Fingerprinted again...

So with our USCIS fingerprinting appointment in hand, Jeff and I left our house this morning at 7:15 hoping to get our fingerprints taken.

Our rescheduled appt, after I missed the first appt, is for January 10th, but we were hoping that we could get it done earlier.

Thankfully it was not busy today and we were able to be the first 2 to get our prints taken! Yea!!

Hopefully we get approval before we move because that would be the best case scenario.

Otherwise we may have to get it done again...which would be more time lost and more money..

Our goal is to get our approval and get our dossier submitted to China before we move.

Lofty goal..yes...

Beyond God's capabilities...no...

So if you feel so inclined...please pray for our house to sell and for us to get our USCIS approval and dossier off before the 3rd week of Feb!

On the market

We are now on the market...

Or at least our house is...

The last two weeks have felt like a whirlwind of activity.

We had to have two realtors do a market analysis for us and then decide which one to list with...

Those two market analysis had to be within 10% of each other or we would have to have a 3rd realtor come out and do another one...thankfully they were within the 10%.

We chose a realtor and listed with her yesterday morning.

On Friday we have two appraisers coming out to do appraisals of the house. The relo company will average the two appraisals and this will be out buyout price that P&G will give us if we can't sell the house on our own.

We are hoping and praying we sell it on our own as they also offer a significant incentive to doing this...

So please pray we can sell our house quickly!

Christmas Style

Here is Ainsley sporting some Christmas style...

I am pretty sure it isn't how my mom thought the outfit she got the girls would look...

Since Ainsley never wears anything together that was actually purchased together, I doubt she will ever wear the entire outfit my mom purchased each of the girls together...

Unless I get their pictures taken...

But the girl definitely has a sense of style...

Christmas

We celebrated our annual tradition of going out to eat on Christmas Eve at our favorite Chinese food restaurant.
However, as usual, we forgot to capture it on camera!
We did capture our yearly trip to down town Cincinnati though, which was great fun! Especially as it will probably be our last Christmas in downtown Cincinnati for at least a little while.
We had fun walking around Fountain Square, watching the people skate(which we didn't leave enough time to do), seeing the gingerbread displays, the Duke Energy train display and taking a carriage ride around the city. The girls enjoyed it immensely as did Jeff and I.
Here are a few pics from the day...

Girls in front of the gingerbread display

Duke Energy train display

Mom and Mackenzie-Fountain Square

Carriage ride-I really need a cool new hat...this one just isn't cutting it...

Mack and Ainsley on carriage ride

On Christmas Eve night the girls also have a tradition of opening one present each. It is always Christmas jammies. We then go through our What God Wants for Christmas Nativity Advent Set. It is set up to do either the week before Christmas or to do all in one sitting. We usually do it all in one sitting but we have done it both ways.

We have had lots of fun Christmas memories in our home.

I will be sad to leave this house when the time comes as we have really loved this house.

Glad we have a few more weeks of making memories...

Awaited

Last night we went to see Awaited at Crossroads in Cincinnati. It was amazing! What a great way to usher in the Christmas season, remind us of what Christmas is all about and celebrate the birth of Jesus. Jeff and I loved it. Mackenzie and Ainsley really liked it though they thought it was a little loud...Ellie thought it was too loud :) She covered her hands over her ears for the first part...lol. They asked us not to take pictures or recordings so as not to distract the actors and actresses, but there are a lot of video clips on youtube from past years. I thought I would post one that we loved...

Adopted

I was thinking to myself just yesterday that I just can't imagine life without Ellie. I was thinking about the many funny things that she does and says that just keep us in stitches sometimes. Take Friday afternoon, for instance.

Ellie was sitting behind me in the van as we waited to pick Mackenzie up from school. She had been talking a mile a minute, which has become more the norm and which is getting to the drive me crazy point, when suddenly she says something along these lines...(and mind you I had already been laughing a lot at what she was saying and will have to give some of the back story)

Ellie-"Awww mom, the batteries to my pretend phone are dead!

Mom-"why don't you go to the pretend store and buy a charger for your batteries?"

