Adoption Open House/Baby Shower

Just wanted to say a HUGE thank you to all of you who came to Elliana's shower/open house or who were unable to come but gave us monetary gifts! You don't know how much we as a family appreciated it!! And a HUGE thank-you to Sophia Lewis for organizing it and doing so much work. I hope you were all able to have fun because we did...and thanks for all the money and gifts as it is a huge help to us. We appreciate each of you so much. Here's a picture of the poster board that Sophia and I put together. I liked it:) I of course got no other photos as the camera was not out...leave it to me! Hopefully we remember if for China!

King's Island

I wanted to post with a few pics of our recent annual trip to King's Island. P&G has their annual family day there every year and the girls love going. They were a bit disappointed this year because when compared with Hershey Park there weren't nearly as many "fun"rides that they were able to ride. "Fun" means any ride mom wouldn't go on...which was pretty much any ride that went in a circular, up and down, side to side motion...so you get the picture:) But we did manage to still have lots of fun and get some cute pics! Hope you enjoy!

Travel Dates

Well...it's official. We got our travel itinerary e-mailed to us this afternoon which means we will finally be going to China!! We are so excited and though we don't have our complete itinerary we do have some dates that we can share with you. We will be leaving Cincinnati on October 25

CINCINNATI, OH (CVG) Departs: 11:10am
DETROIT METRO, MI (DTW) Arrives: 12:28pm

DETROIT METRO, MI (DTW) Departs: 2:10pm
Thu, Oct 25
TOKYO NARITA, JAPAN (NRT) Arrives: 4:25pm
Fri, Oct 26

TOKYO NARITA, JAPAN (NRT) Departs: 6:25pm
BEIJING, CHINA (PEK) Arrives: 9:25pm

Then on November 7th we leave China:

GUANGZHOU, CHINA (CAN) Departs: 8:30am
TOKYO NARITA, JAPAN (NRT) Arrives: 1:40pm

TOKYO NARITA, JAPAN (NRT) Departs: 2:35pm
DETROIT METRO, MI (DTW) Arrives: 12:10pm

DETROIT METRO, MI (DTW) Departs: 3:12pm
CINCINNATI, OH (CVG) Arrives: 4:30pm

We are so excited that we finally have tickets!!!! This is so cool and we are excited to share our joy with you! We hope to post an itinerary of where we will be while we are in China before we leave so you can be praying for us each step of the way. We will be blogging while in China too so please follow our journey! We will probably be sending out at least one mass e-mail before we leave but keep checking the blog as I am sure I will post several times before we leave!

Thanks for every one's support. We love you all!
Sorry no pics today:(

Our Visas Have Arrived

Our visas have arrived! We received them two days ago but I keep forgetting to post. We are excited as this is one of the last things we have to do. We have purchased all of our meds to take to China and have picked them up. I should take a picture but well...that requires reading more about how to do that on our new camera and I just haven't made the time yet. Fortunately Mackenzie will be taking our old camera so if all else fails I will be using it while we are in China! Most of the stuff that we will be taking is laying everywhere in Ellie's room. I will need to take a picture of it as it is a disaster area in there. Now we are just waiting on travel approval for the rest of the travel group that we will be going with...we have friends who received their travel approval they day after us that left today. So we are excited for them. Each agency is different on how they handle travel and our agency prefers that you travel with a group. Our agency is one of the very few that sends a doctor with each travel group that goes as a safety and reassurance for families. So I am glad that we are waiting but wish we could be over there now. Hopefully in the next two weeks we will hear something firm on travel dates. right now the anticipated dates are Oct 18-Oct 31. But those dates are tentative. I wanted to include a couple of pics of the girls. Several of Ainsley ready for preschool, some gymnastics pics, a picture of mackenzie on our counter reading and then one of the girls with grammie I and auntie Nancy! Enjoy!

We have TA!!

We received Travel approval on Tuesday but haven't made the time to post since then! We were hoping to travel sooner but trying to get it all together for when the next travel group leaves next week would be impossible for us and our agency. Our agency is aiming to have us travel with the next travel group, which will hopefully be leaving October 18th. We are so very excited and are looking forward to getting to China to pick up our little girl. Thank you all for all the prayers as we have felt them in the last few months! Please continue to pray that our time until then is not too stressful! We will keep you updated as things move along!
No pics today. Ainsley did start school and I will post some pics soon! She loves preschool though!

Landscaping

Here are some pics of our new landscaping! We are finally done..at least in the front of the house which is all we are doing this year. It took several weekends to do but the overall consensus seems to be that it's great! I think Jeff did a fantastic job with it and the girls and I love it:) The pics aren't that great. I may try to take more and see how they come out but once again I am still learning the camera!

