A Quintet

I can't belive how much Bryan's side of the family has grown this year! Within about 6 months we added 5 new members! 3 babies were added with 6 weeks of each other in Nov./Dec. and two new in-laws married in during the month of May. It's been an exciting year and we love each of our new additions!!!

We grabbed a quick family picture after Sam's blessing. It's amazing what a difference a few months and 5 people make!

This was us last summer:

Through this all I've been super impressed with Bryan's parents.  They've taken it all in stride and loved every minute. It takes some serious flexibility to make everything work, and they did! I'm betting we'll never add so many so quickly again, so I just had to mention it!

 I guess it could happen..... lol.

Keep Getting Better

Our best days keep getting better. You know how you say, "This is the best day of my life, nothing could ever be better than this!" Only to be proven wrong down the road when something does? I personally don't mind it. Our best days just keep getting better and better. We recently had one of those days. On September 3rd, we were (finally!!!) able to take our little Sammy to the Temple to be sealed for time and eternity as a family. It was the culmination of 5 yrs of waiting and searching for the next little member of our family. Words honestly cannot express what joy it brought our hearts. Because he is so big for his age, and because he was also older than most children in adoptive sealings (10 months), it was hard to find an outfit that would fit him and that was appropriate for the temple. We finally found one that I loved and that would work in the heat. It was a 24 months size! :o

The boys were little angels, you could tell they felt the spirit of the day. We were so happy to have so many family members there with us. It made it all the more special to share it with them. 

After the sealing we were able to take Sam to Bryan's parent's house to give him a name and a blessing. Even more family members and friends were able to join us which was wonderful!

Sam ate up the attention and did so well. He's really a people person. ;) He and his Uncle Erik are pals.

At the end of the day he just snuggled up in his Daddy's arms and crashed. I don't think he's ever slept so well!

  As we were leaving the Temple that day, Daniel said "Let's come back here, I want to do this again!" I just smiled, I was feeling the exact same way. The Temple Worker who had helped with the children said, "Yes, you need to bring these little boys back with a sister soon." Lol. I can't guarantee a sister, but I can promise we'll work on coming back as a family again sometime soon.

It was a perfect day and that brought finality to the adoption for us. He's ours. He's finally a part of our eternal family. He was so worth the wait and the anguish of the journey to find him.

FINALLY Final!

(Originally written August 12, 2010)

We got a call today telling us that our adoption was finalized today! I'm feeling both elated and like it's a bit anti-climatic. Normally when an adoption is finalized you go to court and at the end of the hearing the magistrate declares it final. Because of all of the hiccups and delays in our case (thanks to an incompetent case worker in Georgia, long story) we went to court on June 23rd, but it wasn't able to be finalized until today. We are so excited to officially be a family of 4!

June 23rd Court Hearing:
When we went to the court house for our finalization hearing we had to go to down town Columbus and up to the 22nd floor!
We waited in the court room for a bit while everything got squared away.

We had a tired baby on our hands. We hoped he would sleep through the proceedings, but he perked right up as soon as there were people in the room. (He's definitely a people person!)

While we waited, we enjoyed the view of Columbus from above through heavily tinted windows. It was a hot, sunny day. You don't get to see a bird's eye view out here very often. (No mountains to look down from :) So this was a treat for us.

Everything went great, but sadly halfway through the Magistrate let us know that we wouldn't be able to finalize that day. :( We were bummed as we'd planned to go to the Temple with Sam 2 weeks later. Regardless, it was still a great feeling to have the Interlocutory Decree in our hands. Our Lawyer asked us a bunch of questions about our family, how we felt about adoption and how we felt about Sam. Bryan was very eloquent and I wish I could have recorded it. I just tried not to cry through my answers.

When everything was said and done we were able to take pictures with the Magistrate. She had Daniel come right up and sit in her chair. He thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Everyone took turns holding Sam. Here he is with our Ohio caseworker, Spencer. We can't say enough good things about Spencer. We were so lucky to have him on our side and working for us.

I ADORE this picture of my two boys sitting in the Magistrate's seat. Precious.

So happy he's officially our boy: Samuel Owen John!

Keep Calm and Carry On

When things were getting tough with the whole fertility treatment/adoption trauma, I saw this print. Along with probably 1/3 of the US I had to have it. It helped me remember to take deep breaths and continue on with life. I got it and slapped it up on the wall. I needed it up asap, no matter how I did it. So there it sat for 2 1/2 years until I finally got around to making it cute.

I knew I needed to paint the mat or do something with it. I've had some linen sitting around waiting for me to use it, so I did! Here's the method to my madness.

I laid the mat out on the linen and cut the linen about 5/8" of an inch larger than the mat.

