FIFIS HEAD SHED

Yahoo, what a birthday present! Fifi's Head Studio arrived at 6:30 AM on March 24. The whole process for installing it was amazing to watch! We purchased our shed from Kloiter Farms a fantastic garden and home center in Ellington Ct. Their customer service is beyond belief, that's why we went back (Scotts shed is from Kloiter Farms too!). So, here's Scott greeting the delivery guy, who by the way, installed the whole thing by himself. He off loaded the shed behind ours, drove the truck into the back yard, positioned the shed, twirled it around and plunked it down on the gravel pad, then went back to the street and picked up the other shed and went on to his next delivery. The whole thing took about an hour.
Here's the front of the Studio, and the side with the double doors. Next step, we will get it wired, insulated, wall board and then I move in! :). We have a little village going on in our back yard, and I can tell I'll have some fun this summer with some landscaping as well as art projects! It's all good and I can't wait to get rolling. Oh, by the way, JJ and Cakie, get ready cuz this is where you'll sleep when you come over to visit (ha, ha, ha)

Hairy Tongue Cow a.k.a. Sparkey

This one is for Willie-T!

I went to Suzies House the other weekend and after a gruling workout (ha, ha) we went to "The Farm" to see the Hairy Tongue Cow. Here she is! What a riot. The cows head is so big that she can't see the food in front of her mouth so she sticks her tongue out hoping that you'll place some carrots on it.

Miss Molly is quite familiar with "The Farm" after an incident that left her "shocked" and amazed -- she got jilted by the electric fence. . .and you wonder why her hair is so curly! -- Hey Sparkey how are ya? Ha, Ha, Ha.

Wow, can you believe it's March already?

It's been a while since we've posted anything. We've been busy with work and other stuff. No news on the adoption front, still waiting, and waiting, and waiting. The only good part about the waiting, is that time is flying! I can't believe that Spring starts next week and that March is almost over. WOW.

Scott and I are heading up to New Hampshire this weekend to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary. 6 years! Yeha!!! I'll be sure to take some pictures and post them to the blog.

Hope all is well, we'll be posting again soon!

JANUARY SECRET PAL GIFT

Our Secret Pal sent us these two books, they are awesome. "Moonbeams, Dumplings and Dragon Boats" covers all of the Chinese Holidays with recipes and activities that we can do with Jade. "Chinese Children's Favorite Stories" is just that! I'm sure we will have many hours of "read it again" with Jade.

I'm in the process of pulling together the next baby update, so it should hit your mail boxes soon! The China Center for Adoption Affairs has matched children with Dossiers that were logged in through May 13 (we were logged in August 30) and they have completed review of all Dossiers submitted in June. So, the remainder of May Dossiers and June will be matched within the next month or two.

What does that mean to us? Well, CCAA is currently reviewing July Dossiers and should be done by the end of Feb., then August Dossiers go into the "review" room which is the final phase before we get our referral. I'm still thinking we will get our referral in May, just like Jade told me in my dream!

Chinese New Year is this Sunday (it's the year of the Dog). This is the most important holiday of the year. It heralds the coming of Spring and the reunion of the family. You are supposed to welcome the new year with a "clean slate" which includes paying up debts, cleaning your house and making your kitchen God happy, cuz this is the time of year he visits the Jade Emperor, ruler of the world, and files his report on how well you and your family behaved. So watch out Paulie, you'd better be on good behavior!

Happy New Year everyone!!!

Love ya!

Happy New Year Everyone!

Hey everybody, hope the holidays were awesome for all of you. Scott and I had a great holiday season, we got to see all of our family and hang out with our friends.

Now we are on to our 2006 stuff and hoping to become parents this summer (come on China!).

Since there are no updates I figured I'd share some of my recent drawings. I made a little short story for Suzie regarding the benefits of deep breathing, so I called on my two friends "Bizzy Bee" and "Grappa Tomato" to tell the story.

You can follow along too and take the time for some deep breathing!








Breathe from your stomach (verus your shoulders), reach up to the sky and inhale through your nose, fill your lungs . . .














Then exhale slowly through your mouth. Relax your belly and body. Feel the relaxation! Repeat as many times as necessary. Voila, you are relaxed, or maybe even asleep like my friend Grappa.

Anyway, here's wishing everyone a fantastic 2006 filled with love, joy, success and some time to take a few deep breaths!

Love ya! Deed


All Images (c) 2005 Aileen Casey

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!

Merry Christmas. Here's my sweetie all dolled up like Bob Kratich (sp?) from Scrooge ha, ha, ha.

We went to see Gram last night and she was so delighted to see Scott in his top hat and long scarf. She kind of didn't know who he was at first, but when she did she laughed. She's 98 (or something like that) and is amazing, she's with it mentally, just not there physically. We had a great visit.






Here's a full picture view of Scott. He's wearing my Christmas present to him, the boots. I bought them for him to complete his Halloween outfit, and yes he did get his present early. He wore the boots with his outfit when we went to Salem for Halloween. I like this look for the holidays! He bought me a diamond ring by the way, it's beautiful. I tried to take a pictre of it but the glare kept on over-exposing the picture (ha, ha, ha).

It's been a crazy two days, Scott didn't work yesterday but we spent the day running around like crazy people. We had last minute errands and then had to finish with the Christmas stuff and clean the house (not that Scott wanted to), visit Gram and then went to Aunt Lorraines for dinner, all fun! The theme for yesterday? "WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!!".

