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.

Happy Adoption Day Alex!

Today we celebrated Alex's adoption day. We headed to the courthouse bright and early and were met by our photographer and some wonderful friends and family.  We entered the courtroom a few minutes early and found that they were unable to locate our paperwork (flashbacks to missing paperwork from USCIS).  The file clerk was stuck in traffic and court would be delayed. The kids were amazingly well behaved while we waited a little over a half hour for the paperwork to be located when the clerk arrived.  Our judge had come out to introduce herself earlier and when she entered again, court started.  It was a special day for Judge Julie as this would be her first adoption case since she transferred to family court. We answered a few questions and Judge Julie declared that our son would officially be renamed and be now know as our son forever!  We are so thankful for so many people joining us so early in the morning and for an amazing photographer to capture this for us.

We celebrated with our traditional breakfast at Perkins and spent the rest of the day enjoying time together as a family (although daddy had to go back to work for a little while).  

This day as we celebrate, we also remember that our joy comes at someone else's sorrow. 

 "A child born to another woman calls me Mom. The depth of the tragedy and magnitude of the privilege are not lost on me" -Jody Landers

Ian loses his first tooth

After many weeks of having a loose tooth and lots and lots of encouragement from mom and dad, Ian lost his first tooth which he pulled out all by himself!  We encouraged him to do it himself by telling him that part of growing up is taking out your first loose tooth.  It would have been easy to do it for him as he asked repeatedly for help.  Knowing the best way to help him was by encouraging him, we waited for him to finally take it out.  Way to go Ian!  Mommy and Daddy are SO proud of you!

Summer Fun

We are enjoying the beginning of summer!  We are on a new adventure after selling our house in under 3 weeks and having to move to temporary housing 30 days after our accepted offer.  We are blessed to be in a 2 bedroom apartment (short term rentals are NOT easy to come by).  We are adjusting to limited space, but enjoying the nice weather and finally warmer weather to swim in nice pool the apartment complex has.  Since it is mostly young professionals that live in these buildings, we often have the pool all to ourselves!

This summer is a bit different from years past.  3 out of 4 kids are school aged.  We decided after a crazy year of travel to Korea, adding another child, prepping house for sale, selling the house, selling our land, buying new land, moving to an apartment, and building a house, the kids would be home for the 2013-2014 school year.  They are all VERY excited, in fact, they are the ones that requested it.  I never pictured myself as a home school mom, but though prayer, I feel that God has softened my heart and opened me to a new and exciting world.  I love my kids and enjoy being with them.  I loved home schooling Ben this past year and look forward to the fun and challenging times ahead schooling 3 kids. We are getting a head start this summer.  In order to enjoy the school year and not be tied down to a strict school schedule and to give us enough time to get through all of the material, we decided to start schooling this summer.  Cami is working on 4th grade English and Reading with her friend, Anna, who she has been in school with the last 3 years.  Anna is staying home in the Fall as well, so they are enjoying beginning their home school year together. Cami is also beginning 4th grade Math.  Ben is working on History and 5th grade Math.  Sometimes he enjoys it, other times, he would rather take more time off. Thankfully he knows that by working during the summer (as he did last summer), he will get more time off during the school year for field trips and other fun activities.

The summer is not just school.  We decided this year to make a "Bucket List".  The kids each wrote down 10 things they would like to do by the end of summer.  They were told that they had to be realistic things (going to Korea, going to Disney World, and going on a cruise had to be taken out).  We have already enjoyed a few...(they are in blue when they are done)

1. Lots of swimming
     - with a pool at our apartment complex, we can make that a reality.  We are at the pool several times a week.  It gives the kids incentive to get the chores done and their school work done.
2. Have a field day at our new house
3. Play Skylanders
4. Go Frog Hunting
5. Have a movie marathon - have lots of yummy snacks including spicy cheetos
6. Go up north and have a sleepover/ camp out
7. Have a napithon
8. Play a game that Cami makes up
9. Go to Milwaukee Museum
10. Go hunting with a slingshot
11. Go to the Milwaukee Zoo
12. Go to the Circus Museum
13. Have a music day
14. Have a day off school
15. Do a reading contest (Barnes and Noble, Half Price Books, Library, BJU)
16. Have a pajama day
17. Go to the Dream Park
18. Go to a Splash Park
19. Cook / Bake treats to give to friends
20. Go Fishing
21. Play games all day
22. Have a sleepover
23. Go to the Farmer's Market
24.Go to a Beach
25. Rootbeer Floats at Culvers or A&W
26. Go to a Mallards game
27. Go to a Marcus Kids Movie (Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays)
28. See the Butterflies at Olbrich in August
29. Go Bowling
30. Go Mini Golfing
31. Have a playdate 
32. Have a Picnic
33. Visit animals at Animart
34. Walk around Olbrich Gardens
35. Michaels Crafts $2 Craft time Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
36. Go to Ella's Deli and ride the Carousel
37. MSCR Art Cart
38. Take a walk on State Street (Geology Museum, etc)
39. Make grass chia pets with grass seed in nylons then draw a face on it
40. Take a bike ride

Grandparents Day 2013

A little over a month ago, Aladodo and Papa moved from Eugene.  Now they are only 45 minutes away and able to enjoy the activities at the kids school that they were unable to since they were so far away.  They enjoyed a wonderful day getting to know the kids teachers and friends and seeing what they do all day. Cami and Ian enjoyed showing off their grandma and grandpa.

Ian and grandma Aladodo enjoyed math time in Kindergarten.

 

A yummy lunch of tacos.

 Ian and his friends Amber and Cece helped Mrs. Mitten make the border for grandparents day.  Ian was happy to give up his recess to make handprints on the border for grandparents day!

Cascade Mountain

This year Ben is homeschooling.  One of the benefits of the home school academy we go through is the amazing field trips they offer.  The academy headed to Cascade Mountain today.  Since we just arrived home a few weeks ago, I stayed home, however, good friends of ours took Ben with them for the field trip. It was a perfect day to ski with the weather at 45 degrees.

An amazing opportunity to learn to ski and spend the day at the ski hill.  He had a great time and is already asking for skis for his birthday.

We Match Hearts

I saw this posted online, so I thought I would share...