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!

Date night with Ellie

We have no pictures and sadly no video but I have to say date night according to Ellie was a huge success!

We have a regular sitter that comes in on Thursday evenings and Sunday evenings to watch our girls for us. She has been babysitting for us for over a year and we all like her a lot.

She's a college student at NKU (Northern Kentucky University) and Ellie really likes her and looks forward to having her come. However, when we took Mackenzie and Ainsley out last week on a date, Ellie really wanted to come.

So we promised her that next week would be her turn.

She has been sooo excited!

When she woke this am, she was all about date night tonight with both mom and dad.

Where do you think she requested to go? Chinese food? Nope. Sit down restaurant? Nope.

She chose Burger King. Why?? We have no idea but are inclined to think it's because there's a play area...

So Burger King is where we went tonight with Ellie for date night. She had a blast!

If only I could have recorded video...

Tiger Award

Mackenzie got mail today from Beechwood. I accidentally opened it without bothering to look at who it was to since they kids don't happen to get a lot of mail.

She has received several notecards in the mail from her teacher about how well she is doing which she thinks is cool. This note is from the head of the Board of Education at Beechwood. She is receiving their Tiger Award. I am really impressed by her new school and how well they do at giving praise/recognition to the students who are doing a good job.

Kudos to Beechwood!

Reading

I just wanted to post a video of Ellie reading one of her very beginner books.

She is starting to get it...

Maybe...

Wish List

When Jeff and I arrived home tonight from our weekly date night, this is what I found pulled up on my computer...

I'm still laughing...

My Wish List

The Son of Neptune

The Kane Chronicles Book 2

Tangled

A sewing machine

A DSI

An iPod touch

A book of jokes

A phone

A new outfit

A notebook

A dog

My OWN computer

A makeup kit

A Selena Gomez c.d.

Candy

Money

Red and white clothes

A spa trip!:)

Costumes or clothes that look like costumes

Scarves

Moccasins

High heels

Sunglasses

Halloween Weekend

I am finally getting around to posting about our halloween weekend.

On Saturday we went out to lunch at the Chinese buffet. It was very good, but I prefer our other favorite Chinese restaurant. Mackenzie, of course, convinced Ellie that the Chinese buffet is better so the buffet is where we went. Mackenzie loves it because it has American food..go figure!

We did random errands and then back home to hang for the rest of the afternoon.

Saturday night was the Jack-o-lantern walk. It was a cool evening but not frigid and therefore the walk was packed. I have never waited in such long lines before. But the girls had a lot of fun anyway.

Sunday we spent the morning at church and then went trick-or-treating in the evening with some of the neighbors. The girls loved getting their costumes on and were all ready well before it was time to go trick or treating!

Here are some pics from the weekend...

kissing pumpkins

Super Mario Pumpkin

Mackenzie and Ellie...not sure what Ellie's odd look is about...

Daddy thinks the flash is too bright...

Mackenzie and dad

All three girls together

Minnie Mouse

army girl

Anne Boleyn

Ellie

I wanted to post a bit more on Ellie in commemoration of her 3rd gotcha day with us.

I can't believe where the time has gone in the last three years. Where we were three years ago and where we are today...it's almost incomprehensible.

I remember seeing Ellie for the first time in China and shutting down myself, completely overwhelmed. Looking back with the advantage of time, I can completely see how I could have handled the first few days with Ellie differently, but in the midst of uncertainty about what could be "wrong" with her, I just shut myself down emotionally. It took a couple of days, the working of the Holy Spirit and lots of tears to get me to the place where I knew Ellie was ours, rain or shine, easy or difficult, and that we would not be turning back. And what a ride it has been!

I can't imagine my life without her in it. She has changed my world, my perception of special needs and my desire to be the difference in the life of one orphan. She is a trouper. She loves people, is outgoing and friendly and continually makes us laugh!

Our life would be incomplete without Ellie in it. I am so thankful God let us into the unknown to adopt Ellie. It is because of Ellie that we have decided to head back to China to adopt another little girl for our family.

Without a family to love her, intervene and advocate for her, I can't imagine where she would be today. Thinking about it brings tears to my eyes and I wish I had the resources and strength to connect all kids with loving families. But all we can do it take the step of faith that God has called us to take and continue on the journey that He set our family on.

I look forward to the day when we can announce our next little bundle of joy!

