Is that what you think of me?

Today we were sitting down eating lunch.  I was semi-distracted trying to eat and keep Brisbane out of everything and talk.  I started a sentence to my mother, "I have..." and while I was pausing Jessenia said, "...no idea".
My mom and I looked at each other and gave the, "Did you hear what I heard?" look.  And sure enough, we both heard it.
Through the eyes of a two year old.  I, Monica, have no idea!

Tent or Temple?

Last Friday the kids were getting on my. last. nerve.  The choices were between going to bed at 3 in the afternoon or trying to find a major distraction.  I chose major distraction.

 So I scrounged around in the garage and got out our two person tent to set up in our living room.  I would have sent them outside but it was 114 degrees and we only have the backdirt...no grass, so inside it was.

 The kids went and collected their pillows...

 and blankets.  And had a blast!

 Brisbane spent most of his time checking out the exterior integrity of the structure.  He declared my work acceptable after his thorough 20 minute inspection.

 Jessenia was a bit confused about what we had set up in our living room.  When Mack came home she said, "Did you see the temple!?"  We had no idea what she was talking about, until we realized that she meant the tent.  I choose to believe that she has a highly advanced grasp of the Old Testament and knows that the tabernacles set up in Old Testament times were portable tents.  Spritual Genius, that one is.

It was a fun day.  The kids enjoyed it.  They probably would have loved it even more if they had realized that it helped them avoid a 3 o'clock bed time. 

those are MY kids...

After our awesome trip to the zoo, we got some incredibly bad news.  Our attorney, who is responsible for finalizing the adoption, called and told us that our finalization date had been set for November 7th.  Which is very exciting, but also very far away!  I called her back and asked her why it was so far away (the kids are supposed to qualify for an expedited hearing = 60 days).  Well much to our shock, surprise, and horror she informed me that the birth parents had in fact appealed to the AZ Supreme Court to maintain their parental rights.
I thought I was going to puke.  I couldn't believe it.  We had been assured back in March and April that the appeal was settled and the time had passed for the parents to make a second appeal.  WRONG!  Apparently the parents did in fact get an extension and did in fact put in for a second appeal.  And all this time, nobody informed us. 
I started making phone calls and sending emails to any and everyone who had access to this information and didn't let us know.  We had been planning on finalizing in August with no problems or complications and now I was terrified.
Finally, the kiddos' attorney called me back and talked me off the emotional cliff I was dangling from.  He told me that it isn't common, but it isn't uncommon for second appeals to happen.  With that being said, he has been doing this a long time, and he has never had the Supreme Court accept one.  Which is good news, because that means our chances are good.  Or bad news, because if they do accept it, we are this guy's first rodeo. 
So what does this mean exactly?  The kids' attorney told me we should find out within the month if the AZ Supreme Court chooses to take the case.  They are in the process of reviewing partial recods from the original hearings now.  If they choose to hear the case, we are in for a many month process.  If they choose to deny the case, it is all over.  The birth parents have no more appeals and the kiddos are officially free to be adopted.  Which means we can move forward, full steam!  And hopefully get the finalization date moved up so that we don't have to wait until November.
But in the meantime, I am praying my guts out.  I had a nightmare the other day that we had to pack the kids up and take them to their birth parents.  I couldn't sleep much after that.  I would die.  It is not even to be considered.
Of course, Mack is the optimistic one.  Which is a good thing, because one of us needs to be.
Gosh I love my kids.  I know that this will all work out how it is supposed to.  I just hope that what is supposed to happen is what I want to happen.  And in the meantime I am developing an ulcer and checking the case status every hour.

Zoo

Ugh.  I can't believe that it has been almost a week since I posted.  We have been having an insanely fun week around here!
On Tuesday I decided that it was time to brave the zoo again.  If any of my loyal readers remember our last zoo experience, they can understand why this was such a giant deal.  Plus I was taking the three kids all by myself this time.  The libraries here have free passes to local attractions that you can check out.  I got a zoo one that let two people in free (Reese and I) and then Jessenia and Brisbane are free based on their ages. 
I woke up EARLY to get everything ready.  The zoo opens at 7am in the summer here because it is blazing hot.  I wanted to get there as early as possible so we all didn't burn to a crisp.  I woke the kids early, they were a little grumpy, but as soon as they heard the word 'zoo' they jumped out of bed and got dressed.  The kids have been asking to go to the 'animal zoo' for a few weeks now (ever since Reese learned about animals in Sunbeams).  Plus Reese has decided that instead of being a City Bus Driver he wants to be a Zoo Keeper.  (We are kind of excited about this because at least you need a college education for the second aspiration.  Plus...free zoo passes...and behind the scenes access!  Much better than free bus passes.)
Due to some indigestion issues we didn't get off as early as I had hoped but we arrived at the zoo at 8:30 and got started.  Jessenia was terrified.  The first animal we saw was the elephants and she wouldn't even get out of the stroller.  The elephant was all the way on the other end of the pen, a good 200 yards away, and she wouldn't budge.  Reese was fascinated though and had a MILLION questions.  He wanted to know 'why' all of the animals were doing what they were doing.  I told him there are just certain things we don't know about what animals are thinking.  He asked me if I would talk to them and ask them.  No, Reese, I am not Dr. Dolittle!

 Jessenia refused to pose for a picture near any animal enclosures, but Reese was super cute!

 I did catch Jessenia looking at the ducks in one of the large ponds.

 And she gave me a big cheeser grin on one of our many snack stops.

