekend. It was great! We're usually travelling at the holidays, so it was kind of nice to watch the Thanksgiving Parade in our P.J.'s in our own living room! :) We are also usually big time post-Thanksgiving bargain hunters, but we've started trying to change our tune. This year we finished our Christmas shopping before we left for vacation (Hip! Hip! Hooray!) so we could just focus on some great family time instead of running through the mall mazes this holiday season.

Speaking of great family time, we have a momentous occasion ahead! You see, Will turns FIVE this week, and we are in full-blown party mode. He wanted a Lego-themed party, so I have been studying up on how to make a Lego-shaped birthday cake. If it turns out well, I'll post pictures - if not, well... you can imagine that it is a cute idea instead! :) We even have the special treat of Bill's parents coming from Denver just for the birthday festivities. So, I'm sure Will is going to be in five-year-old heaven! Just think, a birthday celebration and Christmas all in three weeks. It's big stuff at our house!

So, please forgive us if we our posting continues to be sporadic at best. Between the birthday and the heart of our Christmas season, our calendar remains full. We continue to be amazed at how blessed we have felt this fall, despite good news or no news on the adoption front. Thanks be to God for peace that passes all understanding right now, and for continuing to be real and present in our lives.

For those of you not on the adoption roller coaster, the situation in Vietnam has been less than stable lately. The U.S. and Vietnamese governments continue to struggle with how to make the adoption process more safe, more ethical, and more fair for the children of Vietnam. Of course, governments aren't always the most moral, logical, or honest folks. (Think about your last trip to the DMV for a new driver's license and then multiply it by 100 and you'll have a tiny inkling of what some of the paperwork related to an adoption can become and how frustrating the process can be at some points!) Still, we continue - especially in this Christmas season - to be so thankful that

"For Unto us a Child is Born, to us a Son is Given,
And the government will be upon his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and peace
There will be no end."
- Isaiah 9:6-7

We are holding strong to the hope that God is so much greater than any governments or bureaucrats. He is firmly in control of this situation in Vietnam and his peace will continue to increase. Please pray right now for the children in Vietnam - for their continued health, safety, and blessing. Pray for the families in the adoption process - for those who are waiting to bring their children home and for those like us who are waiting to be blessed with children and are trying to keep hope in our hearts right now.

This verse above is one of the central sections of the Handel's Messiah. Bill is a self-proclaimed Messiah junkie - he loves to take in the music, the Scripture, the praise. If you have a free hour or two this Christmas season, take a few minutes and listen to it. Chances are, you'll be glad you did. Maybe you don't have the time to go and hear a live performance of it, but at least grab a CD and pop it in your car stereo. You'll be amazed how different your day can be when you really understand even the simplest of lines that "for unto US a child is born!"

Merry Christmas Season Everyone!

Disney Highlights!

Meeting the Mouse!

WE'RE GOING TO DISNEYWORLD!
Have a great week, everyone! We'll try to post photos, but I bet we'll be having too much fun! We promise to share the trip with you too!
If you're stuck at home and a little jealous, we recommend the Playhouse Disney site at http://atv.disney.go.com/playhouse/index.html.
They have tons of fun coloring pages to print, games (Will loves the Little Einsteins games), stories, and other activities. Hey, if you can't go to Disneyworld, here's hoping this brings a little Disneyworld to you! :)

Fall Fun!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! I keep getting these e-mails from friends saying, "Where are the Cooks?" Sorry we haven't posted in awhile, but we've been having a great fall! Busy, but so much fun! Some of our October highlights:

Will finished soccer! We provided decorations and team gifts for Soccer Awards Night. The kids had so much fun, and Will even got his first real medal! Bill was remembering how special his first team trophy was when he was a kid, and now Will's getting to experience that feeling too.

Paula is serving on the Leader's Committee for Will's preschool. Thepreschool had its Fall Carnival fundraiser last week. It was fun to see all the kids dressed up in their costumes, and we provided a craft project for about 200 kids. Everyone had a great time - especially Will! We all ate lots of corn dogs, bake sale goodies, and candy - what could be a better fall?

Paula also helped with the church carnival this past week too. We've baked cookies, served pies, and hung decorations. Will was a big helper too - stuffing goodie bags and helping decorate. We had a great time at the carnival last night with one of Will's soccer buddies and his parents - and of course, the other couple thousand folks that turned out for the food and fun!

