Summertime

We have been busy the last few weeks. Very busy. We left IL the Sat after school let out and drove to NKY for the weekend. We had a great time staying with our friends the Lewis'. The girls had a great time seeing their girls and Ellie loved getting to spend some time with Jonah, their little boy. On Sunday, our old church had a service Sunday and our family helped package food that is delivered to hungry children locally, regionally and internationally. The organization that we partnered with is called Kid's Against Hunger and is a great organization.

Monday we drove to NJ for our annual beach vacation with our friends the Luke's. We had 7 days of fun in the sun, sand and surf. An amazing time with amazing friends!

Then I drove Jeff to the airport so that he could fly on to Boston for a business trip and I headed with the girls to Columbus, OH to visit my friend Kristen. Three days and loads of fun with Kristen and her kiddos and we were off to NKY again to visit with more friends. The girls and I had so much fun catching up with our NKY friends. The older girls had sleepover after sleepover so that by the time we got back to IL, they were TIRED!

Now we are back and I am busy transporting the kids to camps, catching up on laundry, housework, bills and groceries and hanging out with Ellie. Mackenzie has theatre camp for two weeks and Ainsley has Girl Scout camp this week. Both of them are having a blast!

Will post pictures soon of our adventures! (once I find the time to download them onto our computer:)

Girls on the Run 5k

Mackenzie has been involved in a program called Girls on the Run. It's a great program that encouraged girls to get up and moving, talks about self-esteem and positive role models for girls, etc. We have really enjoyed it. She had practice 2x/week for the last 2 1/2 months and on Sunday morning she compete in her first ever 5k with me. We were up at 6 to get ready to make the trek to St. Louis for the run. Jeff, the other two girls and my mom made the trek with us to watch us run in the rain and cold. It was rainy and cold...and did I mention rainy and cold...rainy and 51 degrees.

Mackenzie did great! She ran the whole way and completed it with a time of 34:59. I think when she does the program again in the fall she can improve her time. But I have to say getting around all the girls that stop and walk in the middle of the course is a bit tricky. There were over 5000 girls that ran! Pretty amazing! We probably could have shaved off a good 2 minutes without all the detours :) We are so proud of her for competing and completing her first 5k!

Here are some photos from the day...

All of us on our way up to the arch post-run

Mackenzie post-run

Mackenzie and Ainsley post-run

Mackenzie and I post-run

This is Mackenzie and I pre-run...

A New Day

I don't know why I haven't been taking the time to blog. I have the time but I would rather read other's blogs than write on my own!
We are enjoying our new area here in IL. The area has lots going on and we have begun to meet some new people.
The girls are all enjoying school and have met some new friends. Ironically Ellie is the one who seems to miss her KY friends the most. She talks about them fairly often and is really excited about going back to visit sometime this summer. We are leaning towards holding Ellie back for another year of Kindergarten. She has done well with this move but I think another year in Kindergarten for her to develop socially and to improve her writing skills would do her a world of good. The school has agreed to allow her to stay back but we have till the end of the year to make the "official" decision. Both Jeff and I think it's a good idea but we have asked the opinion of her current Kindergarten teacher too. I think he agrees but I will wait it out till the end of the year and make a final decision then. Ainsley will be moving to the school that Mackenzie currently attends and Mackenzie will be staying there for one more year. In our school district they break the schools into Primary (K-2) and Intermediate(3rd-5th). So Ainsley will be moving to Cassens in the fall. I think she's pretty excited and many of her friends are moving to the same school so that's good. I honestly couldn't have asked for a better transition to a new school system. We have been so pleased with how this year has finished up. Only 5 more weeks of school I think!

And I am slowly but surely meeting people and making friends. I love the area, the church that we have found and the mom's small group that I am attending. I love that God allowed there to be a family here that we already knew a little bit. My friend Lauren has really helped make the adjustment here so much easier! I already feel like I have connected with some of the women in the small group that I attend and I am meeting other women through volunteering at the school too.