Ellie-"great idea, mom!"

Yup..that's me...always full of great ideas!

The prior 45 minutes before we pulled into the school had been spent listening to Ellie chat with my friend Sophia and her son Jonah. Ellie LOVES Jonah. I means really loves him. He just turned 4 so he is a younger man an all. Smart thinking Ellie. Catch 'em when their young.

She wanted to text him. I explained that she can't text because well...she can't spell. Which would make texting tricky. She then said she could text Miss Sophia on her phone to which I had to explain yet again that she can't spell and that Miss Sophia doesn't have texting on her phone. It's just not going to happen kid. So then she moves on to e-mail. Can she write Jonah an e-mail. Seriously? I suggested why don't you pretend to call Jonah...she wanted my phone...don't think so! And then she comes up with the pretend phone! Yea! I love the pretend phone since it requires absolutely nothing on my part! She proceeds to spend the next however long it was talking on her pretend phone to Jonah and his mom. I wish I had recorded it because it would completely crack Sophia up..alas..

Then yesterday she comes over to Jeff and I at the table. We had just let her put in The Incredibles. She wanted to be a supergirl. But she obviously couldn't be a supergirl. Why? She didn't have a cape! Of course you can't be a supergirl without a cape! But she had the solution...always thinking...just like Curious George...

She pulls out her blanket and wants me to tuck it in the back. So, I do. She flies off. She comes back. And she proceeds to do this...per Jeff's quote...

Ellie, running around with a blanket on her back like a cape yells, "Look, I'm super girl! I can toot!" and then proceeds to stick out her bottom at me.

That's my girl!

So when I overhear people say things like " I don't know if I could ever love an adopted child as much as I love a biological child" all I can think is...you just do..

Through all of our ups and down. Frustrations. Setbacks. Therapies to the 100th power. It has never changed the fact that I love Ellie. 100 % as much as I love Ainsley and Mackenzie. And she has definitely blossomed under all that love she gets from us. From her sisters. From our amazing friends and family.

That's why we are doing it all over again. Because every child deserves it. And I can't make a difference in every child's life. But I can make a difference in just one more.

Moving

What I like about moving:

1. It gives us opportunities to practice not becoming stressed.

2. It enables me to learn how to practice patience with my kids while I am also involved in practicing the opportunity of not being stressed

3. A work in progress...

We are moving to St. Louis for Jeff's new role/promotion.

We are excited and sad all at once.

I am however feeling a little crazy that it happened a few weeks before Christmas, but it's ok because I am practicing #1 and #2...

Family Picture...more to come

Here are pictures from our family photo shoot. Our friend, Jeff Fusaro, took the pictures. If you are ever looking for someone to take pictures, he does a great job.

We had a lot of fun and are pleased by the pictures.

Enjoy!

Thanksgiving

I can't believe it has been so long since I posted!

We had a great Thanksgiving with our family this year. My mom flew in and spent two weeks with us and just left this afternoon. We spent the first part of her time in Gatlinburg and South Carolina and the last few days here at home in KY.

We took the girls out of school for Gatlinburg which of course they loved! We had a lot of fun hanging around our cabin and playing in the stream behind it. The weather was actually in the high 60's most of the time we were there and we even got to wear capris and short-sleeved shirts. We spent a few hours driving around Cade's Cove and were able to see deer, wild turkeys and even caught site of a black bear! A day at the aquarium and an evening walking around downtown Gatlinburg. Lots of good family time which was great since Jeff has been traveling a lot.

Then we traveled on to South Caroline to spend Thanksgiving with my brother and his family. Lots of great memories and lots of great food! We love seeing their family and I know the girls would love it if we saw them more often!

We area already in full swing for Christmas. It seems crazy how quickly the calendar fills up in December!!

On the adoption front we received our fingerprinting appt for December 10th. We were going to attempt to get in earlier but honestly with Jeff's travel and our travel we just decided to wait until the 10th and make it easy on ourselves. Hopefully it won't take forever from that point on but I am fully prepared to take until the end of Jan. Hopefully I will be pleasantly suprised and have it move along faster!