Friday, June 24, 2011

Bring on the weekend!

I'm so happy it's Friday!  We've been going non-stop since school has let out, and we are now done with camps for a while!  The boys finished up with VBS this week and they loved it!  Met lots of new friends and even got to ride their bikes and scooters there since it was in a house in our neighborhood!  Have I mentioned that I love this little town yet??;)  I told they boys we can veg all weekend and do absolutely nothing!!  They were pretty excited about that....and so am I!


Jon went with a group of 16 other people this weekend to help with the recovery in Joplin, MO.  They got there at 1am this morning and they got to work early this morning.  He said it looked like a bomb went off in the 70 mile stretch!  Definitely overwhelming at times because there's just so much to do and where do you even begin.  They will probably only finish 2 houses in 2 days!  Houses and big schools just totally flattened by this tornado!  He said a big brick churches was totally demolished except for the cross still standing.  Toys scattered, cars flipped upside down, huge trees uprooted!  It's been easy for me not to think about what was still going on there, until I got a firsthand account of the devastation with pictures! I can't imagine what they're going through trying to rebuild their lives, and many who have lost loved ones.  Jon texted these pics to me today and he said these don't even really show the mass destruction! It's just so sad...
Really,....where do you even begin with this?!




Ok.....I have to say, I've been having a really hard time thinking that I still have 6 months or longer before I get to see and hold my baby girl.  Don't get me wrong, it's been a long, hard wait from the beginning, but now that I've studied and dissected every detail of the 2 pictures I have of her daily...well, maybe multiple times a day;)....I have grown more and more in love with her and I want her NOW!!  I want more!!  I want more pictures, updates, confirmation that she's being kissed and loved on.  I want to hear little details about her personality.  Details about her daily routine.  I want to know little things like if she has a nickname. Is she a good eater? Is she shy, outgoing, sensitive..??  So many questions I want to answered! I pray every single day that she has a caretaker that has shown favor to her and treats her special. I hope that person spends more time with her, and gives her extra kisses and hugs to let her know that she's special.  I hope she's truly loved by someone that's with her right now!  It's so frustrating to not know these little things that I knew about my boys from day 1!  She's going to get so tired of all the mushy kisses she gets from us, so I hope she's at least getting a few from somebody now!  I've been doing research on her orphanage and I can't find a whole lot of information on it.  Makes me a little nervous, because I want to know more about where she is right now.  I want to see pictures from other people who have been there, so I can get a little glimpse of what she sees everyday.  I'd take any bit of information I can get at this point!  Please pray that I can quit feeling so anxious and relax knowing that God is fully in control.  Also, please pray that we get our I-800 approval back soon so we can send in our dossier.  It should take about 5-6 months from our dossier approval.  I just want our sweet girl here with us for Christmas this year.  What a gift that would be!!

Ok, so I chickened out with the tackle football for both boys this year!  First of all, I really felt like 1st grade is just way too young!  4th grade is probably fine, but I kept having visions of Ben getting slammed by some monstrous country boy who's been playing his whole life, and Ben getting really hurt, so I'm going to put them both in flag for one more year!  If Ben wants to play tackle next year, I'd probably feel better about it then.  Neither one of them are happy with me, but gotta go with my gut on this one!



Hanging with Roux....he's got a hard life!

Friday night fun....Reed's latest lego creation..

I introduced the kids to "Annie" the other night and they loved it as much as I did as a kid!  I haven't seen it since I was probably 8, but somehow I remembered every single word!   They were just a little 
irritated...I mean impressed at my ability to sing along, with the dance movements and all!  If they only knew how many times I had seen it as a child, and how many annie neighborhood plays we did!  OH and love how easy it was for Daddy Warbucks to adopt Annie by just having Ms. Hannigan sign a piece of paper and that was that!  aahhh....if only it was still that easy! :)
































Sunday, June 19, 2011

Summer Fun!

This summer is already flying by WAY too fast!  I said I wasn't going to book them out with camps this year because we did that last summer, and we didn't get a chance just to enjoy summer...Wellll, I've done it again!  I really did it because of the move to Melissa.  I wanted the boys to see familiar faces and hopefully to have made some new friends when school starts, so I signed them up for basketball, football, and baseball camps and VBS....ALL within the first 3 weeks of summer!  Ben asked the other day when summer break is going to start! haha!  I know it's a lot but they have made friends, and it'll be an easier transition to the new schools.  It's even encouraged Ben to play tackle football next year!! If you know Ben at all, this is a shocker! He's been begging Jon to play football with him everyday, as soon as he walks in from work, which of course makes Jon beside himself excited!  He does have really fast feet and can cut on a dime,  and even got the fastest time on hurdle drills out of all the kids...and they were as old as 9th grade!  The only problem is that my sweet Ben does NOT like to get hurt, so needless to say, I don't think he'll appreciate it the first time he gets tackled! I don't know much about football positions, but surely there's a spot for just running the ball and not getting tackled.....right?? ;) 

Not only is Ben playing this year, but so is Reed!  I'm going to be a nervous wreck!!  Being the middle boy, he's a little rougher and tougher, but he's in 1st grade!!  Melissa doesn't offer flag football, so I guess we're going to start out hard core!  It's going to either be a great experience, or horrible.  Hoping for the first of the two! Guess we won't know until we try!