Mackenzie's First Day of 1st Grade

I should have posted this on Monday but we got a new camera to take with us to China and I have been trying to figure out how to use it. Hopefully I will figure out how to post some pics today! Mackenzie started 1st grade on Monday and has been adjusting ever since. She seems to like it. We got to meet her teacher last week and she likes her a lot. Her teacher's name is Ms. Quinlan and she is new and recently graduated from college. I think Mackenzie will have a fun year. She has lots of new kids in her class. So far her favorite subjects are lunch and recess..hmmm. She did have one meltdown when I came in to volunteer at lunch. Apparently the lunch I packed her wasn't quite as good as what the school was offering for hot lunch. I am sure she will outgrow this love for cafeteria food but for now I am indulging it. I equate cafeteria food to hospital food...and the only food I used to order when I worked at the hospital was french fries. They were pretty good. But I guess at 2:30 in the morning anything would be good. Anyway, she seems to like school and for now is riding the bus both to and from school. Not sure how long that will last as she is on the bus for a while in the morning and could sleep in a whole 40 minutes longer if I took her. We'll see what she ends up wanting to do as the weeks and months move along. Here are some pics of her 1st day of 1st grade!

LOA!!!!!!!

We wanted to let you all know that after 112 days of waiting for our LOA (Letter of Acceptance from China), it is finally here! I was beginning to think this day would never happen though of course I knew it would. It was especially long and we were starting to get concerned. I know that it is all a matter of God's timing and I have found being angry at Him just isn't the best bet so I tried to relax and just pray a lot. So I was so excited when Meg from our agency called this morning to let us know that they have received it. They signed it for us and sent it on back so we are anticipating receiving our TA or travel approval in 30 days. That would put it around Sept 22 and then hope to travel late Oct or early Nov. We are so excited that we are getting closer to finally bringing Ellie home!!! So thank you for all your prayers and please continue to pray for us as we get ready to go and for Ellie as she will be making a lot of adjustments in the months ahead. It is exciting but also nerve wracking as there are so many unexpecteds regarding how she will adjust and adapt to her new family. We will all need a lot of patience over the next few months but glad that the moment is getting closer each day!!

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!

Another Lost Tooth

So last night Jeff pulled another tooth from Mackenzie's mouth. This is the fourth tooth that she has lost and she is very excited about it. When Mackenzie first started losing teeth, I told her that she could put her tooth under her pillow and sometime during the night the tooth fairy would come and take her tooth and leave her money. The same famous tooth fairy that many parents tell their children about...if you know anything about us, you would know that we don't often subscribe to telling our kids about these things. I usually just explain that it's a story and it's make believe..that sort of thing. But this time I decided to go ahead with the story and let her have fun with it. So the night of her first lost tooth, I go in her room, collect the tooth, leave a note from the tooth fairy and a good deal of money(for such a small tooth) and proceed on my way to bed. The next morning, Mackenzie gets up and asks me where her tooth is..of course I say that the tooth fairy came and got it in the night and left her money. She looks at me and says..."you don't really think I believe that stuff do you? Fairies aren't real mom and they certainly don't come and get your teeth. I know it was you so give me my tooth!" What have we created???
So anyway...here's a picture of Mackenzie with yet another lost tooth. The other picture is of a princess tattoo that she had painted on her arm at Vacation Bible School. Last night was the Family Fun Night where they have a closing ceremony and then a cookout and games, face painting (or arm painting as it seems to be) and popcorn. She chose this princess and though you can't see all the detail, they did an amazing job. If I was asked to paint a princess I can assure you it would have looked nothing like that!

Hershey Park

The last day of vacation was spent at Hershey Park with our friend's the Lukes. We had so much fun that day and many firsts happened. Mackenzie went on her first big roller coaster which was huge to me. I of course not being a roller coaster rider or partaker in any sort of way was quite nervous for her to go on but I tried to not let that show! Apparently I must have done a good job as she went on several that day with her dad! I find this truly amazing because when we went to King's Island last year we could barely get her to go on the Scooby Doo roller coaster which is small enough that I actually can handle it! So she made some amazing steps this year and had so much fun. Jeff is really looking forward to taking her to King's Island at the end of the summer. Ainsley is apparently our daredevil. This shouldn't surprise anyone, least of all me but it did for some reason. She went on any and everything she was actually tall enough to go on! And was quite dismayed to find out that she wasn't tall enough to ride their roller coaster that you essentially hang on upside down!!! Craziness if you ask me but she was determined that by the end of the day she would go on it even though we kept explaining that she wasn't tall enough! She went on many rides with her sister, some with her dad and then some with the Luke's son Danny who really saved the day for us by riding on some of the rides that the kid's needed another responsible rider to ride with them and it certainly wasn't going to be mom!!! Here are some high lites of the day!