Wordless Friday

I hope you've enjoyed the week of pictures!

Here are a few more to end the week!

Jacob and Joshua at the pumpkin patch.

Joshie at the pumpkin patch.

Ami and me at the baby shower!

This is me screaming/ squealing with joy over these socks that are too cute!!

Cute shirt with yummy desserts on it!

Zack and Cami on Halloween.  Good thing she's too young to be scared by his costume!  lol!

Cambria loves looking at her mobile!

And that's all for now, folks!
Have a great weekend!

Wordless Thursday

I love quotes.  I saw this on Facebook today, and had to share.  Don't get me wrong~ I'm NOT sad right now....I'm actually extremely happy and content....but there have been times when the you-know-what has hit the fan (especially when Dave was really sick and almost died a few years ago) and people try to tell you it could be worse.  Or that other people have it worse.  Sure, it could always be worse (I could be sitting here writing this post as a widow), but I wish people would just validate your feelings and move on, instead of trying to minimize them.  One of my family members used to always say "That's just life, Vicki".   Ummm.....no it's not!  It's not very common to go through what I went through.  And it irritates me when people try to minimize or trivialize really huge important serious things.
The opposite side of this coin is when you have something to be happy about, and you share your news with someone, and they tell you to "stop bragging".   UGH! Can't win!  ha ha

Anyways, this was supposed to be a wordless post.  So that's all for today!  And now for a few more pictures:

Jacob at his last soccer game of the season.  He was on a great team this year!

The nursery!  If you look hard between the crib slats, you can see Cambria in her crib!  She loves looking at her mobile.

On the dresser, is a piggy bank that is wearing a tiara and a tutu!  Dave got it for her!  :)

This could possibly be my favorite part of her room.....it's 2 holders for her hair bows and flowers!  I have all of her headbands in a cute basket.

I love those pink storage cubes!  Her headbands are in that basket on top and right next to it are a bunch of ridiculously cute socks!  I love those socks!

Oh what fun!!

Sorry this was more words than a wordless post should be, I just felt that some things needed a little explaining!

Wordless Friday tomorrow.....

Wordless Wednesday

Joshua's preschool teacher told me today that in the pictures that I post of Cambria on Facebook, that the love and appreciation I feel for her is so obvious, that it's palpable.

Wordless Tuesday

"BOYS!!  Don't get your clothes dirty!  We're trying to have our pictures taken!"   lol....

Wordless Monday

I decided this post should be a "Wordless ____day post".  I haven't done a Wordless Wednesday post in ages!

We got our photos back from our photo session for our holiday cards.  They are awesome!  I posted a few fun ones on Facebook, and I want to save a lot for our holiday cards.
Here is one of them....

Thankful Thanksgiving...and the Real Dirt

I can't believe tomorrow is Thanksgiving!  At first, I felt bad for not doing the daily thankful post.  I just did one big one on my blog with some fun, silly things to be thankful for (cupcakes and Miss Me Jeans, anyone?!) as well as the usual things: family, friends, my family's health and that Dave has a job, etc.  But that was it.  Then I started noticing several people making snarky comments about the daily thankful posts!  So it wasn't just me. 

Some people who only know me on FB and didn't see what I wrote on my other blog might think the same thing about me...that I am trying to portray my life as sunshine and rainbows and unicorns.  Bad stuff happens to me in real life (IRL), too.  I just don't want to put it all out there on FB.  I've had to endure my fair share of bad crap too.

A couple years ago, my husband almost died, for Christ's sake.  That's enough to rock your world a few times over.  I've recently lost 2 people in my life that I considered really close friends.  When I say lost, I don't mean that they disappeared in the jungle or died.  They chose to excuse themselves from my life.  But not before they left with some mean parting words.  That was pretty soul crushing.  I haven't been invited to some big parties when most of my friends have been invited.  Last Christmas, I got strep throat and then shingles and then my immune system went haywire and I developed this auto-immune disease where it caused a rash over 95% of my body....for months and months and months.  I. LOOKED. HIDEOUS.  I mean really hideous.  That really messes with your psyche.  I resorted to ordering off the internet this huge bag of bath salts from the Dead Sea in Isreal that is supposed to help with skin ailments.  (Thankfully it's better now!  WHEW!)  We had a really bad adoption fall-through last year.  I felt terrible about that even up until the day I got the call about Cambria.  Right after our adoption fell through last year, I had a mammogram that looked abnormal.  I had to go back for more views.  Talk about scary and wanting to throw up in the car the whole way back to the radiology office.  It turned out to be nothing after all.  WHEW, again!

The way that things have worked out with Cambria becoming my daughter has made me once again feel right with the world.  It made me realize again to TRUST. MY. INSTINCTS.  And not to let other people make me feel so bad about things.  I knew that other match wasn't the right one for our family.  Other people have their own issues going on, and some of them try to project their own crap onto you and your life.  And other people can be hypocrites.

Anyways, I love reading adoption blogs and am happy when other adoptive families get matched.  I notice some blogs where the adoptive mom doesn't talk about their child's birthmom.  At all.  I always wish they would...to give us some insight.  Well now that I have my baby, I find myself in that same boat.  I am fiercely protective of her!  I talked to her birth mom last night, and it was a nice conversation.  She is a pretty funny girl and it warmed my heart to hear us laughing together about funny things she said.  I don't feel competition.  Cambria has 4 parents who love her.  And what could be better than double the love?!

