It's beginning to feel a lot like...

Christmas! Work is winding down, school is out, presents are getting wrapped, Grandma and Grandpa are in town and the excitement level at our house is up, WAY UP! The kids are so excited for Christmas this year (and I am too!). Tonight we all "talked through" our Christmas plans for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It was fun to listen to the kids talk about each and every thing that we will be doing over those two days. It even sounds like Santa might be bringing some snow with him on Christmas Eve.
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Cian and his PT panda from school. This little guy travel home each night with a different child and fills up his notebook with adventures. Cian wanted to play dress up with PT.
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Maeve posing in one of her many Christmas dresses. Too bad these can only be worn for such a short amount of time. This one was made by Grandma!
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Fintan...just being cute.
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Fintan and Maeve hanging out in Buzz's tent.
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Cian and Tex (he is our newest member of the household) our Chihuahua. This is Tex's first Christmas too. We would like his gift to us to be getting himself potty trained! (It has been a long 4 months since he came home!)
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Aidan and Maeve. Aidan takes the big brother role very seriously and lately he has been so great with Maeve. He is constantly playing with her and helping her with everything.
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Maeve's story

Hop on over to Great Wall's blog and you can read a story we submitted about our journey to find Maeve!

http://www.gwca.org/blog/

Maeve's first snow

It didn't stay around for long, but we managed to get some good play time in before it went away.

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Good news!

We received great news today about my mom. Her breast cancer has not spread!!!!!!! We are so relieved and can now focus on the treatment ahead. She goes in for a port-a-cath tomorrow and then starts chemo next week. She still has a long road ahead, but the outlook is much better. Thanks for the support and prayers!

Thanksgiving recap

We are home again after another great Thanksgiving in Dallas. Unfortunately our drive to Dallas did not turn out so well, but the rest of the weekend was great. It is always a gamble on the drive to Dallas. In theory, it is a ~8 hr trip (including one ~15 min stop). The stop half way through the trip can last 10 minutes or 1.5 hours depending on the kids moods and how desperate we are to get out of the car. In addition, we are never quite sure what natural disasters or human disasters we will run into on I-35 (always exciting...well, not so much). This time it was an overturned semi-trailer one hour south of Oklahoma City. This stopped us for 2.5 hours as the interstate was completely shut down. Let me tell ya, there is not a lot of things to do in Pauls Valley, OK!! Not that we had the opportunity because we were stuck with thousands of our Turkey Day traveling friends. Very long trip short, we made it to Dallas and had a great Thanksgiving!
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We love going to the Gaylord Texan hotel over Thanksgiving/Christmas time. The decorations/atmosphere are amazing and the kids love it. It was definitely the highlight of the trip! Above is Fintan getting ready to feast on the buffet!
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Grandma and Grandpa resting at the saloon with the grandkids.
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Maeve working her smile for the camera.
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Aidan (with a snarly Fintan in the background) looking mature as always.
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Maeve in her picture day dress. We attempted to get a family portrait today at my least favorite place (Protr@it Innov@tions) and after waiting 40 minutes after our appt time with 2 families left in front of us and thousands of screaming kids (okay, maybe not thousands, but it sure seemed like it!) we gave up on the portrait idea. We opted to try and get a family picture at the Gaylord that would work for our Christmas card. Usually this is a near impossible task to get all the kids smiling at once, but I think we did okay (and we saved a few $$$ by ditching the studio photos!).
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Cian checking out some of the trains.
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One of our Christmas card options. This one wasn't the best, but some of the others were pretty good. You will have to wait and see the final product in the mail (if you are one of the lucky ones to receive a card...I'm sure you are crossing your fingers as I type!).

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I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful too and filled with great memories!

News

We got some good news on the cancer front today. My dad's cancer has not spread!! He has a few treatment options to choose from and it sounds like he is leaning towards radiation vs. surgery. We are so thrilled to get this news. While is radiation treatment will be somewhat difficult, I'm sure, the end results sound wonderful.

My mom was able to get her biopsy done today too. She met with her surgeon this morning and while they were planning to do a needle biopsy in the office, the plans changed after talking for awhile. The surgeon felt more comfortable taking my mom to the OR and getting a larger biopsy. I'm not sure the exact reasoning behind all this, but it sounds like this process will yield a more definitive diagnosis. I am very nervous about the results, but also ready to see the whole picture so we can move forward. We will not have more information for 3-5 days, so the waiting continues. The waiting/work up period is painful!