I love volunteering! Trying to decide whether to pursue some kind of work opportunity for next year or just stick with volunteering for now. Praying for God to open doors and make it clear to me what He wants for me in the coming months too.
On the adoption front...slow going. We have to update our home study which we are in the process of trying to do. We have an agency and I am waiting for the social worker to call me back after her vacation to set up a time to come for a home visit. But I did e-mail Meg at our agency and she thinks the wait time will be closer to 12 months than 6 so it looks like it won't be till next year that we get to "meet" Phynley. I was hoping for this fall, but this allows us time to save up the money that we will need for the rest of the adoption. Waiting is always tough though! Patience isn't always my strong suit!

A few pics from the last few weeks...

Mackenzie was picked as a volunteer for the magic show at City Museum...she loved it!

Mackenzie posing the ball pit at City Museum

Ellie at her friend Emma's birthday party

Most of the kindergarteners for the Easter egg hunt. Ellie's teacher Mr. D is the guy in the photo giving the directions

Our flat terrain

Kicking Cancer kickball tournament-Ellie's teacher has the pink wig...

Mackenzie field trip to the historical Ben Stephenson house

All the girls in Mackenzie's class

City Museum-an amazing museum we took the girls to over spring break here in St. Louis

Kitchen Update...

Before...





After...

And the countdown is...

4 more days until Grammie I comes!

The girls are very excited that their Grammie I is coming for a visit!

She is not our first guest in our new home but she is the first family to come visit.

Back a few weeks ago we had some friends stop through on their way from Taylor University to Colorado. It was a brief overnight stay on the way there and then again on their way back from spring break. They were our first "official" guests.

However we are very excited for our first "official" family guest to come and stay!

Here are some pics of our new abode...

The stairs and hallway

The girls bathroom

Ellie's Room

Ellie's room #2

Ainsley's room#1

Ainsley's room #2

The living room

Dining Room

Main Floor Bathroom

Front of the house-yay for 3 car garage!! :)

Happy Almost 6th Birthday Ellie!

So we had Ellie's birthday party this year at Chuck E. Cheese.

She has been asking for a party at Chuck E. Cheese since shortly after she became a part of our family and I have put her off the last two years so...

Here is her birthday in pictures (and not very good ones at that since I left our camera on our kitchen counter)...

Ellie and dad in the ticket blaster...

Ellie and Chuck E. Cheese

Ellie with her Happy Birthday crown

Ellie

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of any of Ellie's friends. I used my camera phone, which isn't exceptional, to get the few photos that I got...

She had fun but she wasn't feeling great. She has had a virus all week and is still not feeling great today. She also got a bloody nose that took almost all of her play time to get to stop bleeding. We did let her stay longer at the end of her party to play because of her bloody nose and she did say she had a fun time. I was just sad that she wasn't feeling well and that she seemed "out of it" for a lot of the time.

Her actual birthday is tomorrow and that's when we will give her our gifts.

We have leftover cupcakes from Ellie's birthday and cookie cake from Mackenzie's birthday.

This is NOT good...and by not good, I mean really NOT good...

Happy 10th Birthday Mackenzie!

So my eldest has turned 10! I can't believe I have a child in double digits. It feels like just yesterday when she was born...

On Thursday we allowed her to open gifts from us...

She got 3 gifts...

A dolphin pillow pet...

Apples to Apples family edition....

Just Dance for the Wii...

We did bigger parties this year since this is their last year here with friends.

Mackenzie chose to have her party at the Independence Skateway and a good time was had by all...and here are some pictures to prove it!

The pained look on Ainsley's face is due to not getting to lick the candles...

I ordered the chocolate chip cookie cake from Sam's and it ROCKED!!!

She did a great job making everyone feels welcome...friends from church, Burlington and Beechwood and I was very proud of her!

Dossier is on its way!!!

We got the following e-mail from our agency on February 7th!

Dear Families,

Congratulations! Your dossier is on it's way to China! Your official DTC date is listed here: FEBRUARY 7, 2011

In several weeks we should hear of your log in date from the CCAA-as soon as we have that information we will pass it along to you. (Just a quick note about log in dates, it has been taking a little longer for the CCAA to send us your official log in dates. That DOES NOT mean your documents have not been logged in it just means they haven't let us know when they were logged in. They typically wait until they have a bunch to send us and send them out with something else(to save mailing costs). We will send out a similar e-mail once we have the LID's.

The wait time is ever changing, we do not expect it to get shorter. If we get any information we will pass it along to you. The monthly updates will have the current wait time, that is really the best way to keep track of your wait. As I said we will let you know of any updates we receive from the CCAA.