To adhere the fabric to the mat I used some photo matting paper that gets sticky on both sides when heated, but fusible interfacing/web or stitchwitch would work just as well. All I did was iron over the mat making sure to avoid ironing over the opening and holding the fabric taught while doing it as well. After it cooled I flipped it over and cut from the center of the opening to each corner.

Then I folded the fabric and adhesive to the back.

When I folded it back I checked to see if any of the flaps were too long and trimmed them.

I wanted them to be just short enough that they wouldn't over lap the side edges when they were pulled back.

I secured the flaps by working on the folded edge first, folding it and pulling it taught while I applied the heat. Once the edge was nice and neat, I worked on the  rest of the flap from the folded edge to the tip.

Before I secured the side edges, I snipped the corners to avoid excess bulk. I didn't snip all the way to the mat as I wanted to avoid fraying on the corners. I cut extra strips of the adhesive paper for the edges and secured them exactly how I did the flaps in the center.

And TADA! 10mins later I had a beautiful mat!

Meet the newest additions to the family!

 Daniel has been wanting a pet for the longest time. I've been thinking we'd get a dog someday (something so cute about a boy and his dog) and keep telling him that we need to wait until we have a house. Then something made me think of the birds I had when I was younger. I loved watching them hop around and listening to them chirp and sing all  day. They were small and didn't take up much space and were easy to take care of. So I thought, "what the heck?" I bought a cage and supplies off of Craigslist. It was next to impossible to find any of these birds locally, but I finally managed to find someone who breeds them (who happens to live a half mile away from me). So without further ado, meet the newest members of the family. Sorry for the bad pictures, the birds are very flighty (ha ha), and I'm shooting through the bars of their cage...First is Mr. Chirpy (nicknamed George...) I love how uniquely colored the male Zebra Finches are!

And here's his mate Mrs. Betsy. Yes, Daniel did name them... with a little help from me. He originally wanted to call them both Star. Yikes.

And here are the 5 (!) eggs they've laid since we got them. We're going to let them raise a clutch or two just so Daniel can learn all about it. Their eggs are tiny and so cute. (only about 1/2 inch long) By my calculations, they should be hatching next week! Can't wait to meet our little chicks!

Melt My Heart...

Sending my firstborn to all day Kindergarten was a pretty big deal to me. It has it's pluses and minuses, but overall, I think it's been really good for both Daniel and me. It's also led to some tender moments that just melt my heart. Yesterday as I drove Daniel home* from school he asked me if I could give him a picture of me to take with him to school. He said "Mommy, I just miss you so much when I'm at school and I want a picture of you to look at so I won't miss you so much" Then this morning we were about to leave the house when I gave him a kiss goodbye on his cheek and he said "oops, I think I missed ya there" and then gave me a smooch on the lips. LOL. He's too too sweet. I know he won't be giving me kisses much longer, but I hope he stays this sweet while he grows up. These are the moments Mommies live for.

*Daniel rides the bus in the mornings, but I pick him after school because the bus takes 2 HOURS to get him home. We live .2 miles from the school! (we unfortunately can't walk because of some raised train tracks and no sidewalks, etc) Pretty crazy, huh?

Cool Site

I found this site the other day that I'm really excited about. I've been wanting to work with Daniel on his penmanship at home, but haven't had a great way to do it. With this site you can input what ever words/letters you'd like to work on and it will create a worksheet for you. I just thought this would be perfect for my friends whose kids are just starting to write, etc.

Daniel started full day Kindergarten! I can't believe he's old enough to go, but I guess they have to grow up sometime. :( Daniel was thrilled with his new lunch box. This was the only picture I was able to get with him not holding it in front of his face. lol.

At his school they have to wear uniforms, so we spent a week shopping all over for both supplies and clothes! I ended up getting an awesome deal at Old Navy where things were on sale and I had a 30% off coupon. Gotta love those sales!

As I dropped him off he was nervous and I kept having to remind him to answer the "good mornings" all the teachers were sending our way. His anxiety lasted until we reached the door of his classroom and then he didn't even look back. sniff sniff. I had very mixed emotions as I walked to the car. I was excited for him, but sad that our endless days together are over. I don't know if he'll ever stop being my baby.

After I dropped him off I ended up running a bunch of errands and marveled at how much easier they were to do without a 5 yr old. I think I'll be okay after all. ;) When I picked him up from school he hopped into the car and said, "That was awesome!"

Life is good.

