It looks like this basement is going to have to be turned into a bedroom after all. The question now is-whose bedroom will it be?

Happy Birthday Keith!

 

 

Tomorrow is Keith's birthday, so I decided to bake him a cake. I thought I would experiment and try to bake him a multi-layer cake, but it didn't quite turn out like I expected. One layer was too thin on one side, so we ended up just eating it out of the pan. I didn't have enough icing either, that's why you are only seeing the view from the top. It's the thought that counts right?

 

 

 

A few Christmas pictures.

Adoption Update: We have all of the documents for the homestudy and should be receiving the last document for the dossier any day now. Next, we'll send the dossier to the adoption agency to look over to see if we need to make any corrections. Once our homestudy and dossier are approved and our fees are paid we'll be matched up with the children on the "waiting child" list that we're praying about or we'll request to wait for a referral of a specific sex/age of two children. It will be significantly faster to accept the two boys on the "waiting child" list. We have contacted an adoption clinic here that is going to look at their medical tests to give us their opinion on the health of these boys. One boy is 3 and the other is 4, I can't put their pictures on here, but they're cute boys.

 

 

Our Christmas tree looks better in person, it looks pretty skinny in this picture.

Adoption Update:
We have our one and only homestudy meeting tonight. The dossier is coming along nicely, I am waiting on only a couple of things. As soon as our homestudy is completed we are able to apply for adoption grants.

Pho

 

Keith made us a nice pot of Pho for supper. It's still hard for me to eat this after 3 years. It seemed like all 27 days that we were in Vietnam, we ate this at least once a day.

Adoption Update: We started on our dossier and everything is going well so far. We will have our homestudy visit on December 1st, we only have one visit this time since it's going to be just an update. We originally requested 2 girls, but this probably is not going to happen unless a sibling group of 2 girls comes open. It seems that people are more willing to adopt girls, so already having two boys, I just know how sweet boys can be, so we may end up with two more boys. Race would love to have some basketball competition, I'm sure.

Hope is Fading – Orphan Sunday from Allan Rosenow on Vimeo.

 

Van eating a smore(minus the hershey). By the looks of his face, I think he enjoyed it!

Adoption Update:
still working on paperwork for our homestudy and some follow-up with the application for the adoption agency

 

We have been in Georgia for the past week, Keith's granny passed away last Wednesday, she was 89 years old. Some things I remember about her:
she liked cats
she loved flowers
we went blackberry and pea picking together a time or two
she loved to have a visit from Race, even in his rambunctious years (Race and I would go for walks when he was pretty young and we'd stop by Papa and Granny's house pretty regularly to chat)

What is your child learning in school?

 

Race is learning the many uses of erasers.

The boys are still sleeping this morning. I have been working on my verses for Sunday School, we are working on memorizing the book of 1 John.

Exciting News-We are adopting from Ethiopia through All God's Children International. We are requesting a girl between the ages of 18 mos-4.5 years. We would like to get siblings, but we do not know if that is a possibility for us right now. We know to hold things loosely when it comes to international adoption. The time frame is anywhere from 6-21 mos. I think. If you a referred a waiting child it goes a lot quicker, but the children on the waiting list right now seem to be older than we are requesting. Our agency requires that the adopted child be at least 10 mos. younger than the youngest child in your home.

3 years ago we headed off

 

Three years ago today we boarded a plane headed for Hanoi, Vietnam. Just the day before we were at the Immigration office here in Louisville being told that we did not need to board that plane and leave because they did not have Van's immigration document ready. But, God had different plans. He worked through friends, family and acquaintances to get this document where it needed to be when it needed to be there.

What a sad picture of Van. Just to know him now, a boy full of smiles and words, lots of words, sometimes too many words.

I am looking forward to Vietnam possibly reopening for adoption in January.

Happy 12th Birthday Race

 

Race was trying to figure out what the gift was before he pulled it out.

Mr. Cat Head

 

 

 

 

Couponing 101

 

 

 

Pooch wants to learn how to clip coupons, so here are a few pictures from our lesson.

 

Well, we are about 3 weeks into school and it's been challenging. I will have to say that 7th grade so far has a heavier workload than I expected.

Van went for a speech evaluation and done great, he does not need any help, he is on target for his age. I felt kind of dumb after the meeting, because I was expecting him to pronounce everything correctly and the evaluator said that he's not expected to say certain things clearly until he's around 5. So, now I am trying to find a Mother's day out program for him that's not too far from our house, but no such luck so far.

The kitties are headed to the snip clinic (no need to explain, I hope) on the 7th. Our cats are roaming into our neighbors' yards too much, so we are going to get them fixed and licensed and bring them inside. This was not our intentions going into this. I guess I have to remember that I am living in the city now and it's not normal for cats to roam wherever they please. Van loves these cats too much for us to give them away, so we'll see how it goes.

Van's best friend

 

 

 

Van loves these cats, especially the yellow one, Pooch. Pooch is extremely patient with Van. He's been thrown into the pool, had his tail pulled, toted by the skin and you name it and he still comes back for more.

Family Shots

 

 

 

 

We took a few family photos while Granna and Poppy were here.

weekend activities

 

 

 

Poppy and Granna spent the weekend with us and on Saturday we went to the top of Iroquois Park and looked out onto the city.

eew

 

Keith found this lovely tobacco worm and another one like him with eggs on it eating our tomato plants. Keith and Van were the only ones that would dare touch this slimy little creature.

The boy never leaves a man, Keith acted like he was going to put this thing on me and Race and we started backing up, threatening and giving him the eye, so he didn't end up putting it on us.