Gotcha Day 2010

So I will post more on Ellie later, but today is the day we are celebrating Ellie's gotcha day-the day she became part of our family!

Her actual gotcha day is Halloween and we have learned in the past that somehow that day gets very busy since it is often during the week. So we usually celebrate the day before.

She gets to pick out where we go for lunch and it is always a Chinese restaurant.

This year Mackenzie heavily influenced the choice by asking Ellie leading questions that would get her to agree to to where Mackenzie really wanted to go.

Mackenzie then sent me an e-mail that said..."please can we go to the empire buffet?"

This is the picture that she attached to the e-mail....

Fall Festival Parties

I am heading up to the school today for fall festival parties.

Ellie decided to dress as an elf and Ainsley as a rock star diva.

I will get to go to Ellie's party and then do the parade of characters walk.

I won't be able to be at Ainsley's party since I have to pick up Mackenzie from school, but that is ok with her since I will get to walk with her for the parade.

Kinman Farms

The whole family went to Kinman Farms yesterday and had lots of fun! A great fall day to go to the pumpkin patch and corn maze! This was the first time we had gone to this specific farm in the fall and the kids liked it. I think I like the Union Corn Maze better but we still managed to have a blast :)

A small petting zoo, a hay ride, a corn maze and pumpkin picking are all lots of fun in the fall for all ages!

Columbus Half Marathon

I was hoping to have photos to post of me but I haven't received them yet so I figured I would go ahead and post without photos. I spent Saturday and Sunday in Hilliard/Columbus for the Columbus Half Marathon. I had been planning to run this event for the last 4-5 months and it was the culmination of 12 weeks of training. I was sick all last week which put a damper on my training, but I was determined to move forward.

So on Saturday I drove to Columbus with Ainsley and picked up my race packet. We then drove to Hilliard where we spent the rest of the day/evening with our friends the Nelles. Kristen invited Ainsley to come and play with their daughter for the day/overnight. The girls had an absolute blast! So much fun! I had a good time visiting and hanging out with Kristen too.

I got up early Sunday morning after a VERY restless night of sleep and honestly didn't feel that great. I got to the start line with no problems and was able to run my first 10K well, but at mile 7 I started not feeling well. I had to stop briefly for a cramp but when I stop it seems to slow me down and I just didn't feel great after that. All in all I am glad that I ran it since I trained so much for it but I didn't meet my goal which was to get under 2 hours. However I did improve my time from 2:22 to 2:08 so that was all I could ask for I guess. Maybe I can get under 2 with my next one! The Columbus half was not nearly as fun as the Disney princess run. But then I guess everything Disney is probably lots of fun. Columbus seems geared for serious athletes of which I don't consider myself one. But it was definitely worth running. I will have to look for another one to run next year...or maybe a triathlon will be next...who knows!

When I get the photos of me from my friend I will post them.

Deer

We have seen a LOT of deer lately hanging around our neighbor's houses. Ainsley has been very diligent at trying to capture them on film.

She has actually gotten some good pictures.

Ready to run

Well I am about as ready to run as I could be I guess.

I have been battling a cold all week which is a bit of a bummer but I feel like I am on the mend now, so hopefully I will feel even better by Sunday.

I am taking Ainsley with me and she gets to hang out with my friend Kristen's daughter, Audra. They play well together and it will be fun for her to get some time away with just me.

So to compensate for being gone with Ainsley all weekend, I will be getting up tomorrow and taking Mackenzie out to breakfast. We are then going to pick out stuff to place in shoeboxes for her Operation Christmas Child class project. She is so excited about doing this as it is the boys versus the girls :)

Ainsley and I will head to Columbus tomorrow afternoon, early enough for me to get my race packet, and then get to Hilliard for dinner.

Bright and early Sunday morning I will be up and getting ready to run. The half and full both start at 7:30 which is actually later than when I normally run for my long runs. I am usually up running by 6 and done by 8 so hopefully it isn't too hot at 9:30 or so when I finish. I would love to get under 2 hours but honestly, I completely my last half in 2h 22min so under 2 would be a pretty lofty goal. My aim is 2h 15min or under.

Any prayers for me while I run would be appreciated!

This was me after my first half marathon in March 2010. Sadly I will not get to see my friend Jane at this one...but hopefully I won't be as sore either!

Days..they are a passing...

So not sure where my time goes exactly, but it sure does seem to fly by!

