Laundry Baskets

Mackenzie and Ainsley were having great fun one day last week creating houses and playing in our laundry baskets. They proceeded to ask me if it would be ok if they slept in them that night. I, being the amazing parent, said of course you can! How much fun would that be...in my humble opinion not fun at all but in their opinion not much could be better. I was able to get some photos of Ainsley actually asleep which were so cute...Mackenzie however didn't go to sleep and had to finally crawl into her bed...shortly after the pictures were taken, Ainsley awoke and headed off into her bed. We decided since they probably couldn't be that comfortable the kids would be up all night and then of course waking us up...therefore we nixed sleeping in the laundry baskets ever again! But the pictures were worth it!

Happy Hills Camp

So I am trying to catch up on some posts. Mackenzie went to her first overnight camp at Happy Hills Camp-which is a camp associated with First Church of Christ. She really wanted to go but as I drove her up (it's about an hour from our house), she started to get increasingly nervous. She wasn't sure she would like it or have fun or know anyone...the usual fears someone heading to their first overnight camp might have. But you will all be glad to know that once we arrived and she saw Peyton and Bailey Sanders were there and so was there mom...well it saved the day! By the time I picked her up two days later...she was ready to stay a whole week! However it doesn't seem the leaders were!! But fun was had by all though maybe not a lot of sleep:)
Here's some pics of her and the camp...

New Photos of Ellie!

I have been meaning to post for a few days on some random events and will update those too...but today we received some new photos of Ellie from another family who visited our orphanage adopting their own child. They came back last week and said that they were able to visit the orphanage and get some photos of Ellie and she sent them via e-mail today! We are so excited to see that she seems to be doing well and is being taken care of well. We still don't have much of an update on her gross motor skills as our friend was not allowed to spend a lot of time with the kids and she couldn't take Ellie out of the crib but she is standing and does seem bigger than in the last photo we have of her! I talked this morning with our agency and she indicated that we are out of review and that she hopes we have TA or travel approval by Sept...not sure when we will travel but that is our hope too! Ellie....we are trying to wait patiently to come and get you!!! I hope we are holding you by early fall!!
Without further ado...here are the new pics!

Baby Jenna

I of course can't forget some pics of baby Jenna!

More 4th of July in South Carolina

Here are some more pics from our trip to South Carolina

4th of July in South Carolina

We spent the 4th of July with my brother Mark, his wife Janice and their five children. We had a really good time and neither of the girls wanted to leave. We did fireworks in their cul-de-sac and had a big party. Several friends of the Moody family came down and brought food and I believe that total their were 17 kids! However, there were only 8 adults! Crazy...but fun and the kids loved it. Janice got me to run with her two days in a row and though I didn't last as long as she did and probably only ran 2 miles or so each day I did walk the whole route and got in about 4 1/2 miles or so and that felt pretty good though very hot!
Here's a few pics of my kids and some of Mark and Janice's kids. I took several of Ainsley and Molly as they were around the camera a lot and they had some really cute pics! Hope you enjoy! No new news on the adoption front. It will probably be late August before we hear about Travel Approval for all of those interested. We may have to file additional paperwork to amend our USCIS approval. I met with our social worker last week for a special needs addendum and home study update as it was due to expire next month. Our I-171H was approved for a girl 1-18 months at referral and since Ellie was closer to 26 months at referral she thinks we need to have that changed. There is also some concern since she has cerebral palsy and that wasn't mentioned as one of the special needs that we would accept so we may need to have that changed. So we are waiting to hear back from our agency on just exactly what we need to do. Please keep us and Ellie in your prayers are we just want to get over there and get her!

Ainsley on the ferris wheel

So I am trying out my abilities to continue to improve and expand my mind...and also to add cool new things to our blog. So here's a short video that was taken with our friend's the Luke's camera over vacation. Hopefully I did it right!! Enjoy!