On the stairs.....

June on her new climbing stairs, wearing her cute poncho! She loves the climbing stairs at the park, so being the pushover Mom that I am...I bought her her own.

Norma Kamali at Wal-Mart?

I am by no means a fashion "Guru", however, I do know a cute T-Shirt when I see one. Wal-Mart and Norma Kamali have teamed up.....watch out Nordstroms! This adorable "T" only $6.00, lucky for me I am an employee and got it for even less;-)

A week in review......

Not only has another week passed, but a whole year! Today is the one year anniversary of bringing June home. I can't believe a year has passed and yet it seems like no time at all. June has added so much joy and happiness to our lives. Her brothers adore her. Max will come up to her lean his head against her and say, " I just love her so much". We have been given a very precious gift.

September 28, 2007

The boys and June moments after meeting for the first time.

Okay, back to 2008. This week was very hard for me. I could not catch up on any thing and I felt two steps behind on every thing I did.....I am hoping this week proves to be better! I have said four kids has pushed me to the very edge of my parenting ability, there just does not seem to be enough time in everyday.

The boys had a very busy schedule as usual. Sports, school, church, etc.....TJ had his first dance of the year. I drove TJ and three of his friends to the dance on Friday night. It is fun to see how your kids act with their friends. At 12 years old they sometimes try to act older, however, there is nothing like an 18month old girl to bring out kid in a "tween". I think all 4 boys enjoyed themselves trying to see who could get June to laugh the hardest. They even taught her to make the dreaded "fart" noise with her hands. After dropping the boys at school I tried to pull out of the parking lot.......I pulled right into a traffic jam. You know you live in a small town when the middle school dance stops up traffic for 1/2 mile:)

Saturday brought football. Both Jake and Max won their games, also, both boys had the opportunity to run the ball a few time. Although, I do not know what that means, apparently it is a big deal to get the chance to run the ball. It seems football will be a part of our future. TJ had no soccer so we had the afternoon off which meant we could catch up around the house. I love to mow the grass and Saturday for the first time in over a year I had my chance. I put Dave on the I-pod and off I went. According to Russ he could hear me singing over the lawn mower roar in the neighbor's yard(yikes! I have a terrible voice). I must say, however, it was great. Mowing the grass to me is better than a glass of cold white wine or good ***, well, maybe not better than the wine.

June continues to amuse and amaze us. One of her new skills is climbing into the high chair with the tray on, which is a little scary. She can also open all the blinds and does so as soon as you pull them down. She can also quickly dismantle any room she enters in less than 5 seconds flat(I do mean dismantle). As soon as she is done, however, she walks to my side and kisses my leg and gives me a hug......and of course I melt.

Nie Nie dialogues.....

Tonight while I was blog hopping I came across a story about The Nielson Family. Stephanie and Christian Nielson are parents of 4 young children. Stephanie and her husband were seriously burned in a plane crash in August. Their four children are living with her parents in Utah while they fight for their life daily in an Arizona hospital bed. Their story touched my heart...as a parent I fear leaving my children parent less. Nie Nie has been an avid blogger for years and you can read her story here. There are also links to her sister's blog as links to donate to their medical care.

Little Miss Manners...............

June has a new habit......Although she can use a spoon and fork she has been eating like she is a dog. Perhaps she has been hanging out with our dog Bandit too much!

Therapy..................

Some people drink, some people eat, some run, some shop, and some smoke, I however like to blog. After a long day, a day that is usually the same as the day before, laundry, cleaning, driving, diaper changing, etc., I like to have something to do that can't be undone or repeated exactly the same way tomorrow. Over the years I have tried many crafty hobbies,none of which I kept for very long. However, I think I will keep the blog. I get to share my 4 treasures with friends and family, as well as, creating a keep sake for the kids. I do look forward to the end of the day to have a little downtime with my friend "Dell".......

P.S. Special thanks to "R", I liked yours so much I wanted one just like it! (KaiLan says that is not copying)

A week in review................

Wow, another week goes by. This was a big week for me, a lot of memories. I am grateful for all the kind words and support of my friends and family. Thank you! We decided to take a little break from the busy schedule we have been running the last month and enjoy some R&R at the cabin. We left on Thursday evening and returned home tonight!

Friday morning watching a show in Nanie and Poppie's bed.

Friday we took a trip to Bond Falls in the UP of Michigan, the falls were beautiful. The only thing that would have made our day trip better was TJ, he arrived at the cabin on Friday night and missed our excursion!
Me and the kids at the view point!

The boys doing the boy thing(climbing trees), although June loves to climb, if I let her down she probably would have joined them!

