We've MOVED!!

We have our own domain now!  bye bye blogger.

click here to go to our new site------>  Our New Home! 

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shew!

Things happen so quickly around here I don't always have the time to sit and blog about them.  But I try to take pictures and vid so I can eventually get them on here.

Mother's Day pics- Matthew (15)

 We had a great Mother's Day weekend.  We planted some vica with the Littles and it was... fun.  Definitely made some memories.  I think the plants that got stepped on while the Littles were planting others are going to live too. :)  Then James and I hung out on the front porch while the Littles played in the sprinkler (vid).

Maddie (9)

Noah (7)

Sophie (6)

Last night Maddie and Noah's school had their last PTO meeting of the year.  They sang a song with other 1st graders and enjoyed every minute of it.  Afterwards Noah asked me, "What you favorite part, mama?"  I told him the very end (don't want to spoil it for you) and he said, "MINE TOO!!"  yeah, I knew that.  lol


Sophie has had some achievements too.  The biggest is that she is mostly potty trained.  I say "mostly" because she will consistently pee in the toilet but not poop.  That's ok though.  I will take what I can get at this point.  We are now down from 6-8 pull-ups a day to ONE.  She wears panties to sleep in and never has an accident during the night.  She is inconsistant about "telling" us she needs to use the bathroom but if she is asked, she will "answer" appropriately by stopping what she is doing and heading to the bathroom.  She still needs assistance in the bathroom.  I don't dare leave her alone with a roll of toilet paper, but she is great about flushing the toilet every time.  lol

We still plan to get Sophie an iPad to help her communicate.  I am excited to see what she can do with it.  We had hoped we would have it this spring but our tax refund has faced one delay after another and now no one knows when we should expect it.

We sent Josie's dossier to China on April 29.  We expect to receive Travel Approval around August with travel in September.  We are praying our tax refund has arrived by then as we need it to travel.  If not, I'll have to do some heavy last minute fund raising.

Matthew is doing fine.  I don't write about him much or post many pictures because he doesn't like me too. 

There is a lot more I could say but I've got to run.  (surprise-surprise)  My next blog post will be about the letter Noah received from his foster family in China.  For now, I'll leave you with one more vid that is sure to bring a smile to your face. 

About Peter- Tian Yi

Another adoptive mom who runs an advocacy blog for special needs orphans, posted about Noah's older foster-brother, Tian Yi (Peter), yesterday.  On May 3rd Peter turned 14 thus closing the door for his adoption.  Annie wrote a post about him, and all the children who "age out" without finding their forever families.  You can read that post by clicking here or on any of the pictures in my post.  If you would like to help provide a birthday gift for Peter, my paypal id is pastorjames1070@gmail.com


Here are some pictures of Peter. 

Hippotherapy!

I've dreamed of hippotherapy for Sophie and Maddie for a while.  In December when on Sophie's Wish Trip, they got to ride horses it was everything I dreamed it would be.  One day that dream will come true.  Until then though... we have Lucy.

I was so thrilled to find Lucy at a 2nd hand shop today.  I was actually dropping Matthew off for his algebra class which is right next door to this shop.  Lucy was sitting out on the sidewalk and she nickered when I drove by.  How could I resist?  I had the car and not the horse trailer so I ran in, paid for her and called James to let him know to stop by with the trailer.

He brought her home around 5:30pm and the kids have been riding her ever since.  After getting to know her a little bit they picked out her name.  Sophie even tried some trick riding.  I must admit I even sat on Lucy's back for a second or two, reminiscing about the time I had my very own horse.

summer haircuts!

Maddie and Sophie have both had summer haircuts. Sophie's was actually cut before Easter so you can see it in the Easter pics. Sophie had about 4 inches cut off. Maddie had 7 inches cut off.

Before 1

Before 2- last time I cut about 2 inches straight across the bottom. interesting how it grew back.

in process- she thought this pic was really funny. Noah thought I should have left it this way.

after 1

tada! after 2

Share the Love

  

Another adoptive family has two give-aways going on right now I wanted to tell you all about.  The first one offers choice of a Macbook or Nikon D90 camera for 1st place, an iPad2 for 2nd place and a $50 Pottery Barn Kids gift card .  They are also giving a free "So Loved" t-shirt for every $35 donation. The second give-away is for a neat necklace that can be stamped with the name(s) of your children.  You can enter that one simply by posting about it on your blog or Facebook.  Do you want to help share the love?  Click on the button at the top of this post to go to the website.

Easter weekend