Toddler Play dates

home made playdoh

fruit loop towers

This year at Beyond the Books our weeks have been filled with even more fun and relaxation.  Alex has been able to avoid long car rides and has been able to enjoy a weekly play date with his friend Jed.  Our families take turns driving the big kids in while the other one hosts a play date at their house for the little ones.  One mama gets to stay home and get a few things done around the house while the boys play and the other mama enjoys a few hours to herself while the big kids are in class.  It has been a blessing!

Good Night Gorilla! Good Night Aladodo!

At least once a day, Alex picks up the phone and asks to call Aladodo and Papa.  He loves telling them about his day.  He also loves getting noisy kisses from Aladodo and tickle kisses from Papa over the phone.  Tonight he needed to talk to Aladodo when she called.  He told her he was going to read her his favorite book, Good Night Gorilla.  He read to her and even showed her the pictures! 

Yes, my heart melted!

The kids have belted up to Orange belt.  We headed to the west side for testing.  All 3 of them did an amazing job!

TKD

Kicking it at Tae Kwon Do

Christmas Letter 2013

Family photo with Santa at the Dreambank

Our 2013 Christmas letter is finished.  You can find a PDF copy of the letter as a shared link from my online backup software Memopal at https://apps.memopal.com/g/?Y8U6ECUU

or

As a link on Google Drive at http://goo.gl/RVKlHV

Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2012

Cami helping Alex with tree decorating

No, that's not a misprint -- I'm finally posting the 2012 Christmas letter.  Actually, it's called 2012 Review instead of a Christmas letter because it was sometime in 2013 when we finished the letter and it got to a point where it didn't seem like it was worth sending out.  But the 2013 Christmas letter is almost finished (so stay tuned!) and it seemed like a good time to publish the 2012 version.    So here's the link to the letter - it will take you to site called Memopal and then you can download a PDF of the letter.  Merry Christmas

https://apps.memopal.com/g/?628RERNP

By the way, Memopal is an online backup software.  It backs up all the documents and photos on my computer automatically.  That way I won't loose all my files if my computer crashes or the house would burn down.  If you're not backing up your stuff, I'd highly recommend getting some sort of online backup software.  If you sign up with the link below, we'll both get extra space on our account.

http://apps.memopal.com/r/?29048eab46d03ab9

A Celebration of Children and Families First

Today we headed out to Schuster's Farm after church to join in the celebration of our social worker, Anne, and her agency Children and Families First.  Anne has been a part of our lives for over 11 years as she helped us in the journey to bring home each of our 4 children.  We have laughed with her and cried with her.  She was patient and understanding as we were frustrated in adoption delays.  She patiently explained everything we needed and wanted to know.
The celebration was also a good bye to her agency after 10 years.  Her husband recently changed jobs to run a company in the Milwaukee area.  After the recent loss of her daughter, she is closing the agency to spend more time with her family.
We will miss her but know that she is only a phone call or email away.  We feel so incredibly blessed to have had her as a part of our family as it grew from Justin and myself to a family of 6.