Easter!

We had a great Easter with an incredible combination of friends and family, totaling 80+, and an egg hunt with 600+ eggs. We counted 13 different sports played--softball, frisbee, football, soccer, basketball, hockey, etc. The weather more than cooperated with 70 degrees and sun. Happy Easter!

Not her prince

We have probably thousands of these in our yard. They sing to us every night. Every once in a while one of the little buggers gets brave heads to our house.

Sorry the pictures are blurry - I was falling back in fright as she was doing this.

Sun Buds!!

Easter ready

Kenzie is a big help in the kitchen. She loves to cook and is quite independent. She frequently makes food for herself or the boys. Today she made our famous rainbow eggs.

Stack of boys

First baseball contract :)

Mason's first official signature. We had to show him how to do a cursive A.

Elbows

Kenzie got a little warning in today's first game of the season about her elbows. Atta girl!

Happy Easter / Soccer Season beginning

Baseball time!

Snow + Sun = Fun

We decided to take Bentley, for the first time, with us on our church retreat. He did such a great job and had an amazing time running in the snow.

Display of talent, boy style

Mason and Borja signed up for the talent show and came up with this little number all by themselves.

Undo it

At our church retreat Kenzie sang "Undo It" by Carrie Underwood. It cost me $25 to video tape it and receive permission to put it on the blog...hope you enjoy it.

Social worker update

We had been told the social worker needed to make three home visits and take two months to complete the report. Today she told us this was the only visit, and she should have a draft in a week, and submitted in final within a month.

So...that shaves a month off. She also said expect six months for a placement. And we thought we would travel three months after the referral, but she said it can be as immediate as we want.

Guess what

The Tooth Yanker was at it again.

Step three - adoption

We have a social worker assigned. The home study starts tomorrow. I'm hoping it can be wrapped up in a month, but it may take two.

Kite running

These two were out for quite some time trying to fly the kite. There was wind, but no luck...until she explained to them that one of them had to actually let go of the kite for it to take off. They were both running with it down the street together. Yah.

5th grade concert

Grammy, Grampy and their girl

I'm pretty sure Kenzie has these guys wound tighter around her finger than I ever did...especially her Grampy. She flashes him her brown eyes and he's at her service.

Jump ball!

Great team!

This is such a great group of girls. There is no drama--they just play well together and each one is super nice. Jeff and Marcy, the coaches, were great supporters of the girls and helped them all have fun in the game. I'm glad that Kenzie has this group as they all start to head to middle school next year!!

End of basketball

I'm sad Masons basketball season is over. These guys were so fun to watch, and they play so hard.

Vertical

This might be the first picture I have of these boys vertical. They're wet, dirty, but at least standing up.

Smart move

Last week Mason and his buddies decided to climb the wall, literally, during half time. We yelled across the court for him to get down. Which, after this second picture was taken, is exactly what he did. He jumped from the top rung and landed then sprung forward on his wrist. He had to sit out the rest of the game with an ice pack. While not surprising, we were pleased that the next day when he went to describe the event during the children's sharing time, he started by saying "I did something really stupid yesterday."

Sounders madness

Sounders were not expected to even score, but they had three amazing goals and beat the favored Tigres. The crowd never sat down. The boys were so excited they were hugging the men in the rows around them. The air was electric--this might be Borja's favorite moment this year.

We see it

A day we have been dreading...puberty, drama, emotions...

Middle school is officially around the corner. Pray for us.

Sunny faces

Step two - adoption

We turned in the "final" (for now) paperwork today. Yesterday I talked to the agency and they let me know that the referral could go pretty quickly. They just got their license renewed, and not all agencies did, so they are once again seeing referrals come through. Also, there are 17 people in line ahead of us, but none of them want a kid over 5 years. So she is thinking six months is the longest we will have to wait after we finish with the social worker. Next step--get social worker assigned and complete the home study (2 months).

03-13 adoption update

All of our adoption references have been turned in. (HUGE thank-you to our friends and family who wrote these, some without any warning from us.) I have a doctor's appointment on Tuesday to verify overall health, then I will mail the final paperwork on Tuesday. From this point forward I am guessing it will take a couple of months to complete the homestudy (targeting May), then get submitted for a referral. Best guess is that in about May of 2014 I will be traveling to Ethiopia for the first time to meet our new little guy.

More to go

This picture shows Mason's (lack of) teeth. We just learned that his OTHER front tooth is loose. He was the last kid to lose any teeth, but now they're popping out weekly.

Annnnnd...heeee scooores!!

Dance practice

High School Soccer season...again :)

Borja was excited but nervous the first day of soccer tryouts because he didn't know what to expect. By the end of the second day, he was happy and said there were a lot of good players and he hoped to just make a team. Well......he made it!! He is on the C-team.
I was also able to do some spying again this year and capture some pictures.

Muscles

Our second tolo

Borja went to tolo tonight with Hanna. Lauren, thankfully, came over to dress Borja. We are getting well practiced at this dance thing...Lauren supplied the tie, vest, and belt!

Faces

fun sport

In every picture we have of Kenzie on the court, she has a smile on her face.

She shoots and scores, twice!

Official basketball shots

Of the Bulls, who look more like a football team...and the Rainbow Unicorns