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.

6 month post placement visit

Today is Ellie's 6 month post placement visit. We have two visits with our social worker. One at her office and then one at our house. Today Jeff and I will be going to her office with Ellie. I have typed up all of her medical/therapy appts since she has been with us and it totaled 3 pages! I have a couple more to add as she will be seeing the developmental pediatrician this coming Monday and then has her 6 month follow-up at the IAC ( International Adoption Center ) the following Wed. It is amazing how the time flies! Ellie is really doing great. I will be approaching Boone County about helping us pay for speech services over the summer next week so if you could all pray that is goes well that would be great. I would love to see her continue to improve in speech and really think she needs more than the 1x/week that our insurance will cover. But speech is pricey and we can't afford to cover it out of pocket and with school out she will be missing the additional 2x/week that she currently goes. We also have to have 5 pictures for the social worker for our 6 month visit. 3 of the pictures are just of her and then 2 with the whole family. We don't have the family pictures yet so we need to get that done...either by setting our camera up ourselves of having someone take a few of us. None of our family pics are that great as Ellie is either trying to get down or crying in most of them and we don't think that we be a good picture to send back to the Chinese govt!

No shopping for her...

So Ellie really hates to shop. And coincidentally right now I really don't like to shop with her either! None of us are real shoppers in this family unless you count Jeff, who definitely likes to shop for clothes. For me it is just pure drudgery even though I try to have a good attitude about it. But Ellie just seems to hate being in the cart..anywhere in it. Not in the front, nor back nor with her sisters in it with her. However take her out of the cart to let her walk and you might as well have not even gone to the store. So I needed to do a few things today as I am leaving this afternoon for an overnight women's retreat. All two hours of what I needed to accomplish were very painful for us all as she hollered and cried and cried some more and then threw fits. I am pretty sure everyone in every store that we went to were aware of us. Of course Ainsley doesn't appreciate Ellie's cries of misery and has to chime in her own. It is at these times that I have to remind myself why in fact I LOVE my children so much. They're cute when we aren't shopping, they do cute and funny things, and they often they give me hugs and kisses and say I love you in their own way. This is what I have to remind myself of when I shop..if only I could have taken a picture of them both!

Things are moving along

It seems that things move along quickly and I just don't make the time to post. Things have been going well for us here but very busy. I am adjusting to having Ellie in speech three times a week which has been good for her but quite a bit more for me to add to the schedule. It isn't very far to travel as the additional two times a week are at our elementary school only 5 or so minutes away. But it means I have to be home early to get her down for a nap because speech on Mon and Tues is from 3-3:30 and she still needs a 2 hour nap. We have notice a big improvement in how many words she is attempting to imitate which is really good. She is still not saying two words together but any improvement is always good. Physically her gross motor skills are getting better though I think we may invest in some knee pads that she must where everywhere as she is constantly falling. We are so amazed at the progress that Ellie continues to make and we can't believe we are hitting the 6 month mark. The social worker that did our homestudy will be back in our house in a few weeks to do Ellie's 6 month follow-up that we have to do for China. What an amazing 6 months it has been! We can't imagine life without her now:) Her hair is longer, her social skills are better and she has attached really well so far. We are so thankful for our new little addition.
Here are a few new pics of Ellie





Mackenzie and Ainsley are doing well also. School has been going well for both of them and it is so fun to see Ainsley growing up a bit. She has been easier to live with in the last month or so and has overall been doing a good job with Ellie. They still get on each other's nerves at times but they also play really well together too which has been fun to see. Ainsley LOVES preschool and I think is looking forward to kindergarten next year. We just registered her and she will be screened sometime in August. Mackenzie is of course looking forward to summer vacation as am I for a break! But she will be excited about second grade too I think. School has been going well for her and I was finally able to get on her last field trip of the year to the Boone County Arboretum. We had fun and I enjoy getting to know the kids in her class. I volunteer once a week in her class and I really enjoy that time with the kids. I could never be a teacher but volunteering is fun:)
Here are some pics of Mackenzie and Ainsley





Jeff and I are doing well. We were able to get away on an overnight while my mother-in-law was in town and that was great. Work has been busy for jeff but we did manage to repaint the main bath and put up some paneling. We also managed to buy and assemble a new bedroom set for mackenzie from IKEA. I love that store! Hopefully in the next week or so I will takes some pics of the bathroom and her room once it is completely done. Here are a few pics of Jeff and I

Some recent pics of the girls finally!