While hiking around the falls there were many areas you could get right up close, it was a great experience for the boys.

The picture above is the view down the creek from the cabin, the trees were beginning to change and it looked beautiful.
June and Poppie bonding on the deck.
Sneak Peek! For those of you who know me well you know I have a "Christmas Card problem" these beauties are a sneak peek....after church this morning we corralled the kids for the annual photo shoot. We managed to get some good ones!

While at the cabin the boys enjoyed some fishing, bike riding, and Jeeping. Nannie and Poppie also remodeled "the lounge" in the garage...complete with video games, microwave, and snacks. Saturday night around the campfire Jake was in true form, Jake is our comedian, he had us going with stories that kept us in stitches. We think he had too many root beers from the snack stash in the garage!

All in all a good week. June did have her first cold this week, we made it all year without even a sniffle...hopefully this was her one this year:). Have a great week!

Gotcha Day!...........

June, myself, and our guide Veronica...one of the families we traveled with recently called her an angel...how right they are. She is an amazing women with a kind, loving spirit. Russ and I are forever grateful for all she did for us.
Mom, June, and "Mrs. Monkey"("Mr. Monkey was at home in the US with Max).
Russ and June!
This is June the very first time we saw her. I loved her instantly. Our journey was long and challenging, however, as soon as June was in my arms I knew without a doubt she was the daughter I had longed for. I am thankful to her birth mother for the brave, yet heartbreaking decision that left June at the gate of her welfare institute. I am also thankful to her foster mother for taking such good of her, you could tell she was loved. I am most thankful to God for giving us the privilege to love this sweet, amazing little girl.

We love you June-bug!

June's Referral Day............

I have thought long and hard about this post, it has been on my mind for weeks... What would I write? Will people who don't know us judge us? What will this anniversary be like? How will the boys feel?.....many questions.

I can honestly say that June's referral day 9/17/2007 was the most difficult day of my life. It was the day I gave up a dream...the dream of "Gracie". A dream that started when I was a child and a journey that started on June 6th, 2005. I love my boys with all my heart and soul, however, I always dreamed of having a daughter. My dream crumbled around me on 9/17/2007 when we decided to withdraw from Gracie's adoption.

At the time we withdrew we were heartbroken, grieving, as well as, emotionally and physically exhausted, all I wanted to do was go home to the US and sleep. Russ convinced me to press on. We did not know at the time what would happen, sometimes the CCAA gave a second referral sometimes they did not. We did know, however, our decision meant we could return without a child. We also knew we were not equipped as parents to handle the special needs of a child with undetermined medical needs, especially not knowing the affect on the boys. When we left The Office of Civil Affairs in Nanchang, we watched all the families we were traveling with signing their adoption papers. We were taken back to our hotel. Russ and I decided to go for a walk. After an hour walk through the streets of Nanchang we returned to our hotel where our guide met us with the news that the CCAA had an emergency meeting and decided to refer us another child. Our guide Veronica took us back to The Office of Civil Affairs. We sat in the room where all the families had met their children for the first time. The room, now empty except for the three of us was eerily quite. Veronica patiently translated as much of the medical information as she could and showed us the picture at the top of this post. We had to make our decision quickly to stay with our travel group and to avoid the government shut down the first week of October. I told Russ he would have to make the final decision....I will be forever grateful for his "yes".

Many people have asked if I felt anger about the situation we were put in, my answer is, "No". I do not know why our journey took a winding path, I do not know why we had to make the decisions we did. I do know however, our journey was the path God chose for our family and His path is perfect. With out the path we followed, Russ and I would not have one of the four greatest joys of our lives. I am nothing but thankful for our journey.

Gracie will forever be connected to my heart, I think of her each time I hold June. How could I not? If not for Gracie, June would not be part of our lives. I pray for her daily, I pray that medically she is well, but, I mostly pray that she feels loved. Although our adoption agency has made inquiries for us we have no news on how she is doing. I ask all who read this entry to pray or continuing praying for our "Gracie".

Tomorrow...Gotcha!

The above pictures are June's referral pictures. We received them after we arrived home from China, this is the first time I am publishing them:)

Gracie...............

An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but will never break. (An ancient Chinese belief)

With love..

A week in review...................

What is it about anniversaries...I can't help but think about our time in China, what we did each day, the friends we made, and what an amazing place China is. I hope someday when we bring June back to her place of birth she will love it as much as I did....

That being said, let's review. We had a sick week around the house. The two youngest boys both had a virus with a sore throat, headache, and fever that kept them out of school for a few days. Then poor Jake ended up with an unknown skin infection on his leg that ended him in the ER on Thursday night. Although the MD gave him no restrictions, school would not let him stay until they were sure the infection was not contagious or he was on antibiotics for more than 24hrs. We are still waiting to find out what "bug" got him, however, he is much better.

