Lo Mein and knee surgeries.

Ok, two things.

I'm about to share another fantastically fabulous recipe.  And you know if I'm sharing a recipe with you that it is something we will most definitely repeat again in the future!

And two...this past Thursday I had my 6th knee surgery.  Yes, sixth!  As in one, two, three, four, five, SIX!  I know, I've been keeping an eye out for my "buy 5, get the 6th free" card, but so far I haven't seen it.  This time around I tore my patellae cartilage while doing a cartwheel while we where in Lynch a couple of months ago. 

Yes, I agree.  I'm too old for cartwheels.  That was probably my last one.

All that to say, I'm still fairly doped up and I'm not always making a ton of sense.  You should see some of the text messages I've sent...like this one where I was talking to Kenny about getting ice for the fancy ice pack machine they had me hooked up to...it continued to go downhill from here...

So, don't hold me accountable for what I say in this post.  I'll proof it later to make sure it makes sense.

Ok, on to Lo Mien!

I know how to make a couple of Ethiopian dishes and in my efforts to increase my international cooking skills, I set out on a search for a good lo mien recipe.  I figured that would be a good easy first Chinese meal to try. 

I found a couple of good options and finally settled on one to try and let me just tell you...in my opinion, it was as good as PF Chang's!!  Now, I've never actually been to China, so I don't know how close this recipe is to authentic or if they even really eat lo mien in China, but it was sooo good!  And up until this experience, my Chinese had ended at stir fry veggies and soy sauce. 

But this recipe got that "Chinese take-out" taste just right!

 

Chicken Lo Mien from food.com



 

Photo credit: me
 

 Now, my changes.  Because I don't follow directions. 

I actually doubled the recipe.  Mainly because when I started cooking, I realized I had enough chicken to double it, so I did.  And I'm glad I did because Charlie had 3 helpings!  And the leftovers were just as good as the first day!

• I just used Kroger white cooking wine.  Mainly because I couldn't find dry white wine...I don't understand...does it come in powder form??  I don't usually buy cooking wine, so I was confused.
• And instead of sesame oil (which was like $9 for half an ounce), I bought already toasted sesame seeds and just added them to regular 'ol veggie oil.  I added some to the whole mixture again later because I liked how they smelled!
• I used powdered garlic...but I've been thinking lately I might give an actual garlic a chance again sometime.  Maybe.
• I omitted the water chestnuts because I figured the boys (including Kenny) might balk at those, even though I really like them.
• I also left out the frozen green peas.  I don't like green peas.  Yuck.
• I did use the spaghetti noodles and they worked fine, but I thought I might check out Trader Joe's or some place comparable to see if I could find actual Chinese lo mien noodles.

Now I'm on the look out for a good fried rice recipe per Kenny's request, so if you have a good one, send it my way.

Until then, this will be our go to Chinese receipe! 

Now to see if I can make an egg roll...I'm not holding my breath...

Merry Christmas.

It's that time of year again. 

You know, the time of year where you torture your children for hours to get just one good Christmas card picture, spend way too much time trying to find a good deal on printing said card, track down addresses from all the people you know have moved since last year, address a million envelopes and then rush them off to the post office in hopes of spreading Christmas cheer from your happy, jolly family.

No, really...I actually really do enjoy sending Christmas cards.  Promise. 

So, for those of you in blogland that didn't get a real card in the mail (no hard feelings), I will pass along our happiness and jolliness via the web.

See?  Happier and jollier already!

Lifesong for Orphans strikes again!

The masses have requested and we are happy to oblige...

I'm happy to share with you that we have finally been approved yet again by Lifesong for Orphans for an account for fundraising!  Lifesong helped us tremendously with the financial side of things with the boy's adoption and they are stepping up again and have set up an account to receive funds for Ellie Kate.

Any funds donated to Lifesong for Orphans on our behalf will be given to help cover our adoption expenses. LifeSong is a 501(c)3 organization and your gift will be tax deductible. 100% of all funds raised will go directly to cover our adoption costs--nothing will be taken out for Lifesong for Orphans administrative costs.

If you would like to contribute to our account and help us bring home Ellie Kate, you can donate several ways.

If you write a check, make it out to Lifesong for Orphans, but make certain you put "Cook Adoption, #3038" on the subject line.  You can mail checks directly to Lifesong:

Lifesong for Orphans
PO Box 40
Gridley, IL  61744

You can also give online via Lifesong's PayPal account HERE, but know that a 2.9% fee + $0.30 per transaction will be charged by PayPal and taken out of your donation.  If you choose this route, follow these steps...

• Select "One Time Donation"
• Select "Adoption Funding" as your Gift Preference
• Select "Family Specific" as your Adoption Gift Preference
• Family ID Number:  #3038, Family Name:  Cook

Now, I know all my independently wealthy friends are looking for the perfect place to make their 2012 end-of-the-year donations, and we are glad to provide you with an avenue to do so. 

No, no...don't thank us. 

We should thank you. 