We met our last weekend at the zoo for a Dillon OKC Vietnam Family Day. It was so great to meet all of these families that we have known only through e-mail and blogs. There were eight families in all - four with kids at home, three with referrals waiting to travel, and our family waiting for our referral. It was fun to watch the kids play and interact. Bill & I love to watch Will when he is with little Vietnamese children. You can just see his mind imagining what his new brother might be like. Thanks everyone for a great time - let's do it again soon! You can go to my friend Kerrie's site at http://www.zakmakesthree.blogspot.com/ to see a picture of our whole gang!

We've been celebrating Candy Week - oops, I mean Halloween! - big time this year at our house! Between the Fall Carnival at school, the Festival at church, the school party today, and a bit of trick-or-treating tonight, we should be good and sugared up for awhile! :) I think Will has worn his knight costume about 4 times this week, and has loved every minute of it. Today's excitement includes decorating pumpkin sugar cookies at school and trick-or-treating through the church offices. (Will's preschool is at a great church here in town.)

If all of the business above hasn't kept us busy, we have been getting ready for our big family vacation too! We are going to Disneyworld! Bill leaves tomorrow for a convention in the Orlando area. Will and I are flying out early next week to meet him - and to see Mickey, of course! My parents are even coming for the last few days of our trip to have some special grandkid time. Will has this free vacation-planning DVD that he watches several times a week - as much as I will let him. He knows all the cool rides (and the scary roller coasters too!) and exactly what he wants to do in each park. I expect he will be our little tour guide, because he was telling me yesterday how you get on the monorail and transfer between different parts of Disneyworld. The kid's got it down! I'm sure that we will be posting lots of fun pictures for all of you, but not until we return. There's just too much fun to spend much time in the hotel room in front of the computer! :)

We hope that you all are having a great fall! For my adoption buddies, I know that the wait has been a bit slow and quiet lately. We are so thankful that God has filled our lives with so many other things lately that we haven't had too much time to sit and count the hours until our referral. Sometimes busyness can be a curse, but for us lately, it's been a blessing! Of course, we'll drop everything as soon as we have some good news to share! Keep checking back - there may be baby pictures soon! :)

Happy Birthday to Me!

So, tomorrow's my birthday! We received a really wonderful early birthday present today! The Dillon staff e-mailed us to tell us that they sent our official paperwork over to Vietnam. Our papers are on the move again! For those of you not on the adoption road, this is really good news, because it means that we are still inching closer and closer to completing everything even while we wait to be matched up with our child. Sometimes things tend to slow down a bit during this phase, so we're thrilled that our paperwork wait was really short! I'm all about cheering for every little achievement - however small - in this process, so Hip! Hip! Hooray! :)

I was thinking how funny it is to e-mail and chat with my adoption buddies every day, and yet know so little about their "real lives." I don't know when it's their birthday or where they work or what they like to munch on while watching T.V. - you know, the stuff you pick up about your friends just by spending time together. So, in honor of my birthday, I thought I'd tell you a few things about me that you might never know otherwise!

1. I love to cook. Not like to cook - I love to cook. I love having a home-cooked meal on the table for our little family of three. I'd rather have a pork roast in my oven on a cool Sunday afternoon than go to the snazziest place in town.
2. I used to build things. In my previous life, I was a structural engineer. I designed buildings of all types - condos, houses, stores, restaurants, churches, schools - you name it, I've probably built at least one! Now, I do most of my construction projects out of Legos - occasionally Lincoln Logs or Tinker Toys, but Legos are the most popular with my four-year-old by far!
3. I grew up in Colorado, but I really don't like to ski. I was never really enough of a daredevil to be a great skier. There was a time when I enjoyed an afternoon on the blue slopes, but now, after tearing up my knee a few years ago, it's really low on my list. I've felt shaky knees way too often in the past few years for me to ever want to ski again.
4. Beach vacations do NOT interest me. I really don't like to lie in the sun at all. I have ridiculously fair skin, and I just feel like a lobster in the steam pot the entire time. I really don't have tons of interest in visiting Florida again, outside of Disneyworld and perhaps an overnight in Miami just to see the architecture.
5. So, given #3 & #4 above, you may be surprised when I tell you that I am absolutely the opposite of a homebody. I don't like to be stuck inside for more than about 2 days, and sick-kid weeks are worse than a root canal to me! I'm a go and do, see and experience kind of a girl. I love to travel, and I love to visit cities. I've been to 40 of the 50 states, and 40 of the 50 most populated cities in the U.S. (Can you believe San Antonio is in the top 10 Most Populous Cities in the U.S.? You can learn something new from Google everyday!) I always want to stay downtown, and the more buildings the better, in my book - I've got to feed that little hiding architect/engineer in me somehow!
6. Many people joke that my true career path should be as a concierge - I love to tell people the insider secrets about the most fun things to do in any town. When we lived in downtown Chicago, I think I was the only local who actually enjoyed sitting next to tourists on a bus - I could give them enough good, inexpensive things to do to fill their whole trip! I also have guide books for just about anywhere we've ever been, because I love to read and study and learn about the places we are planning to visit. I don't want to miss any of the good stuff - and there's always good stuff! Just today I found a Canterbury Concert, a ballet, and a Christmas Children's Theater performance in Oklahoma City to take my in-laws to see during their next visit. My husband was laughing that only I could turn a trip to OKC into a cultural event! :)