That theme has carried over for me today too, Scotts working -- Jan, nancy and I went to church at 8:30, I'm running over to Anita's shortly for a visit and then to Peter and Terry's for a mid-day Christmas dinner. Then home, cuz Scotts needs to be to work by 5:00 am tomorrow.

AHHHHHH. We werent ready this year at all. Hopefully we won't be in the same position next year, it will be our first year with Jade! I can't wait! Oh, speaking of Jade, check out the room. we are making progress, maybe it will be ready by the time she comes home!

Love to everyone, I'll post more Christmas pictures tomorrow.

BABY UPDATE #4

So, by now most of you should have received our latest update. As you know, our timeline has been pushed back a bit and it completely bummed me out. I'm the most impatient person on the planet, so waiting is extremely hard for me. Good thing Scott is my complete opposite!

Anyway, I was complaining to Suzie the other day that I didnt feel like doing anything to prepare for the baby's arrival (as you all know, the babies room is coming along "nicely" :), she told me to get over myself and to start to do stuff. So, I took her advice and decided to have a bit of fun. I went shopping last night and picked Scott up some "cool" baby outfits for Christmas. Ya know, he's the one who want's to dress her in leather and "goth" outfits (tee hee).

I went to one of his favorite stores "Hot Topics" and picked up the onesies you see in the picture. What a riot, the guy at the checkout counter said "boy, some little girl is going to have a rockin' Christmas!" and I said yes she will (next year!).

Anyway, it was fun and it made me think about all of the fun Scott and I are going to have with Jade-Su Raven Casey when we get her home (that's her name, we might add her Chinese name to the mix too, so she'll have the longest name in history, but with our family it won't matter cuz she'll probably have a nick-name before she gets home!). I'm gonna want all of the cute little girl pinks and blues, and Scotts gonna want all of the cute little Rocker Girrrrllll blacks and purples. Soooo, I decided I'm going to have to do a clothing check before we leave Jade with anyone, especially daycare, cuz I don't think it's appropriate for a little one to have "Social Distortion" with a skull and cross-bones on her shirt (ha, ha, ha).

We will NOT be bringing these onsies to China, ya know the old wives tale about always wearing good underwear, it's when you don't, that something will happen to you and everyone will see it! We can't take that risk because we both already wear tube-socks.

This is Jade's room, it's got potential :) Mom, remember you told me you'd come up in January to help with the room . . .?

Happy Thanksgiving From Long Beach Island

Hey folks, I didn't have time to upload all of the pictures from this weekend, but was able to get some of Fred's Birthday party, see below.

I had so mouch fun this weekend and Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday (no gift's, it's just about being together). I was able to get some great shot's of everyone, including Dixie-doodle. So stay tuned!

Here are some pictures of one of my favorite places on the planet -- Long Beach Island!

For those of you who are not familiar, the lighthouse is "Old Barney" (in Barnaget Light, NJ) the other photo's are from the beach at the top of Essex, by mom and dads house in Harvey Cedars.



I bet this seagull is glad he wasnt born a turkey!

Happy Birthday Fred!

What a great ending to a great weekend. we celebrated Fred's Birthday in Japanese style!

We went to a Hibatchi Grill in Manahawkin N.J., and not only ate great food but were also entertained.

Our Chef was very funny and really played it up for the kids. Willie-T didn't quite know what to make of it all, afterall we are always telling him NOT to play with his food . . .








This is our Chef, he started the event off by igniting a GIGANTIC fire on the grill, it felt like our eyebrows were being burned off. But they werent thank goodness, just our arm hair . . .















He started with fried rice, he threw his utensils around, cracked some eggs, squirted oil and VOILA! We had fried rice.














His hands moved light lightning, and he started to shape the rice into something, but what?














He shaped it into a Birthday Heart for Fred!











And then he stuck his spatula in it and made it beat, it was a riot. Yeah, we were drinking wine and that might have made it funnier . . . but it was funny and we were hungry!












The highlight (or LIGHT) of the evening was the "Volcano Onion". Cakie was talking about this all day (she had been to this restuarant recently with Nana & PopPop), and she was right, it was really cool and made me wonder how the heck they got fire insurance. You could feel the heat on your eyeballs.








The chef then made our dinners; shrimp, chicken, lobster, steak and veggies. YUMMIE. He used ginger, garlic, soy sauce and sesame seeds. It was awesome. And, he didnt throw the food at us, he threw it at our plates . . .











Here's Uncle Scott, the Birthday Boy, Willie-T and Suzie enjoying the food (and wine!)













Yahoo! Happy Birthday daddy!!! This is fun!












Nana and Pop Pop were there too!













This is JJ playing the Birthday Gong, Yes this place had a goofy Birthday Ritual too, they played this canned music and banged a Gong. It was loud and sufficiently embarrising for Fred (goodie!)










Then we went back home for Birthday Cake and some B&B. What a great way to end the evening!














Here's the Birthday Boy's pretty wife, Suzie











Here's the Beautiful Ms. Molly, our photographer didn't get any pictures of her at the restaurant, so this is a shot taken before we went to the restaurant.
















OK, Who doesnt LOVE cake? Fred had 4 mini cakes to choose from. I had a piece from each, can you say piggie? But hey, I was on Holiday Baby!!!













This was our photographer for the evening. Miss Caileen a.k.a. Cakie. She is 6 and she took all of these pictures, didnt she do an AWESOME job? Including this self portrait, I might add! I think we have a budding photographer in the family!








The end to a great Birthday -- Fred's boat is out of the water, we had a great dinner, we were all together and had some cake. Can life get any better?

Happy Birthday Fred and many, many, more! We love you!