I finally finished reading Paul Rusesabagina's book, An Ordinary Man. He did a wonderful job describing the history and events leading up to the genocide in Rwanda. It is so overwhelmingly sad that people can be led to a point where they are capable of slaughtering their neighbors and even their own family, simply because they are the 'wrong' ethnicity. Unfortunately, it still happens. I guess I am being a little preachy, but I absolutely want to encourage everyone to go to www.savedarfur.org and at the very least sign the postcard for President Bush. We all looked away last time, and it would be an embarrasment to reapeat that mistake.
Darfur April 30, 2006
Who does this child belong to? April 29, 2006
As Supergirl gets older more and more of her personality begins to show. This is definitely a learning process for us. We often find ourselves asking, where on earth did she come from. Somehow, we gave birth to a 'diva.' She absolutely loves to pamper herself and loves things that are 'pretty.' She frequently requests to have her toenails painted, even tries to paint them herself with a little vanity set Daddy-O bought for her. 
She also loves to brush her hair and make sure she looks pretty. She is into shoes and purses, neither of which I had anything to do with. As you all know, I pretty much never carried a purse until just a few years ago, and even then only out of necessity. I still only wear shoes that are comfortable. Oh, and she loves to put on my makeup, which I forget to put on most of the time. She probably wears it more than me. Anyways, Daddy-O says that this picture 
(which someday she will kill me for not disposing of immediately) confirms that she does, in fact, belong to me. (Once again, he overwhelms me with his romantic flattery.) I, on the otherhand, count this picture 
as proof that she also inherited some of her daddy, a fact which everyone from OSU would have to agree with (EP).
Adoption Update April 26, 2006
Not really too much to update. We finally both finished our autobiographies. I emailed them to the social worker today, only to get an automated response saying she is out of the office, doesn't say for how long. We also got our second set of fingerprints completed, this one was done at the police dept so Daddy-O spent the entire time lecturing Supergirl about how he had better not ever have to come pick her up there. Everything we have done so far is for the homestudy agency. Still no word from the adoption agency. Everything is still on hold with them until they can get some adoptions completed due to the high number of applicants. It may still be a few months before we even begin working on our dossier. AND apparently there is a serum they use for the HIV test, a better test than just the average one. But, for a while there was no serum. Our agency had none the Embassy had none, I guess the whole country was having trouble. It's supposed to be available and everything up and running again now though. The director of the adoption agency said this really should not have much, if any, effect on our wait time. She originally said it should be about two months before we begin working on our dossier, that was one month ago so I guess we'll see. In the meantime we still have a lot of these papers to fill out. And as per request I am posting a picture of the paperwork 
All of the pink papers are for DCFS. In order to adopt here you must first become a licensed foster home. A lot of bureaucracy!
Winfrey Pictures April 25, 2006
Daddy-O's dad just gave us a cd with some winfrey pictures he had. Just thought I'd post a few…
Back to Easter April 24, 2006
I just realized I haven't put up my Easter pictures yet. We had a lot of Easter Egg hunts. It started the Sunday before Easter with the egg hunt at church. Then on Saturday before Easter a local fast food place had an easter egg hunt at a driving range. By this time Supergirl knew the routine. She did not understand the waiting part and actually decided to cheat. 
Here she is as the only kid on the field gathering eggs, the hunt had not yet 'officially' started. She was very upset when Daddy-O made her put the egg back. 
The age group was Kindergarten and under and those big kids pretty much got all the eggs. There was also an egg hunt after church sponsored by Daddy-O's old volunteer dept. 
There were no adults allowed at this one, plus every egg was worth $1!
Supergirl also enjoyed all the candy left in the eggs the Easter Bunny brought her. We definitely learned our lesson, limit her intake of chocolate!!!
And finally, a few pictures in her Easter dress…
A sad, sad day April 20, 2006
Today has been a very sad day. 