Here are some pics from Easter. Unfortunately I didn't get any of all the girls together:(

Sorry for the long wait

So I haven't posted in a while. I have been reading all of my friend's blog that I follow regularly but just haven't made the time to download my photos from the last few weeks so I haven't wanted to post. But I figured that it has almost been a month and I just need to post. Hopefully I get myself in gear with the pictures as we have a few really good ones. In the last few weeks, Jeff's mom has been in town, we got away for an overnight just the two of us and Ellie has had many therapy sessions. It seems like the weeks have flown by with just the normal day to day stuff. The girls had a great time with their Grammie I. in town as they always do and Grammie had a great time with them too. It was nice to hear from another source that Ellie has indeed made progress in the last few months. There are times when it seems so slow that we forget she is making progress. But Grammie said she saw a big difference between Christmas and now so that was good to hear. Ellie continues to have speech 3 times a week. Once privately through the speech dept of one of our local hospitals and then twice through the school. I love her private speech therapist. She has been great with Ellie and Ainsley has fun too. Physically she is coming along with her gross motor skills, but it is her speech that we are most concerned with at this point as she is developing speech VERY slowly. But we all love her to pieces and can't imagine life without her. She is completely a mommy's girl but does have a pretty good time with daddy too. She and Ainsley have started to warm up to each other and are doing better together too.
Jeff and I had a great time away while Jeff's mom watched the kids for us. It was nice to just have some time away. We went to a fantastic restaurant overlooking Cincinnati on Sat night and then stayed at a hotel in downtown Cincinnati. We of course used our time without kids to make our FIRST run to IKEA. A new IKEA opened in West Chester, OH and I wanted to check it out. We had a fantastic time and were really glad that we didn't have the kids as the place was a zoo! However we got some fantastic ideas for new furniture in Mackenzie's room and decided that a second trip with the kids was in order. Since then we have actually made 3 trips, twice with all the kiddos and then once with just Ellie. We have now finished Mack's room and it looks pretty good if I do say so myself. Nothing much on the walls so we do need a bit of decor but the furniture looks good:) I will have to take a picture soon.
I have also managed to purchase a new pair of running shoes, get injured, take time off from running, see the podiatrist and start running again...all in the span of time that I haven't posted! Isn't that amazing? I am feeling ok now and am waiting for a new gel padding thing to come in to the podiatrist's office. Apparently I have bruised a bone at the base of my big toe which is a common running injury. I find this fascinating as I have been running on again off again for a lot of years and have never managed to hurt myself. I hope this is not an indication that I am getting old;)
That is pretty much it from our side of the world. Hopefully I will be better about posting in the next few weeks.

I love tournament time:)

So I am a big fan of NCAA tournament time. I am also a huge Duke fan. So of course I have Duke winning it all. I know that with this year's team it is unlikely but still...one can hope! I can sure hope at least since my bracket will be destroyed if Duke doesn't get past Belmont in the first round. Right now they are tied with 10 minutes left, which is quite frankly ridiculous that the score is even remotely that close.

Poor little Ellie is now sick. I feel so badly for her. She is absolutely pitiful when she is sick. Whimpering a little but mostly just laying around, quiet as a mouse. She actually let me hold her a LOT today which is really unusual. Even though she was sick and I felt badly for her, it was really nice to hold her a lot. She is just so darn cute. If she is still not feeling well tomorrow I may try to get her in just because both Ainsley and Mackenzie have had strep recently and my mother-in-law is coming into town next week. We don't want her to have to wear a mask all the time she's here!

