~ Summer in Full Swing ~

Last Friday evening Jaidyn had her first t-ball game. It was crazy chaos, but she had a great time. She is quite competitive and will rumble with the boys if they even think about snagging a ball that she is close to. Don't let her pink bat and purple glove fool you. At practice, they hit five balls before they run to first base, so in the game after she hit her first ball, she just stood there thinking she had 4 more hits and the coaches had to yell, "run". Once she made her way to third base, instead of running to home plate, she ran right on over to the dugout. She also knew we were taking pictures and running the video camera everytime she was up to bat, so she would take some time to pose in front of the fence before walking up to bat. She is too funny!












Wes turned the big 3-0 on Friday so we had lots to celebrate this weekend. We all spent the weekend at the Lake with my parents, Grandma Penny, Jared, and Cyndia. Jaidyn and Addy helped Grandma Penny make him a Strawberry Jello cake and my mom made him a Pineapple upside down cake. Yummy! I don't think we have eaten this much cake in several months time. Definitely a treat!


Uncle Jared is always a trooper when it comes to getting in the lake water. Jaidyn has been in the water the past 2 weekends with him. Addy joined in this weekend. I personally like the lake to feel like bath water before I spend much time in it.

The girls are in their 2nd week of swim lessons. Jaidyn told me that she got to jump off the diving board today. The swim lessons have been great and they have gained so much confidence in swimming in the lake water, especially Addy.

We are still waiting to receive Levi's legal papers so we can apply for his visa. Hopefully, we will receive them this week. I can't believe it has already been 1 month since we received our referral. Honestly, we have been so busy that this past month has flown by. If our summer life pace keeps up this way, we will be on a plane to the Philippines before we know it.

Wes and I are celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary today. Actually we celebrated it this past weekend along with our birthdays. Today has been catch-up day...laundry, catching up on online work, and tending to the garden that had lettuce that needed to be cut several days ago. Happy Anniversary Honey! :)

~ Sweet Surprise ~

Yesterday we received a wonderful surprise. A Holt staff member recently visited the Philippines and took pictures and short digital camera videos of Levi. In the video his caretaker is calling him by Levi Jax...too cute! Receiving this was a great surprise and gift as Wes (his 30th) and I celebrate our birthdays today and tomorrow. Here are some of the pictures.

~ Long Weekend ~

You should have seen me driving the signs in to the ground with a small hatchet. I am lucky I didn't hurt myself.

I am so glad it's over!!! I am sure my parents are also glad that they can reclaim their garage. My entire family worked together almost an entire week setting up for the weekend yard sale. Tons of work, but it feels great to have unloaded some of the girls outgrown clothing and toys. We had a beautiful weather weekend...perfect for a yard sale. My mom and dad donated their entire profit to our adoption fund and my sister gave us half of her yard sale money. So between them and our money earned from the sale we have a nice little amount to add to our adoption account that will go towards our travel expenses. Hopefully, our travel is sooner than later. We still haven't received Levi's legal papers, but will hopefully get them in a week or so.

~ Acceptance Packet Send Off ~

It's finally finished...I just got back from sending off our Acceptance Paperwork packet back to Holt. Hopefully we won't have any revisions (fingers crossed). A special thank you goes out to Kristine at Holt for responding so quickly to all of my questions while filling out the government forms. Everything else was fairly easy to fill out, but for some reason I struggled with the I-864 forms. The woman that notorized our paperwork stayed late at work on Tuesday to accomodate Wes's work schedule. She has a daughter who is in the process of adopting from Ethiopia, so she knew how important getting these documents processed was to us.

Now we just sit back and wait for Levi's legal documents to arrive. It takes usually 3-5 weeks to receive these. Once Holt, receives them, they will be overnighted to us. When we receive them, we will add our updated homestudy and the I-600 form to the legal papers and then overnight them to USCIS so that the Levi's visa can be processed. Allegra and Judy with our state Holt branch updated our homestudy within a matter of days from us receiving our referral and we have received our notorized copies. Everyone has been so fast in helping us to complete all of our required paperwork thus far. I just keep praying that they rest of the process goes this smoothly.

I guess I better clean off the dining room table. With the acceptance packet and welcome album mailed off, I don't really have an excuse for the remaining paperwork still covering it.

~ Welcome Album for Levi ~

This morning I finished up the welcome album that we are sending to Levi. I am not very creative and definitely not one of those "artsy" people, but I am hoping that a 1 year old won't notice the pictures that aren't cut exactly straight (my sister always tells me that I can't cut a straight line) and will still enjoy the pictures of his family.










We like to...eat popsicles, bake cookies, go on picnics, draw with chalk, ride the stick horse, blow bubbles, and dance.


Jaidyn drew a picture of our family of 5 so I had to include it. Too cute!

~ Last Day of Preschool ~

Jaidyn and Addy are officially on summer vacation! Yippee! Addy had her last day last Friday and Jaidyn's last day was yesterday. They both got to bring one of their favorite riding toys to ride around in the parking lot that was set up like a mini town.

Most of the kids in Addy's class hung around the water station. It was a nice, hot morning, so I am sure the water felt good.

Addy is so proud of her pink scooter that she received for her 3rd birthday.


Writing a letter and mailing it at the post office.


Jaidyn is giving her bike a good scrub at the car wash.

I love this picture...There was a line of 7-8 kids just waiting for this...

McDonald's! I guess all kids love McDonald's.

Snacktime! They have been taught well. Just look at them waiting patiently to tear into their bags.

Acceptance Packet & Welcome Album

We received our acceptance paperwork packet on Thursday afternoon. And while I jumped right in filling parts of it out, I truly thought that I could get most of it done by Friday evening. The majority of the paperwork has to be notorized and we had planned to get this done yesterday afternoon until we realized that no one works or they take off early on the Friday of Memorial Day Weekend. Understandable, but it looks like we will now have to wait until Tuesday or Wednesday of next week to get it done.

I found some time yesterday afternoon to start working on the Welcome Album that we will send to Holt who will then pass it along to Levi and his caretakers. It will be a simple book that will include photos introducing Levi to his immediate family, pets, and his surroundings. Hopefully, the pictures will help start preparing Levi for the transitions that he will soon experience and will give him a preview of his new life with his forever family. Since he is only 12 months, most of the pictures are face shots and I will not include a lot of descriptive captions.


Our dining room table is a mess with scattered paperwork and the Welcome Album pages. Normally this clutter would completely annoy me, but these are "Happy" papers, so a mess it will probably stay until we are ready to send the completed papers back to Holt.

I will take pictures of Levi's welcome album and post them when I have it finished.

Happy Memorial Day weekend! To me, this weekend is the start of summer. Time to fire up the grill and spend lots of time at the lake and pool. I love summer! At the same time, I will be remembering the many lives lost by the brave women and men serving and protecting our country.