Playing catch up. I have had such a hard time getting anything up on this blog! I have been through a billion hard drives and I swear the Geek Squad knows me by name. (not a good thing!) I'll never again buy a brand of computer I've never heard of, no matter how nice it is. Anyways, on to life! We've done a lot of traveling this summer (again) and have done a ton of fun things. One of the milestones we passed was Daniel lost his first teeth! The two bottom front teeth. Each time the tooth fairy brought him a crisp, brand new dollar bill. After the first tooth fairy visit Daniel crawled into my bed in the morning crying and angry. I said, "what's the matter honey?" "The tooth fairy took my tooth and didn't leave me anything! She just stole my tooth!" I told him to go back into his bedroom and look around a bit, that I was sure the tooth fairy would never steal. ;) I heard him whoop in joy and he ran in to show me his loot. Then he got thoughtful and quiet, I asked what was wrong again.... " But Mommy! I really really wanted a 3 dollar bill!"

What made it even more fun was that Sam had just gotten his first two teeth, the same ones Daniel lost. He had a lot of fun pretending that Sammy had taken his teeth. We were VERY happy when Sam's teeth finally broke through. He is a very mellow, calm baby, except when those first teeth came in! Boy did we hear it! I've never seen a baby scream like that! As of now he's gotten 8 teeth in the last 3 months! (the last 4 have been SO much easier, thank goodness!)

Easy Boy's ties...

I promised I'd share a link and a tutorial about my boys' ties, so here it is! While what I did wasn't the cheapest way, it was definitely the fastest and easiest. If you've got more time (and patience!!) here are some good tutorials to sew your own ties: purl bee:little boys tie, purl bee: Father's day tie, necktie ages 4-7. Since I decided to do this project the day before Father's Day, I had to do what was quick.

 I used the tutorial on this site: seilifestyle  , with some adjustments, for Sam's (the baby's) tie. I left the back tail of the tie longer and didn't stitch it into the knot. This made it so that I could slip it out of the knot and wrap it around his neck instead of trying to shimmy over his head each time. Once it's around his neck I just tuck it back through. The elastic ensures that when he tugs on it, it doesn't come undone. I hope that makes sense?

For Daniel's tie I kind of winged it. I took what was left over from making Sam's tie and went to town. I used the SEI tutorial as the basis, especially for how it gets tied and refitted with elastic. I wanted the tie to fit my 5 yr old (who's a bit tall for his age... so think 6 or 7 year old size) and the large end of the tie was too big, but the small end of the tie was too small, so I decided to alter the size of the large end (what was left over from making the baby's tie).
The first thing I did was to open the tie by snipping and pulling out the thread that was holding it closed on the back. (isn't that a snazzy ironing board? I'm trying to make due with it until we move...although I'm considering making a new cover for it anyways. Just pretend you can't see it :)

Then I pulled out the stiff inner lining (this is what gives the tie it's shape) 

Because I was in such a hurry and Daniel was already asleep so I couldn't measure him, I took one of his ties that already fits him well and traced the width from bottom to top.

Trim along the lines and insert it back under the outer lining of the tie.

Pin it in place using an all metal pin. (all of this fabric is super slippery!)

Fold the sides of the tie back up snuggly against the stiff lining and iron it in place. Remove the pins. (don't forget!)

Once you're happy with how it's ironed into place take a needle and thread and secure it using a hidden stitch. 

Follow the rest of the tutorial in the link to finish the elastic around the neck and you're done!

Father's Day

For part of Bryan's Father's Day I made ties for the boys. Daniel is always trying to be like his Daddy, so I thought I would make it a bit easier for him. ;) I love my cute boys.

Yoga Baby

Modified Downward Dog...

Sammy is bound and determined to start crawling. He scoots everywhere and can get at anything he wants, but he wants to really crawl. He spends a lot of time on his hands and knees and usually does this pose for moments at a time. This boy makes me laugh. :)

Our Graduate

Daniel had his Pre-K Graduation (already?!?!? I know, crazy, huh?) the other day.  He stood on stage with all the other Preschoolers and sang at the top of his lungs. You could totally hear him over all (like 40-50) the other kids and his dance moves were killer. They had a nice little program and at the end he came to give me this.

He's a pretty dashing and debonaire 5 year old don't you think?

At the end of the program he turned to me and said,"Mommy, I'm really going to miss Isabelle. She's moving in 3 years!" I leaned over and said, "Honey, you won't be here in 3 years, we're probably moving in 1!" His eyes got big and I could see the wheels start churning. He's decided that it's okay if we move as long as we get a big house with a yard and a basement. We'll see kiddo, we'll see.  Anyways, here he is with Isabelle, sadly, this is the best picture I got of them. :(

We loved his teacher this year. He called her "Miss Debbie" and talks about her non-stop. She taught him his letters and how to start putting together and reading words. She taught him Bible stories and how to count to 100.  Most importantly, she was patient with him and loved his enthusiasm. :) We will miss her!

Daniel was sad to be away from his friends for the summer, we had a lot of fun with these kids. (and isn't he cute?)