VBS

D'Angelo went to VBS last week. He had a great time and was sad that he would not be going again next week. I think there is at least one more VBS in the beginning of August I can get him into at a church close to home. I had a tiring week running him back and forth. He was there from 9-noon each day which meant I had to have all 6 kids in the car by 8:30, listen to Adeline cry all the way home about her D'Angelo being gone and how she is old enough to go to Bible school, got back home about 9:30, then had to wake the twins from their much needed nap to be in the car by 11:30 to pick D up. We would get home close to 12:45, eat lunch and then I would try to get these guys to nap but each day just didn't work out well. All I kept telling myself was that it wasn't about me, D'Angelo was enjoying his special week of fun. Yesterday I took all the kids with to the closing celebration. Thankfully Rick was able to come in the begining for the church part. I don't think it would have gone too well for me alone. The rest of the day was enjoyable but we were all exhausted by the time we finally got into the car to go home at 3:00! LONG DAY.

here he is on his way into class Monday morning

closing program on Friday morning Adeline did not want her picture takenAdeline & D'Angelo helping during the magic show
Auggie & Ade showing off their body art
D'Angelo running around playing with the water outside

sharing a bottle of water

naughty, naughty, I thought Oliver was being a little too quiet!

Last Saturday I went to Ikea to buy Tia a crib but they were oversold, must go back & try again this week. D'Angelo & Adeline went with me and had a fun time checking out all the stuff in the kids area. They especially liked the bunk beds. Adeline actually kicked off her shoes and tried to get under the covers. Here is what the bunk bed looks like in boys' room. I decided to buy it and so glad I did. It has been much easier getting kids to sleep in their own beds! Of course, now Adeline wants a new bed too.

X & O being cute

Adeline showing off her new outfit that Ruick made for her

thanks RuRu

"God brought us together as a family."

ADOPTION FINALIZATION!

It’s official. On July 1st 2008 D’Angelo & Augustine’s adoption was finalized.

What an exciting and emotional day!! Finalization is the last formal step in the adoption process and the official beginning of our new family. As soon as the judge signs the adoption order, we gained permanent legal custody of our boys.

D’Angelo was placed with us when he was 10 days old on Wednesday, September 29, 2004

It was 1371 days from his placement date to his adoption finalization date!
How else can we count all these days?
3 years, 9 months, 2 days
118,454,400 seconds
1,974,240 minutes
32,904 hours
195 weeks (rounded down)

Augustine was placed with us on

Monday, November 21, 2005

It was 953 days from his placement date to his adoption finalization date!
How else can we count all these days?
2 years, 7 months, 10 days excluding the end date
82,339,200 seconds
1,372,320 minutes
22,872 hours
136 weeks (rounded down)

This is absolutely wonderful, we are so blessed. They melted our hearts the first time they were placed in our arms. It has been a long journey and we thank God for the miracle of creating our family and making it forever.

ART DAY

Thanks to Kathy who invited up to 30 kids from our Moms group to participate in her Art Day. This semester Kathy is teaching "Creative Arts in Early Childhood" at a local college. Yesterday each of her students presented an art activity for kids (18 mos-6 yrs). The big boys are at my Mom & Darrell's so I was able to make this a special Mommy daughter day for Adeline & me. Adeline had an great time and enjoyed getting really messy!

This was a great idea. I have done a version of this using a small box to roll around marbles or golf balls with paint but I loved how the kids were able to really move around, jump and have fun while holding the pool. Adeline & I are going to do this with D'Angelo & Auggie sosmeday soon.

Mini pinatas were available to decorate.
Glue and jello go well together on paper.Most kids had very bright beautiful creations. Adeline just kept mixing it all up.

I have been such a slacker when it comes to scrap booking. I have not completed any of the kids first year albums yet. I am the queen of random pages! I just work on whatever strikes me at the time. So, I am now on a mission to get these baby books started and completed. I worked on D'Angelo's album Friday night 7pm-2am and again Saturday from 11:30am-2:00 am. I did take a break to go eat dinner at Noodles though. Thanks to my friend Debbie for opening up her home to me and the other ladies this weekend! I made some good progress but I still have a long way to go. I have so many pictures of D'Angelo's first year I could almost do a page a day. Seriously, it's the typical first child scenario- TONS of pictures. I am supposed to go out scrapping again Tuesday night. Do I ever sleep? Not as much as I should. I will let you know that I was tired this morning and it took effort to get up and get to church.

