Baby Moon

 

We took a quick weekend baby moon trip to Memphis at the beginning of this month.  I had never been to Memphis before and wanted to see the city.  We went to the Memphis zoo to see the pandas, visited Graceland, ate barbeque, saw the ducks in the fountain at the Peabody Hotel, walked on Beale street, and road the trolley in downtown Memphis.  It was a relaxing, kid-free weekend!

 

Can't say that we are big Elvis fans but it was neat to see all his awards and records.

 

Pool at Graceland

 

Splash Pad Fun

 

The boys love going to the downtown splash pad for some water fun!  We started the summer off with both boys being scared to swim in the water, and we are ending the summer with boys loving it.  Mission accomplished!

Garden

 

I decided to try to plant a garden this year.  I'm not sure what possessed me to plant one this year being fairly pregnant and all, but I couldn't get it out of my head that I needed to plant this year.  So the large pregnant woman has been out there hoeing, planting, watering, weeding, and harvesting her garden this summer.  Last year I didn't even attempt it, probably from the sense of failure I had from the previous year.  Two years ago I had planted a beautiful garden along our fence line since the area was already sectioned off with stones and looked like a perfect place for a garden.  Everything was growing and we were starting to get some produce when my neighbor decided it would be a great idea to spray some heavy duty weed killer along the fence line that killed every living plant including my whole garden.  So this year I planted far away from the neighbor.   I had someone come and plow up a large section in the back of our yard and got to work planting.  I was a bit over ambitious on the produce I attempted to grow, some of it thrived and some of it died rather quickly.  I guess I'm better off buying certain produce in the grocery store or farmers market

 

Plants that Thrived:  tomatoes, zucchini, squash, peppers, butternut squash, cucumbers, collard greens, basil

Plants that Died:  swiss chard, beets, kale

Care Packages!

We got to send care packages to the girls this month.  Since you can't send them packages directly in the mail, you have to wait till someone from our agency travels over there and takes them with.  My sweet sister Kristin bought most of the items to send to them, and cousin Maddy helped with donating 2 outfits as well.   

 



 

Our little African princess's package

 

All of it has to fit in a gallon bag.  I packed it full!

 

Our older princess's package

 

It was much harder to fit a larger dress and shoes in the bag!

Summer WI trip

The kids loved my dad's church's new indoor playground

 

Guess who loves to be naked?  At least we  have been able to get him to keep his swim trunks on at the public pool.  The first time at the YMCA pool this year he kept trying to take his trunks off the whole time yelling, "I just want to be naked!"

Little brother pulling big brother

 

Riding on the zoo train with Grandma & Aunt Nancy

My parents have Go Carts.  The kids loved riding in them

Isaac & Auntie Kristin

Cousin Maddy & Isaac

 

Auntie Tammy & Isaac

Cousin love.  Micah loves playing and following cousin Maddy around

They visited an alpaca farm.  We even got to try some alpaca meat that week.  Isaac loved it!

We Accepted an Adoption Referral!

We accepted an adoption referral for two girls from DRC this past month.  On May 31st we decided to take a referral for a sweet girl on the waiting child page that tugged at our hearts.  She is older than we had planned to adopt, but know God has bigger plans for our family than we have.  We have been secretly kicking around the idea the past couple months of accepting two referrals, and decided to go for the second referral.  About 2 weeks later we got a call about another referral for a sweet little girl that was with our same lawyer.  Unfortunately we cannot share information or pictures on public sites for the girl's safety for awhile. 

Our case is submitted to the courts in DRC.  Once we pass court and are legally the girls' parents in the eyes of the DRC government we will be able to share some information and maybe even post a picture!
 The court process will take 8-12 weeks, sometimes longer.

After court, we file our I600 which is the US process to declare the girls a close relative.  After the I600, we have our investigation period, and then after that we can get the girls' visa and travel to pick them up.

So we still have a loooong way to go.  Our estimated travel time is April-July 2014.

Summer Fun

 

Here are some pictures of the boys playing outside.  It seems like we spend the majority of our free time outside.  The boys are loving it and pregnant mama loves that they are entertained and burning some energy.

 

Micah is 2.5 years old now.  He is full of energy, loves to run around outside, play with trains and cars, talk your ear off, and is a sweet younger brother to Isaac.  This summer he is a peer model at Isaac's school and has been loving going there.

 

 

Isaac has been loving the outdoors this spring and summer more than years past.  We love frequent outings to the park and jumping on the trampoline.  Isaac is working on mastering his ABC's right now, and he is a little stinker some days pretending to not know any and then the next day getting most right.  He is still a sweet, gentle older brother to Micah.