We finished our last meeting with our social worker last Friday. Now we just live in wait mode for the next 18 months of our life I think...with a little paperwork thrown in for good measure. It is up to her to write up our Home Study and send it off with our paperwork and $ for our I800A. Apparently this has been averaging 4 months. I am going to send off all of our paperwork and "stuff" for our dossier to CAWLI today. So our next step will be getting our fingerprints taken when we receive our notice.

In other non-adoption related news...

Mackenzie made the academic team at Beechwood and is very excited about it! She had her first practice on Monday. She is also getting evaluated for GT. So we shall see how things progress with that also. I have no idea how Beechwood handles their gifted and talented program but I am looking forward to finding out. She has been doing well with school for the most part. Still a big adjustment responsibility wise but she is making strides.

Ainsley is loving school. Or at least the parts of school that involve either hanging with friends or eating. Everything else is non-essential in her opinion. If she has to pick something "academic" that she likes, it's math. I am still working on learning what motivates Ainsley. She does ok in school but doesn't particularly care about all the academic stuff. She does seem to do well with math which shouldn't be shocking since her parents are math geeks. She has started to like to read a little bit more than she has in the past which is encouraging too. She really enjoys gymnastics though and is doing well.

Ellie. Where to begin with Ellie. We are in the process of getting an OT eval from Cincinnati Occupational Therapy Institute (COTI). She has had her two appts and now our formal sit down and talk about it appt is next Monday. We shall see what we find out and how we can best help her succeed academically. She is struggling in Kindergarten a bit. I am not sure what to do about it. Her teacher requested a meeting so I need to set that up today. Her fine motor skills are atrocious because we haven't had the time and/or therapy visits enough to work on OT. When we brought her home, we focused primarily on speech and PT because those were what seemed to need the most work. Speech will be a major issue for years and years. She is making progress but it is very slow and seems to take a lot of time. She also is still behind her peers socially and I think keeping in kindergarten 2 years honestly might have to be the plan. It feels like it is taking forever, but there's no way to force "catch up" that I can find. She still fusses at the teachers on occasion, gets worked up over sirens and lots of loud noises (we have the OT can help us with some of her sensory issues also) and in general is just behind her peers in how she responds to life. I wish I knew how to help her better but right now I am doing the best I can and that's all I can do. I feel that between working and her therapies, I have very little time to actually spend "helping" her work on her letters, numbers, pre-reading skills, coloring, speech, etc. Her OT will take up all the time I have on Monday before gymnastics; I work Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Wed is speech therapy before picking up the older two and Friday we usually get together with her Chinese playgroup. That leaves evenings but by then I am usually busy helping Ainsley with her school work, cooking and cleaning up from dinner and starting the bedtime routine.

And we are adopting again...why?? How do other moms make the time for everything they do and have 6 kids? I have no idea but if anyone has any helpful suggestions please let me know because I sure need them!

King's Island

Saturday was our annual trek to King's Island for P&G day. We decided to get an early start and the plans were to spend all day and evening there, staying for the fireworks. It was a good plan in it's origination but not in its application. By 8 pm all of the kids were exhausted and I knew that there was no way we would be able to make it to 10 pm and the fireworks. They were sad that they would miss the fireworks but there's always next year, right?

The girls had an absolute blast all day and did a great job. I stayed with Ellie most of the time because well..I don't ride rides! Jeff loves the roller coasters so her took the older two off and did more of the big rides. Mackenzie was tall enough for everything, but Ainsley wasn't tall enough for several of the rides. Jeff got into several "discussions" about this because he said that she was 46 inches or however tall she had to be and they said she didn't quite reach it. Apparently she should have worn taller shoes! But she was still able to ride many of the rides, just not the big roller coasters that she wanted to go on. Mackenzie was able to ride the big roller coasters but didn't want to this year. She rode some but refused to go on the really big ones. Ainsley is hoping next year she is tall enough!