P.S.  In all seriousness (which is actually quite difficult for me to pull off), we appreciate each cent donated on our behalf to bring home our little sister.  As most of you know, adoption requires a huge step of faith, and that step of faith is also wrapped up in your finances as well.  We had a great push in the right direction this time around and had no doubt that it was God's most perfect timing for us to begin the process again, but are still trusting Him to see to each tiny detail.

God's just cool like that.

Traditions.

Can I be a dork here and document some of traditions we've started in our silly little family?  Either way, I'm gonna do it...

Cause it's my blog.

1.  Last year we started a tradition of a Christmas countdown...but tied it into our Thanksgiving Day festivities.

Each person writes down things they are thankful for and we use those over the next month during dinner or at bedtime to talk about why we are thankful for said item (some examples include Daddy, our house, adoption, etc). 

I have to give the boys more credit for this than myself.  I make sure we do it, but then usually forget about it.  Despite the fact that it's hanging on the wall so we don't forget... one of them usually has to remind me to take off an item each night before bed. 

Last year we did a simple chain.  I tried to get fancy with a pennant this year.  Only thing fancy did was totally outlast the boy's attention spans leaving me to finish by myself and leave me with a string of thankfulness long enough to run across the front of the house.

But we made it work.


2.  We of course continued our Waffle-House-go-pick-out-a-Christmas-tree tradition on Friday morning.  It's always nice to be in a public place and have someone acknowledge how well behaved your children are...

I just didn't tell them it's because there was food in front of them and they'll do anything to make sure that food ends up in  their bellies.


3.  This year we started a new tradition.  One that I feel certain will stick since so many people in this house LOVE food.  (Anyone else noticing a food related theme with our traditions?)

We certainly did the traditional turkey and dressing, etc, etc on Thanksgiving Day.  But on Friday, we ran by our local Ethiopian restaurant and picked up an order of injera and I made a small Ethiopian feast that night as we gave thanks for the boy's Ethiopian heritage. 

Let's just say they fought more over these leftovers than the turkey.  (And I may have too...it's sooo good!)

On Saturday, we hit up the local Chinese buffet to celebrate the upcoming Chinese part of our family.  And we have at least one Ethiopian that thoroughly enjoyed Chinese food!  Charlie even mastered chopsticks within minutes.  I was impressed!  But now I need to work on my homemade Chinese food since it's been requested for dinner several times since our outing.


4.  Kentucky Horse Park's Southern Lights.  Yeah, we've done this one for several years with the Jolly Family.  Interestingly, the boys got more into the lights this year than usual.  I'll attribute that to a few new attractions, including Star Wars and Transformer figures.  Someone around there knows how to get the attention of little boys!

We let the kids choose a one thing to do and this year Grace and Sam chose to ride the camel.  And Charlie and Emma chose to ride a pony.

I'll let that sink in for a moment. 

And remind you that Charlie is nearly as tall as I am.  I'm 5'3".  Barely.  And a pony is a basically a miniature horse.  (In case you didn't know.)

You put a boy that tall on a pony that short and it was really all we could do to not laugh at his feet nearly dragging the ground!  And his reason for not choosing the camel ride...it was too high.  I told him next year he was gonna have to get over his fear of the camel if he wanted a ride because he was almost tall enough for the pony to ride him. 

He didn't think it was funny.

Nicole and I also got kicked off the train ride by our own kids.  Can you believe that??

We've always ridden in the same little car as them (see below).  But it appears that they've all gotten too big for us to smash in one car.  We warned them if they made us ride by ourselves we would probably embarrass them.  And they did.  So we did.

December 2009 @ Southern Lights

We sang Christmas carols at the top of our lungs for the duration of the ride.  Grace and Emma were absolutely horrified!  We were officially the loudest adults there.  The boys actually thought it was funny and sang along with us.  But I'm not sure how much longer that will last. 

Or the boys are just so used to my erratic and fanatical behavior that they totally expected something like that.  That was probably the case.

The daddy's just entertained themselves while all this singing and train riding was going on...

I'm not really sure what was going on here.  Grace seemed to have things under control.  But Emma didn't exactly fit in her pants.  And Charlie's foot was the wrong color.  And Sam feel asleep.



Grace (12), Charlie (9), Emma (7) and Sam (5)

And I'm totally pumped to add a stroller to this outing next year!

Where do we stand?

Who wants an update on our little Ellie Kate??  I thought so.

Monday we received our I-800A approval!!  You know, the approval we've been waiting on since October. 

Yeah.  It's kinda a big deal.  I've been stalking the mailbox waiting for it.  Of course Monday was the day I forgot to check the mail until 10pm. 

Fun fact:  they actually received our paperwork on October 16, which is our anniversary!

So what does all this mean? 

Well, that was the last piece of our dossier that we were waiting on.  The rest of it was already in Alabama at our agency just waiting on this approval.  Over the next two or three weeks our little packet of papers known as our dossier, that is basically a summary of our entire lives, will make its rounds to the county and state for seals.  Then on to the consulate in Texas.

And then...drum roll, please...on to China!!  Woohoo!

We are pretty pumped too!  It's a big step.  I'll let you know when it officially heads to China!