Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas. It was (as usual) very hectic and full of running from one house to the next, but we managed to have a great time. Unfortunately I left our camera at my aunt's house, so we only have pictures of the kids from Christmas Eve. I will post those when we get the camera back!

14 months

Our new little girl turned 14 months old this week. When will we get to meet her? I wish we knew the answer to that question! It is a strange feeling knowing you have a child on the other side of the Earth and though we know a great deal about her, she knows nothing about us. Weird. It has been one month since we got our PA (pre-approval) and we were told to expect 30-60 days until we get out LSC (our next step in the process). After this we hope to travel 4 weeks later. It is also odd to think we may be going to China in January, February or March. Who knows?

Happy Thanksgiving

We are in Dallas enjoying an unusually warm Thanksgiving Day. The boys having been hitting the pool! We are thankful for our family and our health this year! Have a wonderful day!

Another bird down

We can't seem to keep parakeets alive for more than one year. I thought they were supposed to live 5-7 years. We lost Oscar on Friday. Susie removed the cover from their cage on Friday morning to find Oscar dead on the cage floor. Blue was just hanging out. I'm sure he is completely traumatized from seeing his best buddy dropped dead. Yikes! Looks like we will be making a trip to Petsmart this weekend for yet another bird. Hopefully Blue will keep kickin'!

Happy Birthday C

Today we celebrated C's birthday party. His actual birthday was last week, but he wanted a bowling party and the bowling alley was having a league tournament last weekend. C is five years old. Susie and I were saying today that he has improved so much (attitude wise) over the past year. C is our "fit thrower" around here and lately he is doing great! He is such a sweet boy and we just adore him. He wanted all the boys from his preschool to come to his party and they all did! Of course C hardly spoke to any of them, as usual, but I know he had a great time. Will we ever grow out of the John Deere themed parties? Only time will tell!!

Happy Birthday A

A is 7 years old! I hate the cliche that "time flies," but it is true. It seems like yesterday I was pacing around a delivery room as they rushed Susie to the OR for an emergency C-section. I am very happy to not relive that moment again, but I am happy to celebrate A's birthday. He is such a great kid! Just today we were noticing how "big" he looks lately. What happened to our baby?

We had A's party last weekend (on C's actual birthday...his party is tomorrow, so I will post on that later). He wanted a pool party and we were able to find this great indoor pool rec center that allows parties. It was great and A loved it. Today he got a scooter and a watch so he has had a great day. We also went down to Union Station today and saw the Holiday miniature train set up. I love this time of year.

Halloween (late)

We had a great Halloween. The weather was unbelievably warm. C was not too interested in trick-or-treating, but A and F had a great time.

Powerful

Check out the link below. It is about Mark Richt and his family. Mark is the head coach of the University of Ga. football team. They adopted a child with special needs. This really touches my heart and points to the fact that EVERY person has value and EVERY child deserve a family and a chance at happiness.

http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/video?id=3663225

The not-so-slow boat to China

***********Adoption Update*************

Wow, what a whirlwind we have had the past two weeks. Two weeks ago today (10/25) we got a call from our agency telling us we have been matched with a little girl in China. She has some minor correctable special needs to her hands and feet. Our next step was to look over her file and make sure we wanted to move forward with the adoption. Well by Sunday night we had spoken to our pediatrician (who runs the international adoption clinic here in town) and he had forwarded all the information to a surgeon. We were only waiting on this surgeon's confirmation that these needs were correctable (which were already knew from our own research, but needed the confirmation!). Then the bad news came. Sometime between 10pm Sunday and 8am Monday another agency had "locked" this little girl's file and we could no longer adopt her. This is a difficult process to explain, but basically multiple agencies here in the US have access to "waiting children's" files. They are not supposed to "lock" the file until they have a family who is 100% committed to adopting the child. Though sometimes, an agency will see a child they think they can match and they will lock the file before having a family on board. Once the file is locked, the agency has 48hrs to get all the family's paperwork wired to the Chinese adoption agency. If they don't have a family, or the family backs out, then the file becomes open again. Our agency follows all the rules and will not lock the file until the family has truly committed to the adoption. We were a little suspiscious of her "lock" since it occurred in the middle of the night, but all we could do was hope that it would open back up 48hrs later (Wednesday morning).

In the mean time we got word from the local surgeon that this condition can be surgically corrected for normal function. It was devastating thinking we had waited too long and may have lost her, but all we could do was wait. Fast forward 2 days and our agency calls again around 7am on Wednesday (10/29) morning. The little girl's file opened up again and we had the chance to lock her in for adoption. We jumped at the chance!!!! We scrambled around to get all our paperwork wired to China. The next step was waiting for something called a Pre-Approval (PA). Our agency said to expect this in about 2-3 weeks. We did not want to tell anyone our news until we had this first step of approval. Well last night we got an e-mail from our agency that they received our PA (in 8 days!!!). So now she is officially locked to us!