Today we had to make the fateful decision that Winfrey was in too much pain. Two nights ago she started barking during the night and nothing seemed to really make her happy. The next day she seemed better, but last night the barking started again. Daddy-O tried feeding her, taking her outside, turning on the a/c. Nothing seemed to work. Then this afternoon she started whining. She then went outside and was sick. It was almost as if she simply didn't know what to do. Standing up seemed to be uncomfortable, laying down was possibly even worse…and then she got sick again. We decided she was way too miserable, this was the one thing no one wanted, was for her to be in pain. So Daddy-O took Supergirl to say goodbye. She hugged her and said, "Bye, bye Winfrey." 
We took Supergirl to the babysitter and took Winfrey to the vet. The vet agreed that it was time… It was all very fast, and very sad. Supergirl, of course, doesn't really know what's going on, which is probably a good thing.
Daddy-O is requesting that if anyone has any Winfrey stories or Winfrey pictures that they please share. Feel free to leave as a comment or email them. I think she was pretty special to all of us. We will definitely be missing her around here!!!!
Pictures April 18, 2006
I haven't posted any new pics in awhile. This is because I ran out of free uploads on FLICKR which is what I have been using (because it's easy). I am currently contemplating whether it is worth the 24.95 for a year subscription or if there is another free service out there that is just as easy. If anyone has any ideas let me know, otherwise I will most likely be shelling out the 25 bucks. Stay tuned for Easter pics.
So smart… April 15, 2006
I just had to brag a little. So this morning I was typing my email and Supergirl was sitting on my lap asking to watch Manamana. I was kind of ignoring her and she started saying, "Oh, oh, oh, oh." Finally I stopped typing and said, what? She then proceeded to start hitting the "O" key on the keyboard. About this time Daddy-O walked in the room and I showed him what she was doing. He asked her where A was and she didn't know so we showed her. He then asked her where B was and she started hitting the B key. He asked her where C was and she hit the C key. That's about as far as we got, but that is 3 letters at 19 months, I think that's pretty good. Then at lunch today her cup had the word NUBY on it. Out of nowhere she pointed at it and said B (while pointing at B) and then Y (while pointing at Y). She also pointed at the N and asked, "What is it?" So I told her. Daddy-O says we are going to have a 5 year old court reporter. Oh, the dreams we have for our children
Paul Rusesabagina April 14, 2006
Tonight we went to see Paul Rusesabagina, the man portrayed in Hotel Rwanda. If you have not seen the movie yet, I highly advise that you do. It definitely raises awareness about how oblivious we are to the problems of the rest of the world. Anyways, he wrote an autobiography and is traveling around promoting it and signing them. Yes, I got my book signed, I know, I'm cool. So I thought I'd put up a few links, first is to his foundation which is raising money to help the victims of the genocide. The second is an NPR story about him and the book.
http://www.hrrfoundation.org/index.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5324187
I'd also like to say congratulations to Punkin. The winner of the 'Name that Plant' contest (also the only person who named a plant!!!). Although Daddy-O's mom did say plant #1 is a Crocus, she did not post so she is disqualified . SO….Congratulations to you PUNKIN!!! Also Congratulations to Amanda and new baby Mia. Hopefully we will get to see you soon.
Oh yeah, we also got fingerprinted yesterday for the homestudy. Not too exciting, but at least one more step. I am officially finished with my autobiography, still waiting on Michael…
Name that Plant… April 11, 2006
Since this is the first spring in our new house I have absolutely no idea what is going to pop up in our yard. I am also a complete idiot when it comes to plants so even when things do pop up I have no idea what they are. I am constanty trying to figure out exactly which ones are weeds. So far I have been very pleasantly suprised by our little plants. It seems like every week a different flower is blooming (and the only one I have been able to name so far is a Daffodil). I decided it might be helpful to let everyone in on our gardening action. A little game I like to call 'Name that Plant.' Please post a comment if you know what these are and/or how to take care of them. Also please forward this along if you know someone that's a real plant wiz. I may be periodically updating the list because, like I said before, new flowers seem to be coming from no where at least once a week.
First and foremost, Plant #1. 
This just popped up,
the flowers close in the
evening.
It has very pretty
yellow flowers!
Next is plant #2
It is very tall.
It also smells kind of 'minty.'
(I haven't figured out the pictures
yet, so that is why I am
trying to fill up this space)
Plant #3 there is a lot of this. 
Plant #4, this one is really cute. 