Thoughts for the Day!

I'm in my deep thoughts mood today, I guess I'll share one of my recent ponderings with you. Recently, I heard a speaker say that, "PAIN IS INEVITABLE, BUT MISERY IS OPTIONAL." Now I'm not normally a fortune-cookie philosophy type of girl, but this one really stuck with me. What an interesting thought to realize that I play a HUGE part in my misery - or lack thereof. Hmmmm......... So, I've been chewing on this one for the last couple of weeks, and I've decided that there just may be something to it.

You see, Bill & I made a pact when we began this international adoption process that we were going to enjoy it. Every single bit of it. Now, for many of you who are in the process of adopting, you may right now think that we were either 1) hopelessly naive about adoption, or 2) totally out of our minds. Let me explain a bit, though, and perhaps you'll understand.

I haven't talked much about the road that got us to the place where we are adopting from Vietnam. I struggled with health issues and infertility for about eight years before becoming pregnant with my son. Then, when Will was born, my heart stopped working the way it was supposed to, and I was gravely ill. I eventually recovered, but the doctors informed us that having other biological children was a serious risk to my life, so adoption became our only possibility for being blessed with other children in our family. We experienced a difficult (and ultimately failed) domestic adoption situation prior to deciding to adopt internationally. God always stayed faithful to us, even though we didn't always understand the whats or whys of our lives.

Now, I'll be honest -- infertility stole a lot from my life. It stole many of the choices for my life and my family that most other people take for granted. It stole my health, it stole much of my youth as I was faced with the reality of cardiologists and pills at age 30, it stole way too much money from my bank account. But a few years ago, when Will was an infant, I decided that I was sick and tired of letting it steal my joy. Thanks be to God, who taught me that I did not have to let the possibility of not having another child keep me from enjoying every single moment with Will. So, we played pattycake in doctor's offices, curled up on the sofa to snuggle when I was too sick to go out, and slowed way down so we could smell the roses.

When Bill & I decided to pursue this international adoption, we followed the same guidelines. I mean, why should a little thing like not actually giving birth to our second son rob us of the joy of expecting him? When I was pregnant with Will, I loved every doctor's appointment, every chance to hear his heartbeat, every ultrasound. I loved decorating his baby's room and shopping for his little clothes. I did not love the physical part of being pregnant, but I sure did love the expectation! I loved knowing every day that I was one day closer to him.

Well, I'm doing the same thing this time around! I'm simply loving every day that I am one day closer to my new little one as well. I love to peek at my friends' blogs, see the pictures of their little boys, and imagine what my son might look like. I love learning every bit I can about his country, soaking up the visual images of the sun going down over Ninh Truan or the water flowing down the river in Can Tho. I've paged through every Vietnam travel book they stock at the Barnes & Noble, taking in the pictures of the country, memorizing maps and city names that I can't even pronounce. I've walked the aisles of the Vietnamese grocery store here in OKC, imagining what the smells might be like in my son's hometown. My husband and I have committed ourselves to travel to Vietnam early just to get to see what life there is really like - waking up on a boat in Ha Long Bay, visiting the ancient temples and fortresses of Hue, taking a train from Da Lat to Saigon.

You might ask what started this musing in me. Well, I'll be honest. I have been probably been doing way too much computer surfing lately, reading the blogs, forums, and chat rooms of other adoptive parents. Somehow, I keep stumbling over this overwhelming attitude of MISERY amongst most of my fellow parents-in-wait. There is this sense out there in blogger-land that the time between when you start your adoption paperwork and the time when you pick up your child is some sort of episode of "Adoption Survivor". It's like you try to make it through without too much collateral damage to your soul. Well, I'm here to say that maybe we all need a little more "MISERY IS OPTIONAL" in our attitudes. Now, I'm not saying I'm perfect, or that I have all the answers. Certainly, there are people who have been down this road before me who've handled in with more grace in their little finger than I will ever have in my whole life. But, through my experiences, I have learned a few choices we can make to be a little less miserable, even in painful situations.