OK one thing that I am thankful for:
We recently had our Christmas pictures taken for our holiday cards.  My photographer just posted a few pictures on my FB page.  OMG they are amazing.  I AM THANKFUL FOR:  my photographer, who makes me look like a rock star in the pictures!  ;)    hee hee hee
(So much like a rock star that my mother called me and asked if that was ME in the pictures!  LOL!!)

And I'm thankful for the obvious:  my parents, husband, children, family, good health, Cambria's birth parents, cupcakes, shoes, Miss Me Jeans (they are so forgiving!  HA!), my wonderful friends, the opportunities I was given in life, music, headbands, hair dye and my amazing hair stylist.....ha ha ha-- I could go on and on!  You get the point!  Life is overall really good, and despite the bad stuff I've had to endure, I'd still rather be me and have my life.

Now go eat some turkey!  Or Tofu turkey (? Tofurkey?) if you are a vegetarian!  :)

Tomorrow: a picture of my little turkey in her "My First Thanksgiving" shirt!!

National Adoption Day

I believe yesterday was National Adoption Day!  And November is National Adoption Month.  It is humbling to know that another woman trusts us enough to raise her child.  I am so in love with this baby girl.  Several people have commented that she looks like my oldest son and "fits perfectly with our family".  It was meant to be!

She is 8 weeks old today.  Last night, she slept 5 and a half hours, woke up for a bottle then slept for another 3 hours.  Baby steps!

I am seriously sad that she is 8 weeks old already.  But I am excited to sleep through the night again- hopefully we are at that point soon!

Last night, we went to our friends' house for dinner.  There were 3 other families there.  It was a fun time.  A lot of us there had sons.  It was so sweet to see my 10 year old and his 9 year old friend sitting on the couch holding Cambria!  There were awesome with her. 

I finally took some pictures of her nursery.  I have to download them onto my computer and will post them here in my next post.   Which hopefully will be before 2013!  Ha ha!

I ordered some address labels today for our holiday cards from Family Labels.  It's the company where you can make personalized heads for every member of your family (including pets) and list everybody's name.  We're up to 8 family members now- which is the max you can do on this website!  We had Dave, me, the boys and Cambria and our 2 Golden Retrievers on the address labels.  I can't wait to get them in the mail!

Lastly, Zachary is making his confirmation at church in May.  He needs to decide on a saint name.  He is really being indecisive.  I told him to pick Saint David after his dad.  He said no, because Dave and I didn't name any of our kids after family members...on purpose.  That way nobody's feelings would be hurt.  I told him it would be cool if all the boys picked Saint David for their confirmation names!  Then he said he wouldn't pick any saint names that Jacob's friends had for names!  Sheesh!  I told him if he didn't pick a name soon, then I was going to choose a name for him.....Saint Felix!
My confirmation name is JoAnn, after Saint JoAnn.  And it was my confirmation sponsor's name too.

I don't normally talk too much about religion or politics....I prefer talking about cupcakes, shoes, and my kids' latest antics (HA!), but that's what's going on at our house now.

My college roommate's mother passed away today.  :(
I can't imagine my mother not getting to see my kids grow up and graduate from high school.  So sad.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  Gobble gobble!

Family Picture Day

We got our family pictures taken today for our holiday cards.  We love our photographer.  She is fabulous.  I saw some of the pictures on her camera screen, and the ones I saw were A-MAY-ZINGG!

This is my "thing"....that I really get into and enjoy every year.  Family holiday pictures and designing of the cards.  (I love photography, but I don't think I'm talented enough to design cards.)  It's getting harder and harder to one-up the holiday cards from the year before!  Well, back in August of this year, I told Dave we were going to save money this year and either not do cards, or I was going to take a picture of the 3 kids and get the cards done at Walgreen's with a coupon.

Yeah, well that lasted for exactly one month....until Miss Cambria entered our lives in September!
How can I not make a big deal out of her arrival with this year's cards?!

I don't even have any sneak-peak pictures to post on here yet.

There is one picture that is still fresh in my mind.....the 3 boys are all around the baby, and you can just see the love they have for their little sister, it is almost palpable.

MELTS. MY. HEART.

First Post!

Welcome to our family blog!  If I set it up correctly, the font type should be "Cambria", because that is my daughter's name!

My old blog was about all of the trials and tribulations and heartbreak and disappointments along our adoption journey....which ultimately ended in happiness!  And it also talked about some random days in my shoes.  Because I love shoes!  It was hard to come up with a blog name that wasn't already taken, so that's why this blog is titled sixpairsofshoes.  (Yes, 6pairsofshoes was unavailable!)

I also thought this blog would be a good way to capture the fun days in our lives and to watch my kids grow through the years.  And I can post as many pictures as I like here so I don't bombard everyone on Facebook with yet another picture of a cute headband/ bow!  ha ha

My husband Dave and I have 4 kiddos:  Zachary, Jacob, Joshua and Cambria.  And we have 2 dogs:  Bailey and Sophie.  Yes, life gets hectic and crazy and there is never a dull moment!  We are never bored!  And I wouldn't want it any other way.  Enjoy the ride!

Now I have to remember how to set up all of the tabs on the sides of the blog.  Bear with me!