Mackenzie's Awards Ceremony

On Friday Mackenzie's teacher did a closing end of the year awards ceremony. It was really nicely done and Ainsley and I had a good time. The kids sang a bunch of songs that they had learned and that lasted maybe 10-15 minutes. Then Miss Quinlan, Mackenzie's teacher, had an award ceremony for the kids and awarded them each a certificate based on something positive about this year. Mackenzie's was outstanding reader and I am so proud of her. Her teacher gave a short little speech on each child in the class and how she has learned from them. She also wrote a personal letter to each child in the class and then made them each a DVD of pictures she took of them all year put to music. It was really well done. After her presentation she showed the slide show of all the pictures she took over the year put to music. It was really cute. We then had pizza, chips, soda and desert. A very well put together hour long presentation and Mackenzie did great. I did take a couple of pictures and got a little video before my battery ran out. Unfortunately I forgot to pack the spare, and missed recording several really cute songs that they did..:( But at least I got some of Mackenzie before it died.

Memorial Day Weekend

We had a really nice Memorial Day Weekend. We did almost nothing the entire weekend. We did get together with friends after church on sunday for a picnic but that's about it. The rest of the time was spent doing some things around the house and RELAXING which was fantastic and much needed. Jeff finished Mackenzie's room so I will post photos of her room and a few of Ellie with daddy's Boston Red Sox hat on...very cute:) We also took the girls for a hike in Gunpowder Creek Park...at least I think that's what it is called. It is in the back of our development and they love hiking back there. The girls all had fun and Ellie did well in the backpack. She did get down and run around in the tall grass in the field but it took her a little while to warm up to the tall grass. While we were walking down the gravel trail, we heard a bird saying what sounded like haw, haw, haw. Jeff turns to the girls and says, "that was a monkey laughing at us." Ainsley was convinced it was a monkey but Mackenzie says, "no Ainsley it isn't a monkey, it's a bird." Where Ainsley promptly turns back to Mackenzie and says," Mackenzie, birds say tweet, tweet, not haw, haw." I was rolling laughing so hard. We then had to explain that we were pretty confident that there weren't any monkeys living in the woods of KY to Ainsley! Here are some photos of the weekend!

The Children's Museum

The girls and I went to the Children's Museum in Cincinnati a week or so ago when Mackenzie had the day off because we use her school to vote. Our membership expires today and I wanted to get one last visit in and the girls had a blast. We were there from 10:30-almost 4 and they did really well. We have been able to use it much this year and so we have decided not to renew for next year. With both girls having different school schedules it just makes it difficult to get there and have enough time to spend. So I made the most of our last day there for a while. We may get memberships to the zoo this summer as Ellie hasn't been there and I think she would love it but we will wait till after we get back from vacation for that...anyway enough rambling and enjoy the photos!

The Awana Awards Ceremony

Mackenzie and Ainsley recently had their Awana awards ceremony.  They each completed a book this year which was fantastic and they also each had a verse to recite.  We have short video clips of them both I believe so enjoy!

Loss

I am sure that many of you who read and follow this blog already know about the loss of Maria Sue Chapman, youngest daughter of Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife Mary Beth. They have adopted three girls from China and Maria Sue, their youngest daughter, had just celebrated her 5th birthday. I can't imagine the pain they are suffering through right now as a family and I just wanted those who read this blog to be aware of this so they can pray for the Chapman family.

Here is a webpage that you can view to see a video of Maria Sue and there's a link to click to donate in her memory to Shaohannah's Hope, the adoption foundation set up by the Chapmans:

http://chapmanchannel.typepad.com/inmemoryofmaria/

Ainsley's preschool graduation

On Friday evening of last week, Ainsley graduated from preschool. It is amazing really how many graduations our children will go through over the next years of their life. I am sure that I will find each one equally amazing but there's something about preschool graduation that is just so unbelievably cute. All these little kids standing on stage singing songs and quoting verses and poems that they had memorized over the year..and me thinking.."are they REALLY old enough to go to school?" Seriously I think we are growing kids MUCH small these days. They all looked like adorable little shrimp...they're going to be eaten alive at school. But oh well I hope for the best. And they were really cute!
Ainsley made it through without any mishaps and even talked into the microphone! Each child is asked what they are going to be when they grow up. Ainsley actually said..INTO THE MICROPHONE...that she wanted to be a teacher. I thought one of the most profound thoughts mentioned by one of the little girls when asked what she was going to be was "myself." Pretty insightful for a 4 year old. Here are a few pics of the evening and I think maybe a video clip...enjoy!

