Fun At The Races!

Today was the AWANA Grand Prix races!  The kids always have a great time, especially the biggest kid H.O.!  There were some amazing, creative designs, we had a hot dog, a spider on a web, a space ship and a Big Ben Clock, just to name a few.  Our guys went for more traditional cars, Andrew did decide to make the church van.

Our kids all won several races in different heats, H.O. had really hoped Carrie Anne would win a trophy because she never has.  Abby was enjoying every moment, she smiled from ear to ear!  When it came to the final race the winners from the four elimination heats raced for first, second and third place.  Abby won second place and Taylor won third place.  The first place trophy went to Abby's friend Addie, also adopted from China.  It was great to see her win, as she had never won before!

Abby won second place last year also but she was not there to enjoy, she was in the hospital and Carrie Anne ran her car for her.  So, really this was her first race and she enjoyed every minute!

H.O. is thinking he should start on next year's cars now as he will have six to make next year!  But ....part of the fun is scrambling the week of the race to get them all done!

GRREEEEEN!

The exciting process has started of rearranging bedrooms and preparing our house for two new little guys!  Two weeks ago we painted what was our guest bedroom and is now Andrew's room. 

Well... we let Andrew pick his color, he choose bright, limey green and then I proposed a couple of shades lighter than the color he choose, explaining it would look darker and brighter once the whole room was that color.  He took my advice and I'm now wishing I had toned it down a bit more!!

My wonderful sister is a realtor and I know if she were selling our house she would walk in and sweetly recommend we paint that room before we listed it for sale!!

But...Andrew loves it!!  It screams Andrew!  

Then, last weekend H.O. built Andrew a loft/floating type bed.  Andrew had put much thought into the design of this bed, he could not be happier with the results.  

He thinks he has the coolest room in the house!!

LOA!! Woo Hoo!

L

O

A

What is LOA??

                    L =Letter          O =Of          A =Acceptance

Oh Yeah!!

This is the official approval stating that we may adopt Caleb and Seth!!  We are praising God at our house!!!  We received the wonderful news late yesterday afternoon.  The girls and I were grocery shopping when my phone showed a call from Alabama, I was so hoping it was wonderful news and not stating there was a problem.  Oh, and wonderful news it was!!  

We have some immigration hoops to jump through so that our sweet boys will be U.S. citizens when our plane lands in the good ole U.S.A. and then we will be China bound!  Our agency is estimating we should travel in about 2 1/2 months.  It is so exciting to get emails talking about obtaining visas and travel plans.

          

Getting closer to these precious faces!

Caleb Joseph

Seth Curtis

Tight-rope Walking

Abby is often walking a tight rope, balancing between silly/giggly and over the top silly!  Her smile and laugh are contagious!  

Last night she played the offertory for the first time on the piano at church.  She practiced her song hundreds of times!!  When they called her out of Awana, we walked to the main church building, as we approached the doors of the sanctuary she had a mix of silliness and nerves and started to giggle!  Well, as Andrew used to tell me, "Mommy, I have a laughing disease, I can't help it!"  Abby had a laughing disease, it was time to walk in and she could. not. stop. laughing!!  I just did not look at her, because if I did she would start to laugh again.  Finally, she got it together and she walked in, her and another sweet little guy played their songs and out they ran, smiles from cheek to cheek!  

She did a great job, but it really would not have mattered because the folks at our church love children so much they would say "AMEN" and praise them for having the nerve to play the piano, good or bad!

After being so nervous as she ran out (of course after getting candy from Papa Jack) she looked up at me and asked how did I do?  I responded, Great job Sweetie!  She smiled and asked when do I get to play again?  So, I guess it wasn't as bad as she thought!!

God's spitt'in?!?

In our part of the country snow is very unpredictable.  Some winters we get none, sometimes an inch or two, and occasionally a foot.  Abby has been so hoping for a good amount of snow to play in.  In the past two weeks we have had 3 different days where snow fell, two times were only an inch or less and once we made it to about two inches, that quickly melted.

Well....

Andrew passed the window one day last week and said, "Oh, it's spitting some snow".  Abby's eyes got really large and looked at me and ran to the window and then looked back at me and said, "God spits snow????"  At first we went with it and said yes, then we explained the saying to her.  But, oh what a wonderful mental picture that provokes and oh the wonderful thoughts of children.

The girls playing while the snow was falling.

So... next time you have a few flurries falling picture God spitting His beauty down on us!

And then the beauty of our region of the country... today we hit 70 degrees and Friday it is suppose to be back in the 30's!!

Happy Birthday Taylor!

I can not believe that Taylor celebrated his 18th birthday this weekend!  It seems like I was just rocking him to sleep and now I look up at him!  Whew, how the time flies.  Some days we laughed and some days, well... I cried, it has not always been easy, but poor thing he was our oldest, our guinea pig :)!  He is protective and cautious, a debater :) and loving.  My prayer is he will always put God first in his life.  I look forward to seeing how the Lord leads and uses him!

Taylor opening his presents, his card tells him to go look in the trailer for his gift.

We had hid his gift in the trailer!

Taylor's pick, a chocolate cheesecake!

We love you Taylor!

LID!

We received notice yesterday that our dossier was logged into the Chinese system on 12/24/12.  Now we wait for the biggest approval yet, the wonderful news of LOA, Letter of Acceptance.  That states that we are approved to be parents to Caleb and Seth!  The LOA can come anywhere from 30-90 days after LID, with the current average being 50-60 days.  So, 10 down only 50ish to go!! :)  After we receive our LOA we will jump through a few more hoops, do some more paperwork and travel about 3 months later! 

So.......we wait!  Can't wait to get to our boys!!