The next step is for us to get a Letter Seeking Confirmation (LSC) or some people call it the Letter of Approval (LOA). This is the official referral from China. Originally our agency said this arrives 6-12 weeks after the PA. In our e-mail last night our agency said they are seeing the LSC arrive in 30-60 days after the PA. So we are hopeful for a quick process. After we get the LSC we will travel 4-8 weeks later to pick her up!!!!

Needless-to-say we are thrilled!! We will keep you all updated as we get more information. We can't post any identifying information here until we get our LSC. But let us assure you, she is beautiful!!!!!

Birthday re-cap

We have been very busy around here and I have not made it a priority to keep this blog active. F had a birthday last month and he is now 3 years old. He wanted a dinosaur cake so we (Susie) was able to find a cake design on-line and fulfill that request. Here are some pictures...

School Time

It is (already!) that time again to start school. In a way we are very happy to be back in the swing of things, but it does seem like summer is too short. Anyway, A has started 1st grade and he just seems older by the minute. C has started Pre-K and he is very excited. So far both boys like their teachers and have been looking forward to the next day of school. Let's hope that keeps up!

Two teeth down

A lost his first tooth while we were at Hilton Head and the second fell out 24hrs later in Clarksville, TN. The toothfairy is getting her workout chasing this boy around the country! This is the first picture following the first loss. (It's a little graphic!) He looks much better now that they are both gone.

Island Magic

We had such a wonderful time on our trip to Hilton Head Island. Everyone we talked to told us, "you will love it!" And we did! This was our first "real" family vacation where we roadtripped and stayed somewhere for an entire week. It was absolutely perfect and very relaxing. We have already decided that we will be returning yearly from now on each summer. Anyone want to join us? Here's a run down of our trip:
1. every day spent some time (most of the day) at the beach
2. daily bike ride
3. most days hit the pool for a few hours.
4. ate lobster twice!!
5. saw two aligators! yikes!
6. saw one shark!! more yikes!
7. went on dolphin cruise and saw ~10 dolphins and 3 babies!
8. played 9 holes of golf
9. relaxed
10. 34 hours in the car....not relaxing, but necessary.
11. had professional family pictures taken on the beach.

Can't wait until next summer!!

7/4/08

We had a great 4th of July in Texas. This was probably our best trip to Texas as far as the kids and their behavior and our overall good time!! The drive down was awful, but once we arrived, we had a wonderful time. Most of the time we spent lounging by the pool. That was perfect for us and the boys had so much fun. This was probably the first time we have been in Dallas and all the boys have enjoyed the pool. On the 4th we went up to Dave and Jane's country club. They had a block party type thing with bounce houses for the kids. Then we watched the fireworks from there. On Saturday we went to Six Flags. This was so much bigger than I expected. The kids had fun and Dave and Jane survived 7 hours in 100+ degree heat!!! I dragged Susie on the "Batman" ride and then I rode solo on some other roller coaster. I can't wait until one of the boys is old enough and willing to ride more coasters with me!!

Here are some pictures from our trip. A had such a great time that he decided to stay another week in Texas. It is very quiet around home without him, but we know he is having a great time with Grandma and Gramps!

Beware of Rogue Marker

F had a little too much alone time last night and came out of the den looking like he had been attacked. Thankfully it was an attack from a washable marker and the evidence was only on F and not the walls. Washable or not, that would not have been fun to clean up.

Basement Project Update

Our basement project is coming along, though much slower than we had expected. Originally we were told it would take 6 weeks. We knew from previous home buidling/renovating experience that that was not a realistic time line, but we were thinking 8-9 weeks may be possible. Well, this past Sunday was 9 weeks since the start and we still have a little ways to go, but they are getting there. So far the floor has been completely ripped out and removed. It was lowered about 7 inches and repoured. It is so nice and smooth now!! The "dry system" has been installed around the perimeter of the foundation. This is a tile drain system to prevent water from coming in from the walls. They also installed a sump pump into the floor to keep the whole basement dry. The studs are up. New windows have been added. All the electrical and plumbing has been installed. The ceiling has been painted. And the new stair case has been built. Now they need to sheet rock the walls and finish the bathroom off. Hopefully 2 more weeks???

The new laundry area (in front of the studs)

The bedroom.

The bathroom.

The view standing in front of the laundry area.