We are very thankful that all of our paperwork is on it's way! Now the process of finding a little girl that matches the description that we gave our agency begins. Not sure how long this process will take but I am guessing somewhere between 6-8 months which is completely ok with me. Right now I have enough on my plate without processing even more paperwork and thinking about traveling back to China! I need a few months to settle in to our new house and get the girls situated in their new schools, find my way around a new area, and the list goes on...

Thanks for continuing to pray with us that we would have peace throughout this move and patience as we continue to look to God for guidance on this adoption!

backlogged

It has been over a week since I have posted and a ton of stuff has happened since then...

Where to start..

Last Friday night Mackenzie had a friend over and we played her new Apples to Apples Family Edition game. The girls love this game and it's a lot of fun to play, but while playing I noticed it was cold in our house. This isn't unusual as it always seems cold in our house but this seemed unusually cold so I got up to check out the temp and it was a whopping 60 degrees in our house!

The heater was broken.

Fortunately for us Jeff is pretty handy with these sorts of things and diagnosed the problem fairly quickly. He called the repair company to see if he could get the part that night but no call back. Ainsley was at another friend's house for the night and Ellie had already gone to bed, so Mackenzie, Cary and I spent the night in the living room in front of the fireplace. Much warmer than the frigid rooms upstairs!

The repair company called back early the next morning but of course were unable to get Jeff the part. They had to come out and fix it themselves because yada yada yada. So $230 later, our furnace is fixed. Pretty sure the part probably cost $25 and they hiked up all the prices because it was the weekend. But since we needed the heater fixed for an afternoon open house and we didn't have time to wait, It was worth getting it fixed. So we now have heat...yay!

That afternoon was lunch at one of our favorite Chinese restaurants for Chinese New Year. We gathered with most of our Chinese friends and had a fantastic time together. It was our last big group event before we move and they all chipped in and bought us a cake and signed a framed picture of Cincinnati. The cake was very yummy and the picture of Cincinnati was taken by the same friend who took our family pics. Everyone signed the back of the picture. We are going to miss our Chinese group so much. It has been a lifeline for me in helping connect Ellie with just a small bit of her culture and the moms of Ellie's friends have become my good friends. I am glad they will be just a phone call or e-mail away and that we won't be moving to far away that we can't come back for visits!

Everyone signed it

The framed picture, taken by Jeff Fusaro, that our

group gave to us..

Here are the girls sleeping on the sofa bed

Here are most of the kids in our group...I failed miserably with Chinese attire...

More group photos

Lovely dressed children...and then our kids...lol

A picture of our cupcake cake. I didn't get to snap one before it got cut so this is the best I could get :)

Thankful

Reading over other's friend's and acquaintance's blogs, I am reminded again that I have so much to be thankful for.

And that being thankful isn't always about the earthly possessions that we have though I am thankful for those things as well.

I can choose to be thankful even in the most difficult of circumstances and trying of times because God knows me and loves me. He sees my weaknesses and my shortcomings and He still loves me.

There are days when moving seems to be so overwhelming I can barely accomplish half of what I want to do and then there are days when it's ok. But I am trying to remember that I don't just choose to be thankful on the days that are ok but also on the days that aren't so ok. My thankfulness shouldn't depend on my circumstances but on who God is...and it's a lesson that sometimes seems painfully slow for me to learn, but I will keep plugging on...

Thankfulness...something I need to remember on this very wet, cloudy and cold day.

Relaxing weekend

It has been a nice, relaxing weekend. We have had very few plans this weekend which has been great. The older girls had a friend overnight on Friday but she left very early Sat morning. I didn't even know she needed to leave early and she was gone before I got up! She is the next door neighbor and they were at her house till after 8 before the came back over here to ask if she could spend the night, so by the time they got over here, I guess they just concluded I didn't need to know! So they set the alarm, woke up on their own, and she went home all by 8 am.

The rest of Sat was spent relaxing until I had to take Ellie to a friend's birthday party at Lazer Kraze. It always makes me smile to see her playing with all her Asian friends. One of her friend's turned 5 and though the entire party wasn't made up of Asian friends there were quite a few of them there. I hope that we are able to connect with a good Asian/adoption community when we move.