 I figured since we got into the zoo absolutely free, we could take as much time as we wanted and see as little as we wanted.  That meant a lot of stops for snacks and to give our legs a break.

 Brisbane did not leave the stroller the whole time we were at the zoo.  And yet he was still impeccably behaved...although maybe a little warm.

 Before we left for the zoo, I asked the kids what animals they wanted to see.  Jessenia wanted to see an elephant and a giraffe.  Those were both easy enough.  Here are both kids in front of the giraffe enclosure.  Reese wanted to see an alligator and a cow.  Unfortunately the Phoenix Zoo does not have an alligator (or crocodile) and the cow was at the very end of the Children's Trail (which we did not go down this time).  But he saw an African Cattle and he seemed satisfied by that.  He also spent the whole time we were there begging to see the tigers.  And he got that wish.  The tiger was definitely the most active animal we saw all day.
We only own a double stroller and so Reese and Jessenia took turns riding.  Towards the end, as we were walking up a hill, Reese turned to me and said, "Mom, I'm tired!"  {most pathetic voice ever}  I laughed at him, since I was walking the entire time and pushing two kids around.  The kids were awesome the whole time and did not complain once.  In all I consider our zoo trip a huge success!

Reese has spent the last two days pouring over his Zoo map.  I even drew on the map which trails we had walked during our visit.  "Mom, we didn't see the zebras!"  {with absolute horror and disgust in his voice}  I guess we will be making another trip to the zoo sometime. 

Odd Zip

Zippy is kind of odd.  But we love her anyway.  Actually, that is why we love her.  Today I got up from the sofa and turned around to find her sleeping like this...

 That can not be comfortable!  When I moved in for a closer look, she gave me stink-eye...

I wish I could say this is a rarity, but she sleeps like this a lot.  It's quite endearing, but I just don't...get...it.

Yucky

We braved the heat this morning and went to the park.  And surprisingly enough, it was not too bad.  I checked before we left to be sure it hadn't broken 90 degrees yet and the kids played mostly in the shade so we kept nice and cool.
This was the first time we went to the park since Brisbane has started walking and so that I was interesting.  He loved climbing up and down the steps of the playset (he just loves raising my heart rate). 
Jessenia saw a 'bunny rabbit' and asked if she could go get it.  I told her 'sure' and she was off.  Obviously I knew there was no way she was going to catch a rabbit but I let her try.  It was hilarious.  The kids were very disgruntled when the rabbit went into a bush and they couldn't follow.  I think they felt like the rabbit cheated.
But mostly the kids just played in the sand.  They found as much rubbish as they could in the sand to use as sand toys: bottle caps, leather from a baseball, water jug flip top lid, sticks, etc.  Maybe I should invest in some sand toys?  They were pretty disgusting, but the worst was when Reese asked, "What is this?"  "Ewww, Reese!  Drop it!  It's yucky!  That's a cigarette!"  He obediently dropped it and then turned to his sister, "Don't touch those {pointing}, that's a cigaryucky!"
I felt satsfied that he got the gist of it.  Cigaryucky?  Exactly!

New Teeth

I went to the dentist on Monday, child free.  Well the dentist isn't necessarily child free, but Mack watched the kids so I was child free.  As I was leaving Reese asked me where I was going.  It is rare that I go anywhere on my own that is not the grocery store so it was a bit of a fascination.  I told him that I was going to the dentist.  He asked me "why?"  (of course!)  I told him he knew why, since he went to the dentist less than a month ago.  "Oh yeah!  To get new teeth!"  Ummm....I didn't go back when the kids got their teeth cleaned so I had to be sure, "Did you get new teeth at the dentist?"  {mischevious grin} "noooooo......".  
O hope the poor kid doesn't think you get a new set of pearly whites every six onths...he needs to take care of those suckers!

Wimbledon Champ?

News and funny stories are pretty thin on the ground around here.  The biggest news is that I have lost my camera.  Grmph!  I am equal parts incredibly grumpy and totally excited.  I might be able to convince myself that we can get one of those fancy SLR cameras that will take awesome pictures of our kids instead of the terrible ones with bad lighting that we take right now.  We shall see.  In the meantime, you are going to get posts such as this one.
We went and watched our nephew, Hunter, play in a high school Academic Scholars All Star Baseball Game on Friday night.  During the game, my brother in law informed us that a man sitting behind us was a former Wimbledon champion.  He didn't know his name (honestly, someone had just told him this tid bit of info) but knew that he had played doubles with his sister.  What was he doing at this high school event?  Cheering on our nephew?  Apparently not.  His son was in the game too.  On one of my many trips to walk the concourse with Brisbane I talked to him and his wife for a minute.  I figured if they were semi-famous I should at least talk to them so I can have my brief brush with semi fame. She thought that our children were incredibly cute.  I thought, "Well, even if she isn't married to a Wimbledon Champion, at least she is brilliant".  I was still pretty skeptical about this guy though.
So when I got home, I looked it up.  I first looked for an American male who had won in the last fifty years.  (The guy was relatively young so that was being generous.)  I am something of a tennis fan (thank you, Mother) and I recognized all of the men who fit my criteria.  So then I moved on to Mixed Doubles Champs in the last fifty years with the same last name.  BINGO!  John Austin won Wimbledon's Mixed Doubles in 1980 with his sister, Tracy.  He now resides in Scottsdale, Arizona.
So I did have a semi-brush with semi-fame!
Pathetic that this is the news of the day.  Sorry.  Hopefully I will find my camera and hopefully my kids will start doing some super cute things.  Pray for that, otherwise you are getting more of the above.