Holiday Hangover!!

Been quiet since Christmas!

We made the mistake of letting the kiddos sleep in their new blowup beds in the playroom Christmas night.  Needless to say they took a while falling asleep. Saturday morning I woke up at 5:45 to the sounds of giggles and laughter and clanking of play dishes :) There was no going back to sleep for either of them.

By Satruday night they were both wiped!! They were both sound asleep by 8:00 and slept till 7:00 this am!!

Here is a little bit of Mary sunshine!  She is showing off my new earrings :)

Here is Gerri's new comforter! Victoria promptly decided she would need to sleep in it :)

Here is my christmas present all set up!

Princess castle and pirate skull rock :)

There are 4 fish in there, but they are hiding.

Tomorrow Danny will be back at art camp for 2 days. Then we will take a couple of day trips, maybe the beach :) Wanna come???

Danny showing off his big gift!

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Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday!!

Merry

Christmas!!

Colored coded :) Victoria on the left, Gerri in the middle and Danny to the right.

Sorry it is blurry - they were moving fast!

Here Victoria is saying Thank you Santa for my magic wand!

Dan opening up his stocking, full of hand warmers!!

Victoria's big present from Daddy and Mommy:

Danny with his big present from daddy and mommy:

Danny mixing our pumpkin bread for breakfast!

Victoria playing with her Princess nail polish! Thank you auntie!

Stocking left full on the mantle till she comes home :)

Gerri's presents waiting for her to open them :)

Happy Birthday Sweetie!!

Here is another pic we got from a family that saw her. So happy to see her playing while stuck in her cast.

Tonight we will eat her birthday cake and take pictures for her :)
Hopefully we will see you in 1-2 months!!!!!
Happy birthday sweetheart! So wish you were with us, but you will be next year :) :)

Merry Christmas Eve!

We got to go to a birthday party for Danny's BEST friend Kirsten!!

Here is Kirsten and Danny in the front with two kids from school

What an awesome cake!!!

Riding on the bounce house!

The kids had a great time! They ran, bounced and played for 3 hours!!

What a great way to pass the day before Santa!!

Hre they are at dinner opening the last day on their advent calendars!

Beautiful! Arts and crafts

I bought some pink nail polish, so Daddy got the honors :)

I also bought some decals! no surprise - she loves them!

Here are Danny's masterpieces from 2 days at art camp!

A picture frame with the sand dollar story

A twist on the traditional gingerbread house:

An underwater scene:

A handrawn Grinch!!

This is so amazing! He has never been able to do anything this hard before!!! Yah Danny!!

and a trail of glitter everywhere!!

Catch Up!!

Last week the kids were off school Tuesday and Wednesday. Their school program was Tuesday night and I guess they needed another day to recuperate :)

On Wednesday we had a sprinkler guy out to add some more piping and heads in the back 40 as we call it. We had it cleared after we bought the house and grass just does not grow well without being watered :(

The pump guy did the original work on the house too. He also upgraded one of our well pumps so we can have enough pressure to run all these sprinklers. Dan and Danny kept the guy company the whole time! Danny was just fascinated by the whole process. Dan said he was very well behaved :)

Here is how I found Ms V. She told me she was getting herself something to eat :)

Man, 3 is so much harder than 2! I do it myself!!!!

She had NO interest in watching the sprinkler guy.

Thursday was a school day for Danny. They got to play outside all day doing reindeer games.

After lunch 2 other mom's and I had a holiday party.

We read christmas books,

decorated holiday goodie bags,

Decorated a book mark

Then the best part was decorating and eating christmas cookies!

I did a little nesting in preparation for our new little one. While Ms V napped downstairs I rearranged her bedroom to make it the "Girls Room". Both kids were so excited!!

Including Maggie (the dog) :)

Ms Gerri already has her first pillow and blanket.

I found this one night when I went to check on the kids at bedtime:

I guess she decided the bed looked too good to not be slept on :)

When I asked her the next morning why she was sleeping in Gerri's bed she told me that she wanted to!

Nana came over on Sunday for a farewell dinner before she headed up north for christmas.

She likes to do the messy stuff, so the kids made and decorated cookies:

If a little sprinkles go a little way, lots of sprinkles go a LONG way!

So pooped out from my long day I can't even eat my lasagna :)

I got her up after about 30 minutes and we took a tubby and got pj's on.

