First Father's Day

I remember before the boys came experiencing grief over all the "firsts" I would miss having meet them 4 and 6 years into life. Now, I realize we just get to experience a lot of "firsts" in a different way! Our first year is quickly coming to a close so I am soaking every single "first" for all it's worth! Our first Father's Day was such a sweet time to let Jeff know just how much we love and appreciate him! The boys each decorated a home made card with this sweet saying, "You are the worlds best dad...hands down!" with their sweet little hands traced inside. I don't claim any of the ideas here as my own...Thank God for the Internet!

I also had each boy tell me what kinds of things they would want to do/places they would go with him if they could plan their own one on one day with Dad. I thought it was a good thing for Jeff because his favorite love language to receive is quality time.

"J" chose to go to Chick-Fila and enjoy some time outside. So, I planned a picnic in the park with a kite, bubbles, a catch game, and a gift card for ice cream as a finale!
"A" knew right away that he wanted to go to TGI Fridays and the movies. I threw in a few of Jeff's favorite candies and popcorn to tie it all together!
I also made Jeff some brownies with chocolate icing and decorated them with cream cheese icing. It is his favorite kind-as in eat it right out of the can with a spoon with absolutely no shame! :) Now, I think that is one proud poppa if I do say so myself!
We also got to spend some time with my sweet daddy and their Poppa D today which is always fun!

We had hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, baked beans, and deviled eggs! SO yummy! I love to see my sweet dad loving on my boys and I can't imagine two better examples for them to follow than he and my amazing husband! Thank God for these men that love the Lord teaching my boys how to be a man of character!

The Long Awaited Update

That may seem like a strange title to those of you that are frequent readers. Though I'm guessing there aren't many of you left since a lot of the joy of reading blogs is looking at pictures and ours are all of the backs of our kids' heads. So silly looking!

Anyway my posts, though still not daily, are more consistent lately and for that I am proud. However, I have provided very little information updating you on the adoption process. That will come in this very post, but I am going to build some anticipation by making you wait....I know, not fair, but oh so fun!

I always stress majorly over teachers' gifts!! I just love our boys' teachers dearly and appreciate their dedication to our kiddos even more! So, nothing, particularly that I can afford, seems like enough! This year I polled my teacher friends for ideas and they recommended gift cards. I didn't want to just give a gift card in an envelope so I made a "welcome to your relaxing summer vacation kit". I found a similar idea here. Our version had a pretty beach towel rolled up and tied with ribbon and a travel size bottle of sun screen, in a small beach bag I got at Target for the cost of a plain old gift bag, and a sweet thank you card complete with a Sonic gift card! I went for the "if I were a teacher this is what I would want" factor. Hopefully they liked it, but if not I heard there is some sort of gift card swap teachers do. I'm pretty sure it is somewhat secretive, but I just put it on my blog so I guess it isn't a secret any longer! ;) Anyway, here's a picture of the finished product.

Today is the first full day of summer vacation and we celebrated by having a donut breakfast and playing outside with sidewalk chalk and the sand box. Looks like it will be a frequent occurrence this summer! Not the donuts...that is a VERY rare treat at our house with 2 extremely energetic boys. But the chalk and outdoor play is here to stay though we may have to do most of it in the shade with this crazy Houston heat!
Now on to the adoption update. We are still doing back of the head pictures so I'm sure you have guessed the adoption is not finalized and this is true. In fact it seems it will be a few more months still. I have had a lot of questions and I know it seems like it is taking forever so thanks for continuing to show interest. It has not been an easy road, though I will argue with anyone that thinks periods of waiting are ever easy. We finished up 2009 with some certainty that we would be able to adopt the boys, but the new year brought a giant road bump that looked like a closed door. It was one of the most difficult times of our lives made even more difficult by the inability to share our situation in it's entirety with you, our sweet friends and family. However, in March the apparent closed door swung wide open in a way that only God could have orchestrated. PRAISE GOD who is the Author and Perfecter of our Faith and Sovereign over every aspect of our lives! We were notified that we are in fact the family that has been chosen by the state to adopt the boys and we are over joyed! The waiting isn't over though.

The next step is for us to read the boys' file with all the information that the state has regarding their history. We can't do this until the file is redacted. This is some sort of legal process of taking out aspects of the wording before it can be released. Anyway, it has been taking on average of 5 1/2 months in our county for this process to be completed!! And, it couldn't start until we were chosen to adopt the boys so....If you do the math it will still be 2 or 3 months before we can read the file! Ridiculous I know, but bureaucracy is by nature slower than Christmas! Though we know in our hearts that we are a complete family and the name change is a formality, we truly are so eager to complete this process. We want to go on with life as a family of 4 minus all the extra people and scrutiny! At the same time, we recognize that our wait is very short and has been filled with much less uncertainty in comparison to most people that chose to adopt through the foster care system. On that note, we have experienced such joy in witnessing 3 families who have deeply touched our lives and encouraged us in our adoption process finalize adoptions over the last couple of months! We have seen God work through the beautiful process of adoption to change these lives forever! Therefore, we are encouraged to wait on Him to move in our situation as well because He is so very good to us! Thank you all for your love, encouragement, and most of all your prayers!

P.S.: This clearly should have been 2 separate posts so thanks for hanging in there with me!

Guess Who's Heading for First Grade

We had an exciting week beginning the end of school. A's teacher did something I've never seen before in letting each child that has a summer birthday celebrate their own special day during the last few days of class. "A" got to celebrate his July birthday last Tuesday with cupcakes and a birthday hat! On Thursday we got to celebrate "A" again, along with all his kindergarten classmates. With just a couple of days of school left, they had their kindergarten awards' ceremony. They were so sweet singing their little songs they had been working on, complete with hand motions and receiving their certificates of completion of kindergarten! Who can resist this cuteness? NOT this momma, for sure!