VBS is next week and it's here in our neighborhood, so just another opportunity to meet more kids from around here..:)


Here is a pic of my latest two finds!  The boys think I'm crazy when I get my Etsy or Zulily packages in the mail!  They just don't get as excited over it as I do....well, except for Reed..;)"  Whoever filled  me in on Zulily is in so much trouble!  I've discovered I  have ZERO self control when it comes to cute girl clothes!  ....UGGHHH!






The boys and I just got back yesterday from visiting the Dewitt's in College Station for the boys Birthday party.  It was a short trip, but we always have so much fun with them!  It's well worth the three hour drive!  




We're going to a professional indoor football game tonight with our friends for Father's Day.  We've never been to one so it should be lots of fun!  But until then.....

.....a day of doing absolutely nothing!.....you deserve it, Babe!  We love you!!

Sunday, June 12, 2011

I'm Back!

Whew!  We are finally settled in the new house and had our internet hooked up yesterday....Finally!!  I didn't realize how dependent I was on my computer and internet, until I didn't have it!  A lot has happened in the past couple of weeks that I wanted to blog about, and didn't have a way...so I'm excited to finally post!


I'll start with the most exciting news first....We got matched with a little girl and have received our PA!!!!   Our Pre-approval from China basically says they agree to view our dossier when it gets to them so we can officially be matched with this sweet little girl!  I'm dying to post a picture and give more information, but our agency wants us to wait on that until they approve our dossier and we get our official letter of acceptance(LOA)...so I'll wait!  I will say, she is the most precious little 10 month old baby girl we've ever seen!  In my last post, I said the agency had given us a heads up that there was a new list of children coming out and our agency was going to be looking for us.  Didn't think too much about it since we haven't even gotten our dossier to China yet.  Jonathan was traveling and on a plane at the time that I got the call at 10:00 pm to let us know that they had found a little girl for us!  Needless to say, I was freaking out and desperately wanting to get in touch with Jonathan.  When he finally landed and called me, he looked at her picture and her information and we both fell immediately in love!  They give you 72 hours to accept or not, so we turned in our Letter Of Intent right away. It's crazy how we've never even met her and can feel such love for this little girl!   It's so incredibly obvious to see God's hands all over this, because she is so perfect for our family, and we are all madly in love with her.....already!!  Geesh!...I can only imagine how it's going to be once she's here!   Jon, the kids, and I pray for her every night that she will feel protected, loved, and safe until we can get to her.  It's so much harder waiting and wondering what she's doing every second of the day now that we know exactly who she is, and have seen that sweet little face of hers.  I'm really dying to post a picture and give more information about her, but until I can, I'll give a sneak peek of the cutest little hands EVER!!:)


Onto other good news, we are finally settled in our house and loving it!!  Maybe we truly are country people at heart, because we couldn't be happier out here.  It's a takes about 10 minutes to get back to town, but we are loving everything about living here!  The boys have been fishing, biking, catching lightning bugs, shooting targets with their new bb guns, and just playing outside more!  Even Jon and I have been outside a lot more grilling, laying in the hammock, and just enjoying nature and the peacefulness!  We put the kids down early last night and enjoyed our date night on the patio listening to music and catching up....ahhhh..greatness..  And we didn't even have to pay for a babysitter!
 The boys went to a Melissa basketball camp last week, and Ben will go to a football camp here this week, and then both boys will go to a VBS in our neighborhood the next week.  They've already met a few friends from the camps, and at least will see familiar faces when they start school!  
I have lots of pics from the end of school and the beginning of summer, so here are just a few....

Gage's awesome teachers....Mrs. Kathy

..and Mrs. Teena


Reed's kinder graduation

We love Reed's teacher, Mrs. Kelley

swim party with his friends

having a picnic in our new backyard with the Dewitt boys!









new bb guns!


lake with the Gibbs




new friends moving to our neighborhood  from mckinney this summer!

eating smores

the boys computer/hideout room :)
even the dogs love it here!

Sorry...I couldn't resist! ;)

I'll post some pics of the house after I get everything up and hung!

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Moving Day!!

I know it's been forever since I've posted, but we are super, crazy busy right now.  All with good stuff, but I haven't had even a second to sit down and look at blogs lately, much less post! We are moving today, but as soon as we get over there,  I'll update with what's been going on and pics!
Kids can make anything fun!

Last 2 days of school!! WooHoo!!!