DeSoren Family

First change happened Thursday when I emailed Sara to arrange a pick up time for Shawn on Saturday for a day at the Zoo. The email I got back was…. “Did I mention I have both boys this weekend?”.  So we got  the extra treat of both boys, Shawn and Don on Saturday.

The next change came as we drove over to Tigard to pick the boys up.We noticed that Sara had called but had not left a message the night before. So we called her in route. Seems both the boys had a bad night and were both having some defiance issues. By the time we had arrived they had both lost their TV rights and Video game rights and she didn’t want us to reward them with a nice day at the Zoo. So we quickly scrambled and came up with a “Chore day” at our house and picnic up on Mt. Tabor for lunch.

Once we got back to our house with the Boys. We all headed to the back yard and they helped pull weeds and eat raspberries. And clean up dead flowers and eat raspberries. They both got really into helping out. Don loved the potato plants and wanted us to pull them all up. Shawn was really excited as we let him use the clippers (while being supervised) to trim back the roses.

After our chores where done. Anthony made sandwiches and packed up the cooler while Sam and Joshua read stories to the boys. Then all five of us drove up to Mt. Tabor park. Both of the boys loved the fact that it was volcano and really wanted to see the Lava. So our first stop was to the lower level to see the lava rock walls. We then took a short nature walk in a big circle back to the car.

We then drove to the upper parking lot. Grabbed the food and started the long walk to the top. We got to the top and found a grassy area for lunch. Just as we served out the food. Don needed to go #2. So Joshua and Don walked over to the restrooms on the upper level. Which where closed. So then they walked down to the middle level only to find no restrooms. The only restrooms open where all the way down at the Lava face wall. So down the two of them went. While Don desperately held it all in.

So 20 mins later, Joshua and Don returned (with no accidents) to eat their lunch. After lunch we all walked down to the restrooms and then to playground and played for a while. Both of the kidos where getting tired at this point and the adults where too. So as we arrived at home Anthony took them both into the kids room for quiet time (nap time for us, quiet time for them as they quote “ do not take naps”) So we had 30 minutes quiet time. Anthony read them stories and they both struggled so hard not to sleep. In the end no one did, but we got close. After quiet time we headed out to the backyard again for a bit to run around and play in the sun. We played tag and hide and go seek. At 4:00pm we loaded up the car with kidos and headed back to Sara’s house. Along the way Don fell asleep.

Sunday, all three of us headed out to meet up with the Lovely Suzanne for the 12:10 showing of Harry Potter 6. Afterwards Joshua had planned to head over to her house to work on the Roxy website. But plans changed again and Suzanne rescheduled the work party. So we ended up being “forced” to make homemade enchiladas and then “forced” spend the evening together playing Resident Evil 5, where we learned that Joshua cannot open doors.

Saturday morning, bright and early, the new bunk bed mattress arrived for the kiddo’s room. After we unwrapped them and placed them in the bunk bed, we both got “nesting fever” and headed over to IKEA in search of a rug for the kiddos room.

We had “pre-shopped” on our last trip to IKEA, and knew which rug we wanted, a big green swirly one. But once we got their we laid out several rugs on the floor and ultimately switched to a nice brown rug as it seemed calmer then the green. This did work out better, as the green would have not matched the great bedding we found…

After IKEA we headed to the source of all evil, Wal-Mart. We needed to find 2 bedding sets; one for the top twin bunk and one for the bottom full. We were planning to just buy two bed-in-a-bags but found a great pick and match set in fun blues, which seemed more appropriate for a boy’s room then the bag options they had. We also “pre-shopped” a Wall-e set and Disney Airplane set that might have to be purchased down the road as well.

Soon as we got home, and did some accounting, and we decided that we should have just purchased the kiddos dresser when we were at IKEA. So Joshua volunteered to drive back and get it and convinced Anthony that we should get two new ones for our room as well. Both of us have been using the same bedroom dresser for years. Replacing them removes the last vestiges of that “college dorm room” look our house has been sporting for the past year. So Joshua headed to IKEA and Anthony washed the new bedding.

Sunday we woke up early, drove out to Tigard, and picked up two little boys, Shawn (8) and his little brother Donny (4). After a short drive back to our side of town we stopped Fred Meyers for some food shopping, and shopping with a 8 and 4 year old is super fun.

We got home after the shopping adventure and both boys headed over to the TV and tried to figure out which video game to play while Anthony made lunch. We had green apple slices, fresh Donny picked raspberries, apple juice boxes and homemade Cheeseburgers.

So Anthony cooked but Joshua sewed. Ever the little homemaker Joshua spent about an hour whip stitching up Shawn’s backpack, which came to us with a big rip along the top.

After lunch, we decided to walk over to and go play in the Park. We all changed in to long pants, as it was getting a bit cold outside. Donny, got all excited and stripped down to his underwear right in the dining room window, only to the announce he had to go to the bathroom alone to put his long pants on as he needed to go be “indecent”.

After we were all “decent”, we walked over to the park. Now neither of us had ever been to this park before so it was new adventure for all of us. We walked all over and found each play area. The tire swing was huge hit.

Returning from the park, we played the board game Monster Smash and the plopped down in front of the TV and watched The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. Which was not a problem for Shawn, but Donny had a real hard time getting his little body to calm down enough to watch the show quietly. It took 2 trips to the kitchen for Graham crackers and some “pudding” (also known as yogurt) before he was ready to settle with the group. We had no issues with getting Donny to eat.

As soon as the show was over it was time to return to mom’s house. So we loaded the car up and Anthony drove everyone home, while Joshua tried to build the IKEA dressers.

A long weekend, but a rewarding one.

We had our individual adoption interviews on Monday. From everything we had read we where expecting an intrusive highly personal interview in a locked dark room, strapped to a rickety wooden chair under a single hot white light.

It turned out to be a funny & quick recap talk about our questionnaires. No hot lights, no rickety wooden chairs… more of a Monty Python – Spanish Inquisition with comfy chairs and pillows. (FETCH THE COMFY CHAIR!) Just goes to show that you should never believe everything you read in adoption books. (or see & hear on Fox news)

After talking with our Adoption Clinician, it looks like we are on track to have our homestudy completed sometime in early August and then at that point we can start looking at waiting children profiles for matching!

The news got even better as it looks like the International Conference that Anthony has been working on got the final green light with it’s contract changes and concessions and is a go for Disney World in May of 2010 (barring any additional inter-political nonsense)!