Mackenzie, however, was sick all day yesterday. She said her head and tummy hurt and she had a fever so she will be home with dad today since I have to oversee the kid's area at church today. Poor girl. She hates being sick on the weekends. She doesn't seem to mind it during the week since she can skip school, but on the weekends...not so much fun :( Hopefully when she wakes she will be feeling a little better.

All in all a nice, relaxing weekend. It will be our last for a while, so I am trying to really enjoy it!

Surgery??

I have learned why someone else should come with me to appts, especially when those appts involve Ellie!

Ellie had an appt on Wednesday morning at the VPI clinic at Children's. If you don't know what VPI is check is out here. How it has taken this long for someone to mention this to me I don't know..but off we went. She was seen by a nurse and then by a speech therapist to evaluate her. She got to wear a cool headpiece that had a plastic visor with an attached microphone under her nose. I wish I had brought my camera! She did a great job and after the testing, the speech therapist told me she doesn't have VPI. There wasn't any air coming out her nose which is good, I guess. We continue to rule out things that she could have which is great. We just want to make sure there is nothing structurally hampering the development of her speech. So the doctor decided not to scope her based on her results. However the speech therapist recommended we get a voice evaluation. They listen to her talk, etc and then they do another kind of scope that looks at her vocal cords. She thinks she has nodules on her vocal cords. However, all they do in kids that have nodules is practice good speech and push fluids. She probably got them from all of her crying, yelling and loud talking. I will probably try to have it done, but we already knew this info and are trying to help Ellie correct her speech and drink more fluids.

The interesting part of the meeting was when we saw Dr. Saal. She has seen Dr. Saal several times before, but it has been a couple of years. He is the director of genetics at Children's. We saw him the first year we brought her home. He did testing, didn't find any abnormalities with standard testing and decided not to pursue any additional expensive testing for now. After seeing her, he was still concerned about the size of her head and the structure of her face. He ordered a more extensive chromosomal study done and then asked me to come back to either him or 2 other geneticists that he recommended in St. Louis in the next 6-9 months. He would like her evaluated by the craniofacial team. Click here to learn more about Dr. Saal. I think he's concerned that her face shape may be affecting her speech. Her jaw is too far forward, etc. I didn't think to ask a timetable on this however...I knew she needed surgery but I thought they would wait until after her jaw was done growing to do this...

When we get the results of her lab work, I think I will try to call and ask him a few more questions. Ellie heard the word blood work and was ready to hit the road! She did great though and I was so proud of her. The best she has done by far!

Will post more when we have more results...

Counting

Just wanted to post a video of Ellie counting to 10 in Chinese...

I have been sick the last few days with a cold so please excuse my voice...

It arrived!!!!

We received our USCIS approval!!! So excited that this paper arrived so quickly! I can't tell you enough how God never ceases to amaze me. This was a pretty quick turnaround for this specific piece of paper and I am so thankful!

It actually came yesterday but I was busy and didn't blog yesterday. I made a copy and sent it off with part of my liver and my spleen...ok..so not really...but I sent it off with two checks which equalled a lot of money! It is our last step before our dossier gets prepared by our agency and then sent off to China!!! Thank you God for helping us stay patient. Please bring just the right little girl into our lives! Love, your daughter.

For the birds

So glad I kept Mackenzie home yesterday as we had a really fun girl time.

We spent the morning at the aquarium where there was almost no one there! We have never been to the aquarium when there has been so few people and it was pretty cool. There was a group of young moms with kids in strollers and that was about it.

The girls got to go to the "touch and feel" area and hang out with the horseshoe crabs and starfish until they got their fill. They also got to pet the sharks without lots of kids everywhere which was loads of fun.

Ainsley's favorite part was buying nectar and feeding the lorikeets. She thought that was great fun. Of course my camera is still in St. Louis with Jeff but I did get a couple of poor quality photo shots with my cell phone camera.

Since it was cold and windy and we were hungry, we decided to eat at Johnny Rockets because it is right near the aquarium. It was a first for us and the girls had a blast. We got to sit up at the counter and order which they thought was pretty cool! And the food was yummy! Ellie asked out waitress many questions including why she was wearing a bow on her outfit, and what that man was doing (I am pretty sure she phrased it this way too...referring to the cook who we could see the whole time).

A very fun day had by all!