Soccer, Swimming and Sun Burns=Start of Summer!

This past Wednesday Jeff and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary. If you read the previous post you know we celebrated last weekend in Dallas, but on the actual day I received these gorgeous flowers! They are extra special because the roses in my bridal bouquet were the exact same shade of pink!

We celebrated at home by ordering pizza with the kiddos. I love how that is such a joy to me now...Wow how life has changed over the last 3 years!

We filled the weekend with more family fun! I guess we were making up for lost time since we were apart from the boys last weekend. And it is definitely a preview of a summer filled with tons of fun family memory making! Thursday night we went to "A"s school for open house/school picnic/yearbook signing. We shared Chick Fil A and hours of sticky hot outdoor fun! We love "A"s school and the whole staff from teachers and nurse to front desk staff! They all adore our little "A" too. In fact this momma is proud to report that all the kids love "A" just as much! He is quite the popular little friendly, smiley guy!

Saturday we spent sweating! We had a 9 am soccer game for "J" and a 2 PM one for "A." In between we went to one of our neighborhood pools with a little splash area that the boys really enjoyed! Looks like we will be frequenting this spot especially since "A" is still pretty terrified of big, deep pools. Somewhere during our hours of sunny fun, we (Jeff and I) got sunburns. Our sweet guys just bronze so thankfully they remain sunburn free! Saturday night after a long nap, we went to our first of many Dynamo soccer games! Our boys love playing soccer and I think they will enjoy watching it as well, especially once they can sit a bit longer at one time.
These games our outdoors of course, but thank goodness the sun went down during it, so the heat was bearable. And really the view of the city in the background made it even more pleasant! The crowd was very engaged and spirited. Our boys spent most of their time inspecting the freebies we got and climbing the bleachers.But the game was pretty amazing to watch! These guys are such stellar athletes, kicking the ball from one end of the field to the other in one giant high flying kick! "A" said he was going to start head butting the ball in his little games so that will be interesting to see. I'm pretty sure that skill takes a lot more practice than he has had so far! And "J" left the game saying he wants to play soccer when he gets big!
"A" really got into cheering and dancing to the Latino music!
All in all our weekend was a blast and I can't wait for more family fun this summer! It will involve substantial sweat with this Houston heat and humidity, but the joy our boys experience is worth any amount of discomfort for their weather wimp of a momma!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Life's been pretty hectic lately so blogging is definitely on the back burner, but I had to get a post in before midnight in honor of our 3rd wedding anniversary today! We planned a weekend away just the two of us a few months ago, well I should say Jeff did. He is really great at planning romantic times for us and this weekend was an amazing example of that! We went to downtown Dallas and stayed in the Hyatt Regency connected to the famous Reunion Tower. I mean really, just look at this picture perfect scene!

We snapped a self portrait before dinner on Saturday in our gorgeous room!
The hotel lobby had a fountain that mimicked the look of Reunion Tower. The artist in me really loved that touch!
Here we are at dinner at this wonderful restaurant we highly recommend called, Craft Dallas! We shared this giant steak, great side dishes, and a yummy chocolate dessert!
Then we were off to a Nickleback concert at the American Airlines Center. All in all, our weekend away was just what the doctor ordered for us and we came back refreshed and reconnected! Praise God for 3 amazing years of marriage to the man of my dreams and falling in love with him all over again while watching him become a father!

Weekend Wrap Up-Mother's Day Edition

We had a wonderful weekend and my boys pampered me with a gift each day, including 2 bouquets of flowers and lots of hugs! I'm also super excited about the spa gift card they gave me to use in the VERY near future! J kept saying I was the princess and they are the three kings! I also got more rest time and the boys had more "guy time." One of the fun "guy" things Jeff and A did was build a wooden car and paint it. We got the kit from one of our new friends and it was a great little project for bounding time! A was a natural with the hammer!

The finished product!
Over the weekend A lost another tooth! He also lost one at school on Friday so he is quite snaggle toothed with 4 missing teeth!
Here is a picture of all my first Mother's Day loot! I sure am one blessed momma! Check out the portrait of me in the left bottom corner...my A is quite an artist!

Much Mommy Love to My Little Loves!

I could not be more excited about celebrating my first Mother's Day with my littlest loves! We started early with two fun events at their schools on Friday. First of I went to Muffins with Mom's at J's Mother's Day Out class. He doesn't usually go on Fridays, but we went just for the event! It was such a sweet time! J chose the chocolate muffin, no surprise there!

The kids made very special gifts for all the moms, a treasure chest they decorated themselves! I will "treasure" it always! His sweet teacher gave J a bigger one to decorate since it was my first Mother's Day! She was so excited and gave me a great big hug! SO sweet! That's my little love in the blue shirt and my green package at the front of the table.
After lunch I went up to A's school for a Mommy Make Over. He was so cute, pampering me with a manicure, pedicure, a massage and of course hair and make up! We shared cookies too! He also made some special art work to give me! Here's a picture of me in all my made over glory, blue eye shadow and all! Thanks Uncle Wade for the idea on that one!
This last photo is a bonus and a preview of our plans for summer fun! We have already started going to one of our community pools and also clocked some hours at Gran and Poppa D's pool! I was editing the pictures and cracked up at this photo.

J walking in like he owned the place, Jeff clearly distracted by the loads of things he is carrying, and a sign that says, "Watch Your Children." HA! Happy Mother's Day and much love from our little fam!