Thanks for the prayers and good thoughts so far. Keep them coming!

Prayers wanted

The past 7 days have been whirlwind in our lives and I would like to ask all of you out there in blog land (whether we know you or not) to offer up some prayers on my parent's behalf. My father was diagnosed with prostate cancer last Friday. He underwent some additional scans this week to make sure the cancer has not spread. We will get those results on Monday. If it has not spread (for which we are very hopeful) then treatment seems fairly straight forward with a great prognosis. Yesterday, my mother was told she has breast cancer. This has completely devastated us and thrown us off our axii. How can this happen?! Both diagnosed with cancer within 7 days of each other? We are right in the mix of her work up and diagnosis and will hopefully know more information next week. We were told to show up for a biopsy today, but due to some very poor communication between physicians, there was no biopsy ever scheduled. Until she has the biopsy we will not know what we are dealing with; i hate the waiting game. This brief experience has made me so frustrated with adult health care. I have spent my career thus far working in pediatric health care and a little in oncology. There are always little glitches in communication, but it is so irritating to be told to show up on a Saturday morning for a biopsy only to find out the office is not even open and the on call physician has no idea about your identity. Adult health care has much to be desired.



Anyway, until we find out all our answers we could use your prayers. We have no idea what road(s) we will have to travel with both of these diagnoses and that is pretty scary. Even with all this going on, we have so much to be thankful for this next week. We have each other and a great support group outside of our families. Hopefully we will have more news (good news!) after this week!!

Happy Birthday Cian

Cian rang in his 6th year with a pirate party. This was probably our *best* at home party yet. We had just enough activities to hold the boys' attention yet enough play time to let them run wild. Again, we had freakishly warm weather so that allowed the entire party to be outside. It was a great day for a great kid!
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6 year old Cian next to his pirate cake. Notice the candles acting as cannons out the side of the cake.
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A smattering of the pirates that raided our house.
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We were able to drag out the pinata activity for about 30 minutes. Perfect!!
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Make a wish.
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Cake all around, matey!

Halloween Haunts

Once again I have been slacking on the blog front. Busy life I guess. Anyway, we had a great Halloween. The weather has been exceptionally warm lately so it made for a perfect night. We had our usual chili party and a houseful of friends and family. Due to our schedules we were unable to have an official party for Maeve's birthday (back on October 2) so we decided to celebrate on Halloween. All the kids have had an Elmo cake on their 2nd birthday, so we kept up that tradition and Susie made an Elmo cake for Maeve.

Aidan was much more into Trick or Treat this year and I think he would have gone for hours had we let him. Cian and Fintan we only semi-impressed, but they made it about one block. Maeve didn't understand at all, but enjoyed some of the benefits (the candy). All in all it was a great night. Now all the Halloween decorations have been put away and we are almost ready to bust out the *tree*!!
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Fintan (Luke Skywalker) and Cian (Darth Vader...the mask was too constricting for his taste)
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Maeve not quite understanding why everyone is singing to her. She managed to blow the candles out with some help from Aidan and friends.
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Maeve (Princess Leah)
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The Star Wars gang. Aidan was a Clone Trooper (???)

Laibin Project video

I have attached a link to the Laibin Project video. This young man is raising money to build a foster home village in China for orphaned children. If you watch the video closely you will see Maeve make two appearances at 7:36 and again at 10:09. This was filmed while she was still in foster care. We are so thankful that we found out about this video as it adds more to the picture of Maeve's life in China. I am so happy to find out that she lived in this foster home village. We know it made a huge difference in making her the strong, well adjusted, wonderful child she is!!

(thanks, Ellen, for letting us know about this!)


http://vimeo.com/6674672

Fall Adventures

We love the fall around here. Unfortunately this year, we have not been getting much of the desired fall temperatures. It is already so cold here in the Midwest. Aidan had a soccer game this morning and it was 37 F outside. Susie is at work, so the kids and I only lasted ~10 minutes until we bolted back to the car to finish watching from there. Anyway, the kids have been able to do some fun fall activities already. They went to an apple orchard and picked tons of apples and also went to a pumpkin patch. Everyone is having a daily debate over their individual Halloween costumes, so it will be interesting to see what they each end of choosing.
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Maeve is loaded up and ready to go!
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Cian sizing up the witch in our living room.
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Fintan and Maeve trying to find their pumpkin picks.
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Aidan...when did he get so big?
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Cian and Maeve.
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An attempt to get a good picture of the foursome. Oh, well we gave it a shot!
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Busy house