Ainsley bought herself a new umbrella with her own money. I bought all the girls sunglasses for spring/summer/beach. I took a few pics of Ainsley today with her new sunglasses and umbrella and they came out really cute. I will post some soon. We shall see if their sunglasses last long enough to take them to the beach! I am taking bets on how long they last so let me know what you think:) They were on sale, hence the reason I bought them now, and the girls like wearing sunglasses. But the rule in the house is...I will buy one pair/year and it is usually in the spring. If they break them and want more...they had better save their money. Hopefully their is no early demise for any of their sunglasses but they are 7,4 and 3 so I don't hold out much hope. However I do get the occasional surprise from the girls. Like tonight for instance. Jeff and I were watching basketball tonight and we let Mackenzie and Ainsley stay up till 8:45. We asked both of the girls to go upstairs and get into their pajamas and Ainsley proceeds to get up from the floor and go upstairs and get her pajamas. She then brings them back down to the basement and puts them on. All of this happened without any complaints, fussing or fits. I looked at Jeff and said..."Did you just see that?!" It was a truly thankful moment.

Enjoy Tourney Time!

Will the fun never end?

I am all about having fun. We just did personality and spiritual gifting tests during some of our partnership classes at our church. Though I love having fun and spending time with friends, I also gain energy from time alone. It allows me to recoup and refresh myself. I am low on compassion and empathy though those that know me well would know that...so why is it that my kids don't want to leave my side and we just can't seem to shake being sick? Maybe God knows I need to grow in both those areas? I just don't know...Mackenzie and I had to miss her field trip to see Max and Ruby at the Taft theatre in Cincy because she woke up with a fever and headache. Actually she didn't feel top notch yesterday either. I took her to the doctor and she too has strep. That shouldn't be shocking since Ainsley had it a few weeks ago but I sure do hope it stops with her. And if Grammie I is reading this...don't rebook your tickets!!!! We will hopefully be better soon:)

We survived...

So for the past few days we have been watching our friend's kids for them. Or should I say we have been watching 3 of the 4. The 4th one, being an older boy, was not here because how much fun would that be?? Not much:) The two youngest were dropped off thurs morning and then Madeline, the 1st grader, came after school. Madeline and Mackenzie are the same age and Ashley and Ainsley are the same age...and wow this is the first time that I have noticed that both girls start with the same first letters! Wow...it's the little things in life:) There youngest, being 16ish months old, didn't really match up with Ellie but that's ok because he seemed to have a great time too as did Ellie, who I had to discourage from beating him up! The kids did fantastic!! Other than a few minor spats of estrogen here and there, I have no complaints and would do it again...just give me a little time to recover. 6 kids...I don't know how some people do it! But truly my girls had a fantastic time and were a little sad to see their friends go. I told them not to worry it would happen again when we get away for our anniversary!:)

So the rest of the weekend will be spent resting and relaxing. Enjoy your weekend everyone!

The sun is shining...

Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day...alright I won't sing to you but it is positively amazing how quickly 15 inches of snow can melt! Sunday we had 15 inches and now we have some snowbanks left with almost nothing on the lawn itself and it is only Wed. Wow! The weather has been really nice the last two days and I think we are expecting it to reach the 60's by Friday.
Ainsley was up in the night vomiting but woke up this morning just fine. I kept her home from preschool just in case but she could have gone because she's been fine. No one else sick..yet! And hopefully it will stay that way. We are watching 3 of our friends' children Thursday through Saturday so they can celebrate their anniversary in Boston. How cool is that? It should be fun as the two girls are Mackenzie's and Ainsley's age. Jonah, the baby, is well obviously a baby but I am sure he and Ellie will have fun together too:)

I just wanted to celebrate the beautiful sunshiny day!

What one does on a sunday without church?

Here are some great pics of Ellie from the day...





Here are some fantastic pics of Jeff from the day...

We didn't have church today because of all the snow. Actually the two counties that we operate most in-Boone and Kenton counties had a level 3 snow emergency all day yesterday which meant that unless you were emergency personnel you couldn't be out on the roads. We also had a blizzard warning! We did get a lot of snow and it was blowing around a lot but blizzard warning...hmmm.
So today we had church at home with the girls and then spent some quality time as a family. What does this entail you ask? Well I thought I would include some great pictures to let you experience some of our quality time!