Mulan and Ellie's 1st birthday invite

I took Mackenzie and Ainsley to see Mulan. They loved it. It was performed by one of the local high schools in Covington and it was really well done. Jeff stayed home and had some bonding time with Elie which was also good. She had a lot of fun with him and I had a lot of fun with the older two. We determined Ellie would never make it through as she really doesn't have a long attention span. Maybe in a year or so she will be able to make it but not yet. I didn't get any quality photos of the girls during this adventure and no quality photos of the show either but it was lot of fun.

The next morning Ellie had her first birthday party at totters otterville in Covington. It was for one of her little friends that is in our adoption playgroup and she seemed to have fun. She didn't play a whole lot with the other kids but liked wandering around and seeing all the new things. She of course at like a champ..pizza, cake and ice cream...she will sit and eat forever it seems. Or maybe it is that it takes her forever to eat! Food lasted her through the presents and then it was time to leave. Here are a few pics of her time there. There are some post pics of her asleep in her car seat. Apparently her first party wore her plumb out!

Haircuts

So this is our yearly time to get haircuts. I don't take the kids to get their haircut very often. Ainsley often wants to grow it out and then I convince her to cut it before we leave for the beach every year. I have before and after pics with Ainsley but unfortunately only before with mackenzie. Her after pics I forgot about and honestly it doesn't look much different, despite the fact that I spent a fortune on product for her incredibly curly, tangly hair! Ellie didn't get her hair cut at the salon, but I did trim her bangs so I will post a picture of that too. She doesn't like having her hair cut. I am not sure if this stems back to haircuts at the orphanage or not but she gets quite upset when I approach her with scissors or when I use the clippers on Jeff's hair.

Great 6 month visit at the IAC

Ellie had her 6 month appt at the International Adoption Center. They are very happy with her progress and we will not need to go back unless we have concerns. She has progressed on all levels and we were happy with her progress as much as they were. She currently stands at 33 months for gross motor, 24 months for language, 33 months fine motor, and 36 months personal/social. Those are all well above where she stood 6 months and even 3 months ago so that is fantastic. They recommended continued physical therapy every other week and continued speech therapy. I think that once her core muscles get stronger maybe we can phase out of PT, but my guess is that speech will continue for a while. The only need to go back to them would be if we start to notice additional delays or adoption related issues that would be best handled through them. Otherwise we will probably come back before she starts kindergarten to do an evaluation and make sure she is completely ready for school and to pick up on any additional delays that we may encounter. We are so thankful for the International Adoption Center. Many people all over the country don't have access to such a fantastic adoption resource and we are grateful to live so close to one! They have been an amazing support and help to us. She also had some blood work done today as well and was a trooper for it. She had a second TB skin test placed. Thankfully since I am a nurse I can read it so that saves us an additional trip to someone else! She saw a developmental pediatrician at Children's this past Monday. They didn't tell us anything that we didn't know for the most part but it was good for have her seen just for a second opinion. The outcome: she's delayed but making progress. We can't tell you whether her delays are institutional or an underlying problem of something else but since she is making progress, we lean towards institutional unless progress stops or goes backwards. We have options as far as further testing goes if we would need it but no one really feels it is necessary as of now to do any further testing, including us.
All in all a busy but thankful week. She has been making a lot of progress with her speech and hopefully once she gets over the cold she has, she will be in a more pleasant mood. The last few days her status has been grumpy! But today she was a little better.

Family Pictures

I asked my neighbor to come and take a couple of pictures of us as a family because we needed them for our 6 month post-placement visit. We didn't have any good ones up to this point and after seeing the ones she took I am convinced none of our children really like having their picture taken. However I decided to post them anyway as they are the best ones we have.
Jeff is on his way to Cincinnati to run as part of a P&G relay in the Flying Pig marathon. I am the coordinator for children's ministry today so I will be at church with the girls. He is excited and nervous but I am sure he will do fine. This will give him a taste of whether he wants to try running the whole thing sometime. The weather has been nice but really windy the last few days..hopefully it won't be too windy for all the runners!

Re-Adoption

So Ellie's visit went great yesterday and I have another visit in 3 weeks. All we have left to do is take lots of pictures! We have started on the re-adoption process. Our social worker recommended an attorney to us and hopefully things will move along quickly and we can have that completed in time for her to start preschool, though it isn't that important at the moment we want to be prepared for all problems down the road. It will be nice to have almost everything completed with Ellie's adoption by this summer, except for her last post placement visit at 12 months. We have been busy the last few days but today isn't too bad and hopefully the sun will peak out and Ellie and I can play outside while Ainsley is at preschool. I have started to work with Ainsley on reading and so far she is doing great. She has finally decided, with of course our persuasion:), that she wants to get her hair cut again for the summer. So hopefully we can get her in soon to get that done. Mackenzie and Ainsley have ballet pictures this Saturday in their costumes for their recital so hopefully I can get a few of my own before hand so you can see what they are wearing.