I already posted about my computer woes....I have ordered all the pictures on CD's from Walgreen's and have purchased an external hard drive so I should be in better shape.

This weekend Russ's mom came to visit. She came to see the boys play football and soccer, unfortunately we had a lot of rain and two games were rained out. Max had his game and won again, they are undefeated this season! Despite the rain the kids still had a great time visiting with "Grammie". June called "Grammie"..."Gu"(with the short U sound)and spent quite a bit of time getting to know her better.

We have friends and family in Houston and our thoughts and prayers are with them. Hopefully it will not take too long to get somewhat back to normal. Have a great week!

Lesson learned....

Buy an external hard drive for your computer!!!!! Today, I had to restore my computer back to factory settings. I was very unorganized in my backup technique.....I was able to get almost everything back, however, it would have been much easier with an extra drive. Many of my pictures were at Walgreens.com and now I have to pay lots of $$$$ to have them loaded to a disc so I can reload them to my computer....UGH!!!:(

One year ago.....

It is hard for me to believe, but one year ago today we started on a journey of a life time. Our journey to China.....What an incredible year it has been.

Thank you pics.....

June's favorite show to watch is "Monster's Inc.". When we went to the Dave concert Aunt MT stayed with the kids and watched "Monster's Inc." over and over....needless to say she thought June needed some buddies. Thanks!
This super cute outfit is from "Becca", the pants finally fit and we plan on wearing it a lot!

Thanks!

A week in review.......

Today after church we headed off to the zoo. It was a beautiful day, sunny, slight breeze, and around seventy degrees. It seems that when are family goes to the zoo we spend more time walking around, eating, playing at the playground, and riding the rides than looking at the animals. Today was no exception. We did, however, look at the fish....June loves the fish. At the farm in the zoo today the kids were able to husk popcorn and then sample it after it was popped, we also had ice cream from the dairy bar. The pictures below were from our family day at the zoo. June in the butterfly garden.

June and Dad on the carousel.

Four faces actually looking the same direction.

June and Mom.

Mom and the kids.

Husking the popcorn.

Sweet smiling June.

Our whole week went by rather quick and was fairly uneventful. As some of you may remember TJ plays the trumpet in the band, well this week Jake joined the band at school. Jake's instrument of choice....the trombone. I do not think he realizes the case is taller than he is. I hope he likes it. TJ has been playing for three years (Yikes!)and if Jake sticks with it they will both be in the middle school band together next year.

We had a great football weekend. Both Max's team and Jake's team won. Jake's team won in overtime. Next Saturday we add soccer pictures and a soccer game into our crazy Saturday schedule.

Let's talk school clothes...Ugh! I made my third trip to the store for jeans for TJ. Just like most men the first two time he tried them on and said they were okay just to get out of the store quickly. The first time I actually sent Russ with him, they came home with 3 pairs of jeans and everyone was happy:), especially me. I thought to myself I am always sending Russ to buy jeans. Well, even after washing they were too big, we are saving those for spring. Next trip, yesterday....jeans too big. Tonight, just right! Finally. Do you know they make "skinny" jeans for tween boys, not very attractive at all.

Little miss June turned 18 months on Friday. She is continuing to grow at a good pace and is the 75th percentile for height and 50th percentile for weight. She is adding new words every couple of days and tries to repeat things a lot more than she did a week ago. As you saw from the pictures earlier this week, she loves to go in the garden. June picks the yellow cherry tomatoes and eats them right off the vine. Today at the farm in the zoo she had the chance to try a "Spoon" tomato, it was yellow and smaller than a blueberry, I hope to find the seeds to grow some next summer.

All in all a good week....on to the next, hope you have a good one!

June and the nightgown....

I have literally been waiting years for my daughter to wear this nightgown. I bought it while we waited for 2&1/2 years to meet our adorable June. I imagined the sound of her diaper rustling as she ran down the hallway. Finally, it fits!

This is just Junie hanging around on the couch with her blankies and a friend she decided to carry around for a while today. She carries her blankies everywhere. The dark pink one is special because we bought it at a store in Guangzhou that donates it's profits to Chinese Orphans.

June Bug............

Yesterday we spent the afternoon swimming at our neighbor's house. Their youngest daughter "R" (pictured with June in the pool), loves June. "R" gave the shirt June is wearing above to June today. The picture of June is not great but the shirt says, "June Bug". The shirt is from a cute web-site called June-Bug girls. Thanks "R", June is going to be lucky to have you as a friend as she grows up!