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. It is not that I don't have much to report, it is just the time to report it! In addition I have misplaced our USB cable for our camera and I kept wait to write a new post when I had pictures to post. Since I can't find the cable, I might as well write about our goings on. We are knee deep in soccer for both Aidan and Cian. It is going well for both of them. This is Cian's first year and he is loving it. The two of them couldn't be more different when it comes to sports. Cian smiles the entire time and is very aggressive towards the ball. Aidan was so shy and timid at this age (different story now), so it is funny to watch Cian's experiences. We decided to hold off on club swimming for Aidan right now. He has enough extracurricular activities to keep all of us busy right now. Maybe in January we will re-address that.

School is moving along well for all the boys. Fintan loves preschool, but at the same time he is happy when it is not a school day. Good thing he gets to enjoy both worlds for the next two years. Cian is our biggest surprise with school. He never liked preschool the past two years. He would go and not put up (too) much of a fight, but he would also love it when it was a "stay at home day." This year he wants to be a school all the time. He has even been upset a few Saturdays to learn it wasn't a school day. We are very relieved that he is happy at school. Aidan continues to love school as he always had. He is active in soccer and boys scouts right now. Basketball will start before we know it, I'm sure.

Maeve continues to do well. She continues to emerge from her shell every day. We keep thinking she is "all out," then every week we see her do something else that tells us she is continuing to open up. It is great to see!

Well that is all for now. Hopefully I will get some pictures loaded soon. Until next time...

Love Without Boundaries

We just signed up to be sponsors for a little boy in China. Love without Boundaries is a great program helping orphaned children in China while they are waiting for loving adoptive homes. Click on the picture above and take a look around their site!

Summer's End

The new school year started bright and early this morning (we need to get used to that routine again!). All the boys are in some kind of school this year. Fintan will be in ECLC (two days a week), Cian in Kindergarten and Aidan in 2nd grade. Man, how the time flies. Everyone had a great day and Maeve enjoyed the house to herself!!
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Fintan funny

After work today I met Susie and the kids at Costco. Fintan rode home with me in my "work car." For whatever reason, the kids get a kick out of riding in this car. Anyway, we were having some great conversation and it all ended like this...

Me: Thanks for riding home with me Finnie.

Fintan: Your welcome. Daddy, are you sad when you don't get to ride with me?

Me: Yes.

Fintan: Oh, because I am sad when I don't get to ride with Mimi.

Texas

We spent some good times in Dallas the past few weeks and you can see the smiles on the kids faces below.
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Maeve riding a tricycle. She doesn't quite get the concept of pedalling.
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Our family picture that we submitted to China. Hopefully this shows that Maeve is happy. She doesn't smile well on command in group shots. Oh well!

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New Teachers!

Today was the uber-anticipated day of the summer. The boys found out who their teachers will be for the next school year. Aidan will be in second grade and Cian will be in Kindergarten. They both had their "top choice" teachers picked. Cian got his "pick" and Aidan did not. Fintan will be in ECLC (pre-school) two days a week and there is only one teacher for that, so we already knew who he would have. Everyone is happy with their new teachers and now we are ready for school to start. I love this time of year. There just seems to be excitement and happiness around the start of a new school year. Hopefully it will be a good one!

Loving Summer

We are having a great summer so far and it is hard to believe that it is already half over. Aidan played machine-pitch baseball and had a great time. Cian played t-ball and also loved it. Cian and Fintan are in swim lessons and making great progress. I am thinking that Cian is part fish. Aidan is in swim team for the first time this year and aside from the 8am practices (EVERYDAY!!) he is loving that too. He has really improved on all his strokes. Maeve is running around with us and enjoying all the activities from the side lines. When we are not at a sport activity, we are usually at the pool 4 days a week. Maeve really likes the pool and prefers to hang in the zero entry pool right at the area where the water comes up to her neck. One more step and she will be under water, one step back and she is not happy. Very fun! Cian is going down the water slides this year which is a huge change from last summer. Fintan loves to jump in over and over again. Yes, he is that kid who bothers all the moms who are in the pool trying not to get wet (you know who you are!). Aidan loves the pool too. We rarely see him after we walk through the gates as he needs to be in the deep end with the cool people.

We have spent many weekends at the lake house already and plan to get in as many as possible before the summer ends. We will also take a trip to Texas for a week to soak in some rays and lounge and grandma and grandpa's house. We hope all of your summers are going well!!

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