So, in true Letterman style, here's my Top 5 Tips for staying sane in the midst of adoption. If others of you, who have gone before us in this process, or who are riding this grand ride with us, have other suggestions, please post them on your blogs as well. Let's make this our week of really encouraging one another with ways to have good thoughts and make misery optional!


My Top 5:

5. Get a hobby! Adoption is a part of your life, not the sum total of your life! While you are waiting for your child, enjoy life! Take a class, make a new friend, travel, read a great book. For sure, enjoy your spouse (if you are married), your other kids (if you have them), and your extended family. Treat yourself to a lazy morning in bed, a long shower, dinner at a beautiful restaurant, and lots of good nights of sleep. (There may be a shortage of these when your sweet little one comes home - remember, it's not all green grass with new children!) Most of all though, be more than your adoption process - keep being you.

4. Be realistic about your expectations. Wow, am I amazed at how upset adoptive families can get with the waiting process, even though their wait is not longer than their agency told them it would be! If they say 6-9 months from LID to referral, it will probably be 6-9 months! Misery will not make it faster!

3. Fall in love with everything about your new baby. For me, all those travel books and trips to Vietnamese restaurant only make me more excited about my adoption process, not more miserable.

2. Get your information from your agency, not from others. I'm guilty of this one, too, so I can speak by experience here. I made myself sort of nuts for a few weeks, thinking that part of our paperwork process should be shorter than it really was, based on information from other families, rather than from the agency. When I finally called the agency to ask about my papers, they were moving exactly at the speed that they should have been. They felt like they were moving at turtle-pace because my perspective was wrong, not because they really were strapped to a turtle!

1. Be thankful! Don't see thankfulness as a consequence, see it as a choice - even a commandment, if you are a follower of Christ. Find something every day good to say about your agency, about your child's culture, about your opportunity to be a part of this process at all. Remember that our children are pure blessings, not owed to us or expected, but loved all the more for the reminder that they came straight from the Master's hand!

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." -- Philippians 4:6-7

One Happy Family!

Wow, don't you wonder why that family looks sooooooo happy? It's because they just received their I-171H Form this week!!!! Hooray! Yippeee! Woo-hoo! Yeee-Haw! If we could think of more cheers, we'd probably add them to the list too!

For those of you unfamiliar with the adoption process, you are probably scratching your head and thinking we're a little off right now. But, for a prospective adoptive family, the I-171H is sort of the crowning glory of paperwork! Funny, huh? It is the form from the U.S. government that allows us to get a visa for our yet-to-be-determined child. It literally says that we are completely, formally, offically approved to be adoptive parents. Almost all the papers we have filled out, notarized, certified, authenticated, and sealed with a kiss have led to this one - so we say again, "YIPPEE!"

So, what's next, you say? Well, our papers will be sent to the U.S. Consulate's office and then on to Vietnam to be translated and officially logged with the Vietnamese government. Hopefully, they will soon meet up there with our acceptance papers when we are officially matched with our son! Boy, are we ready for that part! If you think we are smiling in this picture, stay tuned! Wait 'til you see us when we get to meet our son! We're just hitting the really good part now!

Fall Fun!

Fall is in full swing now in the Cook household! Will is back in school, Bill is back on the road, and Paula is trying to keep us all sane in the midst of it all! Seriously, we apologize for our lack of blogs lately, but it has been kind of crazy around our parts the past month. We've had a couple of bouts of stomach flu, a minor car accident, a couple of travel weeks for Bill, and a lot of new activities starting up in earnest. Even Max the Dog was sick - we really mean it when we say that this has been "Survivor Month" around our house! (Max the Dog was very jealous of my blog-buddy Julie's daschund, Rudy, who got his very own post recently. So, Max managed to sneak into one of the pictures for his blogger debut!)

Finally, though, we are starting to feel like we're settling in a bit, and we've got the soccer pictures to prove it! Will had his first big soccer game this past weekend - what a hoot! If you are feeling down at all, grab a cup of Starbucks and spend a Saturday morning watching 4-year-olds play soccer! They may not have a clue what they are doing, but they are having a blast! I know I'm a shamelessly biased momma, but I think looking pretty cute too!