Pictures from today

More Snow!!

I know that for my friends and family in Maine this is nothing...however for NKY it is a pretty big storm! I don't have any idea so far how much snow we have but with the drifts it sure looks like a lot. I am going to try to take some pics after the snow has completely stopped since it is still snowing and it supposed to till the afternoon. It actually takes me back to making snow forts and having snowball fights, skiing, sledding, etc. Here in KY I don't really enjoy the snow, mostly because they don't handle it well here. Because we don't get nearly the snow in KY that Jeff and I got growing up in Maine, they don't have all the necessary implements to take care of it. Hence all the school closings, etc. We also don't have a mountain to ski down that doesn't cost an arm and a leg for us now. My skis are still back in Maine so I haven't gone since college. So snow here just seems to be a big inconvenience. Though there are the days when we go out and play in the snow with the kiddos and that's a LOT of fun:)
I thought I would post a few new pics of Ellie and then one of two of the girls taking a bath because it was so cute:) Enjoy!

Snow!!

So we are predicted to get a lot of snow.  Or at least a lot of snow for us here in NKY.  I don't think we have had a storm that dropped more than 3 inches of snow this winter and this storm is predicted to leave anywhere from 5-11 inches.  So I guess that must means March is in like a lion and out like a lamb..or hopefully out like a lamb!  All that to say that on the day we are predicted to get the biggest snowstorm of the season, they don't cancel school even though the storm was due to start at 8 am.  No, instead they decide that letting them out two hours early in the middle of a KY blizzard would be a much better option!  Is that insane or what?  I just can't seem to get into the minds of the administration of our school district.  Mackenzie has had I think 7-8 snow days.  Many of them for absolutely pointless reasons...such as a dusting of snow.  Only probably 2-4 of the days they missed were actually warranted.  But on a day that cancelling was probably in the best interest of all involved, nope.  So they actually had to call and let us know that indeed they made a insane decision and they are letting the kids are even earlier than what was previously announced.  Yes...as you all can tell I am absolutely flummoxed by their lack of insight.  Fortunately for them, winter will soon (hopefully) be disappearing and in its place will be some amazingly beautiful weather that warms my very chilled to the bone body.

On a happier note, Elliana is doing a fantastic job with the whole potty training bit.  No accidents in two days despite being out and about a lot.  And her speech therapist is quite happy with her progress.  She is really starting to say more words and trying to articulate them more clearly.  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  All the girls took a bubble bath this morning and I got a cute picture to post once I download from my camera!

Saturday

While I was at a leadership meeting today, Jeff was manning the home front with one sick girl and one girl in the midst of potty training.  He of course handled it with ease and is a fantastic dad.  I dropped Mackenzie off at a Saturday program that she has been involved with called Explore More.  It is designed for gifted and talented kids who need a little extra to challenge them and Mackenzie has loved it.  She is in a literature class and has learned a lot and had a lot of fun.  I then drove on to a leadership meeting while Jeff took Ainsley to the doctor.  She started not feeling well yesterday and complained of her ears hurting so instead of Jeff going with me to the meeting, he was taking her to the doctor so I could go.  Poor little Ainsley apparently has strep throat.  I was thinking ear infection but alas...often kids think its their ears because their throat makes their ears hurt as well.  So she has had her first dose of antibiotic and hopefully will start to feel better soon.  Ellie is doing fairly well with the potty training and had no accidents while out with Jeff, of course.  I am not sure how he seems to get all the breaks!!  But she has been doing well with it so I can't really complain.  She had one accident yesterday with me at Wendy's but there are bound to be accidents. 

I am taking Mackenzie to see Robin Hood tonight at the Children's Theatre.  She is looking forward to it as am I.  Jeff took Mackenzie and Ainsley the last time and we do have a ticket for Ainsley but since she is sick, I have decided to just have some time with Mackenzie.  It should be fun.  Maybe out to a quick dinner afterwards...though she did go out with Jeff last night to Wendy's.  She's getting all the fun this weekend with us so I will have to do something special with Ainsley next weekend.