Here are some photos from the week.

We were supposed to go to the spray park Wednesday morning but it rained and rained. We then decided last minute to meet up with my friend Debbie and her daughter Taylor at Nibbles play cafe. The kids had a great time there.

scuba anyone?
howdy

Xavier was very happy to push, pull and carry the chairs around.

beautiful face painting Adeline

Thursday morning we had a playgroup at Lake Arlington with our friends from MOPS. Then we went to another park a little later on our own.

not a care in the world...how far away from Mom can we wander?

Ahhhh, the great discovery!

Oliver is way too curious! No more pictures-I must get him out of the mud puddle.

I'm smiling, I'm smiling.

little boys, where are your table manners? With the amount of food these two get on the floor we could feed another set of twins.

Here is a picture of Tia from Saturday... she is 3 months old already!

A few pictures from the weekend.

It was a bit too chilly for playing in a pool so I didn't dress them for it. Xavier is smart enough to just put his feet into the water while Oliver is ready to jump on in.

This is how the big boys enjoyed the pool Saturday
Oliver
Poster for why young toddler's should not be encouraged to use markers.

Can you see the very blue mouth?

Minnie Pearl is looking for that hat Adeline!

A D'Angelo funny

We have a grocery store here named Jewel. I rarely shop at Jewel so it doesn't get mentioned often in our house. Yesterday I commented that I needed to go to the grocery store Jewel after running into Walmart. I had taken the big kids to buy flashlights at Walmart because it is something they have been asking for. Well, Adeline started feeling ill while we were in Walmart so I told the kids we were going home. D'Angelo got very upset and kept telling me he wanted to go to Diamond's. I couldn't figure out what he was talking about. Until he said, DIAMONDS THE GROCERY STORE! Apparently he forgot the name Jewel but it made him think of a diamond.

It is a rainy day here and I have a bunch of kids who are tired slow movers today. They should be eating lunch right now but I haven't prepared it yet. I have Tia, X & O napping and the big three watching a video so I decided to check my email and read blogs. I ran across this list today on a friends blog and have seen it a few other times recently. It looked interesting so here it goes.
The ones in bold are the things that pertain to me. What's on your list?