Then Nana brought out the presents

Then the lovin'

Then the obligatory book reading

The kids keep mentioning how much they miss her :(

I hope she enjoys the COLD :)

The kids are out of school for two weeks so Danny has art camp for two days this week and two days next week. He really enjoys it and they do some really cool stuff.

I will take some pics of his crafts and post them.

Our dossier has arrived overseas and is hopefully being translated!

School holiday Party

Last night was the kids holiday show for school.
Victoria had not been feeling well and has had fevers on an off since Tuesday am. We had to make a quick run to the ped, luckily no strep, just a viral infection.
Here she is before the show started with her best friend Addy:

That was before she realized SHE was supposed to get up on stage and sing.

I had to sit on the floor just below her and in between every song she ran of the stage and hugged me. Everyone laughed :)

The following is a sampling, starting with the 3's and 4's singing. Victoria is the one that looks like a deer in the headlights.
The second part is all the kids starting with Kindegarten up to 6th grade all playing violin. You can see Danny looking all around while he is playing.
The third part is the kids from 1st thru 6th grades singing. Danny is in the middle right. He did so much better this year. He sang every song!

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Victoria did ok,but got really antsy as time went on.

Big Big Day!!!!

Big Big day !! Here is a picture of our complete dossier ready to go overseas!!!!

Here is our new family ornament - with all 3 kids!

Victoria and I went to drop off the fedex package after each of us giving it a kiss for good luck. Next door to the drop off was a store so we celebrated by shopping. Ms V picked out 2 of the following, one for her and one for Geri!!

cub scouts party!!

today was the cub scouts holiday party.

here is the three musketeers!

Danny showing off his prize from selling popcorn. He sold the most from his den!

After we all ate way too much it was time for the gift exchange. This kids all sat in a big circle with their gift. As one of the leaders read a story the gift was passed to the right or left depending on what he said. It was so funny and the kids had a great time!

Ms V got two princess headbands that I brought for her to open. Man was she excited!!

First Christmas Party of the season

The kids had thier first christmas party tonight. It was a combination of two of the clubs at school, kids club and cheerleading club. So we had a craft, dinner and dancing party!! It was so much fun! The kids had a great time.

For craft time we made bath salts. It was really easy, just epsom salts, baking soda, salt, smelly stuff and food coloring. Once mixed up they put it in fabric and tied with pretty ribbon. So I now know what I am getting for christmas!

Dinner was lots of fruit, veggies, popcorn, pb & j sandwiches, ham & cheese sandwhiches, mac n cheese, chips and cookies. Best of all the kids all sat on a blanket on the floor picnic style!

Dance time was so much fun! I even got out there with them. Victoria was a bit scared by the commotion so she watched the dancing. Both kids were very tired when we got home :)

Just before they left they got gift bags and this was inside:

It is called a "Buddy" Poppy Panda, put out by the VFW. Inside is the story of the poppy flower that so many associate with VFW fundraisers. The kids love it!

Col. John McCrae was a Canadian who served with British forces during WW1. In 1915, he wrote "In Flanders Fields" after seeing the striking image of bright red poppies blooming among rows of white crosses marking graves of war dead in Belgium.
McCrae, who died of pneumonia and meningitis in a British officers' hospital in 1918, believed that the ideals and causes for which veterans fight and die must always be remembered.

In Flanders Fields by John McCrae
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow,
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky,
The Larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead, Short days ago,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe,
To you from failing hands we throw,
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow,
In Flanders Fields.

Ima big girl now!

Today Victoria told me that she is a big girl and now wants to be called Torri :)
So all day Dan & I kept calling her Torri. Every time we did she would just giggle and laugh :)

Big Day!!!!

Today we got our immigration approval!!! It took less than a month, only a week after fingerprints!
This is our christmas miracle!
It has been sent out for a state stamp and then it will be off to Eastern Europe with the rest of our dossier.
We had hoped to have it over there before Geri's birthday the end of this month and thought it was just a pipedream.
To think we only committed to adopt on 11/11 and here we are with a complete dossier already!!
Absolutely amazing :)

God has really shown us the way in spades!!

We are planning on having Geri's birthday party. The kids are very excited about making a cake for her. We will take pictures and video and then show her later!!

The Princess is In!

I told Victoria that we were going shopping and she said she was getting dressed herSELF!

This is how she came down and very proud of it!

Here she is telling one of her subjects to back off and bow down :)

She got lots of attention while out :)