All in all a very fun day! We packed our lunch and came out to the car to eat it since technically you aren't supposed to bring food in to the park. We bought dinner at Chick-fil-A. The girls really like Chick-Fil-A and so do I but I find it to be more expensive than say Wendy's and at King's Island it cost us a whopping $42 and we only got waters!! It blows my mind what they charge to eat there, but since we only go once a year and we don't pay for our tickets into the park, I figure it is a small price to pay for fun :o)

Home Visits

Yesterday we had our first home visit with our home study agency. She met with us and did a short interview with both Jeff and I. I made a copy of our last home study which I think was helpful. She was able to ask update questions and move quickly through the process. Things went smoothly and we were done earlier than anticipated so that was great. Now it's finding a time to meet with her again that seems to be the daunting issue. She has to meet with the girls and us. She doesn't come up here very often and to meet with the girls the weekends would be preferable. She had this Saturday available but we are going to King's Island on Saturday. Then she's busy for the next 4 weekends. I am busy the weekend she suggested and on it goes. I may pull the girls from school for a day and try to drive to Lexington and meet with her. It slightly frustrates me that we can come so far only to have to wait to meet for another month and delay the process so long just because the agency is so far away. I am trying to be patient, but she informed me that the I800 process, which is next, has been taking 4 months. So it looks like the earliest we would be DTC would be Feb or March. I wish it wasn't so far away! But I guess everything to this point has gone along smoothly so I really shouldn't complain at all. Just pray that I can be patient. I got my physical on Tuesday. Hopefully I can pick the paperwork up on Monday and that it is filled out correctly. China is very detailed about how the form should be filled out. I had to get lab work done so I also had to go in on Wed am to get blood drawn. Jeff has his physical Thursday of next week and I think he is going to try to get his lab work done while he is there. I think the only other thing we are waiting on is our PA child abuse clearances and my passport.

Nothing too exciting this week on the home front. Jeff was gone Monday-Wednesday. He's been traveling a lot the last few weeks. I am trying to convince him to stay the next two weeks because he is gone for a week in 3 weeks and he has been gone 3 days of each week for the last 4 weeks I think. I volunteered at the girls' school for picture day on Wed and then today I will be volunteering for health check day. So it means I have been pretty busy this week too. Mackenzie has early dismissal today so I have to pick her up extra early and she likes this! The high light that we are looking forward to is King's Island Day on Saturday! It is P&G's annual day at King's Island and we are looking forward to lots of fun, fun, FUN! The girls are ecstatic. I don't ride most of the rides but it is a lot of fun to watch them.

Hopefully I will get some good pictures to post.

Sorry I haven't taken out my camera in recent days.

I will do better!

Paperwork

I remember now what so easily seems to fade into the background after you adopt.

Paperwork. And lots of it!

I have been working on all of the paperwork that is required for us to proceed with adoption #2.

I don't think much has changed in the way of paperwork, I just think that once you bring your child home you forget about it.

But that's what I have been busy doing. And there's a feeling of accomplishment in me that I am close to having all that I can gather together. Apparently I let my passport expire so I have to get a new one.

Left to do on our list before we can start our homestudy:

Physicals for Jeff and I

Physicals for the girls-I think I can actually just bring in the form and have the docs fill it out if they have had a physical in the last 6 months so this is what I will try to do.

Verification of Employment for Jeff-I already have mine

Waiting on letters of recommendation from 2 people

New online Hague Training for both Jeff and I

Wait for background check/child abuse clearances to come back

Pick up the girls immunization records

Once we get all that completed, I can call the agency that will be completing our homestudy and set up a time to meet with the social worker. I am hopeful that we can get through our actual homestudy quickly! Once that's done we can get all of our paperwork together and submit for our I800A, which we need with all the new Hague Convention rules. The I800A is our USCIS/INS approval that shows that according to the US we are ok to adopt. The technical name for it is the "Application of Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention Country."

I am hoping to have all of this completed so that we are DTC (Dossier To China-this means all of our paperwork has been sent to China) by early December.

Like Dad

Here are a few pictures of Ellie as she puts it "being like dad."

We have had a busy week it seems. School has gone well for each of the girls. Ellie still manages to tell me she is sick every morning to try to get out of going to school, but once she gets there she loves it. Both Mackenzie and Ainsley have had good weeks too. Ainsley and Ellie have started back at gymnastics on Mondays and Mackenzie starts back at theatre after Labor Day.

We have been trying to keep more nights free so that we are not running around as much as we have in the past. I have to say that I am liking it! The girls like being home and not running around and so do I. We may have to cut gymnastics for one or both in an effort to save money for the adoption. I am trying to figure out all the costs we can cut out of our budget to help pay for another adoption. I like to keep them active and wish they liked cheaper sports!!

A little sick...

Ainsley stayed home from school on Tuesday.

Honestly she could have gone but...

102.5 fever the night before....

...and a 100.5 the morning of school...

So I kept her home...

Based on the self-portraits, she doesn't look too sick to me...