Bought everyone in the bar a drink
Swam with wild dolphin
Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
Been inside the Great Pyramid
Held a tarantula
Taken a candle lit bath
Said I love you and meant it
Hugged a Tree
Bungee jumped
Visited Paris
Watched a lightening storm at sea
Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
Seen the Northern Lights
Gone to a huge sports game
Walked the stairs to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa
Grown and eaten your own vegetables
Touched an iceberg
Slept under the stars
Changed a baby’s diaper
Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
Watched a meteor shower
Gotten drunk on champagne
Given more than you can afford to charity
Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
Had a food fight
Bet on a winning horse
Asked out a stranger
Had a snowball fight
Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
Held a lamb
Seen a total eclipse
Ridden a roller coaster
Hit a home run
Danced like a fool, not caring who watched
Adopted an accent for an entire day
Actually felt happy about your life, even for a moment
Had two hard drives for your computer
Visited all 50 states
Taken care of someone who was too drunk
Had amazing Friends
Danced with a Stranger in a foreign country
Watched wild whales
Stolen a sign
Hitchhiked in Europe
Taken a road-trip
Gone rock climbing
Midnight walk on the beach
Gone sky diving
Visited Ireland
Been heartbroken longer than you were in love
In a restaurant sat at a stranger’s table and ate with them
Visited Japan
Pretended to be a superhero
Sung karaoke
Lounged around in bed all day
Posed nude in front of strangers
Gone scuba diving
Kissed in the rain
Played in the mud
Played in the rain
Gone to a drive-in theater
Visited the Great Wall of China
Started a business
Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
Toured ancient sites
Taken a martial arts class
Played a computer game for more than 6 hours straight
Gotten married
Been in a movie
Crashed a party
Gotten divorced
Gone without food for 5 days
Made cookies from scratch
Won first prize in a costume contest
Ridden a gondola in Venice
Gotten a tattoo
Rafted the Snake River
Been on television news program as an “expert”
Got flowers for no reason
Performed on a stage
Been to Las Vegas
Recorded Music
Eaten shark
Had a one-night stand
Gone to Thailand
Bought a house
Been in a combat zone
Buried one/both of your parents
Been on a cruise ship
Spoken more than one language fluently
Performed in Rocky Horror
Raised children
Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
Picked up and moved to another city
Walked on the Golden Gate Bridge
Sang loudly in the car and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
Had plastic surgery
Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have
Wrote articles for a large publication
Lost over 100 lbs
Held someone while they were having a flashback
Piloted an airplane
Petted a stingray
Broken someone’s heart
Helped an animal give birth
Won money on a TV game show
Broken a bone
Gone on an African safari
Had a body part below the neck pierced
Fired a rifle, shotgun or pistol
Eaten mushrooms gathered in the wild
Ridden a horse
Had major surgery
Had a snake as a pet
Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
Slept for more than 30 hours over 48 consecutive hours
Visited more foreign countries than US States
Visited all 7 continents
Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
Eaten Kangaroo meat
Eaten sushi
Had your picture in the paper
Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
Gone back to school
Parasailed
Petted a cockroach
Eaten fried green tomatoes
Read the Iliad
Selected one important author who you missed school to read
Killed and prepared an animal for eating (fish)
Skipped all of your school reunions
Communicated with someone without sharing a common language
Been elected to public office
Written your own computer language
Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
Had to put someone you love in hospice care
Build your own PC from parts
Sold your own artwork to someone that didn’t know it was yours
Had a booth in a street fair
Dyed your hair
Been a DJ
Shaved your head(only from the top of my ears down)
Caused a car accident
Saved someone’s life

Now I need to go make my kiddos lunch :)

Monday evening we met our friend Debbie and her daughter Taylor at the park to hear the community band play. My kids think it's neat that their good friend Taylor's daddy plays the drums in the band. Every time we play at Taylor's house my kids peer into Scott's music room & tell me they want to play the drums. What kid doesn't want to play the drums? The music this Monday was great for kids. They played "Tunes from Toons" that included music from The Little Mermaid, Grease!, The Lion King, Ratatouille, and High School Musical to name a few. The kids had a blast dancing and running around. Debbie and I agreed that since the kids did well Monday night and weren't terribly crabby children Tuesday we would make this our weekly outing. We're going to include a picnic dinner and enjoy this series for the next 6 weeks.

Here are a few pics at the playground

Listening to the concert

Dancing together

OLIVER

XAVIER

Happy Father's Day
Today we enjoyed a laid back day at home with our good friends Jeff & Susan, their daughter Lucy and dog Enzo.

We have had a fun week.

On Tuesday morning we released our butterflies! The kids were so excited to let them fly into the trees, flowers & clouds. This was a great kit I bought for them. We got 12 itsy bitsy caterpillars that the kids watched rapidly change into big "fluffy" caterpillars. During the metamorphosis stage the kids got anxious waiting for the butterflies to appear. The butterflies emerged over a 3 day time span. We were lucky that all 12 caterpillars survived and became butterflies. The kids enjoyed watching them and feeding them fruit slices. They really enjoyed learning about the life cycle of butterflies. We have a great chart we hung up to refer to, read a whole bunch of books about butterflies, and made lots of art projects that centered on butterflies. I think the kids favorite ones were using the egg cartons to make caterpillars and paining coffee filters to make butterflies. I did make one mistake though. I let the kids use their glitter paint for the butterflies so we have had lots of glitter all over the house. All in all it was a fun learning experience for us and we plan on getting another batch of caterpillars before the weather turns ugly here.

painted lady butterfly

He finally gets one to land on his hand!

D'Angelo is up close with a butterfly