Thank you, thank you very much!

My sweet friend Dawn over at Eggrolls and Chopsticks awarded me the blogging with a purpose award. Here are the guidelines for this award:

The guidelines that accompany this award:
1. Awarded parties must nominate five people who have not received the award.
2. The blogs that receive the award must serve some purpose.
3. In their post about the award they need to link back to the original entry.
4. Awarded parties must post the award banner on their site.
5.The banner must remain linked to Eric Novak's site.

Dawn felt that one of the reasons that I should receive this award is that my blog "tells it like it is" and that "I keep it real" which is what I really try to do. I do share the light moments of this life that we are living but I also share the tough and stressful moments as well such as the attachment issues that we initially had with Katie and the unexpected twists and turns that Ethan's adoption have given us. I love that there are so many blogs now that are beginning to tell it like it is. It did not seem that way almost three years ago when I began blogging. I applaud all of you that are "keepin it real". For this reason I am making an exception for someone who has already received the award. I am re-awarding this award back to Dawn. Her Eggrolls and Chopsticks definitely keeps it real; very real! It accomplishes this with her particular brand of wit and humor. It is a must read for me and of course since we are friends I read it with a tremendous fondness for all of the subjects involved; love ya Dawn!! BTW, since I am breaking the rules and re-awarding this back to you; please feel free to break them as well and not award any more bloggers..LOL

We5Chois is a new blog that is authored by another one of my friends here in South Florida. Kim is another Brit who's humor and slant on things always has me rolling. Even though she is new to the world of blogging, Kim is a fantastic China adoption advocate and has a tremendous wealth of information to share. She is the mother of three children 6 years and under so you know that she has a lot to say and will make you think as well as entertain you saying it.

Cami Mei comes home is also nominated. Sherri's daughter Cami's comes from the same orphanage that Ethan does and her mom and I have forged a wonderful friendship. She and I totally get each other. We even share the same birthday although she is one year older than I am; sorry Sherri!! ROFL. Cami is Sherri's fourth child and this "earth mother", through her blog, can teach us all a thing or two about the power of loving nurture. Sherri can also see the true details in life's routine moments that many of us do not see. I have learned to stop and seek these details and nuances out because of Sherri.

Do they have Salsa in China? is the most viewed China Blog in the world and must be awarded this prize. Mary-Mia is smart, funny and totally in love with her twinados, Marie and Rose. I love reading about the daily antics of her life with Rod and the girls along with some wonderful grandparent influences. Mary-Mia's contribution to adoption blogging is without parallel. I will not even tell you to check her out because you already have (grin)

Our journey of love is last but not least. I nominate Barb's blog because it documents the true love that she and Mike have for their Beautiful Mia but also because Barbara is the person that brought China adoption into our lives. It is a long story and really much to personal to put out here but she is the reason that we were led to our youngest two children and there is no purpose greater than that. Huge hugs to you Barb, Mike and Mia!

I will leave you with this image - It seems that the gruesome twosome (you notice that I did not say dynamic duo, so you can see where I am going with this) have kicked it up a notch in the "let's get into mischief category". Today it seemed that every time we turned our back they were getting into something that they should not. They truly have become co-conspirators and the lead hooligan happens to be Mr. E.

Check out this pic of our bookcase in the playroom. We found this scene after Katie told us that her "bookcase was messy". We kinda ignored this statement as we thought that she meant the usual mess of books put in haphazardly but she kept insisting it was "really messy" We walked in and found in addition to the mess that E was climbing the bookcase...sheesh!!

A couple of pics of what we found

The lead culprit

Not happy that we scolded him for doing this and climbing up the bookcase